Why are iMessages appearing on my iPad but not coming through on my phone? I think I have everything set up correctly but randomly this week I have had a few messages appear on my iPad and they have never come through on my iPhone. So I didn't even knew I had a message until I looked at the iPad.

Also, I have noticed that not all my iMessages are showing on my iPad. Can anyone help? Does this has to do with my iCloud backup? I am not great with all of this!

I had the same problem.  Looking at Settings > Messages > Send & Receive on both iPad and iPhone, my telephone number was listed under 'You can be reached by iMessage at' on both and was greyed out on the iPhone, but ticked on the iPad.

The fix was to:

(a) tap the telephone number on the Settings page of the iPad (Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage).  This removed the tick beside the number, and

(b) on the iPhone, disabled and re-enabled iMessage (Settings > Messages), and then enabled the telephone number (Settings > Messages > Send & Receive, and tapped the telephone number on You can be reached by iMessage at settings page.

A notification was then shown on the iPad:

  Your Apple ID and phone number are now being used for iMessage on a
  new iPhone.


Can I run a disc image of a cloned Tiger or Leopard PPC drive on a modern Intel Mac via virtualization software? I have a PowerMac G5 PPC running Tiger and an old, white, Santa Rosa MacBook running Leopard.

If I create cloned disc images of these OS drives, will I be able to run them in VMWare Fusion/Parallels/etc. on a modern Intel Mac?

If I were to create bootable clones of these drives, would these need to be formatted as APM on FireWire drives that would only be accessible from the G5 &/or SR MacBook as opposed to bootable clones formatted as GUID on USB drives accessible from any modern Mac?

Is there any reason I would want to clone the drives via Target Disk Mode, hooked up to an Intel Mac, as opposed to cloning them directly from their own interfaces or from an Intel Mac with access to them via ethernet LAN?

Thank you

Mac OS X SLA doesn't allow to run older Mac OS Xs in a VM until Max OS X Server 10.6.8 or Mac OS X 10.7 and later. Additionally there are some technical restrictions.

So none of them will run directly in VMware Fusion, Parallels or VirtualBox.

To get an image of the MacBook3,1 running in one of those three you would have to update it to Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8 or Lion 10.7.x first. The easier and cheaper way is probably to set up a vanilla Lion VM and migrate the content of the MacBook.

The only way to get the PowerMac G5 possibly running I know of is outlined in this guide. You would have to migrate the contents of the PowerMac as well.
Probably it's easier to choose the simple way and use the same approach as with the MacBook: vanilla Lion VM and migration.


AirPods abruptly go silent while listening to music from iPhone UPDATE 2018-09-24: Running iOS 12 for a week now. I haven't experienced this problem so far. While it seems the issue might be gone, I haven't had much use of the AirPods this last week.

There are many discussions about problems with AirPods disconnecting all over the net, but I'm not sure I've seen my case anywhere.

Basically I listen to music from iPhone with my Airpods. It could be Apple Music or SoundCloud or whatever.

Sometimes the sound just stops - but when I look at my iPhone I notice that the airpods appear to be connected, and the iPod music player or whatever player I was currently using, is still ticking on ie the time progresses; play is not paused.
Each time when this happens I have to do one of these methods:

Temporary fix method 1

pause the music (obviously this is optional, but if I don't I miss some parts)
disconnect the airpods
connect the airpods
(play the music)

Temporary fix method 2

I've found another way which fixes the problem after it happened:

Pause for at least ~10 seconds
Unpause

Notes

Using iPhone 6s Plus, currently iOS 11.4.1
It is very inconvenient. There is no problem with batteries, this could happen on a full charge.
after a discussion in the answer below I decided to see what happens if I wait a longer time after the sound goes silent. Turns out the connection is still very much alive because I realized I can still use double taps on the left/right AirPods in order to pause/skip to next song according to my setup. Even pausing/unpairing/skipping this way will not make the sound come back. The iPhone seems to believe that it's sending music to perfectly sounding AirPods.
It kind of often happens after I look at the phone doing something, then put it down on a desk (likely locks it, or it autolocks after some minute) and after the screen goes black and then some more seconds (not sure how long, but it's very short) the music stops.
I get the feeling this happens a lot more when I'm at the office or other places with busy WiFi signals etc all around, but I'm not sure, it could happen almost anytime, it's hard to say.
It's not exactly reproducible - I can't cause it to happen, but it normally happens like one or a few times a day.
I don't use the phone much at all so I have no idea if this issue affects phone calls. Just no info here. I just had a call today and was using the AirPods and after 7-8 minutes the other guy started to sound like a monster (people describe this as "underwater" and I can also agree with that). I quickly switched off the AirPods and talked using the iPhone itself.
It seems to happen regardless of if I am connected to a Wi-Fi network, or have Wi-Fi turned off and am only listening to music with cellular connection.

Anyone have this issue? When googling most pages suggest to unpair the airpods from the iPhone and re-pair them again. I've tried that, I believe, but I don't think it made anything better.

Kind of similar issues

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8344649 very similar
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7887055

This is typical of an interference between Bluetooth and other electromagnetic waves (Wi-Fi in an office or appartment environment, remote commands in every environment, wireless phones in every environment, microwave oven leaking in an office or appartment environment…).

One of the only thing you could do if at all possible is to suggest all Wi-Fi administrators around you (at least the ones who might understand) to switch on 5GHz band channels (36, 40, 44…) so as to reduce these interferences. Their networks will work better too.

This problem will increase regularly with the increase of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi use everywhere. This problem will stay hard to identify and to aknowledge since the channels used by Bluetooth are changing regularly (purposefully to avoid this interference problem ).

You can limit this problem by stopping Wi-Fi within your own environnment. And moreover, to make everyone laugh, you might surround you with a light metal wire mesh the kind used to make garden fences  (avoid the aluminium screen because it's an urban legend).

Another note on the funny side, these network drop is a free nice detector that you are in an overcrowded electromagnetic waves environment.


iTunes Sync only new music/videos I am quite confused about the iTunes sync process.

What I expect to happen is that whenever I add any new songs to iTunes, it should only sync those songs. I do not want to wait for the entire music library to be synced again. (Doesn't this also create duplicates?)

So how do I do this? I was reading online and some people said to use the "Sync only checked songs..." option and others said to use the "Manually manage..." option. What is the difference and which is the best way?

How do you sync only new songs? You put them in your library, and click sync. If you have duplicates in your library, you will have duplicates on your device. What you see listed in iTunes is exactly what you will have on your device.

The answer is not any harder than this. "Sync" means exactly what it says on the tin, it updates your device with the data in your library. It will "update" songs that have had information changed (cover art, lyrics, or if a title was corrected, etc.), and it will add new ones you've put in the iTunes library.

When you click sync, iTunes does not overwrite everything and start from scratch. It synchronizes your library. It picks up new changes and writes them to the device, and it will even bring new content back from the device if you bought something from the store on your device.

Considering your exact requirements:

Do not change any settings in iTunes. Leave music syncing options completely default, and iTunes will do exactly what you want it to do.

Your exact requirement is exactly what iTunes is supposed to do.


Where is system/library/extensions in OSX 10.10? so I am now using vmware player to mount the osx now, and since I accidentally installed the svga display driver with the vmware tool one from darwin now I cant change the resolution of it so I need to uninstall the svga. I try to find system/library/extensions so that I can uninstall the svga driver but I cant find it in the library. Where can I find it or it is just hidden in the library folder?

⌘-Shift-G is the hotkey for the "Go to Folder" dropdown menu. Just type in /System/Library/Extensions and click Go to open that folder.

P.S. I think your screenshot may be in your User folder, not the System folder. The System folder lives in Macintosh HD, not within a specific user's files.


Reinitialize third party keyboard Is there any way to reinitialize an external third party USB keyboard? I hit a wrong key after MACOS detected the new keyboard hardware. Now, my keymapping is not correct.

I need to remove or reinitialize it (repeating the hardware detection).

Any ideas?

Try going to System Preferences -> Keyboard and click the "Change Keyboard Type..." button in the lower left corner. This should restart the keyboard type detection.


Disable Documents and Desktop iCloud sync but keep all files locally? macOS Sierra

I enabled Documents and Desktop iCloud sync and it looks fine to me at the moment (after moving one huge folder out of the Documents folder). But I tried to disable it and it told me that local files will be deleted but kept on iCloud. This makes sense as it is the same logic as with the Photos.app.

But is there a way of keeping the local content and deleting the iCloud content of the Documents and Desktop folder? Essentially, how can I revert my enabling and have everything local again?

You could hold down the option + click on the document folder and drag it to another directory (essentially copying it) and then disable sync, so it does not affect the files you just created. Do the same for the Desktop Folder.

Best if you can copy to an external drive, to avoid any chances of losing the local files, until you resolve the unsync and deletion of said files.


How do I find and use the filename on photos in Photos.app? I live by my photo filenames but they are gone in now that there is the new (crappy) Photos. Thankfully on one computer I did not do the update so I still have iPhoto.

Certainly I'm missing something silly and the filenames are still there but I can't locate them in Photos. I appreciate any help.

You can still see the original file name of a photo in the information panel, opened using cmd ⌘ I. It's right there under the photo's title.

It seems you cannot search for file names in the Photos.app search. What still works is creating a smart album (⌥ alt cmd ⌘  N) to search for a specific file name or a pattern. See for example this Macworld article.

The Photos app really hides the actual file names quite well. In the finder, you cannot even search for them using Spotlight unless you first open the package content of your Photos library and directly search in that Finder window.


How to check individual in-app purchases as developer on iTunes Connect? Is there any way to check each in-app purchases my app is receiving on iTunes Connect?

On Android for example you have a list of every purchase with an ID so if a client makes a complain I can easily check if he actually made the purchase, but on iTunes I just see statistical data, but not list of every purchase, so I can't check purchase.

My worst fear is a purchase properly charged but not registered by our servers, so the client loses its money and I can't confirm the purchase.

No, there's no way of doing this for non-subscription in-app purchases. It is purposely not made possible.

The only information you'll receive from iTunes Connect is aggregates - i.e. the statistical data, you mention. This means that you can see how many in-app purchases what made, but not the details of each individual buyer.

For non-consumable in-app purchases, Apple requires your app to have a Restore button that restores in-app purchases to the device. In addition to this, Apple designed the StoreKit system so that even if the user were guided to try to buy a non-consumable in-app purchase again, it will automatically switch to restore or fail completely.

The process is implemented in your app using the restoreCompletedTransactions() method of the SKPaymentQueue class in the StoreKit framework. Your app will receive copies of the original transactions - so even when a purchases hasn't been registered by your own servers, you'll get a copy of the transaction and receipt to be able to get another attempt at storing it on your own server.

This means that your worst fear is ungrounded. It is simply not possible for a user to pay for the same non-consumable in-app purchase twice.


Text Editing Newbie Question I have just started playing around with text editing using Text Wrangler. I have real estate sales data cut and pasted from a web site on which I have searched and deleted unwanted data and cleaned up the tabs and spaces nicely. However each data record is still split over 2 lines. One line starts with a letter (persons name) and the next starts with an address (a digit). This pattern repeats all the way down the document. How do I say "if line break is followed on next line with a starting digit, replace line break with a tab"

I assume that would put each record on one line ?

I'm assuming you want it like:
Visitor82   123 E. Text Street ...

To do this in Text Wrangler:

Search > Find

Tick the 'Grep' option

In the Find Box type:
(?(?!\r\d)then)\r

In the Replace Box type (or whatever delimiter you would like):
\x20

~ Enjoy!


iPhone 4S iOS 7 Battery Drain I have an iPhone 4S with iOS 7.0.

Since the upgrade, my battery drains twice as fast.

I have applied all the battery saving tips available on the internet (e.g. http://osxdaily.com/2013/09/19/ios-7-battery-life-fix/).

iPhone is primarily used for phone calls, texting, email, documents/scheduling/productivity, and light web surfing.

Anyone experiencing similar issues? Any suggestions or fixes to apply?

Thank you!

I haven't seen that problem with iOS 7.

Have you tried restarting or resetting your iPad?

  Restart: Press On/Off button until the Slide to Power Off slider
  appears, select Slide to Power Off and, after the iPad shuts down,
  then press the On/Off button until the Apple logo appears.

  Reset: Press the Home and On/Off buttons at the same time and hold
  them until the Apple logo appears (about 10 seconds).

If these don't correct the problem connect to iTunes and do a restore.

If all else fails to do so:

In Settings, turn on Airplane mode, then reset your device by holding Power + Home button 15 seconds until you see the Apple logo. Power back on, then turn off Airplane mode.


Mac won’t display WiFi login box after upgrade to El Capitan I don’t know if the upgrade to El Capitan is relevant or not, but lately I’ve noticed I can’t connect to the Internet via public WiFi hotspots with my MacBook Pro.

I can connect to WiFi networks themselves and say, my home WiFi network that requires a WPA password. But now when I connect to public WiFi hotspots I no longer get the modal window that usually asks me to log in using my account with that provider.

Is this a setting or something that may have been disabled in El Capitan? If so, how can I get my Mac to display those modals again? (I don’t even know what they’re called so not sure what search terms to use.)

for me this trick always worked - even on the iphone!

Browse directly to the log in screen: http://captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html


pasting commands from TextWrangler to Terminal (applescript troubleshooting) I have a following script that I have been using for years to paste selection or a whole line from TextWrangler to R. I got it from some website, slightly modified, and it has worked perfectly:

tell application "TextWrangler"
set the_selection to (selection of front window as string)
if (the_selection) is "" then
    set the_selection to line (get startLine of selection) of front window as string
end if
end tell
tell application "R64"
cmd the_selection
end tell

Now I wanted to do the same, but pasting to Terminal window instead of R. However, when I modify the relevant line (3rd line from end) of the above script to:

tell application "Terminal"

the script no longer works. After some debugging I narrowed down the problem to the "cmd the_selection", where the editor says "Syntax error: Expected end of line but found identifier.". The funny thing is I cannot find what "cmd" command does - it's not in Apple's guidelines, and googling it doesn't help. I assume this must be some deprecated function to paste selection or line and that it no longer works in my version of applescript.

Any ideas how to fix this?
cheers
yot

Was cmd from R64's AppleScript dictionary or something?

You can run a command in Terminal with the do script verb.

tell application "Terminal"
    do script with command the_selection in window 1
end tell


Stolen iPhone and can't see on find my iPhone Someone stole my iPhone yesterday and Find my iPhone was on. We were tracking the place and then they might have turned the phone off because it appeared offline. Today I couldn't find my device on Find my iPhone. I was using two phones with the same Apple ID, and I can only see one phone now.

What does this mean? Did they just erase my phone and set up as a new phone? I blocked IMEI number and it was passcode protected as well.

If the phone disappeared from Find my iPhone on iCloud (which is different from being offline), someone must have removed it.
Even if the thief turned it off and reset it, it would remain on iCloud as an offline device until the account owner removes it.

On a side note, if the IMEI lock disables data on the SIM, it makes it difficult if not impossible to find the phone unless the thief goes to a place where the phone has connected to a wifi network before.


Linked PDF and going back in OS X Preview When I click on a linked reference in a PDF it jumps to the bibliography at the end of the paper.
Is there an easy way to jump back to the passage I just read?

Preview can do this, once you have followed a link Cmd-[  will take you "Back" to the page where the link was clicked. Additionally if you wish to follow the link again using your keyboard, the obvious shortcut for "Forward" is then Cmd-].

Both of these may be found under the "Go" menu in Preview.


MacBook Pro Retina 13" not connecting to some Wifi networks I just bought a MacBook Pro Retina 13" with Mavericks and all the latest updates, and have an issue connecting to some Wifi networks that my Windows Laptop and my Windows Phone had no issue with at all.

I have sucessfully connected to my own Wifi router (Asus) and various coffee shop wifi access points.

However it does not connect to the Wifi in my local coffee shop at all. It just shows 'Connection time out' after about 5 seconds.

It is not the WPA2 password, because I can connect to it from my wifi enabled phone (Nokia Lumia 920) with no issue. (I deleted the Wifi connection on my phone and reconnected to make sure)

Are there any steps I can take to get my MacBook working with all the routers again?

Usually the 'Connection time out' happens on weak WiFi signal.

I am assuming you have a decent signal, and further assuming there is something wrong with the saved WiFi profile for that specific location.

To test that:

Follow this guide to connect using copy paste.

In Terminal type following (to turn the airport on)

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

Next type (to scan for networks and find the one you want)

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport scan

From the Scan above you will get a display of available networks, so pick the one you want and type following (to connect).....while at it look at the RSSI number, the lower the better like (-) 50 or lower.   The RSSI is the signal to Noise ration, and if it is a high number (70 or higher) there is your problem.

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 WIFI_SSID_I_WANT_TO_JOIN WIFI_PASSWORD

skip the password if none.

If above worked, then lets open your WiFi find and Delete that profile, then make a new one.


How do I set up AU Lab with Soundflower to record and monitor all audio that is playing on my Mac Pro? How do I set up AU Lab with Soundflower to record and monitor all audio that is playing on my Mac Pro?
                        K.W.

You'd have to set Soundflower as the default output for audio (System Preferences->Sound), otherwise it will only accept input from whichever program has been specifically set to send output to Soundflower. Then in AU Lab, select Soundflower as the default input. This should capture everything.


Removing an application from homebrew-cask Homebrew-cask provides the possibility for users to conveniently install the applications with GUI, I want to confirm that: while I try to uninstall a software which was installed by homebrew-cask, will it remove those Application Supports, Caches, or related files too?

By the way, If I manually update a software (which was installed by cask) without using command provided by cask, will it corrupt the cask function (such as updating that software in the future with cask again)?

For full remove try:

brew cask zap any_program

Manual update should not corrupt anything. It updates the same program copy which was installed by cask.


Smart Playlist that includes all song that are/were in another playlist I have one active playlist which contains about 50 songs. But I remove and add songs very commonly at this playlist. I want to have another playlist that includes all song that currently are and have been in the active playlist. Can someone help me to create that smart playlist?

Here is a screenshot of my first attempt but this creates a live updating clone, which is not very helpful.

iTunes' Smart Playlist feature does not have any memory. You can only refer to songs where/how they are in this very moment.

You can, however, add songs to the new smart playlist that have been played in the last X hours/days.

If you can 'explain' to iTunes how to find the songs that you want to have included/excluded, you can create a smart playlist for it.

Does this answer your question?


iTerm2: Open Windows as Tabs Up until recently, multiple iTerm2 windows showed up as tabs for me, as if they were themselves tabs. That is, I had two tab hierarchies, one for windows (like a super tab) and one for tabs. Here is my artist's impression of it:

I just updated to the latest version, and now my windows all open up as regular windows. How can I get the old behaviour back?

TLDR; Feature was removed

The OP followed my suggestion in idea #4 and followed up on the iterm2's forums on Google Group. He asked his question there: Open windows as "tab groups".

A dev answered his inquiry there:

  George Nachman

  Apr 17

  That was a bug which was out for a version or two a year ago when
  macOS added support for native tabs. It kind of sort of works but it
  has a lot of rough edges so it got disabled. Amusingly, Apple even
  tried to disable it for iTerm2 but it doesn't seem to have worked.

Idea #1 - iterm preferences

If you go into iterm2's preferences under the Profiles tab (red #1 below) is another group of tabs. If you select the Window sub-tab (red #2 below) there's a check box that sounds like what you're looking for.

Open Preference Dialog

Preference Dialog

Idea #2 - Panes

Upon further researching this I can only conclude that what you're referring to as "windows" in your example are in fact panes. Here's an example where I've setup 3 panes with tabs underneath them.

Panes show up when you either vertically or horizontally split a tab. They're mentioned here in the iterm2 documentation. They're accessible when you right click on a tab and then split it:

You can also create panes with the keyboard shortcuts:

(Vertically split) - ⌘ + D
(Horizontally split) - ⌘ + shift + D

Idea #3

I haven't been able to substantiate this but I wonder if Iterm2 was utilizing this property of the Dock in previous versions and then dropped it? When this option is set in the Dock to "Always" applications such as Finder and TextEdit will open new documents within a tab vs. a new window even when the "new window" option is selected within the application.

Option in Docker

Example of TextEdit tabs

Idea #4 - open a ticket with iterm2 upstream

If neither of the above shakes anything out you can always try opening a ticket with Iterm2 on their Gitlab page or ask this question in their support forums.

https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/issues
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/iterm2-discuss

There's also the Github which appears to be just code, no issues:

https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2

References

How to Set All Mac Apps to Prefer Tabs with New Document and Windows


How to transfer documents from iPhone to my Mac This is a beginner question.
I have some files (Photos, Documents, etc in various folders) in the Files.app in iPhone
I can connect my iPhone to my Mac using USB cable.
How do I transfer files from iPhone to my Mac using USB cable?

See https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/transfer-files-iphone-computer-iphf2d851b9/ios#:~:text=1%20Connect%20iPhone%20to%20your%20Mac.%20You%20can,of%20the%20Finder%20window%2C%20click%20...%20See%20More
Use AirDrop
Enable File Sharing on the Mac (System Preferences -> Sharing), take note of the name of your Mac, and then

open the Files app on the iPhone
Tap "Browse", tap the three bullets at top right, select "Connect to Server"
Enter the name of your Mac as `Mac Name.local, on the next screen enter your login data (from the Mac)
Your Mac will now be listed under "Shared" in Files app
Navigate to the folder you want to copy
Tap "Select", select the folder, tap the sharing icon on bottom left, tap "Save to Files" and navigate to your Mac there to copy the folder.

As long as both the iPhone and the Mac are in the same local WiFi network, transferring documents over WiFi won't use the Internet.


applescript - do shell output to variable is blank Hi I'm trying to get the cpuValue but I get "" for the variable.
set cpuValue to ""
getProcessPercentCPU("Safari")

on getProcessPercentCPU(someProcess)
    set cpuValue to do shell script "/bin/ps -xco %cpu,command | /usr/bin/awk '/" & someProcess & "$/ {print $1}'"
end getProcessPercentCPU

log "output:" & cpuValue

Output
""

AppleScript treats variables created with set as local by default (although the documentation isn't totally clear IMO). This means that the cpuValue variable inside on getProcessPercentCPU is local to that handler, and different from the variable with the same name in the outer scope.
Essentially, you have two different variables that just happen to have the same name, one set to "", the other to the CPU percentage for the Safari process.
You could solve this by adding global cpuValue inside the handler, but returning values in global variables isn't good programming practice. It's almost always better to return values like a function:
set cpuValue to getProcessPercentCPU("Safari")

on getProcessPercentCPU(someProcess)
    set processPercentCPU to do shell script "/bin/ps -xco %cpu,command | /usr/bin/awk '/" & someProcess & "$/ {print $1}'"
    return processPercentCPU
end getProcessPercentCPU

log "output:" & cpuValue


Deleted Bootcamp partition through disk utility and messed up everything I deleted my bootcamp partition to redo the whole process to make a higher capacity windows system. Then I tried bootcamp again and it says "Your disk could not be partitioned" and "An error occurred while partitioning the disk. Please run Disk Utility to check and fix the error."
I ran disk utility in the recovery and deleted any partitions but 1 of them I couldn't fix.
How do I fix this? I want to make a bigger windows bootcamp os

After you delete all of your partitions except your main OSX one you need to reclaim all the extra space for your main partition and then run bootcamp again to split your drive up again to install windows.


iPhone how to disable sound notifications at work Let's say you are at the office 9-5, can you schedule the phone to be muted (mostly messaging, FB) during these hours and / or this location.

This can be done by scheduling Do Not Disturb.

Go into Settings → Do Not Disturb and enable Scheduled from 9 a.m. To 5 p.m.

Under Allow Calls From you may allow certain people to call you even while Do Not Disturb is active. Calls silenced by Do Not Disturb will go directly to voicemail.

At your discretion, you may also choose to Always silence notifications, or Only while iPhone is locked.

Emergency and Amber Alerts will still blare through Do Not Disturb. Those may only be silenced by toggling the hardware Mute switch, or by disabling them at the bottom of the Notifications menu.


Applescript - Getting Property of an Object Not Working The dictionary for Messages states that the application has a "chat" element which has the property "updated". My goal is to get this property, and here is my code:

tell application "Messages"
    set _chat_ to get first chat
    set _date_ to updated of _chat_
end tell

When I run this, I get the error:

Messages got an error: Can’t get updated of text chat id "iMessage;-;+<someone's phone number>".

This seems like a very basic thing, and yet it doesn't work. What am I doing wrong?

This does not work because the AppleScript support in Messages.app is broken.


Pioneer DVD-ROM will not eject after some time of system usage I'm having an odd issue where after my Mac Pro works for a certain amount of time (it seems variable), the drive will no longer seemingly be recognized.  It shows up in the hardware profile for the system, however when I hit the eject key, Toast starts up instead of my drive responding.  Further, when Toast or any other CD / DVD writing utility is started, the drive is not recognized in these applications.  Any idea as to what could potentially be going on here?

The thing that throws me the real curve ball is that it DOES work for a little while when the system is restarted and then just "disappears" as noted.

NOTE: Even when Toast is not in the mix Disk Utility and other apps will not recognize the drive.  It is obviously some kind of an OS issue in terms of it still showing up in the hardware profile, yet no applications are able to detect / use it properly.

It turns out that OS X presently does not know how to properly wake all optical drive devices.  Turning off "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" has seemingly resolved it for the time being and this has been reported to Apple.


Disable display of passwords on an iPhone? Once you have defined a passcode to unlock an iPhone, and for every application asking a password, when waiting for a password an iPhone
makes a transient display of any character you type.
It is clear that this transient display was purposefully set in place to help people who have problems with passwords or with the on screen keyboard.
This transient display lasts 3 seconds to avoid too big a security problem. But this is still largely sufficient for anyone behind you to read it really easily.
Moreover this transient display can be easily captured by any camera or
by a software on the iPhone:

I evaluate this echo of any password as a serious risk.
This echo partially exposes a secret.

Is there any simple configuration method to suppress everywhere this mechanism of transient display of any password?

For information, I reported this security problem at Apple:

  Once I have defined a passcode to protect my iPhone, and within every
  application asking me a password, when entering my password iOS makes
  a transient display of any character I type. I guess that this
  transient display of passwords was purposefully set in place to help
  people who have problems with passwords or with the on screen
  keyboard. This transient display lasts 3 seconds to avoid to create
  too serious a security problem. But this is still amply sufficient for
  anyone behind you to read it really easily.

  This transient display can be easily captured by a camera
  surreptitiously activated by a malicious neighbour.

  I didin't find any easy way to block this security weakness with iOS 7
  up to iOS 9.

  How to disable this transient display of any password on iOS?

You can't, at least not in any iOS version that has been released by Apple.

I understand this isn't the answer you were looking for.


What do these marks indicate exactly on these tray icons when I run Python from a terminal? I ran an Anaconda Python installation from iTerm using python -i myscript.py. It made a plot using Matplotlib. After I closed the plot, the two icons remain.

Each has a dot under it, and a little arrow on the bottom left corner.

When I type exit() at the python prompt the Python icon disappears and the iTerm icon remains unchanged.
When I close iTerm the dot disappears, but the arrow remains.

Exactly what do these indicate? What is it exactly that these dots and arrows are trying to tell me?

The short arrow is indicating alias. Some like that are also there in my Applications folder for apps which are located in ~/Library folder.

So I can guess that when first photo's original process is done, alias is still active. This happens to me while using OpenCV. closewindow() is hard to perform. I have to force quit it every time(it kills jupyter server too), or reuse the window.


Remove iOS 5.1 notification from the main screen? I do not want to update my iPhone 3gs to new iOS 5.1. How can I remove this notification showing all the time on the Settings images. Please look at the image.

I've tried opening this screen but without clicking the button Download and Install, but the notification is still there.

PS. I am new to iPhone. I have it for a couple of days.

I see that your iPhone is jailbroken. There's a tweak for this called noOTA badge. I haven't used it myself, but it looks legit. Give it a shot!


Where can I configure "erase mac" iCloud offers the service to remotely wipe (erase) a mac, as you can remotely erase an iPhone.
Where can I change this setting, e.g. disable it?

The Find My Mac feature can be enabled and disabled in the iCloud settings (System Preferences → iCloud)

You cannot disable just the "erase" feature: the locate, lock and erase features must be managed as a single option.


OS X. Should I quit apps or close windows (red cross button behavior)? I've googled a lot about X button, that doesn't quit app, but simply close the window andnd haven't found a clear answer.  I want to be able to know if  open apps affect battery life or other resources.

Should I quit apps or close windows, letting apps work in background?

One of Mac's most confusing features is the red close button, which you think would shut down an application but often doesn't. When you press X button in the window - you actually close the windows related to the app, but it does not quit. Here's more information from Apple's support pages:

Close windows
When you close an app’s window, the window closes, but the app remains open. If you want to quit an app, click the app’s name in the menu bar, then choose Quit [App]. For more information, see Quit apps.

If you want to quit the app (release the memory, reduce CPU usage, etc) then there are several ways to do this:

Using keyboard shortcut: ⌘ cmd+Q.
Using contextual menu (or application's menu): Go to the Dock at the bottom of the screen and find the icon for the app, then right click (or ctrl+click) to bring up the contextual menu. At the bottom of this list is the Quit option.
Using Activity Monitor: Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor.
For unresponsive apps: Force Quit (⌘ cmd+⌥ alt+esc)

You may also want to overload the default behaviour, and to make it like in Windows OS, but you need to use separate utilities (like RedQuits). There are a bunch of those utilities that close applications when you click the the red close button.
In overall, to answer your question about how it hits system efficiency, memory and battery: OS X handles it properly and does as much as possible to optimize efficiency, unless the Application itself is written poorly. OS X internally has a lot of optimisations like App Nap which help to keep background apps' effect on system resources to a minimum:

You don’t have to quit apps once you’re done working in them — OS X allows you to work with several apps open at once. Features such as Compressed Memory and App Nap keep your Mac running fast, and save power when many apps are open.


How can I create a keyboard shortcut to access a specific folder in Finder? I have been using Total Commander as a file manager on Windows for years. There is one feature I miss a lot in Finder: a shortcut to one specific folder.

Saying I have a folder ~/Downloads, ~/Dropbox, ~/Code, ~/Books.
Is it possible to setup a customized keyboard shortcut for each of them?

In Total Commander you could do ctrl+D+1/2/C/B/... etc.

One option would be to create an Automator service and assign it a shortcut in the Keyboard preferences.

tell application "Finder"
    reopen
    activate
    set p to (system attribute "HOME") & "/Downloads/"
    set target of Finder window 1 to POSIX file p
end tell

You could also save the script to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Finder/ with AppleScript Editor and use FastScripts to assign the shortcut.


Corrupted .mp4 File from iPhone 4 Weather Balloon Launch We recently launched a weather balloon into space which used an Apple iPhone 4 as a camera. In any case, though, we have about 8 minutes of corrupted video footage in the form of an .mp4 file (the last 8 minutes of footage, that is. The other ~4-5 hours were completely intact). We believe there must be a way to salvage some video from this file. As such, we would like to ask if anyone can help us salvage this video file. Thank you very much for your time, advice, and/or help.

http://www.mediafire.com/?o00mz0ke2his991

Good news! It's repairable.

I ran it through this repair utility:

http://grauonline.de/cmsimple2_6/en/?Solutions:HD_Video_Repair_Utility

I only have the demo version so I could only preview about 3 minutes of the video, but it looks like that tool will work well with your file.


iTunes link not working So there's that app I found from my PC and should like to download:
http://www.itunes.apple.com/jp/app/id666206963

When I click the link, my device asks me if I want to open it in the app store, which I confirm.
The store opens but where the app is supposed to be displayed, a white rectangle is shown that stays a white rectangle, no matter how long I wait.

How do I resolve this?

That link you have is not correct.

Use this link for your app

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/net-ma-que-mjmobairu/id666206963?mt=8

or from the source: http://sega-mj.com/


I’m confused about how Whatsapp backs up data in iPhone In Settings > (my name) > iCloud > iCloud storage: I can see “Whatsapp messenger: 12.8 MB”

In Settings > (my name) > iCloud > iCloud storage > Backups > (My iPhone) > Whatsapp: 86 MB”

What’s the difference between these two?

The first shows you how much data, that has accumulated by using WhatsApp, is currently stored on your phone. That is chats, photos, videos and audio messages that have been send and received.

The second one is the Backup that can be created through WhatsApp->Settings->Chats->Chat Backup. The reason the Backup is larger than your „normal“ app data might be that WhatsApp stored multiple Backups (either from multiple devices or older ones from the same device). Another reason might be that you backed up WhatsApp on an old device or reset your current one after backing up WhatsApp, so your backup contains more data than you accumulated by using WhatsApp after switching/resetting your device.

Again, the first is the data that is currently used by WhatsApp, the second one is the backup and its data is not accessible/used by WhatsApp unless you restore the backup.


iMovie cannot load Sony-MPEG videos I recently moved from Windows to OS X, so maybe I'm asking a frequently-asked question. But I did some googling and didn't find a solution yet.

I have a lot of videos on my drive from my SONY camera. The format is MPEG-2 Sony, which is not a standard MPEG-2 format.

How can I use these videos and import them on iMovie? Could QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component for Mac OS X help me? Or what else could I do?

Thanks everybody!

Playing MPEG-2 videos in Quicktime
Perian massively extends the amount of  formats Quicktime can play. It's free.
Importing MPEG-2 in iMovie
I'm not aware of any solution to that. But Handbrake can help you convert that video to a format that works with iMovie (.avi).


How To Launch Steam Games from Terminal? Is there a way to open Steam games directly from Terminal?

To Run on Mac Location:

ll /Users/YOUR_USER_PROFILE/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/steamapps/common/

Command to start a game app directly:

open -Fa /Users/YOUR_USER_PROFILE/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Realm\ Grinder/RealmGrinderDesktop.app/Contents/MacOS/RealmGrinderDesktop

Details

man open

  -F  Opens the application "fresh," that is, without
           restoring windows. Saved persistent state is
           lost, except for Untitled documents.

  -a application
           Specifies the application to use for opening the
           file

How To Find Your (Game) Path:

Note: * lines are hyperlinks to images.

Open the Steam App
Navigate to Library *
Right Click on your game.
Open Properties
Navigate to the 3rd Tab Local Files *
Select Browse Local Files
Right Click on the GameName.App
Select Get Info *
Left Click & Drag on the Where
Right Click and select Copy *
Open your text editor and Paste

That will give you the path.

Open Terminal
Add open -Fa ToYourCopiedPath
Press Return/Enter
Your app will launch.


Preview won't show added picture I created a slide show by prefixing my filenames with numbers so Preview would show them in the desired sequence.  But after showing the slides once, I added a new slide later, with the correct number, so in Finder it shows up in the right sequence.

But now when I use Command+A to select all, and Open with... → Preview for my slide show, that one slide pops up in one window, and then another window with the first slide in the sequence, but never showing the new slide in sequence. How do I get the sequencing corrected?

Context: Macbook Pro, Yosemite 10.10.1.

First you have to close all previously opened files (slides) in Preview.

And also close all Preview windows.

Check your Preview preferences settings:

Now start with your process and use Sort by "Name" in Preview.

To do that use Select all (Thumbnails) and right click on one of them, a new pop up will show the sort by.

In Preview File-Open, and open the slide you want to add.


Spotlight has quit unexpectedly I am running a flutter application build from the command line. I also have an ios simulator running.
I keep getting an error saying "spotlight has quit unexpectedly". Has anyone seen this issue before?
Process:               Spotlight [93380]
Path:                  /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Profiles/Runtimes/iOS.simruntime/Contents/Resources/RuntimeRoot/Applications/Spotlight.app/Spotlight
Identifier:            Spotlight
Version:               1.0 (1)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        launchd_sim [93247]
Responsible:           SimulatorTrampoline [93237]
User ID:               503

Date/Time:             2020-12-07 13:17:20.865 -0600
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.15.7 (19H2)
Report Version:        12
Anonymous UUID:        7314686F-26C9-E59B-2317-7F5D00F51293

Sleep/Wake UUID:       8C755EE1-CA06-41A4-A036-2AE52E46A9EE

Time Awake Since Boot: 1200000 seconds
Time Since Wake:       3200 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread:        0

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGKILL)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Reason:    Namespace SPRINGBOARD, Code 0x8badf00d

The path shown in the crash log is within Xcode, specifically the iPhoneOS.platform iOS.simruntime. This Spotlight is the one running in the simulator, not the one in macOS. This is not a ‘real’ issue and can safely be ignored unless you’re testing Spotlight functionality within the app you’re running in the simulator.
This is a commonly reported issue, especially since Xcode 12. Solutions posted elsewhere that may or may not work include

Disabling Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Look Up on the simulator Settings app
Adding CoreSimulator to Spotlight privacy

To make crash reports show as a notification first to avoid interrupting your work, set the following preference:
defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType UseUNC 1


Sierra 10.12.3 set default keyboard language input for whole OS When I log out, keyboard input language changes (and I can't see it's select menu in top right (shortcut also does not work)), so can not enter password with numbers (screen 13-inch). If restarted, select menu appears. My default (as I think so) language is English (System preferences/Keyboard/Input sources), or should I set the default input somewhere else? Also wonder why select menu for input languages not visible when logged out...

You can disable/enable the occurrence of the input menu in the login window in System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options > Show input menu in login window.

Admin privileges are required to change the setting though!


Projects between iMovie iPhone and iMovie OS X synchronised? I am trying to address the question here about transferring the videos between OS X and iOS from the iMovie perspective. Because iMovie is Apple product, I hope there is some easy synchronisation. There is iCloud in iMovie OSX but I cannot see it in iMovie iOS (iPhone 5) so I am worried that I am just wasting my times to work with projects requiring both iOS and OSX.
Is it possible the get the iMovie projects synchronised between OSX and iOS?

How can I transfer my iMovie project from iOS to OSX?

How can I move my iMovie OSX project to iOS?

I think you should consider your possibilities.
The iOS iMovie version is greatly limited in capacity, not to mention disk space, compared to its sister application.
You can share 'projects' via iMovie theater, however I use that term loosely. Going back to practicality, if you share a complete project and sync it to your mobile device and lets say this mobile device only has 16GB HDD and you only have a 5GB iCloud storage locker than you will quickly run out of room in easily half of 1 project. With that being said, going back to the mobile devices capabilities, it doesn't have all the features your desktop version has so some things get lost in translation, you may lose a transition you set prior, etc. However, it is a resource to share projects nonetheless. Additionally, the main draw back of iMovie Theater is that it doesn't share the PROJECT thats why I was using that term 'loosely', it shares the entire project movie with it's components (i.e., background music etc) that you have created thus far or the selection of the project you dictate. Theoretically, you can download the iMovie project from the theatre to your device and create a new project on your iPhone where you can add clips and edit there. But you won't be able to edit the properties in the previous project.
What I recommend you doing if your going full scale with this, two of the better options I would recommend is :

Get a Time Capsule, you can set it up to wake over WLAN and essentially use it as both a router and external HDD which files you can access from anywhere. Although, this isn't an iOS friendly option, it's a logical option, because why waste your time creating on an iOS when the features are limited and the projects are decapitated from your devices hardware.
Dropbox, Box, Google Drive etc etc etc. Use a file sharing cloud service to where you can simply save the project there from the get go and edit through that file instead of any of your devices HDD (unless your planning on doing some high processing features in FCPX with rendering etc) then that is a viable option.
Don't use iMovie. It's great and all, but look at its target audience, it's meant for the people that don't have much expertise or the attention span to sit and edit videos, it's one-click and done type editing.
Just get a laptop and save yourself a lot of heartache.

But to answer your question specifically and without bias, then NO, in regards to iMovie Mac and iMovie iOS you can not sync projects where full functionality is retained.


Why does my Mac (OS X 10.9) try to log into our fileserver as GUEST? We recently upgraded several of our Macs to Mavericks. On one in particular, I'm seeing unexpected behavior when logging in to a Windows fileserver.

From Finder, I hit cmd-k, then enter smb:\\servername01\

The Finder immediately logs into the server without asking for a username or password. All fileshares on the server are visible but inaccessible. Login name is GUEST (all caps). To fix, I have to eject the fileserver and then log in using smb:\\username@servername01\. OS X then prompts for my Windows domain password as expected.

I have deleted my login keychain and deleted all relevant passwords from the system keychain. The behavior is reproduced in other accounts. However, all other Mavericks computers don't have this problem. I also have deleted related preference files (com.apple.finder comes to mind). Is there anywhere else that this setting could be stored?

The two places that come immediately to mind are the favorites section of Go to Server... so you might clear that out. Secondly, look in the Login Items pane of Users & Groups preference pane.

Also, if more than one user logs in to the Mac, be sure to eject the share before fast user switching (or logging out all users but one) to prevent their mount from controlling the access.

Apple is in the process of switching from AFP to SMB2 as the default share - so perhaps some changes there are not completely done or documented.


Is iphone purchased from Canadian online Apple Store factory unlocked? I could not find iphone stack exchange site so I am posting here.
On Canadian Apple store iphone 4 is available for $659. Is this iphone 4 is the same iphone as factory unlocked new iphone 4 being sold on ebay for over $800? I am confused about the price difference if they are exactly same phones. Also would this iphone work with any GSM carrier in USA or other countries?

Yes, they are unlocked,  The price is going to be substantially higher since its not the subsidized price. They will work with any compatible GSM carriers including prepaid providers.

Some carriers (for instance T-Mobile USA) currently operate at a different radio frequency for their 3G data than the iPhone supports, so although being able to access data over the EDGE network (slower network that is used on virtually all GSM networks), it will not be able to take advantage of those 3G data services.

Purchases from the apple store online can only be shipped to the country of that specific apple store. So if you live in an area where they don't offer the unlocked versions of the phone, for instance in USA, the only way you would be able to get the unlocked version would be through someone who can have it shipped to their country. I am assuming that the factory unlocked versions being sold on eBay are from people who have realized this. Hope this makes sense.
Check out the FAQ section of the iPhone product page at the Canada Apple Online store which can probably answer any other similar questions.
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone


iPad 2 battery is not draining completely Over the last couple of days, I found that my iPad - whilst functioning as expected in all ways - is not able to discharge beyond 14%; it would simply turn off as if I had drained the battery down to zero. I've been using this iPad for almost two months now and it is only in the last couple of days that it has started behaving in this way.

I can think of several reasons for this:

The battery indicator is out of whack (14% actually means 0%) and needs to be calibrated. If so, how do I do this?
There is something physically wrong with the battery such that the charge beyond ~14% is unusable.

I found someone with a similar problem here but there is no resolution reported.

When I recharge the iPad, it is able to charge back up to 100% but would subsequently drain down to 14% as before.

Does anyone know what's the best thing to do in this case?

So as it turned out, it's a case of a mis-calibrated battery indicator. Here's what I did to re-calibrate it:

Use iPad until it switches off by itself
Charge it back up
After a couple of minutes, it should turn itself back on. Check the battery indicator to see if it's around 2% (as would be expected). If it is, then allow the iPad to be fully charged back up to 100%. If it is not (i.e. it is around 14% as in my experience), proceed to the next step.
Disconnect the iPad from the charger and let it discharge completely again
Repeat from (2).

It took my iPad one cycle of the steps above to get its battery indicator re-calibrated and it has been working fine since. If this doesn't fix your iPad it's probably worth getting AppleCare involved.


Comparing MacBook keyboards Might sound like a subjective question, but it doesn't have to be:

How does the keyboard keypress-action (the feel of the keyboard) differ between all model-years of MacBooks (the entire line including MBP's and MBA's)?
In 2008, the MacBook line lost any option for a traditional-style keyboard in favor of the new "chicklet" style.  Which post-chicklet models have a keyboard feel most similar to the keyboard of the pre-2008 MacBook Pro?

None, to be frank. They all feel approximately the same in my opinion - the MacBook white 2010 has a lighter feel than the Pro or Air which to my senses are pretty much the same.

Both the current models and the now out of production white macbook have the same keyboard, to all intents and purposes, apart from the air and pro have a backlit keyboard which possibly leads to a heavier key press - although that might just be because my white machine is older and slightly more worn.


How to stop dfwu1013.info from popping on my screen when ever I try to Google anything? I have a problem that is bothering me and I kindly request for help.

When ever I try to search / Google/browse something on the Internet using Google Chrome a website named Dfwu1013.info pops up on my  screen and I can't proceed to browse want I intended to browse.

Could someone be knowing what it is and how I can stop it?

Highly likely to be malware. Try reinstalling Chrome. If the problem persists, run an antivirus scan. Also try looking in the extensions or apps page in Chrome and remove unrecognized software.


Comparing performance between the 2012/2013 MBA 13' baseline model The MBA just launch and I did a little research on the baseline 13 inches for both years:

--

MBA 13' (2012):  i5-3317U @ 1.7GHz (turbo: 2.6GHz); 4000 Graphics: 350MHz-1050MHz

MBA 13' (2013):  i5-4250U @ 1.3GHz (turbo: 2.6GHz); 5000 Graphics: 200MHz-1000MHz

--

Since both Ivy Bridge and Haswell are 22nm, doesn't that means the 2012 model's processor has a greater power?  And same goes to the graphics?

I'm getting a sense that Apple's trying to lower their performance on CPUs, thus extended battery life, then ultimately increase the lowered performance by putting a faster SSD; and Apple did that because they really have nothing to show around to the developers and the public in WWDC anyway so they launched a new macbook air which the only thing it does is stays on for 12 hours.

Am I correct? Please correct me if I'm wrong.  Thanks!

Have a look at the CPU die micrographs and reviews in the press and all are singing the same tune:

modest CPU performance gains
significant overall power reductions
dramatically better GPU - competes with mid-range dedicated GPU where the 4000 level graphics were adequate at best and lagged behind it's era of mid-range GPU substantially in many cases.

I would say the 2013 Air are a significant step up from the 2010/2012 models - enough so that I'll be selling and upgrading as soon as I can find a buyer for my current Air.

Although you mentioned only the CPU and GPU, the flash storage is benchmarked at 45% faster than 2012 (and now 9x as fast as 5400 RPM drives) and they have the 802.11ac wireless chipsets so it's quite the improvement overall.

The reviews are coming in and they seem to confirm my thoughts that the "slower" CPU in the 2013 models get more work done than the "faster" CPU from the 2012 models. Clearly the clock rate isn't the bottleneck for these tests.

The full article is the source of this image above: http://www.macworld.com/article/2041698/review-latest-intel-chip-boosts-speed-and-endurance-in-new-macbook-air.html


Why Microsoft Word for Mac won't open on other computers When I open up Word for Mac now, it automatically will open the most recent files that were opened up (as many as 10 to 15 files).

What command or operation stops word from opening these recent files automatically?

When you are ready to quit Microsoft Word, select the “Word” menu and hold down the Option/Alt (⌥) key.

That will change this menu:

to this one:


Checking the security over WLAN I've become majorly concerned when reading this article that describes a bad actor that use Terminal access from his/her Mac to change the syslog and have stealth access to all data and passwords.

How can I get sure when I am connecting WLAN of workplace nobody can hack my computer and if they did by any chance(having password) how can I hinder them?

I don't even get how an OS could have two sys logs, so how can I get sure others have no access to my data? I am scared I might leave my Mac unattended sometimes.

They key to your particular concern about the system is that an intruder would require local access to your Mac in the first instance in order to use the terminal to redirect syslog messages elsewhere (or perform any other nefarious activities that may allow genuine remote network access at a later date).  The log redirection is a secondary "intrusion" that may allow someone to see the contents of your log files (which can contain some sensitive information, but I would never expect to see passwords in there).  It isn't giving access to your system, but to your log files etc.

The link you provide is a litany of random sounding events, which all span in reality from 1 person gaining local access to your machine.  This is the key here.  Set a screensaver, and require a password to unlock it.  Use Filevault to encrypt your boot drive to prevent booting from another disc or partition and gaining access to your data.  Don't use auto-login for any user account.  Set a strong password that is not used elsewhere.  Do this, and almost everything you mention or that is mentioned in the link is not possible to achieve.  To be clear, that machine was not "hacked", it sounds far more likely that social engineering or simply using the computer while the owner was not present due to lax security was at fault.

Rest easy, do the above and just concentrate on physical access for now.

If you are still concerned about remote intrusion then Apple's Mac OS X Security Configuration Guides provide additional suggestions for hardening your Macintosh against intrusion, however you should proceed with caution, as security often compromises usability, and some of the measures may be too extreme for your purposes and prone to causing you more problems than they solve, not to mention the fact that they can often be reverted through OS software updates without you being aware...


What size should a background image be for Apple Configurator to place it on iOS devices? I'm looking to set up some custom backgrounds for iOS and using Apple Configurator to drag an image into the lock screen tab of the preferences and the tool crops the image for me.

So, considering that there are iPhone 4S and earlier screens, iPhone 5 screens as well as iPad screens - I'm a little confused as to how to prepare an image so I can understand what will be cropped for each screen, both horizontally and vertically.

I can only see the portrait layout and it's not clear if the tool is showing me an iPhone 5 or iPhone 4 S sized crop (or any horizontal layouts).

Is there a book, blog or help guide that explains what size image is best used for this lock screen customization so I can pre-plan the crop areas for each size screen? If not, has anyone done the work to know what areas are visible on the current iOS devices when you prepare them automatically with Apple Configurator?

Your probably best of if you crop the photos yourself. Here are the pixel counts that work best for each screen size:

iOS devices: display sizes

320×480 pixels : iPhone (1st generation), iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (1st–3rd generation)
640×960 pixels : iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (4th generation)
640×1136 pixels : iPhone 5/5s/5c, iPod touch (5th generation) Retina display
1024×768 pixels : iPad, iPad 2, iPad mini (non-retina)
2048×1536 pixels : iPad Air, retina iPad mini and iPad (3rd–4th generation), all of which have Retina display

Automate resizing using Automator

Automator let’s you easily crop images. See my screenshot below for explanation and just click the actions together.

You can automate resizing the photos with Automator, if you don’t demand to choose an extract of your photo.

Rember to use “crop images” with “scale before crop: Scale to Short Side”:

After finishing your workflow you could add a thousands images and let your Mac do the work. You will be prompted to select your images (see first action).

Just adapt the sizes for your corresponding device. You could also merge this into one workflow. Just duplicate the last three steps and change the suffix (_iphone5) in action “Add text”.

Here is an example image* went through my Automator workflow.

Original:

Result:

Resizing using an application

You could use the free app Ensoul Wallpapers from the Mac App Store. This let’s you choose an image extract.

The maker of another app (deko) documents the sub-pixel shifts that parallax changes can have at http://dekoapp.com/parallax/

I hope my answer helps you with your problem concerning your image size and how to resize them. Unfortunately, I do not see an option to set a background image in Apple Configurator (Version 3.5 (289)).

* image by interfacelift.com


How to fix Lion Mail.app that keeps asking for keychain password? I am getting this message every time I start mail.app.

I've read this tech note, but neither checkbox is selected.

I've run Keychain First Aid, and no problems were found.

How do I fix Mail.app in Lion that keeps asking for keychain password?

UPDATE: Thanks everyone for the help.. I finally deleted the Keychain prefs. Re-entered passwords as required, and that worked.

Quit Mail.  Open Keychain Access (Applications > Utilities).
Select your Login keychain.  Run Keychain First Aid (Keychain Access menu > Keychain First Aid).

Put in your password and run a verify.  If there's any red, select repair and run it.  Run another verify to make sure the errors are fixed.

Delete all of your mail entries.  In the search bar, try putting in things like "pop," "imap", "gmail", even your email address.  Quit Keychain Access.

Launch Mail.  Get into the preferences (Mail menu > Preferences > Accounts).  Fill in the passwords for each of your accounts.  Also, go to the SMTP/Outgoing server menu, and edit.  Fill in the passwords there as well.  Close and save.  Exit mail.

Launch mail.  Make sure it retrieves mail properly.  Send test emails to make sure it sends properly.

Done!


Daisy-Chaining a DVI Monitor on a Thunderbolt Display? I currently have a mid-2012 MacbookPro that is connected to a 27" Thunderbolt display. I also have a 17" Samsung Syncmaster that only has VGA & DVI port on it. So I bought the MiniDisplay-to-DVI converter and tried hooking it up to the TBD's thunderbolt port.

It didn't work. The TB port doesn't recognize the monitor at all. When hooking the monitor up directly to the MBP, it seems to work fine. Are there compatibility issues when using the MiniDisplay-to-DVI converter?

I would just like to chime in here and note that it is possible to get that DVI display to daisy-chain, but the caveat is that you have to put another Thunderbolt device in between the Thunderbolt display and the Mini DisplayPort->DVI converter.

  Apple's notes one other caveat about the Thunderbolt display: older
  Mini DisplayPort displays won't light up if they're hooked directly
  into the Thunderbolt port on the newer LCD. Macworld's testing found
  that Mini DisplayPort LCDs can be added to a Thunderbolt chain and
  work as normal by hooking them into another Thunderbolt peripheral.

See: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/18/thunderbolt-display-daisy-chaining-spec-cleared-up/


Gifting iPad Air + 3G: how to handle data? I am thinking about giving out iPad Airs to my customers. However, I have some concerns about how to "gift" an iPad + 3G.

Do we have to pay the data for the device or could we make them responsible for the data? Does it require a contract or is it that it's just a normal iPad until they walk to their neighborhood __ store and get a SIM card? Or is it where there is a contract like a phone and we will be billed?

All iPads that have cellular data are on a contract-free basis and you only pay for the capability to connect when you buy the iPad from Apple (and presumably all other sellers - even a wireless store).

There is no linking of the account that purchased to the SIM cards and you don't need any sort of credit check, subsidy or contract with the iPad Air.

The devices in the USA are tied to the carrier that you selected, so if you wanted to let your recipients pick the model they wanted, just buy them an Apple Store gift card (which is very different than an iTunes or App Store gift card) so that they can purchase the appropriate model. The only down side is they may choose to use the gift for other purposes so you might want to poll them to their preferred carrier or let them haggle a closed box return / exchange with Apple or someone on the street with cash seeking an iPad.


How to use HFS+ encrypted partition as Time Machine backup drive I formatted one partition on my external drive as MacOS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted).

Now when I open Time Machine and want to use that partition I see a checkbox Encrypt backups.

Because I don't want to encrypt my backups twice I unticked this checkbox. But when I continue Time Machine asks me for the password of this partition to be able to turn off the encryption.

I do not want to turn it off.

How can I use already encrypted disk?

This unbelievable problem has simple solution. Just leave the checkbox ticked and the encrypted partition will be used as is. No double encryption.

If you check the help ? there is written that the disk does not support encryption if the checkbox (Encrypt backups) is dimmed. Hence implying Time Machine is using disk encryption not another one on top of that.

So the checkbox is just for people who had not prepared the disk yet.


How can I switch terminal settings using a keyboard shortcut? Usually I need different settings in my terminal depending on what I'm working on. For example, change the opacity to see some info on the back.

I think an option is to set different setting schemas, and then switch between them with a keyboard shortcut. Any ideas on how to achieve this?

You can do this via Terminal's AppleScript interface, for example to set the background colour of the first tab in the first window to green:

tell application "Terminal"
    set tabsettings to current settings of tab 0 of window 0
    set background color of tabsettings to {0, 32768, 0} -- colours are 16-bit
end tell

That's the good news. The bad news is that the background opacity is not exposed to AppleScript in Lion (this seems like an oversight by Apple). You can change pretty much everything else like this though (see the Library in the AppleScript Editor for the full list). There are a few crazy AppleScripts out there that adjust the background opacity by emulating keypresses to Terminal, but that approach is too horrible to even link to.

Once you have the AppleScript code to change the settings to your liking there are many ways of binding your script to a key.


Can the 13ʺ MacBook Pro satisfactorily drive two Thunderbolt displays? The new 13ʺ Retina MacBook Pros have 2 Thunderbolt ports, and Apple appears to indicate you can plug in and use 2 Thunderbolt displays with them, but is the video performance satisfactory when doing so? I'm not planning on doing anything that graphically intensive, but I wanted to make sure that the performance was still fine. (Also, I'll be using the MBP in clamshell mode, so I'll only be driving 2 TB displays, not 2 TB displays and the laptop screen.)

Yes - the CPU/GPU are powered up enough for two external screens in my experience.

My experience is Apple won't bless as supported configurations where the majority of users will see laggy performance that cannot be tuned if needed with a firmware update or better drivers.

The higher end 15 inch retina MBP can crank out many more pixels, but the situation you mention with two TB displays with the Mac operating in closed-clamshell mode actually is less pixels to drive than the situation of one display and the internal display still running.


How to get a dock on multiple monitors I have two monitors, but only one dock, which is somewhat annoying, so my question is, how do I get multiple docks? (One on each screen)

There is no way of doing that.

When the Dock is configured to appear at the bottom of your screen, it's available on whichever screen you’re working on. Just move your pointer to the bottom of either display. When the Dock is configured for the left or right position, it appears on the leftmost or rightmost display edge.
Tip: If you don't see your dock because it's set to hidden or there's a full screen app on the display, move your pointer to the location of the Dock. If the Dock still doesn't appear, swipe your pointer towards the Dock again to unhide it.

Source: OS X: Using multiple displays in Mavericks


I don't get group texts with cellular data off I have an iPhone 6 running iOS 12.4.1.

I have a paltry data plan ($$$), so I've turned off iMessage in Settings -> Messages.

iMessages show up in blue in Messages app; regular text messages show up in green.

So far, so good. I can still send/receive messages when I'm out and about, and I'm not leaving data turned on and thus chewing through it quickly (and have it available if I need it, such as for driving directions).

Now, here comes the part I don't understand. Although I'm connected to my home network almost the time, much to my surprise, when I do turn on data, I get a number of queued messages. They all seem to be group messages, and show up in grey in Messages.app. [These groups may have been created before I switched off iMessage, if it makes a difference]

This is unbelievably frustrating. I had no idea I was missing messages. I don't get it -- why don't they come through as normal text messages, or come through over my WiFi? Why are they only available when I turn on ridiculously expensive cellular data?

More to the point, is there a way I can get them to come over WiFi, so I don't miss them and don't pay extra for them?

A one-to-one text message uses SMS. A group message uses MMS and this requires data. You would likely have the same issue if someone texts you a picture directly as this also uses MMS.

Check with your service provider though, as some include picture messaging (i.e. MMS) for "free" and don't count it as data. In which case you could leave iMessage enabled for data. YMMV.


How to search in Mail.app within Gmail Chat history? I setup Mail.app to pull GMail data . I realized that I cannot search within my GoogleTalk chat history. Is there a way or a hack to get the chat history to my folders that get pulled as well so that my search results will include information from Chat as well.

Zevlag is right. You're not going to be able to do precisely what you were after (true IMAP syncing of chat logs). But here's a couple of things that you can:

First, you could download your chat logs using this method: http://freshhorse.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/leaving-gmail-and-bringing-your-chats-with-you/

This will take quite a bit of time and I doubt you'd want to do it over and over to keep your logs up-to-date. But it will allow you to have an easily searchable record of your chats on your local machine (Spotlight).

Second you could look into Google's APIs for a way to get at your chats. Here's one example of a script attempting this:

https://gist.github.com/1051628

This will be even more complicated and still won't get you what you're after but if your a bit of a hacker you might be able to put something together with the API that would keep your local record up-to-date.

Sorry there isn't a way to do just what you want.

-Samuel


Java 7 JRE Not Detected on Clean Install of Mountain Lion I know there similar questions on how to enable the Java 7 JRE on Mountain Lion when Apple's Java 6 JRE is installed as well.

But I just did a clean install of Mountain Lion, installed Java 7 JRE - not Java 7 JDK - and it is not being detected.

I see the Java icon in System Preferences. But Java applications are still prompting for a Java 6 installation from Mountain Lion. And running "java -version" from the command line also does the same.

Oracle's instructions seem to say that I do not need to do anything further then simply installing the JRE. And online tutorials I read also suggest the same.

Does anyone have an idea why this is?

In Oracle's JRE 7 for Mac installation instructions, it states:

  Installing a JRE from Oracle will not:

  Update java -version symlinks or add java to your path.
  Show the installed JRE in the Java Preferences.app

  To be able to do the above,
   you need to install the JDK.

After installing the JDK, go to Applications > Utilities > Java Preferences.app and drag Java SE 7 to the top to indicate that it is preferred.  You may also switch off Java SE 6 entirely without uninstalling it.


Can one mount a FileVault 2 encrypted drive from Windows? I encrypted an external drive with FileVault 2. Now it would be great if I could access it from a Windows PC. Is this outright impossible? I found no definitive answer either way.

As of writing there is no software that natively supports working with FileVault 2 encrypted drives within Windows.

There are ways to access the content of a FileVault 2 encrypted volume on other platforms including Windows (for example libfvde), assuming you have the passkey and sufficient patience, but none that allow an encrypted volume to be used as a regular drive on Windows.

At the moment, to the best of my knowledge, there isn't even any software that allows Windows to natively understand drives that use unencrypted CoreStorage volumes.


Is there an iPhone 3GS app that stores incoming SMSes encrypted? I'm looking for an app which will store the incoming SMSes encrypted. Is there any?

I don't think that's possible. You could send Encrypted SMS, though. So, in the end, you'll have them encrypted. Black SMS could do the trick. Extracted from Gizmodo's review:

  Here's how it works. When you download the Black SMS app, you attach a password to your message and then type whatever you'd like into the app. Once the message is complete, hit Send and the app will automatically open your SMS app. Paste the message and the recipient (and everyone else) will only see a black text bubble. SECRET AND ENCRYPTED BLACK TEXT BUBBLE, that is. The person on the receiving end then copies the black bubble and unlocks the message by pasting it into Black SMS with the password. If it sounds convoluted, well, it is. But hey, keeping secrets ain't easy.


Can you import pictures from a locked iPhone with image capture? My cousin has forgotten his passcode for his phone, and is trying to find ways to get his pictures without resetting the phone and losing them.

Do you have access to the computer that syncs this device? If so, it will allow you to reset the passcode (and/or import the pictures without needing to unlock the iOS device.).

If not, you either have to crack the passcode or enter it properly. As there is a penalty for guessing wrongly (and perhaps a wipe after X incorrect guesses option that could be enabled), it's best to get help from someone who has knowledge of how passcodes (and tools to bypass them) work if the pictures are of value to preserve.


Is there a way to open separate instance of chrome where CMD Q doesn't close all chrome windows? I'm using MacOS 10.13.6 (High Seirra)
I was reading through some ways to launch new windows of Chrome on macOS and keep running into the same problem; How can I launch multiple instances of Chrome where CMD+Q doesn't close all of them?

Perhaps my understanding of what this action does is incorrect?
I have been under the impression that when I use CMD+Tab each icon displayed is an instance of that application.

I tried this:

open -na /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome

which seems to open a new window, but I still only see one instance of Google Chrome running in the Activity Monitor.

I found an answer from 2012 that suggests the only way possible is to literally copy the application which I can't believe is still true today. Especially since I want to be able to several instances at a time.

Ultimately I want to be able to work in one chrome environment while
  utilizing another independently. So site data, cookies, passwords
  aren't shared and if I close one the other is still going

Chrome has this feature built in; it's called People or Profiles

With profiles, you can keep all your Chrome info separate, like bookmarks, history, passwords, and other settings.

It's called "Profiles"

  Profiles are ideal for:

  Sharing a computer with multiple people.
  Keeping your different accounts, like work and personal, separate.

The detailed step by steps are included in the link, but to summarize:

Go to Manage People
Add a new Person/Profile
Select that profile


How can I restore iBooks stored in iCloud from a Time Machine backup? I found that many of my books and PDFs had been removed from iBooks.

I'm not sure exactly how it happened but recently I had both used the Storage Management app (to remove a few specific books) and turned on syncing on a new Mac that already had some books stored locally in iBooks.

Anyway, I can see that my remaining books are stored in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/.

If I run open /Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/ and then try to open Time Machine, I'm just brought to a Time Machine window for iCloud Drive and it appears empty, with no iBooks entry.

If I try to go to the specific folder in Time Machine (with cmd+shift+g) I'm just dropped back at the iCloud Drive folder again.

So how can I (1) check if my books were backed up by Time Machine and (2) restore them?

I found this was possible use the command line tmutil.

First, I checked that the files were in my backup:

$ tmutil listbackups | tail -n 3
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-123506
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-212807
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-224355

Check the iBooks folder was backed up

$ ls '/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-224355/Macintosh HD/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks'
Data            Documents       metadata.nosync
$ ls '/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-224355/Macintosh HD/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents' | wc -l
402
$ ls '/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-224355/Macintosh HD/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents' | tail -n 3
ruby.epub
wp169en.pdf
wp196en.pdf

Restore to a temporary folder:

$ mkdir /tmp/ibooks/
$ tmutil restore '/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-224355/Macintosh HD/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks' /tmp/ibooks/
Total copied: 1518.18 MB (1591923972 bytes)
Items copied: 10006

I then made sure iBooks.app was closed (and on iOS devices too) and synchronised the restored files into the right place:

$ cd /tmp/ibooks/
$ rsync -av ./ '/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/'
building file list ... done
[...]
sent 1539459615 bytes  received 196218 bytes  19366740.04 bytes/sec
total size is 1591923972  speedup is 1.03

I then opened iBooks.app and my books were back! iBooks spent 30 mins or so uploading to iCloud, and the books are also once again available on my iCloud devices.

Note, I attempted to directly restore from the backup to the target directory, but it failed, hence use of the temp directory and rsync.

$ tmutil restore '/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/macbook/2017-12-31-224355/Macintosh HD/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks' '/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/'
/Users/USERNAME/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks: The operation couldn’t be completed. File exists (error 17)


iTunes playlist question I have altered my iTunes playlist on my PC because I had to get a new computer due to some hacker putting a crypto lock on my hard drive. I never used the iCloud to back up my playlist and thought that I was backing up my playlist properly on an external hard drive. Turns out that I never backed up my playlist properly. I lost everything! So, I  painstakingly loaded all of my CDs into my playlist on my PC. I also went through the trouble of eliminating duplicate songs, which I had never done before. I still have my previous playlist on my iPhone and iPod. Since I am so ignorant when it comes to this stuff, I didn't know if I could have backed up either my iPhone or iPod to the PC playlist instead of importing all of my CDs again to the PC playlist. So, I went through the agony of importing the CDs. I actually have no knowledge on how iTunes playlists work. Now that I went through the trouble of importing all of my CDs again and eliminated the duplicate songs.

if I plug my iPhone into the tower and sync and backup my iPhone, will the syncing replace my new PC playlist with my iPhone playlist?
And, will the syncing also put songs and albums that are on my iPhone, but not on my PC playlist, from my iPhone to my PC playlist.

Your iOS device only syncs with 1 computer, if you gonna sync on a new computer, your music on your iOS device will be replaced with what's in your iTunes Library on computer.

You can't sync FROM your iOS device to computer, because of copyright reasons, eg. I buy music and sync them for all my friends' computers. That's a no-no! :P


What is the correct pentalobe screwdriver size for a Macbook Air Model A1370? I think it is 1.2 mm based on results returned by eBay, however, it would be nice if someone could confirm that this is the correct size and not the 0.8 mm

Macbook Air MacBookAir4,1 (11-inch, Mid 2011)

The goal is to remove the outer-lower casing (pentalobe screws) as well as the SSD screw (unknown screw type)

Based on information from iFixit, you need a P5 Pentalobe Screwdriver, which is 1.2mm, as shown in this MacBook Air 11" Mid 2011 Solid-State Drive Replacement guide to remove the lower case.

You need a T5 Torx driver for the SSD.


Creating a Printing Profile I have a 13 inch mac pro running 10.6. I recently got a hp cp2025n. Is there a way to create a black and white printing profile. I am using the postscript driver.  I print a lot of pages and and prefer to print in black and white duplex to save pages and toner. How do I create a black and white print profile?

Yes, you can do this. You'll use a feature called "Presets" which appears in the Print window. You can create a Preset so your color HP laserjet printer will print, by default, in greyscale (aka black and white) on both sides of the paper (duplex).

Here's some guidance.

Open a document you want to print. Go to the File menu, select Print.

The print window appears. Locate the "Preset" section. You'll see it's set to Standard.

You're going to create a new Preset by doing the following.

In the "Copies" section you'll most likely see a box named "Two-Sided". Check this box.

Next, click on the pop-up menu near the middle of the Print Window. The menu should be set to the name of the application you're using, such as Word or Safari. Click on this menu and select the section which lets you switch from color to greyscale. (For my Brother color printer the section is named "Print Settings" but HP may use a different section name). Select the greyscale option.

Now that you've selected 2-sided and greyscale, then click on the Presets menu and select "Save As". Give your new preset a name. I suggest "2-sided greyscale".

Print your document by clicking the Print button.

You've now created a Preset which'll be available in all applications so you can easily print duplex, greyscale documents. This Preset will be the default until you select another Preset to use instead.


I want to remove all songs from iPhone 5, have unchecked and synced but iTunes still says I have 5GB of audio! I always thought I knew a fair amount about iPhones/iTunes etc but this has me stumped!

I have a 16 GB iPhone 5 running the latest version of iTunes on a Windows Laptop. I do not have iTunes Match.

Due to having 100gb of music on the laptop I have already 'checked' the following options in the iPhone 'summary'

Sync only ticked songs and videos
Manually manage music and videos

I then went into 'music' and unchecked all the artists, albums etc to the point it said 0 songs (in light grey next to where it says sync music)

So looking at that it should mean I have no songs selected, so none on my phone... but no!

It is still telling me I have 5gb of audio! I have gone back and forth applying/syncing/checking/unchecking in the hope I have overlooked something but I am now totally stuck on what to try next.

All I want to do is remove all songs from the phone and then put some fresh music back on.

Assuming you're running the latest iOS (iOS6)

From the Home Screen, go to Settings > General > Usage

Wait while it loads your apps, then select music.

Then tap 'Edit' and delete your music.


How to add People in macOS Photos? Initially there was a +-Button in the People-Album.

But at some point in time this button disappeared.

I can still CMDI a picture in my library and add a new person, but it for some reason does not give me the option anymore in the People-Album.

If I remember correctly I was able to look through a huge list of already identified faces and add a name to them.

Was this feature removed?

You can follow this article on iMore to find out about how to add more people.

Although, my personal opinion is that this feature should've been more proactive and keep identifying in the background.


Sync multiple gmail contacts with Lion Address Book? I understand that Address Book, even on Lion, doesn't support syncing multiple gmail contacts. Is there a third-party app that I can use for this purpose? I'm looking for an app that gives me a combined view of all my address books, like iOS or Android contacts apps. I'm not okay giving my gmail passwords to a web site. Thanks.

Cobook seems to be what you are looking for.


Updating 4th generation iPod to iOS 6.1.5 I would like to know what could happen to my iPod if it can't handle the update to iOS 6.1.5. It is currently on version 5.1.1 (9B206).

There's no harm applying the available updates to your device, as only compatible updates are shown.

The latest iOS version supported by 4th generation iPod Touch is 6.1.5 you mentioned. After the update, there shouldn't be any available updates to apply.

I use the original iPad as an example. The newest iOS version for it is 5.1.1 and iTunes gives the following message when Check for update button is clicked and the iPad already has that version installed:

  This version of the iPad software (5.1.1) is the current version.

Trying the Over-the-Air Software Update on the device itself tells the following:

  iOS 5.1.1. Your device is up to date.


How to control the right browser based on used workspace? My default browser is Chromium.  I tend to use different browsers and assign them to a Space.  So for example Chromium is space 1 along with an item, Firefox in space 2 with terminal, Safari 3 with virtualbox, and so on.  Browser plus terminal, for me gives a functional workspace. So far, so good.

However, I would like to have a different default browser in each space.  So when I click on a link from some other app, it opens in the default browser in the current space, not only Chromium.

Also acceptable would be "open in the browser based on space number"  or similar.

How can I make this happen?


What's special about /Applications on macOS Catalina? I'm building a macOS binary to accompany a Chrome extension using the Chrome Native Messaging API. When the binary (unsigned, unnotarized) is in my Downloads folder, Chrome is not able to launch it. However, when I move the binary to /Applications (per https://stackoverflow.com/a/59710823/12581350), Chrome is able to launch it.
I was curious if anyone knows the reason why it's able to run from /Applications but not ~/Downloads?

I believe this is related to App Translocation.
Yes, it’s related to the quarantine attribute. I believe it is the act of manually moving the file (not just moving it to /Applications/) which tells macOS that it is safe to open.


No audio devices on Macbook Pro (Late 2011) I have a Macbook Pro (Late 2011) running macOS Sierra that cannot recognize any audio devices. No headphones, no speaker, no microphone. I currently use a USB audio card, which works fine but isn't convenient.

I have tried to fix this by:
Reinstalling the OS
Resetting PRAM
Blowing compressed air into audio jack (and cleaning the whole computer)
Repairing disk permissions
Removing ~Library/Preferences/com.apple.BezelServices.plist and rebooted

I also booted into my Windows partition which did not recognize any audio devices either. So, it sounds like it is hardware related. Any ideas on what can knock out all incoming and outgoing audio at once. I opened it up and didn't notice any disconnected cables or anything of the sort.

The sound chip or the connection is probably broken. Try Apple Hardware Test or Apple Diagnostics. Depending on the issue it might be able to detect the malfunction. If it detects nothing, it might be a clean break. If it gives you an error code, it could indicate the location of the failure.


Where is the httpd error log file on Lion? I'm running a local web (development) server on my mac with apache installed.

I'm sure it depends on my apache config but basically I just want to run tail -f /var/log/httpd-error.log in a terminal so I can see the error and warnings that occur during the development of my websites.

So my question is where or how do I find where this log file is placed since it is not placed in /var/log/

As morth pointed out, for the default Mac OS X Apache installation these are located in: /var/log/apache2/error_log.

The location can be changed in the httpd config using the ErrorLog directive, even for individual virtual hosts. Also note that if you installed another Apache besides the built-in one (like through MacPorts, or MAMP), this probably is different for you too. In that case you should have a look at the httpd.conf or equivalent for your installation.

tip: If you have Growl installed, also have a look at this 'growltail' script. I think it's great to get notified of errors while developing, without having the need to switch back to the Terminal all the time.


If my adapter says 1A or 2.1 which port should I use for my iPod nano? If my wall adapter says 1A and 2.1 A. Which one should I use for my IPod nano?

It doesn't actually matter.
The iPod will require 1A, but as Amps are "pulled" by the deive rather than being "pushed" by the socket, the end result is the same whichever you plug it into.
You will only notice a difference if you plug in an iPad which needs 2A. If it can only pull 1A it will charge more slowly.


Control packets with pfctl Looking for a way to control precisely which process or application is allowed to communicate with the network in a low connectivity context, I found the pfctl command which seems to be designed for the job.

I would like to allow only a few applications to connect to the network (ie: ping and Mail) and remove Apple unnecessary services.

Here is my current /etc/pf.conf file:

scrub-anchor "com.apple/*"
nat-anchor "com.apple/*"
rdr-anchor "com.apple/*"
dummynet-anchor "com.apple/*"
anchor "com.apple/*"
load anchor "com.apple" from "/etc/pf.anchors/com.apple"

I try to understand the pfctl status with this command:

$ sudo pfctl -sr
No ALTQ support in kernel
ALTQ related functions disabled
scrub-anchor "com.apple/*" all fragment reassemble
anchor "com.apple/*" all

Is it possible to achieve the filtering I want with pfctl and how?

PF (Packet Filter which command line interface of is pfctl) can't do this, because it's not application but port/interface based. You may block port 80/443 for a web browser (like Safari) but this will also block Mail fetching an web-based embedded picture in an email.

Your best bet is to use a host-based application firewall like Little Snitch. The app allows a fine-grained control of outgoing traffic. You may even allow a browser to connect to text based (low traffic) websites while blocking all other sites.

You can even set up several profiles for low- or high-bandwidth locations.


Debugging Mail.app rules Is there a way to see what Mail.app is doing when it scans messages for rule firing?  I have a rules that download bank statements when I get an email from my bank.  Since I have multiple accounts, I rely on the account number in the email message.  I have a number of rules, each having a filter that says

  Message content contains The statement for your account ending in XXXXX is available online for viewing

where XXXXX is the particular account number.  The problem is that the first rule always fires no matter what account number is in the message.

Simplify it to

Message content contains 'XXXXX'

& add 'Stop evaluating Rules' as your last action in the Rule.

Or, if the number may possibly occur in other emails, make the rule.

All
Message content contains 'The statement for your account ending in'
Message content contains 'XXXXX'

Adding 'Stop evaluating Rules' is a sensible precaution for all rules that should stop at that point.


Catalina reopens app windows upon login despite turning it off I noticed this issue as soon as I updated to macOS 10.15(Catalina). The OS opens every previously opened windows even when the Reopen windows when logging back in is unticked.

Another bug I noticed was the same problem occurring with bluetooth. The weird part is, if you turned on the bluetooth while working and then turned it off before shutting down, it'll be turned on when you'll log back in.

Is this an update bug for macOS Catalina or has anyone experienced this before. And if so, what are the ways it can be resolved by?

Other Helpful Information:

The apps that are reopening are just the ones I used last before logging out. In fact and I double checked none of them are present in my Login items.
I usually close the apps with CMD+Q which quits the whole app and not just an instance.
I have just one user account and no guest accounts

You probably have you login profile set to launch those apps no matter what. For example I want Mail.app and Calendar.app to launch even if I have reopen windows unchecked. Look in Preferences under Users and Groups


Can I keep track of one specific app's sales from someone else's iTunes Connect page? I'm an iOS developer, and I just found a publisher for my app - they will sell the app with their own iTunes Connect account.

I have my own iTunes Connect account as well, and I'd like to keep track of my app's stats. My publisher says they would give me access to their iTunes Connect page, but I would be able to see their info for all of their other apps. So they suggested to use a service called Appfigures.

I'm a bit skeptical - is there really no way I can have access to the stats of one specific application in their iTunes Connect page? If not, are there more reliable services to keep track of such data?

They are correct, a user on iTunes Connect has access to all apps, no matter what their role. Obviously this is a terrible design, but Apple has never been too quick to fix design flaws in iTunes Connect.

As you mentioned appFigures has the ability to restrict a sub-user's access to individual apps. The publisher will have to set up the primary account.

I can't find official information from any of the other analytics providers that they have this capability. My App Annie account definitely does not.


How do I preview a Live Photo using the keyboard in Photos.app? The ability to playback Live Photos in Photos.app is a nuisance at best. So far I've only been able to play them by hovering over them with my mouse, either over the 'Live' tag in the bottom left hand side of a full view photo, or hovering over the photo in the gallery view (which plays without sound).

Is there a keyboard shortcut that can be used to start the preview in one or both views?

Spacebar doesn't work, as that switches between full size/edit mode, and gallery mode. There is no shortcut that I've found in the app's menus.

If you have a 2016 or 2017 MacBook Pro w/ Touchbar there is a small icon which plays the Live Photo.

Unfortunately I haven't found a solution for MacBook users w/o Touchbar so far...