Does IFTTT app drain battery faster in iPhone (and Apple Watch)? The IFTTT app sounds interesting with endless possibilities. I have just installed it but skeptical about using it because of the possibility of battery drain. The app has to keep track of every event of the app you associate it with.

So, does the IFTTT app have a noticeable affect in battery consumption or just like any other 'average' background activity?

I use IFTTT on my iPhone X iOS 11.4.

When I check Settings -> Battery and look at the last 7 days, IFTTT doesn't even show-up on the list of applications.  That means it's using less than 1% of my battery.

My recommendation to you, if you're thinking of using IFTTT, is to try it with a handful of recipes for a few weeks.  Then check the battery usage and see the impact on battery life.

Now, I'm sure this will change depending on how many recipes you're using and what kind of recipes they are.  IFTTT is just woken-up by iOS at periodic intervals to check for system notifications that something happened.


Selecting files with one extensions that have the same name as files with a different extension I have two folders of images. In one folder there are .JPGs, e.g.

  001.jpg
  002.jpg
  003.jpg
  004.jpg
  005.jpg
  006.jpg
  007.jpg
  008.jpg

in the other folder, there are .NEFs. However some of the .NEFs have been deleted, so there are e.g.

  001.nef
  003.nef
  004.nef
  005.nef
  008.nef

The jpgs and nefs correspond to one another - they are the same photograph taken at the same time with the same efix data (saved to two seperate memory cards)

What I want to do is select the .JPGs that correspond to the remaining .NEFs. In the above example I want to select JPGs 1,3,4,5,8 but not the others. I actually have around 400 jpgs and 800 nefs.

I have tried using folder comparison apps such as VisualDiffer however they seem to only work if you're using the same full file name + extension.

Does anybody know how it might be possible to achieve this in finder or using terminal? or alternatively with a different app?

I am using Mac OSX 10.6.8

Thanks!

Open terminal and use cd to make the directory of *.nef files your current directory. Let's assume you have this structure:

mydir/jpegdir
mydir/nefdir

So cd into mydir/nefdir

Then:

mkdir newdir
for file in *.nef; do
    root=${$file%.nef};
    jpeg=${root}.jpg;
    mv ../jpegdir/${jpeg} ./newdir/
done

example below. Note here that I put "echo" in front of the mv command. You want to omit that, but I often use it when I'm checking that a script is doing what I expect before executing it. You also don't say what you want to do with the files, but moving them to a new folder allows you to select them, and you can always move them all back. I also shortened my tmp variable names.

$ ls -R
total 0
drwxrwxr-x  4 tim  staff  136 Jun 13 08:02 .
drwx------  9 tim  staff  306 Jun 13 08:02 ..
drwxrwxr-x  8 tim  staff  272 Jun 13 08:03 jpegdir
drwxrwxr-x  5 tim  staff  170 Jun 13 08:03 nefdir

./jpegdir:
total 0
drwxrwxr-x  8 tim  staff  272 Jun 13 08:03 .
drwxrwxr-x  4 tim  staff  136 Jun 13 08:02 ..
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo1.jpeg
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo2.jpeg
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo3.jpeg
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo4.jpeg
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo5.jpeg
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo6.jpeg

./nefdir:
total 0
drwxrwxr-x  5 tim  staff  170 Jun 13 08:03 .
drwxrwxr-x  4 tim  staff  136 Jun 13 08:02 ..
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo2.nef
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo3.nef
-rw-rw-r--  1 tim  staff    0 Jun 13 08:03 foo5.nef

$ cd nefdir/
$ mkdir newdir/

$ for f in *.nef; do g=${f%.nef}; h=$g.jpeg; echo mv ../jpegdir/$h ./newdir; done
mv ../jpegdir/foo2.jpeg ./newdir
mv ../jpegdir/foo3.jpeg ./newdir
mv ../jpegdir/foo5.jpeg ./newdir


How can I see a list of events in one specific calendar? Using the built-in OS X calendar application. I've got events broken down by general, school, friends, concerts, etc.

How can I, for instance, see just my concert listings? I don't mean go to the menu bar and turn off all the other calendars, which in and of itself is an awful interface having to individually click on each button.  I mean I want to open a separate window with a list showing the date, and event, in chronological order.  So I can see what my concert itinerary is for the year.  (Or any other event, just using concerts as an example.)

For bonus points -- is this doable in iOS with the built-in iOS calendar app?

typing a "." into the search field and pressing enter will bring up a chronological list of events.

As far as sorting by calendar, I think the only way is to de-select the other calendars and then do the search.


Disable animation for "Swipe between full-screen apps"? Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9.5) and Yosemite (10.10) offer a mouse and trackpad gesture, Swipe between full-screen apps. Works well as full-screen apps are treated like a Mission Control desktop.

Magic Trackpad – Three finger swipe to the right or left.
Magic Mouse – Two finger swipe to the right or left.

The problem is the animation of the full-screen app sliding to the left or right as the other app/desktop/space slides alongside it. All this sliding makes me dizzy or nauseous. Especially bad during presentations to an audience, when I switch between Keynote app and other apps.

➥ Any way to disable or alter this left/right sliding animation?

➥ Is there some other way to switch between full-screen apps?

Between, Not Into, Full-Screen Apps

This question is not a duplicate of questions such as this one that ask about disabling the animation into full-screen mode. My question is about the animation switching ("swiping") between full-screen app(s).

Sys Pref > Reduce motion

You can replace the horizontal sliding screen effect with a gentle fade-in, where one screen translucently covers and replaces the other. Works on macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

A faster/slower swipe of your fingers make a faster/slower fade-in. You can even stop mid-swipe to show the other screen translucently covering the present screen.

Choose System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Reduce motion.


How to create a link using Pages online (iCloud) I don't see any of the usual text options while editing a Pages doc in iCloud online.

Cmd-L and Cmd-K both don't work.

How can I add a link to text using the iCloud version of Pages?

Just got off the phone with Apple Support, and you cannot make hyperlinks in the iCloud online version of Pages as of Feb 23rd, 2017

This is particularly bad, because it is a document that is edited by 4 coworders, and owned by a VP. So to fix the hyperlinks, I have to get the VP to fix it on his computer, or download a copy, fix the links, and then convince everyone to stop using the old link. This is even harder because the link is the only way to access the shared doc. So it becomes the 'use this link, not this link, is this the most upto date attachment' problem.


Want scan-only virus removal, not real-time I'm running Little Snitch to catch real-time transmissions, but I do want to scan at off-hours for latent problems.
Which of the best anti-virus products support scan-only with all real-time checking disabled?
I was running Sophos but their real-time checking cannot be 100% disabled despite turning it off (they confirmed, and you can see it running non-stop in Activity Monitor, and it was slowing down development).
Thanks.

Malwarebytes free version does on-demand only scanning.


Why has the basic search function on external drives stopped working for one particular drive? I use several NTFS external disks with my Catalina Mac (for PC file exchanges).
None of them are Spotlight-indexed, and that's fine as it is not necessary: macOS has no trouble seaching the disks without Spotlight.
All of a sudden one of the external disks stopped being searchable.
macOS is unable to find any files.
On my other external NTFS disks there is no problem with the macOS search function. (and Spotlight is not enabled there either)
(Rebuilding the Spotlight index is N/A as Spotlight is not used.)
I have the feeling something in my macOS is messed up regarding that particular external drive. Pehaps a setting that got corrupted? Is there such a thing as a .plist or so for a drive that can be deleted and recreated?
What could be the cause of the basic search function not working on an external USB drive?

OK this is really weird, but it turns out that the cause was the one-character name of the disk...
It was named "Q", but when i renamed it to "Q backup" it was suddenly searchable again.
Does not matter wich letter, or even a digit, as soon as I only use one character the disk becomes no longer searchable.
When I give its name 2 or more characters - voilà, searchable again.


Emails are automatically marked as read after a few seconds I have a problem that potentially causes me to miss important email: An incoming message is automatically marked as read after a few seconds. One can watch how a new email is at first unread in the inbox and then turns to read.
This problem seems to occur only for one of several IMAP accounts.

My settings are: In the viewing tab a selection "Mark all messages as read when opening a conversation" check box is unset.

What could cause this?
How can I diagnose if the problem is on the server side or if Mail.app is malfunctioning?

I've been able to fix the issue: In fact, it was the fault of OS X Server.

In the server app, under the calendar tab, there is a checkbox "activate invitations via e-mail". The problem disappeared when I unchecked it!


How to delete all but certain values from many JSON files? I've used youtube-dl to download all my videos from Youtube. With these, are created a JSON file for each video file. inside these JSON files is a LOT of junk. but there are 3 items/values/categories(?) that i want to keep, the rest can be deleted.
Those things are
{"upload_date": "value",
"fulltitle": "value",
"description": "value"}

So I either need to:

delete all but these 3 items & save the file, or
extract these 3 items to a new file & delete the old one.

How can I do this with Automator or with shell tools in Terminal?

Here is one of the ways I would do it...
The following was tested and worked for me under macOS Catalina 10.15.6.
I downloaded jq from https://stedolan.github.io/jq/download/ under the OS X section:

jq 1.6 binary for 64-bit

In Terminal, I ran the following commands:
cd ~/Downloads
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine jq-osx-amd64
sudo cp jq-osx-amd64 /usr/local/bin/jq
sudo chmod 0755 /usr/local/bin/jq

    • Note: If /usr/local/bin does not already exist, it must first be created with e.g.: sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
The aforementioned steps have now set up jq for use from the command line in Terminal, or from a Run Shell Script action in Automator, or a do shell script command using AppleScript.
Downloading a video from YouTube with youtube-dl using the --write-info-json option, I then used the example shell script code, shown below, in a Run Shell Script action in an Automator workflow as a Service/Quick Action to process the JSON file so it would only have the keys you've mentioned.
Example shell script code:
for f in "$@"; do
    [[ -f $f ]] || continue
    [[ $f =~ .*\.json$ ]] || continue
    fn="${f##*/}"
    tmpfile="$(mktemp /tmp/"${fn}.XXXXXX")" || exit 1
    /usr/local/bin/jq '{"upload_date": .upload_date, "fulltitle": .fulltitle, "description": .description}' "$f" > "$tmpfile"
    mv "$tmpfile" "$f"
done

With this setup as shown in the image further below, I select the JSON file, created by youtube-dl using the --write-info-json option, in Finder and then right-click on it selecting Cleanup youtube-dl JSON from the context menu.
It then produced a JSON file with the following example structure, while overwriting the original JSON file:
{
  "upload_date": "20080913",
  "fulltitle": "Jerry Seinfeld returns to Comedy on the Letterman show",
  "description": "Jerry Seinfeld returns to Comedy on the Letterman show"
}

Notes:

The example JSON file was created from the output of:
youtube-dl --write-info-json https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOsxxm-RnQ

The example shell script code, as coded, can handle multiple selected JSON files in Finder at the same time.

While the example shell script code does contain some error handling, nonetheless it does not backup the original JSON file(s) before overwriting. Additional code is required to be added if that is something you need/want.

The example shell script code, as coded, does not contain any error handling in regards to the jq command used and is only meant to be used on JSON files created by youtube-dl using the --write-info-json option with the assumption that the target keys always exist under the circumstances. Otherwise, additional error handling may be required.

The format of the  JSON files created by youtube-dl using the --write-info-json option are flat formatted, meaning it is written all on one line. The output of the jq command, as written, produces multi-line output. If you desire flat formatted output, you can use the -c option, e.g.,: jq -c ...

The example shell script code can be used in a standard  shell script, made executable, and run from the command line in Terminal.

The error handling can be removed from the example shell script code and formatted so it can also be use as a one-liner after changing directory the where the JSON files are located. e.g.:
for f in *.json; do jq '{"upload_date": .upload_date, "fulltitle": .fulltitle, "description": .description }' "$f" > "tmp"; mv tmp "$f"; done

        • Note: This overwrites the original file without a backup.

NOTE: JSON files are not just ordinary plain text files per se, they are specially formatted, and one should not parse them with utilities such as sed, awk, etc., and instead use a utility expressly designed to work with JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) files! jq is a utility designed to work with JSON files.


Is Xcode with Swift on Mavericks possible? My school computers have OS X 10.9.4 on them but they don't want to update them because of incompatibility with their Music class software. From what I see on Apple's website Xcode 6.4 and 6.3.1 both need Yosemite. Is there another version of Xcode that I can download somewhere so I can code using Swift?

A quick search for Xcode at the Wikipedia give you the answer. With the OS X version 10.9.4, you are able to install Xcode 6.2 and below.

On Xcode 6.2 you can code in Swift, but I'm afraid is not the latest Swift version.

This is the table where you can find out the requested information.


How do you troubleshoot an iOS app that is not behaving as expected? I downloaded an iOS app named “world history” from the App Store on my iPhone X with the latest firmware. However, whenever I open the app it just open for less than a second and closes immediately.

The one thing I can do is to report to the App Store, referring to the developers (if I found them). However, I would like to know if you have some other methods of troubleshooting?

The first step is to get in touch with the developer and share your concern. The contact information for the app developer can be found by going to the App Store app, locating the app in question and look for either App Support or Developer Website option. Once on the developer website, you can generally find the contact information.

In your message, it helps to mention the version of iOS running on your device and your device model.

To further troubleshoot and check if the misbehavior may be happening due to other reasons, it helps to update to the latest public version of iOS. It doesn't hurt to restart the device and try again.

You can also try by reinstalling the app, toggling Internet connectivity, logging in/out of Game Center (if it's a game app) etc. to isolate the issue.

If you have a different iPhone handy, you can also try by installing the app on it to determine if the issue is device specific.

It would help to include your findings in the message that you plan to send the developer.

Some apps have built-in mechanism to automatically send crash reports to the developer of the app.

If everything above fails and you have paid for the app, you can report it to Apple and ask for a full refund. The instructions for the same can be found in this Apple Support article:

Request a refund for an App Store or iTunes Store purchase.


Mirror iPad camera to two projectors (simultaneously) I'm trying to use an Apple TV to show the camera on an iPad on 2 projectors. The projectors will be about 50 feet apart. Is there a way to have the iPad show up on the 2 projectors?

As other commenters have already said, it doesn't seem to be possible to AirPlay a display to two targets at once.

Option 1)

The best solution I can think of would be to run something like AirServer on a Mac or PC. Attach the computer to both projectors and have it mirror the display. AirServer will make the computer a valid AirPlay target and you'll be able to mirror your iPad's display to it (and thus see it on both projectors simultaneously).

Option 2)

You could also buy an HDMI splitter and two long HDMI cables. That way you could AirPlay your iPad's screen to an Apple TV and have the Apple TV output to both projectors simultaneously.

Option 3)

I believe it's also possible to connect some projectors to a network (eg: via Ethernet or Wi-Fi), so perhaps you could look into that? You may be able to create an AirPlay endpoint on your network (perhaps with a tool like the aforementioned AirServer) and then direct its output to your network-connected projectors.

Option 4)

You could browse the App Store for an app which streams camera input from an iOS device to the network. You could essentially turn the iPad into a streaming HTTP server and then have any number of devices tune into it. Then you could attach an iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, computer (or anything, really) to each projector and have them stream from the source iPad (eg: By visiting the URL for the source iPad's stream in a web browser like Safari or a video player like VLC). This has the advantage of not requiring any long cables, although you'd need a solid Wi-Fi connection.


Advanced Mac file restrictions? Is there some sort of software or feature that grants us a more granular ACLs for files?  We are going to start deploying Macbooks to our users for the first time.  Each MacBook will have Parallels Desktop on it with our company image on it.  This creates a .pvm file.

We want to be able to prevent the .pvm from being copied to an external drive.  Problem is, our user's will be admin users so our options are limited.  Encryption of the file is a no go because we don't want our users to have the ability to move the file somewhere and still be able to open it.  Is there a way to prevent another admin user from being able to copy the file?  I've tried uchg flag but it causes issues with launching the VM where it doesn't even allow you to.

Is there some software that does this, or can anyone make any recommendations on how we can handle this?

Thanks

No, that's not possible on macOS - and it's not possible on other operating systems either.

Essentially if the user has administrative access, can install their own programs, and they're able to read the file (which is necessary in order to use it with Parallels Desktop) - they'll also be able to copy the file.

However you can do other things to get nearer to the goals that end-users will be able to (a) run your virtual desktop and (b) not copy your image file.

A common way of doing this is to run the virtual machine image on a server, and only allow access over a remote desktop protocol to use the programs on the image. This is often accomplished using Citrix or various solutions from other vendors such as VMware or Microsoft.

Another option you have is to limit the computers physically. For example some companies "glue" USB ports and similar to ensure that users cannot easily plugin external drives. You can do that with USB-C and Thunderbolt ports as well, but you'll also have to think in copying over the network. If you have to disable WiFi and other networking options as well, you'll probably end up with unusable computers.


Are there any apps which will "watch" constantly and trigger actions when I type a certain string? Good sirs.
Coming from Windows-land, I'm trying to figure out what it is possible to do with my new laptop.

Using autohotkey (windows), I was able to open documents, launch apps, etc, by typing any pre-set combination of numbers and letters I could think of.
The keyboard hook was system-wide. I didn't have to open anything like spotlight, alfred, quicksilver, etc.

I could just type the word, no matter what app, and the script would run what it was told to.

I imagine that creating an OS which allowed this exploit would be frowned upon by the apple engineers, but all that aside, has anyone made an app that runs like this and constantly watches all key input?

Would learning applescript take care of something like this?

Thanks

P.S. I have also been trying to map spotlight to the esc key. But something has already claimed the esc key. Any ideas what that would be?

There are many ways to accomplish this depending on your needs really. You can even use a combination of things to best fit what ultimately makes you more efficient.

I would recommend the following based upon it's type:

AppleScript

  FastScripts — set hotkeys for any AppleScript by keyboard shortcut or via menubar.

System-Wide Text Macros

  TextExpander - expands custom keyboard shortcuts into text, pictures, commands, etc.

System Events

  LaunchBar — hotkeys file manager, search tool, app launcher, clipboard
  manager, etc.


Bootcamp - safety of OSX partition I use OSX and Windows 7 on my MBA. I have an access to OSX partition on Windows 7. I was wondering... is it safe? I mean, could OSX partition be destroyed by some kind of virus? Is there any way to disable that partition in Windows 7, making it unaccessible for any program, virus, etc. ?

When you are booted to OS X, Open the security & privacy preferences pane and choose the File Vault tab. Then turn on File Vault 2. This will encrypt your entire OS X partition, making the data unreadable when not logged into a OS X user account.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4790


How can I get Quicksilver to open bookmarked URLs in Chrome? I'd like to be able to trigger QS and then start typing "gmail" or "weather" or the name of whatever bookmark I'd like to open, and have the previously bookmarked site open in Chrome, my default browser. Is it possible to do this with Chrome?

(I was able to do this with Quicksilver on my old G5 Mac, although I used Firefox on that machine.)

There is now a Google Chrome plugin for Quicksilver (with documentation). Version 1.0 was released on April 27, 2012.


How to archive mail in Outlook 2016 with a shortcut? Outlook 2016 has removed support for AppleScript. I used to use a script to move my mail to the Archive folder on Ctrl-A. How do I restore that functionality?

One could also do the following:

In the Outlook Menu Messages, look for the Move > option.  See if there is a Archive (provider) menu option.

Much like this:

That being the case, mapping a key to it can be done in the  Keyboard preferences.

Go to System Preferences
Select Keyboard
Select the Shortcuts tab
Click the Plus sign button and create an Application Specific shortcut.  (Preventing system wide use)
Type in the Menu option from Outlook exactly as it appears in the menu.
Type your preferred shortcut

Now, go back to Outlook and test it.


iPhone 4 syncing to old version of iCloud Notes, even after reset and on different Apple IDs! This is a weird one. I bricked my current iPhone with a quick spin through the washing machine, so I dug out my old iPhone 4 to use in the interim before I get a replacement.

I deleted all the content and set it up as a new phone, and linked my iCloud account to it. It brought in all my notes, but they're old versions, including some notes that have been deleted.

My iPad, MBP and iMac are all syncing perfectly.

I turned off iCloud notes in settings and back on again, but the same (old) notes came back in again.

I created new notes on all devices:
"Note on iPhone"
"Note on iCloud.com"
"Note on MBP"
"Note on iMac"
"Note on iPad"

All devices but the iPhone synced with each other. The "Note on iPhone" didn't populate to anywhere else.

I am 100% convinced that I am using the correct Apple ID.

I decided to try using my husband's Apple ID, too. The exact same thing happened. The iPhone got old versions of his notes - eg, a particular note is dated Sept '15 on in phone, but May '16 on icloud.com and on his phone.

I checked that the date and time are set correctly.

Any other ideas?

Assuming your freshly-laundered phone was using iOS 9 & your iPhone 4 is still on the last available iOS for it, 7.1.2, then the reason it cannot sync to new Notes is because the new Notes feature was only introduced with iOS 9

Anything older will still be syncing to the older version, presumably last updated the day before you hit the button to upgrade to the new version when you loaded iOS 9 for the first time.


What does "Other Languages" item in iPhone settings mean? What does the Other Languages... item found below iPhone Language under Settings app → General → Language & Region mean?

Tapping on the item shows me two sections, namely:

IPHONE LANGUAGES

and

OTHER LANGUAGES

The second section seems to have some overlapping items with those languages listed in first one.

A follow up: When I develop an app or website for iOS, languages of which list should I be aware of?

I am using an iPhone 6 running iOS 12.

The Other Languages... item under Language & Region lets you configure your device to work with other/additional languages.

As observed under Other Languages... screen, there are two section. This means that there's two kind of support for languages. For the sake of understanding let's call them as below:

Full support

and

Partial support

The languages listed under the first section, IPHONE LANGUAGES are fully supported by iOS, the operating system running on your iPhone. This means that if you select a language from this list, most of the textual items/instructions in your iPhone will use that language. Basically, selecting a language from this list lets you change the device language.

You may wish to refer to the Apple Support article, Change the language on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

On the other hand, the languages listed under the second section, OTHER LANGUAGES aren't supported fully by iOS. This means selecting one from it won't change the interface language of the device and you'd continue to see the textual items/instructions in your iPhone in the language selected in first section (device language).

However, the selection from OTHER LANGUAGES list is used by internationalized apps and websites. If you select a language from this list, apps and websites with content localized in it will be display it in the selected language.

When setting it up for the first time, your iPhone chooses the default language as device language corresponding to your locale.

  A follow up: When I develop an app or website for iOS, languages of which list should I be aware of?

A generally followed practise is to create the app (content) in English and localize it to work with all the languages your target audiences uses/expects to use it in.

It is recommended to refer to the Apple Developer document, Internationalization and Localization Guide


Cydia keyboard that leaves the middle of the screen empty I can not press the area of the screen where T and G keys are(middle of the screen). As a consequence this makes it impossible to write anything in portrait mode. Is there any Cydia keyboard that doesn't use that region?

It's not longer necessary for a keyboard from Cydia. From iOS 8, there is support for third party keyboards. There are alternate keyboards which can be found on the App Store which take different amount of screen real-estate. One of the smallest keyboards available is the Minuum Keyboard.


MacBook Air won't power on My MacBook Air won't turn on. I plugged in the charger and it says it's charging. When I turn it on, the light instantly turns green for a few seconds, and then it goes to amber.

What's going on?

I also had an error before, when it was alive: the dreaded frozen bluetooth keyboard assistant error. I didn't make that one go away but I'm not sure if it relates to this issue.

Try resetting the NVRAM and the SMC on your Mac then see if it can come on or if you detect any noises or lights detailing some form of life.

NVRAM aka PRAM
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

  How to reset NVRAM

  Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold
  these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. You can release
  the keys after about 20 seconds, during which your Mac might appear to
  restart.

  On Mac computers that play a startup sound, you can release the keys
  after the second startup sound. On iMac Pro, you can release the keys
  after the Apple logo appears and disappears for the second time.

SMC (System Management Controller)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

  How to reset the SMC on Mac notebooks

  First, determine whether the battery is removable. Most older Mac
  notebooks have removable batteries. Mac notebooks that have
  nonremovable batteries include MacBook Pro (Early 2009 and later), all
  models of MacBook Air, MacBook (Late 2009), and MacBook (Retina,
  12-inch, Early 2015 and later). Learn more about Mac notebook
  batteries.

  If the battery is nonremovable:

  Choose Apple menu > Shut Down.
  After your Mac shuts down, press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the built-in keyboard, then press the power button at the same
  time. Hold these keys and the power button for 10 seconds. If you have
  a MacBook Pro with Touch ID, the Touch ID button is also the power
  button.
  Release all keys.
  Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

  If the battery is removable:

  Shut down your Mac.
  Remove the battery. If you need help removing the battery, contact
  an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store.
  Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
  Reinstall the battery.
  Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.


Where did the button to hang up the phone from the lock screen go on iOS 10 Since upgrading to iOS 10 I've noticed that often when I want to hang up a call, I now have to unlock the phone, navigate to the phone app to finally press the red "hang up" button.

Previously there would be some basic phone controls like "Mute" and "Hang up" even if the phone decided to lock while you were on the call.  Now all I see is the contact information and call duration where the clock would be and "Press home to unlock" on the bottom.  No phone controls.

How can I reenable the phone controls on the lock screen?

On the lock screen in iOS 10, a swipe right gets you to that new lock info screen (this used to get you call controls), a swipe left gets you the camera.  I had the same reaction, how do I get to call controls?!?

It turns out, you just need to tap the phone number or contact name displayed on the lock screen, and you will get the call controls.  This makes sense, in hindsight, as the swipe right now has a new behavior, but it wasn't obvious to me either.

Also, the sleep/wake physical button hands up the phone, so that's often easier than using the screen in many situations.


"You can't resize the partition on this disk because it uses the Master Boot Record partition scheme I am trying to get rid of one of the volume ("mountain Lion", the second from the top) of the partition of an external hard-drive. In disk utility I get what you can see in the pic, namely it does not allow me to modify the partition saying "You can't resize the partition on this disk because it uses the Master Boot Record partition scheme". Do I have to repartition the whole thing or is there a work around? (I am running Yosemite)

Thanks,

You should be able to delete the partition, and you would be able to re-use the space to create a new partition (of the same size).

For some reason (not technical) OS X (lion or later) won't let you resize partitions on MBR disks. You could delete using gparted from a Linux live CD or many partitioning tools.

You don't say what you are proposing to use the partition for, or what is on the "Files" partition. You won't be able to boot from a MBR disk, but you can backup an OS X partition. NOTE I haven't tried this on Yosemite which now creates Core Storage partitions.


Weird hotspot password on iPhone after it was replaced by Apple Today I got my iPhone replaced by Apple as it was presenting some weird symptoms.

I upgraded the iOS and restored from backup but few hours later I discovered that the hotspot password was replaced with something I never wrote soaked4963.

Is this a bug in their iOS upgrade and/or restore mechanism?

iOS auto-generates a hotspot password by default, mine is a word followed by four digits, just like yours. I suspect that the hotspot password just isn't backed up, so the new phone created a new default one.

It's not an issue really, just replace it with whatever you want. If you want to keep the old one to avoid re-entering it on your devices, but don't remember it, you should be able to find it by going into Keychain Access (Applications > Utilities) on a Mac that connected previously. Double click on the entry corresponding to the hotspot name, and there should be a checkbox for "Show password".


In a Macbook, I'm ready to change the boot disk and replace the superdrive with an SSD. How will Migration Asst work? Use APFS? In a mid-2012 MacBook running Catalina, I'm first going to replace the DVD SuperDrive with an SSD. Boot-up and then make sure the drive is recognized and wifi, Bluetooth, camera, etc. still work. ok.
Next, I want to replace the current drive with an SSD. However, I've looked over Migration Assistant and I don't understand my best option. Here is situation:

each of the new internal drives are 1-tb Samsung 860 EVO and will be formatted APFS.
the current drive is a 250-gb Samsung 840 EVO with 80-gb free space and is formatted APFS.
a TmeMachine back-up exists on an external usb-drive formatted HFS+.

note: I have an external monitor connected via USB. The Catalina upgrade required some difficult security configuration to get it to work again and I don't want to redo this. I've also got a mysql database that I don't want to reconfigure with this upgrade.

Do I need to do a fresh install of Catalina? And thus have to re-configure my usb-monitor?

Can I mirror the current 250-gb drive onto the 1-tb SSD that replaces the DVD superdrive, and then mirror back that image onto the second 1-tb drive that will replace the 250-gb drive? My usb-monitor and mysql database shouldn't need re-configuration.

Will APFS not supporting TimeMachine effect this migration?

Or, just what is my best migration option? My current MacOS, app, and data arrangement are just like I want. Now, I just want to replace the disk it is on and add an additional disk. I've got plenty of cloud and extra usb drive storage to work with.

Personally, I've lost all faith in Time Machine in recent times.
I'd approach this as a cloning exercise.
I'd go with Carbon Copy Cloner [just because that's the one I know best] & do as your 2nd suggestion.
Clone to the DVD replacement, test, add the new larger SSD in place of your old HD, clone again. Remove [or just temporarily disconnect] the 1st SSD to test again.
If all is successful, wipe the intermediate SSD. If at any point something goes wrong [which barring human error it shouldn't] - you still have the original HD as belt & braces.
Once finished, neither you, your software, or your sql will know the difference.
One final check once you're done - open System Preferences > Startup Disk & make sure the new boot drive is already selected [it should be, but I've known it miss very rarely]
One thing to note when cloning:
Rename the new drive to something else first, so you will then be cloning MyDrive to MyDrive Clone.
Once the clone is complete & you are sure you can boot to it, change the names again, to MyDrive [from MyDrive Clone] & MyDrive Old [from the original]
This
a) makes sure you don't lose track… or indeed your sanity &
b) keeps anything that was reliant on the drive name sane too.


How to capture requests of app on ios I want to see all requests to local network that some app(broadlink E-Control) is doing. I want to see how the app communicate with other devices. P.S:I can modify this network and it's on ios not on macos.

I rely on Charles Proxy for web analysis. It's not clear if that's all you need - but it's a great start for many apps that call API.

How do you watch HTTP requests an iPhone app is making?

If you need actual packet capture, Apple describes how to do that on macOS / iOS / iPadOS and other operating systems here:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/network/recording_a_packet_trace


Expand Sending Email with Applescript I read with interest the article regarding sending an email based upon parsing through a csv file to pick up the name and email address. This looks like most of what I need to accomplish my objective with the exception that I would like for the script to run once daily and send the email one day before a date stored in the csv file. This is to remind someone that they need to perform a a certain task the next day. Emails will be sent using Apple Mail as the MTA through my gmail account.

The csv will contain the following:

firstname, lastname, action date

The script would need to pick up the first name and date from the csv file. I have coded the email text into the script as shown in the previous example.

Pseudocode:

Script runs just after midnight every day parsing the csv to determine who should receive the email on what date.
For the selected names, create and send an email the day prior to the required action.
As a bonus, the script could resend the reminder on the due date as well as any new reminders for the following day.

I suppose I could manually subtract one day in my csv to make the coding easier.

I am just getting started with Applescript, and do not know how to modify the existing script to accomplish this objective.

Try something like this:

set csv to "name@example.com,7/14
name2@example.com,7/15"
--set csv to read "/Users/username/Documents/file.csv" as «class utf8»

set text item delimiters to ","
set y to year of (current date)
repeat with l in paragraphs of csv
    set d to (date (text item 2 of l & "/" & y))
    if date string of (current date) is date string of (d - 1 * days) then
        tell application "Mail"
            tell (make new outgoing message)
                set subject to "subject"
                set content to "content"
                make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:text item 1 of l}
                send
            end tell
        end tell
    end if
end repeat

You can run the script every day after midnight (if the computer is awake) by running EDITOR=nano crontab -e and adding a line like 1 0 * * * osascript ~/Scripts/some\ script.scpt.

The recognized date formats depend on the settings selected in System Preferences. I don't know how to get an email address for a first name and last name.


Is it possible to use 2 iPads simultaneously with Sidecar? I'd like to use 2 iPads simultaneously as extra monitors for my Mac. When I try to connect a second iPad through Sidecar, it disconnects the first iPad.

Is there a way to override this and use two iPads with Sidecar?

Is it possible to use 2 iPads simultaneously with Sidecar?

The current implementation of Sidecar in macOS Catalina and iPadOS 13 doesn't allow using two iPads simultaneously as Sidecar target. While this is not explicitly mentioned by Apple, all the support documents hint towards the conclusion that only a single iPad can be used as a Sidecar target.

Use your iPad as a second display for your Mac with Sidecar
Sidecar - Sidecar lets you expand your Mac
 workspace—and your creativity—with
 iPad and Apple Pencil

The primary intent of using Sidecar is not to let you use your iPad as an external display, rather to aid to your productivity.


Can I move pictures from my iCloud library to another I have 200G of iCloud storage and about 120G of it is about 12,000 photos. They are all in my account.

I want any pictures anyone in my family takes to make it into this list. However, the only way I can figure out how to do this is to put my iCloud information as the primary iCloud account on all devices, which I don't want to do. I want each family member to use their own iCloud account (which is connected to mine via the family settings.)

To be clear, I want this to be totally automatic, just take a picture and it's everywhere, which seems to rule out shared photo libraries.

Is there a way to do this?

No. You'd have to set up your iCloud account on their devices as the main account to use for pics, find my iPhone, backups, etc, and then set up their iCloud account as a secondary for email, notes, mail, and iMessage and FaceTime.  Unfortunately that's the only way.


Where are Automator's "Watch Me Do" files saved? Where are Automator's "Watch Me Do" files being saved?

They appear to be part of the workflow, which means they would be saved wherever the workflow file is saved. This varies, depending on what kind of workflow you are creating.

Services are saved in ~/Library/Services
Folder Actions are saved in ~/Library/Workflow/Applications/Folder Actions
Applications and Workflows are saved wherever the user saves them.


How do I get purchased and ripped music from my iPhone to iTunes when it won't sync the traditional ways Okay, so I have a BUNCH of music on my old iPhone and my best friend wants to convince her mom to let her have it.  First, I want the music off it, because they're my favorite artist.  Also randomly I got a bunch of other songs my mom downloaded for me, and I really want those too.

Here's my issue.  Most of the songs were either on the phone before I got, or I ripped some CDs.  Now I've done this before, but with when I went to sync my music.  It said 0 songs.  I have over two hundred songs. I'd like to add that when you go to your music, or at least when I did before my last computer crashed that had all my music from iTunes, plus over 600 more, it pulls up all your music to sync.

When I tried to back up my phone to hopefully get it that way, it made me authorize my computer almost three times to transfer my purchases then it told me I just authorized three out of the five computers when we only have two in our house!

It didn't sync my purchases from the backup either.  Another thing, the only thing that it synced was the voice memos from my recordings.  -_-

If you guys have any alternatives or if I'm just out of luck.  Because the CDs have miraculously disappeared.  Things do that in my room.  Like my package of bookmarks.  Or my double disk of Grease 1&2. Anyway.  It'd be great if you could help me.

This can definitely be done, one of two ways.

Free way and non-free way

FREE WAY

Download MediaMonkey, free version
Install and in preferences or settings modify (if needed) where you want things to be sync'd (from phone to pc).
Plug your phone in, sync.  It's not made by Apple so it'll pull every song off your phone and onto your harddrive
May need to move songs from the MediaMonkey location to iTunes location
May need to deal with some dupes

NON-FREE WAY

Read this article how-to-copy-music-from-your-iphone-ipad-or-ipod-touch-to-your-computer-for-free
Buy referenced software and follow their instrux.  Likely very similar to above steps

If you're going the buy route, check out this company as they make good stuff Macroplant iExplorer

Finally if you're on a Mac you'll need to substitute Doubletwist for MediaMonkey


Can I use the macOS Photos app to mirror photos from an iPhone? I don't use Photos for anything other than showing photos taken on my iPhone, so I'd like the library on the macOS side to perfectly mirror what's shown on my device.

Right now, photos sync from iPhone to the Photos app, and the My Photo Stream view seems to remain current. But if I delete a photo from my phone, it still remains in the library on the Mac side. I'd really like for it to be gone, without having to delete it twice.

Is this possible, without using iCloud?

No, iCloud Photo Library is Apple’s tool for doing what you want to do. They don’t provide another way that doesn’t use iCloud.


Removing duplicate songs in an Apple Music playlist Is there any way to remove duplicate songs from an Apple Music playlist that I have? I imported two similar playlists from other users into a single playlist on my account.

I did some searching, but nothing has come up.

Note that I am asking about Apple Music playlists, and not local iTunes playlists.

The best and most comprehensive automation source for iTunes is Doug’s scripts.

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/index.php

I would guess this is a pre-made script for this as is, and if not, you would probably have to use the duplicate finder you want and filter the input to only be playlists. You would need to sign in to your Apple Music on a Mac long enough to run that script of course. I’m guessing someone could make a Workflow automation that only runs on iOS but I havent come across some example of that yet. Maybe this jogs someone’s memory about a ready-to-run script in workflow app.

Workflow by Apple https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workflow/id915249334?mt=8


FileVault 2 Full-Disk Encryption Alternative with LDAP Support Has anyone come across a full-disk encryption alternative to FileVault 2 for macOS with better LDAP user support? I've been trying to identify a solution for macOS Mojave that:

offers pre-boot, full-disk encryption just like FileVault 2 does
allows users to type in a username and password from the pre-boot login screen, authenticate over the network to a local LDAP server, and then decrypt+login to a macOS system without being manually added as users on that system beforehand.

I'm working in an environment with thousands of constantly changing users across thousands of machines at different sites, so pre-adding each LDAP user to each system (as I understand FileVault 2 requires) isn't workable for me.

A question about FileVault alternatives hasn't been asked in some time. My search for an alternative meeting my needs hasn't turned up much, which is why I'm hoping someone in the community can help. Most tools I've found such as VeraCrypt, TrueCrypt, and Trend Micro EE only seem to offer directory-level encryption rather than pre-boot. I'm starting to become convinced FileVault 2 is the only pre-boot FDE option for macOS... does anyone know of another?

Nope - there’s no getting around FileVault at the moment and with the T2 chips controlling this, you’ll need Apple to move to get the alternatives you mention off the ground let alone to production.

There are very good pre-log in screen options like the NoMad family and JAMF Connect that allow you to have LDAP/AD users checked at log in time, creating a local user if needed so you don’t have to pre-set up local users on macOS.

You’ll need an MDM to collect your FileVault keys (individual or institutional) if you need to be able to unlock a mac where a user isn’t already FileVault enabled. You’ll also need to keep track of secure tokens on newer OS.

Hit up the mac admin community on slack if you manage macOS professionally - most of the tooling needed is open source and the community blogs to get you up to speed are invaluable.

You’re right this isn’t manageable with tools like Apple Business Manager / DEP / MDM so you’ll need to bring some tools to manage 500+ Macs without a large staff and tons of repetitive work.


Album art on my iOS device differs from Mac iTunes Roughly 20% of the time now, the song or podcast currently playing on my iPhone 3GS will display some completely random album art from another title in my library of 9967 songs, 19 podcast subscriptions. Songs can have podcast covers and vice-versa.

Unlike the answer suggested by
Why doesnt my iPod show album art?, when I cross-check the Artwork tags of my Mac's iTunes (anything from 8.x through 10.4), I can verify that the songs with mistaken artwork on-device have the correct artwork on-Mac and that songs without artwork on-Mac display the generic "no artwork" icon on-device.

I've had this problem almost as long as I've had my 3GS. In the past couple months, my wife has also reported this symptom with completely separate hardware/software (both her own Mac and iPhone 3GS, neither of which migrated any settings from my machine).

Correctly-configured artwork should show as intended on-device. How can I restore the expected behavior?

I had the exact same problem several times in the last three years (with an iPhone 3G, an iPhone 4 & an iPod touch).

I always solved it this way :

disable music syncing for the device (uncheck everything in the "music" tab)
sync the device at least two times
enable music syncing
sync again

I usually divide steps 3 & 4 in smaller steps. I begin by syncing a few artists to check everything is fine before syncing all the music I want on my device.

I hope this will work for you.


Need help deciphering TestDisk results to fix HDD Background -

While trying to use asr in terminal to copy a failing HDD's contents to empty external HD #1, I facepalm set the target as BACKUP HD #2.

When I hit enter, asr went through it's normal steps, and then hit PSTT 0 100 start restore and hung there for longer than I expected it to. Then I realized that I put the wrong target volume, and terminated the window.

Now, when I plug BACKUP HD #2 into my laptop, it doesn't mount. I can see it in Disk Utility and can run repair on it, but get the following:

"Problems were found with the partition map, that may prevent booting"

Trying to mount it in the terminal fails too.

I have Disk Warrior, and it can see the hard drive (and even shows the name I set for it, whereas Disk Utility shows it as Untitled) but it says the drive is too big.

I have Drive Genius, but it shows up under devices and not volumes, so I can't repair it there either.

I bought Disk Drill, scanned the drive, but it categorized the found files by type - video/pictures/audio/etc and dumped all file name info - they're now file 000001.jpg etc. So I've lost file names and folder structure. I'm so grateful and happy to be able to have my files back, now hoping there's a way to get my structure/names back on the old drive...

After 4 days of scanning with TestDisk, here are the results, but I don't know what to do next.  Any ideas?

Thanks!

 TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - 732566645 sectors
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors
 P EFI System                     6      76805      76800 [EFI]
 P Mac HFS                   156013  271598000  271441988
>P Mac HFS                280526626  282014439    1487814
 P Mac HFS                288815421  288905227      89807
 P Mac HFS                288931061  289023226      92166
 P Mac HFS                289086265  289190956     104692
 P Mac HFS                290295252  291221714     926463
 P Mac HFS                486080570  486424828     344259
 P Mac HFS                489985809  490029384      43576
 P Mac HFS                701675873  709084595    7408723

Structure: Ok.  Use Up/Down Arrow keys to select partition.
Use Left/Right Arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:
                P=Primary  D=Deleted
Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, T: change type,
     Enter: to continue
HFSX blocksize=4096, 6094 MB / 5811 MiB

The TestDisk results for OS X disks are often misleading or even wrong because the algorithm misinterprets special hidden volume content. AFAIK it tries to detect special empty blocks (2) followed by the occurrence of the string HFSJ in the third block - which marks the beginning of a HFSJ volume. A similar sequence is used to detect the last blocks of a volume. Such 1536 Byte "blocks" are more frequent than TestDisk can handle.

I prefer a different approach:

External disks partitioned by Disk Utility to one (visible) HFS+ volume usually have a typical partition scheme:

depending on the the Device Block Size (either 512 B or 4096 B) and the total size of the disk they either contain a 200 MiB or 300 MiB EFI partition as first partition after the partition table, then the main volume and finally a 134.2 MiB partition or free space of the same size. The last blocks are occupied by the second ("backup") partition table.

The standard Apple GUID partition scheme of a 512 B disk looks like this:

                0           1         PMBR
                1           1         Pri GPT header
                2          32         Pri GPT table
               34           6
               40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
           409640  part2-size      2  GPT part - partition type
part2-size+409640      262144      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
    total_size-40           7
    total_size-33          32         Sec GPT table
     total_size-1           1         Sec GPT header

part2-size usually is: total-size - 671824 in 512 B-blocks. If partition 3 is missing the last three lines look like this:

total_size-262190      262151
    total_size-33          32         Sec GPT table
     total_size-1           1         Sec GPT header

The standard Apple GUID partition scheme of a 4096 B disk looks like this:

               0           1         PMBR
               1           1         Pri GPT header
               2           4         Pri GPT table
               6       76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
           76806  part2-size      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
total_size-32773       32768
    total_size-5           4         Sec GPT table
    total_size-1           1         Sec GPT header

part2-size usually is: total-size - 109579 in 4096 B-blocks.

512 B disks may also have a 614400 blocks(512) EFI partiton (partition 1) or 4096 B disks may have a 51200 blocks(4096) EFI partition - both can be found less frequently than the other way round though. The size of the main partition is reduced or enlarged respectively.

Since gpt only writes in the first and the second partition table (and doesn't overwrite volume content!) you may test now which partition sizes may fit.

The basic gpt commands are the following:

show the partition table:

sudo gpt -r show diskX

add a partition:

sudo gpt add -i (i) -b (block-nr) -s (blocks) -t (GUID) diskX

with i: index number, b: start block, s: size, t: partition type
remove a partition:

sudo gpt remove -i (i) diskX

destroy partition table:

sudo gpt destroy diskX

create a new partition table:

sudo gpt create -f diskX

Repairing your disk:

detach any external disk, thumb drive etc except the corrupted one.
Open Terminal.app and enter diskutil list to get an overview. In the output you will get the disk identifier of the external disk (e.g. disk2; below I assume it's disk2, your disk identifier may differ!)
get the device block size:

diskutil info disk2 | grep "Device Block Size"

get the partition table of the disk:

sudo gpt -r show disk2

Unmount the disk:

diskutil umountDisk disk2

if you find partitions remove them all with e.g. sudo gpt remove -i 2 disk2, sudo gpt remove -i 3 disk2 and  sudo gpt remove -i 1 disk2. If no partition table is found create a new one.
examining your disk's properties (probably a 4096 B disk) I would try the following now:

sudo gpt add -i 1 -b 6 -s 51200 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk2
sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 51206 -s 732482666 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2

then verify a potential volume with

diskutil verifyVolume disk2s2

or if this fails remove the partitions again with sudo gpt remove -i 2 disk2 and sudo gpt remove -i 1 disk2 and choose a different EFI partition size:

sudo gpt add -i 1 -b 6 -s 76800 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk2
sudo gpt add -i 2 -b 76806 -s 732457066 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2

then verify a potential volume with

diskutil verifyVolume disk2s2

A different method to find relevant partition boundaries are outlined in this answer: how to fix GUID hard drive corrupted to MBR and several other answers.

In principle, it's similar to the TestDisk method but with some (human) interpretation of detectable/detected characteristic volume structures. Therefore it's not automated and slower.

If your asr task has overwritten important parts of the previous main volume, it can't be salvaged.


Wi-Fi Network only appears after I connect to another Wi-Fi network This is a very intriguing problem. Every time I'll connect my MacBook Air mid 2013 with OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 to my wi-fi network at home, I can't, cause it won't be available in the list of networks available.
What I do? I turn no my Android tethering hotspot, and only after I connect to this network, my home wi-fi will be shown.

What might it be???

The first part is for testing.

You need to use the terminal and manually connect to it.

Turn On

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

Find (you can skip this if you already know the Name)

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

Connect

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 WIFI_SSID_I_WANT_TO_JOIN WIFI_PASSWORD

Enter/replace your WiFi name and password in the above.

This should have connected you to your Network.

In your Network settings your home network should be in the top of the list.
Open your router settings and change the network name to test if problem with naming. While in Router setting, change the channel to #5 (usually the least crowded one) to eliminate interferences.
Finally, run WiFi diagnostics, by holding the "alt" key and clicking on the WiFi icon, then selecting the WiFi Diagnostics.


Running a .sh file but after new PATH is not visible in shell I am running a file ./setWLSEnv.sh which has the following output:

http://pastebin.com/sSXRZd1s

    PATH=/Users/cris/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home/wlserver/server/bin:/Users/cris/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home/wlserver/../oracle_common/modules/org.apache.
ant_1.9.2/bin:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_20.jdk/Contents/H
ome/jre/bin:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_20.jdk/Contents/Home/bin:
/Users/cris/perl5/perlbrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbi
n:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Users/cris/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home/wlser
ver/../oracle_common/modules/org.apache.maven_3.0.5/bin

Your environment has been set.

BUT when i go in the same terminal and i execute

echo PATH is still have the old path ...

Any idea ? Thanks

You can't run a script to set the path in your current shell. In your case this does not  seem to be necessary anyway because all the script does is to set up the correct variables to run the java process at the end. So inside this process all environment variables should be set correctly.

To set variables in the current shell, either set them in .bashrc/.bash_profile and open a new shell; or duplicate your script, remove the last line and source the new script into the shell with . path/to/new/script.


How do I close all open tabs in Chrome browser for the iPad? Is there a shortcut for closing all the open tabs in Chrome browser on an iPad?  Last time I checked, which has been a few years now, this function was available on the iPhone, but not on an iPad.

Is this still true?  If so, why is it still missing after so many years?  I can't imagine a technical obstacle to implementing this feature.

In the upper right-hand corner of Chrome for iPad is a square with a number in it. That number is the number of tabs open.

Single click the square-with-number.
It’ll open a “tab overview” page.
In the upper left hand corner of the “tab overview” page is a “close all” button.
Clicking that button will close all tabs.


Are the little grey minimize header buttons gone? I have just noticed, that in Lion I no longer see any of those 'compact application header' little grey buttons on the right side, top of applications... (the opposite side to which the close and minimise window buttons are)

Have these been removed? Or were they more tied into the apps rather than the system.

You mean the Show/Hide toolbar button?
Yes, it's gone.

You can still access the function with the keystroke Cmd-Option-T.

Or by right-clicking the toolbar and clicking Show/Hide toolbar.


Combine photos from multiple people's iPhones into a single location? My wife and I have different iCloud accounts. We would like to have the photos from all our iPhones (I have 2) to be combined in a single location. Is there any way to do this? I had thought we could use the Google or Dropbox uploaders, but it seems that they don't run in the background.

We've tried family sharing and have had issues with it. Specifically, we don't reliably see photos from all devices, we don't get images from our digital cameras unless we import them into a Mac, and it's not clear how to export all of the family sharing photos to an archive.

Use Google Photos. This being a fairly new app, it did not exist at the time this question was asked.

Google photos is a new (free!) service that allows you to upload all your photos to Google Drive, automatically. You can also share all your photos with anybody you want, using the new Share Your Library feature.

You can download the app from the App Store, or access them on your computer. There's also a desktop uploader in case you want to upload photos on your computer automatically.

The best part about this app is that it allows you to delete all the photos you uploaded from your phone, freeing up storage space on your phone. Your photos will still be available through the Google Photos app.


Health data keeps disappearing without reason I'm using an iPhone 5 (running iOS 8.3) and update my health data manually with 'add data' feature. However in some mornings when I open health application, all data seems missing. Charts, dashboard settings, everything. Like I opened for the first time. If I reset or restart my phone, data comes back.

Has anyone experienced this? If yes, is there a solution to keep it from happening?

Update: I didn't restart my phone intentionally and my dashboard is still empty.

Update 2: Issue is not happening for some time now. May close the question with some answer soon.

Update 3: Still present with iOS 9.0.1 upto some extent. I'm starting to think it's a bug and slowly being ironed out.

Update 4: Still happens with iOS 9.1, however less frequently. Let's wait and see what iOS 9.2 brings.

Give it an hour then open it again.
For some reason, it can take a long time to catch up.

Don't try to force it - I did that once in the early days & lost about 3 weeks of data - which replaced itself with a marathon 79,000 steps in one day, then 20 days of no info.

I've noticed it is a lot better since iOS 8.3, in fact, I'd forgotten it used to do it until your post reminded me.


Shortcut keys to delete all text to end of line (or all text after cursor)? Edit: This question was marked as duplicate and closed, but I checked the suggested duplicates before asking mine and found they had different particulars, even if they were about the same topic.  If, however, I missed the exact duplicate, then I stand corrected.
When deleting all text before the cursor, you could use the keyboard shortcut CMD + Delete, but what's the opposite equivalent when you want to delete all text after the cusor (or to the end of a line)?

Keyboard shortcut to delete after the cursor till end of line is ⌃ + K.


iPhone 6 Initial Power Up SIM Card Locking? First, my question: Does swapping out a foreign SIM for the Sprint SIM that comes in new Sprint iPhone 6's prior to the first power up in any way prevent the iPhone from being locked by Sprint for international use. (I understand that unlocking Sprint iPhones for domestic use is impossible; I'm only asking about international use)

Now, a little background: I recently purchased an on-contract Sprint iPhone 6, and have not yet powered it on - though it was added to my account at the store already. I will be taking a trip overseas in about 3 weeks and would like to use the phone with local carriers while I'm there. Unfortunately, according to Sprint's international unlock policy, I won't be able to get them to unlock the phone before then since it won't have been active for 90 days. I've read hints online about being able to prevent a Sprint iPhone from getting locked internationally by swapping in a foreign SIM for the standard Sprint SIM when first powering it on. Is there any truth to that? Would Sprint have any way of noticing that I've powered it up this way? Would it cause any problems with my account with them?

We don't know what you wound up doing or what happened ...

However, I will tell you that I recently obtained a Sprint iPhone 5 that had no SIM card and had never, ever been activated.  Apparently it was an Apple repair exchange, but the owner decided to move service over to Verizon rather than activating his exchange, and sold it to us instead when he found out Verizon could not activate it there.

I considered, like yourself, that perhaps the phone is in fact unlocked until the first SIM is installed.  So, I initially put in a U.S. AT&T SIM card instead.  That worked, and even displayed 4G service availability on the screen, until we got to the iTunes portion of the start up when the phone tries to verify itself with Apple and get the right carrier profile.  We received a message in iTunes that the "activation policy" does not allow using this SIM card unless Sprint unlocks the phone, and "this is not a hardware issue."

In my opinion, that is a pretty good indication that the phone is locked at the factory before any SIM is inserted, and also that it is possible for the phone to run even on AT&T within the U.S. if properly authorized (something Sprint denies).  As for whether the factory SIM lock includes international SIMs (your actual question), obviously we don't know from my experience, but I'd venture to guess it probably does as well, as in my opinion, the international unlock is a really just a partial SIM unlock which leaves the U.S. GSM carriers blacklisted.


Remove Header and footer in pages 5.5.2 How do I remove header and footer in newest pages 5.5.2 easily?

You just need to uncheck one or both of it under Document. See the image below.


Watch youtube moview on a Mac using QuickTime Is it possible to watch youtube videos on a Mac using QuickTime as it is on iOS?
How to force Safari to render youtube video stream in QT plugin.

There’re a couple of Safari extensions that will do this. ClickToPlugin and ClickToFlash.

http://hoyois.github.com/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/

Both versions will swap out the Youtube Player for a standard HTML5 player. The extension also allows you to download the Youtube video.


How do I stop my iMessages appearing on my MacBook Air? I updated my MacBook Air to El Capitain (OS X 10.11)
I would rather not have my messages appearing on my Mac when others are using it.
I have tried System Preferences but I cannot find the Accounts tab in my settings.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The best practice would be to have other users set up with their own logins on your Mac or to use the Guest account.  They would never see your messages in that case.

But, if you really wish to disable iMessages from appearing on your Mac:

Go to Messages
Open the Preferences Messages > Preferences or ⌘+,
Go to the Accounts tab
In the iMessage account uncheck "Enable this account"


"Hunk #5 FAILED at 2001." when upgrading wine through homebrew I get this error message when I am trying to update from wine-3.13 to 4.0-rc5.

$ brew upgrade wine
==> Upgrading 1 outdated package:
wine 3.13 -> 4.0-rc5
==> Upgrading wine
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/wine-4.0-rc5.sierra.bottle.tar.gz

curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found
Error: Failed to download resource "wine"
Download failed: https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/wine-4.0-rc5.sierra.bottle.tar.gz
Warning: Bottle installation failed: building from source.
==> Downloading https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/4.0/wine-4.0-rc5.tar.xz
Already downloaded: /Users/gustaf/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/9d4ffd92524540ca171b332f4f0281eb7a689da4560e3bda8029ba8533db61e9--wine-4.0-rc5.tar.xz
==> Downloading https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/formula-patches/74c2566/wine/2.14.patch
Already downloaded: /Users/gustaf/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/d06acb9dce25009cf81be12fbb50a415406c5fd03a8a43d719fe8f9ba43321b5--2.14.patch
==> Patching
==> Applying 2.14.patch
patching file dlls/wined3d/context.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 1647 (offset 216 lines).
Hunk #2 succeeded at 1676 (offset 216 lines).
Hunk #3 succeeded at 1699 (offset 216 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 1727 (offset 216 lines).
Hunk #5 FAILED at 2001.
1 out of 5 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file dlls/wined3d/context.c.rej
Error: Failure while executing; `patch -g 0 -f -p1 -i /private/tmp/wine--patch-20190110-22169-zpas8/2.14.patch` exited with 1.

What does this mean, and how can I fix it so that I can update wine? I am using Xcode 9.

I was able to solve it by deleting these lines:

# Patch to fix screen-flickering issues. Still relevant on 3.0.
# https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34166
patch do
  url "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/formula-patches/74c2566/wine/2.14.patch"
  sha256 "6907471d18996ada60cc0cbc8462a1698e90720c0882846dfbfb163e5d3899b8"
end

in /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula/wine.rb. Take note that, as the comment states, "screen-flickering issues" may be present when this patch is not applied.


Music App: order by album release date in iOS 9? When I tap in the artist in the Music app, I see the list of their albums.
Is there a way to make this list sorted by year (release date)?
I'm on iOS 9

Sadly there seems to be no way to do this natively, but Picky handles it nicely.


What does it mean when a %CPU exceeds (# of cores) x 100%? Several responses to a question I asked earlier suggested I try Opera kiosk mode, so I decided to download it and give it a try. Once the download had completed and the disk image was being verified, Safari hung for over a minute and there were periods where Safari used a very high %CPU:

In Mac OS X 10.5, I was accustomed to seeing Safari freeze, but it never used up more than 200% CPU (2 cores x 100%). Is this a bug in Activity Monitor? Or does this mean that %CPU is now more akin to system load?

The % CPU is relative to 1 core, so 726% is using almost 8 cores. Core is loosely defined, so 1 Hyper-Threaded, "virtual" core looks like 2 cores to Activity Monitor.

What type of system do you have? If it is just 2 cores (which is seems to be) then nik's answer sounds correct.

A late model 8-core system can look like 16 cores to Activity Monitor:


Switch to MacPorts SSH by default 10.8/10.9 I've installed the MacPorts high-performance variant of SSH (sudo port install openssh +hpn) but now I would like to switch the default ssh command over.  However, there appears to be some moral panic around degrading the sandbox (which was only recently introduced) but I am also worried about integration with OS X's keychain and my server keys....

What all do I need to softlink into /usr/bin/ssh or is there a better way to do this?

You can list the /opt directories before the system path and the shell will prefer the first match for ssh unless a script explicitly calls the system version.

By default, MacPorts lists /opt/ in your $PATH before the standard system paths.  I would inspect your ~/.bash_profile carefully to make sure there are no typos.


iMac turned itself on after power was cut I left my computer sleeping but turned off the power by accident. Hours after the power was turned back on the computer booted itself up. It is plugged into a UPS. I don't understand how this could happen.

On the iMac, there's a setting under System Preferences > Energy Saver called Start up automatically after a power failure, which I'm guessing will be selected on your system, and hence would explain your computer's spontaneous rebooting.

If you don't wish this to happen in the event of a power failure, or the next time you turn off the power by accident, then uncheck that particular option.

Note: Screenshot taken on macOS 10.12.6 (Sierra)

As Tetsujin very helpfully points out in the comments below, there is also a button in the bottom right of the Energy Saver preferences pane labelled "Schedule...", which allows the user to regulate when the computer starts up, wakes up, or goes to sleep.  It would be wise to double check your settings there too.


I lost all my calendar events after updating to iOS 7 After updating to iOS 7 on my iPhone 5, I lost all the events on my calendar in the months previous to the update.  How can I recover those?

Do you use iCloud or another cloud service to store your calendars? If yes, it may be related to your sync settings. The standard is to synchronize only events up to 30 days back. If you want to change to another period, go to the calendar section of the system settings and choose a sync period there.


Is the UUID command missing in 10.8.2? I just noticed that the uuid command is no longer working on my MacBook. One possibility is that it was removed when I upgraded to Mountain Lion. The man page is still available.

man uuid

Does anybody else have this problem with 10.8.2?

The command you probably are looking for is uuidgen.

man uuid shows the manpage for the UUID library (uuid.h).


How to make APFS option available in disk utility? I want to reformat an external harddisk

For some reasons there is no option of APFS. How can I enbale APFS for an external harddisk?

Here is the detail of the external harddisk

My Passport 0837:

  Product ID:   0x0837
  Vendor ID:    0x1058  (Western Digital Technologies, Inc.)
  Version:  10.72
  Serial Number:    57999999414199999365659999
  Speed:    Up to 5 Gb/sec
  Manufacturer: Western Digital
  Location ID:  0x01100000 / 1
  Current Available (mA):   900
  Current Required (mA):    896
  Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
  Media:
My Passport 0837:
  Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,170,586,112 bytes)
  Removable Media:  No
  BSD Name: disk4
  Logical Unit: 0
  Partition Map Type:   MBR (Master Boot Record)
  USB Interface:    0
  Volumes:
Photo Backup 1 bad:
  Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,169,537,536 bytes)
  Available:    912.63 GB (912,629,383,168 bytes)
  Writable: Yes
  File System:  Case-Sensitive Journaled HFS+
  BSD Name: disk4s1
  Mount Point:  /Volumes/Photo Backup 1 bad
  Content:  Apple_HFS
  Volume UUID:  2254E6C8-8BB6-38B0-9153-D99C10A7B874

Partition Map Type:   MBR (Master Boot Record)

You need to format the entire drive, not just the partition.

APFS requires the underlying structure to be GUID, not MBR.

As only Volumes are shown by default, you need to change to Show All Devices from the View menu…


OSX Powerpoint 2011 Pagination The code for pagination in the footer is: ‹#›

Is there a similar code for the total number of slides in the file?  The goal is to have the footer include the number of slides in the deck: i.e. 5 of 9 or 5/9

I have a deck of 11 slides and tried to 'hard-code' the '11' in the footer of the 'slide master':

 ‹#› of 11

however, the footer does not refresh to include the 'of 11' string.  I have tried to refresh by closing the file and re-opening without success.  Only new slides have the 'of 11' string.  Any suggestions are appreciated as to how to prompt the old slides to refresh per the 'master' slide.

A quick and dirty solution would be to edit the slide master as follows: Resize the text field containing the slide number so it is small enough that you can add an additional text field in the freed up space and enter „of 11“ into it. If you align it properly, it should look like one string.


How to allow an AppleScript terminal push as raw code instead of executable? Locally in the terminal after creating a file named foobar.scpt I go to cd the location of the repo locally and I run git add .

I then commit the file using git commit -m "Adding foobar.scpt"

Afterward I use git push origin http://location-of-repo

The file, foobar.scpt exists in the Github repo master branch.  When I click on the file it will not show me the raw code but indicates it as an executable and only provides a RAW link for download.

How can I push the script file in the terminal to the repo and allow anyone that has access to that repo the ability to see the raw code instead of a download?

If you want it not to be a binary file and easily viewable, then save or export as text. It will be saved as plain text with a .applescript extension.

Also, by default, when saved locally and double-clicking on a .applescript file, it will load in Script Editor, where it can then be either saved as or exported as a .scrpt, .scrptd or .app.


New users can't see Apple applications from Utilities folder in Launchpad I felt like giving my mess of Launchpad icons a fresh start. So I did

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true && killall Dock

On checking Launchpad, it had appeared to have reset itself to default layout. Then to stop it resetting again on every reboot, I did

com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool false

It's always worked in the past but now I've discovered that no applications in /Applications/Utilities appear in Launchpad anymore. Terminal, Activity Monitor, AppleScript Editor and all the rest are missing:

The ones you see here actually reside in just /Applications. But Utilities are supposed to populate here amongst them.

The problem is persisting across users and also when I create new users.  I find that very odd in and of itself because I did not use sudo or otherwise elevate the commands I used to set the ResetLaunchpad flag.

Basically, I don't want to have to drag the apps in /Applications/Utilities to the Launchpad icon and then manually organise them back into Launchpad's "Other" folder every time I create a new user.

Any ideas how I might be able to get Launchpad to behave normally again? Thanks! I'm using OS X 10.9.5.

I don't know if this is a related cause and the potential fix but I was able to get the issue resolved for me.

I use Homebrew Cask and I have it setup to symlink the applications from my Homebrew Cask directory into my /Applications/ folder (the default is ~/Applications).

The solution for me was to remove all of the Symlinks (I just moved them to my desktop) and then I ran the terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true; killall Dock

After doing this my Utilities folder showed back up and when I moved the symlinks back into my Applications folder everything was back to normal.

If you do have symlinks in your /Applications/ directory or maybe even aliases it's probably worth giving this process a try.

Hope that helps.


Is there a way to only mark the most recent email in a thread as unread? Right-click -> Mark as Unread marks every email in the thread as unread.
I am using MacOS 10.14.6 and Mail 12.4.

In a message thread in the mail app, there's a small indicator of how many messages are in the thread:

If you click on that indicator, it'll open up the thread and show all the individual messages:

You can then interact with the individual messages, including setting the most recent one as unread.


How to make iCloud on Windows sync bookmarks with Safari, not Internet Explorer I'm trying to get iCloud on my PC to sync its bookmarks with Safari, not Internet Explorer.

According to Apple's documentation, it is possible to sync iCloud bookmarks to Safari on Windows:

  You can sync bookmarks between your computer and your iOS device. When
  syncing is enabled, all bookmarks will sync. You can sync bookmarks
  with the following applications:

  Safari (Mac OS X)
  Safari for Windows (Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7)
  Microsoft Internet Explorer

My bookmarks are syncing fine between iPhone and iPad, so I'm sure I've got that end set up correctly.

I do have Safari 5.1.1 (7534.51.22) installed on my Windows 7 PC.

However, my iCloud control panel is only offering me the option to sync Bookmarks with Internet Explorer, and not Safari:

Things I've tried:

I've read through the notes on Apple's iCloud: Troubleshooting iCloud Bookmarks, and can't see anything about it failing to spot that Safari is installed.
Uninstalled and re-installed Safari

Is there anything else I should try, to get iCloud on Windows to offer syncing with Safari?

(I daren't turn on syncing Bookmarks with Internet Explorer, as I have hundreds of bookmarks there, that I don't want synced to my mobile devices)

Unfortunately you have to turn it on and then it will let you change it. I'll have a look tomorrow to see if there is a preference file that can easily be changed to skip having to sync with IE.


Will setting a cron job to delete ._ shadow files on a linux share work? I recently tarred up a directory to send to a remote linux system.  When I untarred it, there were ._ files tossed into the target directory.

I did a search and found articles of people being livid about this in 2003.

macosx forum on ._ files

What purpose does this serve on Mac OS X and can I tell it not to create these files?

The reason I ask is I am managing network shares where these files will land and am inclined to I set a cron job to periodically delete them. From my understanding this deletion will help since the files result from user-a setting a preference in a resource file, then user-b will be subjected to cross user contamination of preferences.

According to the forum link, if I block their creation, MacOS will freak, but that information is quite stale. Can someone point me to an up to date summary of these files? Will deleting the files have bad consequences when files return to OS X?

Before Mac OS X, the Mac OS used ‘forked’ files, which have two components: a data fork and a resource fork. The Mac OS Standard (HFS) and Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) disk formats support forked files. When you move these types of files to other disk formats, the resource fork can be lost.

With Mac OS X, there is a mechanism called “AppleDouble” that allows the system to work with file systems that do not have a forked file feature, such as remote NFS, SMB, WebDAV directories, or local UFS volumes. AppleDouble does this by converting the file into two separate files. The first new file keeps the original name and contains the data fork of the original file. The second new file has the name of the original file prefixed by a “._ ” and contains the resource fork of the original file. If you see both files, the ._ file can be safely ignored. Sometimes when deleting a file, the ._ component will not be deleted. If this occurs you can safely delete the ._ file.

Essentially, when you’re working on files located on a network share you end up with duplicates of the file with a “._” prefix.

You can run the following command to clean the files up.

find . -name '._*' -exec rm '{}' ';'

You could also make this into a launchctl or cron task.


MiniDisplayPort to HDMI adapter not working OK, so I bought an MiniDisplayPort to HDMI adapter off dx.com and it doesn't work, before I angrily demand a refund I want to know whether there is anything I can do to get this to work.

I have a 2013 13inch MacBook Air

I have heard that I probably should have either got an official apple (sponsored) one (for 40 dollars) or instead of Mini DisplayPort to HDMI get a Mini DisplayPort to DVI and then a DVI to HDMI adapter.

It could be the adapter?

I bought mine at Monoprice for $6.82!

Notice it says with Audio support in the title.

  Mini DisplayPort to HDMI® Adapter w/ Audio Support Product Number:
  5311

and it works purfectly on my MBA with the Sharp TV.

It is not worth for $4, but if you must, look in your about this mac, or your System Utility display if it shows the monitor/tv you just connected.


Is there a way that I can set the iOS music app to save my progress during playback? I've noticed since updating to iOS 9 that if I pause music playback in the middle of a song, then return to the music app after a period of time, the song begins playing again from the beginning. Not where I left off. This can get annoying if you are listening to a longer file, like a mix or (I would imagine) an audiobook. Is there a way for me to change the setting so that my position within the song will be remembered?

If you set the media type to audiobook or podcast it will give you the option to remember playback position, but it will be moved to the iBooks or Podcast app instead of being able to be played in Music.


Has anyone used a lightning + Micro USB to USB-C cable I just purchased an USB-C to Lightning cable, but when it came I realized that it has also a micro USB right in the Lightning connector. My fear is that the short circuits will damage the iPhone if I insert it the wrong way. The iPhone itself has pins only on one side. Are this cables safe? Should I remind myself every time that I need to insert it in a certain way?

I have personally never seen a cable like this. i have seen Micro USB to Lightning adapters like this.

Personally I would be more careful than usual and just not force the cable if it doesn't go in as then you could be inserting the Micro USB to not damage the phone. After all if this was sold legally this must have been verified.

So in conclusion just be careful and don't force it in.

Also as mentioned by the OP be careful with the two pins.

After taking a closer look the adapter doesn’t seem certified so I recommend throwing it away.


Apple "13 2011 MacBook Pro touchpad battery faulty issue. (10.13.6 software problem) Recently, my school that gave me that laptop asked it back, and it removed the battery. I'm forced to use the charger but that is not the question right now.
I currently need help because it doesn't actually show the settings in the trackpad settings, instead it thinks i'm using an iMac because it has bluetooth trackpad + keyboard connection.
The issue and the pictures:

You might see this kind of a post alot now, it's an issue on high sierra. I recently re-installed it because of performance slow-down, actually that is not the thing i'm talking about right now.
I currently have no other idea other than downgrading to 10.12 sierra
Any ideas how to fix the trackpad?

The most likely cause is that the “tech” broke the trackpad when they removed the battery, so the Mac is looking for a Bluetooth trackpad instead. (Or at least, they 'loosened' it sufficiently that it has subsequently broken.)
Frankly, your school has given you a 10-year-old laptop, with no battery, and a broken trackpad. (And a startup disk called "aaaaaa".) Because there's no battery, the CPU performance will be throttled at best.
At worst, the power adapter can’t supply enough current at all times to even make the OS stable. Let's hope it doesn't have the original hard drive....
Take it back to them, and tell them it's unreliable. This is not a software problem. You need hardware service on this unit or a new Mac.


Select "Sent Items" on Outlook with Keyboard Maestro Is there any way to have Keyboard Maestro select "Sent Items" on an app like Microsoft Outlook upon pressing a hot key?

I have tried with "Select Menu" and "Press Button" but none of these options seem to work.

Selecting Intractable GUI Elements with Keyboard Maestro

This is one of the most useful aspects of Keyboard Maestro, the ability to manipulate a GUI which is not easily accessed by other scripting options. I'll explain how to use this routine to solve your question, but it can be used for just about anything else.

The recycable core of the method is a sequence of three actions:

Find Image on Screen.
Use Variable in the to set the mouse location mode.
Move or Click Mouse relative to the current mouse location.

Once these three actions are dragged into your macro, you'll need to configure them slightly:

Take a screenshot of the graphical element you would like to select using ⌘-⇧-4.
Drag the screenshot into the Find Image on Screen box.
Test it by hitting try with the Display box checked while the icon is on the screen.
Make sure the same Variable is both set by Find Image on Screen and used by Use Variable.
Adjust the → and ↓ distance so that the button is pressed, in case the image found is slightly larger than the hitbox.

And there you have it. This little block of actions is completely modular, so try to think of other fun uses. Here's my final macro:


How can I upgrade my PHP 5.3.1 to 5.3.2 on XAMPP Mac OS X? I've just installed XAMPP on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and everything is running correctly and setup completely well.

However, I want to install an open source project that requires PHP 5.3.2 or higher. I visited the official PHP website and downloaded PHP 5.4.5.

How can I update my PHP version so that it runs with this latest version?

I visited:

  Places -> Application -> XAMPP -> xamppfiles -> ???

I'd appreciate any guidance. Thanks!

Not to lead you in a different direction, but if you were using MAMP (free version) on OS X, that comes with the most up-to-date version of PHP and allows to you switch between 5.2.17 & 5.4.3.

I find that MAMP is less messy than XAMPP.


Can my employer access my iCloud data if I sync it on my managed Mac I have an iCloud Drive with all my files on it and also all my Safari bookmarks are synced to iCloud. Also most importantly my 1Password data is in iCloud.
My new employer is forcing me to use a company MacBook which is a 'managed Mac' meaning everything is controlled by the employer.
What should I do, just sign into my personal iCloud account and hope for the best or do you think my employer could access all this data?

With a managed Mac where "everything is controlled by the employer", the employer could technically access your personal data stored on that Mac - yes. It doesn't matter if the data comes from iCloud or other places.
Note that your employer probably does not access your personal data, and depending on where you live and what you agreements are, it is probably not legal for them to do so. However, it is very probable that they could access the data given the necessary intent and technical knowledge.
My advice would be not to store any personal data on a company laptop, unless you wouldn't mind your employer or a system administration to stumble upon that data.


how to delete files from iTunes without Time Machine deleting from external hard drive If I delete files from iTunes, does Time Machine automatically delete them when I plug in my external hard drive? And if so, how do I change this?

No - when you delete a file on your mac Time Machine explicitly keeps all copies of that file that have been backed up previously.

The only caution is now you have all those copies on one drive (presumably) and it is one mistake / error away from being lost.

Also, if when your backup drive fills, Time Machine will start deleting from the oldest backup to make room for the estimated space needed for the current backup. Normally you won't lose all backups and all copies, but it is possible even if you have the "warn me after deleting backups" selected. In cases where new drives are added or there is an error / corruption to a file system causing a lot of data to get newly backed up, I have seen all but the most recent backup get deleted before you, the user is notified of the deletion.

You can prevent this one copy deletion by periodically cloning your backup volume or otherwise archiving a copy of your machine separately than the normal Time Machine process to ensure you always have more than one backup copy of a file that you have now deleted on your main iTunes library.


How do I perform a right-click-drag with the trackpad on Windows 7 under Bootcamp? I tried two-finger-click and drag. Nope, doesn't work.

I tried clicking in the bottom right corner with one finger, but can't seem to drag.

I'm on a early 2011 Macbook Pro running Bootcamp 4 and OS X Lion.

If you plug in a mouse it works, I don't have a mouse though so I've been hoping to find a solution to using the trackpad, and since Control-click doesn't work, I'm stuck.


Can I view what app data has not been uploaded to iCloud? Viewing System Preferences -> iCloud on my Mac shows that I have 2.24GB out of the standard 5GB available, but each morning when I wake up I see an error message on my iPhone that 'There is not enough space to back up to iCloud'. I'm certain I had not added over 2GB of data to be backed up in a single day (the day this problem began).

When I go to Preferences -> General -> Usage on my iPhone, and tap 'Manage Storage', I see my three devices that have been bound to my Apple ID with backed up data, and the sizes (1.6GB, 633.6MB, 498.5MB) total the 2.7GB that the 'Backups' section lists. Underneath, app Documents & Data only total 651KB.

How do I know what it's trying to upload to iCloud? I don't want to go deleting data I'd rather save just to get it to backup appropriately.

Instead of going to Preferences -> General -> Usage, go to Preferences -> iCloud -> Storage & Backup -> Manage Storage.

This screen will list your devices and by selecting the current device (like your iPhone if you're looking at it on your iPhone) you can see the list of applications that saves data to the backup. Here you can see the backup size per app and you can also disable/enable them individually.
To modify the settings for your other devices you need to go to the same screen on them.


To let a Mac automatically use Wifi and Ethernet to double the connection speed? I am staying at a hotel, and for some reason, I think they limit each Wifi connection to 95 kbyte / s.  So that is roughly 1.2 Mbps... and since I have 18 Mbps at home, I am using a speed that is less than 1/10 of the speed at home.

So I asked at the front desk to see if they have a room with a wired connection, and the answer is yes, and I switched to this room, and even bought a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter for the Macbook Air to be able to use the Ethernet wired connection.

But to my surprise, the speed of that connection is just the same: 95 kbyte / s.  Is there an easy way to tell OS X to automatically use both connections so that the speed can be doubled?

For example, if one tab in Chrome uses one connection and the downloading file in Chrome uses another connection.  Or if Chrome uses one connection and Firefox uses another one, that might work too.  Or can the OS be smart and just "merge" the 2 connections transparently?

(or if the OS "randomly" uses one or the other connection each time a connection is made, then the effect is roughly achieved too).

From Super User: If I have two internet connections on osx, how can I use both to increase my bandwidth?:

  Short answer: no. With 2 links, you have 2 IP addresses. It can be done with some specific higher end NICs (e.g. Intel quad cards), but they will appear to the rest of the network as a single IP address in that mode. If the assumption is that you have 2 distinct IP addresses, it cannot be done


Does the Console app in macOS keep a log of when I deleted a certain file? Today a weird thing happened while I was copying two large files from my Mac to my hard drive. The two files vanished from the original folder on my Mac during copying! And in the end, I got a warning saying "Error happens while copying" or something, and there's only one of those files in my hard drive. Is there any way in Mac that I can discover when and how I delete this file, like this file was deleted by an app or something? Does the Console app keep a log of it?

Thanks

No. The filesystem doesn’t directly or indirectly to the console have a journal or log of changes in files or folders or permissions.

There are some tools to do that, but none ship enabled or configured with the os.

Time Machine is the way to find when the file was last present and it’s searchable from spotlight.

I would set that up now or connect and get a current backup before you do any troubleshooting so if you need to erase the drive or repair it, your other files are covered at least now and going forward.


Can I teach my iPhone to autocapitalize? My name is not an English word or common enough name to be in whatever list of proper nouns it has, and I always have to capitalize it manually. It doesn't even show up as an autocorrect option. Is there a way around this? It seems like a phone that can do so many things should at least be able to learn my name. iPhone 4 with iOS up to date.

I would define your name as a keyboard shortcut, so if your name were nisht, I would set the phrase to be Nisht and the shortcut to be nisht.

To add a keyboard shortcut: Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts.


Can't send using Mail. I get "The SMTP connection to server "smtp.gmail.com" failed." I've tried answers given on this site. Mail>Preferences>Account>Edit Server List etc. Tried re-entering the information (which is unchanged and correct.) Default ports are 25, 465, and 587. Changing to 465 made no difference.

This is happening more and more frequently, and then suddenly it'll correct itself. Extremely frustrating. Right now the list shows both servers are Offline. Why that should be, I don't know.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Giles

Mail 7.3; Mavericks; MacBook Pro

The most common issues with SMTP can come from

Anti-virus software
Firewalls
ISP Restrictions or Blocks

Since your problem is sporadic, I would guess it isthe Virus app if you have any installed.

There is a test you can do in Terminal with "Telnet"

Basic connectivity test is done with depending on what port you're using to send, type 'telnet smtp.gmail.com 25' or 'telnet smtp.gmail.com 587' in the Terminal prompt window and press Enter

source: http://www.socketlabs.com/blog/diagnosing-smtp-service-connection-issues/