Hide Everything For Cmd+Space Spotlight Search but Applications I am trying to use Spotlight as a way to solely launch my most used applications.

A lot of them have similar names, so for me Spotlight displaying in a linear down list works much better then lets say Launchpad which displays them in something like a column/row combination.

Anyways I am trying to both speed up Spotlight and prevent it from displaying false positives by hiding everything but applications.

I did this by effectively unchecking everything but Applications in System Preferences → Spotlight → Search Results, and then by preventing indexing of my home folder directly.

The problem is now I can't search my Mac for anything. This solved 1 issue while creating another.

Is there a way to feasible make Spotlight search only applications while everything else search globally?

The following is in response to conversation in comments with the OP.

With the Applications folder already added to the Dock and View content as set to List...

The following process will allow the Applications Dock Tile to be programmatically clicked with a keyboard shortcut as an Automator service. It requires an AppleScript application and the Automator service. This is done this way so as to avoid having to add every app that has focus when pressing the assigned keyboard shortcut of having to be explicitly granted Accessibility Access. Only the AppleScript application will need permission.

First create the AppleScript application...

In Script Editor add the following AppleScript code to a new document and save it as File Format: Application, e.g.: Click Applications Dock Tile

tell application "System Events"
    click UI element "Applications" of list 1 of application process "Dock"
end tell

Add the AppleScript application, e.g. Click Applications Dock Tile, to Accessibility in...

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility

Now create the Automator service...

In Automator:

File > New, or press: ⌘N
Select Service and click the Choose button.
Set the settings as shown in the first image below.
Add a Launch Application action.
Save as e.g.: Click Applications Dock Tile

In System Preferences...

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services add ⇧⌘Space (press Shift-Command-Space) to the Click Applications Dock Tile service, as shown in the image below.

Note: A word about the shortcut you assign... ⇧⌘Space is offered as a suggestion however, you'll need to select one that doesn't conflict with any app that has focus when pressed. This may require a strange combination or a four character combo. YMMV

Now when pressing the set key combo, the Applications Dock Tile will be clicked and you can then type one, two or three letters, as necessary together, to highlight the target app and then press Enter to open it.

Another approach is to setup a folder with aliases to just the core group of regularly used apps, adding it to the Dock and modifying the steps as appropriate. Or use the following example AppleScript code to create a dialog box that will appear mid-center screen to choose from:

set myAppList to {"Calculator", "Calendar", "Contacts", "Dictionary", "DVD Player", "Firefox", "Safari"}
choose from list myAppList
if (count result) > 0 then
    set appToOpen to item 1 of result
    do shell script "open -a " & quoted form of appToOpen
end if

Just change the app names in the myAppList list to the core group of regularly used apps. The apps shown are just to show what it would look like. BTW If you use this as an app, add an activate command before the choose from list command.

You can type one, two or three letters, as necessary together, to highlight the target app and then press Enter to open it. Or use down or up arrow or click and press Enter or click OK or double click the target. Lots of options.

As a side note, if you use a program like FastScripts, you only need to create the AppleScript code as a .scpt not an .app and can assigned the keyboard shortcut in the Preferences for FastScripts. None of the other instructions apply unless you want to do it all natively without the use of third-party software.

Note that I am not affiliated with the developer of FastScripts, just a satisfied user.


Can I reinstall a single iOS app without losing its data? I have a single app that needs to be reinstalled. I have tried all tricks known to man in attempts to get it to work, but all have failed. There is a lot of data in this app that I'd rather not lose. It isn't explicitly iCloud-enabled, and it's not a game, so there's no hope of Game Center restoring anything. How, if possible, can I reinstall it without losing my data?

While I never tried it myself, in theory you could use something like PhoneDisk to open the app's private folder and copy all the content to your computer. Then, after deleting and reinstalling the app, you should be able to copy the content back.


iPhone X - Newly registered Apple ID I am new to Apple ecosystem and have just obtained an iPhone X. I bought it new from store and during first boot I have created a new Apple ID as I never had one earlier. Now my new phone has been registered to my new Apple ID. At present I want to use my iCloud ID which I have made after that, so my doubt is that is there such thing that i have to keep my Apple ID live (one which I have used during first boot) as my new iPhone that has been registered into it, or can I change the Apple id anytime? I need to understand how Apple ID works and what is the Apple iPhone/product registration onto Apple ID.

First of all, when you create an iCloud account it is also automatically an Apple ID as well. So, based on your question, you now actually have two Apple IDs at your disposal. However, this doesn't mean you need to use both, or that you only have to use one. Let me explain...

An Apple ID can be used to access Apple services such as the iOS App Store, macOS App Store (if you have a Mac), Apple Music, iCloud, iMessage, FaceTime, and so on. So, if you wanted, you could use your Apple ID to sign in to all of Apple's services (i.e. using a single Apple ID and password).

However, you don't have to do it that way. For example, you could use your iCloud account to sign into iCloud on your iPhone X and still use the first Apple ID you created to sign into the App Store on your iPhone X. And you could manage these happily (and simultaneously) on your device. Some people even use three IDs (e.g. a different one for Game Center).

So, based on what you're wanting to do, you can choose to sign out of anywhere you've already used the first Apple ID and then sign back in with the iCloud account you created.

However, there are a couple of scenarios you should be aware of in case they apply to your circumstances:

If you've purchased any apps (free or paid) from the App Store using a particular Apple ID, then you're going to need to enter that Apple ID's password when updating those particular apps in future. One way to get around this would be to delete those apps and then sign out of the App Store. Then, sign back in using the other ID and download those apps again. One negative of this approach is that you'd have to pay for it again if they weren't free.
In the unlikely event that your first Apple ID is attached to one particular country's services (e.g. the US iTunes Store), and the second ID is attached to to another one (e.g. the UK iTunes Store), then you may lose access to any purchases you made using the first ID (depending on the content, as this doesn't apply in all cases). Regardless, this is not something you need to worry about, as this would only be the situation if you deliberately created accounts in multiple jurisdictions for a particular purpose - it's not something that would have happened by accident (unless you purchased the iPhone X in one country and created an Apple ID, and then visited/moved to another country and created your iCloud account there). However, if you were in this situation, then you can still choose to switch between IDs if/when you needed to access/view the other content.

Finally, if you've only just purchased the iPhone X and don't have a lot of data already on it, you could choose to set it up from scratch again and just use the ID you want. If this is the case, post a comment below and I'll explain how to go about doing this.


How do I get  spell checking to work in Google Chrome? Typing adsfsadf on this edit box now... and there is no spell checking. But in the context menu spell checking is activated, and the correct language is selected. The same issue exists on about 90% of the sites I visit.

How do I get it to work? Is there any another spell checking system for Google Chrome?

UPDATED:

Spell schecking works only for Russian. All settings are English (global system settings and on context menu).

Chrome has its own built-in spell checking - which I consider more correct when spell checking multiple languages in the same document (I specifically use English and German).

You can enable it in: Chrome Preferences → Show advanced settings... → Privacy → Use a web service to help resolve spelling errors


eBook formats - Kindle to iBook and back? I am thinking of moving my extensive eBook library to iBooks or Kindle. Has anyone done this, and what does it take?

I just don't want book libraries in multiple proprietary formats, and have to look for content across apps.

Note that there are now three main eBook formats

PDF which is not reflowable text and is used mainly for graphical books. There is a open specification for this.
MobiPocket(Kindle files with extension .mobi (and encrypted as .azw)) The specification is not published and so Amazon can change it when they want.
ePub which is most of the rest including iBooks. This is a published specification and there are open source tools that can create, edit and validate that the book meets the specification.

If the books do not have Digital Rights Management(DRM) then Kindle books can easily be converted to ePub as the format is similar, the reverse can also be done but you might lose some information as ePub data contains more things than Kindle data.

The easiest way to convert is to use Calibre which is a tool for managing ebooks including conversion, loading to devices and organisation of a library of books.

DRM books are tied to the application with which you bought them. An exception is that many ePub EBooks (but not iBooks and not Kindle) use Adobe's DRM and so can can be used in several devices.

There are plugins to Calibre, which are not legal in many countries, which allow removal of the DRM and thus use in Calibre allowing conversion between the formats. However I belive that there is no plugin for decryption of iBooks files.


Is it possible to merge two health sources without losing data? I am using the Health app on iOS 10.3.2 (14F5089a) with 2 Apple Watches paired. However, there are more than 2 watches listed in the Sources tab. I know that only one listing contains the data for one Apple Watch, but the other Apple Watch has 4 listings with only one marked as 'still paired'.

Is there a way I can merge the 4 listings with the least amount of data loss possible?

Please don't delete any Apple Watch from the sources tab if you care about your health records.

You can't merge these entries. If you need to remove an Apple Watch, do. so using the Watch.app on your iPhone.

I have multiple entries for my Apple Watches as well listed in my sources:


AppleScript to click buttons and close tabs Im not really familiar with applescript (using C/Python/Pacsal atm). So far did the autoclicker for my WoW ore prospection.

I would like to use the script on safari to click the link with name "1st Text goes here" to open new tab, then click other link "2nd Text goes here" and then close tab. (repeat n number of times)

My knowledges led me to the following.

tell application "Safari"

end tell

Hints and tips are also appreciated.

Assuming these links are going to be in the same place every time, I'd try Watch Me Do (open up Automator, tell it you want an application. There are lots of built-in actions in the "Internet" subsection of Library, Website Popup looks promising for you.

If that all fails or you want something quick and dirty, pressing the Record button up at the top right will record your screen and keyboard inputs, as well as events for you. You could just code a loop to run the generated code over and over again N times, but be warned that Watch Me Do (the thing activated by record) is only screen scraping. If those links ever move or your window isn't in the same place, the script will bomb, probably clicking on things you don't want it to at all, so be careful!


Different Volume Level for Headsets and Headphones over Combo Jack I have the Sony MDRX10. When I use the cable with the mic, I get lower volume level and distortions at max volume but when I use the headphone only cable, I get much better volume control.

I tried using both cables with my smartphone, and they both produce the same volume. Also, I tested with a portable amplifier connected to my Macbook and then the cable with mic; this gave the same output as the one without the mic.  This makes me think the problem is associated with Mac OS X.

Machine specs: Macbook Pro 13" Mid 2012, Yosemite 10.10.4

Your headphones come with two different cables:

one without a microphone
one with a microphone

The sound quality differs when you use one of these cables, the rest of your setup stays the same. So it is high likely that one of your cables is of low quality or just broken.


OS not starting up, prohibitory symbol I have a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro with Boot Camp, and it supports only up to macOS Catalina, and not Big Sur. This frustrated me and I decided to go off the rules a bit & installed macOS Big Sur (using patched Sur). This was all working fine, until a few days ago, I reseted the PRAM as I was having some issues with the CD-ROM.
The problem started here. After I reseted the PRAM, the MacBook started showing the prohibitory symbol. It scared me a lot since it had a lot of data (class notes, reference books for exams, etc.), and for the past 3 days, I've been searching the internet for its fix.
So, by now I've come to know that this sign comes when the Hard-Drive contains a macOS, but it's not supported on the Mac. Obviously, it contained Big Sur, which was not supported by this model.
On doing Internet recovery, it gave an option of reinstalling Mac OS X Lion, but when selecting a disk to reinstall the OS, it shows only the Boot Camp partition of the Hard Drive and shows the message that it's locked.
So, I wanted to ask if there is any method of reinstalling macOS (and obviously this time I'm not going back to Big Sur, only up to Catalina. This experience was enough) without losing any of my data, both from Boot Camp and macOS? If not, then is there a way I could back up files of macOS partition from Boot Camp partition?
Also, is there a simpler way to bypass this check, like the bypass created by Patched Sur, as that'll mean I'll not have to go back to Lion and reinstall OS updates to go back to Catalina?
Also, I wanted to know what exactly happened when I reseted the PRAM, that this bypass stopped working? This needn't include in the answers, but info on how this happened will help in expanding my knowledge.

Firstly, you should always have a backup of your files, so there should be no question of losing anything. Files without a backup are waiting to be lost.
If the Recovery partition is indeed on Lion, then it won't read the new APFS formatted disk that Big Sur uses.
Your first port of call should be to whoever wrote the patch, and ask them about whether it alters NVRAM in any way. It's possible that the reset is unrelated, and merely coincidental, of course.
I'd suggest that your best course of action is to get an external drive that you can install some working OS to - even if it's Lion, and then upgrade that to Catalina, which at the least will be able to read the disk. Even a cheap 64GB 'thumb' drive may be sufficient in extremis, (though obviously, you'll be buying an external for backing up anyway...)
You should be able to install Catalina on the internal drive once you're running Catalina on the external.
Contrary to popular opinion, Apple don't cut off hardware from new OSes on a whim -- it's usually because the hardware lacks some specific requirement, or the 'experience' is brick slow.
TBH, there's not much that you'll gain from Big Sur: Catalina will run perfectly well and should be compatible with new apps for a few years yet. But ultimately -- it's nearly a 10 year-old laptop. It may well keep running fine as it is for years, but it won't keep pace with the shiniest anymore.


iMessages on Mac consistently disappearing I use iMessages on both my iPhone (6.1.2) and my Retina Macbook (10.8.3). Generally, it works pretty well, but on a somewhat consistent basis messages that I've sent from the Mac will disappear, but only disappear on the Mac. They stay on my phone. It's not a huge deal, but I sometimes like to go review messages via my Mac. Any suggestions?

In the messages prefs, under the messages tab do you have the "save history when conversations are closed" checked or not?

I generally don't close my conversations so I haven't lost any of my messages but if you regularly close them then this might be the option to check, if you haven't already done so.

Also if you have your main (Apple ID) account listed at the top of all your accounts, and make sure that you have your mobile number listed as the "start new conversations from:" section this, hopefully should solve your problems.

I use messages for iMessage and for Facebook chat but it is also set up for gmail...

Hope that helps


How to record iphone 3gs desktop? I am rather new to iPhone. I have iPhone 3gs updated to iOS 5.0. It's jailbroken, I have Cydia, etc.

I tried to find a solution to video record my screen (video of my iphone's screen). I need to show to my friend how a certain app looks like on iphone. However, I was unable to find a tool.

Which tool do you recommend to record iphone's screen? I'd prefer it be free :).

Currently. there isn't any free version of any software that you want that can do screen recording.  But there are two apps last I checked. Both are paid. The first one, last time I checked it was $1.99.  Its on Cydia, its called ScreenRecorder:

http://www.cultofmac.com/33585/record-your-iphone-screen-with-screenrecorder-jailbreak-superguide/

There is also Display Recorder on the Cydia App Store for $4.99:

http://www.jailbreaknation.com/record-your-iphone-screen-on-ios-5-with-displayrecorder

There was also a paid App Store Application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, called Display Recorder but it got pulled from the App Store and I can't find it anymore.

I hope that the first two help, sorry that they aren't free but they work and are pretty awesome, they also have their limitations though, so read up on their limits first before taking the plunge.


Bash command to calculate average on each row and each column Suppose we have a log file like marks.log and the content looks something like this:

Fname   Lname   Net Algo
Jack    Miller  15  20
John    Compton 12  20
Susan   Wilson  13  19

I want to add a new column that contains average for each person (row), and a new row that contains average for each course (column). I'm new to bash can i can't figure the syntax for loops and awk etc.

Based on what you did so far:

awk '{count++; col2 += $2; col3 += $3; print ($2+$3)/2}
     {END print col2/count, col3/count}' marks.log


My storage was not updated I just changed my storage plan for 50 GB for $0.99 per month. When i went on settings>General>Storage and icloud usage, where it said storage above it i didnt have more storage. But the second box, where it said icloud abov it had upgraded to 50 GB. But i dont have any more storage for me to be able to get more apps etc.

Your iCloud storage is how much data you can keep online, in the cloud.
This is variable, depending on how much you pay, for what you need. Your first 5GB is free.

The iPhone itself has a fixed hardware memory, or space, which can only be chosen when you buy it, in 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, or 256 GB configurations.
The total you see in Settings > General > Storage will never be quite this figure, as some of that is needed for the formatting of the memory & the data structure itself.
This memory is where it stores all apps, music, documents etc that your phone can use.


How to reach QHD resolution (external display) on MacBook Pro mid 2012 non-Retina I have a MacBook Pro mid 2012 non-Retina (specs) and an AOC monitor with QHD res, but I cannot get it to reach over 1080p. On the Apple page linked before there is this:

  Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors.

But how can I reach that. Right now I am using a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter and I guess it could be it that limits the resolution. I also used the DVI port instead of HDMI but nothing changed. Any advice?

Tried display port to minidisplay port and it works!


Create an automator service calling a bash script and passing arguments I am trying to automate a bash script which calls pandoc. I would like to highlight a markdown file in finder, then select the 'md2tex' service, which will turn the markdown file into a .tex file. I have got this to run fine in the terminal. However, when I try to automate it, it doesn't work. When I open Automator, I create a new service, then a drag and drop 'run shell script' into the window on the right. Other options are shown in the window below. I have used the $@ symbol to refer to the variable name (name of file). The screenshot shows all of the options / settings.

I get a weird error message 'syntax error at -e line 1'. Any help appreciated.

First, change the Shell pop-up from /usr/bin/perl to /bin/bash. That's what's causing the error -- it's trying to run the script with perl, and it's not in valid perl syntax.

Second, the script itself needs some work. $@ expands to all arguments (in this case, the paths of all selected files), but your script expects just one item. If you don't want it to fail if multiple items are selected, you should either just have it operate on the first, or make it loop over all of the items. looping is usually what you want, and in fact when you add that action to your Automator service it should auto-fill a template for looping over the items. Next, you need to put double-quotes around all references to file paths (and variable references in general) or it'll be hopelessly confused by file/folder names with spaces. Next, the path(s) it's going to receive will include the full filename, including ".md", so adding another ".md" will make it fail. To get the output filename, you may want to remove the ".md" before adding ",tex".

Here's my quick stab at a script:

for f in "$@"
do
    if [[ "$f" = *.md ]]; then
        /path/to/pandoc -s --template=generic.latex "$f" "${f%.md}.tex"
    fi
done

You'll need to fill in the full path to the pandoc executable, in place of "/path/to/pandoc" in the script. You can probably fund this by running the command which pandoc in your regular shell.

I made it skip anything other than ".md" files; you might want to change that part. If so, you might need to generalize the "${f%.md}.tex" part -- that removes a ".md" extension before adding ".tex", but if the input file has some different extension it'll just tack on ".tex" in addition to whatever's there. Warning: don't use "${f%.*}.tex" because in some cases that'll remove part of the directory name the file's in!

Oh, and for actual use as a Finder service, you need to remove the "Get Selected Finder Items" action -- that's good for testing in Automator, but you need to remove it or it'll add whatever's selected in the Finder to what it's supposed to run on (probably meaning it runs twice on everything).


Will my iPhone receive messages after i re-activate it? My iPhone 4s was deactivated last night by my father because I am grounded. I'm not going to have it for ten days and right now it is powered off and lying on the dining room table and, like I said, deactivated. When I turn it back on and he reactivates it, will I receive the texts sent to me during that time period of deactivation? I have Verizon, if that makes a difference.

OK, here is the good and bad news.

  If I have my device turned off, will I still receive text messages?

  If a message is sent to you while your device is off, or while you're
  traveling outside of the Verizon Wireless coverage area, your message
  will be stored for later delivery. Your device must be turned back on
  and have coverage for the message to be delivered to you. The network
  will attempt to deliver the message for five days (120 hours) from the
  date of receipt. Messages not delivered within five days will be
  deleted.

If it is officially Deactivated at Verizon store (or web site) then you will get nothing


Prevent Time Machine From Resizing Disk Image? I've been trying to get Time Machine to stop filling up my NAS with backups, but so far it seems determined to do-so no matter what.

Since Time Machine fails spectacularly with Linux disk quotas, using partitions isn't an option (even if my NAS let me, it's too late to set it up now), I decided to try resizing the disk image using hdiutil resize, which seems to be a common suggestion.

This did seem to work for a while, but as of today Time Machine has inexplicably decided that it knows better than me, and as such the first thing it does is immediately resize the image so that it will inevitably fill all free space on the drive.

As you can imagine this is infuriating, as I'm trying to backup multiple machines on my NAS, but it also runs a few services and other things as well, so I can't have it running out of space.

Is there some way to limit the size of Time Machine's sparse bundle, such that it won't just immediately resize it again?

There is a preference setting for that.  All you need to do is specify, in megabytes, your desired maximum space limit.  In Terminal, enter the following command and replace xxx with your desired size limit.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize xxx


App Store asks for old Apple ID when installing updates I got a MacBook that a colleague of mine had used previously. It runs OS X 10.10.2. I created a new administrator account for myself and turned off the "admin" flag on the old account.

I also entered my iCloud / Apple ID account, so that it syncs my calendars and contacts correctly, and even in the App Store, I am signed in with my correct account.

But when I try to install pending software updates (that is, OS X system updates!), the window that pops up has the the e-mail address of my colleague filled in and greyed out—and I can't change it.

Note that I'm signed in with a different (correct) account in the App Store. When I go to Featured and click Account on the right, it has my correct e-mail address filled in:

How do I make the App Store "forget" the old Apple ID?

I found a thread where it just says "it's not possible", and that apps are glued to the original account the Mac was set up with, but that doesn't make a lot of sense, especially in a company where laptops may be handed over from one person to another.

To delete the application from the Launchpad. Hold down the icon until they all jiggle and the (x) appears. Click that on the app you want to delete, then confirm.
If you do this while the App Store's Updates page is displaying the application, you can then just update!
If not, you will have to download it again. This might mean paying for it again. But if it's family plan eligible, it will show as needing to buy it and you'll have to confirm payment, but then it will inform you that it's family plan eligible and you'll get to download it again for free.
If going through this leaves the app missing from the Launchpad (it did for me one time), then drag the app to the trash (confirming with your password if necessary), wait 10 seconds, and drag it back (possibly confirming again). That should alert Launchpad to its presence.
I hope this helps people in the future. I wasted a lot of time figuring this out, and couldn't find a clue on the web.


Has Apple solved the problem of new iPods not charging on old Bose docks? New ipod classic (purchased 2-25-12 from Target) DOES charge on our OLD Bose dock (pleasant surprise) whereas ipods purchased 1-2 years ago do not.  I am vaguely aware that the non-charging situation was deliberate by Apple (something about the pins) to avoid the possibility of the old Bose dock "zapping" the ipod (pardon my lack of correct tech lingo).  We even bought a new Bose dock to solve the problem, but kept the old one too.  Now, my daughters brand new ipod classic charges in the OLD dock!  Has anyone else experienced this and/or know what is going on? Thanks!

The difference you're referring to is the ability to charge over the FireWire pins, which Apple removed from most iPods/iPhones several years ago.

However, as you've discovered, iPod Classics are still able to charge via FireWire. I expect this functionality could be removed at any revision, but for now, consider yourself lucky ;)


MacBook Pro dead screen with update to High Sierra My MacBook Pro 15” 2012 Retina screen is completely black. This happened right after I updated to High Sierra. I tried doing all the resets, and at some point I realized that I could flashlight the screen from behind the logo, so I tried more things. Suddenly the screen turned on when I turned on the computer, and I could see the apple logo, but then it went black again - and now I can’t see the screen when I put a flashlight to it, for some reason.

Does anyone know what I can do? Or alternatively, is there a way for me to screenshare with AirPlay that I can access without being able to see the screen?

Do you get the normal startup screen with the Apple logo? Or is it always black from the instant you turn it on?

You could try an external monitor if you have access to one, you could also try holding Shift at startup to see if booting into safe mode changes things.

And if those don't work it may be time to make an appointment with an Apple genius or other local repair shop.


How to check for and remove FileVault2 iCloud recovery key [macOS Mojave 10.14.6]
I created a bootable external SDD. I apparently didn't follow the traditional path of installing macOS and then enabling FileVault later in settings. Instead, I formatted the new drive using Disk Utility (using AFPS/GUID) and enabled encryption there, setting a password at the time of its creation.
I then installed macOS on the already-encrypted drive (it asked me to enter the password, unlocked the drive, and then proceeded with installation). Somewhere along the way, it asked me if I wanted my iCloud account to be able to recover the disk in case I forgot my password. I foolishly chose iCloud before understanding the implications and risks (i.e. I later learned about elcomsoft).
Now, when I go into settings, it shows that FileVault is enabled, however it does not say anything about a personal recovery key, iCloud, anything else. It just says that it's enabled, and offers me the option to "Turn Off FileVault". I did some digging and discovered some commands:
caffeinatedbits ~$ sudo fdesetup isactive
true
caffeinatedbits ~$ sudo fdesetup status -extended
FileVault is On.
FileVault master keychain appears to be installed.
Volume is APFS. (FileVault Enabled)
caffeinatedbits ~$ sudo fdesetup usingrecoverykey
This command is not supported on APFS volumes.
caffeinatedbits ~$ sudo fdesetup haspersonalrecoverykey
false
caffeinatedbits ~$ sudo fdesetup hasinstitutionalrecoverykey
false

I can't seem to find anything conspicuous in my iCloud keychain. Just the basic records.
Question #1
How can I verify that my iCloud account has a recovery key?
Question #2
How do I remove that key so that my iCloud account can NOT be used to unlock my drive?

You can run this command from the terminal to verify that your iCloud account has a recovery key:
sudo fdesetup list -verbose -extended

The list should include your OS users as well as a "iCloud Recovery Record".
The easiest way to remove the recovery key from the GUI is simply to disable FileVault 2 and then enable it again afterwards (this time do not store the recovery key in iCloud ofcourse). The process does take considerable time, but you can use the computer while it processes.


Mavericks window loses focus on Cmd+Tab In OS X Mavericks (10.9) I have discovered a very annoying bug.

To reproduce:

Have an external monitor connected to your Mac
Open two windows of the same application (e.g Chrome), and place one window on your Mac and the other on the external display
Click in the window on your external display to bring focus to it
⌘ Cmd+Tab ⇥ to another app (e.g Code editor)
⌘ Cmd+Tab ⇥ back to the app
Focus is now in the window on your Mac, and not on the external display (where the focus originally was). This means you have to click in the window to bring focus to it again.

Practically this means, I can no longer have a window open on my Mac while working with the same app on the external display. How can I solve this?

I can't help with this but I can confirm that this is one of many issues with multi screen multi window applications on mavericks. As he says, when you have 2 windows of the same app open on different screen, it will always give focus to the one on the primary monitor when you cmd+tab away and back to the app. This makes it rather annoying for development work when you are switching between a browser and editor regularly.


Using startup commands when the default startup disc is not OSX I have to use a startup command (ie command - S for single user mode) when restarting my computer, but this is proving to be impossible, as the startup disc is windows by default on my computer - unless I hold option at start, I cannot choose to go into OSX, and when I hold the startup command I want without holding option, my computer just goes into windows - it doesn't work when I hold a startup command after I choose to run OSX, either.

Additionally, I cannot get into my system preferences to change the startup disc, as I cannot login (which is part of the reason why I need to use a startup command in the first place). I cannot change the startup disc on windows, either.

Does anyone have a fix for this?

OS is Lion, w/ a 2006 Mac Pro

You can boot to the Lion recovery partition by holding the option key during the reboot.  From there, you can select the startup disk, similarly to if you were running system preferences.

From there, the single-user mode boot should work as you expect.


Time Capsule full system restore to a new Mac My current MacBook Pro is configured to run both OSX and Windows, either via Boot Camp or Parallels.   It's backing up to a Time Capsule.

I want to set up a new MacBook Pro with the identical configuration along with data and applications that reside in both partitions.

Can a backup be restored onto a new machine and have both OSX and Windows partitions?

Unfortunately, Time Capsule won't back up your Windows partition. You'd have to do that separately.

I'd suggest using a program like Crashplan to backup your entire Windows hard drive to an external HDD (free with Crashplan). Then format and/or restore you Mac OS X hard drive from Time Capsule without changing the partitions, and finally format and/or restore your Windows partition from the Crashplan backup.

Of course, Windows being Windows, needing a format every now and then (yes, I'm prejudiced) and not having a proper "restore entire OS from backup" option like Mac OS X, an easier road might just be to backup the actual important data of your Windows partition, like documents and application preferences, onto an external hard drive, and to then format the partition and install a fresh copy of Windows to which you copy your important stuff. That's probably what I would do.


What's the best way to manage iPhone (live) photos and videos on PC? I've a lot of photos and videos taken on my iPhone. I'll usually copy the files of the photos/videos periodically from my iPhone to my PC. But this method of copying files manually is messy because the filenames of the image stored on iPhone sometimes can get confusing.

I'm copying these files not for restoring them to my iPhone later, but to free up space.

I'm not using the backup feature in iTunes for this because that backup is only an image of the phone and it doesn't let me view the photos.

Is it possible, on a Windows 10 PC, that I can store, transfer and manage photos/videos from my iPhone to PC such that I can view the pictures/videos and recognise the albums in the Photo App on my iPhone?

Also, it will be great if there is a way to somehow organise and preview Live Photos! Live Photos are a pain because they are actually 2 files and it's so easy to just miss out one of them!

Install the web-based app in Google Play.
Go to web.airmore.com
Scan the QR code or click the device to build the connection.
Choose "Pictures" or "Videos".

Press "Export"


macOS: Setting up an administrative account from a user account without admin password I need to get administrative privileges from a standard user account. I am using macOS Sierra 10.12.6. I have six accounts on my MacBook for me and my family. One of them is administrative and the rest are standard user accounts.

I gave myself a standard account as well, aside from the admin account. I regularly use the user account. Now I have forgotten the password to the admin account, and we can not gain access to it. Needless to say that is causing some problems here at home, albiet we can still use our separate user accounts but nothing that needs admin privileges. Some insight would be helpful and appreciated.

Apple has a guide that covers all the permutations and combinations (iCloud / FileVault / forgetfulness / no password at all)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202860

If you have FileVault turned on, you likely need to reset the password with Recovery boot.

Reset admin password without the old password

If you don't have FileVault turned on, you can simply make a new admin account and then use that user/password to make any other non-admin accounts back into admin accounts.

How can I get admin access to a Mac without knowing the current password?

The above covers my favorite way - remove .AppleSetupDone and make a new account, but some people prefer to not worry about a new admin user and just do the full reset with ddcl

You can no longer just force the reset from the OS that's running - that's the same as defeating the reason to have a password and Apple has patched all the easy / known ways to do that I believe.


Is OS X Server an Operating system or a service suite? I have Yosemite.  I am considering installing OS X server 4.0.  According to developer.apple.com:

  You can, however, install OS X Server and enable Xcode Server on your
  development Mac.

What exactly is OS X Server 4.0?  Does installing require me to have a freshly formatted machine?  In other words, does it overwrite Yosemite with a totally new OS (similar to Windows Server 2012 vs Windows 8)?  Or, does it simply extend my Mac with new capabilities like a powerful program suite?

OS X Server 4 is an application. (.app) that is installed over the OS.  It won't require you to format the entire drive to install it.  It will just add the needed features to take advantage of the Server.app suite.


Is it possible to quit TextEdit by clicking the red x of the last open file (w/o add'l software)? If you open TextEdit and then click on the red x in the top bar of the document, TextEdit will remain open. This is evidenced by the little black dot under TextEdit, despite no TextEdit documents being open. Why Apple designed it like this? I haven't the slightest idea.

I've found a piece of third-party software that offers this functionality called "RedQuits."

Is it possible for TextEdit to automatically quit itself when the x is pressed, without installing additional software?

The document window's close button in TextEdit does just what it's supposed to do, it closes the document window. It's not there to close the application, that's what ⌘Q is for.

So, to answer your question, no you cannot quit TextEdit by clicking the close button of a document window by itself, you'd need to use a third party app to add that functionality.


How Many iTunes Accounts I have an iPhone 4 with an iTunes account. My husband got his own iPhone 4 today. Is it better to have one or two iTunes accounts, but not have to rebuy apps.

I think that Apple's article on iTunes Home Sharing should cover what you're looking for. My husband and I have separate accounts, and anything we both want, we share.


Why Has the "Downloads" folder become Read-Only? Recently my Downloads folder has become read-only. This prevents Safari form saving any file amongst other annoyances.

As you can see from the below image the folder is read-only but I have plenty of disk space.

As you can see in the Info window it not locked. I am logged in as a user with admin rights etc, etc...

You didn't specify that you can't change it back using the Info GUI, but I'm assuming that to be the case, since it wouldn't really be an issue otherwise.

A fix to try would be to change the permissions from the command line:

Open Terminal.app
Enter cd ~
Enter sudo chmod +w Downloads


iPhone 6 location services only update location every 20 minutes or so I have an iPhone 6 (iOS 12.4.5) that struggles with finding its location. When it's not on WiFi, it:

Thinks I'm thousands of feet away from where I actually am
Has a giant "radius" where it thinks I could be in
Can only update my position about every 20 minutes, and still gets it wrong

Cellular data and location services are enabled, and this happens on every app. There doesn't seem to be a problem with cellular data; it can download things just fine. The device is a bit over 5 years old (Sept. 2014)

What I've tried:

Toggle Location Services
Toggle Airplane Mode
Soft- and Hard-Reboot iPhone
Uninstalled apps that I thought might be interfering
Reset my location settings
Reset my network settings

How can I get location services to work correctly again?

From a page at Quora:

The phone uses three methods to determine your location, depending on what it can access at any time. First, it uses a GPS that triangulates to satellites in the sky to determine your location within a few feet. But you must have a reasonably unobstructed view of the sky. Second, if you are not in airplane mode, and can reach a cell tower, the phone triangulates to available cell phones towers and estimates where you are based on the signal strength of the various towers it can reach. This is the least accurate method, but it covers a lot of ground and can be surprisingly good. Third, and finally, if your phone can pick up on wi-fi signals from local homes and businesses. these have been cataloged to allow Apple to tell about where you are, even if the wi-fi signal is encrypted. (I THINK this still works, but I’m less sure.)
Some combination of these can nail your location very accurately most of the time.
But sometimes my phone still thinks I’m maybe a mile from where I am, usually if I’m in a building and my wi-fi is turned off.

From a Support Page at Apple:

With your permission, Location Services allows apps and websites (including Maps, Camera, Weather, and other apps) to use information from cellular, Wi-Fi, Global Positioning System (GPS) networks, and Bluetooth to determine your approximate location.
Apps that can show your location on the screen, including Maps, show your current (approximate) location using a blue marker. In Maps, if your location can’t be determined precisely, you’ll see a blue circle around the marker. The size of the circle shows how precisely your location can be determined—the smaller the circle, the greater the precision. When Location Services is active, a black or white arrow icon appears in the status bar.

In conclusion, the best way to make sure Location Services is finding you in the correct location is to have a clear, unblocked connection to GPS satellites, which isn't always possible.


Finder stacked icons in icon view causes finder to crash I have 2,260 photos in my Dropbox Camera Uploads folder. Somehow they all got stacked on top of each other. When the camera upload is complete, it launches the camera uploads folder in finder in this stacked view. This pretty much instantly brings my computer to a halt and crashes finder. I have tried refreshing every plist and cache I could find to get finder to "forget" this stacked view to no avail.

How do I get finder to completely forget all of it's "remembered" view preferences?

As tubedogg has mentioned, it is the .DS_Store which stores the information related how the Finder formats a particular folder's view.  By deleting the .DS_Store file using Terminal.app, you will reset the view options of that folder.

However, if you are not comfortable using the terminal, you can go to Finder, and open a new window from the File menu: File > New Finder Window.

Now, click on your home folder in the sidebar, and then set the window view to column mode by clicking the button shown in the following screenshot, or by going to the View menu and selecting As Columns.

Navigate to your camera uploads folder, and select one of the images in the folder, just to make sure that the Camera Uploads folder is selected.  Next, from the View menu, change some view parameters, such as Arrange By, and then change the view to List (all this is just so that the .DS_Store file gets overwritten with new changes)

No guarantee that it will work, but it's worth a shot.

Having said all that, the simplest way to reset it is just to simply use the terminal command that tubedogg suggested. However: I would recommend against the -rf. There is no need for the force & recursive flags.  It just adds extra risk if something were to be mistyped. I'd suggest the following:

rm "/Users/$(whoami)/Dropbox/Camera Uploads/.DS_Store"


How can I use my existing Time Machine drive on the network? I have an external HD that I've been using as a time machine for my MBP.  Here's what I want to do:

attach the drive to my desktop machine
configure time machine on my MBP to use the drive as a time machine through the network
retain my existing backups...

So I want time machine to continue using the same backups it always did when the drive was connected locally.  I do not want to start from scratch.
I know how to set time machine to use a network drive rather than a locally attached drive, but it doesn't recognize the existing backups (it wants to start over).  I'm not afraid of the terminal... how can I get this working?
on edit:
I got a large drive to use during the conversion, but the link below didn't help because there was no hex id to be found on my machine in the second step  :/

You'll need to convert your current local-style Time Machine into a sparsebundle before it will be usable in TM over the network. You'll need some temporary storage somewhere to create your converted backup into during this conversion.

I don't know the exact conversion procedure but here are some Google'd links:
http://www.tidbits.com/Talk/1960
http://jason-townsend.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-transfer-local-time-machine.html

Something along the lines of hdiutil convert -format UDSB


Font Book finds duplicate fonts installed by Microsoft Office Once you install Microsoft Office on a Mac, you get a bunch of new fonts. This is great, except many of them conflict with existing fonts that shipped with OS X.

Open Font Book.
Select all fonts in the middle column.
File > Validate Fonts.

This is an example of what I'm talking about:

For every conflict the same font is located in each of the following folders:

/Library/Fonts/
/Library/Fonts/Microsoft/

Obviously, one way to resolve this conflict would be to choose one and remove the other. Or I could just leave it alone, since I really didn't notice the issue until just now when I tried validating my fonts -- they are the same fonts after all.

What are the pros/cons/considerations of each solution I've proposed? Is there a third way? How do you prefer to deal with this?

If you want to save space and remove the extra fonts, I'd recommend selecting everything, then right-clicking and selecting "Resolve Duplicates." I'm fairly sure Font Book favors fonts without any detectable bugs and with more characters, but in any case it will automatically disable any duplicate fonts.


iOS8 Health: Steps VS Flights Climbed VS Walking+Running Distance I would like to know the exact difference between 'Steps', 'Flights Climbed' and 'Walking+Running Distance' on iOS8. While 'Flights Climbed' clearly refers to the number of flights of stairs climbed, how is it different from 'Steps', unless 'Steps' refers to the moving of the feet regardless of terrain, in which case it should be no different from 'Walking+Running Distance'. Therefore, it seems to me that there is a superfluous component, in either one of the three categories.
(Note that I refer to the manual inputting of data into the app. I believe that third-party apps would have their own way of inputting data into the app.)

You need an iPhone 6 to be able to calculate 'flights' without any external device or manual input, as it uses a new sensor, the altimeter/air pressure sensor.

Steps is 'how many paces you took'
Walking/running distance is your total distance travelled - but of course paces are much longer when running.
Flights is 'how many times did your elevation change by more than [I think] 12ft whilst you were walking.'

As far as I'm aware, 'steps' is included in 'flights', as the lateral component.
Walking up a hill will generate data for both lateral [steps] & vertical [flights] components.


"IOSurface seed changed" warnings in console In Console.app, in the System logging section, I'm seeing messages like this, at a rate of roughly one per second:

  19:09:38 kernel: Warning: IOSurface 00000236 seed changed while owned by an accelerator 00000003: 00000304 -> 00000146

What is this, and can I make it stop?  It's making it almost impossible to read anything else in the log.

From the Apple Developer Reference, IOSurface is an API being called that allow applications to move complex image decompression and draw logic into a separate process to enhance security.

Apps that share media utilize this API, such as Messages or QuickTime.

I've read that this issue can arise when using a VPN, but I can't seem to corroborate that at the moment.


Using my current 3G Sim with the iPad I'm thinking of buying an iPad at some point, the one with 3G.

I also have a 3G dongle that I'm not really using at the moment and wish to use on the iPad. I understand that it's a MicroSim, and I can chop my SIM down, but are there any 3G sim locks on the iPad itself?

The only thing I think I'll need to find out is the 3G settings (if it isn't locked). I'm in the UK and I have an orange contract.

So am I right in thinking that if the iPad is not locked to a certain 3G network, I can use this?

Thanks

The iPad with 3G is sold unlocked. In the UK, the iPad with 3G will work with Orange, Three, O2, and Vodafone.

To be pedantic, the iPad's 3G connection will not work with carriers such as T-Mobile USA, which in part uses the 1700 MHz frequency for 3G. The iPad with 3G supports the necessary frequencies to fully work in the UK with Orange, Three, O2, and Vodafone, and SIMs from these carriers can be swapped seamlessly.


Build fails with configure: error: could not make ./config.status Facing a strange build error on OSX 10.12. Unable to build any software at the command line. For example none of the packages Opus, PJSIP, and LibreSSL will build. (Dependencies for Telephone: https://github.com/eofster/Telephone) All the configure steps exit with the same error.

configure: creating ./config.status
configure: error: could not make ./config.status

Xcode 8.1 is installed with command line tools.

$ gcc -v
Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.42.1)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin16.1.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin

I reinstalled command line tools once already.

A few days ago I was trying to build Jekyll and that too failed with the same error. I gave up at the time thinking it was some Jekyll related error.

Any pointers will help.

So finally it works, but I can't say it's solved because I don't have the exact cause of the problem.
It turns out that this could be a PATH related issue. I came across this post that mentions the possibility of a PATH causing problems.
Though I could see nothing related to ruby or java or python on my PATH, I had previously played around with rbenv, jenv, and pyenv. The only thing I currently had was npm-packages on my PATH.
So I just commented out everything related to PATH on my ~/.bash_profile and tried the configure again, and voila!, it works! The config.status file is created, configure --help also displays the help info, etc.
I've yet to figure out what was the offending segment on my PATH. But for the moment, I'm happy that I'm able to start building at the command line again! Hope this helps someone facing similar problems in the future.


How does one transfer old apps from one Mac to a new Mac? I have some app on my old iMac (Dasiy Disk, MS Word, etc) that I want to install on a new MacBook Pro. What is the best way to do that?

I tried taking some of the apps and saving copies in Dropbox and then opening from the new Mac. That didn't work.

Your best bet for an automatic process is running Migration Assistant on the new / destination Mac. It will ask you to connect the old Mac in target disk mode or connect a Time Machine backup of the old Mac. If you don’t want to use target disk mode - you can also use Disk Utility / Carbon Copy Cloner / Super Duper to make a bootable clone of your old Mac to an external drive and connect that when Migration Assistant asks for the old Mac to be connected.

From there - it can move over user accounts, applications and/or settings and other files from the old Mac to the new Mac.

Lots of good examples here:

Migrating to new iMac, what does Migration Assistant actually migrate?
Recovering all my old settings, apps etc ... from removed hard drive
Best way to move to a new Mac
How can I transfer data from a G5 iMac to an i7 iMac?


How does installing XCode, Visual Studio and Unity on my mac impact my computer's speed? Most of the time I use my mac computer for graphics design but I enjoy coding too. Since clean-installing macOS a few months ago, I avoided installing XCode, Unity and Visual Studio for fear that with all their dependencies, they might bog down my aging computer.

However I wonder whether this is the actual case given that osx apps tend to be statically linked and self-contained.

Do these three Dev Tools slow my computer down somehow by their mere existence, or is it only disk space that they occupy when I am not using them?

No, they do not slow your computer down by their mere existence. Yes, they will occupy disk space.

It hasn't got anything to do with them being statically linked.


MacBook doesn't remember Screen Orientation I've got at work two external displays + a MBP 13" 2017. (OS: Mojave 10.14.1 Beta)

The monitors are both BenQ (GL2450), connected via HDMI to a Thunderbolt 3 port. (one through hub, one through plain adapter)

Now I have rotated the left screen by 90 degrees and set up the Internal Display on the right, it all works fine. Until I come back to work after disconnecting everything for > 1h. Then all my screens rotation are messed up, the normally pivoted display is back to default, and the default display is now rotated by 90 degrees, though I did NOT switch Ports on the MBP or Adapters.

Only way to fix this is to manoeuvre the mouse through messed up displays and go to the system settings and change everything back to normal.
Problem there is, if I rotate the most left monitor (default -> 90), it asks for confirmation, and most of the times I can't reach it fast enough through the messed up displays. Interestingly enough, if I rotate the middle monitor first (90 -> default), it doesn't ask for permission.

It's annoying to do this every morning I arrive to work, though I started to see it as kind of a challenge. No the OS is not the problem ... I'm in this situation way longer than Mojave was announced.

EDIT:
tried to narrow down the problem by plugging in cables at different times, rebooting, other monitors etc. nothing of that worked. I'm out of ideas.

I had this same issue. So the solution is:

The external monitor should be connected.
From App drawer open ColorSync Utility.
In Devices column, select display and Under Displays select your external monitor.
Check if "Factory profile" path and "Current profile" path both are same.
If not select drop down arrow next to "Current Profile" and select "Other".
Select the same file name which is mentioned under Factory path.

Now your monitor will remember the screen orientation. Hope it helps :)


Seagate is not allowing me to make partition on MS-DOS (FAT) Or ExFAT! I just bought an external hard drive (Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2 TB) for my Mac (Yosemite installed) for professional photography.

I wanted to make partitions for both Mac and Windows, but it only allows for Mac. I think as I tried so many time. So I put Basic device (2 TB) on Mac (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) and then made two partition, one just for the Mac (Mac OS Extended (Journaled) 500 GB) and main one (photos 1.5 TB) for Mac and PC.

I wanted to connect it to a TV also. But unfortunately it isn't detected there. I think because the basic drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Is it? How to make a basic device on FAT32 or exFat? (I know how to make partitions though but  Seagate doesn't allow me to make one with a specific format) So then I can make partition and use this device on my Samsung LED too. Or should I return and buy WD Passport? I don't know what to do. I hope anyone will have good suggestions here.

By accident I found that, by attempting to reformat my Seagate drive as FAT32 (which failed), I was then able to reformat to Mac OS (J Ex) with the partition options available… This then said it was able to work as a startup disk – not tried booting from the CCC backup yet, fingers crossed!


Return only one line per file with grep in Terminal Various posts in other forums have suggested that the best way to use grep to return a single line per file is using -m 1, which is the --max-count option. However, when I write the following line, I get only one file, not one line per file:

grep -m 1 "library" ./ -R

Returns a single file on a single line:

.//results/fig/fig_functions.R:# library(plyr)

Whereas

grep "library" ./ -R

Returns many files, each with multiple lines:

.//results/fig/fig_functions.R:# library(plyr)
.//results/fig/fig_functions.R:# library(grid)
.//src/rmd/genevese_params.html:library(sf)
.//src/rmd/genevese_params.html:library(raster)
[many more lines and files...]

I would like the command to return all files containing the text, but only return one line per file. Am I using grep incorrectly or is there another way to do this?

It's not working as expected because Macs use a BSD version of grep while the answers you're seeing are for GNU grep as found on Linux. They're very similar but not identical, and they handle -m differently. BSD grep treats -m as covering the full output, while GNU's version is per-file.

One way to get the result you describe is like this:

find . -type f -exec grep -H -m1 library '{}' \;

This uses find to get the path to every file in . (recursively, so it gets all sub-directories) an then runs grep -m1 on each of them. The -type f tells find to only get regular files, not directories and other things. The -H tells grep to print the names of matching files, not just the matching text.

Another way would be to install GNU grep, using Homebrew.


Name assigned to the scrolling images in the camera app Odd question, but i am trying to recall what the small horizontal scrolling set of thumbnail images under a photo is called (in the iPhone camera app)

The term i sought was "scrubber".. Caught a reference watching "Altered Carbon" and my brain immediately recalled this question from weeks ago. ;) I found a few references on the web to confirm.


El Captian not showing user account after creating second one I am using Macbook Pro with El-Captian. I had only one user account in the machine and I created one another. After creating the new one, old user account is not showing in the login screen. It is showing in the Users & Group listing and I have tried a number of things like checking Firevault, creating root user etc. Actually my work files are there in the old account and even I can access the files with root access some of the applications like Vagrant is not working fine. It will be helpful if anyone can suggest me what I need to do now to get access to the old user account. I tried to change login option to Name and Password, but it also not working.

You most probably have Automatic login turned on. Try to turn it off from the same window where you set login option to name and password.


502 Proxy error when trying to use Homebrew php72 with Server.app websites I'm having a puzzling issue with a website on macOS server (server.app 5.6, High Sierra 10.13).

All works fine when the url length is below 70 characters. 70 and up and I'm getting a Proxy error.
The actual absolute path char count respectively <= 94 - works, > 94 - Error

Can there be a limit set somewhere?

EDIT

Seems to be related to change of the PHP from system to Homebrew.

EDIT 2

The OS PHP version shipped with the Server.app is 7.1.32 – it works but is missing the intl extension that I need for a Magento 2.3.3 project
(I think intl is shipped with the Server.app or MacOS/Xcode but inactive by default)

The Homebrew PHP version that I was trying to use: 7.2.25

The MySQL version: 8.0.16 (Oracle community)
The MySQL actually says that it's compiled for MacOS 10.14 and I run MacOS 10.13, not sure if that is important)

EDIT 3

After more testing I noticed the error pops-up also with shorter, simple urls, random pages, without any pattern really (when using Homebrew PHP).

I've compared the php.ini from OS and Homebrew installations with a diff but failed to find any significant differences. The error appears even on a simple Wordpress websites that don't use any of the advanced php extensions.

I've got the same Homebrew PHP installed on my other Mac, same OS but also Homebrew MySQL and without the proxy – it works fine.

Trying to get to the bottom of that... most likely the issues are related with the specific configuration of the bundled Apache server on MacOS.

I think the only solution would be re-installing Apache with eg. Homebrew, which is effectively migrating away from the outdated Server.app.


Now that MacOS Catalina has moved to zsh, can I upgrade bash 3.2.57 with 5.0.3? I understand apple's move from bash to zsh, though I'd really rather that they hadn't made the change.

I've tried zsh, and decided that I'd prefer to remain with bash.

So, since MacOS Catalina isn't using /bin/bash any more, am I going to run into any problems if I replace it with the new version? (  3.2.57 with 5.0.3 ).

I wouldn't have thought of doing this before, because it would have been quite possible that some part of the OS relied on a feature that had changed in new versions.

Now, though, that /bin/bash isn't officially used, can we change it?

If so, that would be a really positive side-effect of the move to zsh. We can keep our user accounts compatible with out linux accounts, all using zsh, and keep the latest version running on all our machines, without having any danger of a conflict with the OS.

You can't easily (and shouldn't) change/upgrade /bin/bash. You can install a more recent version of bash through Homebrew though, and use the information from How to use bash as default shell to change your login shell.

This will not break any existing bash scripts as these refer to #!/bin/bash in the first line.


Formatting Boot Drive As Encrypted For Clean Install I don't know if my google-fu is broken today or something, but I can't seem to find any information about why I would or wouldn't want to erase and format an internal boot drive and/or partition thereof as Journaled, Extended prior to doing a clean OS install. Everything I've come across only mentions using Disk Utility to format an external storage drive as Journaled, Encrypted, using Disk Utility to format a boot drive/partition as Journaled or using File Vault to encrypt an already formatted drive. What differences are there between formatting the drive and partition as Journaled, Encrypted and then, also, turning on File Vault vs. formatting the drive and partition as simply Journaled and then turning on File Vault?

If you format a drive as Encrypted, you are in fact turning on File Vault, as that's the only encryption layer that OS X supports. The main advantage of partitioning the drive as Journaled, and then turning on File Vault is that you can revert the drive to a simple unencrypted volume if you should choose to do so in the future. You can't do this with a volume that was formatted directly as Encrypted. Other than that, the end result is the same.


How to restore a jailbroken iphone 5s? I have a jailbroken iPhone 5s 32gb. After the jailbreak my iPhone is detecting by iTunes, but It would not back up, restore, or sync. It is just stuck on iTunes. What is the procedure to restore the original iOS software? I can connect to my PC only itunes. "not detecting on other PC itunes"

You need to boot the phone into DFU mode.

Plug the iPhone cable into the phone and the computer, with iTunes open.
Turn off the device.
Hold the Power button for 3 seconds.
Hold the Home and Power buttons for 10 seconds.
Release the Power button but keep holding the Home button until iTunes recognises the phone.

The screen will turn on, but it will be black. iTunes will recognise the phone in DFU mode and give you the option to restore.


How can I permanently modify OS X's green window button? In older versions of Mac OS X, clicking the green button in a window title bar cause the window to grow in size, usually to grow to the full height and/or width of the screen.

In later versions, the behavior changed. Now clicking the green button causes the window to enter full-screen mode with both the menu bar and Dock hidden. Holding down the Option key while clicking the green button provides the grow-window behavior while changing the icon displayed when hovering.

I would like to revert to the old behavior where clicking the green button grows the window without going into full-screen mode.

Is there a way to permanently modify the behaviour of the green window button in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan)? Or more recent versions?

Perhaps some preference setting written with at command-line tool in Terminal.app?

Might be nice to reverse the behaviors, if possible:

Click to grow window
Option+click to enter full-screen mode.

The following approaches are not suitable solutions:

Option+click
Any app that provides a hotkey or drag options
Spectacle
BetterTouchTool
Double-click the title bar

The behaviour you want to achieve is not trivially possible on OS X. The behaviour requires modifications to the underlying window management framework.

Individual application developers may be able to achieve this behaviour but this would go counter to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. Going against these guidelines might risk the application being rejected from the Mac App Store.

Tell Apple

Send Apple your feedback and let them know what you want and, most importantly, why you want this behaviour.


MBAir wifi hardware not installed I posted this question over at the Apple Support forums a couple days ago, but I haven't gotten an answer yet so I'll also post it here.

Ever since I bought my 11' mid-2011 MBA I have issues with wifi. When the computer awakens from sleep, wifi gets turned off and can't be activated again. If I reboot, the wifi icon is greyed out and says "Wifi hardware not installed". The only way to fix it is by turning off and then powering on the MBA.

I've tried various fixes to no avail. I took a screen capture of the messages and also saved system reports of the three stages in this issue: wifi ok, wifi can't be activated and wifi not installed.

Can anyone help me?

http://d.pr/LZGb → system reports

http://d.pr/cng4 → screen capture

Thanks.

I have experienced the same problem on the same hardware, my solution (which has ben working OK for 3 days now) was to replace the DNS server settings with Primary, Secondary & Tertiary number strings determined by running an app called namebench.


Using earpods from iphone5 with iphone 3g I'm about to buy earpods, but since i have iphone 3g, and i didnt find any info on its compatibility, would like to know if they will work with old iphone? AFAIK every 3.5inch headphones will work

Yes, they work as expected. I'm using them at the moment with an older phone.


Cannot switch FaceTime call to iPhone after initiating it on my Mac I initiated a call on my MacbookPro (running OS X Yosemite), but I cannot transfer it to my iPhone while it's in progress, as advertised on the Continuity feature.

The Apple Support article says:

  Transfer the call to your iPhone: Unlock your iPhone, then tap the “Touch to return to call” banner at the top of the screen on your iPhone.

When I unlock my iPhone 6 Plus (running iOS 8.1), however, no banner appears at the top of the screen, and my phone seems to completely ignore the presence of a call.

Since there are no troubleshooting steps listed on the Apple Support guide for this issue, is there any way to troubleshoot this issue or to fix it?

The continuity is only for cellular calls, which are routed through the iPhone, but doesn’t work with facetime calls.

FaceTime would have to just be configured on both devices and you pick up directly without needing a hand-off from one ringing to cause the other to ring.


Chrome on Mac: Annoying floating window Recently I see a floating window when using Google Chrome on Mac. I can't close it. It appears on top of any web page. When I right click on the Window, there's a menu shown as below:

Would you please tell me how to hide this window? Thanks in advance!

Closing and reopening Chrome eliminated a un-clickable floating window on my mac.

The window was floating over most other windows on a 2nd monitor and was quite large.  I was able to create a third desktop with the "show desktop" function, then drag my working windows to the new desktop (including the windows hidden behind the unclickable image) then I destroyed the crippled desktop by clicking on the X in the 'show desktop' header.  However, a small unclickable image (with the same graphic as the problem window) remained hovering on the newly populated desktop.

I closed Chrome, and the image went away.  It did not return when I reopened chrome and recovered my history.

This was Chrome Version 79.0.3945.130 (Official Build) (64-bit) on macOS Mojave 10.14.6 on 2020-02-12.


Adding a third Airport Express causes dramatic network slow down When TWO AirPort Express are on everything works as expected, strong and fast wifi everywhere, music streams fine. But when a THIRD AirPort Express is on, the wifi slows down to about 100k/s

This is independently from which of the three AirPort Express is turned off (so not a malfunction with a particular one) I have run wireless diagnostics which finds no problem.

Can anyone help, this is driving me mad.

Background

I have one AirPort Extreme serving as base station and three airport express (all latest model) serving as relay stations and to stream music in different zones, they are all connected by ethernet, the ethernet network has been checked and works fine.

I followed the Apple instructions and they are all setup as "create wireless network" with the exact same network name, in the airport utility app the three airport express appear underneath the airport extreme, wireless settings are on "automatic"

There is no other wifi routers, modems or printers in the building, but we are in the very center of the city and there are lots of wifi activity around.

This sounds as a channel overlap problem to me. Apple Airport devices try to use distinct and far-apart channels but may make a wrong automatic choice when there is a lot of interference from other WiFi stations, sometimes depending on the order you turn them on.

If you really need four access points (Extreme + 3 x Express) you either live in a really big house or those APs are not optimally placed. I'd suggest first using one AP (the Extreme), than go around every room and plot your signal strength and take note of other networks that pop up with their channel info. That way you find dark spots in the house and strategically place the Expresses to cover them.

Additionally, if you only need the AE to Airplay music to the speakers on the audio port you actually don't need to create an additional wireless network.


USB external SuperDrive I'm working off an older system, 10.5.8 and want to upgrade,but it won't let me without getting the 10.6.3 disc upgrade,now the problem with that is the internal cd drive won't work anymore and has a disc jammed in it,so I purchased the external USB SuperDrive, when I plugged it in the computer didn't recognise it, this Is really frustrating because I paid $100 for it and at the moment we can't access iTunes or even upgrade that for our iPhones or iPads,is there a way I can get the computer to recognise the USB drive? So I can do the upgrade.

The USB Super drive is compatible with:

the following computers:

MacBook Pro with Retina display
MacBook Air
iMac (late 2012) and later
Mac mini (late 2009) and later
Mac Pro (late 2013)


Is putting the computer to sleep while it's in a hot car a bad idea? I know that keeping the battery of a MacBook Air in a hot environment is a bad idea. But sometimes I have to leave it in a hot car. Are there any recommendations as to what to do in this kind of scenario?

I'll usually close the lid, which puts it into sleep mode, but I just realized that the battery is probably still being used in that case; and using a battery while it's hot is worse than storing the battery in a hot environment. Is this right? And would the recommendation then be to shut off the computer? What other things are recommended?

According to Apple's webpage:

  Hot Tip
  If you use your iPod, iPhone, iPad, or notebook in temperatures higher than 95° F (or 35° C), you may permanently damage your battery’s capacity. That is, your battery won’t power your device as long on any given charge. You may damage it even more if you charge the device in these temperatures. Even storing a battery in a hot environment can damage it irreversibly.

Notice the relationship for bad things to do with a hot battery:

  Storing < Using < Charging

In other words, the worst thing to do is to charge the device at a hot temperature. Then comes using it, followed by storing it (i.e. storing the battery is the least damaging thing you can do).

So the question is when the device is sleeping in a hot car, is the battery usage (i.e. to keep the RAM data) significant enough that I should be shutting down the computer rather than sleeping it?

Putting a computer in a hot car is a bad idea. The additional heat, generated by a sleeping MacBook is almost zero.

If you have to leave your computer in the car, and temperatures are (or will reach) near the storage limits (45°C/113°F) you should leave it in an thicker or insulated bag, that will protect the computer from the heat. Avoid direct sunlight at all cost.


Disk full; Terminal in Recovery mode won’t delete files; boot kernel panics I’m in a pickle here. macOS Mojave, just updated the other day. I managed to fill my disk up while creating a .dmg, and the system froze. I rebooted. Kernel panic.

Boot to Recovery mode. Mount the disk. Open Terminal.

–bash–3.2# rm /path/to/large/file
rm: /path/to/large/file: No space left on device

Essentially the same issue as this Unix thread from ‘08!
https://www.unix.com/linux/69889-unable-remove-file-using-rm-disk-space-full.html

I’ve tried echo x > /path/to/large/file, no good.

It’s borked. Does anyone have any suggestions that aren’t “wipe the drive and restore from your backup”?

In spite this post is old, I decided to leave my solution here to help community with one more approach.

note: I wrote a medium with more description.

In my case, I din't have that extra partition available so, in recovery mode:

Run the terminal

run diskutil list

Find the identifier of "VM" volume. In the case of the previous image is "disk1s5". You'll probably have "disk2s4"
delete the volume VM:

diskutil apfs deleteVolume disk1s5

(replace the disk1s5 for your VM identifier)

You are now able to remove files on "/Volumes/Macintosh HD"

I hope it helps someone.


How to set up wireless bridge on same subnet? I have set up Internet Sharing over Wifi on an ethernet-wired desktop Mac running Yosemite 10.10. I have various OS X and iOS clients that are able to connect to the shared Wifi connection and access the internet normally.

The internet Sharing utility that is supplied in System Preferences is easy to use, but provides very few configuration options. I'd like my OS X client devices to see my Bonjour shares, and for that I believe they need to be on the same subnet. Internet Sharing creates its own subnet, however, and I'm forced to use clunky workarounds to access my Bonjour-shared material.

The primary subnet is 192.168.1.X. The subnet created by Internet Sharing is 192.168.2.X. I want any device that connects to the shared wireless to be on 192.168.1.X.

I believe that I could use the ethernet and wireless interfaces on my desktop Mac in bridge mode, where the desktop simply passes any packets it receives from either end straight through.

I have read up on ifconfig at FreeBSD, and got as far as creating a bridge and associating the two interfaces with it:

sudo ifconfig bridge create
(response: bridge1)
sudo ifconfig bridge1 addm en0 addm en1 up
sudo ifconfig en0 up
sudo ifconfig en1 up

Here, en0 is my ethernet interface, and en1 is my wireless interface. The documentation says that the bridge device needs an IP, so I gave it a static one instead of using DHCP:

sudo ifconfig bridge1 inet 192.168.1.3/24

The CIDR notation set up the netmask and broadcast addresses for me. I kinda hoped my wifi clients would be able to see 192.168.1.3 from that point, but no dice.

I have a DHCP server at 192.168.1.1, an Airport at 192.168.1.2 (which is inaccessible for these devices due to range), a router at 192.168.1.254 and DHCP addresses allowed in the range 192.168.1.4-192.168.1.253. The Airport is itself in bridge mode and provides no services other than the Wifi access point.

The issue I have is how to then set up the wireless access point on the desktop Mac. I know that I need to set the SSID, PSK, encryption, password, but the guides I am able to find online refer to various flavours of Linux and differ to what I have. Some guides are downright tantalising with the apparent simplicity of the task, such as this one: Creating a FreeBSD Wireless Access Point. There, one simply supplies parameters to ifconfig, but those parameters are missing from the OS X implementation. I know that OS X has the tools to do this already installed, since it can do it via Internet Sharing. I don't know how it does it and haven't been able to find out with the usual Googling.

I've had the same question, but from the other point of view. I wasn't aware of ifconfig (kinda new to this stuff).
I think I got it working by doing it the other way round.
I first had OS X share my internet over wifi (via sharing preferences)
Then with ifconfig, you'll see that OS X creates a bridge100 (or something)
I set the IP manually like you did on that bridge
and then I add my network connection supplying the internet access.

Not entirely sure whether it works perfectly, at first glance, everything works OK, but who knows....


Unknown network file on my IMac I have an unknown network file on my iMac, it appears in the sidebar of Finder, under 'Shared'.  It is called hp3464a93ca02a.  What is this and can I delete it if it is unnecessary?  It has been present for over a year, maybe two and I can attribute no ill effects to it; seems benign, perhaps even helpful.  Just wondering...

I've got a very similar name in my Finder sidebar as well.

It's an HP product (mine's a printer) that is on your local network that has been setup to be accessible over the network. It disappears when the printer is not powered on.

As "smoooosher" said, its name is identical to the MAC address of the device.


Mac Mini Server Push Notification to MacBook is it possible to get the push notifications from my Mac mini Server 10.9 on my MacBook with 10.9? At least the Server.app relevant stuff?

It seems to be indeed push notifications are built-in into Mavericks Server.

Here is a tutorial describing the process how to activate push notifications in Mavericks Server.


Energy saver 101 : sleeps after or when battery is at x hours? Using Mac OSX on a macbook pro. in energy saver - battery tab : if i have sleep at 1 hour, does that mean the computer will sleep after an hour on battery OR when there is a about an hour of battery remaining?

If its the former -> is there a way to make it the latter? I want the computer to sleep when battery has about half an hour left.

Can use terminal or preferences or put a well known freeware.

It means the computer will sleep after an hour.
The computer (if it's a laptop) will automatically hibernate when the battery is very low (this is hibernatemode 3). Is that sufficient or do you really want the computer to sleep when there's 1 hour of battery left?


Automator Tasks - Safari Not Responding I have some daily Automator tasks on my calendar which open URLs in Safari.  (A "Get Specified URLs" task followed by a "Display Webpages" task.)  Ever since upgrading to Yosemite, however, there's been a bit of an issue.  Sometimes several tabs are opened, and it's no longer handling that very well.

Previously, even if Safari was slow, all of the tabs would open when it's available.  Since the Yosemite upgrade, however, only some of the tabs open and the rest pop up a message:

  You can't open the application "Safari" because it is not responding.

Is there a way to tell Automator to wait until Safari responds rather than just fail on some of the URLs?

If you replace the "Display Webpages" task with a "Run AppleScript" task you can control what it does (i.e. add a delay)... I've posted sample code here:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/27244343?ac_cid=op123456


How to use Homebrew to install terminal based Lynx browser instead of Cask (GUI) I am trying to get Lynx for use in the terminal up and running under OS X (Mojave). Using the commands under only installs Cask GUI (which appearst to require a licence regardless). Not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Computer:~ username$ brew install lynx

There is a formula and a cask named lynx. To install the formula just run:
$ brew install lynx
Warning: Treating lynx as a formula. For the cask, use homebrew/cask/lynx
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/lynx-2.8.9rel.1_1.catalina.bottle.tar.gz
==> Downloading from https://d29vzk4ow07wi7.cloudfront.net/b7b36f0697736fc1744026c18968bec4d5c1433356678e853d734406f9dc3612?response-content-disposition=attac
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring lynx-2.8.9rel.1_1.catalina.bottle.tar.gz
  /usr/local/Cellar/lynx/2.8.9rel.1_1: 11 files, 2.2MB

Then:
$ lynx apple.stackexchange.com

shows:


How can I extract contacts from an iTunes backup of an iPhone? I have an iTunes backup of an iPhone, and I want to extract the contacts from there as a file, e.g., vcf or csv.

There are many advertised paid software packages. Is there any free option?

Well, you can use this simple script I made half a year ago, but decided to publish when saw your question.

It renames all files to their normal names.
After that you can find AddressBook in HomeDomain/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.sqlitedb

It's not CSV, but quick look through it show that you should take a "person" from ABPerson table (ROWID, First and Last are the most interesting).
After that you look up persons in ABMultiValue table: ROWID acquired in previous step links to record_id, value has the actual value, and label seems to be really weird for me. I'd recommend you to take all values looking as numbers.

Hope you have some programming skills or know someone who can help you.
If not, I could look into making some kind of helper script for it, but can't promise anything.
Those shitty paid apps always made me angry, and I can't understand why is there no FOSS apps for recovering data from iTunes backups. Meh.


How do I create an Automator Application to forward new mail from Mac Mail? I have an old e-mail address linked to my Mac Mail account.  I have made a rule that forwards new mail from a specified address - call it johndoe@test.com - between my old e-mail and my current e-mail.  Right now, I need to manually open the Mail application for the rule to apply to new mail.

I'd like to do this automatically, without needing to manually open and close Mac Mail.  To avoid opening it manually, I created an Automator program that performs the following actions on a daily basis:

While this Automator Application opens and quits Mac Mail, it doesn't seem to work, as my current address doesn't receive any forwarded e-mails.  Is there another way to automatically forward e-mails from johndoe@test.com from my old e-mail address (linked to Mac Mail) to my new one?

Where is your new email service? Perhaps you can configure it to check your AOL mailbox and pull it down.  This would happen automatically on their servers and wouldn't require a script on your side.

For example, if your new email service was with Gmail, go into the Settings>Accounts tab and add your AOL account to the "Check mail from other accounts" section.


Open specific app from Internet Link loop I'm using Firefox with duckduckgo, I search for a location and it provides me a map on the right with the location I'm looking for.

Clicking on it will show a prompt asking if I want to open it on Apple Maps software. I wanted to open it on a web page so I've put Firefox.app, Clicked "Remember My Choice".

Same dialog but for maps in my case

Firefox Preferences:

Bug:
Firefox enter in a loop opening a tab that opens another tab etc...

Needed:
Remove Firefox from the automatic opened App from OSX Settings when I click on this kind of link (mail.apple.com).

Checked:
http://osxdaily.com/2013/08/08/change-default-application-open-files-mac-os-x/
It's not a file but an URL so I don't know where to change this.

Thanks for any help

Solution:
As @Allan mentioned, I went to the preferences of firefox and changed Apple Maps by Always Ask. It asked me again what I wanted and switched back to Apple Maps. It works now.

If you choose an online service (like Google Maps) from the dropdown menu under the "directions" button, before clicking on the "location" map, it will open in the same tab, using that service (you can cmd+click the map to open in in another tab)

OTH


FW400 HDD not recognized at all I have an external hard drive in an enclosure that plugs into the firewire port of a Mac Pro, and it is not recognized. I connect the device to the firewire port, and this is what it shows:

Any ideas on how to make the drive be recognized? Disk Utility does not see it, and neither does diskutil on terminal. Running Lion on a MacPro 4,1.

Added: I just noticed the power went out, so the drive might have shut down improperly. Is there a software to correct the drive again?

First, will the FireWire port work with another external hard drive with FireWire? This will rule out if the port has failed or not. IF you have another Mac nearby but not another external drive, another way to test this would be to see if the drive will mount on another Mac.

Second, can you dismantle the external enclosure and move the bare hard drive to another external enclosure, and see if that works? This will rule out whether the interface hardware in the external enclosure has failed.

If you don't have the equipment to test this, take the system to a repair facility that does have the equipment and can test it for you.

If you are fortunate, the bare hard drive is OK and only the enclosure will need to be replaced.


Best Camera setup for iPad Demonstration need to do a live demo of an ipad app to be shown on a projector.  tried using a flip cam but there is a ton of reflection / glare.  i've seen folks put the ipad on what looks like an overhead projector with a camera attached to the top, so the ipad sits flat on the table area and the camera is on an arm above it pointing down.

anyone know what this setup is or what type of camera is used and where to get it?

thanks!

First, you need to soft your light source by using light softener or light diffusor. It either can be bought in photo store or you can DIY.

And second, antiglare film over iPad screen will add to a better picture.


Is it possible to upgrade iOS offline? I have an iPad 3 iOS5.1.1 jailbroken.
Now that iOS 7 (exactly 7.0.3) is on the Apple update servers, I want to know if I am able to update my iOS to 6.1.2 or not.

I downloaded the firmware of 6.1.2 and want to update to this except iOS 7.0.3.
Anytime I want to update it via iTunes, it wants to check it with Apple servers and obviously they say you should upgrade to 7.0.3.

Is there any way I can upgrade my iOS to 6.1.2?

This answer has been moved to a more generic question: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/114076/18387


What will happen to apps i bought in a different country after i upgrade my iOS now? I am running iOS 5.1 on my third gen ipad. I have moved and changed my account location to a different country.
I have around $1500 worth of professional apps installed on my device which were all bought in the first country.

What will happen if I upgrade the iOS? will I loose all my apps and have to download them again? or they will not be touched and will remain on the device and upgrade of the OS will not affect them at all?

I am asking because some of the apps that i have bought before and deleted are no longer available as free because i previously owned them in the new country, and I have to buy them again. The last thing I want is to pay for all the apps again...

I moved from Germany to the Netherlands four years ago. I have only a single account. Once I got a Dutch credit card, I was enforced by Apple to switch countries for my account. This had the following effects on my account:

I was no longer able to update my iOS apps in iTunes on a Mac. It told me that there are updates, but when I wanted to perform them, it refused to do so.
I was always (and am still) able to update my apps in the AppStore on my iPad (which I had already in Germany).
I am no longer able to buy stuff on the German AppStore on my iPad.
I can buy stuff on the Dutch AppStore on my iPad.
"Dutch apps" and "German apps" are indistinguishable on my iPad.

I later bought an iPhone in the Netherlands, which was never associated with my account while it was still a German account. Same picture as with the iPad: I can buy only in the Dutch AppStore, but can run my old apps and the new ones. Old apps update from the Dutch AppStore, even if I bought them in the German one.

Both the iPad and the iPhone got updated versions of iOS and the situation stayed the same.

You should check if the apps you are running are available in your destination. If so, it worked for me.


Automator recipe to speed up backups in Time Machine Backups on my MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2016) with macOS Catalina 10.15.3 are ridiculously slow. If I disable the low priority for my backups from the terminal with sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0, the speed of this service turns to be more reasonable. However, I do not want to harm the performance of the CPU while I am not doing backups nor I want to have to run that command every time I want to do a backup.

In fact, I scheduled a daily backup with TimeMachineEditor at night when my laptop is asleep, so I was wondering if it would be possible to create a recipe for Automator to launch this command just before TimeMachineEditor run Time Machine and also do a sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=1 when the backup is finished. Of course, user permission should be included in the recipe to avoid to enter the sudo password in the middle of the night. If so, how would this recipe look like? Thx.

launchd

Use launchd to run your two commands at specific times. By placing a launchd job in /Library/LaunchDaemons you can avoid needing sudo as the command can be run as root with this location.

See a launchd tutorial for getting started with launchd and step by step guides.

Determining whether Time Machine has finished must be handled by a script. The simplest solution is to re-enable low priority throttling at a specific time.

Third Party Tools

Alternatively, you can use a wide range of third party scheduling tools on macOS. These include the one I work on, Power Manager, which can run scripts at set times each day as root.


Submitting to app store, in "Prepare for Submission", how long do I get? So I just had a bit of a panic and realised that the app name I want may not be available. Just went ahead and created an app in iTunes Connect using the bundle id, sigh of relief, it is available.

I am about a week or two away from finishing. Filled out Description and uploaded one screenshot.

How long do I have to finish these details before it is deleted?

Do I need to enter any more details or click on submit for review yet?

Apple has changed the rules a number of times, but a fairly recent (October 2014) blog post suggests that these app name reservations no longer automatically expire. The author says he received the following e-mail from Apple:

This was posted as an answer to a similar question on Stack Overflow. The accepted answer to that question still states there is a time limit of 180 days, but the answer was last edited in March 2014, and the quote it gives no longer seems to appear on the page it links to.


No boot-args in nvram After seeing this question regarding the serverperfmode nvram boot-arg, I thought I would check my server to see its status:

$ nvram boot-args
nvram: Error getting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) data was not found

Is this a normal response (i.e., if no boot-args have been set), or is something out of whack with my server.  Apple's support page doesn't mention the error.

My server is a Mac Pro running 10.11.6, off of a internal SSD.  And, Server.app is installed/configured.

Output of nvram -p shows the following variables:

efi-boot-device
bluetoothInternalControllerInfo
fmm-computer-name
efi-apple-recovery
SystemAudioVolumeDB
bluetoothActiveControllerInfo
SystemAudioVolume
eft-boot-device-data
BootCampProcessorPstates

This is indeed the normal response if the variable has not been set.
Example commands and output along your line of inquiry:

$ nvram boot-args
  boot-args serverperfmode=1 -v

Whereas:

$ nvram bootargs        # missing character results in: non existing variable
  nvram: Error getting variable - 'bootargs': (iokit/common) data was not found

This is the same state for this variable you get after deleting the whole variable or after clearing all variables with an NVRAM reset.

And if nvram -p does show nothing but what you posted then such a procedure was quite recent.

To test for 'normality':

$ nvram -p                        # print all nvram variables
boot-args serverperfmode 1 -v     # output if only boot-args is set
$ sudo nvram -d boot-args         # delete nvram variable for boot-args
$ nvram -p                        # print all nvram variables
                                  # nothing to output
$ nvram boot-args                 # try to read only boot-args variable
nvram: Error getting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) data was not found # your error message
$ sudo nvram boot-args="-v"       # set boot-args to verbose boot mode
$ nvram -p                        # print all nvram variables
boot-args -v                      # output for nvram variable boot-args shown
$ nvram boot-args                 # print only boot-args nvram variable
boot-args -v


What is the best app for controlling the time of kids spend on iPad? My kids spend way more time on ipad. I want to limit the time each child spends on iPad on a daily basis. Any apps? They yell at us for taking away the iPad.

Here are a few:

ParentKit
Parental Timelock
TimeLock (I couldn't post link)

You can also restrict and block internet usage during certain days and time blocks for each device in your home that uses your wifi. You can do this through your wifi router.