iCloud Security Questions I am trying to create a new iCloud account. This requires me to enter security questions. I normally have no issue with this, but I am offered only 6 choices, and frankly I don't know the answers to any of them.

E.g. one asks for the name of my favourite primary teacher. None of them were, and I don't remember the names after 55 years.

How do I enter my own questions, which is what I normally do.

You can actually enter any information as your answers. Moreover, this is better option actually as it adds security against people who may know or guess your answers.
The only important thing is to remember this information or at least keep it safely. You'll need it in case of any problems with access to your iCloud account either to restore by yourself or through tech support.
Your options are:
1. Memorize your answers
2. Write them down (not safe!)
3. Use any password utility (like 1password, for instance) that help you keep all your info safe.
That's the easiest way to deal with the subject. Changing questions requires you to communicate with Apple with no guarantees of success.
Hope this helps.


APFS, two data volumes on a single OS partition for dual booting I'd like to be able to switch between two Data volumes on the same macOS  installed partition.

My thinking is that I could have one data volume for home and one for work. This would, essentially, allow me to "dual boot" with only one installation of the OS (since having the same OS installed twice is a waste of space and a hassle to maintain).

Is it possible to choose which data partition to mount on boot?

The current data volume disk1s5 would be my Data home volume, and an additional volume disk1s6 would be the Data work volume.

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

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.7 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            10.8 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 80.9 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                528.5 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      3.2 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     68.4 GB    disk1s5
...

The Data volume disk1s5 has its mount point /System/Volumes/Data. Could I remove the mount point from disk1s5 and set disk1s6's mount point instead?

~ % diskutil info disk1s5
   Device Identifier:         disk1s5
   Device Node:               /dev/disk1s5
   Whole:                     No
   Part of Whole:             disk1

   Volume Name:               Macintosh HD - Data
   Mounted:                   Yes
   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Data

   Partition Type:            41504653-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   File System Personality:   APFS
   Type (Bundle):             apfs
   Name (User Visible):       APFS
   Owners:                    Enabled

   OS Can Be Installed:       Yes
   Booter Disk:               disk1s2
   Recovery Disk:             disk1s3
   Media Type:                Generic
   Protocol:                  PCI-Express
...

And how would I set the new volume's Booter Disk to disk1s2?

No, the firmlinks are bidirectional so you should have two pairs of filesystem if you need separate systems. The good news is that with space sharing and the smaller size of the system, having two Catalina around is ~22 GB for my Macs.

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/10/11/macos-catalina-boot-volume-layout-revised-for-10-15-release/

See the red boxes in the PDF for all the firm links you would have to remap and contend with...


Can I force Safari to always show bookmark names, not webpage titles? I have several bookmarks for finance.yahoo.com. Each bookmark lists a series of stock tickers that I am watching. I gave the bookmark unique names that makes them easy to identify (e.g. "$-Investments".)

If I go to Safari's location field and start typing "finance", there is a popup list with a Bookmarks section, but the bookmarks are listed with the cached webpage title and the URL. What I want to see in the bookmarks section is the bookmark name instead of the cached webpage title. How can I make this happen every time, without having to use drastic measures like private browsing, emptying the cache, or resetting Safari?

I have a similar workflow that I've used in Safari and I've used the Edit Name Feature to make it easier to move from one site to another.

If I bring up a chart of SSO in Stockcharts.com and create a Bookmark, the Bookmarks Toolbar Menu shows it as SSO - Stockcharts Workbench - Stockcharts.Com.

Then I "Show All Bookmarks", right-click (control click) edit the name SSO - Stockcharts Workbench - Stockcharts.Com to be just SSO.

This now appears as SSO on my bookmark toolbar list.  To switch to this bookmark, I can choose it under the Bookmarks menu or Bookmarks Toolbar.  What I usually do is use Cmd L which highlights the address bar, type SSO and Safari displays a short list of History and Bookmarks.  I scroll down to SSO under Bookmarks and hit "Enter" for my SSO chart.  This bypasses using the mouse and gets me right to the chart with just a few keystrokes.

As another example, I get to Apple with CMD L, AAPL, cursor down to AAPL site I want and hit Enter.

Here's a screenshot for AAPL with several bookmarked sites that include AAPL.

I like using Cmd L for two reasons.  I can move from one bookmark to another without needing to use my mouse or trackpad.  Plus the shortened SSO Name sits on my Bookmark Toolbar using much less space than if I added it to the Toolbar with the original bookmark title.


Why can't I sync Photos on my Mac with Photos on my iPhone? I keep a subset of my photographs in Photos on my Mac, and I would like to sync these with Photos on my iPhone. I used to be able to do so, but the option seems to have gone away. The 'Sync Photos' checkmark in iTunes is now off, and if I turn it on, the only option is to sync the phone with a selected directory.

What's going on here? How can I enable Photos on the phone to sync with Photos on the Mac?

The solution, it turned out, was to quit Photos then relaunch it while holding down the Option key. It then asked me to pick a system photo library and I re-selected the existing system photo library. Then when I launched iTunes, "sync photos" gave me the option of syncing selected albums from Photos, as desired.

I've no clue what went wrong or why this would fix it, but it did.


How to add multiple songs in Apple music to a playlist? I'm using Itunes 12.8.0.150 on macOS Sierra. When I browse certain album on Apple music I want to add multiple songs of that album to my playlist. I tried pressing Shift or CMD to select multiple songs but this just doesn't work. Do you know how to achieve this?

It does select all songs in an album by pressing CMD. I'm on 10.13.3 High Sierra. Try it again. If it doesn't work send a screenshot or screen record if you can.


simple MP3 player with folders I've been using SoundJam MP since it came out and many years ago I found a beta version that worked on OS X and that's the reason I can still use it.

Unfortunately, with OS X Lion, PPC support is gone and I need to find a similar app for my music listening.

My main objective is to find a software that allows me to add folders with MP3s and allows me to sort it manually and even sort the files inside the folder, instead of (as iTunes and others do) having the app sort it by album/artist, because I have several MP3s that aren't even tagged and I want to control it and not let the app sort and "mix" (wrongly) for me.

I've searched a lot and tried so many apps already without success (ex: cog, instinctiv, neutrino, songbird, vox).

Anyone knows of such a software?

P.S. the app can be either free or paid (reasonably priced).

Hm, I'm maybe not fully understand the question, but the VLC player cannot do the job?

You can drag into the playlist window any music files (in fact any multimedia files), can rearrange them manually and so on..

so use the VLC as a music player and not as a video-player.


Airport express and airplay. Is there a way to auto turn on amplifier? I would like to stream music from my Apple devices to my kitchen.
I've got an old amplifier and passive speakers.

I know that I can simply connect my airport express to the LAN or WiFi and to the ampli as line input, but I would like the ampli to turn on only when there is a line input signal, and then automatically turn off after an idle time, in a way similar to many Subwoofers.

In this way only the AirPort Express will be always powered.

Is there a device or a simple way to do this job?

While in terms of the specificity of the desired implementation I agree with @patrix, you could get the desired solution if you're open to reframing how it all gets handled. I'd say the easiest (but somewhat costly) way to get the desired behavior is to get a Logitech Harmony remote.

If the amplifier pre-dates remote controls, you might need to think further outside the box and look into a wifi/BT-enabled power switch (plug the amplifier into said switch and have the hardware power toggle on the amp always set to "On"; give the signal to the power switch to let the power flow through it, the amp then remotely powers on).

Things get very interesting in these days of "Internet of Things"… :-)


Assigning hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) in Mac OS X 10.5.8 for audio playback I will begin by mentioning that I am a SQL/ASP.NET programmer and I work in Windows environments. However, I am in a very small department that has a mishmash of Macs and PCs, and to most of the people here I'm "Generic IT Person," so occasionally I'm asked to troubleshoot Macs. I don't know squat about Macs, but since it usually involves clearing a printer jams, this hasn't been an issue. Until now.

In this case, one of our staff has recently started transcribing on her Mac using VLC media player and Word. She wants to be able to control audio playback from the keyboard while typing. We have figured out how to assign keyboard shortcuts in VLC, and these work fine, but only if VLC is the active window. We figured out that the F7-F9 keys will move backward, forward, play and pause (the icons were a big tipoff here) while she was typing, but she needs to do very short backward jumps. If she holds down the F7, it will skip back 10 secs or so at a time, but timing when to let go takes some real finesse.

I figured these function keys must work because they are globally assigned. I found the Keyboard Shortcut interface in the System Preferences/Keyboard & Mouse panel, and I tried assigning F6 to VLC's menu item named "Skip Backward" (or something like that; I don't have it right in front of me). This works, but again, only when VLC Player is the active window.

SO, the long and short of it is, is there a simple way to assign a very short backward skip function to a hotkey combination that will work on VLC player while Word is the active window? Or do I need to admit defeat?

The function keys work because they are system-wide "media player control keys".  Keystrokes always go to the system, which usually passes them exclusively to the active application, but some have special handling.   There's a chance that you could reconfigure VLC so that the system-wide media key that means "rewind" does skip back instead.  Check that out.

Otherwise you're going to need some kind of additional keyboard shortcut app like QuicKeys.  (See also these suggestions).  Don't give up yet!  You almost certainly can cobble together a solution.


Accidentally unloaded all launchctl daemons and now can't boot While trying to set up some services (OS X 10.10 Yosemite), I accidentally did a sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ and the screen was frozen immediately. Now my Mac doesn't boot any more. The loading bar is half full, and nothing happens.

Is there a way to restore the daemons with some kind of rescue console? Unfortunately, I don't have a working time machine backup, my external hard drive crashed some days ago.

I can still boot into recovery mode, using Cmd+R while booting. I can also access the terminal. I tried a launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ but it said ‘Operation already in progress’ for every process.

When trying to load the LaunchDaemons files, I was on the rescue partition. After switching to /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ and doing a launchctl load -w /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ I got some errors with File already exists, but some other Daemons seem to load.

But I suspect, that they are loaded into the rescue system. So I also tried to use the launchctl file of /Volumes/Macintosh HD/bin/launchctl. But unfortantely, same result, the screen stucks with a half progress bar during startup.

I had a look into the verbose startup (pressing Cmd+V at startup). The last lines, where everything stops are

hfs: mounted Macintosh HD on device root_device
XCPM: registered
VM Swap Subsystem is ON
Darwin Bootstrapper Version 2.0.2: Mon Mar....
boot-args = -v
** /dev/rdisk1 (NO WRITE)
** Root file system
   Executing fsck_hfs (versoin hfs-285)
Warning: couldn't block sleep during cache update
Warning: proceeding w/o DiskArb
/dev/disk1 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist: 2 No such file or directory
Bash: /etc/rc.server: No such file or directory
USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 0000000...
bash: /etc/rc.installer_cleanup: No such file or directory
AppleUSBMiltitouchDriver::checkStatus - received Status Packet, Payload 2: device was reinitialized

I also tried to reinstall Yosemite over my old system (without deleting the filesystem, so my data is still there). Unfortunately, the problem stays the same.

Now I can log in in single-user mode (I had to press an additional Enter). After that, I set the filesystem to read with mount -uw /. Then I load all the daemons with launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. And then, surprise it loads my Mac's login screen, and I can login.

But when I try to restart, I have to repeat that step to login (which is kinda annoying…). I also tried to load all daemons with launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons when I'm logged in.

Here I get ‘Operation already in progress’. I read something in the single-user mode that the loading of services is not supported. Does this affect the fully loaded OS X too? I'm not sure if I'm still in single-user mode or not. How can I tell OS X to load all the LaunchDaemons on startup?

for a persistent fix you can login to single user mode, then mount -uw /,
and then delete the launchctl override database.
I'm not sure for Yosemite, but on Sierra that would be rm /var/db/com.apple.xpc.launchd/*.plist.
after that you can just exit or reboot.
this is not as a sledgehammer as it seems. the system re-enableds some of its overrides (from various other configuration files i guess) and so you actually get a nice and fresh override db without masses of "disabled: false".


How do I delete a paused book from iBooks on iPad? While fishing for free books, I tapped purchase for a book which is larger than 500mb. I've noticed the size only after buying. I paused the download by tapping on the book.

Now I was not able to delete it from iBooks. Is there a way to delete the book from iBooks app? I could download from iCloud anytime. I don't want the book to be display in my iBooks shelf.

Connect your iPad to the computer and let it sync (if necessary). You can then select the book and delete it.


Any idea what this sound is? Sometimes my MBP plays this somewhat distressing sound through its speakers (external if connected, otherwise internal, if my system volume is not muted).

Has anyone experienced this? What is it?

[Listen to the sound here.]

Things that make me doubt it has to do with the electrical system:

The fact this seems to be emanating from my system (affects either internal or external speakers)
The precise, musical, repeating nature of the sound
That it has occurred on battery power at my girlfriend’s as well as in my house (plugged in).

Makes me wish there was an app like Little Snitch but for audio output instead of network traffic…

It’s the “Inactivity Sound,” called “Bass,” that Assistly plays by default when  you haven’t been using it for a few hours.

And I thought my computer was overheating!

I can’t understand why anyone would make a web app that non-obviously plays a repeating, scary sound on repeat hours after the user last interacted with it.

Terrible.

Anyway, that’s one mystery solved.

You can +1 my relevant feedback to Assistly here.


Finding the file that's modified when you run a terminal command? I want to know what file is modified when I run a terminal command like:

 osascript -e "set Volume 0.5"

Is there a way to do this? I'm thinking maybe a command that looks for recently modified files in setting directories.

In general, you can use ‘opensnoop’ which will list files being accessed in realtime. You'll need to disable SIP to use this command.

sudo opensnoop

To use opensnoop on a specific process such as osascript, use

sudo opensnoop -n osascript

For that specific command, no file is modified. It's setting the current volume, that's all.


Is it possible to transfer media from Catalina to an iPod Nano? I have been wanting to update to Catalina but have been waiting. One of my biggest concerns is being able to transfer music to my iPod Nano. Is it still possible to import media from Catalina to the iPod Nano?

Yes, all models of iPod sync will still sync with your Mac after you upgrade to macOS Catalina. Syncing is done in Finder instead of iTunes in the new OS.


Change webcam settings I am using Skype and have noticed that the tint is kind of strange and the contrast is sort of off.  How do I change the settings for the MacBook Pro's built-in webcam?

According to this Apple discussion forum post:

As you know, software always controls your iSight. Most apps,
including all Apple apps of which I am aware, automatically make the
iSight settings for you and do NOT allow you to manipulate them from
within the application.
In my own case, I have found that merely adding more light to my work
room has allowed the automatic settings to give me adequate iSight
images.
However, if you want to take manual control, the iGlasses2 add-on
lets you manipulate many of the features that iSight (and many other
compatible webcams) offer. Note that iGlasses2 may not work with
every applications that can work with your camera.
You can get iGlasses2 here: http://www.ecamm.com/mac/iglasses/

This Apple KB also offers some troubleshooting guidance:

Important: Follow these instructions in order. Test the camera
between steps to see if the issue is resolved.
Built-in iSight cameras These steps are for iSight cameras that are
built into a computer, such as the iMac G5 (iSight) or later, the
MacBook, or MacBook Pro.

See if the issue is application-specific. Try another application (iSight works with applications like iChat, PhotoBooth,
and iMovie HD 6) to see if the iSight camera exhibits the same
behavior in all applications. If it only happens in one application,
try reinstalling that application.
See if the issue is user-specific. Test your iSight camera in another user account. If the issue only occurs in one user, the issue
would be isolated to user settings.
Find out if the computer recognizes the iSight Check System Profiler (in the Utilities folder, inside the Applications folder).
Under the USB header, check to see if the iSight camera is detected.
Reset SMC or PMU Reset your computer's SMC or PMU, and then check System Profiler again. (SMC reset instructions for iMac G5
(iSight), Intel-based iMacs; PMU reset instructions for MacBook and
MacBook Pro.)

If your built-in iSight camera is still not behaving correctly after
trying all these steps, you may need to contact Apple or an
Apple-Authorized Service Provider for service.

In short, you can try adding an app to offer access to the controls or do a bit of troubleshooting on you MBP to confirm if this issue occurs on other applications or for other users. Worst case, bring your MBP in for servicing.
Note: Fixed typo.


Why have option- shortcuts in text fields started inserting special characters? I'm a daily user of a couple of IntelliJ IDEs. Unusually for Mac apps (probably because they're Java, not real native apps) they make liberal use of option/alt- keyboards shortcuts. I probably use these unthinkingly hundreds of times a day.

Suddenly they're not working. Either they do nothing, or if the cursor is in a text field, they insert a special character (eg. Ø for option-shift-o).

I don't think this has anything to do with the IntelliJ software per se. I mention them for completeness (and because I didn't use the option-key shortcuts in other apps, so can't be sure of the behaviour elsewhere). This is on a 2013 MB Pro, with both the internal and a bluetooth keyboard.

The one wrinkle in setting up my question is that it's possible this started when I installed the 10.11 RC (I had previously been on release Yosemite). I'm not quite sure, unfortunately, as in the heat of getting work done, I ignored the new shortcut behaviour when it first cropped up (so don't quite remember when that was).

So, has 10.11 introduced something that might have caused this different behaviour? Or is there a setting I might have unwittingly changed? I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why these shortcuts could have changed behaviour overnight, and what I can do to get the old behaviour back.

Using option (alt) key is the default way to enter non-latin characters from a keyboard which layout does not have these characters. For instance: I'm Polish, so I need to use Polish characters (like 'ą', 'ę', 'ó' etc.). To do that I use option key (option+a, option+e, option+o).

You can see the variants of keys of your keyboard by enabling keyboard preview: go to System Preferences, choose Keyboard and check the check box in the bottom called 'Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar' (http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/21/mac-virtual-keyboard-os-x/). Enable it by opening the keyboard menu ('Show keyboard viewer', you can find the instructions under the same link). Now hold the option key - you'll see the variants of keys in your keyboard - you should see the reason to type 'Ø' when you use option+shift+o.

EDIT:

The answer I wrote was the answer to the question in the title: "Why have option- shortcuts in text fields started inserting special characters?".

There a few options:

if you could do that in previous version of OS X then the new version may have changed some settings (see: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/Keyboard.html - they can choose to change keyboard behavior as they want and they mention it).
Also, since entering the text is system-based functionality it may
not be overriden by default - you need an external tweaking software
to do that.
It may also be a bug - you're using an unstable version
of the system.

You may find a solution (the tweaking software I mentioned) to your problem in answer of this question:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11876485/how-to-disable-typing-special-characters-when-pressing-option-key-in-mac-os-x


How can I combine multiple screenshots in Skitch? With Skitch, I often find myself wanting to take screenshots of different parts of the screen, annotating them, and combining them into one image. I could use a separate program for this last step, such as Acorn, but is it possible to do this from within Skitch?

Nope, not possible within Skitch.

The quickest workaround I've found to achieve that is using Keynote as a canvas, so you can combine the image in no time :

open a new 'White' theme in Keynote
drag & drop the 2 images from Skitch to Keynote
align the images in Keynote, resize, do some edits if necessary
take a snapshot with Skitch


Installing gnuplot (or similar) on Lion All the packages needed to install gnuplot through MacPorts on Lion succeed, except for aquaterm.

Installing gnuplot through Fink is far less lucky on Lion. Fink bails out after only a third of the packages needed for gnuplot have been installed, but Fink does install aquaterm.

Is there a way to 'port install gnuplot' while pointing MacPorts to the aquaterm installation generated by Fink?

Also nice would be to know of a method to install gnuplot on Lion that uses neither Fink nor MacPorts. Learning about a replacement for gnuplot itself on OSX would be handy.

I used Homebrew to install gnuplot. I believe I had to use specify --nolua. First, I installed aqua term:
brew install aquaterm. Then I installed gnuplot with brew install gnuplot --nolua and that was it, gnuplot picked up aquaterm immediately.

Additionally, I sometimes use octave to plot. It's also got a formula in Homebrew, so just run brew install octave and away you go!


Is there a difference between iPhone LTE band support and carrier compatibility? I have an unlocked iPhone 5s model 1533 GSM which supports LTE bands 3, 7, and 19 (800, 1800, 2600 MHz) as per this page: http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE. These are the bands used in Spain (http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Spain). However, the Apple page suggests that even though the 1533 model is compatible with these bands, it is not compatible with Spanish carriers and instead you need model 1457. Note also that model 1457 is not listed as compatible with Canadian carriers even though it is compatible with the LTE bands used here (700 and 1700 MHz).

Does this mean that although the Spanish LTE frequencies are supported, the phone will not work on LTE in Spain because the carriers aren't supported on model 1533?

Or does it mean that although not officially supported, the 1533 model will work with Spanish carriers if I purchase the appropriate sim in Spain?

If Apple says you need a specific iPhone 5s for Spanish carriers, then you probably do. Even if a US iPhone supports all the LTE bands in Spain, you're just better off buying the phone made specifically for your country.


Spotlight on Mac doesn't accept keyboard input Periodically, Spotlight stops responding to keyboard input on my Mac. When this happens, pressing cmd-space brings up the Spotlight search field, but typing search terms has no effect. Characters don't appear in the search field, and even pressing ESC doesn't exit from Spotlight. The keyboard continues to work normally in every other app-- only Spotlight is affected.

Rebooting restores normal operation but I'm hoping there's some non-reboot way to get things working again.

I'm running macOS 10.12.5 (16F73) on a 15" touch bar MacBook Pro. Both the internal keyboard and an external Apple USB keyboard are affected.

This seems to have worked. I'd still be interested in other answers people might have, in case there's something better.

Run Activity Monitor
Type "spotlight" in the search field.
Several items will be remain. Select the one just named "Spotlight". Use the "x" button at the upper left corner of the window to kill it.

Spotlight automatically re-launches, and now works.


When to use sudo in macOS? I saw some command line with sudo for using on macOS. I have seen it even used for NPM installs. I am under the impression that using sudo is discouraged for macOS.

When do I use sudo in macOS?

sudo is not discouraged on MacOS it is much to be preferred to the alternative which is to su to another user especially root. It is discouraged to set up root so you can login or su to it.

Normally you can only write to files in directories you have write acces to.

If you need to write to a file that is not ina directory owned by you your will not usually have permission. e.g. /usr/local/bin can only be written to by root.

If you need to copy a file to a protected directory - as the npm install does you have to ask for more privileges. Adding sudo before a command means that the command is run as if root was running it anmd so the command can write to /usr/local/bin

sudo can be used to run as any user by using the -u parameter.


does icloud sync cydia apps as well? Can you add an app downloaded from Cydia to iCloud, so it will sync to all your jailbroken iDevices? I wonder what content iCloud does sync and does not sync, is it folder specific?

Simple answer: no.

Long answer: it only works with Apple's own apps as well as apps downloaded from the official App Store.


App Store is stuck in a loop trying to download a free app -- how do I make it stop? My App Store keeps saying this item is free in the store, that this item will be added to your purchases and it then says cancel or download.

I click download and it won't download and keeps popping up the same message over and over again.  How do I make it stop? I can't download any apps.

Apple's servers were very overloaded with the iPhone 6 preorders.

http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

The official system status page for Apple shows that things have cleared up, so most people with problems installing or downloading things can reboot their devices and then try again to get proper download and purchase behavior.

Expect some slowness this next Wednesday the 17th through Friday the 19th of September with iOS 8 coming out and iPhone 6 being delivered and activated. iCloud backups and restores should be slower than normal as well as possible store and purchase / AppleID slowness if the authentication servers come under large strain again.

In the short term, you could pause the download or turn off your networking and then sign out of the store. At that point, rebooting and trying again - waiting longer between attempts is a good first attempt. Also, Apple does support users on store download issues - so if you've waited several hours/days, contacting store support might be a next step.


Advantages of using MAMP stack over Mac's native Web Sharing and downloaded MySQL I'm wondering what are the advantages of using a MAMP stack instead of Web Sharing provided with Mac natively and MySQL downloaded and installed manually?

I can see how in some cases MAMP can have latest/other versions of apache/mysql/php, but are there any other advantages?

My MCB came with Snow Leopard 10.6.6 with Apache 2.2.15 and PHP 5.3.3 - so fairly recent (although not the latest) versions.
Since they both were installed I saw little reason getting something that has same functionality.

Installing MySQL was dead simple too so that couldn't be the reason.

I'd say unified GUI integration.

With MAMP, you've got a single window to manage Apache, PHP, and MySQL. Whereas with the built-in stack, you have to active PHP manually and have another interface for MySQL (with no easy way to turn it on or off)


How to mount external volume on /Users I have been trying to migrate from an old Mac Pro with big internal disk to a new iMac with (small) internal SSD and big external Thunderbolt disk for a while and found no direct answer. I have a time machine backup on an external disk. My preferred solution would be to mount the external disk on /Users. Apple support (whom I chatted with) does not have an answer. How to go about this?

Documenting my own solution here, but would be happy to hear whether others have tried this in different ways. There are just a few steps to consider.

Create a dummy user with admin permissions with home directory on the built-in /Users disk
Name your external volume to something, e.g. Home - it would normally then be mounted on /Volumes/Home
Find the Volume UUID for your external disk using diskutil list /Volumes/Home, let's say the UUID is XYZ
Now comes the magic, use the sudo vifs command to add a line to your (by default empty) fstab file, the line should look like this:

UUID=XYZ /Users hfs rw 0 2

Finally, reboot your machine and you are good to go.

Caveat 1: if your external disk is missing or broken you will not have home directories, so do make a backup!

Caveat 2: if your external disk is missing and you do not have a dummy user (step 1 above) you will not be able to log in at all.

After this you may want to restore a time machine backup. However, Migration Assistant tries to outsmart you and checks the amount of available space for the root directory (which is small) rather than the externally mounted /Users directory. To circumvent this you have to use a two-step process:

Restore user details (accounts) but not their data by de-selecting all the data directories when restoring using Migration Assistant, after doing this you will have re-created users without most of their data files.
Using the command line tool tmutil you can restore without the check:

tmutil restore /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/PreviousMachine/PreviousDisk/Users/{joe,anne} /Users

(please run man tmutil before trying this and use the correct directory names).


Recover corrupted Mac HFS+ drive (image) under Linux I'm trying to recover an apparently corrupted disk. It appears that through improper shutdown the drive has been somehow killed. It's the main partition of a Macbook Pro.

I've used dd to copy the drive to an external hard drive, and now I'm trying to mount it under linux (Ubuntu) to retrieve whatever I can. (I can also try from another Mac.)

Info on the disk image from file image.dmg

  image.dmg: Macintosh HFS Extended version 4 data (mounted) last mounted by: 'FSK!', created: Wed Nov 18 08:21:40 2144, last modified: Mon Mar  6 18:54:12 2147, block size: 4096, number of blocks: 121886744, free blocks: 69886793

Trying mount -t hfsplus -o loop image.dmg /mnt resulted in

  mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
        missing codepage or helper program, or other error
        In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
        dmesg | tail  or so

from dmesg

  hfsplus: Filesystem was not cleanly unmounted, running fsck.hfsplus is recommended.  mounting read-only.
  hfsplus: invalid extent max_key_len 53348
  hfsplus: failed to load extents file

running fsck.hfsplus -dr image.dmg yields

  ** image.dmg (NO WRITE)
      Using cacheBlockSize=32K cacheTotalBlock=1024 cacheSize=32768K.
      CheckForClean - found bad journal signature
     Invalid Volume Header
  ** Checking HFS Plus volume.
     Invalid B-tree node size
  (3, 0)
  ** The volume   needs to be repaired.
      volume type is pure HFS+
      primary MDB is at block 0 0x00
      alternate MDB is at block 0 0x00
      primary VHB is at block 2 0x02
      alternate VHB is at block 975093950 0x3a1ec0be
      sector size = 512 0x200
      VolumeObject flags = 0x07
      total sectors for volume = 975093952 0x3a1ec0c0
      total sectors for embedded volume = 0 0x00

Something is wrong with the superblock or with the B-node tree. I've seen recommendations for DiskWarrior out there, but I it has a high price for no guarantee that it will work, so I thought I'd try my hand at it with free approaches first.

Any any any (useful) info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

In the end DiskWarrior worked... it took several iterations of repair, but it managed to restore the node list enough for me to mount it and transfer off as much as was salvageable (which wasn't everything). Then I reinstalled through the usual OSX reinstallation. Thanks for the tips.


Using Mobile SIM card with an iPad Mini If I buy a Wifi and Cellular iPad Mini, could I cut down my mobile SIM card and use its cellular data with the iPad?

A simple question but there is no simple answer.

You'll need to know the frequencies and protocols used by your carrier and ensure they are supported on your iPad. 3G is highly likely to be OK but it's not 100% (for exampled, much of T-Mobile's 3G network runs on a frequency that's not compatible with the current iPad/iPhone
As noted, you'll need to cut the card down to nano-SIM size.  If you screw it up, the SIM is toast and will need to be replaced. You'll also need an adapter if you want to put it back into the phone.
The iPad needs to be configured with the proper data/APN settings for your carrier.
Your carrier has to not care that you are doing it.  I've heard stories about carriers detecting that a phone SIM is being used in a tablet and disabling the SIM.


Using cal command of Ubuntu When I want to see a calendar on Ubuntu, I just command like this:

$ cal -3

Then, it displays prev/current/next month output.

But, the cal command of OSX is a bit different from Ubuntu's, and there's no -3 option.

If I see the history section of man page, OSX's looks like this

  A cal command appeared in Version 5 AT&T UNIX. The ncal command appeared in FreeBSD 2.2.6.

And, the history section of Ubuntu's man page says

  A cal command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. Several much more elaborate versions of this program exist, with support for colors, holidays, birthdays, reminders and appointments, etc. For example, try the cal from http://home.sprynet.com/~cbagwell/projects.html or GNU gcal.

Can I use Ubuntu's cal command on OSX?

I've been searching for cal -3 functionality on Mac as well.

From your quote, there's an alternative, GNU gcal, which is radically different from cal command. There's a tutorial that's easy to follow as well.

So I settled with it. You can type gcal . for cal -3 equivalent.


How do I get the location of a locked file in Preview? I used to be able to Right-click or Command-click the name of the file in the title bar and see the path, whether the file was locked or not. Now when I open an attachment from Outlook (yes, I know it's in the Outlook temp folder - I just shouldn't have to manually navigate there), I can't actually open that folder from the Preview window.

When I try this method on an unlocked file, such as one on the Desktop, or in my Documents folder, it succeeds. So far, I can only see that the locked state is at issue.

I saw on another answer to a similar question they referred to ensuring View > Show Path Bar was selected - but that's not an option in my version of Preview.

Any ideas?

Additional info: I reviewed the updates I've recently installed, and I think the behavior changed after I installed the most recent Xcode update (v6.4) a few days ago (I doubt that iMovie, OneNote or HP Printer software updates were involved). On Yosemite 10.10.4.

It's not the best way, but it works:

Open Terminal.app, type dirname (with space),
drug file into Terminal.app, and you'll see full escaped path of file (with \ symbols if there're some spaces around).
Press Enter and this command prints full path without escapes, copy this output (with ⌘Cmd-C)
with Finder.app type ⌘Cmd-Shift-G to open this directory.

PS: To drug file into Terminal you can drug this small icon on the window frame


How do I connect my Mac to Wi-Fi automatically? I have a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X, but it doesn't connect to Wi-Fi automatically. If I turn Wi-Fi on, I then have to manually select the network. Is there some way to change this behaviour?

Mac OS X should automatically join any known networks, as reported in the network applet.
After you select the Airport service in the list of the network connection, you can click on the Advanced button, which will show a dialog that allows you to select your preferred networks, and to sort them.

The Mac will not automatically connect if it doesn't find any of the preferred networks, or if the preferred network requires a "password" that is unknown to the Mac.


How to Install OS X on new hard drive on a Late 2012 Mac mini I have a Late 2012 Mac mini. I want to replace the hard drive with a SSD. The computer place wants to charge $99 for installing the OS on top of the $129 for installing the new SSD. The tech said I can install the OS myself. Could someone please help me on how to do it so I can save $99?

To avoid having to install OS X twice, do the following.

Before removing your existing hard disk, follow the steps given below:

Download El Capitan (OS X 10.11) from the Mac App Store.
Create a bootable installer for OS X. For this you will need a USB
flash drive.

Both of the above steps are outlined at the Apple web site: "Create a bootable installer for OS".

If you are not able to do follow the instructions on the link above, or are wary or using command lines, download a free tool called Unibeast onto your Mac. It will create the bootable USB device for you. I don't own the tool or promote it so I won't link it but I do recommend it since it helped me. A simple search should bring it up.

If not, the rest of this guide continues:

Once your new disk is installed, do the following.

Insert the flash drive in a USB port on your Mac.
Start the Mac and hold down the option key.
Select to boot from the flash drive.
Use the Disk Utility application to create a single partition to
install El Capitan (OS X 10.11).
Quit the Disk Utility application.
Select "Reinstall OS X".


Is it possible to create a group of Applications on Dock without changing the path? Now that I have a bunch of applications on my Dock, I want to create a group to manage similar applications altogether. For example, I want to group a set of graphics apps (e.g. Affinity Designer, Sketch 3, Pixelmator) at one place, and access to them by tapping on the group first, and then selecting the app.

This can be done if you create a new directory and move the apps to it, and then drag and drop the directory to the Dock. However, this changes the path of the app (e.g. /Applications/Graphics/Pixelmator.app), which I like to eschew. (That's why I called it group, not directory.)

Also this has a problem, in that you must drag and drop to the right side of your Dock...

So is it still possible to create a group in this case?

You can put app aliases to the new folder and then add it do the Dock. You can create an alias by right/secondary clicking on the App and choosing "Create Alias" or pressing ⌘ CMD+L.
Macworld has an article about aliases and putting them on Dock.

An even easier way to create an alias and move it to your more convenient location is to hold alt (option) and command while clicking and dragging an item. Drop it onto your desktop (or other convenient location) and you've got yourself an alias in the place you need it to be in one swift step.
You can find the original item for an alias by selecting the alias and choosing File > Show Original.


Login - Screen Flashes and Returns to Login Screen - Tried Everything Possible I have an absurd issue which pretty much nothing seems to be able to fix -

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro running Mavericks.
When I try logging into my main account with the correct password, the wheel starts spinning, but then the screen acquires a blue tint, flashes, and then returns back to the login screen, asking me to enter my password again.

I created another Admin account which seems to login perfectly. In fact, I am unable to login even through Safe Mode...

I tried the following things -

Removing the password - this resulted in a login loop
Resetting PRAM
Reinstalling Mavericks
Rebuilding the user account
Removing the LaunchServices files
Removing the cache files

I tried literally everything but nothing seems to work!!!

This problem happened right after I was trying to connect my Macbook to an external monitor.. It wouldn't show the screen so I kept inserting and removing the cable..

Please feel free to be as technical as you want. I'm a CS major :)

There is one troubleshooting step that OS X shares with the classic Mac OS, removing preference files. But on OS X there are TWO folders:

/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Preferences

--The latter being in your user/home folder--

Since the issue doesn't exist under another logon it is specific to that user folder. SO there is something specific to that user that is causing the problem. This takes the /Library/Preferences folder out of consideration for troubleshooting preferences. The first thing I would do is use a utility like Onyx to verify and clean the system. This includes verifying preferences files. After that rename the ~/Library/Preferences folder to something like

~/Library/Preferences-old

You'll probably have to do that in Terminal and use sudo as those files are owned by another user on the system. then create a new ~/Library/Preferences folder and reboot.

If you can now log into that account it is a simple (HAH!) matter of putting preferences files in the new Preferences folder and rebooting till you find which one it is.

No guarantee, though, that it is a preference file, it could be a startup item. So do the same thing with the ~/Library/LaunchAgents folder.

The other thing to consider is that it might be easier to just create a new user folder. Copy the things you need out of the old user folder and delete the old user. That could save you a lot of troubleshooting time. It would be my preferred way of doing it (after running Onyx) as I care less about what happened than just finding a fix that gets me up and running more quickly.


What is standard for OS X filesystem? e.g. /opt/ vs. /usr/ What does and should go into /opt/ and what should/does go into /usr/?  My understanding is that /usr/ used to be for user home directories, but since they exist in /Users/ - what is the purpose now?

Is there a manual or guide to what all of the built-in directories should be used for?  Like what is /home/, or /net/?

Is there a manual or guide to what all of the built-in directories should be used for? Like what is /home/, or /net/?

Take a look at the File System Programming Guide for the most up-to-date information and at man hier in Terminal, which provides a "historical sketch" of the filesystem hierarchy (it's included at the end of this answer for reference).

A comment to your question mentions the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. You will probably come to the conclusion, after perusing File System Programming Guide and man hier, that macOS doesn't follow the FHS, that's more of a Linux thing. Of course, there are similarities between the FHS and the filesystem layout in macOS because of the common UNIX origin, but the differences are striking. macOS doesn't use any of these:

/boot folder -> macOS uses /System/Library/Kernels instead (in older versions of macOS, the folder containing the kernel was /)
/home folder -> macOS uses /Users instead
/root folder -> macOS uses /var/root instead

and /opt isn't mentioned not one time in any document (more on /opt below.)

A further distiction between macOS and a FHS-compliant OS is the use of /private, for example /etc is a symlink to /private/etc.

About /net: It is an automounter map (listed in /etc/auto_master), see Wikipedia for more information.

What does and should go into /opt/ and what should/does go into /usr/? My understanding is that /usr/ used to be for user home directories, but since that exists in /Users/ - what is the purpose now?

Although /usr was used in the past to place the home directories of the users, that's no longer the case.

Nowadays, /usr contains user commands (in /usr/bin for normal users and /usr/sbin for administrative users, like root), shared libraries (/usr/lib), man pages (/usr/share/man), executables that shouldn't be run directly by users (/usr/libexec) and other stuff.

It also offers a subdirectory, /usr/local, to place programs, libraries and other files that don't come with the base OS.

/opt has a very similar role to /usr/local and they seem interchangeable. However, from my experience working with other Linux/UNIX sysadmins, there seems to be a preference for /usr/local in BSD-based UNIX OSs.

So this is my take on it: macOS is BSD-based and consequently I'd use /usr/local. Note that you can create a program directory and then symlink commands to /usr/local/bin, etc, for example:

/usr/local/mysql
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin
/usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.so
/usr/local/bin/mysqladmin -> ../mysql/bin/mysqladmin
/usr/local/lib/libmysqlclient.so -> ../mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.so

This used to be usual practice in Linux and UNIX too, but the FHS explicitely forbids it: if you wish to install third party packages in their own directory hierarchy you should use/opt/<package> instead. Note that FHS-compliance requires to put configuration files in /etc/opt/<package> and variable files in /var/opt/<package>.

So, in macOS, I'd recommend that you stick to /usr/local as described above.

I'm aware of add-on software like Cisco VPN and XQuartz that install in /opt, so the above distinctions start to blur.

man hier

As mentioned above this is man hier:

 A historical sketch of the filesystem hierarchy.  The modern macOS filesystem is documented in the
 ``File System Programming Guide'' available on Apple Developer.

 /             root directory of the filesystem

 /bin/         user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments

 /dev/         block and character device files

               fd/  file descriptor files; see fd(4)

 /etc/         system configuration files and scripts

 /mach_kernel  kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory at boot time).

 /sbin/        system programs and administration utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-
               user environments

 /tmp/         temporary files

 /usr/         contains the majority of user utilities and applications

               bin/      common utilities, programming tools, and applications
               include/  standard C include files

                         arpa/       C include files for Internet service protocols
                         hfs/        C include files for HFS
                         machine/    machine specific C include files
                         net/        misc network C include files
                         netinet/    C include files for Internet standard protocols; see inet(4)
                         nfs/        C include files for NFS (Network File System)
                         objc/       C include files for Objective-C
                         protocols/  C include files for Berkeley service protocols
                         sys/        system C include files (kernel data structures)
                         ufs/        C include files for UFS

               lib/      archive libraries
               libexec/  system daemons & system utilities (executed by other programs)
               local/    executables, libraries, etc. not included by the basic operating system
               sbin/     system daemons & system utilities (executed by users)
               share/    architecture-independent data files

                         calendar/  a variety of pre-fab calendar files; see calendar(1)
                         dict/      word lists; see look(1)

                                    web2        words from Webster's 2nd International
                                    words       common words

                         man/       manual pages
                         misc/      misc system-wide ascii text files
                         mk/        templates for make; see make(1)
                         skel/      example . (dot) files for new accounts
                         tabset/    tab description files for a variety of terminals; used in the term-
                                    cap file; see termcap(5)
                         zoneinfo/  timezone configuration information; see tzfile(5)

 /var/         multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files

               at/        timed command scheduling files; see at(1)
               backups/   misc. backup files
               db/        misc. automatically generated system-specific database files
               log/       misc. system log files

               mail/      user mailbox files
               run/       system information files describing various info about system since it was
                          booted

                          utmpx       database of current users; see utmpx(5)

               rwho/      rwho data files; see rwhod(8), rwho(1), and ruptime(1)
               spool/     misc. printer and mail system spooling directories

                          mqueue/     undelivered mail queue; see sendmail(8)

               tmp/       temporary files that are kept between system reboots
               folders/   per-user temporary files and caches


X11 font cache on OS X Often when I open an X11 application (Wireshark, GIMP) it has to build some sort of font cache, which often takes 30 seconds or more during application launch. I don't change my fonts often and Wireshark definitely doesn't need access to hundreds of fonts.

Can someone explain what this font caching is, why it impedes the launching of applications (instead of being some background X11 process), and why it needs to happen so often?

I'm not sure whether this is specific to OS X.

Font caching is an operation done by the font rendering library, called by the application program.
In theory, it would allow for faster rendering, since list of available fonts on the system is already created, the system could even temporary save commonly used fonts for faster access.
On OS X, the position of directory for font cache within the library can be misconfigured, so the application program can not write the font cache. So font cache is created on the fly, every time you run the program. This is slow.
You can solve this problem by running your application as administrator (root) by typing "su gimp" once. Do not work in administrator mode, just run it once. In this way, font cache will be created (as administrator has root permission on font cache position), and the next time you start the program (as normal user), it will be faster.


Using Mac to connect PlayStation 4 to VPN I am trying to set up my PlayStation to have VPN set up.

I have a Mac. I thought about buying a router, but it is too expensive, and I don't need a wireless setup. My Mac doesn't have LAN ports, so I cannot buy one Ethernet adapter as I need two lan ports to connect my Mac to Internet and the other to connect the Mac to PS4.

Is it possible to buy two ethernet adapters to make this work? Or is it better to just buy a cheap router that will support VPN?

It sounds like you need an inexpensive switch. Plug the router in to the switch and your PS4 and Mac into the switch.

TP-Link 5 Port Fast Ethernet Switch | Desktop Ethernet Splitter | Ethernet Hub | Plug and Play | Fanless Quiet | Unmanaged (TL-SF1005D), White https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FNFSPY

You could get faster networking in your building to go to gigabit speeds, but it’s unlikely your VPN or internet are faster than the switch I linked to. This won’t solve the VPN side, so ask that on a network site or once your physical network is working.

I would not have your Mac relay traffic when network gear is so much faster and power efficient.


Sync directories from iMac & MacBook . What is the recommended method? I like to sync directories from my Imac & MacBook . What is the recommended method?

There are many methods for syncing things across computers. If you do not mind having all of your directories within a certain superdirectory, and do not have too much stuff to sync, Dropbox is a great and incredibly easy way to go. If you have a lot of data or want to sync directories from anywhere on your computer, BitTorrent Sync is a quick and secure method for syncing data.


How do I use RemotePC to access a Mac from an iPad? I want to use RemotePC, but it needs an internet connection. I don't understand why; I only want to remotely control my Mac from an iPad, so a local network should be enough… right?

Macs come with VNC automatically, no additional install. If you can trust everyone on your local network and your VNC ports are closed on your router/firewall, then I would just turn it on. There is a check box under advanced remote management or remote desktop options that says something about allowing VNC users to log in. There's an optional password field. I use iTeleport then to VNC into my mac. There are other cheaper VNC programs too, but iTeleport is pretty excellent.


cannot use the mac_alias package to generate an alias I have about 3000 files and I need to turn them into aliases so doing it by hand is not an option plus in the future I want to be able to do this automatically.  I'm trying to use this package
https://mac-alias.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
The module only has three methods, for_file, to_bytes, from_bytes.  I want to be able to generate an alias.  I would think I would need to tell the computer which path I want the alias to occupy and which path I want the alias to point to.  But I only see a method which creates some sort of object using the for_file method, but once that is done I cannot figure out what do with it.
In case I'm not being very clear I want to generate an alias which points to a file.

Technically this question was answered by mmmm.  In any case, symlinks do bascially the same things as aliases.  So if you want to create a symlink in python:
import os
os.symlink(source, destination)

And that should do it.


How do I view comments in Microsoft Word 2011 for OSX? How do I view comments in Microsoft Word 2011 for OSX?  I can turn on the review pane, but that shows me every edit I've done to this document and it's impossible to find the comments.  I just want a quick view of all the comments in the document.

Here's your solution.  From the Review tab, under Tracking, select the Show Markup drop down and uncheck everything but comments.


Macbook Ram Speed Question (1033 or 1333 MHZ) I have two 4GB modules of ram for a Macbook Pro (1033MHZ).
I have a new Macbook pro that came with two 2GB modules (1333MHZ)

Would it be best if I left the 4GB faster ram in? Or would it really be noticeable if I swapped it for the 8GB of slower ram?

Depends on what you plan on doing with the machine but 9.99 times out of 10 you're better off going with more ram (8gb in this case), especially for RAM-intensive applications such as databases, virtual machines, music/video/audio/photo editing.


Office suite with spell check and dropbox sync for iOS? I’m looking for an iOS app with spell-check that will allow me to edit Word documents and sync them with Dropbox.
From reviews I’ve read neither Quick Office nor Documents to Go offer this feature.

Does such an app exist?

If I am right you are asking about the red squiggly lines that appear under mis-spelt words?

Pages does this and on iOS 11 the Dropbox sync is seamless with files integration
Word from Microsoft does the same as Pages on iOS 11 but isn’t free for devices with a screen size above 10.1 inches (so the two largest iPad Pro are paid editing only). You need to bring some form of O365 subscription to get all the features on all screen sizes.

The spell check is a native feature within iOS, rather than the app. So if you type in the app you will get the auto correct.

You can use Pages to spell check as this has the red lines but you can't put back into drop box.

QuickOffice does sync with Dropbox, but doesn't spell check, (a feature which may be added soon) Documents to Go only offers dropbox sync with it's premium version which was misled by it's iTunes description.


I need to log into apple mail to read new messages received from outlook I have a macbook Air and want to run outlook mail instead of using Apple mail. I have set up outlook as imap and it seems to be working fine, i can send and receive messages but for some reason I can't view them, they appear and then disappear instantly. I'm having to use Apple email to read my messages. I have tried syncing and everything I know, MS were useless. Do I need to remove Apple email? Can anyone advise please

There is no interference with having more than one program retrieve IMAP mail.

Just quit Apple Mail and don't launch it while you work out whatever is not happy within Outlook.

Then your server will only see the requests from Outlook and you can focus on troubleshooting that setup. If you want to ask a second question on how to troubleshoot Outlook - just list your relevant details (version, etc) and document which troubleshooting article you are following from the Office support website (it's quite good in most instances) and you'll probable get some expert help.


Remove the Notification Center icon from the Menu Bar I would like to remove the Notification Center icon like I could in Yosemite.

I'd like to not see it in the menu bar (to the right of the spotlight icon).

So you can easily disable it with

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist; killall NotificationCenter

You can remove the icon with

sudo rm /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/Resources/menuitemNormal.pdf

but the blank space will remain.  There is an app called Bartender I've seen a few people promoting to fix this issue.


MacBook Pro slows down from pressure on the bottom (messy solution included) I have some non-trivial problem. If my notebook stands on solid surface everything is fine, but if I put it on my knees (for example, it could be a book too) or just push the center of the bottom cover, the CPU usage immediately grows to 100%. It also causes issues with the WiFi.

I have MacBook Pro mid 2010, which I manually upgraded to an SSD (optibay) + 8Gb DDR. I recently disassembled it and cleaned it, but the problem came yesterday.
I tried to manually push some points on motherboard but failed to reproduce the problem, it only occurs when pushing the bottom cover.

In Activity Monitor, kernel_task is using greater than 170% CPU. There are no warnings or errors in logs during this problem.

Has anyone else seen this? What can I do (other than going to a service center)? What kind of problem could it be?

UPDATE

I've done messy solution - place the steel coin between the bottom cap and the processor's fan. Now the bottom cap did not contact the cooler and everything's fine.

I would re-seat all the temperature sensor connectors.

I've read that when the machine appears hot, kernel_task slows the machine down in order to reduce the heat.  The way it does this causes the CPU usage of kernel_task to appear high.

So perhaps, when you press on the cover, this distorts one of the temperature sensor cables, causing some faulty temperature readings.  (I'm assuming the machine doesn't seem hot to you?)

I did a search for [kernel_task CPU heat] and found this blog post, which describes a way to "fix" this issue by modifying the kernel_task configuration so it doesn't take this action.  I'd caution against this modification, though, as it doesn't fix the underlying hardware problem -- instead, it disables a (presumably important) software-based safety mechanism.


bash does not honor ~/.inputrc under the latest macos
$ sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.15.6
BuildVersion:   19G73

i am using the latest bash (installed via brew)
$ $SHELL --version
GNU bash, version 5.0.18(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin19.5.0)
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

This is free software; you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

and bash is defined as the default shell (chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash + reboot)
$ which $SHELL
/usr/local/bin/bash

$ cat /etc/shells | tail -n 1
/usr/local/bin/bash

to customize bash, i have ~/.inputrc
$ ls -l ~/.inputrc
-rw------- 1 foo staff 1432 Jan 21  2020 /Users/foo/.inputrc

that holds the following
set completion-ignore-case on
"\e[B": history-search-forward
"\e[A": history-search-backward

i used to be able to reverse-search using case-insensitive, but now it stopped working.
even tried to run set completion-ignore-case on and bind 'set completion-ignore-case on' directly in the terminal but it did not solve my issue.

is there a bug in the bash version that i am using?
how can i tell whether bash honors ~/.inputrc?
how do you recommend to debug the issue?

after examining the issue under linux, i realized that the issue is not macos specific.
searching the internet harder, i found the solution

you can't get this feature in BASH at present because this feature hasn't been built yet into vi or emacs mode. As I commented above completion-ignore-case only applies to completion, not to isearch

~10 years after the accepted answer, it seems that it is still the case.
references:

Find out corresponding escape sequence for a given key combo
Search for a previous command with the prefix I just typed
In bash, how do I bind a function key to a command?


How to print to printer connected to Windows 7 PC from iPad Air? I see the answer for printing from an iPad to a Windows enterprise, but I just want to print from an iPad Air to my home printer (HP Officejet Pro L7590) that is running on my network from a Windows desktop.  Is there a solution simpler than Presto?

The L7590 does not provide Airprint capabilities and can 't be added.

If you run Windows you can try to enable AirPrint - like described here (I haven't tried it my self, because I'm running OS X, so I can't comment on how good it is): http://www.airprintactivation.com/ - then the printer(s) setup on your PC will be available in iOS

If you run OS X you can download a more less free AirPrint enabler: http://www.netputing.com/handyprint/ - then the printer(s) setup on your Mac will be available in iOS


How can I stop/start all Mac OS X Server services at once? When doing maintenance on our OS X Server (10.8.4), I need to shut down all server services one by one. While it is not too much of a drag to click all services off, perform maintenance, and back on, I wonder, if there is a way to automate this procedure.

Is there?

You could do it from the command line and/or write a script with the relevant services:

sudo launchctl list

And for ssh (remote login) for example

sudo launchctl stop com.openssh.sshd

Bringing them back up then with start (instead of stop)


Is there any disadvantage of buying a refurbished iPhone 6s/7? I found some websites which sell "Refurbished" iPhone 6/6s/7 . Refurbished iPhones claim to work like "new". Is it really true?

Some people told me that - the battery in refurbished iPhone is Not new. Is it true?

Most of the websites give 60/90 days warranty for refurbished iPhones. Why don't they give 1 year warranty? Does it mean that refurbished iPhones don't last long because the phone was already used by someone else (which causes the phone to lose some of it's lifetime) ?

If there is NO disadvantage of a Refurbished iPhone (for eg: I will get 1 year warranty with Refurbished iPhone) , then what is the point of buying a Brand new iPhone spending extra money?

It depends where you buy the iPhone. Generally it’s wrote when the battery is new.

On the Apple’s refurb, the batteries are new.

For the warranty, the websites offers 60/90 days because it’s not NEW iPhone, not because they’ll be decreasing shortly.
And the websites would tells you the level of the iPhone, if it gets scratch on the back, missing wire.


Option-delete not working in powerpoint I'm using microsoft office 2011 and for some reason option-delete doesn't seem to have the standard behavior it usually does. It works fine in word and excel, however.

I don't have another computer to test with — can someone who has powerpoint 2011 see whether option-delete works fine for them too (I want to know whether this is an issue on my end or just microsoft's poor coding).

Your question is a little vague because you don't clarify what you deem to be the standard behaviour of using optiondelete.

However, upon my own testing on an iMac with Office 2011, I can confirm that optiondelete within MS Word does in fact behave differently than it does in MS PowerPoint. However, I found that it behaves the same way in both Powerpoint and Excel.

More specifically, in MS Word using optiondelete will delete the entire word behind the cursor in MS Word, while in Powerpoint and Excel it only deletes a single character, just like it would by pressing the delete key on its own.


Will one USB-C port be able to deliver power, data transfer and power two monitors on a Macbook Pro? I have a USB-C hub (link to it on amazon is here). At the moment I have a setup of: Mouse and keyboard, hard drives, power cable and one monitor through HDMI into that USB-C hub and have had no troubles.
However, I have a two monitor setup and when I use my MacBook pro I only use one monitor - I'd like to use the second one as a extend feature, so I have two screens available NOT DUPLICATE SCREENS.
This USB-C hub only has one HDMI port available (I'd prefer not to buy a new hub) and so I was just wondering if I got a HDMI splitter similar to this and plug that into the one HDMI port on my Hub and have two HDMI cables going from my two monitors, would that work?
I'm wondering this as it would be a lot of stress on one thunderbolt port on my Macbook, surely, let alone splitting HDMI signals?
If that won't work, if I have one HDMI port going from my hub to one monitor and have a USB-C cable to HDMI from another USB-C port on my Mac and have that go to the second monitor, would that be more feasible?

Based on this post:
Can I connect three monitors and provide power to my MacBook Pro with a single cable?
Thunderbolt doesn't chain video. So you need to use 2 ports in order to display to two external monitors.
You can see the example setup here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ-87j7bmgc


Power Chime Sounding at odd times 2018 MBP I recently bought a 15-inch 2018 i9 MacBook Pro. After a few days, I realized that whenever I close my laptop lid for the night, it keeps on periodically making the battery chiming noise every 7 minutes or so. When I took a look at the battery in the last 12 hours (right after periodic chiming), it was clear the battery has been 100% or very near 100% for a long time. When using the MacBook Pro during the day, I do not notice any periods where the laptop should be charging but the battery status indicates otherwise. However, I might not be paying careful enough attention. Are there any further steps I can take to resolve this issue?

I fixed this by resetting my System Management Controller.

EDIT:
this only temporarily fixed it. I ended up needing to exchange MacBooks.


iPad 3 stuck on the iTunes logo My iPad 3 will not turn on.

It started freezing up and would reboot and then it would have a black screen with white text. It's currently stuck on the iTunes logo. It will connect to iTunes but it will not update or restore. HELP!!

Try holding both the power and home buttons at the same time for about 10 to 30 seconds.

EDIT 1: Try to connect it to iTunes on your computer. iTunes may offer to try to fix it for you.

EDIT 2: If all else fails, check out the "If your device gets stuck during startup" section of this Apple support page.

EDIT 3: If nothing works at all, try using the Apple's Recovery Mode. If this fails, you should contact Apple Support directly as it might be a hardware issue: http://www.apple.com/support/


Insert date & time in latest version of Numbers I've looked around online and have found references to an "Insert => Date & Time" capability in Numbers for OSX. But it's not there in my version of Numbers (3.0.1 -- 1483). Has this capability been removed?

I've pasted a screenshot of my Insert menu below.

Unfortunately, Apple removed that option in the menu bar. However, you can still get the today's date by manually typing it (obviously) or by selecting the cell and typing "=Today", followed by the return key.

You can also type "=Date", followed by the return key. You can then manually select the date there.


Need help splitting out a shared iPad My partner and I have been sharing an iPad. All the apps were obtained using her AppleID, but I am the one using all the apps.

Now we bought a second iPad and I want all the apps to be on the new iPad, and removed from the old so she can start fresh.

I have my own AppleID. I also want these transferred apps to sync with my iPhone.

I really don't know where to start in setting up my new iPad to have all These apps on it, under my AppleID.  Is it even possible?

You need to make a backup in iTunes of your old iPad and then restore the new iPad with that backup. When you turn on an iPad that is totally new, it askes if you want to restore from backup or start from "new". You want to restore from iTunes backup.
Guide for backup and restore in Itunes

Once you have all your apps on the new iPad, you can manually delete or wipe the whole old iPad clean.
Here are some useful informations about deleting/cleaning Apple i-devices

Good luck and ask if you have any further problems.

Ps. You need to do a iTunes backup, because if you have alot of data (apps) there will not be space enough on your iCloud free 5GB standard subscription.


Pair AirPods to tvOS 11 Using the public beta version of tvOS 11 on an AppleTV 4th-generation.

How to pair my AirPods ear buds?

This new version 11 is supposed to make easy work of pairing. But when I open the AirPods case next to the Apple TV, nothing happens. When I go to Settings > Video and Audio > Audio Output, all I see listed is "Apple TV" both when case is open nearby and when wearing the AirPods.

These AirPods are already paired with both my iPhone and Mac, without problems.

Pick up your AirPods charging case and open it.
Press and hold the pairing button on the back of the case.
Launch Settings on your Apple TV
Click on Remotes and Devices.
Click on Bluetooth.
Select your AirPods from the list.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207010

https://discussions.apple.com/message/31128330#31128330

https://www.imore.com/how-pair-your-airpods-apple-tv-android-and-other-bluetooth-devices


Macbook Air - old battery charges, replacement battery does not Apologies if this is a duplicate, but I have searched and not found anyone with the specific problem I'm experiencing.

My MacBook Air (A1466, Mid 2012) has a third party battery that is nearing the end of its life. It has about 250 cycles, but can only power the computer for about 30 minutes.

I have bought 2 second hand official Apple batteries from different eBay sellers. The Air doesn't recognise either of them.

With my current (old but working) third-party battery:

Plugging in the PSU charges the battery to full capacity
Capacity drops to about 50% within 30 minutes
I have to plug in again, or the computer will shut off without warning

With either of the replacement batteries:

The computer doesn't recognise the battery
Coconut Battery and System Profiler report no battery present
Computer shuts off immediately if power cord removed

Things I have tried:

Resetting PMU
Resetting NVRAM
Connecting power cord first, and then the battery terminal second

The last step gets the computer to recognise the replacement battery, but I cannot get it to charge.

I can read the battery's serial number in Coconut Battery, but it is reported as zero capacity.
The system battery level menu extra reports the battery as 80% full, but not charging
Disconnecting the power cord causes the computer to shut off immediately
The mac cannot be started up from battery alone.

If I replace my old battery, it charges and performs as normal.

This is weird. Surely I can't have bought 2 separate dud batteries? Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated.

The comments are correct: despite buying 2 different batteries from eBay sellers with good reputations, both were faulty. I bought a new battery from iFixit, which works fine.

Lesson learned: don't buy batteries on eBay.


osx mavericks update deleted all my files and apps from osx lion after osx mavericks update i lost all my files and apps from osx lion, is there any way to get it back ?
everything was deleted what was on destop in osx lion, apps, pictures and etc.

I ran into the same thing. Here is what I had to do to get everything back.

I had to create a new dummy account.
While logged into the dummy account I found my old user home folder and renamed it something else.
I then created another user account named my original account name.
I proceeded to delete that account's home folder.
Then I renamed my old user home folder to the name of the newly created account
I logged into the newly made user account.
After that I went to the users folder and make my new account the owner of my home folder (it will still think your old account is the owner).
I applied the ownership to all enclosed items.

You should see all your desktop and documents return.
You may have to log out and back in to have everything come back.

As for your apps. I found a Recovered Items folder in the root Macintosh HD directory. In this folder you should have an applications folder. You can drag your applications back into the Mavericks applications folder. Most of the applications should come over properly. I had to re-activate my MS office for mac. Everything else seemed to work fine.


Is there a shortcut to play the audio preview on Finder? I have a bunch of audio files that I need to classify, so I need to play a few seconds of each file and then rename it accordingly. I can do almost all the operations with keyboard shortcuts, except for playing the preview, for that one I need to click on the play button on the center of the preview column.

Press the space bar to open quick look, which will automatically play the sound. Space again will close it.


How do I change the hotkey combo to lock the screen On my Macbook pro (OS X 10.8.2) the hotkey combo to lock he screen is Ctrl+Shift+Eject.

I don't like that combination at all.  I'd like to make it Ctrl+Command+l is there some way to do this?

I would suggest :

Create a new service with automator with a "Run Shell Script"
Here the script /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
Bind this new service to a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences » Keyboard » pane Keyboard Shortcuts

Edit : This post on SuperUser explains it better than me.


iMac SDD+HDD - noise? If the new 2011 iMac is equiped with SSD and HDD at the same time, is HDD running (so fan on) even at times when HDD not used for a longer period?

Context: I need the computer to be really silent (bedroom), and only when exceptionally accessing e.g. video files to use HDD. So if HDD would run all the time, I would rather go for an option of sole SSD in iMac and external HDD which can be unplugged. Otherwise I would go for both in iMac.

Definitely make the SSD your boot/app disk and set your computer to put hard disks to sleep. But even then there are many factors that can cause the drive to spin up even. Sometimes just getting an open dial box will cause it to spin up.

I'd first make sure your HDD is not shown in the sidebar - if it is there it will definitely spin up every time you get a save or open dialog box or a finder window.

Even after doing that I still had it spinning up more than I wanted so I followed this blog post on Dae’s blog to make an apple script that will unmount or mount it so I can explicitly control when it sleeps or doesn't sleep. Incase the link dies, here is the script. It even does Growl notification:

set myVolumeLabel to "Storage HD"

tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
    set the allNotificationsList to {"Disk mounted", "Disk unmounted"}

    register as application "Disk Mounter" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications allNotificationsList icon of application "Disk Utility.app"
end tell

tell application "Finder"
    set diskDev to do shell script "diskutil list | grep \"" & myVolumeLabel & "\" | grep -o 'disk[0-9]*' "
    if not (disk myVolumeLabel exists) then
        do shell script "diskutil mountDisk " & diskDev
        tell application "GrowlHelperApp" to notify with name "Disk mounted" title "Volume mounted" description "Disk “" & diskDev & "” with volume “" & myVolumeLabel & "” has been successfully mounted." application name "Disk Mounter" icon of application "Disk Utility.app"
    else
        do shell script "diskutil unmountDisk " & diskDev
        tell application "GrowlHelperApp" to notify with name "Disk unmounted" title "Disk unmounted" description "Disk “" & diskDev & "” with volume “" & myVolumeLabel & "” has been successfully unmounted." application name "Disk Mounter" icon of application "Disk Utility.app"
    end if
end tell

One thing to note - this unmounts ("ejects") an entire drive - not just a single partition.


How to open a .app which is inside the Contents/Resources/ of the script? I am trying to create a applescript that when I double click on it, the code activates an (or multiple) application/s from inside it. e.g. I just click on this script and it opens Photo booth and COD.

You can use path to resource to get the pathname of the .app file that's in an App's Resource folder, and then use Finder to open the apps, e.g.:

set appPath1 to path to resource "AppName1.app"
set appPath2 to path to resource "AppName2.app"

tell application "Finder"
    open appPath1
    open appPath2
end tell

Note: This method is for use from a AppleScript App's script that is run upon the AppleScript App being opened. If this is not what you're lookin for, then I misunderstood your question. If I did misunderstand, would you please clarify your question.


Is there an equivalent to Microsoft LAPS for MacOS? I am looking for a way to randomize local administrator accounts on MacOS. For Windows, there is a solution called LAPS, which randomizes the local admin passwords (so that every system cant get hacked if a single password is compromised). I found a few projects on github, but would rather use a well known/Apple supported solution.
I have to recommend this to the person who administers these workstations. I'm just trying to make their life easier because most people don't like to do the research.
If there is a way to do this using jamf that would be even better.
What options exist to manage secure passwords like LAPS offers in AD environments for Windows?

Not tested, but macOSLAPS looks mature and closely matches the feature set.


Are Photos from the Photos app in iOS backed up to iCloud? Are Photos from the Photos app in iOS backed up to iCloud? I basically make albums in iPhoto and they are saved in my Photos app on my device. I really hope these are getting backed up to iCloud. Can anyone confirm?

The last 1000 photos and 30 days are, via the photo stream. Apple details here. But this should be seen as a temporary solution.


Can you run a 4k monitor at 30hz with a late 2011 MBA? Is it possible to run an external display connected to a late 2011 MacBook Air at 3840x2160@30Hz.

I realize having this resolution at 60hz exceeds the bandwidth limitation of a Thunderbolt 1 port. This is why I am asking specifically about 30hz.

Hardware: Late 2011 MBA running 10.9.3

Monitor: Samsung U28D590D, connected to MBA with Mini DP to DP cable

This isn't a duplicate question. The other related asked-and-answered questions all point out that this impossible for 4k@60hz. I am inquiring about 3840x2160@30hz specifically.

No, this is not possible. As Apple states, the only models capable of supporting 4k resolutions (3850x2160 UHD) at 30 or 60 Hzs are the late 2013 Mac Pros and late 2013 Macbook Pros:

  "You can use 4K displays and Ultra HD TVs with your MacBook Pro
  (Retina, Late 2013) or Mac Pro (Late 2013) computer. You can use these
  displays at the following resolutions and refresh rates with the
  built-in HDMI port

  3840 x 2160 at 30 Hz refresh rate"

In fact, this is the default configuration.

Though these two models also are capable of supporting 4k @ 60 Hz refresh, multi stream transport must be enabled on the external display.

The same applies to your Thunderbolt port. Thunderbolt 1 is not capable of driving 4K displays. Thunderbolt 2 is.


quicktime play/pause keyboard shortcut Is there any ability to start playing and set pause for video in quicktime by keyboard hotkey.

Now i'm doing window switch and then clicking on space key to achieve it. Is there any hot-key for that?

On my MacBook air, it has those keys already on the keyboard, F7 fast reverse, F8 play/Pause, F9 fast forward :)

If you don have MacBook Air keyboard, then you can use the

Space bar for Play/Pause


Have Automator add original path to Spotlight Comment for a file when moving to the trash Is there a way to add the original path of a document as a Spotlight comment in Mountain Lion?

I have created an automator workflow that automatically adds the Timestamp and user when a file is moved to trash.  It also touches the file, so that its modified date becomes when it was moved (unless of course it is subsequently changed).  This way I can find files I deleted by accident more easily.  If I also have the original path to the document then I can put it back from where it came (for example if I deleted from search results).

I would just use Applescript to do it in a Run Applescript Action

on run {input, parameters}
    set theDate to do shell script "date +%Y_%m_%d_%H:%M:%S"
    tell application "Finder"

        repeat with thisfile in input
            set theComment to theDate & return & POSIX path of thisfile
            set comment of (thisfile as alias) to theComment

        return input
    end tell

end run

This sets the date stamp and path.
It should be simple to add your touch and delete code to this.


Safari AppleScript - Can't Filter Tabs of Inactive Windows I've got a bit of AppleScript that is frustrating the heck out of me. I need to get a list of all Safari tabs, then filter them down. I was expecting this to be very simple. It's not.

tell application "Safari"
    set tabSet to {}
    repeat with w in (get every window)
        repeat with t in (get every tab of w)
            set the end of tabSet to t
        end repeat
    end repeat
    --set tabSet to every tab of every window -- a one-liner here would be convenient

    set firstTab to first item of tabSet -- works, see edit
    set targetTab to first item of tabSet whose name is "Untitled" -- this fails
end tell

First of all, every tab of every window returns a nested list of lists of tabs (grouped by window) instead of just a flat list. I just ended up going with repeats. (If there is a way to make this a one-liner, it would be nice). But so far, so good.

The result I was getting from first item of tabSet was throwing me off because it looked like it was returning a form of the entire list:

item 1 of {tab 1 of window id 15557 of application "Safari", tab 2 of window id 15557 of application "Safari", tab 3 of window id 15557 of application "Safari", tab 4 of...

The actual problem occurs on the filter line where I try to get the first item of tabSet whose name is "Untitled". (Replace with a valid name of course). Then, I get this error:

error "Safari got an error: Can’t get tab 1 of window id 15561 whose name = \"Untitled\". Invalid index." number -1719

EDIT 2:

I added the following block:

repeat with t in tabSet
    set n to (get name of t)
    try
        set targetTab to (first item in tabSet whose name is n)
        set targetWindow to (first window whose tabs contains targetTab)
        log (get id of targetWindow) & (get name of t)
    on error
        log "ERROR: " & n
    end try
end repeat

This revealed that, once again, the problem was not as it seemed, but was actually something completely different:

Only tabs in the frontmost window can be filtered. It appears that the statement first item of tabSet whose name is "Untitled" fails if the tab "Untitled" is in any window other than the frontmost window.

Any ideas?

This is how AppleScript refers to items from lists. You're not doing anything wrong.

When you say ‘first item’ of a list, you get ‘item 1 of {some list}’, that is literally equivalent to the first item in the list as you'd expect it in other languages.

All 3 of these are equivalent and refer to exactly the same thing, even though they show differently.

tab 1 of window id 1

item 1 of {tab 1 of window id 1}

item 1 of {tab 1 of window id 1, tab 2 of …, …}

You can get properties from this item as if it had never been in a list.

set targetName to name of targetTab -- gets the name of the tab

It may be confusing coming from other languages to see the entire list shown when you just want a single item, but it's likely for performance, since it doesn't attempt to extract anything from the list or even show a different representation of the item just because you don't want to see the rest of the list in some sort of output.


How to monitor USB power consumption? I'm looking for a way to monitor the power being drawn from the USB ports on my Mac.

System Profiler doesn't appear to display this and I haven't been able to find any applications or tools to do the job either.

Can anyone suggest anything (preferably software based)?

USB power consumption information should be available in System Profiler.  See the screenshot below:


Issue with creating a symbolic link inside /System folder I am trying to make a symbolic link inside the /System folder and even if I run the command as su I get the following error message.

macbook-pro:~ root# cd /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18
macbook-pro:5.12 root# ln -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/SVN/ SVN
ln: SVN: Operation not permitted
macbook-pro:5.12 root# ls -ld /System
drwxr-xr-x@  4 root  wheel restricted 136 Sep 22 10:37 System

How can I get this working?

I am guessing you are doing this to get git-svn to work. I've tested this on git 2.6.2. If so, link to non restricted directory:

sudo ln -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/SVN/ /Library/Perl/5.18/SVN
sudo mkdir /Library/Perl/5.18/auto
sudo ln -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/SVN/ /Library/Perl/5.18/auto/SVN


Downgrading an iOS application - how to download a previous version? On my iPad, I updated to a new version of YouTube that I don't like. Is there a way to downgrade?

Would it be possible if I have the application link to the old version? How do I get the old link?

I did not use iTunes for sync so I do not have any old versions saved.

If you are updating from devices directly, you can only pull the most recent version of the app.  In a slight change from the past, if the most recent version is not compatible with your device, it will now offer to let you download the most recent compatible version instead.

If you use iTunes on a Mac to download copies of your apps into your library, or you sync your iPad with iTunes to do this, then you should have the old version in your library, although if iTunes has also downloaded the new version you may have to hunt in  your time machine backups to find the relevant .IPA file for the older version you need.


Can Apple Macs bind to two domains in two separate forests? Is there anyway natively or with third party extension to bind a Mac so that it can search two domains for Authentication?

We have two forests each with one domain in them. In Active Directory terms there is a trust relationship between them so users can log in to Windows workstations with credentials from either domain. As we try to move to a single Domain in a single forest I need to understand if the Mac's can at least temporarily support Authentication against both domains...

After sorting that I can see how it handles the same username, Active Directory ID (SID) etc...

In OS X Mavericks

The same as binding the Mac to the Active Directory to the Domain for the first time - System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options. Unlock the advanced options and click Edit.

Here you can click the plus and add the additional domains' details

Some points to consider:

The Mac will need a computer account in the additional domain
Users who login where a user with the same samAccountName will be prompted for Admin credentials in order to rebuild the Library. This only happens when a matching user has already logged in to the Mac
Users will be prompted for the 'matching' user's password as OS X seems to try and migrate the users 'keychain'
Consideration should be given as to the order with which domains should be checked for authentication requests

I've still yet to dig into policies and configuration across the domains and how they affect the Macs' being in both domains.... though I still haven't learnt how that works so it may be a non issue


Detect SSD/HDD from Bash Script Is it possible to check if a file path points to a ssd or hdd?
For example a script could do more operations in parallel when running on a SSD while on a HDD it would hurt performance.

diskutil info "$(df /path/to/file | sed -n '2s|^.*% */|/|p')" | awk '/Solid State/ {print $NF}'

Returns Yes if solid state, No if not, and Info not available otherwise.

subshell df /file/path | awk 'NR==2{print $NF}'
df /path/to/file prints information on the mount point containing the given file.
sed replaces in the result.
-n disables ‘automatic’ printing, i.e. only print lines that have been specifically told to print.
2 performs the operation on the second line.
s| performs a substitution with the arguments between occurrences of the delimiter given.
^ from the start of the line.
.*% any characters any number of times, up to the last percent sign.
 */ then any number of spaces before the slash.
|/ should be replaced with a slash.
|p and the line should be printed.
This returns something like /Volumes/MyVolumeName.

command diskutil info /Volumes/MyVolumeName | awk '/Solid State/ {print $NF}'
diskutil info provides information about the disk or volume given.
awk filters on the result.
/Solid State/ returns lines containing the string "Solid State".
{print $NF} prints the last column.

Example: my home directory is on the internal SSD which is solid state, command returns "Yes".
$ diskutil info "$(df ~ | sed -n '2s|^.*% */|/|p')" | awk '/Solid State/ {print $NF}'
Yes


Can I replace the home button on the  iPhone 3G without removing the glass digitizer? My iPhone 3G home button broke so I bought a new one online and all the repair guides require me to remove the glass digitizer, which seems very tough (hair drying glue etc.) and harder than I expected. Does anyone know a way or a guide of replacing it without removing the glass?

No - if you can't effect a repair using a clear film or some sort of adhesive with the phone intact, you'll have to totally disassemble the 3G/3GS display unit to get better access to the home button.

The teardown guides from iFixit are accurate - as is your reading of the difficulty of successfully doing the repair and having things work when put back together.

Do check with Apple on the replacement price of that part before you dive in. Last I checked, it was $99 for parts and labor for an entire new display assembly.


Enabling password free software installation with parental controls on to block adult content I'm trying to have my son's computer setup so he can still install software with certain parental controls still active.

It seems there's no way to bypass the password window coming up when installing software, which is a pain.

The password window shows up when an app needs administrator access to access certain files or folders not in the user's home directory.

You may be able to bypass this, depending on how the application is distributed.

If the application is distributed by itself or in an archive(such as a .dmg or .zip) that just contains the app with no installer, you can drag-and-drop the application to the user's Applications folder(/Users/[your username]/Applications/) instead of the system Applications folder(/Applications/). If the user's Applications folder doesn't exist, you can create it yourself.
If the application is distributed as .pkg installer, it may provide the option for you during installation to "Install for me only" which will not require an administrator password.