TimeMachine backup over network - are OSX Server or Time Capsule more reliable than TM -> NAS? Time Machine famously has problems backing up to a network drive ...just the other day I got the dreaded message where TM wants to wipe my existing backup and start from scratch again :(

(that's from TM on my laptop going to a 'Time Machine-enabled volume' on my Drobo 5N)

I have tried Carbon Copy Cloner and Superduper but they both had trouble even completing the initial backup - they don't seem to handle network hiccups well at all and just give up... the part that TM does ok with.

Most advice seems to be to don't backup up to a network drive and use a locally attached disk instead, due to fundamental technical problems with sparsebundle files over network etc.

But I really need to backup to NAS... we have have two laptops at home for a start, I can't plug them both into the backup drive at the same time so there'd be no way for backups to run automatically.

It's a bit odd then that Apple TimeCapsule offers network backups - does it suffer same problem?  I'd buy one if it works reliably, though I don't like that it's only single disk and no RAID.

Then I saw that OSX Server also offers Time Machine backup over the network to clients. Does this work any more reliably than the desktop TM -> NAS drive scenario?  I'd consider getting a Mini and locally attached disk if I could be sure that would work.

When two or more client access the TM service at the same time then a corruption can happen. TimeMachine on a TimeCapsule will create a lock when a backup takes places allowing only one backup being active at any time. Most third party implementations will not mark the TM as unavailable when another backup already is running.

I have seen sparse bundle corruptions with a Qnap NAS. The advice (on the qnap) forums is to use one client only per NAS. Since I follow this advice (one mac will backup to my old TimeCapsule, the other mac backup to a TimeMachine service on the NAS) I had no more corrupted sparse bundles.

Edit:
Here is the post in the QNAP forum although the poster does not go into much details.


Keys falling off from butterfly: change keycap is enough or do i need to change clip? My "a" and "s" letters' keycaps are falling off. I want to order new ones from the internet, found a cheap solution. The question is: is it enough to buy keycaps or do i need to change the clips too?

Check out the recall program:
https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks


Fake rectangle/window visible under some windows tricky question here.

I don't know how long this has been going on, but I noticed it only recently. My semi-transparent windows have a “fake” square/window beneath them, which is visible (it also project a shadow, but only when the window is in foreground.

Screenshot:
 (the textedit window serves just as a white backdrop).

Video showing behaviour:
http://cl.ly/132M2T0p3j0E210d0S2K

I initially thought this was just TextMate, but I noticed this on terminal.app too (semi-transparent too).

I am running 10.6.6, have no “strange” hacks or input managers installed AFAIR.
I understand that this is probably a very exotic bug, so tools that can help me track down the cause are welcome, and I'll gladly accept such an answer.

Thanks in advance,

A.

I've seen a similar effect before, awhile ago. It's probably a program running in the background that has a transparent window on the desktop. Do you have anything running in the background that uses transparent windows or window overlays? I seem to remember an old version on Norton AV doing strange things like this many years ago.


How can I find what process is starting apps in the background? I keep seeing CIJScannerRegister running. I'd like it to never run. Every time it appears I use launchctl to remove its listing and that kills the app. But it reappears later. I know where CIJScannerRegister lives and could delete it, but I would rather get whatever is starting it to not start it. I've looked through /System/Library/Launch{Agents,Daemons} and cannot find any matching entry in there. How can I find the process that is launching it and tell it to stop?

CIJScannerRegister is of no use if you don't have an old Canon Inkjet, but Mavericks really wants to have it running all the time.

It's in /Library/Image Capture/Support/LegacyDeviceDiscoveryHelpers, but if you remove it it will appear again in the form of a "Canon Inkjet Printer Software Update" in the App Store.

The only solution I found was to delete the executable inside the app bundle so the OS thinks it's still installed but it can't run.

In Terminal:

killall CIJScannerRegister
cd /Library/Image\ Capture/Support/LegacyDeviceDiscoveryHelpers/CIJScannerRegister.app/Contents/MacOS/
sudo rm CIJScannerRegister


iPad update/restore iOS 8.1 stuck at 10%; cannot exit recovery mode I wanted to upgrade my iPad from iOS 7 to iOS 8.1. I downloaded an IPSW from ipswdownloader.com and tried updating by alt+clicking the update button. The update process stopped at around 10%. I tried restoring the same way, again stuck at around 10%. See this: http://cl.ly/image/2a1S37272C27

The iPad is now in an infinite recovery loop. I tried several tutorials available online to exit out of recovery mode but no success. Tried entering DFU mode and then restoring, nope.. again stuck at 10% as shown in the image above.

Can anyone help me with this?

Update: I also tried using TinyUmbrella for OSX but the application get stuck at "Verifying libraries"

It's like every door I go to, slams shut on me. :(

I am restoring my ipad as well, but the process has not stopped on me. either try at home, or take it to the apple store, they can help you, trust me, many people have already done it, and everything is okay


Having Automator send downloaded files to DEVONThink I'm trying to do this with Automator:  I want to keep my Downloads folder always empty and as I use DEVONthink I would like to send them to DEVONthink.

I can select the files but I don't know how to Right-click Send to Devon-Inbox.  I tried recording actions to make a Watch Me Do, but the files are not being copied.  Just selected and then deleted from the download folder.

This Folder Action will automatically import any files that are downloaded into your Downloads folder into your DT database.

Create a Folder Action in Automator and after pointing it to your 'Downloads' folder add the following Actions to it:

Get Folder Contents

Set Current Group (and then select the desired folder within your DT database)

Add Items to Current Group

If you wish to take a more manual approach, you could create a 'service' in Automator with the following actions:

Get Specified Finder Items (and then 'Add…' your Downloads folder)

Get Folder Contents

Set Current Group (and then select the desired folder within your DT database)

Add Items to Current Group (and then select 'import')

You can then right-click the Downloads folder and run this from the Services sub-menu. You could also add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services.

NB For the ‘get specified’ action, you may need to check the ‘ignore this action’s input’ or get duplicates. Set as follows: 'Service receives selected ‘folders’ in ‘Finder’’.

As an alternative, you could substitute ‘get selected finder items’ for the ‘get specified…’ above. Then select all the items in the Downloads folder when you run the service. This would allow you to ignore some files if you don’t actually want to import them to DT.
You have a few options depending upon how you would prefer it to work. For example, you could add a ‘Move Finder Items to Trash’ action which would presumably trash the files after importing them into DT.


What does model name means for MacBook Pro? From my local Apple reseller I get a model name of MacBook Pro I'm interested in.

MacBook Pro MR942

But US apple.com site doesn't have this model for MacBook Pro of the same configuration.

What does it mean? Fake MacBook?

How to read that model name?

Does Apple have some search engine (some special page or application) where I can type MacBook's model name and get full info about the device?

One:

Two:

Three:

The MR942 designator is most likely a partial Apple Manufacture Part Number, e.g.: MR942LL/A

From CDW, an Apple Authorized Reseller, in the image below see the yellow highlighted section.

According to Mactracker, a MacBook Pro with MR942 which they call it an Order Number, and which by the way is an incomplete Order Number, e.g. MR942LL/A, is a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) 2.6 GHz Space Gray, as shown in the yellow highlighted section of the image below.

Mactracker is probably mistakenly calling an Apple Manufacture Part Number an Order Number.

Looking on the box my MacBook Pro came in, this convention corresponds to what's labeled as "(1P) Part No.", albeit a different sequence nonetheless, it matches the pattern of ?????LL/A and as such MR942 is in all likelihood a partial Apple Manufacture Part Number.


Transferring from a Samsung Galaxy to a Mac Is it ok to connect a Samsung Galaxy to a Mac for transferring photos?
I'm not sure if it is ok to do this with two different brands.

Zero problem. Just use the USB cable and transfer the files, or go by bluetooth if you have the time. Both work flawless. Airdrop also works if you want to use an app and transfer over wlan. If you use the USB cable, you will get a lot of mac files on your Galaxy's SD card file system, like a file called ".DS_Store" in each folder. This doesn't hurt, but you might want to remove them or wonder where they came from.


What's making this sound on my Mac? (DeliveryCompleted.aiff) Several times a day, my laptop plays this unknown sound. There's no visual cue that goes along with it and I have no idea what it means.

I assume it wants my attention for something, but without knowing what, I'm stuck. On the other hand, if it's something I don't really need to know, then I want to make it stop.

I managed to track down a file on my system that has the sound...

afplay "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/Resources/DeliveryCompleted.aiff"

Any ideas as to what that sound is supposed to mean?

Turns out it was Adium's way of telling me a new contact had signed on. I disabled the sound in Adium's preference and it's gone away.


AppleScript to make the preview image become the master in Aperture library? Recently I accidently deleted the folder that contained most of my Aperture library (I didn't think they were refenced, I assumed they were all in my library file, but unfortunately this was not true) and this is causing me a major problem.

My first step was to run Stellar Phoenix Disk Recovery, which was doing well until it broke my second external drive that they were being copied onto. I then scanned it again and put them onto a exFAT volume. However there are now issues with this volume, and the folders are not showing up in finder or Aperture. I can see the files in terminal and at present am trying to copy them over via rsync.

Therefore I need advice regarding the following:

Being able to see the files and folders containing my found images on my exFAT volume. If this works it will be very much benefical and may save the need to do the latter.

As a last resort, I may need to merge the previews into the masters, as otherwise I will no longer have any copy of the images files. How would I do this by means of applescript please?

I've pretty much lost all of my images from my life, so would really appreciate some help here.

More info: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23529900?ac_cid=op123456#23529900

Ideally, the script needs to:

Loop through images tagged with the custom keyword 'missing'.
Get the source of the preview image
Duplicate the preview image
Change the master location to that of the new duplicated image
Continue loop through next images

First go at code:

    on run
 tell application "Aperture"
activate
set imageSel to (get selection)
if imageSel is {} then
  error "Please select an image."
else
  repeat with i from 1 to count of imageSel

       <!-- do duplication in this repeat loop -->

  end repeat
end if
end tell

In the case that your library has SOME structure left to it, press and hold the command and option keys, then open Aperture. A window will appear that says, "Photo Library First Aid". Tick the "Rebuild Database" option. I would recommend duplicating the library in case something goes terribly wrong.


Is it possible or likely for malware or a virus to be transferred by plugging a USB hard drive into my Mac? I am in the process of transferring data from my old MacBook Pro to a new MacBook Pro. In order to transfer some files, I decided to plug in a USB hard drive that contained a bootable partition of my old MacBook Pro, as well as a partition that contained the files that I wished to transfer. (The drive contained a few partitions, all of which mounted on the new MacBook Pro).

I had my old MacBook Pro for about four years, and I never performed a fresh install. So since the bootable partition on the usb drive is an exact copy of my old MacBook Pro hard drive, if there were any malicious files, they would be sitting on the hard drive.

When I plugged in the hard drive to my new Mac, I did not open or run any files, I simply copied over a few specific files including some pictures that I took. I did not boot from the partition on the drive.

My understanding is that since macOS does not have autorun, I would have to actually copy infected files, or open or run an infected file (by clicking on it) in order to transfer or 'activate' malware or a virus, is this true?

So assuming that I did not copy or run any infected files from the hard drive, do I have anything to worry about? Is my new Mac at risk? Would it be safe to continue this practice of transferring files in the future?

Also, my new Mac is running macOS Sierra.

Note: I do not have an specific reason to believe that the old Mac is infected - it hasn't necessarily been behaving strangely, I am just cautious since it is an older machine that has four years worth of software installed.

Possible: Yes.
Everything is possible. You may have an infection as yet undiscovered which can make the leap, or one buried in some seemingly innocuous file you're about to copy over.

Likely: No.
With no autorun, it is highly unlikely anything can make the leap of its own accord.

Mitigation...
Get an antivirus, there are plenty about; well-known from the Windows world.
Malwarebytes is still free, & there are free versions of some of the others.

AV-TEST.org is one of the closest things to an actual authority on the subject. They ran some tests on Mac antivirus apps recently & their findings are in that link. Be aware that some of the slower performers really do give a noticeable speed impact even on my 12-core Mac Pro.
Malwarebytes isn't on the list, but tends to be regarded as "something to have as well as an antivirus".

No protection is ever going to be absolutely 100% guaranteed perfect, but just because "everybody" says Macs can't catch viruses doesn't mean they're actually right, & you're always better safe than sorry.


Two red lines/bars in iTerm2 window and error message about session ending, what is going on here? I've been experimenting with threading and running bits of python from iTerm in MacOS yesterday. Today I opened iTerm and two windows opened, one with thick red lines inside it.
I received a Warning message from MacOS:

  A session ended very soon after starting. Check that the command in profile “Default” is correct.

I said OK, the window with the red closed immediately, and I quit iTerm.

Question: What is really happening here? I've never seen red lines appear in iTerm2 or a session close immediately upon starting. Is this just "one of those things" or could something be seriously wrong that needs attention?

I only have one profile, called default.

edit: after coaching in comments, I restarted iTerm2, same red lines. Engaged a second brain cell and realized I can move the error message out of the way, revealing the message in red in the iTerm2 window: Broken Pipe

I've seen this several times. It's caused by exiting an iTerm window. If you type exit in the window you'll be able to reproduce this behavior. I would check whatever command executes when iterm opens. This is defined in preferences.


Not receiving notifications form discord I began using Discord about a week ago now. When asking me access to notifications, I denied accidentally. Now, however, I have missed 50 messages from my friends and I'd like to know how to allow notifications for Discord to stop this from happening again. I am using an iPhone 4S running IOS 9.
Thanks in advance!

ps: sorry if this question has been asked before, I'm new.

If you first denied an app permission to send notifications this can be fixed very easily in settings. Go to settings. Then click the notifications. Then click discord. Then you can choose to turn notifications on.

There are several types?

Banners - This will notify you when a message is sent using a banner.
Alert - This appears on the screen and requires an action before continuing

Hope this helps!


Is it possible to trigger the built-in Trash sound effect via AppleScript? If one moves any file to the Trash folder on a Mac, by default, a short sound effect plays through the Mac's audio output (assuming that the system audio has not been muted).

I have an .scpt file where nothing is truly being moved to the Trash folder, but I would still like to have the Trash sound effect play.

I understand that I can download the sound effect onto my computer as an audio file from the Internet, and write:

do shell script "afplay /Users/Me/Desktop/TrashSoundEffect.aiff"

However, I would prefer to reference the built-in Trash sound effect. Is this possible?

I just don't like the idea of having to rely on an additional file to have my AppleScript function correctly. The built-in sound effect is more reliable, as it is guaranteed to remain on my computer indefinitely.

How about this one:

do shell script "afplay '/System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/SharedSupport/SystemSounds/dock/drag to trash.aif'"

Update:

To address your comment, this is covered in Technical Note TN2065 - do shell script in AppleScript under Other Concerns where it says:

  "... how do I make do shell script not wait until the command completes?"

  Use do shell script \"command &> file_path &\". do shell script will return immediately with no result and your AppleScript script will be running in parallel with your shell script. The shell script’s output will go into file_path; if you don’t care about the output, use /dev/null.

Example:

do shell script "afplay '/System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/SharedSupport/SystemSounds/dock/drag to trash.aif' &> /dev/null &"


From Hackintosh to Macintosh Ok. So I recently got a Mac Pro (older version) from a very generous person.
It rocks.
All this time, I've had to use a crappy computer that I've run macOS on, that wasn't meant to run macOS.

It was an unnatural and sinful act.

Anyway, ripped the hard drive out and stuck it into my real Mac.

Deleted the Clover boot loader, which acted like an immunosuppressant to keep macOS from rejecting the computer, but Wi-Fi still won't work, and I don't know what to do to rectify this.

Can you please help? Is there any other Hackintosh related thing I should remove?

Also used MultiBeast.

Like all the comments say, "install macOS fresh."

What you are doing is taking a VW based dune buggy and trying to turn it back into a VW Bug. It will be both quicker and easier to to boot into recovery mode. Install a fresh copy of macOS and then using the Migration Assistant, migrate your files, preferences and apps from the Hackintosh drive to the drive that came with the Mac.

That is exactly what the Migration Assistant is designed for: getting everything you need from one Mac to another quickly and easily


Can BeejiveIM for iPhone block unwanted add requests? I've been getting a lot of bogus contact add requests from my Yahoo account - it almost always turned out to be a spambots. I wonder if BeejiveIM has a feature that can block these spam requests?

If that's not the case, what multi-protocol instant messaging client for the iPhone that can block out these spammers? Ideally they will automatically prompt for a captcha to the requester before showing me the request.

I don't have a Yahoo account to investigate for you, but I know that with AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) accounts you can change the security settings to:

Allow Anyone
Allow People in my Buddy List
Allow Specific People
Block Everyone
Block Specific People

I would assume that logging into Yahoo! directly that you would have similar settings available to you. Then, no matter what client you would use on your iPhone when logged into the Yahoo! account, the settings you already placed into Yahoo! would translate over.


I'm taking my 2010 iMac in for SSD installation. What is best way to secure my iMac? I have a mid-2010 iMac running High Sierra and I'm taking it to a local shop to get my fusion drive replaced with an SSD. I of course have sensitive info in the Notes App and elsewhere on my computer. What is the best way to ensure the security of my iMac? Is there any way of doing so without deleting everything?

Everything is going to get deleted anyway. Replacing one of the drives in the Fusion pair will render both parts unusable and very difficult to recover data from.
Assuming you've got a backup, which you will use to restore your data onto the new SSD, then you will lose nothing by erasing the Fusion devices.
Normally, the best practice for securing sensitive data is to encrypt the volume, but there's no point in this instance, as it takes time and is quite stressful for an elderly mechanical drive.


How do I install the mobile version of Google Chrome on my iPod touch 4th generation? Possible Duplicate:
  Can you install Google Chrome on an iOS Device

I want to install Chrome on my iPod touch 4th generation.

How do I do that?

Chrome is currently not available for iOS. Although, Safari itself uses the same Webkit rendering base as Chrome.

There are third party browsers in the App Store, but all of these are still just using a WebView (a la Safari) as their backend. The only one that may not is Opera, but that is because everything is rendered on their servers.


Silencing "Your disk is almost full" notification After upgrading to macOS Sierra, I'm getting the notification that "Your disk is almost full. Save space by optimizing storage.":

The options appear to be to store my files in iCloud, automatically delete files, or manually delete files:

My problem/irritation is that I have 80GB free of my 440GB volume.

The question: is there a way to silence this notification in a (semi-)permanent fashion, or to change the threshold it uses for the notification?

The solution to disabling the "almost full" and "full" notification is to disable the daemon responsible for it:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.diskspaced.plist

or

launchctl stop com.apple.diskspaced

Alternatively, if you only want to prevent the "almost full" from appearing so often then you can lower the GB threshold via:

minFreeSpace (int) - minimal free size in GB. Default: 20

The default 20GB is too high for small SSDs and a possible bug causes the alert to be shown every day rather than just once, so as a workaround you can lower the free space before the alert appears, e.g. to 10GB:

defaults write com.apple.diskspaced minFreeSpace 10

The daemon only reads its prefs on startup so you need to restart it if you have system integrity turned off:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.diskspaced.plist
launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.diskspaced.plist

Otherwise kill it:

killall diskspaced

In case you are interested in the other preferences for these disk alerts you can view some of them using the help param:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/StorageManagement.framework/Versions/A/Resources/diskspaced help
---
  Domain: com.apple.diskspaced
  Supported keys:
  debugLog (BOOL) - log additional debug information. Default: NO
  checkAllVolumes (BOOL) - check all volumes. Default: NO
  minDiskSize (int) - minimal disk size in GB. Default: 128
  minFreeSpace (int) - minimal free size in GB. Default: 20
  minPurgeableSpace (int) - minimal purgeabe space size in GB. Default: 20
---
  Commands: removeAllNotifications - Removes all scheduled and delivered user notificiations.

And here are a couple of hidden ones:

warningInterval (integer default 0)
lastWarningDate (string e.g. 2017-05-05 16:48:29 +0000)

I didn't look too closely at but it is possible setting the last warning date to a date in the future would also prevent the alert displaying.


Want VBA code to make Excel Mac 2011 play sound file based on name in a cell I'm trying to populate an Excel worksheet with controls that will play audio file examples of how to pronunce a list of words.

If the content of A1 is "introduce", I want Excel to play an audio file named introduce.m4a when (say) a button in B1 is pressed. I don't want the sound played by an external app or another browser window.

I've found a fair bit of VBA code that plays a sound triggered by events in an Excel worksheet, but none that gets the name of the audio file from a cell in the sheet.

Sub Playm4a()
   Application.ScreenUpdating = False
   On Error Resume Next
   ActiveSheet.OLEObjects.Add(Filename:=ActiveCell.Text, Link:=True).Select
   If Err.Number <> 0 Then
     Application.ScreenUpdating = True
     MsgBox "Could not play " & ActiveCell.Text
     Exit Sub
   End If
   Selection.Verb
   Selection.Delete
End Sub

Thanks in advance for any help!

Found this question when tried to solve the similar problem (creating a vocabulary notebook for learning english words). The easiest solution for me was just to use built-in voice pronunciation in MacOS X:

Sub Pronounce_active_cell()
    MacScript ("say " & """" & ActiveCell.Value & """")
End Sub


How do I stop Apple updates nagging me Apple updates keeps popping up notifications, and offers me 3 options for "Later".
How do I tell it "Never".

Some of these updates are for programs I have never used e.g. iMovie and Keynote.

I managed to hide Raw Camera updates with Option+Click but attempts to do this with Keynote, required me to logon, and then started download, which is now paused.

I have limited downloads, and don't want to waste on programs I will never use.

Open System Preferences -> App Store and disable "Automatically check for updates"

And other solution came to my mind; if you have programs that you never use and those are in App Store, then just delete those programs and install only if you need them.


Reinstall OS X Lion on Macbook Air 2012 I have a MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012) MD223LL/A MBAIR 11.6/1.7/4/64FLASH running OS X 10.7.5. It shipped with Lion. I want to reinstall the OS on the laptop without an internet connection. Is this possible on these newer machines? What are the steps?

Use-case:
The main purpose of the Macbook Air is to use it on the road when i travel. recently, I was testing my client's app on it and made lots of changes to the OS settings. Experimentation led to instability and the fastest way to get back is to reinstall the OS to a fresh start. I want it to be possible from a placewith out internet as well. On top of  it, I just realized that I can't reinstall OS X even with wifi using the recovery console, it led to the screen saying 'Could not find installation information for this machine. Contact AppleCare'. I paid a per-incident AppleCare call and they said they do not support non-internet recovery anymore and I have to take it to a care center to reinstall the OS for me(in the post laptop era, owner has no control of OS installation any more). Probably I have to end up paying to reinstall OS X, but I think I would use a disk cloner from now on.

You could make a bootable drive with the Lion installer. To do so, you'll need the original Lion Installer, downloadable from the Mac App Store once you've purchased it and a USB flash drive with a GUID Partition Table format. You'll find here a step by step guide for the formatting part. Afterwards just:

Go to the Applications folder and find the installer, which should be called Install Mac OSX Lion.app.
Right+click on it and choose Show Package Content from the contextual menu.
Under Contents / Shared Support you'll find a file called InstallESD.dmg, drag it to Disk Utilities' sidebar and mount it.
Select the installer and click the Restore button.
The installer should appear in the Source field, if not, drag it there.
Connect the USB and drag it into the Destination field.
Click Restore.

If everything was done correctly, you'll, then, have a drive from which you'll be able to boot just by holding C while restarting your computer.


Is there an equivalent in iChat to Adium's "Force old-style SSL"? Trying to connect to company Jabber/XMPP with iChat, I get stuck at password entering screen. Connecting with the very same info in Adium, ticking "Force old-style SSL" setting it work flawlessly. Guess it's got something to do with a self-signed SSL certificate or likewise.

How do I make the iChat client connect? Want to kick Adium to the curb for a few reasons.

Go to iChat's Preferences > Accounts, choose the account in question, and go to the "Server Settings" tab. Make sure that "Use SSL" is checked, but change the port to 443. You should probably also turn off "Automatically find server and port" if it's on.


How to display full path to file in spotlight search? I often use SpotLight to find files in macOS Mojave.

However, many times there are multiple files with the same name.  Is there a way to display the full path for each file in the spotlight window where the found files are listed?

If you want to view the path to the file directly in the spotlight search you can simply hold down cmd ⌘:

Without cmd ⌘:

With cmd ⌘:


macOs High Sierra External Hard drive problems I have a Toshiba DTC810 external hard drive that was working properly for almost a year. Then, suddenly, yesterday I plugged the drive into the USB port and it wasn't working. I tried to plug him into a Windows PC and everything was fine.

Does anyone have a clue what could be the problem? My mac version is macOS High Sierra (MacBook Pro 2015) and the external hard drive was properly formatted before use.

Thank you,
Nemanja

Without more information one can only recommend generic steps.

Since it works on Windows PC, it is not the drive nor the cable.

1- verify if it is the USB plug, by plugin another USB device and see if it works

2- try the second USB plug on your Mac

3- Open Disk Utility in Application>Utility Folder and see if it shows there

If it does not show in Disk Utility, lets hope it i not hardware but it can be fixed by following.

Reset the SMC (System management Controller)

If you've got an iMac, iMac Pro, Mac Pro or Mac mini, follow these steps to reset the SMC:

Shut down the Mac.
Unplug the power cord.
Wait 15 seconds.
Re-attach the power cord.
Wait another 5 seconds, then turn the Mac back on.

But if you've got any kind of Macbook you should follow these steps:

Shut down the MacBook.
Make sure the MacBook is connected to power (ie plug the MagSafe power adapter into a power source and connect it to the Mac).
Press the (left) Shift + Ctrl + Option keys and the power button at the same time, and hold them down for a few seconds. You should see the light on the power adapter change colour or blink to indicate the SMC has been reset.
Release all the keys and the power button.
Press the power button again to turn the MacBook back on.


Can I install both High Sierra and Mavericks on my Mac? I have a 2013 MacBook Pro with both Mavericks and El Capitan installed (each on their own partition).

I now want to use Mavericks and High Sierra, each on their own partition.

Since High Sierra uses the APFS file system, will this prove to be a problem? Will it conflict with the HFS format use in Mavericks?

If there would be a conflict, how could I use both High Sierra and Mavericks on the one MacBook?

You do not have to use APFS to run High Sierra. Although, I believe if your internal drive is  a SSD, then the High Sierra installer will try to convert the existing El Capitan partition and El Capitan Recovery partition to a APFS container partition.

Upgrading El Capitan to High Sierra should not effect Mavericks.

  Note: Mojava (macOS 10.14) will be released on September 24, 2018


Anaconda Navigator broken: Can I still access my Jupyter notebooks, created through AN? Recently I needed to clear space of my Mac (OS Catalina), and made the (foolish) decision of deleting the ‘older versions’ of anaconda navigator. All my jupyter notebooks for a year worth of lab work were created & accessed through this. Is there any way I can access them?
At the moment I can only open them through my safari search history, which seems like a very tentative solution & idk what to do. Can’t send them to myslef as it insists all the notebooks are running ?
Help appreciated!

I would delete any version of Anaconda Navigator you have and then reinstall it from scratch.  Be sure to have a complete backup. Once you have reinstalled it, things should work normally.


How do I set what "maximize"means for a window? For some applications (eg terminal) when I double-click the title bar, it expands to fill the screen (height and width). For some (eg chrome) it expands down to fill the height, but doesn't change width. For still others, (eg emacs) it cycles between height, full screen, and original size.

How do I change this? I would LIKE to have control over each app, but turning everything into the 3 step cycle would be ok too.

I'm in el Capitan, in case that matters.

Thanks.

the maximise feature on OS X is set to in some apps like Terminal (because it's content is purely text and can easily by formatted) to fit your whole screen, on other apps like Safari or Chrome, because they are browsers they tend to contain images (and other hidden HTML or CSS contents) which would make it by default to arrange the window so that it displays all the content correctly but also to allow you to work at the same time with other windows, that's why it will try not to use all the width (people tend to use 2 windows sideways not upways) but remember that (at least Safari) tends to remember the height and width that you manually chose.

On the 3 step cycle I think there is no way to do that, sorry, what I usually do is usually set browsers to use all the space available, if I need to use another app, either enter fullscreen mode with Safari and you can easily change from desktop to fullscreen apps with (control) + (left or right arrow). If you really want to do something like comparisons and really need to have both windows opened at the same time us El Capitan's split screen feature, set Safari (or others) to fullscreen and then access expose and drag your other windows to Safari.

Hope this helps,

Tiferrei


Mail.app keeps asking for Google password I've a Google account set up on a Mac of mine. OS X version 10.8.4 and everything else is up-to-date. And my Google account uses 2-step authentication.

I'm having a problem with my Google account on this Mac in the native Mail app. The problem is that when everything was working fine, one day, all of a sudden Mail asked for my Google password. I simply created a new application specific password. But after some time the same happened again and I ended up creating another application specific password.

Now it's happening again and it's kind of getting annoying.

Why does it keep asking for passwords when the one before was right and working? Has anyone else ever had this problem?

Also I should mention that my iCloud account, also set up on this Mac, functions perfectly.

If you have several devices accessing your Google account via IMAP you can reach the limit of connections Google permits. The limit is 15 connections per account, however, bear in mind that each client can open multiple connections. In my experience the limit is easily reached with 3 devices. I have read that the Thunderbird email client has a setting to specify how many connections it can open, Mail and Outlook do not have this option.

Your Mail client should prompt you with a message along the lines of "Too many simultaneous connections." However I believe on iOS devices and Apple Mail you may see a more generic error.

The workaround for this issue is to log in to the GMail web interface, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the 'Details' link. From the popup window click 'Sign out all other sessions'

support.google.com/mail/answer/97150?hl=en


Which process is eating my connection? I found something is eating 100KB of my rx Internet connection.
 Doing iftop I found that most data is coming from 69.31.72.192.

Running this command line:

lsof -P -i -n | cut -f 1 -d " " | uniq

the list of processes is this

UserEvent
SystemUIS
Finder
sharingd
Dropbox
Google

Dropbox syncing is paused, Google goes away if I close Chrome, but the connection
is eaten anyway...

I came from linux and it is really shocking to see the system eating resources without knowing what is going on...

My four suspects are

UserEvent
SystemUIS
Finder
sharingd

I actually have two questions:

How can I check which is the exact process that eats the connection?
Can I take control on how the process(es) use my connection (which is really limited)?

Activity Monitor has a network tab which should show you what you need. It has columns for process and sent/received packets & bytes.


Create a new item/object in AppleScript I'm attempting to automate the filing of e-receipts into a digital filing application called Paperless from Mariner Software.

Within the Paperless AppleScript Dictionary, the following is defined for a receipt (class/data type):

receipt n [inh. library item] : A receipt.
elements contained by .
properties
merchant (text) : The merchant's name.
amount (text) : amount of the receipt (as a string); can include currency symbol
tax (text) : tax or VAT of the receipt (as a string); can include currency
symbol
payment method (text) : method of payment
category (text) :
category of receipt
notes (text) : notes for the receipt
date (date) : date of the receipt
custom 1 (text) : custom data 1
custom 2 (text) : custom data 2
custom 3 (text) : custom data 3
file (file) : file reference for the receipt

responds to add.

In my AppleScript, I try to create a new receipt with the following code:

set MerchantID to "Apple -- testing"

tell application "Paperless"
activate
add  receipt with properties {merchant:MerchantID}
end tell

However, it fails with the following error:

error "Paperless got an error: Can’t make receipt into type library item." number -1700 from receipt to library item

What confuses me about the error is that I am attempting to make a receipt which is a class that is inherited from the more general type library item.

Can someone explain how to create a new item based on classes defined like this?

receipt is an element belonging to some parent object.  As with any instance of an AppleScript element that has already been created, it'll typically be referenced either by index, e.g.

receipt 1 of ...

or by name, e.g.

receipt "MyNamedReceipt" of ...

or by id, e.g.

receipt id "61405882-ee27-4c94-86bb-bcdecc8792ba" of ...

My feeling is that the add command will act on an instance of a library item (including receipt) that already exists.  If so, then

add receipt ...

would most likely generate the error you're seeing, because receipt is a class name, where add would be expecting an identifiable element, e.g.

add receipt "MyNamedReceipt" ...

Going by typical nomenclature in the AppleScript world, add commands typically get invoked when one wishes to take a pre-existing object from one location and insert/add it to another.  In Paperless, this might be taking a receipt from, say, a folder (or album) of receipts, and adding either a copy of or a reference to (most likely the latter) that receipt to a different folder/album.

The most common way to create new instances of an element in the majority of AppleScriptable applications is by way of the make command (which is part of the standard suite that an application's scripting dictionary is recommended to contain):

  make v : Make a new object.
      make
          new type : The class of the new object.
          [at location specifier] : The location at which to insert the object.
          [with data any] : The initial data for the object.
          [with properties record] : The initial values for properties of the object.
      → specifier

If Paperless includes the make command, try using that.  It would take a form similar to:

make new receipt with properties {name:"My Receipt", merchant:"Apple", amount:"$249.99", tax:"$0.00"}

You will need to consider which element owns the collection of receipts in which you're attempting to create a new one.  If library item is a top-level application object, i.e. owned by application, then the make command should not require the at parameter (if it does, it can be a generic at end of receipts).  However, if library item is owned by, say, a library class object, then the make command either needs to occur within tell block targeting that library element (e.g. library 1, or library "MyLibrary"); or it needs the at parameter to describe where to create the new receipt, e.g.

tell application "Paperless"
        .
        .
        .
    make new receipt at library 1 of document 1
        .
        .
        .
end tell

where, for illustrative purposes, I've pre-supposed that library items are contained by libraries are contained by documents are contained by the application.


What does it mean to give apps access to Documents folder on Mac? A lot of apps seem to request access to the Documents folder. Does giving them access mean they can both read/write anything in this folder?
Isn't this very dangerous and doesn't that mean we really shouldn't be using the Document folder to store private/personal information?

The normal Unix permissions system gives the user an area of the disk for their files (the user domain). Apps and other processes launched by the user run 'as the user' and can read and write anywhere in the user domain, (but not in another user's domain, or in system areas.)
Similarly, processes run by other users can't read or write in your user account. (Note that System processes are often 'other users'.)
Catalina and Big Sur are even stricter, requiring the user's express permission for an app to read and write to the Documents folder. This essentially creates a white-list of apps that are allowed in the Documents folder. There are similar white-lists for your Desktop folder, Downloads, and network volumes and external drives.
This added security means that a malicious app, unwittingly launched by the user, can't access your files in the Documents folder, without your express permission. Thus, the Documents folder is safer than other folders on the disk.
Other folders in your user domain are not protected in this way, and can be read or written by any process that you launch.
It comes at the cost of a significant annoyance factor and user tendency to click "Yeah, yeah, yeah" whenever they see it, which somewhat reduces its efficacy.
Normally, we expect apps to be able to read and write our files. If MS Word couldn't read .docx files, and couldn't save them either, then the app would be useless.
You can reasonably expect commercial applications not to rifle through your correspondence in the hope of finding and transmitting something of use or value. The discovery of such a practice would lead to customers abandoning the app, and likely legal proceedings. (Unless you've agreed that the company can scan your data, as with Gmail and Google docs.)
The best way to secure your data is by encrypting your disk with FileVault, using strong passwords on the user account at login and wake from sleep, and by following good practice for safe computing, e.g. not downloading anything from dodgy sites, or when told 'you need to install Flash' etc.


Restoring MBP with macOS that is installed on an external hard drive A work colleague many many years ago helped me with this setup. I don't know what all he did, I just know it has worked perfectly for years.

He connected an external hard drive to my Mid-2015 MBP and installed High Sierra on it. I use the external drive for home stuff (finances, email, etc.) and the laptop itself (internal drive) has Mojave installed and is used for work-related activities. This allowed me to travel for work and only needed to carry one computer. When I power on the MBP, I simply press the option key at bootup and select work or home and the system will go into the appropriate OS. I no longer need to use the internal drive for work and would like essentially move everything on the external drive to the internal drive (the external drive is a few years old anyway and should be replaced). The internal drive is 512GB and the external is only 244GB (or something like that) so it's smaller than the internal drive.

How can I replace the internal drive contents with that of the external drive? I don't mind googling it but I need help with terms to search for. My mac skill level is pretty basic.

Carbon cloner did the trick perfectly.

It wiped the internal drive (I have a time-machine backup of the internal drive so I can get data if necessary), cloned the external drive to the internal drive. I then shut down the MBP, disconnected the external drive, and powered the MBP backup. It was identical to the external drive, so much so that I thought I double checked to make sure I hadn't unplugged the drive USB device.

Carbon Cloner has a trial version (5 free uses)! Nice!


How to use the antishake option for iMovie I have a .mp4 video clip recorded with a GoPro camera, that I like to stabilize. I want to use iMovie, which I understand should have an antishake function according to this information.

In iMovie I apperently can't chose the antishake function, I can see the icon, but it's grey and can't be selected?

Does anybody know the reason for this and how to fix it? I dont want to buy new software and would prefer to use iMovie.

As an extra info, I use Yosemite and Macbook Pro.

Not sure if anyone is still looking for the answer to this but as far as yosemite is concerned these answers are wrong.  You simply drag the clip or movie into the timeline as normal and click either the entire clip or section that you want and then you click on enhance.  Once you do that you now make sure to click on the video camera icon and the option for Stabilize Shaky Video will show and you can select it


How to make MacBook automatically connect to different wifi networks as desired? My main router is located in the living room and creates a wifi hotspot, call it X. I've created an additional wifi hotspot in my bedroom, call it Y, using two powerline adaptors.

How do I make my MacBook automatically connect to X while I'm in the living room and to Y while I'm in the bedroom. Thanks.

OS X will connect to the Wi-Fi network with the strongest signal, although it won't switch immediately between networks to avoid disruption to the connection.

You can alleviate this by having the same SSID for both networks, which will cause OS X to see them as a single network and switch between them automatically.


Cycle between Mac apps and VMware 7 using cmd+tab I am trying to understand how I could switch back and forth in a productive manner when using a combination of VMware Fusion 7 and OS X El Capitan apps.

The keyboard shortcut that I am used to use thousands of times a day between Mac apps is cmd+tab. I use it to cycle between apps, and would love to be able to do this to switch to other apps when inside VMware Fusion.

What it currently does when I press cmd+tab from within VMware Fusion is that it will cycle through the windows of the virtual Windows machine, not take me out of the virtual machine and into my Mac apps again.

This is clicked in my Virtual Machine settings:

After looking online for a while, I found this tip, which doesn't work for me. This, although more subsequent, didn't seem to provide a workaround that would allow the user to use cmd+tab to get out of VMware Fusion. This didn't help, and this didn't help either.

I also looked fruitlessly into the Windows 7 Control Panels for a way to disable cycling through windows in Windows with that shortcut, which didn't work.

I had this same issue, which I resolved by enabling mission control (I had disabled it).

defaults write com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled -bool FALSE && killall Dock


Changing display color profiles easily Is there a way to easily switch display color profiles, instead of going to System Preferences > Displays > Color > Display Profile?

It doesn't seem to be AppleScript-able. There used to be a menu-bar utility called ProfileMenu, but it no longer works in macOS Sierra, and is no longer supported.

You can get the selected profile using AppleScript, but it's read-only, so you can't set it:

tell application "Image Events"
  get display profile of display 1
end tell

I found a little tool called customdisplayprofiles, which lets you switch profiles by running a command like customdisplayprofiles set /path/to/profile.icc. I put that into a shell script in ~/Library/Scripts/, and now I can switch profiles from the menu bar again. You can find the .icc files in /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/ and ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/.


brew openvpn-connect on macos fails to upgrade or remove I installed openvpn-connect with brew install --cask openvpn-connect
all good
Today I run brew update; brew upgrade, there was an upgrade for openvpn-connect, the upgrade failed.
I have since tried to uninstall it completely but the uninstall fails with:
    ==> Removing launchctl service org.openvpn.helper
    ==> Running uninstall script /Applications/OpenVPN Connect/Uninstall OpenVPN Connect.app/Contents/Resources/remove.sh
    Warning: uninstall script /Applications/OpenVPN Connect/Uninstall OpenVPN Connect.app/Contents/Resources/remove.sh does not exist; skipping.
    ==> Uninstalling packages:
    org.openvpn.client.pkg
    find: /Applications/OpenVPN Connect/OpenVPN Connect.app: No such file or directory
    Error: Failure while executing; `/usr/bin/sudo -E -- /usr/bin/xargs -0 -- /bin/bash -c set\ -euo\ pipefail'
    ''
    'for\ path\ in\ \"\$\{@\}\"\;\ do'
    '\ \ if\ \[\[\ -e\ \"\$\{path\}/.DS_Store\"\ \]\]\;\ then'
    '\ \ \ \ /bin/rm\ -f\ \"\$\{path\}/.DS_Store\"'
    '\ \ fi'
    ''
    '\ \ \#\ Some\ packages\ leave\ broken\ symlinks\ around\;\ we\ clean\ them\ out\ before'
    '\ \ \#\ attempting\ to\ \`rmdir\`\ to\ prevent\ extra\ cruft\ from\ accumulating.'
    '\ \ /usr/bin/find\ \"\$\{path\}\"\ -mindepth\ 1\ -maxdepth\ 1\ -type\ l\ \!\ -exec\ /bin/test\ -e\ \{\}\ \\\;\ -delete'
    ''
    '\ \ if\ \[\[\ -L\ \"\$\{path\}\"\ \]\]\;\ then'
    '\ \ \ \ \#\ Delete\ directory\ symlink.'
    '\ \ \ \ /bin/rm\ \"\$\{path\}\"'
    '\ \ elif\ \[\[\ -d\ \"\$\{path\}\"\ \]\]\;\ then'
    '\ \ \ \ \#\ Delete\ directory\ if\ empty.'
    '\ \ \ \ /usr/bin/find\ \"\$\{path\}\"\ -maxdepth\ 0\ -type\ d\ -empty\ -exec\ /bin/rmdir\ \{\}\ \\\;'
    '\ \ else'
    '\ \ \ \ \#\ Try\ \`rmdir\`\ anyways\ to\ show\ a\ proper\ error.'
    '\ \ \ \ /bin/rmdir\ \"\$\{path\}\"'
    '\ \ fi'
    'done'
    ' --` exited with 1. Here's the output:
    find: /Applications/OpenVPN Connect/OpenVPN Connect.app: No such file or directory

The application appears to be gone, however brew still tracks is as installed.

I also have this issue yesterday and try a lot times today. Here it goes:
rm -r /usr/local/Caskroom/openvpn-connect
brew update-reset && brew update
brew install --cask openvpn-connect

if successfully installed, you can try uninstall to ensure that.
brew uninstall openvpn-connect

Hope it works for you.


Is iphone's mail App using predicitve autocomplete based on recent interactions? Apple’s mail app for iPhone seems to use predictive algorithms in the “send to” field. When I type “t” it autocompletes my own email addresses instantly in a list directly below the “Send to” from which I can touch and choose without having to type the entire email address. I send documents to myself all the time.

“T” is also the first letter in my first name. But below my addresses, & sometime above them, autocomplete offers “bob bobson (SET Team)” It has two “t’s, but they occur, as you can see, much later in the “name string”.

All my contacts starting with “t” are listed as choices below “bob”.

The “bob” contact is someone who I interact with more often than any of the other “t” contacts (via phone calls, emails), so is iOS predicting “bob” first on the list because of the recent interactions, similar to the way Facebook's algorithms work? I want to stop this behavior. Recently, suddenly, autocomplete started putting "bob" as the First choice ABOVE my name & I chose it without realizing & the message was sent to "bob". By repeating the process, I found that what I conjecture above is happening.

am I correct?
If I'm correct, how do I STOP this behavior?

Anyone with good knowledge of Apple’s iOS Mail app’s behavior would be appreciated.

We don't really get to craft the algorithms or set anything on autocorrect. Pretty much we can use it or not and we can clear the behavior it has learned based on how you type and start over.

Settings -> General -> Reset Keyboard Dictionary

Mail also can let you clear a bad contact using this nicely written guide from iMore on how to tap to clear a bad assumption. You have to do this one by one as far as I know.

https://www.imore.com/how-remove-recent-contacts-mail-app-iphone


Notes.app versioning I wanted to duplicate a note and remove some of the texts. But I forgot to duplicate the note. So I did remove most of my writings accidentally. Closed to app and when I went back on it I saw the disaster my work have been lost.

Is there a place where we can go back in time and choosing a note from versioning like on Dropbox?

Are you using Time Machine? If yes, open Finder, go to ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/ and open Time Machine eg. from the icon in the top right. This should show you past versions of the files there. Close the notes app completely and try restoring files.


Can’t open Safari on iMac Anyone having trouble opening Safari? I tried deleting the plist and restarting but still can’t open Safari.

There was a security update on 24 May but I cant get in to read it.

There are a couple of things you can try

Create another user and log in as them. If Safari launches there is something in your old profile causing this problem.
Failing that reboot your Mac holding down the Shift key until you see the gray Apple logo. Your Mac is now booting into safe mode. It will take longer to boot, so go get a drink and come back in 5 minutes. If Safari launches then there is something that has been installed that is causing Safari to not launch.
Download and run the latest Combo Updater for the same version of macOS that you currently have. For the current version of Sierra the combo updater is here.
Download a cleaning app (I use Onyx). Quit out of all running apps and run the app. In Onyx click on the Automation Icon and click execute. This will take a while, go have two drinks. When it is done reboot. If Safari works then there was a damaged cache or other file that Onyx cleaned up.

Those should be a good start on fixing it.


Are there any public audits of the disk level encryption in Mac OS X Lion? As a rule, one should never trust closed source cryptography software, but encrypting external drives and Time Machine backups has become quite convenient in Mac OS X Lion.  Is that specific code available anyplace?  Or has anyone audited it seriously?

According to a public talk by Rich Trouton, FileVault 2 is not FIPS 140-2 validated, but "Apple's new Common Crypto implementation is just starting to undergo FIPS evaluation"

The code itself for Common Crypto is available at http://www.opensource.apple.com/ and has been all the way back to 10.4 (where I got tired of checking revisions - it probably goes back even further, but what matters is the code shipped in Lion which is available for all three lion releases 10.7, 10.7.1 and 10.7.2)


Using iMac 21.5 mid 2010 as an external monitor of Macbook Pro Retina late 2013 15"? Can I connect iMac 21.5 mid 2010 as an external monitor of Macbook Pro Retina late 2013 15"? How can I connect them?

I read some articles that say it can be done with Mini DisplayPort-to-Mini DisplayPort like http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/connect-a-macbook-to-an-imacs-display-with-target-display-mode but I’m not sure if the author is referring to the 27 iMac only or all iMacs mid 2010.

Has anybody had some experience in connecting these?

Here’s my iMac details:

I've tried this and yes it does/can work, depending on your setup. So far I've managed to hook a 2012 MBP 13" to a 2012 21" iMac via Thunderbolt, and the cmd + F2 function works once logged in.

However, I've not managed to connect to a 2011 iMac (non-Thunderbolt model) using the same MacBook and Thunderbolt cable - I don't have a DisplayPort cable to hand to see if that works or not so right now I can't verify if yours will work or not.


Fresh install after CPU upgrade When installing a program on a Mac does the installer consider processor speed and number of cores in order to tailor the programs performance, and if so will upgrading processor architecture from single to dual CPUs require reinstalling the program for improved performance.

I'm having trouble with the alignment or synchronization of sound and the visual feedback from the GUI in Apple's Logic Pro 10.2, when running more than 8 processing threads, which, now that I've installed two six core 3.46 GHz Intel Xeon 5690, is a meager count considering the 24 possible threads possible with hyperthreading.

To fix that you will probably have to reinstall Mac OS X. To do that, hold the command key when you press the power button and when the system starts up, click the option to re install Mac OS X. Hope this helps.


Can I connect more than one external monitor to the late 2010 MacBook Air? I am thinking about buying the new MacBook Air as a primary desktop replacement.  One of the things I have on my desktop which I like is two large monitors.  Does anyone know whether the new MacBook Air can be used to drive more than one external monitor?  Note that I don't want to use the LCD panel on the laptop as one monitor and attach another monitor.  I really am looking for two monitors.

Can anyone suggest a trick for doing this native or a third-party device I might be able to purchase which would let me connect two monitors to the third-party device but make them look like a single monitor MacBook Air?  [Dori below makes the good point that this may not be great solution because ideally I would want one monitor with a menu bar on the bottom and another monitor which is functional but no menubar.]

Any help appreciated.  Thanks.

Sidecar is a nice product for windows and they have a Mac version, but seems outdated (and in fact I found the Mac version via Google, not through their product page). You might want to contact them in case they have something not shown there.

In any case, the graphic card (and CPU power) in the MBAir will have a “hard” time driving “two large monitors”.

If you still want to try, this guy over here is using not two, but three displays (plus the macbook’s display) for a total of four. He has a Macbook Pro tho.

He basically tried the Matrox solution and didn’t like it for various reasons he outlines in the post, so he tried the Diamond BVU195 USB-DVI adapter (he brought two).

Go ahead and read his post, he posts his impressions, problems and even links where to buy the things and their prices. You will surely need a couple of USB Hubs for that.

UPDATE: New products are now available for Mac as Matrox Introduces New Mac-Friendly DualHead2Go DP and TripleHead2Go DP Multi-Monitor Adapters.


How do I copy files from Mac on Windows Partition to Mac Partition? So my mac partition crashed...

I've tried to repair disk, fsck, reinstall OS - Everything on every list of I could find on Google, and nothing worked.

So I have a back-up of most of my files from the prior week, but I need some other things that were left on the hard drive.

Fortunately, when I boot up in Windows, the hard drive is fully functional and I can even drag and drop files into my windows partition. I think its worth noting that the files seem alright as I'm able to open them, and even took 1 file from windows on a FAT32 flash drive, and moved it to a mac with no problems. So I want to grab everything that I can from the Windows partition, format and re-install OS.

...so...

I have a 500GB G-Drive, I formatted it to Fat32 and started transferring files, at absurdly slow speeds through USB 2.0, onto it (from windows).

Now thats finally finished.
The drive won't mount on Mac OS anymore. Any ideas?

Oh heres some system info if that helps:

On Mac

Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Owners Enabled : Yes

G-Drive

Format : MS-DOS (FAT32)
Owners Enabled : No

Windows 7 Home

NTSF

What error do you get?
"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer", or something else?

Could you please give the output of the command below when pasted in your command window:

syslog | tail | open -ef

Once before you insert the disk into the USB port and once after.


iPad 2017 unable to restore/update I'm having issues restoring my daughter's iPad to working order, and I'm wondering what options I have.

She changed her passcode on it and then forgot it, so now it's permanently disabled. I'm resigned to having to wipe it (well I don't really give a shit about what she has on there anymore), but having issues getting it to a "blank slate".

It doesn't seem to be connecting to my Wi-Fi, so an over-the-air wipe from her iCloud account doesn't work.

I've tried putting it in recovery mode by holding the power and home buttons while connected to iTunes. This initiates the update process, however after downloading the 2.9 GB update, it seems to stop with a network error -3259 and then eventually the iPad just restarts back to disabled mode.

What other tricks can I try to get this back to a vanilla state so I can restore (an outdated) backup?

I'm trying this on a Windows 10 PC on an NBN 50 Mbps connection with the latest version of iTunes.

Download the restore image for your model of iPad from https://ipsw.me. You should be able to get the restore image for iOS 12.3.1 (current as of this writing).

Once you have the image, connect the iPad to your Windows PC, launch iTunes, and press and hold Shift key and click on the Update button. You'll be prompted to select a restore image. Point to the downloaded image. This should do away with the network error 3259 that you are getting.

Your iPad would be set up from blank state. You'll have an option to restore from an iCloud backup directly over-the-air.


Is there a simple way to have separate dock icons for different Chrome Profiles? I am using Google Chrome version 22 on OS X 10.8. I use separate user profiles (created using the native Chrome facility in Settings->Users) for my "regular" web browsing, and the web development that I do. I launch my web development profile from the regular Chrome profile window by clicking on the avatar in the top-left-hand-corner:

At the moment both of these profiles share a single dock icon. However, I would much prefer for each Chrome profile to have its own dock icon, with the windows managed separately - and ideally for the dock icons to be distinguished in some way. Is this easily possible? By 'easy', I mean things like rebuilding Chrome from source are not an option I'll consider.

Note: I would like to use the same, stable, version of Chrome for both profiles. It would be OK to have the same version installed twice as long as they can be kept separate and the dock icon distinguished.

For having two Chrome running at the same time you need to create a second runnable Google Chrome App.

You can create that second application by running the following script. It comes from this site, I copy and paste for readers' convenience:

#!/bin/bash

PROFILE_NAME=$1
mkdir -p "/Applications/Google Chrome $1.app/Contents/MacOS"

F="/Applications/Google Chrome $1.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome $1"
cat > "$F" <<\EOF
#!/bin/bash

#
# Google Chrome for Mac with additional profile.
#

# Name your profile:
EOF

echo "PROFILE_NAME='$PROFILE_NAME'\n" >> "$F"

cat >> "$F" <<\EOF
# Store the profile here:
PROFILE_DIR="/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/${PROFILE_NAME}"

# Find the Google Chrome binary:
CHROME_APP=$(mdfind 'kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier == "com.google.Chrome"' | head -1)
CHROME_BIN="$CHROME_APP/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"
if [[ ! -e "$CHROME_BIN" ]]; then
  echo "ERROR: Can not find Google Chrome.  Exiting."
  exit -1
fi

# Start me up!
exec "$CHROME_BIN" --enable-udd-profiles --user-data-dir="$PROFILE_DIR"
EOF

sudo chmod +x "$F"

Save it in a file (let's say create_second_chrome.sh in the Desktop folder), open the shell and execute it by passing as parameter the profile folder you want to associate to the second Chrome App. It will be called Google Chrome profile_folder_name. Let's suppose Google Chrome Development:

$ cd ~/Desktop
$ . create_second_chrome.sh Development

Now you can launch the new version of Chrome (Google Chrome Development) from the ~/Applications directory. You can set a different icon by right-clicking on the app and selecting 'Get Info'. You will see that this new version has its own icon on the dock and can be docked there if needed.


Use MacVim as standard Terminal? I used to love the terminal.app for many reasons.

I especially liked the way I could navigate to a file and edit using vim it all in one app, without having to leave the keyboard.

But, since the terminal.app doesn't support many of vim's rich features, I decided to make the step to MacVim.

This breaks the symmetry though, I have to use terminal.app to navigate to a file, edit in MacVim (using mvim of course), quit MacVim and open up the terminal again.

Isn't there a way to use MacVim in stead of terminal to do all this? I'm not talking about iTerm 2 etc, these apps don't cut is for me. I'm talking about true unix command line in MacVim..

This should be possible, I guess, only... is it?

You're confusing the terminal with the text editor, as other commenters have pointed out. Still, there are a number of ways to make the terminal more vim-like, or vim more terminal-like.

If it's vi-style keybindings in the terminal you're after, add set -o vi to your ~/.bash_profile (assuming you're using bash). This will allow you to use vi-style keybindings at the command line (hjkl movement, modal editing, etc.)

If you just want to be able to execute unix commands from within vim, prepend ! to the beginning of those commands at the (Mac)Vim command line. For example :!pwd will print the working directory.

There are also plugins like Conque which allow you to run a shell from within Vim, which sounds like it may be exactly what you're after.


Connecting to MacBook Air 2017 with usb-c connection I have my work computer that I connect to my dual monitor setup, and my MacBook Air 2017 that I can't since it doesn't have a usb-c port.

Is there any way I can use the same hub with ubc-c connection for my MacBook?

Assuming that you have a USB hub/dock with a USB-C connection....

The answer is no because the USB ports on your MBA is USB 3.0 while the USB-C connection is at minimum, 3.1.  USB is backward compatible with downstream devices and in your case, the downstream device (the hub) is a higher spec.


Connected to wifi successfully, but no internet connection I'm a relatively new macOS user. Let me try to describe the problem I'm facing as succinctly as possible

Just this morning, when I'm unable to get any internet connection even though WiFi is connected (full strength). All my other devices has no issues when connected to the same network (it's my home network)

I've logged into the router, and checked, there are no blacklisted IP/MAC addresses.

Additional information

I'm using a tMBP 15" for over a year
I've had no issues with any WiFi connectivity to my home network before today.
ping from terminal doesn't work as well.
I'm able to connect to my phone's hotspot, and get internet from my MBP.
I have bootcamp set up. When I boot into Windows, I'm able to get internet access through my home WiFi

How can I troubleshoot this to get to the root cause of the problem?

You've provided great troubleshooting info, we can isolate the problem to being your Mac and not your router, we can isolate the problem to OSX and not your WiFi card, etc.

I want to say it's an IP address problem. Maybe Windows has taken the IP address that your router gave your Mac's MAC address. I'd recommend going to system preferences --> Network. On the left column does WiFi say "connected" or "self-assigned IP" or something else? In the mean time, I'd recommend going to system preferences --> Network--> select WiFi on the left column --> click advanced on the bottom right --> TCP/IP tab --> Renew DHCP lease.

If this doesn't work, you can try on the WiFi tab (instead of TCP/IP), select your WiFi network and then click the minus (-) button to remove it, click OK, and try to reconnect to the WiFi network again.

If that doesn't work, you can hold option and click on the WiFi symbol on your menu bar (top right). Does your IP address look right? If you're not familiar with networking let me know what your IP address and router address are and we can go from there.


Can AppleTV stream content directly from iTunes in Windows Suppose I have iTunes in a Windows laptop. Can AppleTV stream the content from that iTunes directly (as it is supposed to do with iTunes in a Mac) ?

According to Apple you should be able to as long as they are on the same Home Sharing network.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12352


Improve file transfer performance over VPN I have two Apple machines: a server and a client. Both are running the newest builds of macOS Sierra 10.12.6. The “server” machine is running macOS Server running VPN and file sharing. Both machines are connected to Gigabit Internet (1Gbps up and down) but are located thousands of miles apart. The disk read/write speeds on both ends are above 100 MBps (800Mbps).

I connect my client to the server VPN (L2TP) and then file share over AFP. I regularly shuttle large files and folders to the server from the client. However, the highest speed I can get is 5 MBps (40 Mbps) sustained transfer, with a max peak of 12 MBps. If I’m moving files the other way (server to client), but transfers all initiated on the client machine), I can get as high as 10 MBps (80Mbps) sustained transfer. However, I can never get higher than that. Even with the VPN’s overhead, I was hoping to get a higher speed than, at most, 10% of the rated speed.

My questions are:

Is this low speed normal for a VPN (factoring in overhead)?
What can I do to improve my transfer performance (for large files, not large folders with lots of small files)?

AFP (like SMB) is a protocol that was designed for use in local networks. It suffers a lot from the high latencies over WAN.

If possible, use a protocol that was designed to tolerate high latencies, like (S)FTP. Even scp or rsync should do significantly better.


Installing old version of preview I recently upgraded to Mac OSX Mountain Lion and everything is running great. However, I liked the outlay of notes in PDF much better in the old Preview (Preview 5.0.3). I was wondering if there was anyway that I could get the old version back and overwrite the new version?

You can try this guide at your own risk.

But just go to the View menu and you'll see there are many ways to customize how PDFs can be displayed.


Add permanant pronunciation to text to speech dictionary Is there any way to add a permanent pronunciation to OSX text to speech dictionary?

For example: I would like the word 'mkdir' to be read as 'make directory' each and every time I use the "Start Speaking" service.

I couldn't find a solution so I wrote an automator script that does the job: Custom Text To Speech


Unicode normalization for filenames and copied text from pdf:s I have two issues that seem related. When copying text or filenames containing umlauts or e.g. å ä ö, OS X can't seem to handle the characters in a sane way. Apparently this is a well-known problem. For example:

http://support.wandisco.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/401/55/problems-with-umlauts--in-filenames-on-mac-os-x
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/94418/os-x-umlauts-in-utf8-nfd-yield-package-inputenc-error-unicode-char-u8-not

Here is an example of the usual result when copying text from a filename or from inside a pdf in Preview and pasting it in an editor. The first line is the result, the other one is corrected.

The difference is clearly visible, since the current font (Courier Prime) doesn't support the first version.

Is there any way to fix this? Alternatively, is there any OS X-service available to "clean up" text or normalize it in the correct way?

HFS+ requires filenames to be in decomposed form (LATIN SMALL LETTER A + COMBINING DIAERESIS) instead of composed form (LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS). You can use iconv to convert text to composed form:

$ echo -n ä | xxd -p
c3a4
$ touch ä
$ ls | tr -d '\n' | xxd -p
61cc88
$ ls | tr -d '\n' | iconv -f utf-8-mac -t utf-8 | xxd -p
c3a4

HFS+ does not use NFD (normal form decomposed). From http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa1173/_index.html:

  Important: The terms used in this Q&A, precomposed and decomposed, roughly correspond to Unicode Normal Forms C and D, respectively. However, most volume formats do not follow the exact specification for these normal forms. For example, HFS Plus (Mac OS Extended) uses a variant of Normal Form D in which U+2000 through U+2FFF, U+F900 through U+FAFF, and U+2F800 through U+2FAFF are not decomposed (this avoids problems with round trip conversions from old Mac text encodings).

Something like this might also work:

python -c 'import unicodedata as ud; print ud.normalize("NFC", u"\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER A}\N{COMBINING DIAERESIS}")'


Equivalent of Ubuntu’s write-mime-multipart? I would like to generate a multipart mime-encoded document for use as user data on EC2 instances.

On Ubuntu, one is supposed to use write-mime-multipart to do this, as per these instructions.

Does anyone know what would the OSX command-line equivalent be?

Thanks!

I’ve found a simple solution. Ubuntu’s write-mime-multipart command is actually a Python script, available here (or on an Ubuntu distro I guess).

I’ve simply downloaded this script to use. Perhaps not ideal with respect to version control, but okay for a simple script I think.

Better approaches welcome!


Add recovery partition back onto drive after drive change Possible Duplicate:
  How to recreate Lion Recovery HD partition?

I hope this question is different enough from the others that is doesn't get closed.

I am first time Mac user, long time Linux user, so pardon my ignorance in the Apple terminology.

I have a late 2011 MBP that I replaced the drive with an SSD.  I didn't care about the contents so I just stuck in the drive and Apple magically gave me OSX Lion again.  The SSD was too small, so I bought a bigger one and cloned the drive with SuperDuper.  It took a long time to boot afterwards, but it did so I thought everything was great.  Then I eventually noticed my recovery partition was not cloned with the rest of my data.

I still have the old drive with the recovery partition and I have enough space to add the partition back to the current/new drive.

My question is:  What is the easiest way to get my recovery partition back after losing it completely, without reinstalling from the internet (unless reinstalling won't mess with my data)?  I have a USB enclosure for the drive that has the partition.  I don't know if it matters, but I originally had Lion and upgraded to Mountain Lion.

Reinstalling over an existing system does not create a Recovery HD.

WARNING: This is low level disk editing code and will hurt your disk if not done properly. Make sure you recheck your calculations on every calculator you own.

You need to have a copy of Mountain Lion installer in your Applications folder for the following steps to work. Enter the following commands in Terminal, one by one, while following the related video. You need to fill all the X yourself by following the video.

  sudo -i

  diskutil list

  diskutil info /dev/diskXsX

  XXXXXXXXX-700*1024*1024=

  diskutil resizeVolume /dev/diskXsX XXXXXXXXXB jhfs+ “Recovery HD" 650002432B

  diskutil resizeVolume diskXsX 650002432B

  mkdir /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot

  hdiutil attach /Applications/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Installation.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

  cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/BaseSystem.dmg /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/

  cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/.disk_label /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/

  cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/boot.efi /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/

  cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/kernelcache /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/

  cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/

  cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/

  cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/

  umount -f /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/

  asr adjust —target /dev/diskXsX -settype "Apple_Boot"


How to keep an application on top of all windows using AppleScript? I have an AppleScript .app file that basically consists of a series of dialogs.

I would like to keep this application on top of all other windows (including on top of any new windows that are created while the application is still running), until the AppleScript is complete and the application automatically closes.

Can pinning a window on top be accomplished in AppleScript?

Method 1: SystemUIServer

After hours of searching online and testing out various solutions, I've found one method to keep a running AppleScript on top of all windows. The method is provided in post #2 of this MacScripter.net thread.

Here is the code:

tell application "SystemUIServer"
   activate
end tell

I placed my entire AppleScript code within the above tell statement. This worked perfectly on the first dialog, but, unfortunately, this caused an error soon after progressing through the AppleScript.

What I had to do was manually encapsulate every dialog in its own tell statement. For every instance of:

choose from list
display alert
display dialog

I had to add a statement. I have countless dialogs embedded in the AppleScript in question, so this took me several hours to complete.

So, this is not a great answer, as it is potentially very laborious. Ideally, one could insert the SystemUIServer statement just once in their code and be done with it.

A note on the default timeout:

If you encapsulate a dialog within the above tell block, by default, the script will timeout if the user does not click a button within 2 minutes. When this timeout occurs, the script will be cancelled. The user will be given the following error:

  SystemUIServer got an error: AppleEvent timed out.

(Strangely enough, however, even after the user closes this error dialog, the original dialog will still remain pinned to the top until the user clicks a button on the dialog.)

Here's the relevant description from the AppleScript documentation for with timeout:

  When a command fails to complete in the allotted time (whether the default of two minutes, or a time set by a with timeout statement), AppleScript stops running the script and returns the error "event timed out". AppleScript does not cancel the operation—it merely stops execution of the script. If you want the script to continue, you can wrap the statements in a try statement. However, whether your script can send a command to cancel an offending lengthy operation after a timeout is dependent on the application that is performing the command.

Hence, if you do not want to have a timeout affect your dialogs, then do the following:

tell application "SystemUIServer"
    with timeout of 999999 seconds
       activate
        display dialog "Hello World"
    end timeout
end tell

A note on input dialogs:

Method 1 does not work properly with a display dialog that has a text field (i.e., default answer "").

While the dialog is kept on top of all other windows, if the user clicks anywhere outside of the bounds of the dialog, the user will not be able to type text in the text box. The blinking text cursor will permanently disappear.

The top bar of the dialog box immediately turns white when the user clicks out of the dialog. It is not possible to get the bar to return to the dark grey color (which reflects a foreground/active state), so that text can be typed.

The user will still be able to press any buttons in the dialog, but the primary function of the dialog, i.e., to get a text input from the user, will be seriously hampered.

In short, I do not recommend including input dialogs in a SystemUIServer tell block.

Method 2: FastScripts app

Another way to keep every dialog of an AppleScript file pinned on top of all other windows is to use a third-party application entitled FastScripts to trigger the script files. FastScripts keeps all dialogs pinned on top by default, which is very helpful. I don't even know if this feature can be disabled (if you wanted to turn it off; I don't).

FastScripts can launch a .scpt file via either a custom keyboard shortcut or manually (simply click on the FastScripts icon in the menu bar to be presented with a drop-down list of your scripts).

(I know that when I asked this question originally, I specified that the AppleScript was saved as an .app file. But, an AppleScript .app file can be converted to an AppleScript .scpt file easily and in little time.)

Of course, this method is appealing because one does not need to edit one bit of their AppleScript code for the desired effect to be implemented. FastScripts does all of the hard work.


Make Safari tab bar display all tabs at once without horizontal scrolling? How can I make the Safari tab bar display all of the tabs?
Right now it displays only n tabs and the remaining are only accessible through a >> button.
How can I display all tabs at once without needing to scroll horizontally? Can tabs be set to shrink to a much smaller size, to display more at once?

Actually there is a plugin (not to be confused with an extension) called Glims which allows the tabs to have a minimum width roughly the size of the close button. It's free - Glims

The screen resolution you are set to will ultimately determine your results, but for me I can normally only fit 13 tabs in a full screen Safari window. With Glims installed and this option turned on, it fits around 50 tabs. After that it resumes the usual behavior of giving you the >> for more tabs.

The drawback is obviously you loose your tab titles, making it difficult to discern one tab from another and this is why Apple chose to impose this arbitrary limitation. However there is another feature in Glims to display the website's favicon in the place where the close tab button usually is. This helps alleviate the aforementioned dilemma to an extent.

FYI - Glims does much more than that as well.


OneDrive files which appear in Finder but not in terminal? It sounds crazy, I know. Usually its the other way round - you can see files in terminal which are not visible in Finder.

I have a problem which is the other way round. I have a folder - /Users/me/OneDrive/stuff/sa that has one PNG in it. OneDrive is saying there is a problem with the file and the folder. I can see both in the Finder, and if I do "info" there is nothing wrong with them (e.g. no spaces or dodgy characters).

However, If I open Terminal, and do cd /Users/me/OneDrive/stuff then ls -ld sa it shows nothing, and if I do ls it is missing form the list. pwd shows I am in /Users/me/OneDrive/stuff.

I am a Unix sys admin - I have tripple checked and what I am seeing should not be possible.

The file and folder are quite old, and have not changed recently.

Any ideas?

Okay, same problem here.  I just installed a Go package library from github.com which resulted in $GOPATH/src/google.golang.org folder showing in Finder but not showing or accessible in Terminal.  I can even open the files in both Finder and in my JetBrains editor GoLand with no problem.  But I have no means of going to the directory in Terminal.

I also can confirm they are not symbolically linked either.  When I run ls -la on the $GOPATH/src folder I just get github.com but in Finder it shows github.com and google.golang.org as sub-directories under src directory.  I have Read/Write permission on both sub-directories.


Prevent Network Settings From Changing Automatically How can I stop Network Settings from being able to change without my permission? Couldn't find anything under "Security" in Settings.

OSX 10.9.5 (Mavericks)

Changes (broke Internet): Settings -> Network -> Advanced

TCP/IP -> Configure IPv6: "Link-local only" (vs. "Automatically")
Proxies -> Web Proxy (HTTP) Checked (vs. Unchecked)

Running TunnelBear VPN (which turns off IPv6 automatically to prevent leakage when using "Vigilant" mode) and UBlock Origin. I suspect they may have something to do with changes.

Pretty sure the issue was with TunnelBear.


Default ubuntu to boot in startup manager causes ubuntu to not work anymore I have installed ubuntu alongside os x. I can start it by pressing the option key during startup and choose the correct disk. Everything works.

Now I want to default the ubuntu disk. That works by pressing "Control" while choosing the disk in the startup manager and pressing enter.

My mac now boots default to ubuntu. But it does not work anymore. The login screen appears, but neither keyboard nor touchpad work. Also if I plug in an usb mouse, it does not light up.

A couple of things to check:

reset your NVRAM since the startup disk is stored there
set the desired startup disk from OS X (or by blessing it manually from OS X) after the NVRAM clear
use a third party boot manager - Boot Runner is about the best there is, but you have lots of options from free to open-source


Finder: Show/Hide hidden files with non-US keyboard I discovered the well-known shortcut  ⌘ CMD + ⇧ SHIFT + . to quickly show and hide hidden files in finder. Unfortunately, this shortcut doesn't work on non-US keyboards.
How can I show/hide files using a shortcut with AZERTY keyboard?
Note:

I know I can update com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles and kill the finder, but I am looking for a shortcut based solution.
I currently work with macOS Mojave 10.14.6

You can press command+fn+Shift+. to get it working on a non-QWERTY keyboard.


iOS 4 AutoCorrects "me" to "^me" At one point, I typed "^me" into iOS 4. Now it corrects the word "me" to "^me" every time.   How can I remove this?

(I would like a solution to the problem. Pressing the X on the auto correct tooltip or disabling auto correct work, but they don't solve the problem.)

Simply reset your Keyboard Dictionary.

As you type on iOS, it will begin to learn the words you use frequently. The frequently used words will take precedent after a while (most often seen with names). Sometimes this system makes a mistake and records a typo or a word that you'd rather not have iOS dish up.

To correct this matter, simply reset your Keyboard Dictionary. Tap Settings > General. Scroll down to the bottom and tap on Reset.

This will delete all the entries and restore your keyboard dictionary to its default state, removing the erroneous admission.


iOS - Disable mobile data download restrictions (in mobile data mode) Is there a way to disable the mobile-data-saving features in iOS? I now have a mobile plan with unlimited LTE data, it's faster and more reliable than most Wi-Fi connections as well. So it would be great if I could tell my iPhone that it's ok to do things such as download 100+ MB apps from the App Store, or actually download videos from my iCloud photo library in full 4k/60fps resolution, or download an iOS update etc.

(The aforementioned restrictions are in place only in mobile data mode and not when the device is connected to Wi-Fi.)

But I don't see a user-settable option anywhere? Seems certain restrictions are in place such that iOS wants certain network things only to happen on Wi-Fi?

It should be smarter than that. It's good that iOS tries to save mobile data by default, but it's strange that there is no choice for the user here. The data saving options are kind of arbitrary and actually moot anyways. If you allow some app to use data (which is the default), that app can then download as much as it wants on mobile.

edit - I've been using a hacky workaround:

A macOS computer is needed. Connect your iPhone to your Mac via USB, make sure the Mac is network-tethered to your iPhone via USB connection (in Network Settings). Then, enable Internet Sharing in Sharing Settings on your Mac. Set it up to share the internet connection from iPhone-USB via Wifi. Your Mac will create a WiFi hotspot. Then, on your iPhone, connect to that WiFi hotspot.

Your iPhone will be pleased by the WiFi connection and lift its arbitrary restrictions.

The obvious downside is that you have to have a Mac up and running, and your iPhone must be hooked up to your Mac via USB cable.

(This WiFi setup will also allow you to use HomePods in stereo mode, which is not possible without a WiFi network. Get them to connect to the Mac WiFi and you're golden).

iOS doesn't restrict data consumption in general sense. The data restrictions are present only for a few specific scenarios, such as downloading large apps and iOS updates and that too are in place only in mobile data mode and not when the device is connected to Wi-Fi network.

It should be understood that the that the restrictions are only in place while you are on mobile data. Though debatable, those are valid restrictions to keep the overall user experience for an average user smooth.

There is no way to work around the mobile data download restriction in iOS. The restrictions are in place not due to technical reasons but a policy to restrict a few users from hogging the mobile network thereby brining down the network for everyone. This is more about encouraging fair usage among the users in the network.

As far as app installation is involved, the cellular download limit is now increased to 150 MB from 100 MB (Source: Higher Limit for Over-the-Air Downloads). Updating iOS still require Wi-Fi connectivity.

  The data saving options are kind of arbitrary and actually moot anyways. If you allow some app to use data (which is the default), that app can then download as much as it wants on mobile.

This observation is correct, but it still isn't as common a use-case as installing apps and updating iOS.


Is there a third-party Finder app that remembers custom column widths in List View? My understanding is that it is impossible to change the default width of the List View "Name" column in Finder on a Mac. To be specific, I need to increase this width.

Is there a third-party program that can accomplish this?

If so, please specify if the "Name" column width can be set on a

per-folder basis
system-wide (all folders basis)
or both.

OS X El Capitan, version 10.11.6.

On the latest version of Sierra, in list view in a Finder window, holding the option key while double-clicking the divider between the “Name” column and its adjacent column. then releasing the option key and closing then reopening Finder to that same folder… the width of your name column retains its new set value in list view.  This only works on a per folder basis You can set custom widths for your name columns in list view for any folder of your choosing.

Here's the kicker though!!  I believe if you resize the finder window itself, this will reset your custom column widths.


Is there a gesture to navigate back to previous page in iPad 2 (or the new iPad)? I've just bought a new iPad, but it's so annoying when I have to click the arrow on the top left of the page to navigate back and forth using Safari. I wonder is there a gesture for navigating that I'm not aware of?

Safari on a standard iPad does not have a gesture for returning to the previous page.


Can't write to /usr even with sudo Here's my problem:

sudo php -d detect_unicode=0 go-pear.phar

...should let me run as root and modify /usr & /usr/share directories, but I get this:

Below is a suggested file layout for your new PEAR installation.  To
change individual locations, type the number in front of the
directory.  Type 'all' to change all of them or simply press Enter to
accept these locations.

 1. Installation base ($prefix)                   : /usr
 2. Temporary directory for processing            : /tmp/pear/install
 3. Temporary directory for downloads             : /tmp/pear/install
 4. Binaries directory                            : /usr/bin
 5. PHP code directory ($php_dir)                 : /usr/share/pear
 6. Documentation directory                       : /usr/docs
 7. Data directory                                : /usr/data
 8. User-modifiable configuration files directory : /usr/cfg
 9. Public Web Files directory                    : /usr/www
10. System manual pages directory                 : /usr/man
11. Tests directory                               : /usr/tests
12. Name of configuration file                    : /private/etc/pear.conf

1-12, 'all' or Enter to continue:
Unable to create PHP code directory ($php_dir) /usr/share/pear.
Run this script as root or pick another location.

Why is sudo failing to give me root privilege? *Note: *I am in the wheel group, though that should not have anything with this funny sudo behaviour.

Gabbar-Singh:~ anadi$ id anadi
uid=XXX(anadi) gid=XX(staff) groups=XX(staff),0(wheel)

You are trying to install in /usr which is protected by SIP (System Integrity Protection), a feature introduced with 10.11 (see
What is the "rootless" feature in El Capitan, really? for details).

Use /usr/local instead, which is the location intended for user-side installations.


How to show subject line for new messages in OS X Messages.app? Mavericks, if that matters. On the iPhone, there is a separate subject line before the main message, and on the Mac it shows (as on the phone) in bold at the top of the balloon. But when I want to make a new message on the Mac, I only have the body available.

As far as I can tell, you can't. I have looked everywhere for this feature.

I'd love for this answer to become wrong though.


I cannot sign into the App store. Any time I attempt to I get the same error I have tried literally everything I can think of to include deleting my login information for the app store and and reentering it entirely. Unfortunately I cannot seem to find a solution despite the multiple forums I have encountered. Does anyone have any idea as to how to fix this issue?

I am sorry to tell you, that is normal.

In times of new product release (OSX Mojave), they servers just get flooded with requests.

You are connected to App Store, but ca not pass the Log-In server.

It says, an Unexpected Error ?,

if anything is wrong with you profile or your log-in information it would tell you that.

The problem is not on your side !

Just have to keep trying.


Damaged iMac Display - Any Solution for Grey Vertical Column Lines? After replacing a Fusion Drive with an SSD, it must have damaged my display. Now, there is a column of grey on the left-hand side. I double-checked the cables, and they are snug. Probably damaged beyond repair.
Is there any way to modify the Menu Bar at the top to move it right, past the grey bar, so that all the menu items are visible?
The iMac is still usable, I just use the other 2/3rd of the screen and use a lot of keyboard shortcuts. But I often can't see the menu and need to select from it.
27" iMac late 2012 running Catalina

Yes. Unfortunately, you damaged the display.
If seen this exact problem (different size and location of the bar) and it was due to a “hit” to the display along the edge of the glass.
These LCD panels are few and far between now in terms of availability. You may be able to source it used via eBay or find an iMac “for parts” that hopefully has a good LCD. Your other option would be to get a new(er) model And sell that as parts to help fund the replacement
Can you modify the display?  Unfortunately no. The screen is still reporting that it’s 2560 pixels wide (EDID data). It’s hard coded into the firmware so you can’t override it to trick macOS that it’s smaller and render the display output so it “bypasses” the defective part.