Macbook Air failing to reconnect to network after sleep I have a Mid-2011 13" Macbook Air running OS X 10.9.2 (the latest version). When I wake my Mac from sleep, sometimes, the Wifi will fail to find my network. The network icon will display the connecting symbol. The only way to stop that is to turn off wifi and turn it back on, where it will reconnect almost instantly.

A video I made showing my problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtwPg9ff4WE&feature=youtu.be

I've ran into this issue recently and solved it by unchecking:

System Preferences > Energy Saver > Wake for network access

See this thread on Apple forums - Wifi disconnects after sleep and takes long time to reconnect with Mavericks


Correct wrong email address used to set up iCloud account When I initially set up my Apple iCloud account, I entered my email address incorrectly and as a result have been unable to verify.  How can I go back into my initial set up and correct the email address I gave it?

First before doing ANYTHING, make sure to turn off find my iPhone.

Then go to https://appleid.apple.com/ and change your appleid.

Then there will be a number of places you need to log out on your phone and log back in with the correct ID. iCloud, iMessage, Facetime, game center, app store/iTunes to name most.

Then turn FindMyIphone back on.


Identify which apps on ipad belong to another account for which I do not have the password? For historic reasons I have some apps installed on my iPad that were  legitimately downloaded using another account than the one I am using now.  I do not have the current password for said account, so I cannot provide it when I occasionally am prompted for it.

The iPad synchronizes against an iTunes instance running on my MacBook which I have full control over.

I have no idea which apps cause this, and I would like to identify them so I can get uninstall them and stop being prompted.

How would I do that?

This script run on my Mac having iTunes showed the account for each IPA-file.

for f in ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile\ Applications/*.ipa;  do (echo "$f" ; unzip -p "$f" "iTunesMetadata.plist" |  plutil -p - | egrep -i "\"(itemName|artistName|AppleID)\"" ) |  perl -e 'while (<>) { if (m!^/!) { chop; $fqn=$_; } if (m/"(.+)" => (".+")/) { $e{lc($1)}=$2; } } print "$e{\"appleid\"}\t\"${fqn}\"\t$e{\"itemname\"}\t$e{\"artistname\"}\n";'; done|sort|less

It is an adaptation of the script shown in https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/256278/3157


Install Windows with Bootcamp from a file? I have an iso containing Windows 7 that was given to me by a friend. He said I could just put it on a flash drive and install Windows 7 with Bootcamp, but I don't know how to do that the right way.

How do I load the iso onto the flash drive and use that for Bootcamp?

Valid ISO images are explicitly supported by Apple in the latest Bootcamp software, so you should be good to go by following this guide and setting up Bootcamp to install Windows 7 in a separate partition on your main mac volume.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5634 - Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems


Is it possible to make Apple Watch Series 5 measure heart rate (pulse), passively, all the time? I bought an Apple Watch Series 5, because I wanted to measure my heart rate, passively, all the time (24/7).

However, I cannot find a way to enable the heart rate monitor, so that it's "on" by default.

Only by opening specific apps, like Pulse, I'm able to start the heart rate monitor, but as soon as I close that app, the monitor stops.

I know that Garmin Forerunner Fenix 5 monitors the heart rate all the time, without the any user-intervention, which is what I want to achieve on my Apple Watch Series 5. Is this possible?

Apple Watch 4 does this for me and has since day one.

Tap show all data at the bottom of health App on your phone to see your samples of data.

I don’t think you can change the default sampling rate, but I’m seeing samples every few minutes all day and all night. At 12 to 13 samples an hour it’s hard to see what you’re going to get by doubling the data.

During a workout session the sample rate is even higher so you can get some very large datasets if you have long workouts.


How to print an ASCII file that is 80 characters wide I have a file that is 80 characters wide. I am using OS X.  The problem that I have is when I open the file and try to print it in TextEdit, the lines wrap before the 80 character mark. I'd like the file presented in the same way printed as it is in the file. So, my question is this;

How do I print an 80 character wide ASCII file (and preferably specifying margins) such at the font will be fixed-width and sized appropriately to fill the entire page while still retaining the position of original line breaks and not additional wrapping. If the resultant file is a PDF or other format convertible to PDF that would be fine. If anybody could answer this question I would really appreciate it.

In Textedit, make the file plaintext by going to the Format menu, and selecting the Make Plain Text command. This will use a fixed-width font and remove any other characters.

Next, Select Page Setup... from the File menu, then select Paper Size: and go to Manage Custom Sizes.

Create a Paper Size of 8.5 wide x 11 high, set the top, bottom, left & right margins to zero, then save the custom size by clicking the "+" button.

Go to the File menu > Export as PDF.

On the Export as PDF click on show details and uncheck the box that says Rewrap contents to fit page

Just tested this and it works for me!


How to create new folder using contextual menu in MAC OS? I want to create a short cut to create new folder from the right-click/contextual menu in Mac Mavericks. What is the procedure to do so?

I know some people prefer the mouse, but as an alternative for completeness sake...

Of if you prefer SHIFT-COMMAND-N in any window (including right on the desktop) will create a new folder right there.


How to enable dictation by voice on OS X? I want to be able to say something like, "Start Dictation," to turn on OS X's Dictation feature, instead of having to double-click the fn key.

In System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Dictation, there is an option to "Enable the dictation keyword phrase." Here is a screenshot of this menu:

I have enabled this option and tried various phrases and the dictation has not been turned on once.

I'm not sure if this is related, but I have installed the "Enhanced Dictation" data:

Within the "Dictation Commands" menu, I have all "System" commands enabled, including the "Start Dictation" command. Screenshot:

Incidentally, the "Stop Dictation" command works perfectly.

Has anyone managed to Start Dictation by voice command?

(2013 rMBP) -- (OS X 10.11.3)

Look at your first screenshot.
Enable the dictation keyword phrase

To activate dictation by voice command, just speak the phrase "Computer Start Dictation"


Find my iPhone: Can everyone who i've shared my location with see each other's location? I want to add someone on Find my iPhone, but I don't want the people I already have my location shared with to see his location.
I've previously only had this with my family so we all have each other added.
Will the extra person be kept separate?

Can everyone who i've shared my location with see each other's location?

No. Find my Friends would not automatically show everyones location to everyone.

Will the extra person be kept separate?

Yes.


Running Windows 7 from SD card on a Macbook Air This question has already been asked here before, but I feel I'm missing something or don't understand something from the answers.

I have a MacBook Air - very little space left. I have a 128GB SD card. I want to dual boot Windows 7 and OSx. The Windows 7 would run from the SD card.

I've prepared a USB drive with the Windows installation through Bootcamp assistant successfully, but then the "Install or remove Windows 7" checkbox is greyed out. It also gives me "You must have at least 50 GB of space available" message, but I want to install it on the SD card.

Does bootcamp not support writing on SD cards? Is there a workaround?

One question posted at Ask Different deals with running Windows from a external drive. While the questions deals with Windows 10, the answer seems to indicate a BIOS boot method is used. Therefore, the answer might be adapted to work with Windows 7. Below is a link to this question.

Is it possible to use Boot Camp with Windows 10 from an external HDD?

In your case, the problem really is not whether you can get the software to work, but rather the hardware media you are choosing. For a while now, Microsoft has had the ability to run Windows from a flash drive. This is referred to as Windows To Go. If you read the link, you will realize this requires the use of special flash drives design to endure the large amount of reads/writes required by the Windows operating system. A normal SD card probably would not survive long under such conditions.


Notes 4.0 (El Capitan) strikethrough option removed Does anyone know how to apply a strikethrough to text in the new Notes app? It seems the option has been removed entirely from all font menus, contextual menus and even the font palette!

Yeah, the option is a bit well hidden, dunno why.
Its called Struck through  instead of strikethrough

To get the text formatting in Notes 4.0

1) Make a text selection for the struck through, right click on it

2) Select Fonts then Styles

3) Use the Style Browser or whatever that is called
to check the Favourite Styles and then select Struck Through from the dropdown list. Tada!

Wow. That was really easy and accessible, right? Why not add
another step since all that makes a lot of sense. I guess, this time
Apple struck through the UX.

Here one close-up of the option. I think one can make a Keyboard
shortcut that will make this more ehh sane to use. Maybe there is
one already.


Lost Data on Macbook Pro After I could not boot my Macbook Pro (OS X Lion 10.7.5) I tried to run safe boot. I thought it worked, but only thing it did was booting the mac without any data i used to have. All the software is there. It's like a brand new mac with full applications. My storage seems as full as before so I know the data is somewhere inside my Macbook. How can I find them? (I'm still logged in as I always were and there seems to be no other accounts)

P.S: I know the ways that requires payment, but I (with my ignorant logic) conclude that since my storage is still seems full with everything I have I may not need it.

Edit: ALSO i downloaded data rescue demo to scan. But for some reason my HD can't be scanned. When I tried Disk Warrior it says "Directory cannot be rebuild because this is the startup disk"

search your computer with Grand Prespective and it will show you your entire mac, and what and where the data is


Logitech K750 keyboard: § and < have switched places I have Logitech K750 (solar thingy) attached to Lion. For some weird reason § and < keys have traded places. I have checked keyboard settings and everything is correct. I downloaded KeyRemap4MacBook but I can't find how to actually change mappings with that program.

Can anybody tell me how to get my < in the right place, it's really starting to annoy me when doing HTML and CSS...

It sounds like a keyboard type glitch, the machine thinks it is ANSI instead of ISO or vice versa.  See if this helps:

Sometimes a machine will forget which type keyboard is attached, with the result that certain keys get transposed from what the user expects. The fix for this is run the Keyboard Setup Assistant again. Sometimes there is a button for "Change Keyboard Type" visible in System Preferences/Keyboard. If not, you can try trashing the file

sudo mv /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist.orig

Another possibility may be to open Terminal and type:

sudo open /System/Library/CoreServices/KeyboardSetupAssistant.app/Contents/MacOS/KeyboardSetupAssistant


How to prevent Option+Command+Space from opening "Searching This Mac"? The following keyboard shortcut will always bring up a window that says Searching "This Mac":

Option+Command+Space

I would like to use this shortcut for another purpose.  Is there any way to disable this shortcut?

Yes. Go to System Preferences → Spotlight and uncheck the box for the Spotlight window keyboard shortcut. Alternatively, replace the shortcut with a different shortcut.

You can also enable/disable/modify the shortcut through System Preferences → Keyboard → Spotlight → Show Spotlight Window:


how to setup Mass Virtual Host using VirtualDocumentRoot on Snow Leopard Running Snow Leopard, I have enabled the build in apache(with indexing) and php, and installed and enabled mysql. I have setup my sites in the ~/Sites directory, named:

www.site1.dev
www.site2.dev

It all works,localhost shows the index linking to them.

Now I want to set up virtual hosts in the most simple way. I would like that typing www.site1.dev in the url bar serves me the site in that directory.

So I outcommented the include vhosts rule in the httpd.conf file, and in the httpd-vhosts.conf pasted this code based on the apache docs:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /Users/me/Sites
UseCanonicalName off

VirtualDocumentRoot /Users/me/Sites/%0
AllowOverride All

RewriteEngine On
</VirtualHost>

Yet my browser can't find the server. What am I doing wrong?
I did notice that in my sharing system prefs the IP my ISP gives me, and their domain is included in the link created there to access my sites folder. I would expect a simple localhost there not an ipaddress....

You need to update you httpd-vhosts.conf to something like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/Users/me/Sites/www.site1.dev"
    ServerName www.site1.dev
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/Users/me/Sites/www.site2.dev"
    ServerName www.site2.dev
</VirtualHost>

Having each domain separately in your config allows you to have separate server options for each, e.g. Rewrite config, separate log files, etc.

Then, update your /etc/hosts and add this at the end:

127.0.0.1   www.site1.dev
127.0.0.1   www.site2.dev

This step is particurarily important as this is where your OS looks first when resolving domain names. Otherwise it will not know what www.site1.dev is.

Then simply restart the server by disabling Web Sharing and enabling it again.

To make sure your config works you can check apache logs (access_log and error_log) via Console.app (Files > /private/var/log > apache2).


Path to my background images on IOS8 iphone or How to recover my background's images from my iphone I made a great picture and place it as background at my iphone , now i cannot find it anymore at my camera roll.
I need this picture that is still as my backgroud image. Just give me route or a path or an program to recover it, and NO, is not at any of my backups any more...

Assuming that you don't want to jailbreak your phone there are a number of utilities that let you browse through the backup of your iPhone and locate files, messages, voicemail and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Though I have not used it one of the top search results is iExplorer. And it is cross platform.

There may be better ones but this says it works on Macs and PCs and you didn't say what you had.


Xcode delete subword/word forward/backword eating empty space This is really weird behaviour. Any editor I use treats empty space as a word and does not skip it. By empty space I mean newlines, tabs, spaces, etc.

Now what was for me always just a press of one shortcut option/backspace or option/Fn/backspace is complex operation, because I want to delete just space or newline forward and it deletes also the next word there.

Example:

adadada
dada
d
adadad  ad

When I place the cursor, (in text wrangler editor, but also other editors such as android studio etc, for example) every other then Xcode actually, so when I place it at end of first line and press fn/option/backspace , then remove just new line and I press it again and then the next word is deleted. But in Xcode it remove new line with the word on the first go.

How can I tune Xcode to behave like normal source code text editor ? (yeah little confused here)

If I understand your question correctly given the two lines

abc^
xyz

with the cursor as the ^.
You would like to know how to delete forward to achieve the following with one shortcut

abc^xyz

Again the ^ here symbolizes the text cursor.

The forward delete in xcode is mapped to both the forward delete key ("del" absent on most mac keyboards) but "fn delete" is a forward delete, "control d" also functions as delete forward.
This can be changed in the xcode preferences -> keymap

Now to the aspect of deleting white space and newline... This is harder, it seems like xcodes subword (which selects or deletes to a capitalized section in a word), word, and expression deletes do not include whitespace.

To select just white space and newline and delete it you can do the following three commands
option shift ->, option shift <-, delete
I have an app called betterTouchTool that allows me to map those three commands to one single one.
Not my softwware but been using it for years. It's amazing.


Unable to share Wi-Fi passwords with one of my Macs I am unable to share any Wi-Fi passwords to one of my Macs.

AirDrop works to share photos / files / web pages
Handoff does work for Safari to hand off an active page
Sharing WiFi passwords certainly does not work at all

Let's call the affected Mac "Mac A". I am able to share passwords from my iPhone to "Mac B" and I am also able to share passwords with other contacts from my iPhone. I am able to share Wi-Fi passwords from "Mac A" to my iPhone, but not the other way around.
When I try to share a password from any device (but using my iPhone as an example) to "Mac A" the iPhone says "Sharing" for about 30 seconds and then shows "Password Not Shared" "There was a problem sharing your Wi-Fi password." I've added a screenshot of the error, just in case that's of use.
I've tried to fix this by:

Signing out of iCloud on all of my devices
"Forgetting" Wi-Fi networks from all of my devices
Restarting all devices
Sign in to iCloud on my iPhone
Connect to my home Wi-Fi network from my iPhone
Connect "Mac A" to the internet via Ethernet
Sign in to iCloud on "Mac A"
Disconnect Ethernet
Attempt to connect to my home Wi-Fi network on "Mac A"
Performed a reinstall of macOS on "Mac A" (using recovery mode)
Erased "Mac A" and performed a clean install of macOS

However, I get the same error. I've also tried resetting "network settings" on my iPhone and then going through the above steps, but that didn't change anything. I kind of didn't expect this to help as the issue appears to be with "Mac A".
I don't know what else to try next with this. Does any one have any ideas on what to try?

I don’t have a fix, but I know this has come up. Also, this is going to be very hard to reproduce your conditions, so it might be a while to solve this. Here’s how I would troubleshoot this, based on a layered approach:

Make sure AirDrop works bilaterally - photos / web page - share back and forth.
Make sure Handoff works bilaterally - safari and messages are good to test
Make sure WiFi handoff works - this uses Handoff to store an item in Keychain / System Preferences

So, for most people, I would expect handoff is the broken piece here and not that the keychain or system preferences app are broken for you.
Also - when A/B testing, it’s very useful to have a C to test - iPhone / iPad or another Mac.
Good luck - with so many variables, you may need a piece of paper or spreadsheet to test the various apps in the various configurations, but WiFi sharing layers on top of handoff which layers on top of AirDrop with iCloud identify certificates to allow Handoff to work. Hopefully you can eliminate iCloud as a cause by signing out and in, but clearing the keychain of signing / identity certificates might be needed - especially if iCloud syncs these down to the Mac A after you erased it.


Allow all applications to access Desktop, Documents, and Downloads in Catalina How do I disable the macOS Catalina security feature that prevents apps from accessing the Desktop, Documents, and Downloads folders without my permission?
The ideal fix would be something that I can do once to allow all applications to access these folders without simply granting all applications full disk access.
I have my Desktop and Documents folders stored locally, not in iCloud Drive.

This functionality is referred to by Apple as “Transparency, Consent, and Control” (TCC), Access Control, and Privacy Preferences Policy Control (PPPC). It is designed to give a user control over Apps to protect their privacy. In some cases an App will request access to something that App really doesn't need and the user can block the App from accessing that data or filesystem path. It is annoying, but it's typically a one-time event per App.  So unless you are frequently clean installing macOS it wouldn't be super annoying.
Apple provides a way to build a Configuration Profile payload to whitelist applications so the user approval prompts do not appear.  An Mobile Device Management (MDM) server would be the best way to deploy the payload.
You might be able to build a custom XML Plist Configuration Profile and manually load it on macOS Catalina without an MDM and it might work to whitelist the Apps you specify. But it's a lot of work and as of macOS 11 (10.16) Big Sur will break. Big Sur simply won't trust a Configuration Profile unless it comes from a trusted MDM.
If you want to try whitelisting the Apps and manually installing a custom profile you can review that sample here:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mdm/privacy-preferences-policy-control-custom-mdm9ddb7e0b5/1/web/1 You can use Apple Configurator to create the Configuration profile with this payload and double-clicking the .mobileconfig should install the profile.  There's a command line profiles command as well.
Those who use MDM typically deploy a bunch of Apps and configurations and they whitelist kernel extensions and PPPC/TCC entries via Configuration Profiles. They can lockdown a great many things on macOS/iPadOS/iOS. Admins would whitelist Apps so the users are not flooded with a bunch of user approval prompts but also seeing fewer of them will help a user be surprised when they see one and hopefully make an appropriate choice or at least call the Help Desk.  You don't want users clicking through frequent prompts without thinking about the question being asked. Most Macs managed by an MDM wouldn't even grant administrator rights to the users and they would provide a company specific App Store where pre-packaged and prepared Apps are provided.  Those Apps would all be whitelisted on PPPC/TCC approvals.  The Mac App Store may be blocked to the user.  Those Apps can be deployed by the MDM via VPP (Volume Purchase Pricing) integration with the companies procurement department.
So unless you setup your own MDM server and manually create a Configuration Profile to whitelist all the Apps and update that list over time. Then deploy it. There isn't really a good answer here. It's still a lot of work to manually specify every app in an XML file and only really useful if you are doing it across many Macs.
There is a Python tccutil.py utility on Github that can whitelist individual apps to the tcc.db but access to the tcc.db is blocked by SIP (System Integrity Protection) since Sierra. TCC was updated since Mojave to add the user approval to Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc. This tool won't work unless you disable SIP. Disabling SIP is NOT RECOMMENDED.  Since Catalina, the System volume is Read Only.  So you would have to not only disable SIP but also get around the Read Only System APFS volume which is possible.  Again, NOT RECOMMENDED. It is a lot of work that is frankly, not worth the effort to get around a one time prompt per App.
There is a published exploit where a malicious App could impersonate a trusted App identifier and signatures to bypass the PPPC/TCC protections.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
The X11 based apps such as Fontforge, Gimp, Inkscape, etc. do not run as true macOS applications.  They run a wrapper around a command line binary then load the X11 resources into the wrapper.  Therefore you must grant permissions to the Terminal App where these applications actually run.
Try going to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Full Disk Access -> Unlock the panel and click + and add the Terminal App. This is fairly dangerous and has security implications but according to the Github issues regarding Gimp, Fontforge, etc. This may resolve the problem as a work around.  It is unlikely these applications will fully resolve this issue. They have made some recent changes to help alleviate the problem on macOS.


How to send S/MIME encrypted mails from iOS with attachment? I can only send encrypted mails if I start the mail app directly. But if I try to send a mail from the image gallery, the mails are neither signed nor encrypted (and I can't find a way to enable that).

Edit: My current (non-acceptable) workaround would be to save the mail as a draft, then open the draft with the default mail app and then send it.

I can tell you why this happens but not give you a solution. To me this is a bug, when you 'mail' from within photos or whatever other app, using the modal compose window (the one that pops up from the bottom of the screen) you are using a MFMailComposeViewController class, this is effectively a baby version of mail that pops up and composes mail for you, then redirects this to the mail app.

Something is broken in between that's causing your issue.

Bottom line the MFMailComposeViewController (https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MessageUI/Reference/MFMailComposeViewController_class/Reference/Reference.html) is not the full mail client and thus it's lacking the encryption piece.


How to make command apm available after installing atom? I have installed github's editor atom into /Application. I now expected to have the command apm at my disposal to be able to install further packages. Yet:

$ apm
-bash: apm: command not found

How do I get the apm command?

By opening atom and going via Atom > Install Shell Commands you will get atom and apm commands.


Is mp3 transfer for Windows iTunes / iPhone 4s slow? I'm about to buy iPhone 4S, I'm curious about how fast is mp3 transfer (since I like a lot of music). And I'm using Windows. Is it a LOT slower than common direct USB transfer like on mp3 devices or is it "ok" speed?

And I'm using my own mp3s I have on my HDD.

Speed is not an issue between iTunes and an iPhone. You can copy gigabytes of data (music, film,...) within minutes, just like with a standard USB-to-desktop connection on Windows or Mac.

Major advantage: the synchronisation makes it even faster if you only change a part of your music: it only copies the ones that you added for the first time: no more duplicates!


Erase in Adobe Sketch? I'm using an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil... the Apple Pencil annoyingly doesn't have an eraser on the back end like the Pencil by 53. I've also not been able to locate a button that allows me to use the Apple Pencil as an eraser within the Adobe app. Any thoughts? Of course there's an undo button, but that's not what I want.

I had the same problem.  The eraser tool is the last tool in the toolbar on the left.  It's the thin line with a blank spot in the middle.  Once someone tells you it seems pretty obvious, but it wasn't to me.


How to change default cell formats in Excel 2011? My employer has provided me with Office 2011 on my MBP workstation, running Mountain Lion. They use networked Excel docs almost exclusively, so I need to adapt to it. There's a handy toolbar item for working with default cell formats:

I've got three or four formats I use to code item statuses in the project sheets (to do, problem, incomplete, complete), and I can figure out how to modify these default styles to my preference ... and delete the couple dozen I will never use. The problem is, whenever I open a new doc, all my custom styles are reset and the extraneous defaults I deleted have returned.

Is there a way to permanently change these default styles? I want the changes to persist both for new docs I create, and when opening docs someone else has created. Google has proved fruitless for me, but my search-fu is not the strongest.

PS (Though I would prefer to, please no comments about switching to Numbers. Already had that conversation with the boss.)

For existing (or the one you get from others) Excel documents where you have a lots of data in it, try using the down arrow (under the format window).

It will open new window where you can choose a new format there.

Next right click on the cells you want to modify, or just create new cells.

Another way for existing documents you get from others do following:
Open and than click on the "Import Cell styles" than select your format file (both files have to be open at same time).

For new documents use your saved template.

PS. One day you will succeed giving your template to your coworkers and teaching them to use it, so you do not have to reformat theirs.

Here is my screen capture showing the original and SAMPLE after modifying.
Hope this helped, and you can impress your boss with your excel skills.


Time Machine: disk was not ejected properly I have an external hard drive (Verbatim #47576) setup as a Time Machine drive.

Everyday, at random intervals, the computer warns me that the disk was not ejected properly. Why? How to prevent that? Is there a real problem?

iMac8,1 , MacOS X 10.6.7, Darwin 10.7.0,

This happens because of a USB Sleep issue with some external usb devices. This happens when the USB disk is put on sleep.

Some people claim that this problem is solved by disabling Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible in the Energy Saver preferences pane.


Text file line order messed up in terminal I was writing a simple bash script for a small task.

 echo starting
 URL="10.10.0.1/api/monitoring/traffic-statistics"
 curl -b cookie $URL

When I executed it using bash script.sh , it just prints curl -b cookie pi/monitoring/traffic-statistics. It's as if the file said echo curl -b cookie $URL and somehow URL got corrupt.
When I type cat script.sh, instead of listing the file contents, it just displays a part of one line in the script.
Note: I was editing the file in vim, and it was displaying it without any issue. Nano editor also showed the same content. But when it comes to bash, it messes up the order, either when executing the file or just dumping the contents. This is the hex dump. (xxd script.sh)

00000000: 6563 686f 2073 7461 7274 696e 670d 5552  echo starting.UR
00000010: 4c3d 2231 302e 3130 2e30 2e31 2f61 7069  L="10.10.0.1/api
00000020: 2f6d 6f6e 6974 6f72 696e 672f 7472 6166  /monitoring/traf
00000030: 6669 632d 7374 6174 6973 7469 6373 220d  fic-statistics".
00000040: 6375 726c 202d 6220 636f 6f6b 6965 2024  curl -b cookie $
00000050: 5552 4c0d                                URL.

I can't seem to find any stray \r character either.
What did I do wrong here and how do I produce a proper file that bash will accept?

You misconfigured your vimrc and a carriage return (CR or 0x0d) instead of a line feed (LF or 0x0a) is entered/read.

So modify the vimrc back to the standard behavior.

The missing shebang (e.g. #!/bin/bash) at the beginning is not the cause of the failing script. I would include it though - just for redundancy.


"Open With" ...running application option? This may have been asked before but I couldn't find any reference to it.

So Control-Click on a file brings up the context menu with "Open", "Open With.." and a number of other options. I often want to open a text based file in something other than the default application – for example, opening an mxml (Flex) file in BBEdit. The default application for that is Flash Builder and I don't want to change the default.

Is there some kind of extension or service I can add to have an "Open with Running Application...(list of open applications)"?

Or if not that, a way a user (me!) can register an app to open certain file types, so for example, BBEdit is listed as an option for mxml but is not the default?

You could just drag the file onto the App icon in the Dock… [which is very difficult to take a screenshot of…]

[after comments…]
Alternatively, you could…

drag the file onto the app switcher - the one you bring up by pressing  Cmd ⌘   Tab ⇥

or

use DragThing which has been a kind of substitute Dock since long before the Dock existed.


15" MacBook Pro to 27" iMac monitor Can I hook up my 15" macbook Pro thunderbolt to my 27" iMac thunderbolt, and operate the MacBook pro in Windows 7 in order to have a large monitor to run AutoCad?

Both computers are running OSX Yosemite and Bootcamp Windows 7.

According to Target Display Mode: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), you can't do it.

8. Can I use TDM in Boot Camp?
Target Display Mode is not supported under Boot Camp.


iOS 11 Field Test Mode permanent signal reading Today, Apple released their first iOS 11 public beta. As some noticed in earlier versions (first developer beta), using Field Test Mode to permanently switch your signal rating from bars to numbers (like image below) seems to no longer work (For instructions on how to do this up through iOS 10, see iPhone Field Test mode permanently in iOS 7).

My question is, is there a way to enable this, and what is it? I hope to keep this question/answer updated through the beta phase until the final release, or the option reappears.

This is a random screen capture with the numbers in the corner (iOS 10):

Here it is, automatically reverted to bars with iOS 11:

Edit June 27: I can’t get the Field Test Mode options to finish loading either; has anyone else been able to? My screen just has the "connecting..." circle spinning indefinitely (notice there are bars, not numbers in the top left). If it helps, I’m on AT&T.

Edit July 12: iOS public beta 2 released. Permanent change still it possible, but the options have come back to Field Test Mode:

Previously you were able to replace the bar signal indicator with the signal numbers instead since the numerical reception indicator is more accurate. But, now all iPhones on the newest version of iOS have only one way to view the numerical reception indicator which does not replace the bar signal indicator permanently.

You have to dial the number *3001#12345#*. This will redirect you to the hidden “Field Test Mode” on the iPhone. Then, LTE > Serving Cell Meas > rsrp0.

The value under the rsrp0 will be the numerical measurement of the iPhone cellular signal strength in dBm. You can also read more about this here.


My Mac Pro boots into recovery mode every time it boots up My Mac Pro boots into recovery mode every time it boots up. I have to select the start-up disk when in recovery mode.

How can I make so it starts up in Mac Os X Lion every time without it going into recovery mode?

The startup disk system preference is the usual method to set this. As the setting is written to NVRAM, you could also just reset that and the mac should prefer the OS over the Recovery HD

If you can't select the Mac OS X, re-run the lion installer.


System restore macbook air with broken screen? the screen on my macbook air has broken, It is only hanging on by a couple of wires and it lights up but doesn't do anything else. I want to sell it for parts but obviously want to get all my data off first. I have an external cd drive with the restore cd in but when I press C on boot I obviously can't see anything. Can I somehow connect it to an external monitor? Or is there another way of doing this?

Thanks

You should be able to connect it to an external monitor.  All you need to do (in principle) is this:

Close lid, let computer go to sleep
Connect both the power supply and external monitor

About a second after you connect the external monitor, it should wake up and direct all output to the external monitor.  (It will only do this if the lid is closed, external power is connected, and something is connected to the video output port.)

Note that depending on the speed of your computer and other factors, it may take a little while for anything to show up on the screen.  Give it at least a minute if you don't see anything at first, before assuming something didn't work.


How do I copy a user profile between Macs? I have an Mac Pro running Lion, my wife has a Macbook Air also running Lion.

We have the same apps installed.

I want to steal my wife's Macbook while I'm out of town on business.

To do so, I'll have to bribe her, but I'll also need to give her a seamless experience using the Mac Pro for the week.

How can I easily copy her profile, including all settings, mail, and documents, over to my Mac Pro so she can use it, and then send it all back to her Macbook when I get back?

I know there's a migration wizard, but neither of these is a new machine, and I only want to copy one profile (hers).

Run migration assistant on both Macs. If you can update each to the latest patch for your version of OS, that often is good but remember you have to always move data to a same or newer OS this manner. Moving data from a newer system to an older one is not supported.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350

It will let you bring over one user account with ease. Her password and desktop and settings and preferences will all be preserved to the maximum extent possible. If both macs are the same version of the OS - it's even very easy to delete (back up) the older user and move the newer one back when the portable returns from its trip.


iCal No Longer Runs Scripts? I have some automated tasks in the form of AppleScripts which I would schedule to run overnight via an iCal event.  The event would simply be set to "run script" at "0 minutes before the event" and I'd select the various scripts to run.

Ever since upgrading to Mountain Lion, however, "run script" is now just "open file" and the scripts don't run, they just open in AppleScript Editor.

I tried compiling the scripts into applications to see if I could select those to be opened instead, but they're not available to select from the event (they're greyed out).

How can I get Calendar to run my scripts?
Conversely, is there a better way to schedule scripts to run?

I wrote an answer to a question about scheduling jobs that could solve a few of the issues for you. That was mostly for a one off time though versus ongoing.

If you have an ongoing job, like one that you would have scheduled through iCal, launchd will work nicely as well.

But if you want an outright replacement to something similar to what you did with iCal/Calendar, it sounds like this great writeup on the Apple Discussions board explains using Automator's 'Calendar Alarm'. One user even said that this new way is even easier to use. I personally think with the extra power of Automator, it also adds new power.

From that site:

  Here's a solution that works for me:

  In Automator, create a Calendar Alarm
  Select Utilities from the library pane
  Select & drag Run AppleScript into the workflow area
  Copy/paste the AppleScript into the Run AppleScript box
  Save the newly created Calendar Alarm
  Open Calendar.app, create a new event
  Select the Automator calendar as your reference calendar
  Select Open File for the alert, and select the file you created in Automator. By default, iCal is the file that comes up when you select
  Open File.
  Change that to the name of the Automator app you created.
  Select Other if the file name isn't shown.

The user attached some screenshots to their post, as well, but I have included a screenshot of what needs to be selected in Automator.


Static IP for a adhoc wifi network Do you know if it's possible to give a static IP when creating a ad-hoc network on OS X?

Of course, to actually do much in ad-hoc mode you even have to setup static IP addresses.

Just start the ad-hoc network, then in System Preferences -> Network "Click the lock to make changes" and then click "Advanced". And there you have it.


iMac 2017 - Apple Wireless Keyboard 2 and Magic Mouse 2 Bluetooth random disconnects After having the first iMac 2017 Retina replaced for display issues, my second one seems to be acting up.

I use an apple wireless keyboard and magic mouse 2 via Bluetooth. The problem is, they randomly disconnect. Right after the event, a pop-up comes up, trying to find input devices.

Sometimes they reconnect almost immediately, other times after a while, and others, only a restart fixes the issue. It happens randomly. There are days with no issues and days where it happens so often it drives me mad.

Both input devices work fine when they are connected. The keyboard works after it is disconnected, if I plug it in for charging from the Mac. Can't use this workaround with the mouse, obviously.

What I tried so far is resetting the Bluetooth module, factory reset devices, disconnect all devices. Nothing seems to work.

OS version is Mojave 10.14.1. It was happening with High Sierra too.

Any ideas besides sending the whole package to warranty?

After spending numerous hours on the phone to Apple technical support, and tried just about every fix suggested here and on othe websites...

In the process I uploaded some system logfiles to Apple support and after a few more phone calls a Senior Apple technician confirmed that there is a known bug in Apple's Bluetooth drivers which should be fixed in the next patch for MacOS Mojave (which I believe will be 10.14.3). Hopefully this will finally resove the issue.


Adding a signature to Automator email I have a little automator script that creates an email.

This works. I would however like to add a specific signature to the email.

The signature is called "Default Sig".

I tried this, but it doesn't work. How can I implement this?

Thanks
- Joseph

AppleScript
You can set the signature yourself with AppleScript:
tell application "Mail"

    set myMessage to make outgoing message
    set subject of myMessage to "this is the subject"
    set content of myMessage to "this is the content."

    set message signature of myMessage to (signature named "Default Sig")

end tell

See AppleScript/Automate Mail Tasks for sample AppleScripts to create, combine, and send messages.
Graphic User Interface (GUI) Scripting
While less reliable, you could try scripting the GUI to select the signature.


Command+C (copy) with the left command key does not work I'm facing a strange problem. When I type ⌘+C with the left command key, it does not work anymore. The left command key is working for ⌘+V or ⌘+X or any others so it's not a hardware problem.

The C key is working too. The right command key is working for ⌘+C.

I tried changing keyboard language, adding a shortcut, reset NVRAM, activated/deactivated VoiceOver (tip found on a site) to no avail. I'm on a MacBook Pro with Mavericks.

Make sure when you press CMD+C your Edit menu in the top flashes, this indicates it works as expected.

If it doesn't, go to Keyboard settings in System Preferences and:

Restore defaults Modifier Keys...,
Restore defaults in Shortcuts tab,
In App Shortcuts click the + button and test if Keyboard Shortcut input box will react on your combination.

If Edit menu flashes and it still doesn't work, then the first thing to do is to restart pasteboard service by the following commands:

launchctl stop com.apple.pboard
launchctl start com.apple.pboard

If still doesn't work, here are some other suggestions to troubleshoot the problem:

Re-test in different applications just in case.
Re-test if works when using contextual menu (without using the shortcut).
Re-test alternative combination such as CMD+X for Cut instead.
Run Console to see your System log queries if something obvious is happening.
Test if the Clipboard works from the terminal via:

$ echo test | pbcopy
$ pbpaste

If Paste menu item is no more greyed out, then maybe it's a problem with Paste command.

If you're advanced user, use dtruss or fs_usage to debug it, for instance:

$ sudo fs_usage | grep -C4 MyAppWhereCopyDoesntWork

and then notice other apps which appearing exactly when you press the shortcut which potentially you could consider quitting for testing purposes.
Disable any recent programs that you run or restart your computer.
Disable VoiceOver as suggested here.
Force quit the Finder (e.g.: killall -HUP Finder).
If still doesn't work, consider rebooting the system, especially in Recovery or Safe mode to re-test.

As for a workaround, you can install Karabiner app and remap your shortcuts by configuring private.xml file (see Misc tab). For more suggestion, please check the following posts:

Remap Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl-X only
How can I reassign the copy/paste keyboard shortcuts?


How to use multiple audio outputs (of a mac) simultaneously? I have en external USB-audio device, which is great (Steinberg/Yamaha).
And a bluetooth speaker and an Apple TV.

Is it possible to stream audio to ALL this devices simultaneously and synchronously ?

For this you can use the App "Audio MIDI Setup" in /Applications/Utilities.

When you open the app, you will see a list of all audio devices in the list to the left. With the "+" button at the bottom you can create a new Aggregate Device or a Multi-Output Device.

The devices created there will show up as normal audio devices in the system preferences' "Sound" settings.

The Multi-Output Device seems to be what you are looking for. It will output the audio to all devices enabled in the right part of the window.

The Aggregate Device allows you to join multiple sound cards to simulate one audio device with more output channels (e.g. instead of four separate stereo outputs you would see a single 8 channel output).


Turn off Lock Screen notifications completely, notifications keeps showing even when disabled How can i disable completely the notifications from appearing in the lock screen?
I unchecked these options:

But i'm STILL getting an abstract of every notification in the lockscreen so people who don't have my password can still read my chats and emails.

This is very annoying, help please.

What you're trying to do is actually quite simple, but you will have to do it individually for each app. First, make sure you have the latest release of iOS 8 (this is not completely necessary, but recommended). Next, go to the Settings app and scroll down until you find the application you want to disable notifications for on the lock screen.

Now, click that cell and scroll down on the presented screen for "Notifications"

Now, on this screen there is a slide that says "Show in Lock Screen". Disable this (like this):

Now you're finished! Let me know if this does not work for any reason.


Typical temperature of Retina MacBook Pro I installed iStat Menus, and the fans start when the highest temperature has been 50C, but like now it is 70C and the fans aren't above normal (cant hear them).
This graph below shows part of watching a 1080p movie, the middle is the Fan speed, the top and bottom are the CPU and GPU.

What is the typical temperature for a retina MacBook Pro? 70C (CPU Die) seems very high for only browsing the web?
This is my 3rd rMBP, and the other 2 have only ever turned the fans on while playing Civilisation V on the highest graphics settings (understandable). So this makes me thing something is wrong. I've tried resetting the SMC and it has reduced the number of times the fans turn on, but still they turn on at low temperatures.
Also do the fans turn on based on temperature, or based on something else?
(Also I've actually swapped the machine 4 times at the Apple Store (display issues), and the Manager told me this is the last time I can do that, so is there anything I can do without going to the Apple Store, like email someone at Apple?)

the fans aren't above normal (cant hear them)

That's due to the new asymmetric fan blade spacing apparently spreads the noise across a higher range of frequencies.
source:  http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/12/20/patent-filings-detail-retina-macbook-pros-quiet-asymmetric-fans


Is logic board from Macbook Air 11" A1465 2015 compatible with Macbook Air 11" A1465 2014? I am thinking about buying this logic board and putting into into my Early 2014 11" Macbook Air, which has much lower specs.

Will it work?

For these models the answer seems to be yes.
According to an iFixit thread you can even exchange it with the 2013 model.

In general though, you have to be careful since Apple tends to make minor changes, making the models incompatible.
For example: They changed the battery connector in the iPhone 6s from its predecessor, the battery itself was basically the same.


Should I use Wi-Fi and Ethernet at the same time? I'm on macOS Mojave, and was wondering if I should have Wi-Fi and Ethernet on at the same? Are there advantages to keeping on at the same time, or will doing something like this cause any problems or interferences? Thanks for any information on this!

There shouldn’t be a problem with keeping both on at all times. Your machine will choose one automatically and everything will work. You can also increase the priority of one system over the other so that your chosen system will be used if available.

All things being equal Ethernet is sometimes faster due to WiFi devices slowing down when lots of devices and access points are close together (like in apartments). If you need gigabit network speeds then Ethernet will usually be faster as you generally need to be close to your access point for gigabit WiFi speeds.

AirDrop requires WiFi as it directly connects two devices. Other than AirDrop needing WiFi and the generally better speeds with less interference on Ethernet there is no reason for preferring one over the other.


How to get an iMessage conversation to go back from green to blue? After some overseas travel my imessage conversation with my contact (also an iPhone user) switched from blue (iMessage) to green (SMS) - due to problems with international roaming.

We're back in our home country, but the message conversation persists in SMS (green) and we'd like it to go back to iMessage (blue). I don't know how to click it back over.

My question is: How to get an iMessage conversation to go back from green to blue?

Settings

Before doing anything:

Quit the Messages app (Double press your home button and swipe up on the Messages app).
Go to Settings > Messages and Turn OFF and then back ON your iMessage option.
Now open back Message and try to send a message to your friend 's iPhone, but make sure to use the button at the Top-Left corner to find your friend and start the conversation, don't just open your recent chat with him/her.

This should have reset your iMessage settings, so you should be able to send iMessages to your friend now.

Restart

If the process above didn't solve the issue, you may want to:

Restart your iPhone, long press the Sleep/Wake button until you see the Apple logo again, then release, OR you can long press until you see a slider which can be used to turn OFF the iPhone, once done that, press again the Sleep/Wake button to turn the iPhone back ON.
Try to send a message to your friend

I'm sure you already know the difference between iMessage and normal SMS/MMS, although that, I'll leave you a link to the Apple Support page about the difference, have a great day!


How to report app developer to Apple? I bought 1Blocker app for my Mac and iOS devices.

While it works on Mac and iPhone, the app is not functioning on iPad.

The developers on the app stated on their website that to get support, use Twitter.

I contacted them three times by now and they aren’t replying. I want to report those developers to Apple due their lack of support and misleading statement.

How to report them to Apple?

You will have an email invoice from Apple for the purchase. That email contains a "Report a Problem" link. But you can only report problems within 90 days of purchase.


Increasing main APFS volume's size Yesterday I tried installing Windows using Bootcamp but as usual, it didn't go well after partitioning. BC Assistant wasn't able to remove its partitions either. So after reading around, I managed to format the 50 GB that I allocated to BC into FAT32 and then into APFS and I tried to increase the main APFS volume (that has macOS and every thing) using (I used the correct disk identifiers, not those names mentioned below)

diskutil apfs deleteContainer disk0s3
diskutil eraseVolume free n disk0s3
diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

However it seems like my main volume's size didn't increase and the 50GB are no where to be found. Here's my latest diskutil list and also note that BC Assistant won't fix anything on its own.

PS: What's wrong with BootCamp Assistant? It always never work without issues. First attempt it failed at partitioning, second attempt it partitioned and then it failed and tried rewinding but then it failed again. Is there a way to fix it without having to reset all my Mac?

There is nothing wrong with the Boot Camp Assistant. The problem is with the use of APFS. If the APFS configuration is not precisely correct, then the Boot Camp Assistant fails. Eventually, your macOS installation can boot and preform correctly without you knowing there is a problem with the APFS configuration. In such cases, problems first appear when trying to repartition using the Disk Utility, Boot Camp Assistant or the command line.

The stock solution is to backup using Time Machine, then reinstall everything from scratch. The result is a clean system where the Boot Camp Assistant correctly installs Windows on your Mac.

An alternate solution would be to use the Boot Camp Assistant to only download the Boot Camp Support Software (Windows Helper Software). You then would install Windows using a USB flash drive. An example of such a procedure is outlined in the accepted answer to the question "Can I install Win 10 (GPT formatted USB installer) on MacBook Pro without using BootCamp?". In your case, you have already allocated space for Windows. I would recommend modifying step 7.1 to include deleting the OSXRESERVED partition, then using the remaining free space for the Windows installation.

If you want to forgo a Windows installation, them the following commands should recover the lost space.

diskutil eraseVolume free n disk0s3
diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

If the above commands fail to work, then you will need to boot to Recovery Mode and enter the following commands. These commands will not alter your computer. The commands just shows the internal partition table values. Post the results to your question.

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0


Missing sounds on iPhone-X I'm not sure what I might have done, but all the sound effects on my iPhone X running iOS 13 seem to have been disabled.

I'm not getting keyboard clicks when I type. And when I send a text or iMessage, there's no swoosh sound, but it does vibrate. When I click the lock screen button, I don't get the feedback sound. When I receive a phone call, text, or iMessage it just vibrates, I don't get the sound effects I've enabled.

I checked the Sound settings, and it looks correct. The volume is in the middle, and "Keyboard Clicks", "Lock Sound", and "System Haptics" are all enabled. It plays my ringtone when I go into the settings screen, and testing all the assigned sound effects works. They just don't play in the appropriate apps.

I was using Waze a couple of days ago, and it was initially trying to send its audio instructions via Bluetooth to my car. I switched it over to the phone's speakers. Could that have affected other sounds?

Have you accidentally turned on the “silent mode” switch at the top-left, above the volume buttons? If it’s on, it will show a sliver of red. Do your alarms make a noise? The mute switch doesn’t affect those.


How to disconnect iPhone from WIFI without 'forgetting' it? My internet connection died whilst my router still continued to work (so I could still pick up wifi but had no internet connection). I wanted to tether my laptop to my phone so I could use 4G instead, but my phone was still connected to the shody WIFI.

I couldnt just turn off the WIFI on my phone as then my laptop would not be able to tether. I didnt want to 'forget' my WIFI connection as I do not know the password.

Is there anyway to simply disconnect from a WIFI signal?

Turn off auto-join.  I’ve searched for this several times and always thought it was a stupid design by apple but I finally worked it out.
In your iPhone settings, turn WiFi off then back on again. If it connects to your home WiFi automatically, click on the i (information) symbol next to the connection. Turn off the ‘auto-join’ option. Then you can turn WiFi off then on again to drop the connection without forgetting it.
As the original post I’m replying to is five years old now maybe I’m the only one dumb enough to still be having this problem. But maybe not.  :)


Recursively converting files from dos line endings to unix line endings I am looking for a command that I could use to run on an entire directory and subdirectory that will convert all line endings from DOS to UNIX.

It should be able to detect if a file is text or binary.

I installed dos2unix using macports but it looks that it does miss the recursive option.

Try find . -name "*" -type f -exec dos2unix {} \;.

In case dos2unix is not available on your system, you can use the following script (save as dos2unix and set as executable):

#!/bin/sh

perl -pi -e 's/\r\n/\n/;' $*


Yosemite grey background on login screen I recently installed yosemite (fresh install) on my mbp retina and i notice that the login screen has a grey background with only my account pic. I can login normally and without any problems but it is strange that i don't see the blurry background.
This happens only when i login from normal startup and not after waking from sleep mode.
Is there a way to force embed the blurry background on the login screen?
Thanks.

The grey screen during boot is new to Yosemite and no, there is no way to disable it.


How to move hosting from mobile.me to iCloud? A client of mine had a website hosted on mobile.me account.

I received credentials and was prompted to upgrade to iCloud.

I asked her to do it on her own machine (there might be some issues with iTunes, sync, etc).

Right now, upon logging to iCloud I see only mail / calendar / contacts but NO files / websites... Any idea is it possible to access previous "WWW" directory from iCloud?

Thanks for help, if you you need more info put it in the comments...

You will still be able to access the mobile me website and files making the website through June 30th, but iCloud does not offer web hosting or internet-based disk storage. After June 30th you will need to find a different web hosting service.

Longer version here: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/transition.html


App for Instagram Videos/Stories download I am interested in creating a mobile app for downloading videos/photos/stories from Instagram. The idea is simple: the users provide links of the instagram posts they wish to download and they directly save them to their phone's photo library.

Would this somehow violate Instagram's terms of service or Apple's? Would the application be taken down from Apple's app store?

You would need to get permission from Instagram for it not to be removed, you might also have copyright issues.

5.2.1:

  Don’t use protected third party material such as trademarks, copyrighted works, or patented ideas in your app without permission.

5.2.2:

  Third Party Sites/Services: If your app uses, accesses, monetizes access to, or displays content from a third party service, ensure that you are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use. Authorization must be provided upon request.


Stop Dictionary Pop-Up Window < 3.5 GHz, 6-Core Mac Pro (2013 MacPro6,1) with 16GB RAM and D700 GPUs, running macOS 10.14.6 >
Greetings, folks!
After reinstalling MacOS 10.14.6, whenever I type cmd-control-d, a window pops up with dictionary entries.
I have never seen this before (since 1986!) and have been unable to find where the command is controlled so that I can stop the pop-up window from appearing. I need this to stop, as I have used cmd-control-d for decades to generate a time-and-date stamp.
Any advice would be appreciated!

According to Apple documentation Mac keyboard shortcuts  ⌃+⌘+D is built-in document shortcut:

Document shortcuts
The behavior of these shortcuts may vary with the
app you're using.
/.../
Control-Command-D: Show or hide the definition of the selected word.

This shortcut is enabled irrespective whether System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services > Searching > Look up in Dictionary assigned or not.
Keyboard shortcut for 'Look up in Dictionary' will open Dictionary app and not pop up window, so these are different things.
On my machine I observed 'varying behavior' as stated in documentation: I have not assigned shortcut but this key combination opens dictionary pop-up in Mail and Notes but not in Safari. Probably because MacOS doesn't consider webpage as 'document'.


Does "Download and Keep Original" require manual sync of each photo? Following the update to iOS 10.3.1, my phone warned me (unnecessarily as it turned out) that I had too little space to store all my photos at full resolution, and suggested that I switch to "optimized" storage (which for those unfamiliar with the feature stores a uselessly blurry simulacrum of the original only), which I foolishly did.

I immediately realized my mistake, and restored the "Download and Keep Originals" setting. But this appears to have had no effect. I still see only the placeholders, until I click on an individual photo and wait for it to download.

So the question is: what does "Download" mean? Does it mean

download all photos automatically (e.g., in the background over time) or
download a photo only when it is viewed?

If the answer is 2, is there a way to force all my photos to sync at full resolution to my iPhone without clicking on each individual photo (which would take about a month of continuous clicking, with no breaks for sleeping)?

To downloads all photos, Download and keep originals will retrieve all images from the cloud and save them to your phone.  Optimize storage will only download when photos are viewed and/or are needed by an application.

It may require you to plug your phone in, connect it to Wi-Fi and wait for a bit for all of the photos to download, as you said there are quite a few.  It may help to have Photos open beforehand too.

Source: Experience & Apple Support documentation.


Mac OSX installer is disabled or not accessable I have a persistent problem where my installer is not associated with pkg files. My installer is showing that is not available (See screenshots)

In the past I have had to re-associate my pkg files with the installer but now I can't because it is hidden

I re-installed Yosemite and now it is fine. The date of the installer went back to Sept.


What makes a unibody Mac better than what came before? I am looking for information about what macs are considered unibody and wondering if there are any notable advantages and/or disadvantages to this fabrication style.

Answers that address marketing material as well as lifecycle data or experiences for largish deployments of macs with real life failure rates or data would be great to read.

The unibody design makes the case lighter and stronger. Since it is machined, there is minimal error in the creation of the case. For more information, watch the video on http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/design.html. The first unibody MacBook Pro was the 15" model released in 2008 and had a removable battery. I believe that all other unibody models (and only unibody models) have integrated, non-removable batteries.


Can I pair and use two microphones with my iPhone 6+? I want to connect two bluetooth microphones to my iPhone 6+ to record a conversation during a walk/hike.  I know the iPhone can handle up to 7 connections, but can only output sound to one device at a time (unless a splitter is used).  Can there be two inputs via bluetooth?

To my knowledge you do not need bluetooth microphones to record a conversation.

iPhones have a built-in app called voice memos which, assuming you have a relatively new iPhone, should be able to pick up the conversation fairly well if you just set the iPhone to record and put it in your pocket.


Order of parameters for command-line tools Possible Duplicate:
  Can command-line commands be made insensitive to order of filenames and options?

It looks like the OS X built-in command line tools, such as ls, du etc are rather strict with regards to the order of parameters.

To illustrate, a command for showing disk usage, 'du', accepts -h as a 'human readable' formatting directive for sizes. If you run the following under OS X Lion, this parameter is ignored:

du . -h

To get it to work, you need to specify the parameter fist, then the location, like that:

du -h .

Coming from Linux (ubuntu) background this seems strange to me - under Ubuntu you can do it either way. This is also becomes quite annoying at times, especially when you realise that you've forgotten to specify a parameter for long command and have to move the cursor to the beginning of it.

Hence is the question: can I change the 'default' behavior of command line tools to be more forgiving? Also, what's the reason for that restriction? A BSD legacy?

I believe that handling of the parameter order is compiled into the executable. This would mean you'd have to modify the source code of the program(s) to change this behavior.


How to complete remove all links to default PHP version? Running macOS Sierra.

How can I complete remove all links to the default installed PHP version? I have installed PHP 7 through homebrew but when I run scripts that call external CLI applications programatically they still seem to end up using PHP 5.6.25 which is the default installed PHP version.

What can I do to break all ties to this PHP version?

My php -v and phpinfo() already show the proper PHP7 version that I installed. Somehow some scripts still try to look for the default version.

I already read you cannot simply delete it.

If you need more info please let me know.

Try this:

sudo mv /usr/bin/php /usr/bin/php5
sudo ln -s `which php` /usr/bin/php

The first command backs up the old PHP binary. It can still be used by invoking php5 in a command line. The second command symlinks the new PHP 7 binary to the location of the old PHP binary. Therefore, scripts that use the old location will start using the new PHP version.


Managing and removing startup processes on OSX Lion My Startup Items for my username (i am admin) shows only dropbox - yet a look at my processes (in activity monitor) shows other helper processes from Adobe, Lexmark, etc, etc.

Where can I see and manage these processes that are being launched on startup?

update

I found a couple in LaunchAgents - Steam and VirtualBox. I've just looked at my activity again and "Seagate Drive Gauge" is showing - I have checked the programs, is there any way to find where this process is being launched from!? LaunchDaemons doesn't exist and startupitems is empty.

update 2

Great stuff, found the PID and looked it up on ps, and it is:

/Library/Application Support/Seagate/Seagate Storage Gauge.app/Contents/MacOS/Seagate Storage Gauge -doautolnch /

BUT - how do I find where that is being called from?

Take a look at the following folders:

/Library/StartupItems
~/Library/StartupItems (if you have one)
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchAgents
~/Library/LaunchAgents (if you have one)

You should be able to figure out what the StartupItems do by name, but Google them if you're curious.

You can figure out exactly what the Launch Daemons and Launch Agents do by peeking inside their plist files. They'll usually contain a path to something, like a software updater.

As for removing the ones you don't want:
If you see something for a program you've deleted or uninstalled, by all means get rid of it.

If you see something for a program you do still have installed, be careful. These startup items can be as unimportant as an autoupdater or compatibility check, but it's entirely possible that the parent app needs the Item, Daemon, or Agent to run.

So, here's my advice: If you see something from an app(s) (or drivers, etc.) you do have installed, check that app's preferences to see if it lets you disable the function that requires the startup item. If it does, go ahead. If it doesn't, it's there for a reason; don't delete it.

If you really want to play with removing apps' startup stuff, do so carefully and at your own risk. Move the folder or plist to your desktop, restart, and test the app thoroughly. Even if you find it works without its startup item/agent/daemon, keep a copy so you can restore it if something goes wrong.


Is there an app available from the App Store (iOS) to find out the LAN speed? I'm trying to see if it would be worthwhile to upgrade my PC computer to a 5 GHz wireless adapter. The only device I own that is capable of using the 5 GHz band is my iPad. So, I'm trying to see if it's possible to measure LAN speeds on my iPad. So, any ideas?

If you want to measure the speed (bandwidth) between your iPad and your PC, take a look at iperf.  It is available for computers and there are versions on the App Store for iOS too (the one I use seems to have gone away, but searching the App Store for "iperf" reveals several possible options).

You run an iperf server at one end (eg the PC), and a client at the other (eg the iPad).  It runs for a configurable amount of time (I think the default is 1 minute), and then tells you how much data it managed to transfer.

Compared to eg copying a file, the figures you get this way are a more accurate reflection of the available network speed, because copying a file requires retrieving the data from a hard drive, writing it at the other end, sending acknowledgements, the overhead of the file transfer protocol etc... iPerf is simpler than that: it just transfers data as fast as it can.


Disable mounting Internal Macintosh HD at boot My iMac (mid-2010 model, Snow Leopard) has a problem with S.M.A.R.T status: Failing and it has become read-only. Because I didn't want to waste money on the repair, I bought an external HD, so the internal HD is now unnecessary. How can I disable mounting the internal Macintosh HD at boot?

This is quite old, but still works perfectly under Lion, I'm using it for several partitions: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060930150059172

Fast path:

find the Macintosh HD volume UUID: while your Macintosh HD partition is mounted, open Terminal.app and type diskutil info /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD, then read the line beginning with Volume UUID
edit /etc/fstab as root (I personally use vi but any editor will do, the article even mentions pico! If you have TextWrangler installed - you should - with the command line helpers, sudo edit /etc/fstab will work too)
add a line like this one: UUID=F0E430C1-5558-3BB3-9FA9-6904B663FEEA  none  hfs  rw,no auto of course replacing the uuid with yours.


Macbook Air cannot detect my wifi I need to factory reset my Macbook Air.
So restarted it and hold option key.
Then it requires to select wifi.
But the list does not show the wifi I'm using.
The wifi access point is very close and the signal is strong,
so another Windows laptop and my cell phone are using that wifi.
But this Macbook air shows only other wifi networks and not mine.
What would be the reason?
I tried entering my wifi network's name and password but it doesn't work either.

This might be a case of using channels which are not allowed in your region. The wikipedia page on WLAN channels notes region limitations.

For example, in the US, in the 2.4 GHz spectrum you're only allowed to use channels 1-11, not 12, 13 and 14, while other regions may allow these.

In the 5 GHz spectrum, many countries only allow channels 34-165, or some subset of those (e.g. the US allows 36, 40, 44, 48-116, 132-165). Actually, you'll also note that not all channels in the ranges are listed (e.g. there's a big gap from 64-100, and a gap of 2 or 4 between most successive available channels) so its not necessarily obvious in the 5 GHz range if a channel is excluded in your region.

Anyway, the thing to do is check what region your devices (Access Point & Laptop) are set to, and either adjust them to be the same, and/or set your AP to use a channel common to both regions (e.g. 1-11 in the 2.4 GHz range or 48-64 in the 5 GHz range).


Can I re-download an audiobook that I purchased from iTunes again? Apps purchased from the app store and songs purchased from iTunes can be downloaded again by going to the purchased section in the respective app and clicking the cloud button.

Neither app shows the audio-books I have purchased and when I look at a specific book I have already purchased in the iTunes store it shows the buy button.

Will I get charged again if I click the buy button or will it just re-download it?

Most of these older answers are incorrect now. In recent versions of iOS you can re-download all your audiobooks purchased through iTunes by starting the iBooks app, and going to the Purchased tab at the bottom right. From there you can choose what to redownload from My Purchases.


Stream iTunes music to many PCs and/or Macs at the same time Let me explain what I am trying to achieve.

Everyone in the office listens to different music in his/her own iTunes with their own headphones so they do not bother anyone.

The thing is, I want to share the music that I am hearing with two or more coworkers. By sharing I mean (assuming my iTunes is the "master" and the other PCs are the "slaves"):

Listening to the same song at the same time
If the "master" pauses the song, all "slaves" will pause. When the "master" resumes the song, every "slave" starts hearing the song again where it left off.

That way, everyone is in sync and enjoying the same music! Is it possible to achieve this with iTunes alone? If not, do you now some kind of music streaming server that achieves this?

Hope its clear!

Get a copy of Airfoil for the sending machine and you will be able to send one audio stream to many devices. You can buy a single use licenses or get a discount if you buy multiple licenses, but the software is free to try and works for 10 minutes to be sure it does what you need.

There are free receiver software for Linux, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android as well as buit in support for AirPort express, Apple TV, and Boxee.


Where Exactly are Apple Diagnostics Results Stored on Disk I know that on macOS you can access the last run Apple Diagnostics test in System Information, as seen in the image below.

You can also access reference codes in the Terminal using system_profiler SPDiagnosticsDataType | grep "Reference Code".

Where on disk is this information actually stored? Or how could I use Finder to access this information? I understand there are a few other questions that are asking about software diagnostics, but I am looking specifically for hardware diagnostic results. I have checked the following directories already, and have not found the Apple Diagnostics results.

~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

~/Library/Logs

/Library/Logs

/private/var/log

Thanks in advance!

Have you tried?:

/Private/var/tmp

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/02/29/sysdiagnose-system-diagnostic-mac/

How do you get system diagnostic files from OS X?

I usually dont just post links but there are several things in this post that you can see if they are locatable on your system. If not feel free to let us know so we can search for you.


How do I repair my HDD when Disk Utility won't recognise it needs repairing? When I try to shut down OS X Yosemite on my MacBook Air, the screen goes black almost immediately with the mouse pointer remaining visible (and moveable). However, it appears that irrespective of how long I give my Mac to shut down, it never does.

When I run Disk Utility it tells me that my HDD needs to be repaired, and that I need to reboot while holding Cmd + R before running Disk Utility. When I do this, Disk Utility tells me that there is nothing wrong with the HDD.

Anyone know the best way to go about resolving this issue?

I would probably do a reinstall of Mac OS X Yosemite. Doing so will not delete your personal files, but will reinstall the files that the operating system requires. It sounds like there's either a Mac OS X operation or some other third party operation hanging in the background while it's tying to shut down.

If that doesn't work, there are some third party HD diagnostics tools out there. I'd recommend checking one of those out. Additionally, when you take it to the Genius Bar, they'd most likely run an Apple Hardware Diagnostics test.

If it shows anything here, and if the computer is under warranty, I'd make a free appt at the Apple Genius Bar and get the hard drive replaced.

Additionally, as a last-case scenario, you can completely erase the HD and then completely reinstall the OS X. If it doesn't hang after that and you don't see any more errors with the HD, then it has been isolated to a software issue.


How do you restore files from an iCloud backup I want to restore a picture that I deleted from my camera roll on my iPhone. I have iCloud backup enabled, with the option for camera roll turned on, so therefore the picture I deleted should have a backup in iCloud.

However...how do I actually restore it? I don't see any way to browse past backups from either my iPhone or iCloud.com.

Is the backup simply used for restoring entire devices? Any way I can just pull a single file out of it?

Apple provides no interface to pull individual items from the backup. Whether through iTunes or iCloud, backups are intended to be restored as a whole, replacing the content on the device at the time of the restore.

Is it possible that the image is also in your Photo Stream? That's probably the best possible solution if you do not wish to go through the steps to restore the backup to a device (your device or another one) to retrieve the photos you are missing (and then restore things again from a more current backup if desired).

If you do need to restore the whole backup, erase the phone (Settings -> General -> Reset -> Erase All Content and Settings) then you can restore from iCloud.  When restoring from iCloud, you can choose from multiple recent backups.


How do you add the resolution icon to the top menu bar on the Macbook Pro (retina) I just got a MacBook pro retina to replace my old Macbook Pro.
I no longer see the screen resolution icon at the top icon bar, (where the Wifi, audio, Backup, etc Icons reside)

Do you know how to add that?

There is no method built-in to Mavericks (the OS you are likely using on a new Retina MacBook Pro). However, there are 3rd party utilities to add this functionality.

Try QuickRes. You may want the paid version rather than the free in order to select all the resolutions your machine offers...


Another device is connected to my Clash of Clans village I have a problem when I am playing Clash of Clans, a message appears saying connection lost their is another device is connected to another village. I've changed the password of Game Center and Apple ID and iCloud. All of that didn't work. Note that I have all the information of the accounts.
I tried to contact Apple and Supercell and nothing worked.

In case you know the other device, this article can help you out..

Source: Supercell Game Support


Is it reasonable to assume Jar Launcher is set up to run jar files from Finder on OS X 10.5+? I have a jar file containing a swing application that needs to run on Windows, OS X and Linux. At the moment, Windows users are launching it from explorer, and Linux/OS X users are running a shell script to launch the jar.

However, I suspect the shell script is probably not necessary in OS X. I don't own an OS X machine myself, but Wikipedia says that Jar Launcher will run the jar file when it's double clicked.

Is it reasonable to assume this is always present on an OS X system with 10.5 or above?

The Apple supplied java implementation comes installed with Mac OS 10.5 and 10.6 and .jar files are associated with the jar launcher application. As long as the java application starts right into a swing interface it should open without any problems.

On Mac OS 10.7 Lion however the java runtime is not installed by default and users trying to launch .jar files will be greeted with a dialog asking them to install java to continue (which requires admin privileges).

Officially the apple supplied java runtime is depreciated so you can't count on it working in any future version of mac os x


Xcode 7.1.1 very slow and laggy I updated to the newest Xcode version 7.1.1 in the hope, that the performance will be better. But no, performance is much worse again.

When typing a word, an indexer starts immediately and CPU is on max. In general there is mostly a process running full, even I am doing nothing. There are no other apps open, but the CPU is mostly running. (mdworker, WindowServer, Xcode, SourceKitService…)

I already disabled Spotlight from indexing my source code.

Are there any hints, tutorials or the like to tune OS X and Xcode, so it will be more performant.
I am using Swift as programming language.

Disable autocomplete, that should help.
Xcode -> Preferences -> Text Editing
"Suggest completions while typing" - uncheck it.
If you feel your Xcode is still sluggish, disable the other options, too. You may want to keep "Turn on Use Escape key to show completion suggestions" on just incase you need some hints occasionally.


Does windows installed via bootcamp only have access to the partitioned part of the HD? If I have a resized OS X partition of 500GB on my 750GB HD (250GB unallocated free space), and I install Windows 7 through bootcamp on a 300GB partition, can I partition the 250GB free space on my HD from Windows? or can I only work with the 300GB that was partitioned for it through bootcamp?

You should be able to create a new partition within Windows 7, windows can see the whole disk, it can even access the files from you OS X partition using tools such as Paragon HFS+


How can I block the News app on iOS? I need to block the app. Which domain names does it use? Can I use content restriction like Safari? Can I block the IP addresses in my router?

If you want to prevent usage of the app completely, you can enable restrictions (Settings > General > Restrictions) and turn off the toggle for News.

iOS 10 also lets you delete default apps like News, but keep in mind that it could be re-downloaded from the App Store (unless you enable the restriction for Installing Apps too).


What happened to icloud.com/activationlock page? I'm working in a pawnshop and when people attempt to sell or pawn an iDevice, I used to check its serial number or IMEI in icloud.com/activationlock. Now, without that tool, I'm concerned about activated phones that bypassed the activation lock with third party solutions.

Once a co-worked bought an iPhone 5 with iOS 7 apparently without iCloud account, when she tried to reset the phone, the activation lock asked for the owner's Apple ID, then I found the Apple's official tool to check phones IMEI and since, it has been very useful.

First, I want to know why Apple got rid of that page? And there is another alternative to check the activation lock status of an iDevice?

Apple removed it.  It was being used as part of a hack (a very detailed hack) to allow people to get around Activation Lock.


Is there a way to make the iPad stay in the App Store when you buy an app? This has infuriated me since I got my iPad. If I am buying multiple Apps the iPad takes me to my Desktop after I buy each app, meaning I have to go back to the app store.

Is there a way to tell it to stay in the appstore when I buy an app?

There is no official way to do so, but if you've jailbroken your iPad, you can use StayOpened. It's a Cydia Tweak and I can highly recommend it. It does exactly what you want.


Git autocompletion is not working with homebrew Here is my setup:

brew install git bash-completion
Warning: git-2.1.3 already installed
Warning: bash-completion-1.3 already installed

In .bash_profile:

if [ -f $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion ]; then
    . $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion
fi

But I still don't have autocompletion for git commands. (I used macports before, but completely removed it because I couldn't get git commands to autocomplete no matter what I tried.)

I am on OSX 10.10

For Yosemite, after I upgraded to git 2.1.3 with homebrew, this worked in my .profile file (.bash_profile or similar would work, too):

# git tab completion (homebrew)
if [ -f `brew --prefix`/etc/bash_completion.d/git-completion.bash ]; then
    . `brew --prefix`/etc/bash_completion.d/git-completion.bash
fi

I used to have git-prompt.sh there, but changing it to git-completion.bash worked for me.  ymmv.


Keyboard's light is not working When I press the F5/F6 button, the HUD shows a decreasing/increasing bar related to the keyboard's brightness (image).

So far so good… The problem is: the keyboard stays completely dark, no light is emitted from the keyboard, even though the bar is moving when I press the keys F5 and F6.

I've already tried to reset PRAM and SMC but it didn't fix my problem. What should I do?

If you go to Keyboard in System Preferences, there is a check box titled "Adjust keyboard brightness in low light".  If that is turned off, does your problem still present itself?


Why does StorageManagement keep quitting whenever I want to look at storage? So recently I have been noticing that I have lost about 12 GB of storage randomly. Of course, I loaded up Daisy Disk and try to find the issue (with no luck unfortunately), so I decided to see what I could do with the Apple Storage Managment features.

So I headed over to Apple -> About This Mac -> Storage to look at the summary. I see the following screen:

A few seconds later, this pops up:

The Storage panel keeps on "calculating", and I cannot use the default functions provided in Manage Storage. Does anyone know how to fix this? I am on a MacBook Pro Mid-2014 on macOS Sierra 10.12.5

Reindex the Spotlight Index by following these steps:

Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences, then click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag the folder or disk that you want to index
again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from
searching. Or click the Add (+) button and select the folder or disk
to add.

To add an item to the Privacy tab, you must have ownership permissions for that item. To learn about permissions, choose Help from the Finder menu bar, then search for “permissions.”

From the same list of locations, select the folder or disk that you just
added. Then click the Remove (–) button to remove it from the list.
Quit System Preferences. Spotlight will reindex the contents of the
folder or disk.

From: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716


How can I delete icons from the 6th generation iPod nano? Is this even possible?  I will never use like 90% of them and I'd like to hide them.

Update: With the new update from Apple (v1.2), it is now possible to remove icons that you don't use, and to change the size of the icons.  Under Settings->General->Home Screen you can show/hide individual icons.

I don't believe that you can delete the icons.  You can rearrange them.  I moved the ones I'm not interested in to the last screens so they are mostly out of the way.

The User Guide explains how to do this.


No apple news app after the mojave upgrade I followed the steps to get a pirated version of mojave beta upgrade and everything is working fine except I don't see the much talked about apple news app, although other apps like voice memos, stocks and home are there. Its not a deal breaker but would like to know how to get it. Can't find it on the app store either.

You will want to delete the pirate copies of the installer and re-try a clean erase install from an image you get from Apple directly.

Once that's done, consider that once the app is installed, it may be blocked or not work in most regions.

  The News app is available in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT202329

Make sure you're in a region where the app is available, or have the region of macOS set to one of these regions.


Color profile for projector messed up after Lion upgrade Yesterday I finally decided to upgrade to Lion from Snow Leopard on my 27" iMac (mid-2010 quad i7 model) and overall everything went fine, there is just one thing that bugs me.

Prior to the upgrade Snow Leopard had automagically chosen a color profile for my projector (Optoma HD100X) which I have connected to the Mini-DP port via a Mini-DP-to-HDMI adapter. This color profile worked great with the projector.

After the upgrade the projector is using a different color profile which appears to have significantly lower quality output. Cyan and light blue colors look washed out, magenta, red and yellow all trend toward more brownish tones and I can't quite pin it down but it feels like something is just wrong with the contrast and gamma.

I've tried calibrating the profile and I've tried tweaking the settings on my projector, even tried using other color profiles but somehow something just seems "off", like the mac is now forcing output into a smaller color gamut.

Has anyone heard of similar problems with Lion? Has anyone managed to fix problems like this?

Yes, I'm having exactly the same problem. Check System Preferences > Displays > Color, and see if you have more than one identically-named profile. A possible workaround for this problem is to select another profile and then the original one.


My MacBook won't recognize my external hard drive (Passport - that I use to back up the Mac!) I'm not techie at all.
But I manage the basics.

I've always backed up my MacBook (2009) on a Passport.  I just plug it in while the Mac is connected to power source & click the icon & it backs up.

Tonight - the Mac doesn't even see the Passport?

I have tried & tried.

The computer has been acting up in strange ways (not connecting to internet, lots of "spinning wheel of death", slow to open apps & slow to change apps) so now I am terrified.

Help?

By "Passport," I am assuming that you are referring to a Western Digital external drive, which you have been using to perform regular backups. I'm guessing that by "backups," you have been using Time Machine.

Considering that this is a new issue, it is fair to say that the external drive has been formatted correctly for use with Mac OSX (i.e., Mac OS Extended (Journaled)). FYI, if you wanted to confirm the File System, then you can use the Disk Utility to display Info about the drive.

The first rule of troubleshooting is to obtain a known working device, which you can substitute to test and narrow down where the problem lay. So in this case, get access to another external hard drive (perhaps from a friend), and see if it can be accessed.

However, you observe physical issues with your MacBook, such as "spinning noise" and it being unresponsive (slow). Unfortunately, this is a classic symptom that the hard drive within the MacBook is failing. Again FYI, if you wish to inspect the processes on your system to potentially identify other issues, then use the Activity Monitor.

Assuming that the hard drive within the MacBook needs to be replaced, the good news is that the Time Machine backup on the Passport can be used to restore your system after the repair.


Can you turn the pages of an ebook on your iPad with your iPhone? Can you use your iPhone as a remote control for your iPad, to turn the pages of an ebook? How so?

There is feature described in documentation Use Switch Control on your device to control another Apple device. Is it capable to deliver desired result?


How can I disable the eject key on my mac keyboard? I have a Das Keyboard for Mac that includes an eject key just to the right of the backspace key and to the left of the home key. I never need to use it, and it accidentally press it constantly which causes my CD tray to open. It's really annoying.

Is there anyway to disable this key?

If there's a way to keep the key's other functionality that's accessed by holding various modifiers (for example controlshifteject to put the display to sleep) that would be great. However if there only method disables the key entirely, I'm okay with that.

Note that I'm using Sierra so using Karabiner is not an option.

I created an app, PowerKey, that allows you to remap the Power and Eject keys on Mac keyboards.

Pick a key replacement such as Forward Delete, or use No Action to disable the key entirely.

You can also launch Apple Scripts or bash scripts via the key.

https://github.com/pkamb/PowerKey

https://github.com/pkamb/PowerKey


How can I figure out which keychain entries a process wants access to I'm getting really tired of seeing this:

As I understand it, ubd (the Ubiquity daemon) is responsible for the “Documents and Data” portion of iCloud's syncing. However, all of my iCloud-related data are in a separate, non-locking keychain.

How can I tell which keychain entries a particular process is trying to access? Failing that general case, does anybody know which keys specifically ubd needs access to?

First with any Keychain question/problem, run Keychain First Aid, found under the Keychain Access menu.

It is to be hoped you also check the option to Show Keychain Access in menubar, for quick access to all.


Getting Around Alpha Bug for Preview in Sierra 10.12.2 I'm running into the problem accurately described here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4229655?start=0&tstart=0

Summary: I take a JPG image, use a selection tool to remove the background so that it will be transparent, and then save the image as a PNG. The image background is represented as black, instead of transparent.

The link there shows that it's a "color profile" bug - is there a correct color profile that supports transparency?

It seems to depend on how the image was made in the first place, & what its current background is set to.

Testing with the example given in comments I see the same behaviour as the OP when using Preview.
Even in Photoshop the same thing happens... unless I turn the image into an unlocked layer first. After that, erasing will then erase to transparent.

I've tested with other images made in photoshop with transparency, then saved as jpg. I also checked converting the jpg to png first, before testing.
It seems Preview is not the only app which will knock out to a predetermined colour, Photoshop will do the same, unless first converted to a separate layer. [In Photoshop you get the choice of which colour, but 'transparent' isn't an option.]

I'd say therefore, it's not a bug, it's intended behaviour; a limitation of a single-layered image.

I see no way round this except to use a dedicated graphics package, like Photoshop or Gimp.


Embedding AppleScript inside a Bash -- getting Error I'm fiddling with bash for the first time and trying to get something simple to work.

#!/bin/bash
    while true ; do
    osascript <<EOF
        tell application "System Events"
            tell every desktop
                set picture to "/Users/bill/Desktop/bckg_changer/ARM_1885.jpg"
            end tell
        end tell
    EOF
done

When I execute this file from the command line, it throws:

Bills-iMac-4:test bill$ ./test.sh
./test.sh: line 11: syntax error: unexpected end of file

I found this question, and the formatting and structure is similar - so not sure what is missing.

The picture changing script itself works - it's when I add the while loop that the end of file error is thrown.

Caveat

I know this script doesn't make sense - the idea was to have a continuous loop, that would revert the desktop picture to the jpg if it was subsequently changed in the System Preferences.  Obviously a poor choice of methods and resource use...  :-)

change

osascript <<EOF

to

osascript <<-EOF

The - lets you indent the terminating EOF.


Pending Update will fail in High Sierra I have just updated my os to High Sierra after a format. Through the App Store app, a version update was required (namely macOS High Sierra 10.13 Supplemental Update) so I did it.

Then as it was installing I encountered the following error,

The path /System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg appears to be missing or damaged

I tried to fix it using some details from here. However the find command couldn't locate the missing file. For the record I entered all the commands in the aforementioned post.

So I went trying some stuff (which I don't quite remember) and somehow I managed to boot my computer normally (boots in the update resulted in a continuous update loop that I managed to exit). And now I have the same update pending in my App Store and of course I want to execute it.

Now, I wouldn't want to fall back to the bad update situation so I was thinking maybe to download the update again.

How can I delete the files from the bad update?

Is this strategy going to make any difference?

(running on a MacBook Pro 15-inch 2016)

Try downloading the update from Apple's website rather than through the App Store, and installing from that package.