LaunchDaemon assistance I have the following .sh script that deletes Sierra, upon download, from the App store. This applies to any user on mac osx 10.10 or 10.11.

However can someone add the code so that the app (sierra.app) actually deletes as soon as it starts downloading as opposed to when its finished downloading which is what it presently does.

In addition the osascript display message does not display once it has deleted. How can I get that to work?

Here is the script.

#!/bin/bash

Version=$(sw_vers | grep ProductVersion | tail -c 7 | cut -d . -f 2)

if [[ $Version -ge 12 ]]
then
launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.infor.sierra.plist
rm -f /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.infor.sierra.plist
rm -f /usr/local/bin/sierra.sh
exit 0

else
rm -rf /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/
osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to display dialog "macOS sierra is not allowed on computers at this time." with title "Technology Notice" buttons {"OK"} default button "OK" giving up after 30'
fi

Here is the plist.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com    /DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>net.infor.sierra.plist</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/usr/local/bin/sierra.sh</string>
</array>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<dict>
<key>PathState</key>
<dict>
    <key>/Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</dict>
<key>OnDemand</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

not really an answer, but maybe a hint as to where to go next...

To catch it earlier, you'd have to intercept it at the download folder. I'd guess the folder name will be different for everybody - mine is at
/private/var/folders/nc/c83zpk8x7kd9qrxrd3nnbfym0000gn/C/com.apple.appstore

You can find it from the App Store app > Debug > Show Download Folder... if you enable the debug menu with
defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true


Mac OS X runaway process: AuthBrokerAgent I'm trying to pinpoint the problem with a runaway process on my Mac (Lion 10.7.2) and I have a hard time finding any kind of info about that process on the Internet. It is simply called AuthBrokerAgent. I would like to know what is its function.

I'm not a developer and I didn't installed the developer tools on my Mac.

Thanks a lot!

P.S. I've already started a thread on Apple Community forum.

Problem solved. The AuthBrokerAgent is responsible for handling proxy credentials. If the credentials of a proxy setup are improperly stored (for example in one's keychain) then the AuthBrokerAgent can runaway.

More details and context on a follow-up posted on Apple Community forum, but the solution was to clear out bad user/passwords from the keychain and use Safari to re-ented the correct user/pass for the web proxy and check the box to have Safari save the password in the keychain.


Unlocking encrypted APFS volume I have a Mac and a user account with admin privileges. Someone else created another apfs volume (not startup drive) encrypted with FileVault. I do not know the recovery key. As an admin, how can I obtain this key?

For non-startup drives, the disk is encrypted with a single password and is not linked to a user account or iCloud, nor does it generate a backup key. Admin users are required to enter the same encryption password as any other user.

The best suggestion would be to ask the other person to unlock the drive or give you the drive password, which they may or may not be inclined to do.


MacBook Pro QWERTY replacement It is a well known story about the origin of the QWERTY keyboard. For those who don't know what I am talking about: QWERTY is built on purpose to be not easy to type.

I figured that no one stops me from rearranging my keyboard to one of the more efficient layouts.

Before I do that, any advice or warning?

In 10.7 Apple provides keyboard layouts for Colemak and 4 versions of Dvorak for your typing pleasure.  You can activate them in system preferences/language & text/input sources.

Best to go to system preferences/users and groups/login options and make sure the box is checked for "Show Input Menu on Login Page" if you activate additional layouts.


How do I remove all the tags at once from the Finder sidebar? I have nearly 1,500 tags. Somehow, they are all marked to appear in the sidebar. My MacBook Pro is 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 with 16GB of memory, but it still takes 7 seconds for Finder to remove just one of them via Finder Preferences. Is there anyway to remove all of the tags from the sidebar using Terminal or by some other means? I do not want to delete them, just remove them from the sidebar. Thanks!

To remove all Tags at once, from the Sidebar in Finder, uncheck Recent Tags under Tags in the Sidebar preferences in Finder:

Finder > Preferences... > Sidebar > Tags > uncheck Recent Tags

This stops Tags from appearing in the Sidebar in Finder without deleting the Tags that have been set.


Taking unlocked iPhone 4 to Canada? I am visiting Canada (Vancouver, BC) this coming week from the UK and have an unlocked iPhone 4 (bought SIM-free from Apple).

What are the best options for buying a pre-paid SIM that will give me some data (around 500Mb) whilst I'm away?

I already had a SIM cutting tool to make micro-SIM cards from standard SIM cards.

Jack

Vancouver is the home territory of Telus, so they're probably your best bet. All three of our major carriers (Rogers, Telus and Bell) support GSM and carry the iPhone 4, so you should be fine.

The only Telus pre-paid data plan in BC appears to be $20 for 250MB, http://www.telusmobility.com/en/BC/prepaid/rates.shtml

Rogers has a $45/month pre-paid, includes 500MB, that looks decent, http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/plans


Disable or Mute Trash Sound How can I disable the sound when deleting a file from Finder in OS X Mountain Lion?

I do not see any specific mention of it under System Preferences or Finder Preferences. I don't want to disable other sounds; just that one.

The sound file for moving an item to the trash is located here:

Go to your HD > System > Library > Components > CoreAudio.component (right click and choose "Show Package Contents") > Contents > SharedSupport > SystemSounds > dock > "drag to trash.aif"

This "drag to trash.aif" is the sound file responsible for the audio effect.

Back up the current file just incase and replace it with a silent one (a quick google search will do - you might need to get the silent file as mp3 and then convert it to aif).

You may need to restart for it to take effect.


What is the purpose of "~/.adobe" directory? I was cleaning my home directory and found hidden .adobe folder with two files in it:

md5 containing only one line "F894CEFB…"
userid containing also one line "424E8…"

I deleted whole folder and whole Adobe Creative Suite seems to work. Does anybody know what are these files for? Where does userid comes from?

This answer in a discussion on Slashdot suggests this folder is not related to your Creative Suite installation, but to Adobe Flash. I have it too, and the files in it are two years old. A candidate for deletion!


How can I use my iPhone as a microphone to my Windows laptop? My Windows laptop has a shoddy microphone. I can connect my iPhone to my laptop via USB; I'm not asking about Bluetooth. I fancy speaking to my phone's audio input as if it were a mic.

You'll need a "microphone app" to be able to do that. That could for example be the "Wo Mic" or the "Ez-Mic" apps:

https://wolicheng.com/womic/

https://www.ez-mic.com


iCal events on the desktop; Dashboard widgets vs. GeekTool vs.? Over the last few years I've become very dependent on the Amnesty Widget Browser and a little Dashboard widget called "iCal Events" to embed a well-styled list of upcoming iCal events into my desktop background. The beauty of the system is that the information is staring me in the face -- I don't have to go anywhere special or take a special action to see my diary.

Both Amnesty and iCal Events are long-abandoned, but I've managed to keep them limping along. The limping is becoming rather bad in Lion, though. I was able to modify the Javascript in iCal Events to let it access my iCloud calendars, but I can no longer move or resize the window it creates, and I can't assign it to "all" desktops under Mission Control. The whole thing feels a bit too fragile now, and I need a modern solution.

I've tried GeekTool and NerdTool, and both offer straightforward ways to get iCal events displayed on the desktop. The trouble is that the output from both is too ugly to look at daily! Fonts and colors can be customized, but I want CSS-level control: spacing and placement, varying colors and shapes depending on the type of information displayed.

I see three possible solutions:

A modern way to embed Dashboard widgets into the desktop in Lion.
A way to style GeekTool output more elaborately than just changing the font
Another solution to getting my iCal Events "in my face" that I haven't considered.

(I am aware that Dashboard can be run in a developer mode that allow one to drag apps out of the Dashboard itself. I've had several problems with this solution. First, the Dev mode doesn't embed the released widgets into the desktop, so when you use a gesture to sweep aside all the windows, the calendar is swept out of view too. Second, when you restart the computer, you have to drag the widget back out again -- it's not automatic.)

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

If you decide to look at new solutions, there are a handful of applications that can do this including Blotter and TimeWorks.

I prefer the slightly less in my face menubar solution that Fantastical provides.


Just changed with a PAC but wrote in my number first I just bought a iPhone 4s and I changed from tmobile to Vodafone using a PAC code. I am now waiting for my new service. However I wrote in my number on the settings>my number. Will this effect my network transfer?

No - the PAC code is related only to changing the number which routes to your SIM. The number you've entered into your phone isn't for anything other than as a reminder to yourself!


Mysterious folders that appeared in Documents on upgrade to Big Sur After upgrading to Big Sur today (from macOS 10.14 Mojave) on my 2018 MacBook Air 13", I found a number of unwelcome new folders had appeared in my Documents folder (when viewed with Finder).
These folders are:

GarageBand
Keynote
Numbers
Pages
Preview
QuickTime Player
TextEdit

Each one, except Preview and TextEdit, contains a single Alias file called "iChats". The Preview and TextEdit folders are empty. Needless to say, I cannot open the iChats files.
I do not want these folders, but I can't move them to somewhere else, unlike my own genuine folders: a circle with a slash through it appears if I try.
So I thought I would look using Terminal, but cd Documents and then ls -a shows only my own files and directories. These unwanted interlopers are nowhere to be seen.
Edit: Some more information:
Following the advice of Joy Jin, I dragged each folder onto a Terminal window, to see what was revealed. The folders appear in Terminal as follows (every path begins with
/Users/davidhoadley/Library/Containers/ - I have edited that text out of each item below:

... com.apple.garageband10/Data/Documents
... com.apple.iWork.Keynote/Data/Documents
... com.apple.iWork.Numbers/Data/Documents
... com.apple.iWork.Pages/Data/Documents
... com.apple.Preview/Data/Documents
... com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/Data/Documents

In answer to user3439894, yes, I can right-click and Move to Trash. But what then appears in the trash is the com.apple.(whatever)/Data/ folder, with several subfolders (i.e. not simply the folder from Documents that I described above). I do not know what these folders do, and I am afraid that if I delete them or send them to the trash, I will somehow adversely affect the running of the relevant applications.
So the folders appear to be some kind of link or alias. But they are not a unix-style hard link or a symbolic link, because they don't appear in the directory as seen from Terminal using the ls -a command.
So my question now becomes: is it safe to send them to the trash? And if anyone has any clues as to what the mechanism is that shows me these links/aliases/whatever they are, I would be most interested.

All of those folders could easily come from iCloud documents sync. You are correct to be cautious deleting them. I would be sure iCloud is signed out (or at least you don’t enable document sync) before trying to delete these.
We can’t really look at your iCloud settings, so a chat or call with Apple support would be prudent if you don’t see right away what happened to be sure you do not delete iCloud data.


How to get Siri to not call you by name Prior to setting a name in Siri, it does not call you by a name. For example ("I'm not sure what you said" rather than "I'm not sure what you said, insert name here"). So how do I revert to the behavior of not getting called a name after I have set one. There is no option to do that in Settings > General > Siri except changing to a different contact.

It's easy to make Siri forget your name by creating a sacrificial contact:

Open Contacts and tap the plus sign to create a new entry. Enter any text you like for the name. Tap 'Done'.
Open the Settings app and go to Siri's options under the 'General' tab. Tap on "My Info" and change the contact from you to the one you just created.
Go back to the Contacts app. Select the new contact, tap on 'Edit', scroll down until you see 'Delete Contact', and tap on it.

That's it—you're done. Siri's settings will now show "None" next to "My Info".


USB drive won't show up on boot I plugged the USB thumb drive in, booted my MacBook Pro (8,1) up and held the option key. My USB drive won't show up (I want to install Ubuntu). How to fix this?

As far as I know you can't install linux via bootcamp, its reserved for Windows, however you can create a bootable drive using the guides from help.ubuntu.com

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro8-2/Raring
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro8-2/Quantal


Copy/Paste from documents (PDF, docx) - weird behaviour of diacritics When I copy text from PDF (Preview) or Docx (Pages) with Czech characters, some of the Czech characters get copied with their accent "stuck" to them.

To make this even weirder, this behaviour is pretty inconsistent: Sometimes "ř" is copied well, sometimes it isn't. Also, it doesn't seem to be connected to specific font. But I think this happens more often with fonts, that are not native for OSX (such as Cambria, which happens to be MS Office default).

Result of CMD+C for "í": "í́"

Why is this happening?

Edit

OSX: 10.13.6 (although it happened to me on older OS and even other machines)
apps, I've copied the text from: Preview (PDF), Pages (doc, docx)
apps, where I've pasted the text to: anything (from Sublime text to text editor in StackExchange, see above)

Also, I've noticed that this happens often at the ends of words (possibly ends of lines). I will confirm this once it happens again, as the behaviour is frustratingly hard to reproduce.

Regarding copy/paste from pdf, treatment of non-ascii characters can be botched by the particular pdf creation process.  Without info on how your pdf files were generated, such as the encoding and the fonts used, it's hard to determine why the results are not correct.


App Review - Do they allow app names with question marks in? I have submitted my app to the app store 6 times and always been rejected because apparently the UIRequiredCapabilities key is not set correctly.

Well, I've tried many different combinations of things and cannot seem to figure it out and they are not helpful at all.

Doing more research today, I found this https://forum.ionicframework.com/t/apple-store-rejection-uirequireddevicecapabilities/57029/5

The chosen answer says that his issue was because his app name had a question mark in. Is this true, do Apple not allow question marks in the app's title?

My app has a question mark do obviously I would try that (even though it does ruin my app name), but I am a bit fed up of submitting and waiting so I figured it would be good for me and other people in the same situation to have a definitive answer.

EDITED with full rejection message:

Guideline 2.3 - Performance - Accurate Metadata

We were still unable to install the app on iPad and iPhone . The
UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities key in the Info.plist is set in such a way that
the app will not install on an iPad and iPhone.

Next Steps

To resolve this issue, please check the UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities key to
verify that it contains only the attributes required for your app features or
the attributes that must not be present on the device. Attributes specified by
a dictionary should be set to true if they are required and false if they must
not be present on the device.

I had the same issue with @user2397282 it was being rejected because my xcode project has question mark on my project. Had to remove all question marks for it to be accepted.


Safari (6) and HTTPS Is there any method to make Safari (6) trying to connect to a website with HTTPS connection and switch to HTTP if HTTPS is not supported?

(See HTTPS Everywhere for Firefox).

Not at the moment. According to the HTTPS Everywhere FAQ:

  Q. Will there be a version of HTTPS Everywhere for IE, Safari, Opera, or some other browser?

  A. Some members of our developer community are working on an IE port of HTTPS Everywhere. As of early 2012, the Safari extension API does not offer a way to perform secure rewriting of http requests to https.

Source: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere/faq


Use the power of the graphic card on a MacBook? Is there a way to use the processor of the graphic card on a new MacBook Pro to do some long and repetitive calculations?

Have you looked at CUDA (nVidia only) or OpenCL to do just this? Both technologies are made to leverage the GPU.


Can I update to OS X Mavericks if I get a new graphics card? I have a 2006 Mac Pro and have been wanting to update to OS X Mavericks but I can't because I have a Radeon X1900 graphics card and that is not supported any more by Apple. I have OS X 10.6.8 running so I have the software to upgrade it but the question is can I update to Mavericks if I get a supported graphics card? Do you think there might be other issues that would prevent me from being to update?

P.S. Yes my Mac Pro is 64-bit.

Which model of Mac Pro do you have? If it really is a 2006 model, that sounds like a MacPro1,1, which isn't supported after Lion (10.7) as it has 32-bit EFI even though its CPU(s) are 64-bit. The fact that you have a Radeon X1900, which was an option on the 2006 model, suggests that you may well be out of luck when it comes to upgrading.

Mavericks system requirements are here - as you can see, only early 2008 and later Mac Pros are supported. That said, if you're that way inclined, there are ways of getting Mavericks (and Yosemite, in fact) working on unsupported machines - see this guide, for example, or this guide from LowEndMac.

Basically, you need to use a modified EFI bootloader to boot the newer versions of the operating system. Should any of the earlier links expire, searching for "Tiamo boot.efi" should find an updated link. You will also need to replace your graphics card - newer versions of Mac OS no longer support the X1900.

You can confirm the exact model number by checking About this Mac -> More Info... and then verifying the Model Identifier. Basically

Update 2015-08-3: Add further detail, add Yosemite detail


When running a script from the scripts menu, where is console output captured? I have a shell script that I want to run from the scripts menu in the menu bar. (This is the menu that you can activate in the Script Editor preferences.) The script works when I run it from Terminal, but doesn't work when I run it from the scripts menu. To debug the problem, I'd like to see what error messages it's printing to the console — but I can't find the console output.

I haven't been able to find any output from my script anywhere in the Console app. Is there somewhere else I should be looking?

You can try typing your command and following it with 2> filename.txt. This will pipe the standard error (stderr) to the specified file.


How to receive iMessages sent to the iPhone on Mountain Lion I've just upgraded to iOS 6 and Mountain Lion 10.8.2

Since it should be one of the new features, I've successfully set up my iPhone and my iPad to receive iMessages, so that I can now read on the iPad what a friend of mine is writing to me on my phone number.

On iMessage I've set up the same, but adding my phone number to the list of "addresses" to receive from. It's been authorised correctly, but I don't see anything in iMessage while my friend writes to me, even if I'm able to see the messages on both the iPad and the iPhone.

How to set this u properly? Thanks :)

Open the messages app in Mountain Lion and choose Preferences from the Messages menu. Select the accounts option and then your iCloud Messages account.

You should see your phone number on the right with a check box to the left of it, make sure that it is checked. When it is, you will get a message on your phone saying that it has been enabled.


Chrome's location setting constantly disabled Whenever I open Google Chrome (including Chromium and Canary) on my Mac the location is set to off. So I must go to Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Location Services and set Canary's location setting on.
However, I'm not sure why Chrome's location setting is set to off whenever I quit the app. How can I make the location setting permanent?
I lock the key icon on the privacy setting once I checked on the Chrome's location setting but it didn't work... I use macOS 11.0.1 (updated to 11.2 now) and found this is true on multiple macs.

UPDATE
I found out that this problem happens on all Chrome variants. Also, this even happened while I'm running the app.

Not a solution, but perhaps a path to one....
Many people (including me) have this problem.
In another forum, a user (Sizmo_68) inspired me to wonder:
What if the abhorrent security preferences in macOS are remembering the version number (or similar) of each app that has location (or other preferences) enabled?  Then, when the app gets updated...poof, new version, and ... it no longer matches what's in the security database, so: no longer enabled.
If that's the case, we're out of luck until Apple admits the problem and fixes it.
As one other user pointed out, it's clearly a macOS problem (not a Chrome problem), because by implementation apps can't change the security preferences :)


How to access Console Device log in macOS via terminal macOS has Console app to view different logging activities. Console has a group Devices in the top left corner with the mac itself and connected devices such as iPhone. I would like to access mac device log via terminal. I need it to check logs of remote mac server without TeamViewer and any GUI interactions to do it faster using ssh. Is it possible?

log collect has --device/--device-name options.

--device Collect system logs from paired device (first device found).
--device-name name Collect system logs from paired device with the given name.
--device-udid UDID Collect system logs from paired device with the given UDID.

Collect some logs
log collect --device-name foo

wait, then ⌃C

Show the logs collected
log show --archive system_logs.logarchive


iTunes authorization for Home Sharing Recently got new iPhones.

Due to update issues, I'm having to use a different computer to sync 4 different devices.

I have Home Sharing turned on, so I have access to all the apps stored on iTunes on our original Home Computer.

I'm trying to transfer apps into my computer's iTunes from the Home Computer so I can place these apps on our new phones. However, almost every time I try to transfer an app that's available on the Home Computer, my computer says I'm not authorized.

I have 4 different accounts authorized on my iTunes.

I've read different responses and they say to deauthorize iTunes and then re-authorize it.

I think the problem may be that all of these apps were purchased by different family members. However, when I try to authorize the computer under the account I know purchased the app, I'm still told I'm not authorized.

The Home Sharing account is different than the accounts that purchased the apps, could that be the problem?

I'm just at a loss on how to fix this because it's not letting me transfer the apps from the Home Computer. Any suggestions?

I'm not sure whether your approach is fundamentally wrong, or not, but I've never done it that way - this has always been my approach

To get another user's purchase to that iTunes account, you need to go to Apps > App Store > [scroll right to the bottom] Purchased > Apps > [User Name]


How to disable automatic High Sierra download? I'm happy with my Sierra (10.12.6), but the macOS downloads High Sierra in the background automatically and it takes over 5 GBs of my SSD. Every time I delete High Sierra image from Applications it keeps redownloading itself. How can I stop this madness?

System Preferences → App Store and disable ‘Download newly available updates in the background’.


What do I do with an old, dead iPod? I have a third generation iPod classic from 2005 (20GB). Nothing catastrophic has happened to it, but it has sat in a box in the basement for the past two years. When it went into the box, it worked, but now when I push the power button, nothing happens. When I plug it in to a charger (even when I leave it for an extended period of time), I don't see anything happening.

Is there either

anything useful I can do with this device or the parts it contains,
anyone else who could benefit from my donating it to them, or
a responsible way to dispose of it?

Apple Recycling Program
You can recycle it and receive a 10% discount on a new iPod. This is not only profitable for you and apple, but also a responsible way of deposing it.

Apple often achieves a 90 percent recovery rate by weight of the original product.


Is there a way to cap the temperature so my wrist are not burning? Using a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
The heat of the place where the wrist are laying is annoying.

I cannot measure the temperature of this exact part but with the help of smcfancontrol I deduced that when the cpu is about 40~45°C this part is tolerable.

The parameters in the game are: Fan speed, CPU speed, Temperature.
Right now the fan speed is very low. Always inaudible.
I would like to trade the heat problem for more fan speed without compromising CPU speed.

Has somebody already adressed this issue ?

Try SMCFanControl for Mac.

It's what I use when my Mac gets too hot, it increases fan speed to cool the CPU and other components down pretty quickly.

You can set custom fan speeds by clicking the application's view on the menu bar (it will say something like 99°F 1199rpm) and clicking Preferences or Active Setting.


Place screenshots on Desktop on Display 2 How can I do to tell the system that every time that takes an screenshot place it on Desktop, but on Second Monitor?

It only must be placed on Display 1 when Display 2 won't be available.

I could never find a way to set this with a machine preference.  I ended up just creating a folder on my second monitor name "ScreenShots" and setting the default location for screenshots to that folder.  They will then save to that desktop and into that folder.

Change the default location to new folder on external monitor:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop/ScreenShots/

Restart the SystemUIServer to make it take affect:

killall SystemUIServer


Youtube full screen doesn't work properly on yosemite Since my macbook is a 13" model, I like to use my entire screen when watching YouTube. But a problem has started.

When my Firefox isn't in full screen, and I click the full screen button of my video, Firefox goes to full screen mode (opens a new desktop and goes to full screen) and then shows the video in full screen.
When my Firefox is already full screen, the video just opens in full screen as it should, but once I close the video, Firefox also goes out of full screen.

So I can't keep my Firefox in full screen if I want to watch videos in full screen. I can't keep it windowed if I want to watch full screen.

Also the constant going in and out of full screen of Firefox is insanely annoying since it takes a few moments for the animation to complete.

Anyone out there that has the same issues?

Just to confirm your observation on current version 38.01 of Firefox.

There are 2 types of full screen mode.

One is the Firefox it self in full screen mode. It will stay like that till you turn it off.

It does not look the same as the Video full screen. You can still see the Tabs. It is not correct that it will open the videos in full screen automatically, you still have to do that on the video it self.

The second mode is the Video full screen mode. It is controlled by the video player. In this mode the video takes truly the full screen and you do not see the tabs any more.

In full screen "video mode" all browser functions are disabled (not visible) thus you can not browse anyway.

Granted in your situation:

Firefox full screen -> Video full screen, when exiting video full screen also the Firefox it self will exit the full screen is what Firefox does currently.

That is (was) a known bug in Firefox.

One way it works better is to choose the Video player for YouTube.

Switch from the HTML5 player to the Flash Player.


How to upgrade OpenSSL in OS X? Today the heartbleed OpenSSL exploit was announced in the wild, which allows an attacker to surreptitiously detect and steal private server keys (allowing them to MitM and decrypt your encrypted data and steal passwords).  This affects OpenSSL versions including 1.0.1f which is the version on my up-to-date Mavericks computer Mac (because I used port/brew to install other software which updated my openssl without me realizing it):

$ openssl version
OpenSSL 1.0.1f 6 Jan 2014

This demonstrates I am not using the Mavericks version of OpenSSL:

$ which openssl
/opt/local/bin/openssl

OpenSSL released a fix today in 1.0.1g and I wonder how I can get this fixed version installed over my current version?

For what it's worth, I just used homebrew (http://brew.sh/):

brew update
brew install openssl
brew link --force openssl
openssl version -a

If one of the bad versions come up (1.0.1a-f), you can figure out which version of openssl you're using, this way:

which openssl

Often this is from /usr/bin. To make sure you get the updated version, drop a symlink into /usr/local/bin to point to the updated openssl, like this:

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1g/bin/openssl /usr/local/bin/openssl

As an alternative to that final step, some people replace the openssl in /usr/bin with a symlink to /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1g/bin/openssl (or whatever your version is):

mv /usr/bin/openssl /usr/bin/openssl_OLD
ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1g/bin/openssl /usr/bin/openssl

But this is known to cause problems with some more recent versions of OSX.  Better to just insert a new symlink into /usr/local/bin, which should take precedence on your path over /usr/bin.


hdiutil attach -shadow not working This question is for those of you familiar with command-line tools and disk images. I'm stumped!

Previously, I could mount a read-only disk image with a "shadow" file to make it read-write using this command:

hdiutil attach "someDiskImage.dmg" -shadow "someShadowFile.dmg"

However, on Catalina (macOS 10.15) this doesn't work. I'm not sure why or whether it is related to the OS version. Here is the output I get:

-> ls -al

total 391168
-rw-r--r--@ 1 myname  admin  188484680 Nov  7  2018 example.dmg
-rw-r--r--  1 myname  admin   11767808 Nov  7  2018 example.dmg.shadow

-> hdiutil attach -shadow example.dmg.shadow example.dmg

Usage:  hdiutil attach [options] <image>
        hdiutil attach -help

->

Can anyone help me figure this out? Is -shadow just broken on Catalina? Thanks. Also, can you verify if you can reproduce this issue?

Alas, it seems that either macOS has changed the format of .shadow files in a breaking way, or that my .shadow files are corrupted (hundreds of them) without any corruption to the DMGs themselves (hundreds of them, all with checksums that match). I'm going to guess it's the first option. Nonetheless, the usage message only shows when mounting with these specific shadow files. When I create new shadow files, the disk images mount just fine.


Latex formatting on iMessage? I was wondering,

is it possible to allow for simple latex formatting on iMessage?
At least for just greek letters, it shouldn't be too different from the emoticons support.

It is actually possible to send arbitrarily complex LaTeX formulae with the help of LaTeXiT. The trick is fairly simple:

Enter the LaTeXiT preferences and, in the first tab, set the export
format as PNG. I also suggest to set the Scale to 250%, but this is a matter of taste.
Type a LaTeX formula in iMessage (not need to put the dollars)
Highlight the text, go to the iMessage -> Services menu and choose any of the LaTeXiT services (for instance, the "Display" one)
Ta-dah! After few seconds, your Tex code will be converted into a PNG image, ready to be sent through iMessage!

PS: In case you don't see the service in the menu, go to your system preference and activate it:


In Numbers, how can I sum only if adjacent cell is certain value? In excel, as shown here, it is possible to find and sum only cells with have a specific value next to them.

Is there a way to do a similar thing in numbers?

Specifically, I have a very long table like this:

Type of Job | Amount Earned
------------+--------------
Labour      | 10
Labour      | 15
Office      | 27
Labour      | 10
Tutoring    | 20
Labour      | 5
Office      | 24
Tutoring    | 20

And I'd like to find out how much money I've made from jobs of type Labour, Office and Tutoring separately. I can't just sum the Amount Earned column, because that would only give me the total of all Job Types, instead I want their totals separately.

Any help appreciated!

I found out that you can use the SUMIF function to accomplish this:

SUMIF(test-range, condition, sum-range)


What are the consequences of using a low-wattage USB-C power supply with a MacBook Pro? This question pertains to USB-C not MagSafe. MagSafe negotiates available power with the Dallas 1-wire protocol. USB Power Delivery (PD) is an unrelated protocol. Answers based on experience with MagSafe are unlikely to be relevant.

I'm considering buying a 2016 MacBook Pro Retina about which this article says:

  the Griffin product was only powerful enough to offer 60W of power, not quite enough for the 87W needed to power the larger Pro models at fully

I'm also considering buying a LG 27UD88-W which it advertised as providing:

  Mobile / Laptop Charging Up to 60W

What are the consequences of using a 60W supply instead of an 87W one?

Does it just mean it will take longer to charge the laptop?

Could it have side effects such as putting parts of the system into a slower, low-energy mode?

This question covers MagSafe power supplies but Charles Duffy's comment suggests that the rules for USB-C may be different.

Apple partnered with LG to create a 4K monitor that outputs 60W via USB-C. Apple has mentioned full compatibility with a 13" MacBook Pro (comes with 61W power adapter) but mentioned that with a 15" MacBook Pro, the battery will get drawn during intensive power usage and therefore it should be connected to its 87W power adapter. No mention of any dangers in doing this.


Latest max spec MBP15" idle temperatures Please take a look at my thread with all the tests and troubleshooting done on Adobe's forum: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2464657

Also, the screenshot while writing this post - Safari's 17 tabs, Slack, Airmail, Messages, TickTick and Spotify - had this "setup" opened in 93' Windows 3.1 and didn't hear any problems ;)

Should I send back the MBP to Apple? What're your idle/non-idle temps? How often fans go crazy?

It was few hundreds bucks cheaper in this chain store. Apple guy from other shop told me the chain stores get worse manufacturing batches often.

If you're not satisfied with the computer, and you can return it for a full refund - that seems like a good choice while you figure out what you want to do instead. This is no indication in itself however, that there's anything wrong with the computer hardware.

Besides that your question and the accompanying forum threads seems to be incoherent:

1) You experience high CPU load when using Lightroom. This is shown with screenshots of Activity Monitor showing high CPU load for Lightroom.

This is due to the programming of Lightroom. It is not a hardware error (!).

The posters on the forum saying that this is a cooling error are wrong. If the system was sensing a cooling problem and artifically making the CPU load higher due to this, it would have been attributed to kernel_task and not Lightroom.

2) You write that you were using the same setup in '93. This doesn't ring true as services such as Slack and Spotify did not exist in 93, nor was tabbed browsing a thing... heck you would have been using Mosaic or similar at that time.

3) As far as I know, chain stores get the exact same products as any other Apple vendor. There's no such thing as low-quality Apple batches being sold at chain stores at discount - at least nothing official. It might be that specific demo units or defective units can be sold as one-offs by a chain store, but they would have to advertise it as such. Advertising them as the real thing would be false advertising.

4) It is unclear, but it seems your problem is that your hear fan noise when you think you're not really doing anything with the computer. Try starting the computer up in Recovery mode (hold down Cmd and R while booting the Mac). If you hear excessive fan noise here while the computer is running known good software and not doing anything, that would be an indication of hardware failure.


iMessage issue contacts Why does my iMessage display, "other + (the number)
Example:

It is likely that either you do not have this phone number in your contacts so the default for an unknown number is other or if you look at the phone number in your contacts for this person, you have the phone number set to other.

There are several descriptions, home, work, iPhone, etc. You are able to set these in contacts.


What’s this bar under my keyboard? I’m running iOS 11.1 public beta. There’s a strange bar which appears under my keyboard, regardless of where I’m typing. The attached screenshot shows an example. What is this? It doesn’t seem to do anything.

It appears to be the 'home' button/swipe area for the iPhone X.  Because there is no Home button, Apple added a section of the screen for swiping up to access 'Home' as well as unlocking the iPhone.

It will have no use to you or anyone else who isn't on an iPhone X.  As clarified in the comments by @grgarside, the fact that you can see it at all (on a non-iPhone X) is due to a bug in the iOS 11.1 beta.

Here's an image of the iPhone X and you can see the Home bar at the bottom of the screen.


single track on disk showing as multiple iTunes entries, how to clean it up? If I 'show in finder' on the "duplicate" then both entries in iTunes point to the same track, how do I clean this up, preferably for the entire library as I've seen a few instances of this

Go to View → Show Duplicate Items. Then, sort the list by date added and remove the most recently added duplicates so the originals remain.

For more information on removing duplicates, see the Apple KB article:

How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library


How to find image compression type used in PDF? I don't know how to find the image compression type used in a PDF on my Mac.

I've tried Adobe Acrobat Pro, but the "Document Properties" box does not show any data regarding compression.

The 'compression type' (e.g. JPG, PNG, TIFF…) can vary from image to image within the PDF document, which is why it's not shown in the general document properties. Instead, use the Preflight function to analyse all document pages and get a list of page objects including every single embedded image and its compression/encoding method.

Steps (based on Acrobat Pro XI):

In the right-hand Tools column, go to "Print Production" and click "Preflight".
In the Preflight dialog window, go to the tab "Profiles" and expand the list of profiles under "PDF Analysis".
Choose the profile "List page objects grouped by type of object", then click the 'Analyse' button and wait until the process ends.
In the 'Results' tab, expand the line "Overview", then "Images", then expand the image infos by page number and colour mode (CMYK, RGB, Grey/Black). Double-clicking the page-entry line highlights the image on the document page.


How to get current user SID in Mac OS X For my application purpose, I want to get the user information from Active Directory. Especially I want to get current user SID and user account domain SID. Can anyone tell me some way to get this user information?

PS: Any approach is highly preferable (e.g. by running terminal commands or getting the user information from Objective C code).

In the shell you may use the command dsmemberutil to get at least the user SID:

Example to get the SID of a user by username:

% dsmemberutil getsid -U username


Completely disable autocomplete in Mac Mail I use mail 8.2 on OS X 10.10.  Due to new corporate policy at my office, no autocompletion is allowed in e-mail clients (except maybe for address fetching from the corporate address book via exchange: it's not clear).

Is it possible to disable either autocompletion entirely, or the addition of people to the autocompletion list?

May be this discussion will help you:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6861390?start=0&tstart=0


Why does my terminal open with "Basic" settings I have a laptop running OS X 10.9.2 and 10.7.5.

On both I use Terminal extensively.

I have Terminal set up open with Homebrew settings on startup on both 10.7 and 10.9.  The issue occurs when I close all open tabs and Terminal windows with ⌘ + w, so that the app is still running but there are no windows visible.

The behaviour of Terminal on 10.7.5 is as I would expect. When I open a new window with ⌘+n the new terminal window opens with "Homebrew" settings.

The behaviour with 10.9.2 is not what I would expect (maybe I need to have it explained).  Again if all windows are closed but Terminal is left active and I start a new window using ⌘+n the new window has "Basic" settings instead of "Homebrew". I have checked this behaviour and it is consistent on both a MBP and Mini I have running with Maverics.

Is this behaviour normal?

If so, is there a way to modify it, so that Maverics behaves like 10.7?

You probably just missed a setting. The "Default" button makes whatever you have selected in the Preferences menu the default.

(Selected in red)

I do find it kind of annoying that you can't set Terminal to just open with the default settings, so you have to change it in two places. edit - turns out I'm completely wrong, it does change the Startup automatically if you change the default. I guess I had the same problem as OP :P


Activate some menu using single key without pressing enter I want to minimize number of keystrokes to access menu items. One needs to press enter after activating some menu using keyboard. Is it possible to open the menu items in a menu without pressing enter?

Keyboard Maestro can do this using a macro such as this:


Is it possible for only a part of the HD of my MacBook to not work properly? My MacBook suddenly crashed yesterday. On startup, the computer would always shut down after a few seconds. I used ⌘ Command R to go into Disk Utility from Recovery HD to see what the problem was and the partition with OS X (Yosemite) could not be verified. I have 2 partitions one named BOOTCAMP (for Windows) and the other Macintosh HD (for OS X). The Windows partition was working properly.

On clicking repair for Macintosh HD I got a message saying the disk could not be repaired due to "error code 8". I formatted the disk and tried to reinstall the OS but I got an error saying that "file system verify or repair failed".

I was told that a possible solution is to go to single-user mode and type fsck -fy as that repairs the disk. I did that and there were no problems detected however I still could not install the OS and I was getting the same error. I then went back to Disk Utility and removed the Macintosh HD partition. I thought that since the BOOTCAMP partition was working I could try splitting the Macintosh HD partition into smaller partitions and see if there was an error in them.

I split the available free space into 4 smaller partitions and verified each of them; only one of them had a problem. The others were working perfectly. I then played around with the partitions and I now have a partition of around 250 GB that works properly with Yosemite installed and a chunk of free space (that was previously occupied by the partitions that was not working) and the partition for BOOTCAMP (Windows).

So I solved the problem I was initially facing but my question is will this affect my MacBook or my data negatively in any way? Also was the problem caused because of a hard disk failure?

Typically, if you have a spinning hard disk drive (not an SSD or Solid State Drive) and there is a physical problem with the drive, you will get the symptoms you have described. So the first answer to your question is: yes, it is possible for only one part of a hard drive to malfunction. This has been, for me, the more frequent kind of problem, often accompanied by clicks or repetitive noises emanating from the drive itself. This may appear in the OS as one or more unreadable files (if they are in a document or user file), stuttering performance (depending on how unreadable the media is), or strange behavior by the OS (if a system file is located on a damaged portion of the disk).

You should back up all of your data immediately. Your disk is failing and is no longer reliable. Typically, a disk with a physical continues to accumulate physical faults. Drives get more bad sectors over time, not fewer.


Create bootable drive from command line New with 10.9 is the ability to easily create a bootable drive from the installer that is downloaded from the App Store, with a single command createinstallmedia in the Terminal.  This link at MacWorld has details.

I encountered a problem with this, with an Error -9999 when trying to erase the USB drive I had inserted.

The error occurred while booted into 10.6.8; but since that particular computer also has a 10.8 partition, I booted from it and tried the same command with the same USB drive.  It was able to erase and create the boot drive successfully.

Don't know how widespread this problem is; but, if this occurs to someone else who does not have the newer OS available to boot into, I'm wondering if there is any other way to fix the error; or if the Disk Utility methods of creating the boot drive will need to be used.

This is a temporary issue in that running the script from an OS older than 10.9 seems to error out.

Can you take your image to a Machine that's already updated to run the script? You'd need two USB drives unless you're OK erasing the one holding the download before you know the script works.


What are the drawbacks to reformatting my hard drive back to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from APFS I am concerned about not being able to use Time Machine to back up my drive. I've been told that was due to my disk being formatted as APFS. What must be done to return my Mac to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Will this solve the sudden stopping of Time Machine?  Is there a better way to get Time Machine working on my computer.

I have an older iMac running High Sierra.

The external drive used to store Time Machine backups must be formatted with HFS+, also known as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If the external drive is formatted with APFS, it cannot be used for storing Time Machine backups.

The internal drive in your Mac used to contain the macOS operating system can be formatted with either APFS or HFS+. Both choices will support backing that computer up with Time Machine.

If your computer was automatically converted to APFS with the upgrade to High Sierra this has nothing to do in itself with your Time Machine problem. Such a system is still supported to be backed up with Time Machine.

If you want to reverse the automatic conversion from HFS+ to APFS, you'll need to backup the system, reformat the computer with HFS+ and then restore from the backup (or reinstall a new macOS operating system if you haven't got any data to save). Unfortunately there's no automatic conversion program from APFS to HFS+.

Note that such a conversion from APFS to HFS+ does not in itself improve your Time Machine situation.


I want to restore iPhone data that didn't get restored a few weeks ago, but don't want to lose data since then I installed iOS 5 on my wife's iPhone 3GS about 3 weeks ago.  When the process was over, she was missing her apps.  I reinstalled these from the App Store via the Purchased section.  However, she was missing data from her apps.  At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal, because her emails were still on the server.  Over the past few weeks, however, it has become more of a pain, from the trivial (lost Angry Bird levels) to the more major (lost appointments).

So, if I was to connect the iPhone up to the computer from which iOS 5 was installed, I'm thinking I could restore the data.  However, I'm afraid that if I did so it would erase any data accumulated over the past 3 weeks.

So I have two questions

a)  If I restore data on the iPhone from a few weeks ago, will it indeed erase data that has been accumulated since then?  Is there a way to merge data?

b)  Is there a way to restore data for only particular apps?

The end goal is to somehow retrieve all the data from before the iOS 5 updateand the data since the update.

The sad and short answer is No.

Restoring to an old backup will erase any data accumulated on the phone in the meantime. There is no way to merge backups or such.
App-specific restores are possible for apps which offer some sort of cloud support. So if she is syncing her contacts with iCloud or Google they should still be here after the restore.

However, the long answer is maybe.

First, make a list of the programs where you do want to attempt to merge or replace her data. You will need to rename the current device so the backup is saved, then restore the device to get at the old data. At that point you can extract the "old" data to a computer. Then you would restore the "new" backup and merge the data back for each case where you could get it onto a computer.

You can see how this is tedious, prone to error, and requires you to learn the specifics of each app where you want to get your data. All great things to know, but you have to balance it against the time it would take you to simple re-create the data in the first place.

This also serves as the perfect use case for iCloud backup. In this case, you would never have not restored the backup since the cloud is so much more accessible than a computer and a USB cable.

Angry Birds used to store the game settings in a file that you can use a utility like PhoneView to read onto the computer.

I would say - once you have a list of the apps you want to "pick" - come back and ask that single question - how can I access the saved game levels for game X and people here will step up if it's an easy google search or they know how to get that one file off the device.


Is it possible to zoom out in Safari on iPad 2? I am attempting to view a large internal webpage in safari, and some of the content overflows off the screen.

In desktop browsers, ctl+'-' would do the trick, but the touch interface has me perplexed. Pinching and scrolling were my first impulses, but neither worked.

Tapping and pinch-out work for zooming in and back to default quite nicely, but what is the method to zoom out from default? Is my only resort to have the webpage changed?

It sounds to me like your only option will be to have the webpage redesigned a little. Chances are there are some CSS styles that are sending parts of the text off the screen.

For the site, sometimes they include a meta "viewport" tag, which could be causing some problems for you. If this is the case, they should be able to easily remove this tag. However, it is very likely this is not causing the problem.

You could also request they use a media query to make adjustments based off of your iPad. This often works very well for mobile devices.


No input fields for the Apple ID Verification for the iMac 10.10.5 Just as my heading says:  There is no input fields for the Apple ID verification codes for the iMac 10.10.5. How in the heck do I get it to come up??

For example, I try to log on to iTunes on my iMac normally, and then it asks for the 6 digit verification code from another device. Okay, no problem. I retrieve it, and when I come back to the Mac, there's no input screen to key in the verification codes. It leaves me hanging.

Got exactly the same problem today, e.g:

have two-factor auth.
tried login to icloud on some old macbook (OSX Lion - 10.7)
on my iphone i got the code
but on the macbook there are no input fields - e.g. impossible to enter the code - there is no place where.

More googling and I found this page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915 where says:

What if I use two-factor authentication on a device running older
software?
If you use two-factor authentication with devices running
older OS versions—like an Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation)—you might
be asked to add your six-digit verification code to the end of your
password when signing in. Get your verification code from a trusted
device running iOS 9 and later or OS X El Capitan and later, or have
it sent to your trusted phone number. Then type your password followed
by the six-digit verification code directly into the password field.

So, in short: if you didn't get the input fields, do the following:

on the trusted device "Get the verification code" how - see this
and on the device without input fields enter your password, immediatelly followed by the 6 digit code - e.g. "MyPassord123456"

That's all - it works. :)


Sleepimage deletion in Mac I am not able to delete the sleep image. It currently runs on macOS Catalina. As root, when I try to delete the sleep image I get the message "Operation not permitted".
Can someone help answer how do I delete the sleep image?

TL;DR    Under macOS Catalina, to remove the sleepimage file using Terminal while booted normally to your Desktop, use the following command:
sudo pmset hibernatemode 0

Tested under a macOS Catalina (10.15.6) system, without FileVault, the following was all that was necessary to remove the sleepimage file, typically located at: /var/vm/sleepimage
Note that this was done in a normal mode boot and booting to macOS Recovery and disabling System Integrity Protection was not needed. Even if booted to macOS Recovery, one does not need to disable System Integrity Protection in order to delete the sleepimage file from there.
Booted to my normal Desktop, in Terminal I ran the following commands to show it can be done as advertised:
~ % pmset -g | grep 'hibernatefile\|hibernatemode'
 hibernatemode        3
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
~ % ls /var/vm/
kernelcore  sleepimage
~ % sudo pmset hibernatemode 0
Password:
~ % ls /var/vm/
kernelcore
~ %

Setting hibernatemode to 0 automatically removed the sleepimage file.
Setting hibernatemode back to 3 recreated the sleepimage file.

Notes:

The system I used did not have FileVault enabled, however, I doubt it would make any difference if it did.
Tested under normal mode boot in macOS High Sierra after using sudo pmset hibernatemode 0, I had to manually delete the sleepimage file using: sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage
Did not test under macOS Mojave, however, one of the methods used under macOS High Sierra or macOS Catalina should work.

To remove the sleepimage file from macOS Recovery in macOS Catalina 10.15.6, without FileVault, I tested the following without disabling System Integrity Protection.

Booted to macOS Recovery
Opened Terminal from the Utilities menu.
Ran diskutil list to ascertain which disk was APFS Volume VM. It was: disk1s4
mkdir /Volumes/VM
diskutil mount -mountPoint '/Volumes/VM' disk1s4
rm /Volumes/VM/sleepimage
diskutil unmount '/Volumes/VM'
reboot

Note: This was included just to show doing the SIP Dance is not necessary under macOS Catalina, just remove it from a normal mode boot.


Connect my 2015 Macbook Pro to my 2019 iMac as an external monitor I have a 2015 Macbook Pro (Thunderbolt 2 port) for which I would like to use my iMac 2019 (USB-C Port) as an external monitor. What type of adapter and cable should I buy to make this work?

Some newer iMac models cannot be used as external monitor for another Mac.

Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode - System Requirements

  iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) and later iMac models can't be used as Target Display Mode displays.


New MacBook Pro 13” screen goes black when opened past vertical My screen goes black when opened past vertical.  Tried all the NVRAM and SMC recommended fixes, but neither have fixed it.  Seems like hardware issue and it seems to be getting worse...

In order to use it, i need to open the screen slowly.  After it passes ~45 degrees each ~15 degrees the screen brightness drops by a little.  Then right around 90 degrees (vertical), it goes black.  To bring it back I have to close it again and open slowly.

When screen first went black on me and problem started (one week ago) I was still able to open to just past 90, now it’s gone down to just under 90 and making it hard to work...

This is a common issue with MacBook Pro 13" devices that are older, the issue is that the LVDS cable or backlight power cable have begun to fail.

This isn't a software issue and will require a hardware repair. You've not specified how old the machine is, you can do the following to find out:

Click the Apple logo in the menu bar.
Click About this Mac.

Look here:

You could additionally verify this is a hardware fault by connecting an external screen, or projector via the Mini DisplayPort/Thunderbolt or HDMI ports and verify this issue doesn't happen on the external monitor at the same time as the internal one.


My iCal isn't picking up invitations from iCloud. What can I do? My boyfriend and I shared a MobileMe family account with our own email addresses. We also had our calendars shared. To keep each other in the loop, we occasionally invited each other to events. Everything worked perfectly. Then we moved to iCloud and things aren't as smooth. We recently realized the invitations he sent to me weren't showing up in my iCal. They were still showing up online at iCloud.com (where I can accept/decline) and in the iCal app on my iPhone 4, but only as a dotted event on the day, not in the Invitation tab. On my iPhone, I can accept/decline if I click on the event. Since I have his calendar showing in my iCal on my Mac, I can see the events I'm invited to, but cannot accept/decline there.

The inconsistencies are throwing me for a loop. I've logged out of iCloud and relogged in, deleted the calendar from my Mac and resynced. I've made sure the default calendar is my personal calendar. I've made sure my address card is updated and correct. Same issues. Any thoughts or help?

How are the settings in iCal? Meaning have you added the Cloud calendar to your accounts? In iCal, under preferences, under accounts you have to make sure that your iCloud account is added on there. If it's not, try it. Go to add, select iCloud as the account type, sign in and so on and so forth. If this is already done. I'm at a lost and will need to look into it more.


How do I get the original finder view back? For some strange reason, Finder has changed to a different layout and I can't figure out how to revert it to the standard one.

This is what it looks like now:

How do I revert it to the original, default layout, that has folders, drives and devices in the left-most column and all the other files and folders in the middle panes?

I see the original layout when I go to upload a file here, so you can see the screenshot here:

How do I get back that original layout and prevent it from changing again? This is the second or third time it has changed.

Show the Toolbar with ⌥⌘T or View → Show Toolbar
Show the Sidebar with ⌥⌘S or View → Show Sidebar


How do I create automatic sections in Quark Xpress? If I create a document in Quark Xpress, can I 'link' / 'join' / what-else an external data source and simply use automatic repeatedd sections and placeholders so updating external source will allow an update in my xpress project?

I do not want to simply import a table!

For example: I have a file with a list of name, surname, phones, address, etc...

I'd like to tell xpress to insert a section with n repeated sections, and in each section place in the top left the surname, in the top right the phone, at center of second row the phone number, etc...

I ask here because I never worked before with this software, and actually as developer I must create 'something' that can be used as 'datasource' to easily generate a document in quark xpress. . .

I think it must be possibile, I simply do not understand how to create this kind of 'macro' or 'automatism' to use an external datasource.

Please, be patient with me, first posts here. Ask, and I'll try to update my question.

If this is NOT possible, an answer with a simple 'it's not possible' will be accepted.

There are two ways to go about this. You can either get commercial QuarkXPress XTension software that handles database publishing or you can attempt to write your own AppleScript that talks to some external data source and builds elements in a QuarkXPress document.

I haven't used commercial database publishing software, I just know they exist. So I can't help much beyond suggesting to search for "Quark database publishing" and looking around. I would imagine that this type of solution would support more different types of databases and would be easier to implement. This would also probably be a little expensive.

The second option - AppleScript - can be difficult, as whoever is implementing this would need to have access to and be familiar with QuarkXPress and AppleScript. I don't think you can even start to develop an AppleScript for an application that isn't installed on your computer.

You would also need to find a way to talk to your database using AppleScript, which might limit the kinds of databases you could use. I've mostly created scripts that used delimited text exports from databases as a starting point, which may not be enough for you.

Writing an AppleScript can be painstaking work, as the documentation is hard to follow and finding the right syntax to accomplish something is often just trying different things until you find something that works. But, you might not need to spend any money at all, especially if you can work from delimited text exports.

Telling you how to write an AppleScript is a little beyond the scope of a StackExchange answer, but searching for "Quark AppleScript" should at least get you started. There are also normally example AppleScripts installed with Quark, I think in the application's folder.


Other data taking up to much space on mac, can't figure out what this other data is I found out my company's dropbox was syncing everything to my mac, I had selective sync on but somehow this changed. I then uninstalled dropbox to stop this syncing as choosing selective sync didn't seem to help. I then deleted my dropbox folder, and emptied trash can. But i still see 291 in other data being used up but that dropbox folder is gone. I have a feeling that is the dropbox data and didn't properly erase.

What can i do to clean up files on macOS Catalina?

I suggest that you get OmniDiskSweeper.app and run it on your main drive. it will list the items and their size on the disk sorted by size. You can look for items that take up a lot of disk space and go down the directory tree from there to find the large memory users. Its a free app.


Is there a way to get my wife's iPhone to go on silent automatically during the time? My wife puts her phone on silent at around 10pm as the games notifications disturb sleeping children, she keeps forgetting to put it back in the morning.
Is there an automated way to put the phone on silent during the period between 10pm-7am?

You can try using Do Not Disturb (Settings->Do Not Disturb) feature on the iPhone. It allows scheduling as well.


How to add Trash folder to Finder Sidebar in Mojave? In more recent macOS's (such as Mojave), dragging the ~/.Trash folder to the Finder Sidebar does not work properly anymore. When you do that, the sidebar text displays a ? instead of Trash.

The ? still works temporarily, but after you reboot or run killall Finder, and try to open ? in the sidebar, you get the error "?" can't be opened because the original item can't be found.

Is there a way to add the Trash folder to the Finder Sidebar anymore? This used to work perfectly in Sierra and before.

Note: This is not a duplicate of How can I add Trash icon to the sidebar in Mac OS X Lion? . That solution does not work anymore.

Related links:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8498936

Several of us over on MacAdmins pulled this issue apart earlier this year when a user complained that their Sidebar not only wouldn't hold his Trash icon, but kept resetting back to default settings-and-layout on a very regular basis.

The Trash folder complex (and it is complex) has to track files from multiple volumes and from multiple users across those volumes, and several changes they made to the Trash 'engine' to work with APFS affected other parts of the OS.

Sidebar reset has been a minor nagging issue for many years, though, but the cause wasn't figured out until recently: Static user Sidebar items (the things you add to Favourites, etc) are linked to their target by the Finder itself, using an always-running subset of the code that drives 'Folder Actions'. Unfortunately, if a previously-specified target isn't where the Sidebar link code says it thinks it is, it updates its cache with zeros, which causes the Sidebar panel's .plist to reset. The Trash, because of its be-many-things-but-appear-in-one-place nature, cannot maintain a static reference, so the Sidebar goes "ptui!"

Anything that can change its reference - or even disappears and reappears of its own accord, like a network share - should never be put into the Sidebar.

The Sidebar is happy as long as things don't go missing, so how can we make transitory objects like the Trash and network shares appear to always be there? The solution is rather obvious in hindsight:

Aliases.

Make an alias of the item you want in the Sidebar, and add the alias itself to the Sidebar. Aliases are files with their own target references, so they just sit there acting as a middle-man twixt Sidebar and targets.

Make a new folder in your ~/ as a repository for the aliases you want Sidebar favourites for.


How can I have multiple languages in my iPhone dictionary? I speak English with most people but correspond with my mother in Spanish.

Is there any way I can get autocomplete on my iPhone to work for words in both languages?

Yes, add another keyboard to you iPhone.  I did it with Russian, follow this website, pretty easy.

Activating the keyboards is straight forward. Tap the “Settings” icon and then select “General”. Then scroll down and select “Keyboard” and then “International Keyboards”. There you will see the long list of languages available — simply flicking the toggle to “ON” will activate the keyboard. You can activate as many as you like.
Now that more than one language keyboard has been activated you will see a small globe key on all keyboards. Simply tap the globe key to toggle between all the installed keyboards. Simple, elegant and clever.


How can I extend Mac + keyboard + mouse to a PC through WiFi local network? I have a windows laptop and a Mac that connect together to WiFi and that is connected to the Internet. I don't have wired (ethernet) network in home and i just have Wife at home.

My goal is to extend my Mac keyboard / mouse display so that the windows is a second screen and not simply mirroring what's on the Main Mac.

I researched this software, but I can't get it to work:

  Synergy is a software download that shares one mouse and one keyboard between multiple computers. Simply move your mouse between your computers effortlessly. You can even copy and paste between computers. Synergy works on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Raspberry Pi. You only need a regular Ethernet or WiFi network connection, and no special hardware. It works like magic.

Other research like  Mouseshare, Synergy , symless.com all of these softwares just need to a network and I don't think they work with wireless.

I don't get why my WiFi isn't working with this solution and I think it needs to "cable network" that i don't have. Can someone confirm this setup works or how I would know why my WiFi isn't working for this case?

If I were trying to do what I think you're trying to do I would use Microsoft's Remote Desktop. It's available for macos from the App Store via this link. It's also free (as in zero cost), so you've only a bit of time to lose for trying it.

I've used it for years, and found it works quite well for my purposes. I've tried other methods, but for connecting to a Windows host, they always feel "clunky" in comparison.


From which number did I get this text? I received a text from a number. My contact list had that number saved as well as 3 other numbers in the same contact card.

How do I get to know which number had sent the text, when it shows only the name?  (the “recent” thing, in Phone app does not seem to work.)

I worked around it by deleting each number from the contact card and seeing how the “sender” changed.

There ought to be an easy way for the same.

Go to their contact info and there should be a mark next to number which sent the most recent text.


How to obtain glyphs from the "Apple Symbols" font in Lion? I'd like to make use of the special iOS symbols found in Apple Symbols font, e.g. the "Reload" and "Action" glyphs. In Snow Leopard, I could obtain and insert them via the "special characters" pane where I could show (and select!) all the symbols of any given font. In Lion, however, this feature seems to be missing (said pane now only contains some given character ranges) and when I preview the entire font repertoire in font-book, I can't select and insert text from the preview area.

Is there a way to obtain those symbols in a copyable form (i.e. to insert them into another application) on Lion?

Snow Leopard's CharacterPalette.app still works on 10.7:

Those "iOS symbols" shown in the screenshot above are glyph variants that are specific to Apple Symbols. For example the turned arrow icon is a variant of Ꮿ. There doesn't seem to be any way to show them in 10.7's Character Viewer.

You could also use Font Book to save a PDF file for all characters in a font:


g++ compiler not working after Sierra update I installed gcc/g++ following this tutorial a while ago (version 6.2). Now that I updated to Sierra, it's not compiling anymore.

When checking the version, it respond properly:

g++ --version

g++ (GCC) 6.2.0
Copyright (C) 2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

But when I try to compile a code that has no compilation error (tried to use online compilers like cpp.sh and it compiled successfully) it outputs this weird message (as an image, for readability):

Any suggestions?

The issue comes from the fact that you're combining the GNU C++ compiler with the Clang assembler.

The Clang assembler expects you to use the new section names, and will warn you that you're using deprecated names.

However, please note that these are only warnings. You're free to ignore them and your program will work as before.

Your options are basically:

Ignore the warnings
Patch g++ with the patch found in this bugreport
Use a different assembler

Or you could just use the system supplied c++ compiler instead of compiling your own.


Location based homekit automation is not triggering I use and AppleTV4K on ios 11.1 and an iPhone7 with ios 11.1.

I have an automation set up that automatically turns on some hue lights when I come home. For some reason, this never seems to be triggered though. The location I set for my home is definitely correct, and I'm logged into icloud on both devices. Triggering the automation manually works just fine.

Is there anything I'm missing? Why is the automation never triggered?

I was fighting this exact same problem for a while, myself - everything except location automation was functioning.  My troubles were in my iCloud settings - my location was determined based on a device which was no longer in service, instead of my iPhone.  So, HomeKit interpreted things as if I was always away from home.  After updating the location settings to track on my iPhone, the automations fired back up properly again.

Hopefully this helps a few others out, ha.


Macbook pro 15 inch mid 2012 outlook 2011 I am trying to archive my old emails on my Mac. Is there any way I can archive a specific folder, including its sub-folders, from Outlook 2011 Mac? Few methods tried, please see below, but it archives all the mail not the specific folder that I chose.

https://www.seattleserver.com/clients/knowledgebase.php?action=displayarticle&id=556

You can archive your Outlook:Mac 2011 emails, although it's a bit fiddly to do.

In the Finder, create a new folder where your Outlook archive will live.  I've always called mine "Outlook backup [date]" (ex: "Outlook backup 2016-04-18").
Inside this folder, create a folder structure that's the same as what you want to backup from Outlook.  For example, if you have a folder named "2015 emails" and you want to back it up, create the new folder "2015 emails" inside the "Outlook backup 2016-04-18" folder.  You can then create "January", "February", etc folders inside the "2015 emails" folder.
Arrange your desktop: have an Outlook window open and a Finder window open such that you can view both of them.
In Outlook, select one of the folders that you want to archive.  Drag that folder to the corresponding folder in the Finder.  In your Finder window, you'll see files named "Folder name.mbox" get created.  If you've got a lot of email in your folder, it'll take awhile for this to do, and there's no progress bar to tell you when it's done.
Repeat step 4 until you have backed up all of your folders.  Delete the folders that you no longer need.

The contents of "Folder name.mbox" are all of the emails that are in that folder.  The contents of "Folder name.mbox" does NOT include subfolders, so you will need to repeat these steps for the subfolders.

Alternately, if you don't want to create a big folder structure, you could do this slightly differently.  Create the "Outlook backup 2016-04-18" folder.  When you drag the folder to the Finder and it creates the "January.mbox" file, you could rename that file to "2015 emails - January.mbox" (or something else to indicate that it's a subfolder of the "2015 emails" folder).

Now what do you do with all of these .mbox files?  The good part about .mbox is that it's a standard file format for storing emails, and pretty much any email client can import them.  If you need to view the contents of your .mbox files again, you can simply drag them back into Outlook, and your folder will be there with all of its email (except for the subfolders, which you'll need to drag into Outlook separately).  When I need to bring back all of the email in subfolders, I find it easiest to add the top-level folder first, and then add the subfolders.

If this sounds like a lot, there is an application called Mail Archiver X for which I've received many recommendations.  I haven't tried it myself; the $40 price tag is enough for me to drag my Outlook folders to the Finder manually.


How to easily rename voice memos in iTunes Recorded by native Voice Memo app on iPhone 5, and then sync to iTunes. But found those displayed name of voice memos that are set when I was recording are different with real file names in  iTunes after sync.

I have dozens of voice memo. How to easily rename real names with these displayed name that I want to have?

I had this problem too, but I found when I used iTunes to create an mp3 version of the file, the mp3 had the title I had set previously.


Macbook 13 pro 2019, trying to connect 2 monitors I'm using a "TBI Pro Adapter Adapti-13 Mini USB-C Hub" on my macbook 13 pro (2019)
And I wish to connect my 2 PHILIPS monitors (243v5) they are the same but from diffrent years.
I connected them both thru the adapter one with VGA and the other with HDMI and the mac sees them as one monitor, but I would like it to be separated\chained with the macbook lid closed
another this is the adapter is "shooting down" for time to time can it be because of the adapter or maybe the mac book can't hold to "allot of things connected at the same time" (gaming keyboard, mouse, 2 monitor and sometimes ethernet)

Thank you all for your time :)

Judging from the manual, the adaptor can only output the same video signal to the different connectors at once. This means you can extend your screen once, but not multiple times. Most likely, the Mac does not even see that multiple monitors are connected, instead the adaptor just mirrors the one incoming video signal to multiple video outputs.
To extend your screen multiple times, you would need to get another adaptor or a powered hub.
EDIT:
As mentioned by @MacGuffin in the comments the manual mentions that this actually is possible under Windows, yet it doesn't show that under macOS. However, trying it with a second HDMI cable instead of the VGA may yield results, although the manual mentions that it should not make a difference - aside from quality.
Since the manual isn't that detailed, I would just try to contact the customer support mentioned at the bottom. They will be able to tell if and how it is possible to connect multiple monitors with different video outputs on macOS.

As a general note: While USB-C offers great bandwidth and speed it is still limited at some point. Plugging in 3 USB-devices, two monitors, 1GB Ethernet and Audio may work, but for sure not at maximum speed. It is not only a USB-C limitation, but also the controller in the HUB/adaptor needs to be able to handle all of that.
For testing drive speed I can recommend BlackMagic Disk Speed Test.


Is there a way to exclude certain sites from search results in Safari? I would like to make sure that junk websites (like SparkNotes when I search for Shakespeare info, or Pinterest when I search for images) don't appear in my search results in Google or any search engine. Some search engines support this, and Google used to but no longer does. But in any case what I'm looking for is something that does this for both macOS and iOS, and works in Safari (especially for Google).

Is there a way to do this?

If you put -site:pinterest.* after an image search, it doesn't show any pinterest results in a Google search.

E.g. image -site:pinterest.*


Back to my Mac secure? Is Back to my Mac an encrypted and secure connection? Is there a good technical explanation how it works? Would you recommend to use it to connect to a home server via VNC?

From Apple's website:

  Back to My Mac uses these methods to protect your security:

  IPSec and SSL encrypt and secure communication between your Macs and the Back to My Mac servers. Anything you transfer between Macs is
  protected.
  Kerberos with digital certificates provide secure and trusted authentication to help verify identity. An added benefit: with
  Kerberos, you won’t have to enter your user name and password every
  time you connect to another Mac in your Back to My Mac network.

  You can make your network even more secure by changing a few optional
  settings.


Wi-Fi network could not be joined - Macbook Pro 2015 At first it said it couldn't find the IP address, I entered it manually and that got rid of the error message.

Now it's just saying the wifi network could not be joined.

I've tried turning it off and on again, forgetting the network then adding it again. I've also tried clearing the PRAM and something else I'm not sure the name of (RMC or something similar). I'm now out of ideas.

Any suggestions?

I tried several of the suggestions posted online and none of them worked for any more than a few minutes. I’ve owned this MacBook Pro for nearly 4 years and never experienced this problem until a few days ago. So I asked myself what had I changed in the last few days. I realized that I had recently purchased a USB hub, so I did some searching and found out that you can’t plug the USB hub into the rear USB-C connection on the left side of a MacBook Pro - exactly where I had plugged mine in. So I switched it to one of the right side connections and bingo - everything works great. This solution worked instantly without making any setup or network modifications. Could this be your issue?


Siri on macOS behind a corporate proxy I'm running into a an issue where Siri can't connect to her servers from behind our corporate proxy connection. What's interesting is that this isn't an issue on our iPhones behind the same proxy.

Any ideas?

I manage a Squid proxy for my organisation and when I try to use Siri in Sierra, the following log entries are recorded:

1474540244.610      0 macos-sierra-host.local TAG_NONE/400 4410 NONE error:invalid-request - HIER_NONE/- text/html

Not entirely sure what it is requesting, so time to break out the tcpdump-hammer I guess. I'll report back if I have any more insights.

EDIT 1 - 22-Sep-2016 10:58 UTC

Looks like Siri isn't using a valid URL when requesting via a proxy. Here's the HTTP headers from Squid after a Siri connection is attempted:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Server: squid/3.5.20
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:42:01 GMT
Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 4064
X-Squid-Error: ERR_INVALID_REQ 0
Vary: Accept-Language
Content-Language: en
X-Cache: MISS from proxy.local
Via: 1.1 proxy.local (squid/3.5.20)
Connection: close

The details in the error message (sent from Squid but never seen by the user) are:

  Invalid Request error was encountered while trying to process the
  request:

  &# 22;&#  3;&#  1;

  Some possible problems are:

  Missing or unknown request method.
  Missing HTTP Identifier (HTTP/1.0).
  Request is too large.
  Content-Length missing for POST or PUT requests.
  Illegal character in hostname; underscores are not allowed.
  HTTP/1.1 Expect: feature is being asked from an HTTP/1.0 software.

So - looks like some more tcpdump-hammer in my future as I try to find what this original requst looks like (where it's going etc). Stay tuned.

EDIT 2 - 22-Sep-2016 11:16 UTC

The problem is Siri is using TCP/443 but not using HTTPS. Consequently, a HTTP proxy like Squid will choke on these connections. The good news is I've identified the outbound connections from Siri are resolving an A record for origin.guzzoni-apple.com.akadns.net and then connecting to it on port 443. At this point it initiates a TLS handshake and the rest is encrypted. So, thanks Apple for encrypting it, but FU for using a reserved port for non-HTTPS traffic. Seriously - WTF?!

Here's a solution

I've poked around many (many) DNS queries and it seems they all resolve origin.guzzoni-apple.com.akadns.net in the 17.252.0.0/16 address range - this is a slice of Apple's broader 17.0.0.0/8 range. This should allow you to send anything destined for 17.252.0.0 direct (either via proxy config or PAC/WPAD). Unfortunately, this may also gobble up other traffic that you don't want bypassing your proxy too :-/

Until Apple decide to use a real HTTPS protocol for Siri on Sierra or, use a different port (unlike the current hijacking of TCP/443!!!), we're pretty much screwed.


How can I make soundtracks with one artist sort as soundtracks in iTunes (and iPhone)? Most of the soundtracks in my iTunes library have the Album Artist tag "Various Artists" and so they all appear together in the V's in Albums view. A few soundtracks have only one artist (composer) or mainly one artist, and they appear in a different location.

For example, the soundtrack for The Incredibles appears with the M's for the artist, Michael Giacchino.

Should I change the Album Artist tag to "Various Artists" to make it sort with the other soundtracks? Maybe I should change the Album Artist tag in all of my soundtracks to "Soundtrack".

Any better ideas? Thanks!

You've pretty much figured it out. Just pick a consistent description to use for the Album Artist or Sort Artist and your albums will group together, while being able to preserve the artist for a specific track. The de facto standard for this seems to be calling it "Various Artists", but there's no reason you can't do whatever suits you, whether that's "Soundtracks" or a specific title for each individual soundtrack album.


How can I delete Image Capture's history of past "Scan To" folders? I have used Apple's Image Capture utility to scan to a few different folders on my local storage. As I use each folder, its name accumlates in the pop-up menu of "Scan To:" locations, as a sort of history.

I would like to clear out this history.  How can I do it?  For instance, is the list of recent folders in a plist file somewhere which I can edit or trash?

(What I really want, which is probably the subject of a different question, is to make narrower the Details pane on the right side of the Image Capture window. It appears that the utility widens this pane enough to accommodate every name in the Scan To: popup window.)

I am using Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan.

Here's a workaround that just succeeded for me.

In the Image Capture utility, open the Scan To: pop-up menu, and remember each folder in the "history list" part. Not just the name of the folder, but its parent folder.
Quit the Image Capture utility.
In Finder, rename each of the folders from the "history list" part. You don't need to delete the folders, but you do need to be sure that nothing exists at the path where each of the folders was.
Run the Image Capture utility again. Open the Scan To: pop-up menu. The history part should be empty.

Worked for me, on Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan.


Boot Late 2010 MacBook Air from SD Card I have a late 2010 MacBook Air (13 inch) and would absolutely love to be able to boot it from my SD Card on which I have Puppy Linux installed. I use Puppy Linux on an old HP Mini 2133 netbook and I'd like to have the option to use it occasionally on my Air as well. However, I've attempted in the past to install ReFIt and had no luck going that route. So, my question is: is it possible to simply boot from the SD card without installing additional software? I very much prefer to keep my Air as stock as possible - I currently only have about 8 or 9 3rd party apps installed so if it's possible to do it without ReFIt that would be awesome. Still, if ReFIt is necessary I'm more than happy to give it a try but, as I said, I've attempted it in the past and, upon rebooting, seen no evidence that it was installed (other than the files on my system).

*note - I'm not trying to install Puppy Linux to the drive, I'd just like to be able to boot from it.

Have you tried this tutorial or Puppy Linux official tutorial (page 21)?

You don't have to burn Puppy Linux to real CD, just repeat all installation process inside VirtualBox. Don't forget to connect your flash drive inside a virtual machine.

As a second option you can try installing rEFInd Boot Manager by Roderick W. Smith instead of rEFIt. rEFIt which seems to be abandoned.

Here is installation guide for rEFInd: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html#osx


How to view Export Mailbox status in Mail App? How to view Export Mailbox status in Mail App?

I am trying to archive my mails: I created a Smart Mailbox, which includes the mails received in last year, then right click Export Mailbox to a .mbox file.

In the User Interface of Mail App, no export progress/ status is being displayed. How can I view the export status?

I can now only guess the export status is complete or not by checking the .mbox filename contains .partial or not.

Window > Activity - will show you what the mail app is busy with

i.e. Exporting mailbox, copying 2551 of 3762 messages and a progress bar


Problems connecting to ethernet with El Capitan I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro running El Capitan 10.11.6. Recently I bought a USB-to-Ethernet adapter so that I could connect to Ethernet. It was working fine, but now it's not after a few days.

Now, I don't see the Ethernet option under "Network Preferences", and I tried resetting my NVRAM (as I've seen on some other suggestions online) but that didn't work.

Any clue as to how I should proceed?

As mentioned in the comment, try the adapter on a different machine to see if it's still functional.

Have you tried to add a new network device in the network settings pane? The USB adapter should show up there.


lock account and sleep Is there an easy way to lock my mac and then immediately sleep, all in one command? I know I can show the login window and then choose the sleep button, but I'd prefer one step rather than two (and a wait in between). There's also the Lock Screen command in the Keychain menu, but that (stupidly) offers no sleep button that I can see. Could a script work for this, or would the script also get stuck after one command?

Update: Forgot to mention that I don't want to always have to enter my password after waking up from sleep, only after I explicitly lock the computer.

⌥ + ⌘ + ⏏ will put the computer to sleep. Then, if you have "Require password [immediately] after sleep or screen saver begins" checked under System Preferences ➔ Security ➔ General, it will prompt you for a password when it wakes up.


Keep Zoom Screen Share Active I am using Zoom on my iPad and sharing my screen.
Anytime the iPad screen blanks zoom stops sharing.  Then when I wake up the screen again I have to tell zoom to share.  Zoom does not stop, just the screensharing.
How can I keep my iPad screen shared even when the screen blanks?
How can I keep my iPad screen on so it does need to wake up?

I'd like to know this as well.
You didn't say what you tried, but to keep your iPad from going to sleep, go to Settings -> Display & Brightness -> Auto-Lock and change the time to "Never."
[EDIT:] Actually, this doesn't work. I've also tried "Refresh Background Apps," and that didn't work, either.


What if someone knows my iPhone passcode (not simple passcode) & restriction passcode? Lets say I was just taking a walk or was in a train or a bus. I had to unlock my iPhone with passcode there and use the restriction passcode. Somehow a person saw me entering the passcode and I realised that I was watched and that was after a long time.

Can that person do anything like remote access (SSH, VNC) or something about encryption keys? Lets say that person has access to a backdoor to my cellular carrier & also knows my phone number (this means all my plain HTTP traffic, DNS queries, SMS, calls and other things can be seen, I am ignoring privacy policies here). What can that person do?

They can unlock your iPhone & remove the restrictions... assuming they have your iPhone as well as the passwords/codes.

Otherwise, nothing.


bt headphones call ended on connect I recently bought Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 bluetooth headphones and I use them mainly with my imac. After a bit of fiddling I figured out to force aptx via the bluetooth explorer and disable the handsfree profile as well, as countless people are recommending.

At this point I'm pretty happy except for one minor annoyance: I can't connect the headphones without OS X insisting on dropping the sound quality as if it were receiving a call and then deciding it is not a call after all and switching back to normal quality. I'm not sure if this is specific to OSX or the momentum 2.0, or both.

Symptoms: I turn the headphones on. Almost immediately it announces "connected", as it should. If any music is playing at this point it first plays at good quality but almost immediately it changes to very low quality. After a few seconds the head phone announces "call ended". From then on everything is fine.

I've been searching for a resolution to this but I haven't been able to find anything that even confirms this is a known issue. So, is there a way to skip the whole connected ... call ended ritual? I'm not actually interested in answering any calls with this thing.

It turned out the problem was Skype. I have this running all the time and when you turn on your bt headphones it tries out the microphone as if it was in a call before ending the call. The problem goes away if you don't have Skype running. Alternatively, you can connect your headphones with skype open and then switch to its sound settings end switch things back to internal speakers & microphone. It seems to persist these settings even when you disconnect/reconnect the headphones after that.


Can I play YouTube video in background on iPad ? Possible Duplicate:
  An app to play youtube in background on ipad

If I want to listen to a Youtube video and work on another app, such as Safari, is there a way for that audio to run in the background like iTunes does?

Like @Ermiar said, yes, but if the app in the foreground wants to play music or sounds itself, the sound from the Youtube app will be stopped.

Also, the Youtube app can, like iTunes, continue t play if you lock your iPad with the lock key, and you can also control it by double clicking the home button while the iPad is locked.


Night Shift & Flux not working on MacBook Air 6,2 (early 2014) since macOS 10.13.2 Hope anyone might have an idea how to troubleshoot this problem:

Since I updated my MacBook Air 6,2 (early 2014) to macOS 10.13.2 both Night Shift and Flux have completely stopped working. Meaning no matter how often I start or restart or (re-)install Flux (or change any of the settings), or no matter how often I change the Night Shift switch, I am not getting any kind of red shift whatsoever anymore.. Both used to work fine before.

I've found a lot of discussions online regarding similar problems but all seem to boil down to either:

Too old hardware, which shouldn't be the case for a 2014 MacBook Air.
Deleting ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.backgroundtaskmanagementagent/backgrounditems.btm as discussed here.

I tried the solution mentioned by point 2 but unfortunately it didn't do anything for me.

Does anyone know a way to pinpoint more closely what might be the cause of this problem?

Go to the 'Display' tab and check the 'Scaled' option instead of 'Default for display' (or vice-versa). Then, simply select whichever text option fits you better.

Once you select one, the display will reset automatically and you'll be having the correct display profile along with Night Shift working again.

Added the solution to Apple forums as well.


Use proxy in iOS to to use Apps outside the U.S I live outside the US and would like to use some Apps that only work in US territory.

Example: Square (to accept credit card payments), Paypal mobile, Hulu, etc...

Is there a way to make iOS believe that it´s in the US?

In order to access geoblocked websites you need to have a VPN application enabled to re-route your traffic through a US IP address.

For iOS the best solution I have found is hotspotshield.
It does have a subscription fee for using but it seems to work well so far.

It is also available as an OSX application for the desktop.