How to open Mono GUI applications on OS X? I tried Fiddler and Keepass on Mono and both these applications start, their icons jump on the Dock, but no window is displayed.

This might seem like a silly suggestion but are you giving the applications enough time to launch?

I tried installing and launching both applications. The first launch took a surprising amount of time; as you describe the icon appears in the Dock almost immediately but then no UI seems to appear. However if you leave it long enough the UI then does appear (about 4-5 minutes on a 2011 Macbook Pro).

Subsequent launches are a lot faster.

If you are curious to see what it is doing you can run this sudo opensnoop -v | grep mono-sgen in a Terminal when you launch the applications. On my system the delay on initial launch just seems to be Mono reading all the fonts on my system and caching them in ~/.cache/fontconfig. Luckily it just seems wants to do that once.


I have photos on my phone that I can't delete My photos are taking up 5 GB on my phone and I only have about 100 of them. I do have a bunch of ghost photos that I can't delete though. They are from my old phone which is not an apple product and I am having storage issues because of it.

Assuming you have an iPhone; probably best to backup your phone through iTunes then do a factory reset and restore your data. If they are ghost/misbehaving photos then they won't be included in the backup and hence won't be restored back onto your phone.


How come the Podcast app is hogging so much GPU? I have a 15 inch 2015 MacBook Pro with Catalina installed, and I was wondering why my fans go nuts when I play a podcast with the Podcasts app. Htop didn’t show any unusual CPU activity, but then I noticed from iStats that the GPU was blasting pretty high.

Just wondering is this how it should work? I was in the impression that it’s the CPU that handles audio playback. I don’t remember this happening in iTunes.

You see the sharp valley in the graph when I paused the pod:

Not an answer, but I was looking for an answer to the same question when I found switching workspaces away from the one with podcasts up dropped GPU utilization. So even with a podcast still playing, GPU usage goes back to ~0 if you aren't looking at the actual app. So it might be the app visualization is the real culprit. Hope this helps!


Can I delete StoreData found at /private/var/log/powermanagement/StoreData? I had a problem backing-up my (mid-2007) iMac running El Capitan using SuperDuper. I sent SuperDuper the error log and they suggested that I delete StoreData found at /private/var/log/powermanagement/StoreData

Can I simply put StoreData in the trash and empty it? Will deleting the file cause any problems for my system? Do I need to re-create a blank StoreData file somehow? If so, what is the file extension?

Answers to your questions as follows:

Yes, you can safely remove the /private/var/log/powermanagement/StoreData file as suggested. If you're overly concerned about it, feel free to just make a copy of it first before trashing it.

Note: You'll be prompted for an Admin password before being able to move it to Trash.
No, deleting the file will not cause any problems for your system.
No, you do not need to recreate the file.  It'll automatically be recreated again when needed. In fact, the system will most likely recreate it within a few minutes of you trashing it.


OS X Lion: 8GB of RAM, 20MB free I have a Macbook Pro (early 2011) running OS X Lion and while running a few apps that only take up, say, 200 MBs of space each (Xcode, Spotify, and Photoshop), my wired memory shoots up to 1.4GB, my active to 4.39GB, inactive to 2.18GB, and free 28.3MB. Note: this happens with different apps at times, not just a combination of these three.

The issue is so bad that programs lag so badly that there are seconds of delays when, for example, clicking on a label to edit text. Even the Spotify music starts to stutter, but the CPU usage isn't very high (less than 10% used).

Is this common? Besides restarting, is there something I can do to fix this? Perhaps it's something not relating to memory?

Apple documentation on memory says that

  The inactive list contains pages that are currently resident in physical memory but have not been accessed recently. These pages contain valid data but may be released from memory at any time.

inactive + free can be considered as the free memory


Personal Hotspot not staying Connected I'm not sure if I have an issue or if what I am seeing is by Apple-design.  I have an iPad Pro (11.4) that I have the Personal Hotspot switched on.

My iPad Pro is active and screen on.
I connect my iPhoneX (11.4) to the iPad Hotspot.
Everything works fine.
I sat working on laptop and then the iPhone X and iPad screen locked.  After X minutes I then unlock iPhone to check email etc..
The iPhone X has disconnected from the hotspot and is back to using the cellular plan on my iPhone.  If I go to Settings -> Wi-Fi then my iPad is not listed.
To make the hotspot reconnect I have to go back to my iPad and toggle the Personal HotSpot switch (On -> Off -> On).

Is this by design or not?  Should the iPhone remain connected if the devices screen lock?

After further experimentation I found that if I create a Bluetooth connection (pair) between iPhone/iPad it stays connected throughout screen locks etc.


How do I mark certain details as old (such as a numbers or addresses) but keep them in Contacts? I have a lot of friends who move countries and jobs frequently. I want to keep their old email and street addresses their Contact card, but not have it appear in the autofill.

Currently, I have created a custom label for phone and email called "old" which let's me keep them. But is there a better way?

Update: It's not just about aesthetics. I have a situation where someone has changed jobs, but I need to keep their old email address so that old emails are still correctly sorted by my smart mailbox. If I just move the email to the notes field, these emails disappear. Am I the only one with this problem?

You could just add the "old" data to the "notes" field at the bottom of the contact. That should stop it from being recognised in the autofill but allow you to keep the info together.

Might not be the desired aesthetic you're looking for. Sorry I don't have a better answer.


How to boot into Windows on SSD from macOS I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018) running macOS Catalina (10.15.2). I have an old laptop that died, but that still has a (newer) functioning SSD. This SSD has Windows 10 already installed on it, ready to go. I pulled it from my laptop and connected it to my MacBook using a SATA-to-USB adapter.

My MacBook is able to recognize the disk and all partitions on the SSD, but only my internal macOS drive is showing up in the Startup Disk utility.

What steps do I need to take to be able to boot into the Windows SSD from my mac?

Update: It seems my disk is using an MBR partitioning table:

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *480.1 GB   disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 SONYSYS                 279.6 MB   disk2s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS Windows RE tools        1.1 GB     disk2s2
   3:               Windows_NTFS                         477.7 GB   disk2s3
   4:                       0x27                         1.1 GB     disk2s4

Update 2:

Output from sudo fdisk /dev/disk2:

Disk: /dev/disk2    geometry: 58369/255/63 [937703087 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE    0   0   2 - 1023 255  63 [         1 -  937703086] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

Update 3:
Tried using gdisk to convert from MBR to GPT and the new output of diskutil list is:

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *480.1 GB   disk2
   1:       Microsoft Basic Data SONYSYS                 279.6 MB   disk2s1
   2:       Microsoft Basic Data Windows RE tools        1.1 GB     disk2s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data                         477.7 GB   disk2s3
   4:           Windows Recovery                         1.1 GB     disk2s4

Update 4:

Output from sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk2:

      0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34         30
         64     546146      1  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
     546210       2598
     548808    2101917      2  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
    2650725       3427
    2654152  932987461      3  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  935641613       1523
  935643136    2054144      4  GPT part - DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC
  937697280       5774
  937703054         32         Sec GPT table
  937703086          1         Sec GPT header

Generally, it is not recommended to boot a Windows installation from a different computer. However, do so has been known to work.

  You should make sure Secure Boot is set to detect and boot from external drives.

You should first determine if the external drive is using a GUID partition table (GPT) or a MBR partition table. This can be done by looking at the output from the command diskutil list. If you see GUID_partition_scheme for the drive, then the drive is using a GPT. If you see FDisk_partition_scheme, the the drive is using a MBR partition table.

If the drive is using a GPT, then the Mac Startup Manager should detected the boot files on the external drive. Detection of the boot files does not guarantee the Mac will be able to boot Windows. For example, there may be drivers that need to be added to the drivers store. This can be done using the Windows 10 installation media.

Your model Mac can not boot from Windows installed on disk that is using a MBR partition table. If the drive is using MBR partitioning, then there is not enough information posted in your question to tell if the partitioning can be converted to use a GPT. If not, then you might be able to use a third party partitioning tool to make room for adding a GPT. After converting to use a GPT, the UEFI boot file files will need to be added to the drive. Also, you probably should add the drivers from the Window Support Software. This can be done using the Windows 10 installation media.

Update 1: Create an Empty EFI Partition

  The EFI partition is where the Windows boot files are stored.

You can going to need a EFI partition. You can use disk2s1 for this. Below are the steps to backup this volume.

cd ~/Desktop
diskutil unmountDisk disk2
sudo dd if=/dev/disk2s1 of=backup2s1.bin

Next, reformat the partition.

sudo diskutil FAT32 EFI disk2s1

Finally, use gdisk to change the partition type of disk2s1 from 0700 to EF00

Update 2: Create a USB bootable Windows 10 flash drive installer.

  You will need to boot from the flash drive in order to run the commands to create the boot files and transfer the drivers to the driver store.

Use the Disk Utility to erase a USB flash drive. Use the name WINSTALL, format ExFAT and scheme Master Boot Record.
Download the Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft. This is free and you do not need a product key.
Use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Windows Support Software.
Mount the Windows 10 ISO and copy all the files to the flash drive.
Copy all the Windows Support Software files to the flash drive. The $WinPEDriver$, BootCamp and (Optional) AutoUnattend.xml files should appear in the root folder of the flash drive.

Update 3: Install the Boot Files and the Drivers

Boot From the USB flash drive. When the first window appears, enter a shift+F10 to open a Command Prompt window.
Use the diskpart command to determine the drive letters for the Windows WINSTALL volumes. (i.e. enter list volume) Here, I will assume the letters are C and D, respectively. Also, assign the EFI volume the drive letter S. See diskpart for more information.
Enter the following command to create the boot files. If needed, substitute your Windows drive letter for the letter C. See bcdboot for more information.

bcdboot C:\Windows /s S: /f UEFI

Add the drivers to the drivers store. Often this step can be omitted. If needed, substitute your Windows drive letter for the letter C and your WINSTALL drive letter for the letter D. See dism for more information.

dism /Image:C:\ /Add-Driver /Driver:D:\$WinPEDriver$ /Recurse  /ForceUnsigned

  You can ignore any error messages produced.

If you succeed in booting Windows, install the Windows Support Software.


Does Mac OS X have something like SELinux? I just spent a looooooong time trying to use Macports' Apache2 to serve documents out of my home directory.  She no work!!!11  In the absence of any meaningful log data (that I could find) to go on, I decided to just plop the whole thing into the default document root ("/opt/local/apache2/htdocs").  Voila!  Immense anger!

So, does Mac OS X have something like SELinux that might prevent Apache from doing something silly, like serve files from the place I want to serve them from?  I read a little about Mac OS X's MAC framework, but that didn't seem to be what I was looking for.

I was using virtual hosts, as initially configured by Macports.

To answer your question as stated: Yes, MAC OS X has something similar to SELinux providing mandatory access control security polices and roles. As you have discovered it's called MAC and I believe it's based on the TrustedBSD implementation of the same name.

To answer your implicit question: No. MAC should not interfere with the ability to serve documents out of your home directory. Most likely either your permissions or your virtual host configuration is incorrect.

If I remember correctly the logs should be in /var/log/apache2 or /var/log/httpd. Please edit your question to contain the relevant parts of your virtual host configuration and logs.


Wi-Fi disconnects when I lock the mac Everytime I lock my mac and log back in two minutes, It has disconnected the wi-fi network. Is there a setting to disable this?

Model: Mac Book Pro - 15-inch, Mid 2010
I lock it by clicking 'Login Window...' after clicking my username on top right corner of the menu bar.

Do the following:

Find out what the network interface is for your wifi. Mine is "en1" for this example (I have obfuscated my MAC addresses with "00")

ifconfig
en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet6 0000::000:0000:0000:0000%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
inet 10.0.1.16 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.1.255
media: autoselect
status: active

Then, you need to set up the airport util for your wireless card to tell it not to shut off:

cd /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources
sudo ./airport en1 prefs DisconnectOnLogout=NO


How to disable Safari Frequently Visited? How can you disable the Frequently Visited section in the Safari 9 Favorites tab?

I do not like how these auto-generate and need to be manually removed.

I see now that it can be disabled under the "Bookmarks" menu. Simple as that.


Internal MacBook Wi-Fi only working after Safe Boot I am having very strange issues with my MacBooks Airport functionality.
Sometimes I cannot get any networks to show up at all. I tried a restart but even after that the issues persists.

I already purged the usual files  also mentioned here

New MBP suddenly can't find any more Wi-Fi networks

Since I even booted the computer from a MacOS 10.14 Boot device with the Wi-Fi still not seeing networks, I am suspecting a sort of hardware issue.
However. Booting into Diagnostic Mode and running the tests does not show any issues.

Only booting the Mac in Safe Mode once and then booting back into normal mode solves the issue for some time.

What does Safe boot do with the Airport hardware or any other software to make it work again?

I had the exact same problem. Are you by any chance running BBEdit? I found that the preference files were being stored as BBEdit text files rather than as ‘property list’. Trashed BBEdit and restarted... WiFi is now working


CNET on Mac - page not found I've been having this problem for some time now - first I thought it was some temporary thing with CNET servers, but it doesn't seem so.

I can see the index pages of CNET sites (download.cnet.com, news.cnet.com), but when I delve deeper by clicking some application link on download.cnet.com or get direct link to some news from Twitter, I get error 'page not found' as seen on the image:

It seems that all links that point to CNET URLs having .html in them yield errors constantly. Other pages (e.g Mac software etc) are mostly OK (at least for the first click, but repeatedly refreshing gets me few random errors too)

This happens with all my browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera), whereas it does not happen with IE 8 running on Win 7 inside a VirtualBox on the same Mac, so it is not related to my network, but with my Mac borwsers somehow or Mac OS X.

BTW, all other websites are totally OK and this is only related to *.cnet.com sites. I have extensions and add-ons in Safari, Chrome and Firefox, but Opera is vanilla as I only use it for testing purposes, so could not be caused by some extension.

Specs:

Mac OS X 10.6.7
MacBook Pro 6,2
Safari 5.0.5
Chrome 11.0
Firefox 4.0.1
Opera 11.10

Possible solution: changing first preferred language in browser.

It might fix the problem if you choose English as you first preferred language in browser settings. When requesting a page, browsers sends list of preferred languages for content. (For example, based on these settings Google redirects you to your local Google site.)

Changing preferred language:

Firefox 5: Tools->Options->Content->Languages.
Chrome: wrench-icon->Options->Under the Hood->Web Content->Languages and spell-checker settings  (instructions)

It might be working on your virtual machine if default Windows (in VM) language was set to English. Then browsers would also choose English as your default content language.

When my default language was set to English or German I had no problems navigating cnet sites. After setting my first preferred language to Lithuanian I was getting same errors as you.

It appears that this is internal cnet bug.

Tested on Windows XP Firefox 5, Chrome.


MacBook Pro won't recognize my analog audio jack headphones. Help? Periodically, my MacBook Pro 17" stops recognizing my headphones. No amount of unplugging and replugging seems to help. The sound settings never show headphones as an output device. How can I fix this? The only thing I can find elsewhere on the Internet are people saying, "Reboot!" This works, but is impractical and annoying.

There seems to be a bug whereby if the headphones are plugged in when the MBP is put to sleep and are not present when it is rewakened, the headphones stop being recognized. The solution is to:

Unplug the headphones
Put the MBP back to sleep (close the lid; without an external display hooked up)
Plug the headphones back in
Wake the MBP by opening the lid.

This should fix the problem.


Time machine wants to backup too much Time Machine stopped this morning, stating it has too little disk space left. It wants to back up 200 gigs, but my local hard drive has 240 gig used and 150 gig are excluded in the Time Machine options, so this leaves 90 gigs of data at most that can be backed up, and I am pretty sure only very few files have changed (no big update or similar). So I would estimate a backup of, at most, 1 gig.

How can this happen? Any idea?

The system over estimates the amount of space needed when large changes are detected (say if an entire folder changed in a way that it can't easily tell the files inside are the same). Also, minor file system corruption can wreak havoc on the algorithms. Have you rebooted the mac in safe mode to force a fsck file system check to rule out that error?

That will usually force a full filesystem traversal and may let the system go back to not over-estimating the space needed by such a large amount.

With Lion - you have the excellent tmutil command. You could turn off automatic backups and use the tmutil compare command to see what has changed since the last backup. It's a very powerful tool and you can get a much better feel for what has changed - either between specific instances in time or overall.

Furthermore, to get out of the situation, you can often "nurse" the backupd process along by adding most of the large folders on the drive to the Time Machine exclusion list. Most of the time, adding /Users and /Library is enough. You can also let Time Machine skip backing up the system and try that to get a partial backup. By not changing files and letting it process parts of the drive and not assuming that it needs to do the entire drive in one hit lets you relax the exclusions list progressively until the whole drive is again backing up without complaint.


Delete iCloud account without removing photos My boyfriend bought me an iPhone 4 a year ago off a friend of a friend and I have since had a baby, so it is full with 700 odd pics which I want to keep safe of my baby boy on iCloud.

Thing is I've went to Settings → iCloud and the guy's iCloud is still logged in. I went to press delete so I could put my Apple ID in but it says it will wipe all pictures/data off the iPhone (obviously don't want to risk losing all my pictures of baby).

How do I set up my own iCloud and delete old person's without losing all the pictures?

Backup pictures to your computer.
Log out and log in with your iCloud account.
Transfer pictures back to your iPhone.


Album purchased in iTunes but not in library Immediately after pressing "purchase" for an album in iTunes, a number "1" quickly flashes next to download icon at bottom of screen.  However, album never shows up in "purchased" or "downloaded" files or in my library. I hit "purchase" twice, same thing both times. I'm scared to keep trying, what if all of my purchase attempts suddenly go thru and it wipes all of my money from my iTunes account?!

Check for a download problem by attempting to resume download of purchased items as noted in iTunes: How to resume interrupted iTunes Store downloads

From the Home screen, tap the iTunes icon.

For iPhone/iPod touch, tap More > Downloads. For iPad, tap Downloads.

Enter your account name and password.

Click the "OK" button.

Click the Resume, Resume All, or   button to start the download.

Note that you may want to check and see if automatic downloads are enabled on your iPad as noted here iTunes Store: How to enable Automatic Downloads this may be causing the disconnect of purchasing and not seeing any immediate downloads happening.

Tap Settings > Store on your device.
Tap Sign In if you're not already signed in to the iTunes Store.
Enter your Apple ID and password.
Tap On/Off switch to enable or disable Automatic Downloads for each content type.

If that does not work go into the iTunes Store and check your purchase history as noted in iTunes Store & Mac App Store: Seeing your purchase history and order numbers Clicking the Buy button multiple times, may be resulting in multiple purchases, so be careful and check your account purchase history.

Open iTunes.

Click iTunes Store on the left side of the iTunes window.

If you're not signed in to the store, click Sign In and enter your Apple ID and password.

When the iTunes Store opens, click the button with your account name on it, enter your password, and then click View Account.

In the Account Information window, under Purchase History, click See All.


How do I check all boxes in Alfred Snippets? I imported the Alfred Snippets Emoji pack except all the boxes to enable the many, many emojis are unchecked. How do I quickly check all these boxes? Manually checking each box will take a long while.

Select the first snippet by clicking on it.
Scroll to the bottom and hold Shift while clicking the last snippet (or press ⌘+A to select all)
Right click on a snippet to bring up the context menu
Mouse over Auto Expansion and click "Set Allowed"

All the check boxes should now be checked.


How to delete a list of files and folder generated via find in terminal? I'm generating a list of files and folder that meet certain criteria with use of a command:

find ~/ -iname "whatIwantToRemove"

The command will generate some results:

/Users/me//.Trash/whatIwantToRemove
...

I would like to be able to automatically delete all of those files.

Possible solution

I'm looking at a similar discussion on Unix and Linux and was wondering whether the command would work:

find . -type f -regex '/ex/' -exec rm {} \;

What's wrong with the -delete flag?

find ~/ -iname "whatIwantToRemove" -delete


Unable to open file in Preview even though I have all permissions I've been storing image files on Dropbox (uploaded automatically from my phone via their "Camera Uploads" feature). I just discovered that I don't have permission to open them from my synced Dropbox folder on my computer. The error is a dialog box reading:

The file “20160622_165411.jpg” couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it.
To view or change permissions, select the item in the Finder and choose File > Get Info.

In Console, I see:

2017-02-06 08:12:33.317 Preview[15288]: PVImageContainer initWithURL:file:///Users/zipslime/Dropbox/20160622_165411.jpg failed, error = Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=257 "The file “20160622_165411.jpg” couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it." UserInfo={NSFilePath=/Users/zipslime/Dropbox/20160622_165411.jpg, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fea18e85bd0 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"}}

This only seems to happen with my computer's default program (Preview). I can open the files in Firefox, and even with Finder's Quick Look. What's going on with Preview, and how can I fix this?

Solutions I've tried:

Check Get Info (already shows the right permissions; see below)
chmod 744 and chmod 777
Move the files out of the Dropbox folder
Downloading a fresh copy of the file via the Dropbox web client does work, but is not a reasonable solution at scale.

From Get Info:

From Terminal:

> ls -l 20160622_165411.jpg
-rw-r--r--@ 1 zipslime  staff   3.0M Jun 24  2016 20160622_165411.jpg

> whoami
zipslime

> chmod 777 20160622_165411.jpg
> ls -l 20160622_165411.jpg
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 zipslime  staff   3.0M Jun 24  2016 20160622_165411.jpg*

> open 20160622_165411.jpg
# still fails

I found an unusual attribute (the content was a bunch of inscrutable hex characters), but deleting it doesn't change things either.

> ls -lO@ 20160622_165411.jpg
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 zipslime  staff  -  3.0M Jun 24  2016 20160622_165411.jpg*    com.dropbox.attributes    83B
> xattr -d com.dropbox.attributes 20160622_165411.jpg

> open 20160622_165411.jpg
# still fails

This solution on the dropbox website solved my problem. However, I'm still perplexed! Where was the secret permission that wasn't visible from Get Info, ls, or xattr? Alternate answers with explanation would be welcome.

  Click on the Dropbox icon in your menu bar and then click on the gear in the Notifications panel.
  Select 'Preferences' then click on the 'Account' tab.
  Hold down the 'Option' key, and the "unlink this dropbox" button will change to "Fix Permissions". Click the button while continuing to hold down Option.


get first characters of expansion parameter of find command I have a huge collection of images and I would like to put them in folders matching their first 3 charachers+.jpg extension.

So i would like to grab 4_1_0002.png file (all the files starting with 4_1) and put it in the 4_1_.jpg folder. Similarly I would like to grab 4_2_0002.png file (all the files starting with 4_2) and put it in the 4_2_.jpg folder.

All those files that I would like to sort are now in one huge folder.
I expected to use a find command, but I don't know how to extract the first three characters from {} expansion parameter.

find . -type f -ok echo mv {} "path/first3char.jpg" \;

Assuming that all your files are in the same directory and the filenames are reasonable sane, something like

 find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*png' |
     while read line; do
         echo mv "$line" "path/${line:2:3}.jpg/"
     done

Run the command first as written (including the echo) to check whether the result makes sense. Then remove the echo and rerun.


Why such slow download of windows support software? I have been trying to download the Windows support drivers for Boot Camp all day, using a wired gigabit network connection.

The indicator gets about half way along then refuses to move. There is plenty of space on the USB hard drive I'm sending the drivers to.

You can download the Boot Camp Support Software directly from here (554 MB).

A workaround with instructions and link to download can be found here:

The download file is a .zip file. Double click it to uncompress it,  if it is not automatically uncompressed.
Double-click the Boot Camp5 folder.
Copy the entire contents of the .zip file to the root level of a USB flash drive or hard drive that is formatted with the FAT file system.
When running Windows, locate the Boot Camp folder on the USB media you created in Step 3 and double click to open it.
Double click on setup to start installing the Boot Camp Support Software.
When prompted to allow changes, click on Yes and follow the onscreen instructions.
Installation can take a few minutes. Don't interrupt the installation process. When installation is complete, click Finish in the dialog that appears.
A system restart dialog box appears.  Click Yes to complete the installation.

For detailed information about Boot Camp, please visit this link.


Save iPhone backup offline Is it possible to download an iCloud backup of my iPhone to save offline? I want to achieve this without the use of iTunes syncing.

EDIT: I would like to download the backup onto my Mac and then perhaps save it on Google Drive. Let me describe my use case. My iPhone 5 does not have a lot of disk space. I used to use Garage Band on it, but I don't any more, and I'd like to delete it from my phone without losing its data, in case I want to access the music I made someday in the future.

A couple years ago I used a paid software called iPhone Backup Extractor, to download a copy of your backups or other iCloud synced data. iTunes was not required in any of the steps. I have not used it in a while, so I am not sure if it will still work as it did, but you could give it a try.


replace tilde to shift key in macbook I try to change tilde key to shift.

I have success in it, but only for russian language.

I used KeyRemap4MacBook for it.

When I switch language to english this substitution stops working. How to make it work in both languages?

UPDATE

From KeyRemap4MacBook eventViewer I found that my target key code is DANISH_DOLLAR

And I set private.xml (~/Library/Application Support/KeyRemap4MacBook/private.xml) accordingly:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>TildeToShift</name>
    <identifier>TildeToShift</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::DANISH_DOLLAR, KeyCode::SHIFT_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

I clicked ReloadXML and watched results: nothing changed. I press my target key + a, expecting to get A(shift+a), but instead see §a

Update 2

Finally target key code is KeyCode::BACKQUOTE but not KeyCode::DANISH_DOLLAR although EventViwer showed DANISH_DOLLAR when I clicked target key.  This is because I swapped Tilde and Section keys.

You can use a private.xml such as this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>TildeToShift</name>
    <identifier>TildeToShift</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::BACKQUOTE, KeyCode::SHIFT_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


Best input to connect a monitor to a Macbook Pro I just bought a 24" monitor (asus pa246q) with dvi/hdmi/displayport inputs. I am wondering which is the best input I should use to connect a MacBook Pro 15" (late 2010). Someone suggested me HDMI, but the image is not perfect, still looks better on my old white-plastic Cinema Display with ADC adapter.

I was thinking to display port as an obvious solution, but I have to find a mini display port to display port adapter.

Any suggestion? thanks

Andy

I'd go with DisplayPort, if for no other reason than it's the native connector for your MacBook, and it's more likely that other devices will have DVI or HDMI, so that if you feel the need to use multiple computers with the monitor in the future you have those ports open.

Monoprice is my go-to source for cabling. It has a pretty good selection of DisplayPort (mini and full-size) cables and adapters, very cheaply, including  the mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cables you need.


Why does memory appear near full even after upgrade? I've just upgraded my MacBook Pro from 4GB to 8GB. Before the upgrade, I looked in the Activity Monitor and it said that it was using almost 3.98GB of 4GB (I'm a web developer, so I usually have lots of apps open.) Then after the upgrade Activity Monitor shows that it is using about 7.50GB of 8GB (with the same apps opened.) The upgrade improved the performance of the Mac, it is surprisingly faster than before, but I was hoping to see more memory available after this upgrade.

Thanks for your help!

The old days keeping as much RAM free as possible are gone.

The new RAM management from OS X, use all available memory, but also manages it so that you get maximum performances.

If you look in the Activity Monitor- memory, you will see things like Memory Pressure, Compressed among other information.


How to connect mini dv camcorder to my 2013 MacBook Air I am needing to connect my camcorder, which uses mini dv tapes, to my mac so I can transfer the video to an electronic file, but the only output on the camcorder is an A/v and i'm not sure what connections to use.

I need to know what connectors will connect from a/v to my macbook air.

Apple sells a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter. And you would need a FW800 to 4 pin FW400 to connect to your DV camera. Then I think iMovie will be able to handle your DV camcorder.


Where's the macOS log "Mac Analytic Data" file located in the macOS startup drive? Where's the macOS log "Mac Analytic Data" file located in the macOS startup drive? .  I can't say beyond 5 days back or so in that log in Console for macOS High Sierra..

If you right-click (or control-click) on the log in question in the console.app the one thing in the pop-up menu will be "Reveal in Finder."

That will point you to a whole folder full of log files.


Can iMovie Projects be stored in iCloud? I have enabled iCloud for iMovie, but they don't show up in the iMovie Media of my other MacBook.

Is it possible to access iMovie Projects with iCloud?

iMovie is enabled:

Can't see iMovie in iCloud folder:

Neither in the web:

Choose File > Open Library > New.

  In the Save dialog that appears, type a name for the new library, and
  navigate to the location where you want to save it.

  The default location is the Movies folder in your home folder.

  Click Save.

  A new library is created in the location you chose, and a new, empty
  event with today’s date is created.

https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov3fa25bae7

I don't have iMovie, so you need to check if iCloud is allowed there. If not, you need to copy paste items from ~/Movies to iCloud.

As for iCloud backup that you mention, it could be system preferences etc that are backed up, not the Library itself.


Triple finger tap for middle click? I can single tap my trackpad for a left click, and tap it with two fingers for a right click. Is there any way to bind a three finger tap to perform a middle click?

I tried MagicPrefs, but it's limited to the MagicMouse only, it doesn't work with the trackpad.

You can try BetterTouchTool. There might be a setting to do that. Maybe you'll even find another gesture to triple-click that you'll like better.


Synchronize Contacts on iPhone and iPad My iPhone and iPad both are connected on to the same exchange server.

Recently I cleaned up the contacts on my iPad.

On both devices I see revisions but most of the contacts deleted on my iPad are still in the contact list from the iPhone.

How is it possible the number of contacts on both devices differ?

Each device has a local store of contacts. To synchronize things on each device - you can turn off Exchange sync and then see all the contacts that remain are local.

When you re-enable exchange sync - copy them one by one or choose to sync them all up to the cloud. Then repeat for each other device.

By setting the default place to store new contacts - you can avoid storing contacts locally or you can set time to clean up periodically if you don't remember to choose where to store each contact as you add them to the device.


Why does my iPhone Spotlight (Springboard) search show a little poop emoji in the corner? It's kind of cute, but why is it doing this and how can I change it?

iOS shows the folder name when you search for an app that's stored within a folder as opposed to lying on the springboard main screens.

Any chance someone punked you by making a clever named folder and placing these exact apps inside that folder?

You can be sure your phone is fine by making a folder and controlling which apps are stored in that folder as well as the name of that folder. Searching for those apps should show the folder name of your choosing.


Is there a CVS client for Mac OS X? Could anyone recommend me a free tool to use on OSX for keeping my CVS projects?

I am using the integrated SVN on OSX for all my SVN projects; maybe there are similar commands on the terminal to access a CVS repository.

I have /usr/bin/cvs, which has been installed together with Xcode; albeit, it might be Xcode 3.

just doing a check the file is still here under Mavericks and Xcode 5 and I have done clean upgrade since the original answer


Apple Pay on the Web requires my phone and email. Is that information shared? I chose Apple Pay while paying on a website using an iPad (iOS 13) and then a Mac OS (Mojave), and got a pop-up asking for my phone number and an email. The website I was on already has that information. The pop-up was legit from Apple Pay.

I was under impression Apple Pay won't ask for (and especially share) any information unless it's absolutely necessary. Apple Pay on my Mac never asked for any of this before.

Is there any official source explaining why is that information required, and what information would be shared with the merchant? (I.e. will it maybe obfuscate my email like Apple Sign in would?)

I only found irrelevant articles on applying for the Apple Pay physical card, as well as this, but it doesn't answer.

Only being asked these details while on a Mac enabled me to use desktop Safari's Network Inspector, and actually see what's being sent to the server.

When prompted, I couldn't choose an existing contact, so I had to create a new one (but it wasn't added to my Contacts either, even though the payment went through). Lets say I used John Doe with +1 (505) 842-5662 and myemail@example.com.

The request was sent to https://ticket-shop.example.com/api/v3/payment/applepay/fast-checkout with the following data:

{
    "paymentData":{
        "paymentData":{
            "version":"EC_v1",
            "data":"SOME_BASE64_LOOKING_STRING",
            "signature":"SOME_BASE64_LOOKING_STRING",
            "header":{
                "ephemeralPublicKey":"SOME_BASE64_LOOKING_STRING",
                "transactionId":"SOME_HASH"
            }
        },
        "paymentMethod":{
            "displayName":"MasterCard 1234",
            "network":"MasterCard",
            "type":"debit"
        },
        "transactionIdentifier":"SOME_HASH"
    },
    "eventAlias":"example-standup",
    "consumerContact":{
        "emailAddress":"myemail@example.com",
        "familyName":"Doe",
        "givenName":"John",
        "phoneNumber":"+1 (505) 842-5662",
        "phoneticFamilyName":"",
        "phoneticGivenName":""
    },
    "_csrf-frontend":"SOME_BASE64_LOOKING_STRING"
}

So Apple Pay did share that information with the merchant. Moreover, in a confirmation e-mail I received from them, they used the test name I entered while paying, not the name they have on file for me.

So apparently some merchants will request this additional info, while others don't. I couldn't find any official sources, so this is merely an observation that didn't fit into a comment, and not an answer.


Text replacement not working on iPhone For the last 2 weeks, text replacement on my iPhone has not worked.

I have have tried deleting the existing ones then re-creating them, but it still not working.

The steps to fix this are the same as many data corruption issues.

Back up the phone

Take care to unsync any Apple Watches
Take care to backup health data by choosing an encrypted backup option
Verify a good backup (or two)

Settings app - erase all content and settings
Set up phone as new - test one substitution to ensure it's not needing a full OS restore
Erase content and settings a second time, then restore from backup


What is the best way to migrate a .bash_profile to Mavericks I have a pretty extensive .bash_profile set up on my older machine using Lion and I would like to include a lot of the same functionality. I noticed that Mavericks doesn't have a .bash_profile by default.

What is the best practice here?

.bashrc
.bash_profile
.profile

Should I just create the file, should it be picked up automatically or is there anything else to configure?

Note: This is just for a single user account, so it doesn't have to be set up globally.

Go right ahead and put your old .bash_profile file in your home directory and it will get read.

For your purposes .bash_profile, .bash_login and .profile are identical with the exception that one and only one will be read - the first one found of the three with bash searching in that order.

.bashrc is only read when you run an interactive shell that is not a login shell.


Installing Mavericks on brand new Macbook with Yosemite? I want to buy a new MacBook Pro. However, it simply MUST be able to have a different operating system to Yosemite installed, as I need it to work with some hardware which is no longer supported with Yosemite.

Would it be possible to downgrade a new Macbook?

Thanks

Simple answer, I'm afraid - No.

Unless you buy a machine right on the cusp of a new OS release, it will never be able to boot from an OS that was released before that machine existed.
There are no hardware drivers for it, at the most basic level and it's a pretty dangerous thing to do according to Apple.


How to smoothly transition my iPhone back to iOS 11 non-beta? I signed up and have been using iOS 11 Beta due to ability to record screen video.

But now that iOS 11 is officially released, I am still getting the newest Beta of iOS 11. How do I smoothly transition back to using iOS 11 non-beta?

Actually it's pretty easy.

go to Settings > General > Profiles and tap the iOS Beta Software Profile that appears. Then just delete it. When the next non-beta update is released you can update to it then, or you can back up the phone and restore the current version.


My Mac keeps adding double spaces randomly when I type I'm  running  Mac Version 10.14.3 on a 15-inch 2018 model.

I'm not sure if I received a new update but over that last few days it keeps adding random double spaces as I type.

I tried turning off key repeat as suggested on some websites but that hasn't corrected the issue. Has anyone else experienced  this problem?

I've had this Mac for several months and I never had this issue until a few days ago. I'm not sure if it's software or hardware related.

I had a client with this exact same problem late last year, turns out it was a faulty keyboard and not software related. I would recommend you check your purchase date, see how the warranty looks in your territory and take it back to Apple for advice and repair/replacement.

It's a known problem with some (but not all) 2018 MacBook Pros:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9isi10/mbp2018_spacebar_double_space_is_this_a_common/
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/macbook-pro-air-keyboard-problems


How to quickly switch between two versions of a file In more detail, I need to have a simple command or something else that I can trigger that will switch a certain file between two versions. The two file versions will not change, just need to switch which one of them is "active" and accessible by other programs. The file needs to stay in its current location, with the same name, just some of the contents need to be adjusted.
Is there a quick way to do this?

It sounds like you need to have the files open in an editor that will display both files at once or have windows for each file. 2 editors I know of are Atom and Visual Studio Code. These editors allow you to display 2 files side-by-side and you can edit whichever one you want.


macOS Big Sur Dictionary.app doesn't use system proxy When using Wikipedia in Dictionary.app on macOS Big Sur 11.0.1, Dictionary.app sends HTTPS requests to *.b.akamaiedge.net and is not utilizing system proxy (HTTP or socks5). How do I fix this?

This phenomenon is not unique to Big Sur—it likely dates back to when the Dictionary application was first introduced in Tiger. @1110101001 did some reverse engineering to figure out what's going on.
DictionaryServices.framework makes network connections via the now-deprecated CFHTTPStream. According to an Apple engineer and Apple's own code, any software which uses CFHTTPStream will ignore the system's proxy settings, unless the developer goes out of their way to add a few extra lines of code.
To fix this problem, we'll need to inject some code which does what the original developers did not—tell the app to apply the system's proxy settings before running CFHTTPStream.
First, compile the following code (e.g. clang -framework AppKit -framework Foundation -o ProxyFix.dylib -dynamiclib /path/to/code.m) to create a library we can inject. This was also mostly written by 1110101001; I tweaked it to work with apps that use two-level namespaces.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <objc/runtime.h>
#include <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#include <dlfcn.h>
#include <AppKit/AppKit.h>

#define DYLD_INTERPOSE(_replacement,_replacee) \
    __attribute__((used)) static struct{ const void* replacement; const void* replacee; } _interpose_##_replacee \
                __attribute__ ((section ("__DATA,__interpose"))) = { (const void*)(unsigned long)&_replacement, (const void*)(unsigned long)&_replacee };

CFReadStreamRef myCFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest(CFAllocatorRef alloc, CFHTTPMessageRef request) {
    printf("Injected ProxyFix!\n");
    CFReadStreamRef ref = CFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest(alloc, request);
    CFDictionaryRef systemProxyDict = CFNetworkCopySystemProxySettings();
    CFReadStreamSetProperty(ref, kCFStreamPropertyHTTPProxy, systemProxyDict);
    return ref;
}

DYLD_INTERPOSE(myCFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest, CFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest);

We now need to insert this library into the Dictionary application. Luckily, macOS comes with a built-in mechanism for injecting code in the form of DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES. If you, like me, are running an ancient and lovably-hackable version of macOS such as 10.9, all you need to do is run your app after setting this environmental variable. For example, run in Terminal:
DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/path/to/ProxyFix.dylib /Applications/Dictionary.app/Contents/MacOS/Dictionary

If you're running macOS 10.6 or below, or if the application isn't code signed (possibly because you removed the code signature via optool or similar), you can also add this environment variable to the app's Info.plist, so that the library is injected automatically.
defaults write /Applications/Dictionary.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment -dict DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES @executable_path/../Frameworks/ProxyFix.dylib

Unfortunately, newer versions of macOS have additional security features to prevent code injection. Starting with 10.11, you will need to disable System Integrity Protection in order to use DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES. On the newest OS's such as Big Sur, you may (or may not) need to take further steps as well, such as disabling AMFI—I'm not entirely familiar with all of the new security checks Apple has layered on in recent years.

P.S. If you're running 10.6 – 10.9, I wrapped this up into a little installer which helps you set up a proxy, and then applies the above patch to the Dictionary app. Without the aid of a proxy, the Dictionary app's Wikipedia functionality no longer works at all on these systems. https://jonathanalland.com/downloads/wowfunhappy-https-proxy.dmg


On the iPad, is there a way to email a link to a mapped set of directions? Now that I have the directions from A to B, I want to mail them to a contact, ideally as a Google Map link.  I see no way to do so within the iPad Maps application, but maybe I am overlooking something.

As far as I know there is no way to email a link to something you have got to inside a native iOS app, in your case, a set of instructions. I believe however that you can email a set of instructions as a link from the google maps website, which you can access in safari. Hope this helps in some form.


Steam keeps asking for accessibility features even though is has access? This only happens to me on Yosemite. I gave Steam access as per my previous question. Steam worked fine until the upgrade to Yosemite. What may have changed, and has anyone a clue how to fix that without deinstalling a few terabytes of video games?

A temporary fix (requires terminal):

sudo sqlite3 /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/Tcc.db 'delete from access where client like "%Steam%"'
Restart Steam
Allow steam access in accessibility via UI or something like: sudo sqlite3 /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db "INSERT OR REPLACE INTO access values ('kTCCServiceAccessibility','com.valvesoftware.steam',0,1,0,NULL);"


How can I use my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) with the LG UltraFine 4K display? Is it possible at all to use the LG UltraFine 4K display with my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)?

No, this is not possible with LG's 4K Display since it is usb-c only and not thunderbolt.
Apple officially states that you are able to connect a LG UltraFine 5K Display since the thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter works to connect them:

3840 x 2160 @ 60Hz
With the Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt
2 Adapter and a Thunderbolt cable, you can use the LG UltraFine 5K
Display at 4K and lower resolutions with these Mac models:
Mac Pro
(Late 2013) macOS 10.12.4 or later is recommended.
MacBook Pro
(Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) and later
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,
Mid 2014) and later
iMac (Retina, 27-inch, Late 2014) and later
iMac
(Retina, 21.5-inch, Late 2015)
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2015)
MacBook Air
(13-inch, Early 2015)
MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015)

The necessary adapters for the 5K Display can be found here:

Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter

Apple Thunderbolt Cable (2.0 m) - White


How to disable Cmd + [Num] in Safari I use WordPress keyboard shortcuts a lot, but Safari's use of Cmd + [Num] (e.g. 1, 2, 3) is overriding WordPress' use (which formats text with  tags).

How can I disable Safari's use of the keyboard shortcut so that I can use it for WordPress?

The shortcuts are defined as the first few bookmarks in your Bookmarks Bar. You can see which bookmarks are defined by going to Bookmarks → Favorites Bar. Since they are menu items, you can disable them by remapping them to something else.

Open System Preferences → Keyboard → App Shortcuts.
Click the + to add a new shortcut.
Set the Application to Safari, the Menu Title to the exact name of one of your bookmarks, and the Keyboard Shortcut to something other than ⌘#.

Repeat the process for the other bookmarks.


How can I change how often iCloud data gets synced on my iPhone 6? When I make changes to Contacts on my Macbook, they tend to take a while to get synced up with my iPhone 6. I was wondering if there was a setting on the iPhone (or perhaps even on iCloud.com) that would allow me to set a more frequent synch schedule.

I believe this is not possible. Your iPhone automatically syncs your data with icloud.


Switch to Desktop shortcut bug (desktop 2 and desktop 3 are mixed) On my OS X 10.8.2 (12C54) I use more desktops (4). I've mapped the keyboard shortcuts cmd+{1,2,3,4} to switch to dekstop {1,2,3,4}. However the second and third are mixed up. If I use cmd+2 it switches to desktop 3 and cmd+3 switches to desktop 2.

I double checked the keyboard shortcuts and they are mapped correctly.

So I thought whatever, I will just mix my setting as well, still it will be a fix for me. Interestingly enough the issue sometime go away, however then my "wrong" settings are really wrong.

Anyone have a solution, experiencing the same thing?

Is Mission Control set to automatically rearrange your spaces based on most recent use? That might trigger the behaviour you see in certain circumstances. Check System Preferences -> Mission Control and that the highlighted checkbox is unchecked.


Resize display in display arrangement / actual size instead of resolution I use a Full HD 24" external display besides my 15" MacBook Pro Retina, on which I use the option for most screen estate regarding the Retina display. In the display arrangement screen, the MacBook Pro is therefore a bigger rectangle than the external display. Is there a way to size these rectangles regarding their "real world size" instead of resolution? I'm annoyed by my cursor teleporting vertically whenever I move from one display to another.

Short answer, no.

'Full HD' is actually tiny compared to the resolution of a retina screen -  1920x1080 vs 2880x1800

The Displays control panel really has no idea how big the screen is, only what resolutions it is capable of.
The relationship it displays is a direct result of that - & your mouse will jump according to how you set the images of the screens against each other.
The most logical method is to align the tops of the screens in the control panel, so you at least have one matching point of reference.

I have 2 identical monitors, so it's not so easy to illustrate - but you want this...

rather than this...

The screen images will snap to 'sensible' locations, but you are actually free to position them any way you like, simply by dragging one of them relative to the other.


What format for my external drive allows use with Mac and Windows? How can I use my external hard drive on Mac OS so I can modify/edit files on both OS's: Mac and Windows? How should I format it?

FAT32 (called MS-DOS (FAT) by Disk Utility; a filesystem originally released in 1977 and updated a few times since, lastly in 1996) really is the only cross platform filesystem that is going to work fully out of the box with Windows and Mac OS X.

Be careful though, if you are using Disk Utility to format the drive, you should make sure to choose the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme (hit the "Options..." button below the "Partition Layout" control on the Partition pane). The default GUID partitioning scheme won't be recognised by 32-bit Windows XP and earlier Windows operating systems and Mac OS X versions earlier than 10.4.

Mac OS X has had support for reading NTFS formatted disk for a few versions, but still doesn't have write support. There are a few third-party products that allow Mac OS X to read NTFS formatted drives but as far as I'm aware the free ones aren't as well maintained as the commercial ones. I'd love for someone to tell me differently. For a while I've been using http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ but as far as I can tell it hasn't been updated since December 2008.

Tuxera (who develop one of the commercial NTFS drivers for Mac OS X) have a list of free NTFS drivers that are developed from the same NTFS-3G source used by Linux to read NTFS drives. http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/


streaming a full screen app or a screen space on apple TV I would like to see if there is a possibility of streaming a full screen app or a space onto Apple TV with MacOS mountain lion. The implication of this is that I could stream for example a tech talk on to my TV while I browse on another screen space. I believe that mirroring would just show the stuff that I see on my screen.

Unless a hack will be  possible or Apple will have an AirPlay API for someone to make an application that makes the Apple TV a 2nd display it does not look possible with the advertised OS X Mountain Lion feature AirPlay Mirroring, since it will only allow mirroring of what is on your screen, probably only your primary screen too.

Wireless mirroring
Send what’s on your Mac screen to an HDTV wirelessly with Apple TV. Mirroring is great for classrooms, conference rooms, and your living room.


Making the Mac more left hand friendly I am a left handed Mac user and I find that some features are not left hand friendly. In particular Notifications is quite bothersome. Most of the time my cursor is over near the left hand edge of the screen; that is the part of the workspace I tend to operate from and when an email notification comes up I have to move my cursor nearly across the full diagonal of the screen to get to the banner before it disappears. I quite often don’t get it. If there was a way to make the Notifications appear on the left hand side of the screen that would be great. Does anyone know of a way to do that?

Unfortunately, you can't change the location where Notification Center Alerts and Banners appear. This is a huge gripe of mine as well, and I highly encourage you to complain about this issue to Apple here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


I want a pop up notification when a file has certain info written to it I have a server that my machine is connected to via AFP.
On this server there is a file called 'TransferLog.txt'. While the server is doing it's work it adds to this file. When it finally writes 'successful' I want to be notified by a pop up window in the finder.

Normally I would attack this using 'tail -f' and 'grep'. However, I have found that because this file is sitting on a server rather than a local file on my hard drive 'tail -f' doesn't seem to work properly... it behaves like 'tail', listing it's current last lines, but then just sits there and doesn't update info... it also doesn't exit.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to monitor this remote file more effectively?
Is there a way I could repeatedly read the tail output looking for 'successful' using applescript? (I'm pretty bad with applescript)

I don't think a network filesystem is going to give you enough state information to do this quite as simply as you asked.  One solution would be this:

On the server side, run a script that looks for your 'successful' string as you described.  When it finds the string, have it write a new file into the shared directory.

On the remote side, run a script that checks for this new file, e.g.:

test -f newfilename && echo 'Success!' && rm newfilename

Once you've been notified, you can delete this new file and loop around for the next time.  The file creation and deletes should be reliably communicated across the network.


Change Apple ID on iPad without losing data I guess I confused you, so let me explain. I am a computer technician, dealing mostly with Windows computer and know a little about iPad and iOS in general. A customer called me because a Facebook application didn't work as expected. When browsing to her Facebook account within Safari, everything was OK, so I realized I should update the Facebook app. There was indeed a new version. The problem is that when she bought the iPad some other guy was too lazy to create a new Apple ID and used his own to install stuff. Every time I attempt to download a new app or update an existing one from Apple Store, I am asked to put the password for this guy's Apple ID and there is no option to use a different Apple ID. In the Settings, Apple Store and iTunes, the only Apple ID present is that of the owner! If I tap on it and select Sign Out, I can then go to Apple Store, select "Purchased Apps" and then I am asked to login to see them. At this point I am allowed to use another Apple ID. This does nothing as next time I try to use the Apple Store this annoying dialog asking for the password of the old Apple ID pops up!

I know that if I reset the device, I can then associate it with the proper Apple ID, but that's the problem! My customer has a lot of downloaded apps and photos she doesn't want to lose! Is there any method to remove this Apple ID once and for all WITHOUT losing data? Calling that guy to do it from his account is not an option, any other method?

The "phenomenon" you experience has something to do with the actual apps your customer has on their iOS device. Those apps are purchased or downloaded by a person, which is not your customer and therefore using those apps would technically be against the EULA of the iTunes/App Store.

In order to rectify this, you want to do the following:

Sign out of the other unknown person's iTunes/App Store account and sign in again using your customer's Apple ID.
Delete the custom apps*) downloaded by that stranger and, if needed, re-download/purchase them with the correct account of your customer.
Also worth checking is to sign out of iCloud (if it is used by that other person as well) as long as "Find My iPad" is not activated as well. If it is, you will need to have a proof of purchase (second hand purchases will not be accepted to my knowledge) and contact Apple to have it removed.

*) IMPORTANT: Deleting an app will also delete its user contents, which are stored for it on the device itself (like documents or login credentials). Remote data (e.g. information on Facebook) are not affected.

Once all this has been done, your nightmare will be at an end.


How to revoke 3rd-party apps Twitter integration on iOS 11? I used to have some iOS apps that were authorized to access my Twitter account through the legacy Twitter integration feature in old iOS version. This feature is no longer available in iOS 11.

According to Twitter (https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/revoke-twitter-access-on-ios-app) :

  Note: Though you will see other specific apps like Twitter for iPhone
  or Camera for iOS listed in your active connections, you cannot revoke
  access to these individual apps; you have to revoke access for the
  entire iOS integration.

How do I revoke those apps' access if all my devices are running iOS 11?

I finally found the answer to my own question.

"iOS integration" itself is actually listed among all those apps and it has a revoke button. Once you revoke this, all apps authorized through iOS integration will disappear.


How can I send message as Text Message on purpose? I have noticed that iMessages usually fail when outside a reliable data network area. Only after iOS attempts to deliver the message and fails does it offer to send it as a text message. Often the failure takes some time, and is not brought to my attention immediately. When circumstances are such that I reasonably suspect that iMessage will fail, I would like to skip the failure and send an SMS immediately.

How can I opt to send an SMS message instead of an iMessage without first attempting to send an iMessage?

There is currently no way to switch to Text Message by default when iMessage you know is going to fail.

1) When you know that your iMessage is not gonna go then try this:

Type iMessage and send it. It will get stuck with Top bar showing "Sending..."
Long press the iMessage text that is not going.
A menu will appear where you can choose "Send as text message"

2) Now if you want to send Text Message intentionally by passing iMessage (consider scenario when you know recipient is not on cellular data or wifi) you can do the following:
- Disable your Wifi
- Disable Cellular data ( Go to Settings -> Select "Cellular" -> disable "Cellular Data"
- Type iMessage and send it. It will get stuck with Top bar showing "Sending..."
- Long press the iMessage text that is not going.
- A menu will appear where you can choose "Send as text message"

Hope that helps!

Screenshots attached:Updating after fsb's comment below. "Send as text message" is not disabled in iOS 10.2.1 (latest as of 02/21/2017)


CCleaner free equivalent on OS X? Do you know a free (as in freedom) CCleaner equivalent which works on Mac OS X Mavericks?

I've searched but found nothing.

If you are going to re-partition to install another O/S then a cleaner won't do much, it really depends on how much room you need to recover for your partition.

That said there are a number of cleaners out there. I have always used the free Onyx. I usually get it off of MacUpdate. Note that the latest version is always for the latest O/S if you don't have Mavericks look on the developer's website for earlier versions.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11582/onyx

Oddly enough CCCleaner is available for the Mac, and while I have used the PC version quite a bit I have never used it on the Mac, preferring to stick with the utility I know. So I can't speak to how good a job CCCleaner does on the Mac.

MacUpdate is a great place to look for software, pretty much everything you are looking for here can be found there.


Is there a way to decolorize Safari 12 pinned tab icons? Safari 12's pinned tabs now show garish, distracting, and unpredictable colored icons in place of the subdued grayscale icons of previous versions. Is there a way to decolorize these icons?

The app Faviconographer hacked favicons onto Safari tab prior to the feature officially rolling out.

https://timingapp.com/faviconographer/

It would likely be fairly straightforward to modify the app to re-grayscale the icons.

  If you have a legitimate interest in the source code, contact me.

Try asking the dev for the feature, or for the source code and build it yourself.


OS X command line installer track progress I am trying to install an application through command line in OS X. This is what I am trying:

hdiutil attach app.dmg
cd /Volumes/appvolume
installer -pkg app.pkg -target "/"

This works fine, however, I am not able to get an output from the installer command from which I can capture the amount of progress made and the time/amount remaining. I tried the verbose option

installer -verbose -pkg app.pkg -target "/"

But this only prints output like installer: Optimizing system for installed software…....., etc, nothing about progress. But it surely knows about progress, because when I install the app via double clicking, the installer window that pops up shows a deterministic progress bar that progresses gradually and reaches full length when installation is complete.

Any way I can capture the progress status through command line installer as well?

You were close - the option you're looking for is -verboseR:

Usage: installer [-help] [-dominfo] [-volinfo] [-pkginfo] [-allowUntrusted] [-dumplog]
             [-verbose | -verboseR] [-vers] [-config] [-plist]
             [-file <pathToFile>] [-lang <ISOLanguageCode>] [-listiso]
             [-showChoicesXML] [-applyChoiceChangesXML <pathToFile>]
             [-showChoicesAfterApplyingChangesXML <pathtoFile>]
             -pkg <pathToPackage>
             -target <[DomainKey|MountPoint]

Here's installer's output installing a Firefox 43.0.1 .pkg built with AutoPkgr with that flag:

timmay:~ da4$ sudo installer -pkg /Users/da4/Desktop/auto/Firefox-43.0.1.pkg -target / -verboseR
installer: Package name is Firefox-43.0.1
installer: Upgrading at base path /
installer:PHASE:Preparing for installation…
installer:PHASE:Preparing the disk…
installer:PHASE:Preparing Firefox-43.0.1…
installer:PHASE:Waiting for other installations to complete…
installer:PHASE:Configuring the installation…
installer:STATUS:
installer:%9.883908
installer:PHASE:Writing files…
installer:%30.674055
installer:PHASE:Writing files…
installer:%51.530939
installer:PHASE:Optimizing system for installed software…
installer:PHASE:Validating packages…
installer:PHASE:Validating packages…
installer:%97.750000
installer:STATUS:
installer:PHASE:Finishing the Installation…
installer:STATUS:
installer:%100.000000
installer:PHASE:The software was successfully installed.
installer: The upgrade was successful.
timmay:~ da4$

I'm not exactly sure when the -verboseR option was added to OS X's installer, but it's present in 10.9+.


Mac OS X UNIX-oriented Tutorial Is there any Mac OS X tutorial/book that covers the UNIX part of this operating system? Topics like:

Managing daemons from the command-line
Package management
Install/Remove dmg's from the command-line
Environment variables
Users/Groups/Permissions management
CLI utilities
OS Directory structure
Location of dev headers, libraries, etc
Devices names

Most of the tutorials I found out there cover GUI applications and that kind of stuff. Is there any material that covers Mac OS X under the hood?

I suggest you to try:
Unix for OS X which is a good way to begin with Unix and with the Unix command line interface of Mountain Lion.
O'Reilly is a very good editor in the field of the Unixes environments.


Automatically Turning Wifi Off when Sleep I want my Macbook to stay asleep and do nothing in sleep. It keeps waking up for all sorts of reasons and making notification sounds after midnight if I forgot to mute it after playing music.

Because of restrictions that I cannot change some system settings, I've realized that turning Wifi off is the best I can do to keep it dormant at sleep. I used the app Alfred to create a two-step workflow to first turn Wifi off and then sleep. Problem is only half-solved. Because I need to remember to always use this workflow to put my mac to sleep, and, next day, to turn wifi back on after logging in.

I can't help wondering if there is a better way to make it happen. Meaning, when I use whatever way to make my mac sleep, it turns off Wifi too, and when I wake it up, Wifi gets turned on automatically. Is there a way? Thanks

SleepWatcher 2.2.1 can do this, and for free. However, if you do not have administrator access to your Mac (and it sounds like you might not) then you might not be able to install it. Worth a shot, but just FYI that it might not work.

Keyboard Maestro can do this, even without admin access, but it is not free. I think it's $35. Well worth it, IMO, because it can do 1,001 things on your Mac, and this is only 1.

I am not aware of any way to do this on macOS without using third-party apps.


iPhone files not showing up on Finder I have an iPhone 11 Pro Max running iOS 13.3 and a Macbook '16 running macOS Catalina 10.15.2.

When I connect my iPhone to my Macbook, it is recognised in Finder "locations" but I do not have access to the files, videos, etc. in the iPhone from within Finder.

I have made sure that my iPhone is "trusted" by the macbook.

What is see is the picture below (and this is the only thing I can see):

i.e I don't see the following:

I have no idea why. My iPad works fine and shows me the files, movies, general tab, etc. But not my iPhone.

I have tried the following:

Resetting my privacy and location settings on the iPhone. After I do this, I get asked to "trust" the iPhone again, but it still does not display the files.
I have restarted the iPhone and Macbook several times.
I tried this on iOS 13.2 before updating and it already had this issue, so I don't think it's a bad update problem.
I have tried different cables. No luck.
I have tried restarting Finder on the Macbook, no luck.
The interesting thing is that Photos on the Macbook can detect and load photos from the iPhone.
As I said above, my iPad works fine and shows me the files, movies, general tab, etc
I made sure the iPhone is unlocked during this whole time.
Even if not needed, I made sure that "USB accessories" is allowed access when iPhone is locked inside the "Face ID and passcore" settings menu.
Airdrop works fine.

Ok I figured out whats wrong. See this thread for an answer (TLDR: iTunes database was corrupted) https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4474508

  DO NOT RESTORE

  It could be one of two (or both) files are corrupt on your
  iPhone (or other iDevice), they are
  iTunesDB andiTunesCDB.There
  is an fast fix for this, even if your
  iDevice is non
  jailbroken.You want to disconnect your
  iDevice from your computer and close
  iTunes to ensure you DO NOT
  RESTORE.Download iFunBox or
  iTools a Free Tool for accessing the
  iDevice file system. It has both a OSX
  version and Windows version for
  download.After you download the version of
  iFunBox or iTools for your OS, you
  will need to install it and run it.After installing and
  running iFunBox or iTools, connect
  your iDevice to your computer.You will see a
  message in the Upper Right of iFunBox ”connecting to
  iDevice“, after iFunbox has
  connected to your iDevice, click on the tab
  “iFunbox Classic“.On the left panel, expand
  “Raw File System” (click on the +),
  then expand “iTunes_Control“, then click on
  “iTunes“.In the right panel you will see a
  number of files, right-click on the file
  “iTunesCDB” and select rename, please add X after the
  iTunesCDB in the file name, this will allow you keep
  the file in case you need it again (you should never need it, but
  better to be careful than sorry.) Do the same for iTunesCDB, iTunesControl and iTunesPrefs. After you have renamed the file, click on your iDevice name on the upper right
  of iFunBox and select “Device Safe
  Removal“, this will ensure the file name change will be
  written back to your iDevice.After you see
  your iDevice is closed (“No device connected” will be
  displayed in the upper right), you should now close
  iFunBox

  Now run Apple iTunes, it will see your
  iDevice and you will be able to Sync again.


How to use Windows US-Intl keyboard layout on a Mac? Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc. all have a keyboard layout called US International, which turns the right Alt key into a modifer that lets you type common symbols from European languages, as well as adding various dead keys.

Is there any way to use this keyboard layout on a Mac? Macs do have a layout called "U.S. International - PC", but despite the name, it doesn't match the keyboard layout used on other OSes. It makes " and ' combine with certain letters but otherwise doesn't appear to change anything at all and in particular, holding the right Alt key doesn't work.

I don't want to have to memorize a whole different keyboard layout just for Macs, or hold each key and wait for a popup or whatever.

The Alt level of Windows US International, which I am used to looks like this:

But the same level on Apple's US International PC is a lot different and looks like this:

You can make the Alt/Option level of Apple's US International PC behave like the version you are used to by creating a custom keyboard layout with the app Ukelele.

For reference the Alt/Option behavior of Windows US International is here.

Note that on a Mac both left and right alt/option keys normally do the same thing, i.e. create special characters.

PS  If in fact your right alt key does not produce any characters at all, then something is broken with your keyboard or software.

An experimental keyboard that tries to conform to the Windows version can be found here.

Note:  If you want something like one of the Linux versions of "US International" which have a dozen or more dead keys for making a huge number of diacritic and other characters, then the Apple equivalent is ABC Extended, whose layout is however quite different.  For that see this earlier question.


How do I move Finder icon location in the dock? The Finder icon on the dock seems to be locked to be the first one. I would like to have a few other application icons to the left of the Finder icon, but click-and-drag doesn't work for it.
What the dock looks like:

Finder, Launchpad, Mission Control, and then Chrome
Order of icons that I want instead:
Launchpad, Mission Control, Chrome, and then Finder
I'm running macOS High Sierra on a Mac Mini.

There is this discussion from almost 10 years ago on making a duplicate icon you can move, but the original stays. As far as I can tell there is not way to move the Finder or Trash icons from their position in the dock.


Which adapter to get in order to use Dell U2515H with Thunderbolt port? I have MacBook Pro (late 2013) and I'm considering getting Dell U2515H QHD monitor. The MBP has two Thunderbolt ports.

The monitor supports DisplayPort and DisplayPort 1.2.

Which adapter I need to get in order to use the Dell U2515H with my MBP?

The MacBook Pro Thunderbolt ports are fully compatible with DisplayPort so as long as you have a DisplayPort cable, there is no need for an adapter.

I own 2x Dell U2715H myself. Dell is so nice to deliver their display with the needed cable. Working like a charm and I love the displays.


How to copy and paste as plain text on iOS? Currently my work around is to paste the text in the notes and copy from there the plain text to paste it to for example the mail app.

How can I copy formatted text and paste it as plain text for example in the Mail app?

In Mail on iOS 12, I use the "Share > Copy" trick:

Paste formatted
Select the just pasted text and in the context menu swipe right and tap on "Share..."
In the Share sheet, tap on "Copy". This copies as plain text!
Tap still selected text to get the context menu again
In the context menu tap on "Paste" to replace the selected, formatted text with its plain text representation

Still (too) many hoops to jump through but at least you don't need to switch between apps.
The "Share > Copy" trick might not be available in other apps, though.


Remove suggested apps option in iOS 10 As far as I can tell, suggested apps show themselves based on location.

There are two places where these suggested apps show themselves to me:

At the bottom left of the multitask screen when I double press the home button
At the bottom left of the lock screen

CNET's Disable iOS 8's 'Suggested Apps' feature article describes how to get rid of the small app icon appearing in the bottom left. However, this method is for iOS 8, and I am now on iOS 10, where I am unable to find iTunes and App Store > Suggested Apps.

How can I get rid of these (in my opinion) annoying little things?

I may have figured it out myself:

To keep the Siri suggestions when you swipe right or down in the home screen, but to remove the icon at the bottom left of the screen when you double click the home button go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Location-Based Suggestions > OFF.

Since I did that I have not seen the little icons.


How to switch straight to a keyboard in mac I use 3 different language keyboards (japanese, english, chinese), all with their own special input method editors (IMEs). I have a fast switch between Japanese and English by just hitting either left or right CMD key respectively, which I set up using Karabiner. But, to get to my chinese keyboard I have to still flip through my other keyboards to find.

I was wondering if there was any way to set up a keyboard shortcut I could use to switch directly to my Chinese keyboard. I've tried using automator, but automator always plays out the entire "open menu", "select chinese keyboard", which takes about a second to run through (slow), and moves my mouse to the other end of the screen.

I'd be happy to use automator if somebody knows how I can remove this, or otherwise how to set up a shortcut some other way (or software to do this), I'd be grateful.

One easy thing you can do is to setup a shortcut that cycles forward and backwards through all input sources you have on your Mac.

So assuming you have them setup in this order: Japanese, English, Chinese and Japanese is currently active, pressing the keyboard shortcut will move to English and if you press it again to Chinese and then back to Japanese after a third press. With the second shortcut you can cycle backwards at any time.

Alternatively you can set an unused F-key in the top row of your keyboard (on mine F5 and F6 is free and on a full-size keyboard you have F13-F19 unused too) to be your shortcut, so pressing those will cycle through your options.

As far as I know there is no solution straight from OS X that will allow you to pick a specific language just by pressing an F-key. What might be an option is to setup an Apple Script inside System Preference that is being triggered by an F-key which sets your input source to a specific language. I might read into that and post it here, if the previous option doesn't meet your needs.

How to set it up

Go to System Preferences (see Apple Logo at the top if it's not in the Dock)
Go to Keyboard
Select the tab "Shortcuts"
Pick "Input Sources" from the list on the left
Activate the shortcuts you would like to use and then click on the right to define the shortcut by pressing the desired combination or F-key.
Close System Preferences and try it out

I hope this was helpful to you.


What is the range of the Unlock With Watch feature for iOS? How close does my Watch need to be to my iPhone in order for it to be able to unlock the phone? Conversely, at what distance will the Watch fail to unlock the phone?

I'm not sure exactly what the distance is, but this Verge article suggests 3 feet:

...your phone isn’t looking for your face with a mask, it’s looking for a face with a mask. With this feature on, when my wife was wearing a mask, she was able to unlock my phone with no problem if I was within three or so feet.

If you're concerned that somebody may unlock your phone without your permission - the same article addresses this:

...whenever your Apple Watch is used to unlock your phone, the watch buzzes you, along with a notification saying your phone has been unlocked and a button to lock it. Pressing that lock button immediately locks your phone and requires a passcode on next unlock.


Mac OS X Mountain Lion cannot share internet connection because of 802.1X protection My notebook is connected on Ethernet using 802.1X. When I try to share the internet via Wifi I get the error message Your Internet connection cannot be shared because its protected by 802.1X

I dont have right now a option of not using a protected network. Is there a way to share the connection? I want to create an adhoc wifi network to test my devices.

I agree with Gordon. The 802.1X security measures are in place for a reason. You should contact your IT team to see if they have other options for you or if they can set up a guest network. In the absence of that, I would recommend getting a MiFi from your carrier or turning your smartphone into a wireless hotspot. If you have access to LTE, it may be faster than your office WiFi.


Cannot see macOS volumes in Boot Camp I upgraded from a MacBook Pro with Windows 7 in Boot Camp to an iMac with Windows 10 in Boot Camp.

In Windows 7 my I had read access to my macOS volumes (no write access), however, in Windows 10 I can only see the Windows Boot Camp volume in Windows Explorer.

Are the Mac volumes no longer accessible from within Windows?

APFS volumes cannot be read in Windows. Boot Camp only provides drivers for HFS+ volumes, so it's not a problem with the version of Windows but rather that the format of the Mac volume has moved on beyond the support drivers made available by Apple for Boot Camp.


How can I prevent opening new tab will get same URL as existing tab I have been using Safari on OS X for a while without much issue until I hit the one described in the title.

Let's say I have a YouTube tab open. If I hit the new tab button and enter YouTube, instead of opening another tab, Safari redirects me to the existing YouTube tab. It is not limited to this website, Stack Overflow behaves the same for example.

I could not find anything in the settings related to this and Google didn't help either.

Any ideas?

Ok, so after searching a little more, I found that this is the normal behaviour and it cannot be changed. So the only solution so far is to either accept it or switch browsers. If a better answer is posted, I will approve it.


Mac lag terribly when restarted from chosen Startup Disk My Mac has Filevault from quite some time ago.  Just now, I restarted it and went into recovery mode using cmd+R.

From there, I select Startup Disk from the menu, unlocked, and clicked restart.

After that, it restarted to the login screen and the computer started lagging really terribly at the startup screen. Even when I make furthur restarts by clicking on the Restart button at the login screen, the lag does not go away.

Does anyone know what is causing the lag?

(The lag went away when I clicked shutdown and turned on the computer.)

did you check for disk errors in Disk Utility?  Verify the disk, and repair if it finds anything.

If this is a sudden change, you could have either:

a full disk
a failing drive
corruption


Is there any way to see iPhone logs on Mac's Console over wifi? As the title says, is there any way to read the console logs without connecting the iphone to the mac via USB? I've tried putting the iPhone on the same Wi-Fi and it still does not work.

I need to debug a behaviour that happens when the iPhone is not charging.

Also, from Xcode devices & simulators window the option "Open Console" is greyed out. View Device Logs does not show the same amount of detail.

On the device list in the left sidebar, it's possible to provide an IP address by right clicking the device. As long as both are in the same network Xcode will be able to connect to the iPhone.


How to take photo using Terminal? Is it possible to take a photo or record a short video with the MacBook's webcam using Terminal?

sh-3.2# system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 10.13.4 (17E199)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 17.5.0
      Boot Volume: lily
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Computer Name: lily’s MacBook Air
      User Name: System Administrator (root)
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      System Integrity Protection: Enabled

Use FFMPEG.
(This has become one of my favorite command line utilities for video/audio conversion and streaming)
According to the FFMPEG Wiki, you can use Apple's AVFoundation to capture directly from the FaceTime Camera or any other USB web cam that's attached.  Keep in mind, the wiki was written when the FaceTime camera was still called the iSight so some of the features/keywords are no longer valid
Get the device ID
$ ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""

[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] AVFoundation video devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [0] FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [1] Capture screen 0
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] AVFoundation audio devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [0] USB Audio CODEC
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [1] Built-in Microphone

The device we're looking for is "0"
Capture the photo
$ ffmpeg -ss 0.5 -f avfoundation -i "0" -t 1 capture.jpg

What this does is take a 1 second video stream, takes the single fram starting at .5 seconds and saves it as a JPEG called capture.jpg


How to install OS X 10.7 and 10.8 in VMWare Fusion, on a 10.9 host? I'm working on fairly new Mac Mini, running OS X 10.9.4 and VMWare Fusion Pro 6.0.4.

For software testing purposes, I want to install both a OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion inside a virtual machine. I have access to the developer downloads under http://developer.apple.com/downloads.

I can find numerous packages saying, for example "OS X Lion 10.7.2 Build XXXXX", but all of them seem to updates and are relatively small in size (~ 700 MB). I can't seem to find any image that would allow me to install a fresh 10.7 or 10.8 inside a new VM.

So how exactly do I go about creating those two virtual machines on my OS X 10.9 host?

If you don't have them in your Purchases in the Mac App store, you can order Lion and Mountain Lion directly from Apple for USD $19.99 each.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion


How to mass-organize iTunes library? I'd like to try to organize the songs in my iTunes library (rename artists and albums, etc.), but my library's pretty large and it would be time consuming to manually edit my songs via the Get Info screen.

Is there a way to mass-organize your songs? Ideally by exporting your library's song info to Excel, and then importing it back into iTunes?

I've tried exporting a playlist as a .txt file, editing it in Microsoft Excel, resaving it as a .txt file, and importing it back into iTunes, but my changes had no effect.

The free (and open-source) program MusicBrainz Picard would be a good option to consider. It can identify songs and albums by their acoustic ID's and automatically enter the ID3 tags.

The program will "play nice" with iTunes as well. Just use it to organize and tag your music, then do the following (copied from the MusicBrainz Picard website)

Open iTunes, then go to File > Add Folder to Library
Point it at the top of your iTunes directory ("My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Music" on Windows, by default).
iTunes will rescan your music.


I'm using OSX 10.11 what should I be aware of when installing 10.12 I'm a developer, and I'd rather not mess up anything on my system. So I guess, the general. Take a backup advice applies.

But is there anything else in particular that I should be aware of? Something that have gone wrong for users in the past?

The wonkyness of apple software has been quite a lot in the news as of late... so that's why I'm asking.

Going from one major revision to the next, there could be a lot of things if you are a developer (which I am not).

The smart thing to do is to make a full bootable backup of your boot drive (CCC and Super Duper to name a couple I am familiar with). Then TEST the backup by booting from it. Then unplug it from the Mac and put the backup drive in another room.

Do your upgrade and then check your environment, your builds, your tools and make sure everything is working as expected.

Now if things get messed up all you have to do is boot from your backup drive, wipe the internal (boot) drive. Remembering to save any changes to files you made in the interim to your backup drive. And clone the backup back to your original boot drive.

With any luck you'll only kill a half day or so...


Mounting HFS+ volume in Linux I'm not sure if this is the appropriate area to post my question. But I am wondering how can I mount a MacBook Pro mid 2007 HDD on Debian Linux. My MacBook bombed out on me and now I need to attempt to recover some data on the hard drive. What hardware do I need to hook it up through USB and should read privileges be enough to copy from drive to else where?

You need a SATA to USB connector kit or 2.5" SATA External USB Enclosure, either will do.  Read-Only access is all that you need to retrieve the User Data you want to save.

Example of SATA to USB connector kit

Example of 2.5" SATA External USB Enclosure


How do I merge Pages documents I have an iMac running High Sierra with Pages 8.1. I am having a problem merging two Pages documents into one. I have several Pages files that I'd like to merge into a single document. These Pages files have a lot of graphics and spreadsheet tables. When I try to copy file #2 and paste it at the end of file #1, all of the spreadsheet tables and some of the other graphics get left behind or moved around.  Is there another way to merge 2 or more Pages files into one single Pages file. I can't convert them into PDFs because the final document must be in Pages. I have tried copying and pasting the Thumbnails but the graphics still get messed up. Does anyone know how to do this?

I am on Pages 10.1 and no longer have access to anything that still has v8.1.  This means the precise instructions might be a little different, but Pages 8.1 does support these features (even if the menus or wording might be a little different).
Pages has a two major modes of operation.

Word Processing mode:  This is the default mode for most documents.  In this mode, document text is added directly to the page. If you reach the end of a page but continue typing, a new pages is added and you continue to type on the new page.  If you delete some of the text from the first page, all text is moved up (including text from adjacent pages).
Page Layout mode:  This mode works like a publishing system and is easier to use if you are creating newspapers, newsletters, or magazine style documents... where you have multiple articles and an article might start on one page, but finish on a later page -- even with other articles interspersed between them.  In this mode, you don't type directly onto a page.  Instead you create a text frame and place it on the page and type only within the frame.  If you run out of space, the frame will not automatically grow nor will new pages automatically get created.  You manually added pages as needed and add more text frames as needed... but you link text frames together if they all belong to the same article in the publication.  When a text frame is full, text automatically flows into and continues in the next text frame (provided you linked it to the same article).

You do a little more setup to use Page Layout mode because you have to manually create and size your text frames where you want them ... but the advantage is that things go exactly where you want them.
Also, in Page Layout mode, each page is a discrete thing.  If you move a page, the whole page and everything on it moves along with it and everything is exactly as you placed.  This is true wether you are moving it to a new location within the same document, or copying it to a completely different document (assuming the destination document is also using Page Layout mode.)
Convert to Page Layout Mode
Before you do this, beware the danger... in Page Layout mode, you cannot apply text directly onto a page.  E.g. if you create a new blank document, switch it to Page Layout mode, and then try to type... you'll notice it won't let you.  You must drop a text box onto the page and then you can type inside the text box.  It's probably worth doing some experiments with this to understand how it works before attempting to convert a document you care about (make a backup before you make any changes).
When you ultimately do perform a conversion from Word Processing mode to Page Layout mode, any text you had typed directly onto a page will disappear.  It will not automatically create text boxes for you and move your text into those boxes.  This is something you have to do manually.
There are two ways to perform the conversion (but I'm using Pages 10.1 and cannot promise this looked the same in Pages 8.1):
Using the 'File' Menu to Convert
Navigate to the 'File' menu and you should notice a menu choice that will either say "Convert to Page Layout" or "Convert to Word Processing".  If you see "Convert to Page Layout" it means you are currently in Word Processing mode.  If you see "Convert to Word Processing" it means you are in Page Layout mode.
Using the Document Inspector Panel
The other method is to use the Document inspector.  I've added an image for clarity.

To use this method,

Select the 'Document' inspector panel icon on the tool-bar.
Select the 'Document' tab within the Document inspector panel.
Check to see if 'Document Body' is enabled.

If Document Body is enabled, you are in Word Processing mode (and can type directly on the page).  If Document Body is not enabled, you are in Page Layout mode and can only type text within a text-frame.
If you attempt to change the mode you will be asked to confirm that you really want to change.  Remember... any text that was directly on a page (not within a text frame) will be lost.  Make sure you manually copy this text, create text boxes, and then paste your text into the text box(es).
Linking Text Boxes
When you create a new text box, if you select the box you'll notice the control points located not the sides and corners, and a round empty circle in the top-center of the box.  Click that circle and it will turn into a number '1' and get a color assignment.  This means it is the 1st text box associated with your thread (a thread represents an article).
Create a new text box and repeat by clicking the circle.  It will automatically fill in with a '2' (indicating it is the 2nd text frame in the thread.)  But notice if you hover-over the '2', a tiny arrow appears.   This means this text box is now "linked" to the first text box.  As you type and fill the box, text will autoflow into the next box that is linked to the same thread.  If you click on the colored number in the top-center of any text box you get a sub-menu and can choose to link that box to a different thread/article or create a new thread, or just unlink the box (remove from thread).
Copy & Paste
In Page Layout mode (and only in Page Layout mode) you can move entire pages "as is" -- the page will look exactly the same in the new destination.  You cannot do this in Word Processing mode.

Select "View" -> "Page Thumbnails"
Select the individual page or pages that you want to copy (it is only possible to select individual pages if you are in Page Layout mode).
Select "Edit" -> "Copy"
In the destination document, select "Edit" -> "Paste"

The pages will come across as they were.  This is because in this mode, pages simply hold "objects" -- objects are things like text boxes, images, charts or graphs, etc. etc.  Each page knows which objects are located on that page and the relative positioning or layout of each object.  Hence the name "Page Layout" mode.
Nuances of Either Mode
You can insert objects inline within text in either mode.  E.g. insert a picture in the middle of an article in Word Processing mode or in Page Layout mode and that image placement is relative to the point in your article ... not to a spot on the page.  In other words, add or delete some text in the article located above the image and you'll see the image moves up or down.
But you can also create an object on a page (such as an image) where it's location is pinned to the page itself and not tied to a location within an article (it wont move as you edit the article... the article will move and flow around the other object -- depending on the rules you set.
If you copy a range of an text in an article and that range includes an "inline" image, the image will get copied along with the text.  If you copy a range of text where the image is it's own object (not inline), then you'll only get the text and the other objects are left behind.  You have to manually copy those separate objects in a separate operation.