Portable Firefox for Mac If some person tells me how to have a nice portable Firefox on my Mac, this person will have my eternal gratitude.

While I have written a portable version of Google Chrome for Windows, Chrome and Firefox have similar file structure, I'll give this semi tutorial a go..

First, copy your /Applications/Firefox.app to a folder named "Firefox" on a flash drive.

Now, locate a valid user profile for Firefox on your Mac (usually ~/Library/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/ or
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/ )

Copy a valid profile folder to this "Firefox" folder also.

Next, we will create a Bash script to properly open Portable Firefox, so..

Inside this "Firefox" folder create a "start.sh" with the following lines:

 /Volumes/<FLASHDRIVENAME>/Firefox/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -profile /Volumes/<FLASHDRIVENAME>/Firefox/<profile folder>

If you execute

$ bash /Volumes/<FLASHDRIVENAME>/Firefox/start.sh

You should be able to run Firefox on any Mac anywhere.

NOTE: Replace < FLASHDRIVENAME > with the mountable name of your flash drive.


How to fix memory corruption on 2011 MacBook Air? I got a 2011 MacBook Air 13”, the device was slowly dying. Now it only boots intermittently and crashes/freezes within 15 seconds of boot up. Many times it does not boot at all - just black screen and 3 beeps followed by 5 second pause.

It appears to be memory (RAM) corruption, maybe; logic board corruption.

I think my hard drive is encrypted/password protected (asks for password when I boot with ⌘ Command^ Control⦿ Pwr

How do I fix the logic board/ memory corruption on 2011 MacBook Air 13”

I'm trying to determine the most economic way to fix my Mac, so I am looking at various options:

I can buy a working, used MacBook Air off ebay (~200$ on auction or 350$ buy now) and swap hard drive into that one using a set of specialized screwdrivers

-or-

I can buy a refurbished logic board for up to 250$ and pay a technician 100$ for an hour labor to swap it.

Do I have other options? I tried hard reset and reset NVRAM (which got the device to show login screen). As I log in, the screen gets progressively more corrupted - see screenshot.  Then, the Mac turns off shortly after.

If I buy a new device I would still have to pay for data recovery and transfer service, as the old device is non functional?

You have several options to fix this issue:

Have the board professionally repaired.  This is a common repair that can be done, but it's not economically feasible because the cost of the labor is very high in comparison to what you can get a new MacBook Air for
Swap out the logic board for a known working one (available on eBay for less than $200USD).  This may be a viable option, but keep in mind, your MBA is 8+ years old.  You will be expending money to get another 8 year old machine.
Buy a new machine and transfer your data using an external enclosure.  The 2011 MBAs had a removable SSD that you could remove and put into a replacement machine or you could put it into a USB enclosure so you can extract your data.

Personally, I would buy a new MacBook, MacBook Air/Pro.  I would remove the SSD from the dead machine, put it into an enclosure to extract the data and then sell the 2011 MBA as salvage parts.

  If I buy a new device I would still have to pay for data recovery and
  transfer service, as the old device is non functional

This is what Time Machine backups are for and it's extremely cheap insurance in case of a failure (see the section titled  "A Word About Backing up Your Data").  That enclosure could then serve as a USB drive for future Time Machine backups.


How to make Terminal open every new tab in the "Homebew" profile? I really like Terminal's "Homebrew" profile (black background with green front, instead of the default white background with black font), so I set it as my default profile. This makes it so that when I initially open Terminal, the first tab that opens will use the "Homebrew" profile.

But I came across an issue where once I close the open Terminal window then try to open a new one by clicking on the terminal icon in my dock, the new Terminal window opens in the system default "Basic" profile.

Can I make Terminal open every new window with the "Homebrew" profile?

Goto Terminal (Next to the Apple icon) -> Preferences -> Profiles

Then select HomeBrew and click "default" you can find it down there in the section you select HomeBrew.

If you like HomeBrew you might like iTerm2. Just give it a try.
https://www.iterm2.com


Netboot cannot get DHCP IP address Testing netboot on a Macbook Pro 9,2 with Yosemite installed.
Infoblox DHCP/DNS (Linux style) giving out IP address.
Reservation for this Mac is set - Logging into OSX provides correct IP etc.
I have a OSX Server with Netinstall running.

If I try a netboot (press N at power on), this results in the globe flashing but eventually just reverts to disk boot. Checking the Netinstall server logs, there is no activity - the client didn't attempt to conact.

If I try to boot to menu (press Option key), I get an option of booting from the disk, or selecting a WiFi network. There is no ethernet network option. If I press N at this point, nothing happens.

It appears that the ethernet port is not working at this stage in the process, even though it works when booting to OSX. Can anyone advise? How can I check this?

Using the latest available:

BOOTROM: MBP91.00D3.B08 (EFI 2.9)
SMC: 2.2f44 (SMC 1.8)

There doesn't appear to be a way to confirm that the client is getting a correct DHCP entry at this stage (no logs, etc). Packet sniffing helped.

Basically, the incorrect options in DHCP was preventing communication with the Netboot server, but with no diagnostics on the client, it was fairly hard to troubleshoot.

Managed to tweak infoblox settings correctly - I made OSX server a DHCP server on a closed subnet, and captured the boot options. Once I had those, I ported them to Infoblox and managed to get booting OK


magic mouse doesn't scroll when I move my finger up and down or side to side 10.9.5. I have to click on scroll bar and manually drag or click to get pages to scroll --in safari, in Pages--in anything. Did I turn something off inadvertently? I seem to remember not being happy with the horiz scrolling but...

I fixed it by simply switching the mouse off and on again.


Keyboard Shortcut for moving left/right a space doesn't work After going to:

Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Mission Control

I am able to assign a keyboard shortcut to move left/right a space. However pressing shortcut I assigned does not activate the command. I have tried other keys which are not binded to any other system commands and they do not work as well. Other shortcut are fine

Any ideas on how to fix this?

I am running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1.

This helped me:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/18340925#18340925

Paste this into Terminal (it's all one line, not two):

mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist ~/Desktop/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist

Press 'return'.
Log out and log in to your system.
Go to System Prefs and set up your hotkeys as you want.


How to play music on both Hearphone connector and Bluetooth on iPad? Is there a way to play music through Headphone connector (HI-FI system) and Bluetooth (Wireless speaker in different place) simultaneously ?
It seems that I can only choose one or the other, but it seems so simple there might be a way to do so.

Thanks

Its no posible (whitout jailbreack). The cheapest form to do that is: buy two "airport express" (off second hand because Apple dont sales any more), and use airplay. In that way, connect the plug off audio to airport, &, in your iphone can see the two devices (or the cuantity thath you showld buy) to send music at all them.


Update to iOS 8 will not work for 4s Ok, this is the weirdest thing ever.

So I have a 4s and i can't update it past 7.1.2. I tried everything but it won't work. It is said that the iphone 4s can update to ios 8 (via apple support) but it won't work. On this site it says that it can't but that's not possible cause my friend has a 4s too and she's already at like 9.3. There might be a bug in the software that causes that for me but the issue is growing so i am just puzzled and I am sad cause i want free starbucks but i can't get it. ( starbucks rewards needs 8 or higher.)

It’s almost certain your device is either:

failing and in need of hardware repair
not 4s and actually 4

You can verify the model number or call Apple support to be sure you have a 4s and then see about arranging service if restore attempts fail repeatedly.


error: login: /bin/false: No such file or directory I get a new Mac but the terminal doesn't work. Is there anyone met this situation before? When I open terminal, it shows below error:

Last login: Mon Sep 23 14:12:13 on ttys000
login: /bin/false: No such file or directory

[Process completed]
  [Restored Sep 23, 2019 at 2:16:08 PM]
Last login: Mon Sep 23 14:16:04 on console
login: /bin/false: No such file or directory

I fixed issue by selecting the bash I want to use:

System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Advanced


Is it possible to add funds to a US iTunes store account with Paypal? I'm Korean and don't have a US address or credit card, but I want to buy content from the US iTunes store.

I have a PayPal account connected to a Korean bank. Is it possible to add funds to a US iTunes account with PayPal?

Yes, you can only use PayPal with iTunes US, and in that PayPal, you'll need to have a US bank account or have your locations and any credit cards/debit's on there will have to be located in the US as iTunes checks for that as well. It all has to be in the US, and cannot have any other bank or CC company for any other country.


What's the easiest way to do a screen recording and get a small file? I've used http://screenr.com/ before but for company things it's not appropriate since it becomes public. I need something that lets me record my screen and gives me a small well encoded file that I put into dropbox.

What's my options?

Quicktime

You can use QuickTime Player to record everything that happens on your computer’s screen or on a portion of your computer’s screen, along with your narration, if you’d like. This is called a screen recording.

In QuickTime Player, choose File > New Screen Recording.
Choose options for the screen recording from the arrow pop-up menu.

If you want to record yourself speaking as you use the computer, choose an audio input source below Microphone in the pop-up menu.
Choose whether you want the recording to be medium or high quality. High quality results in a larger file size.

[Edit/update by Helen Ayres: Jan 2020] You can no longer choose screen recording quality up-front in Mojave, unfortunately.  A workaround in QuickTime (without having to download or purchase any additional software, so all done in <1 minute!) is to record your full-fat version - 1 minute averages about 100Mb - then open the movie in QT.

File
Export As
480p

This reduced my 107Mb file to 17.7Mb so I could then email it, and didn't need to bother with Dropbox etc.
You can only do this when the QT file is open; you can't perform this file size reduction in eg Finder as the 'Export As' option will be greyed out.

Screenshot showing the steps above: [End of edit - Hope I've followed edit protocol correctly folks, as this is my first post, it's a little long for an edit I think; I would have posted a comment underneath but being a newbie, I'm not allowed to yet ;o) ]

If you want mouse clicks to be visible in the recording, choose “Show Mouse Clicks in Recording.”
If you want to change where the recording is saved, choose Choose, and then select a new location.

Arrange the computer windows as you want to capture them, and then click the Record button.

If you want to record only a portion of the screen, drag the pointer to select the portion of the screen you want to record, and then click Start Recording.
To adjust the portion of the screen you selected, drag the small gray circles along the edges of the screen recording rectangle or drag the entire screen recording rectangle to another location on the screen.

If you want to record the entire screen, click anywhere on the screen to start the recording.

4.To stop the recording, click the Stop button, or press  Cmd ⌘   Ctrl ⌃   Esc .

Source: Apple KB - QuickTime Player 10.x: Record your computer’s screen

From comments…
If the file sizes are still too large, there is Apple's own excellent Compressor ($49.99) or for a simpler approach, still with many possibilities, you could look at SmartConverter (freeware)


What's up with "paused" applications in Launchpad? When I activate Launch on both my Mavericks and Mountain Lion systems, a few of the application icons are (seemingly permanently) greyed out and marked "Paused" with an empty progress bar.

It isn't hurting anything, but it's weird.

Any idea why?

It seems as if the download was started from the App Store and it was paused for some reason. There are two ways that you can get it to not say that anymore.

Single Click on the icon to resume the download.
Click and hold, the press the "X" on the top left corner of the app to delete it. (Reinstall from the App Store is optional.)

Hope that helps!


TextMate 2: How to permanently default to soft tabs (spaces instead of tabs)? SETUP
OS X 10.8
TextMate 2 -r9283
QUESTION
How can I permanently force TextMate to to always default to soft tabs (use spaces, not tabs)?
I want to know how to make TextMate default to this setting so that I don't have to constantly convert tabs to spaces while working on a file.
How do you permanently tell TextMate 2 to prefer soft tabs?

TextMate 2 uses a special file called .tm_properties to control lots of settings in the app. It will use ~/.tm_properties if present for global defaults. You can also add one inside a source tree to control settings for a particular project.

The setting you're looking for is:

softTabs = true

Just add that line to ~/.tm_properties (or create it if it doesn't exist).

You can read more about this file here.


iPhone 4s restore. number of errors I have an iphone 4s i just restored it and am running at 6.1.3 (latest version) I backed up my phone before the restore and have restored from the correct backup. I now have two problems:

I want to redownload all my apps from the store but when i access the app store and find an app I have previously bought this happens: E.G Instagram I search for Instagram and then where it should say install in that little curved edge box, it just says open. So I thought OH good I still have it downloaded! so I click on open and literally nothing happens. I click it a few more times. Still nothing! I am beyond confused. The same happens with all the apps that I have previously owned: Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook ETC.
all my music; the iphone recognises all my playlists and artists and all the albums and tells me their all on my phone but when i click on songs, there is nothing there absoultly nothing. And when I go to artist and clikc on artists to find a song, there will be nothing inside them. And the same happens in albums.

I have never done anything like jailbreaking or modifying my iPhone.

Go to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Erase All Content and Settings.  Then when prompt to choose between set up as new iphone and restore from icloud/itunes backup, choose restore from itunes.

This should resolve your issue.


Why does macOS create file mounts for each app? I installed a lot of apps on my new MacBook, and I can see my desktop is filling with file mounts for each app. The Finder is also listing them like this.

Can someone please help me understand why that happens? What is the use of those mounts? Is there a way I can control/hide/stop that?

These seem to be installers DMGs. You can unmount and discard them after installing the apps in your computer, typically by copying them to /Applications or ~/Applications.


How can I use iPhoto in lieu of Photos in macOS Sierra? I really dislike macOS's Photos.app (thought I could get use to it), but would like to use iPhoto again. It's in my apps, but was replaced with a more current version when my stuff was installed onto the new Mac. When I click on iPhoto, it says it needs to update the photo library before I can use it.

I'm running macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and worry about compatibility since I'm reading some scary things. Don't want to end up in a jam or a pile of lost photos. Has anyone done this upgrade with Sierra in order to use the latest iPhoto? And has everything worked like clockwork?

I don't think the update will work. I've seen an update for iPhoto in the App store before and it usually gives you an error message that the item is no longer available (tho it has been a long time since I last saw that update). If you ever delete iPhoto, the update will disappear from the App Store.

I didn't think there was a way to continue to use iPhoto, but there appears to be a work around I found in Apple's Discussions forum. The basic idea is to delete then replace the iPhoto app by using the purchased list in the App Store. Theoretically, that version will be an updated version that will work. If it doesn't, work: No harm cuz it hasn't worked anyway. Check if your purchased list includes iPhoto and which version it downloads before attempting to remove the iPhoto app. Once iPhoto is the Trash, don't empty the Trash. You can put iPhoto back if this plan doesn't work and maybe someone will come up with a different plan later. And don't worry about losing the old library. Deleting the older version of iPhoto, or just moving it to Trash, will not remove the iPhoto library which usually resides in the Pictures folder of the home folder.

If that plan does work, the question then becomes how do you get pics from the Photos app to iPhoto that you added since you switched to Photos? Drag and drop will likely work even if you have to drag to desktop then drag to iPhoto. Try dragging pics directly from Photos to iPhoto first.


Reinstall assembler, /usr/bin/as I've lost /usr/bin/as. How does one reinstall it?

There's no as in the /usr/bin of my recovery partition. Reinstalling XCode and command line tools didn't help. I haven't been successful compiling gas from source because I get a linking error. (Is the default in fact gas?)

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24308125/linking-errors-and-bfd-bfd-gnu-binutils-2-24-assertion-fail

I suspect that the gas program I'm trying to compile might solve the compiling problems I'm having but that does me no good.

Here's a copy of /usr/bin/as from OS X 10.9.4.

With regard to how you'd actually get it back, you might be able to extract it from the install media if you have it or by reinstalling the OS. See How can I get back a system file after deleting it from my Mac?


How can I charge and output audio from iPhone 5 in a car? I want to charge my iPhone 5 and listen to the music using AUX in my car. How can I do this using one cable? I have such a cable for my iPhone 4. Is there any good option for iPhone 5?

My 2013 Ford Ranger (the T6 international version) has an audio system with a USB port on it, and it plays audio through that regardless of whether it is the old 30-pin connector or a Lightning connector on the other end. When I plug in my iPhone, it says "Connecting iPod" on the audio screen. It also supports audio over Bluetooth.

(When saying "in a car", please be a little more specific about the car and/or its audio system. They are all different)


How do I install NTFS-3G from source? I want to install the latest version of NTFS-3G on my Yosemite box. The latest version (as of this writing) is 2014.2.15 available here. However, only the source code is available and there aren't any instructions on how to compile or install it.

How do I do it?

The Mac link is always separate…

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/
has a link to
http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/


How can I see what permissions an enterprise app certificate has? I live in Iran, and here most Iranian apps are banned from the App Store, and are distributed using enterprise certificates. There are even Iranian app stores that use a single such certificate to install other apps, and they even sell some pirated apps through these. See, for example, https://sibapp.com/ and nassaab.com/
. Though these will probably not work with non-Iranian IPs.

In regard of the recent Facebook privacy scandal, I have become concerned how these apps affect my privacy, and what actions I can take to protect myself, and what actions Apple should be pushed to take. This phenomenon (of rogue Iranian apps) has high penetration rates in Iranian users. (Because everyone needs at least some of the services these apps deliver, including banking, SIM card's data and phone management, online taxis, ...)

I think banning apps but leaving illegal enterprise certificates is possibly the worst way to handle this problem.

Update: Nothing is shown on the device about the certificate:

The short answer is a certificate has no entitlements, it simply turns off the App Store as the exclusive way to load apps. It doesn't change the code, install a VPN, add a passcode or anything, but what it does is disable one of the best privacy protections you have - Apple review of apps in the App Store.

The only worse thing than loading an enterprise app for security would be allowing MDM control so that someone could push changes / track your location / remote wipe your device and lock you out of the device or push apps to it.

You are correct to be worried about all those apps.

That certificate and entitlement are letting you know you are entering the Wild West, so to speak. (or in your case, would it be the Wild East or Wild Middle East?)

The warning indicates that nothing in that app was looked at by Apple. Apple didn't do a code review, didn't check that an app that says it's for putting a caption on a photo isn't instead uploading every photo including the date/time/GPS location to their servers to track / market / sell / collect information on every place you have a picture. They could even run facial recognition on the photos once they upload them.

Apple typically doesn't make developers not take the data they take, but they do make the developer let you know what the app does so at least we can all agree which apps will track what taps you make on screen and which don't. (for instance)

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/07/apple-glassbox-apps/

The recent press on this shows that VPN apps didn't disclose to the end users so if your apps enable VPN (look in the iOS settings for VPN) then you pretty much can't trust that anything wasn't sent to a server and then decrypted - stored and then re-encrypted to send to the final destination.

Basically, this allows a "man in the middle" attack so you can't trust that some difficulty is needed to decrypt your traffic. Already, we know we can't trust any telecom company not to record / tap / data mine every bit of data we send, but most of us expect that SSL encryption means that it will cost someone time and money to crack our traffic.

Now, it might be that the entire country of Iran is on some government's watch list and your traffic is already being decrypted, but this certificate allows that telecom to also see and monitor you in ways Apple tries to prevent by apps they put in their App Store.

https://www.recode.net/2019/1/30/18203231/apple-banning-facebook-research-app
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/31/18205795/apple-google-blocked-internal-ios-apps-developer-certificate

For me, I don't ever install these on my personal devices. If I need a work device to have work apps, I let work provide me that device and I do work things on my work device and assume they get everything on that device. It's too hard for me to do app review so I simplify my privacy by not letting a third party install root certificates / SSL / unreviewed apps.


Macbook Pro screen replacement doesn't display correctly I've tried to replace the display on my MacBook Pro (ME294ll/a) Late 2013 but the image is not displayed correctly. It looks like this:

My brother had the same problem:

…but he just reconnected the ribbon cable and the screen began to work correctly. I tried several times to reconnect the ribbon cable, but to no avail.

Does anyone know what could be the problem?

This happened to me as well. If your MacBook Pro was purchased between February 2011 and December 2013, Apple determined that a small percentage these systems may exhibit distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts. Check out this link for the official Apple report.


Does applescript's 'delay' function work when the computer is asleep? I'm trying to make an alarm clock for myself with AppleScript after my old (physical) one crapped out. I've got a script that'll schedule a pmset wakeup at the requisite time. There's just the matter of making the script actually make noise at that moment.

To that regard, does the actionscript delay command count time the computer was asleep? It'd be nice to say

delay (# of seconds between now and when I have to wake up the next morning)

, but if delay doesn't count down when the computer's off (or, rather, retroactively decrement the countdown upon wake), then I'll need some other way of doing things.

Does anyone know about this behavior, and any workarounds if the answer is 'it doesn't count time asleep'?

I doubt that applescript keeps delay during sleep.  I guess what you can do is when you want to start the delay, get the current time, then set a repeated delay, something like as following.  I'll write this in psuedo-code since I'm not too familiar with applescript anymore

startDelayDate = current date
shouldRepeat = yes
repeat while shouldRepeat is equal to yes
    delay(1)
    if (((current date) - startDelayDate)>=yourDelayTime) //You'll have to implement your own date checking method
        //Do your stuff
end repeat


How to remove Malwarebytes from Mac? I would like to remove Malwarebytes from a friend's macbook.
There is nothing in

Applications Folder
/Library/LaunchAgents (or in /System/Library/LaunchAgents)
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/StartUpItems (or in /System/Library/StartUpItems)
System Preferences > Users & Groups

and yet, it is still in the top bar:

Also, please somebody tell me, whether it is a normal program or a virus, because my friend didn't ever want to install the program and it should not be so hard to uninstall a program ever.

Some websites suggested installing CleanMyMac3, but I don't want to install any more software unless I am sure that it is okay, because I also read some bad reviews about CleanMyMac.

I recently accidentally installed this app. Then, I carelessly deleted the app without thinking about its associated Library files and menu bar icon.

It is likely your friend did the same thing and is now stuck with this useless menu bar quick access icon. In that situation, the uninstall directions won't work because the app is deleted.

The easiest way (and only way I know of) to remove this is to re-install MalwareBytes, open the app, and then go to Help > Uninstall MalwareBytes.

This will remove the app and all its associated files ... and that menu bar icon.


Mirroring iPad on to MacBook air I have the latest generation ipad pro and macbook air, but the problem is I want to mirror or share my ipad screen so that it appears on my MacBook air screen so that when i draw on my ipad notes, other people can see what i am drawing through the MacBook air screen.

Is there anything I have to buy or can do so that everything thing i do on my iPad can be shown through my macbook air?

Not sure if the iPads with USB-C can do this, but if you connect your iOS device to a Mac, you can mirror/record your screen with QuickTime Player.

Connect your iPad or iOS device to your Mac.
Open QuickTime Player.
Select File > New Movie Recording.
Click the little arrow to the right of the record button and select your iPad from the list.

After this, your iPad's screen will appear on screen. I think the floating recording window will disappear if you don't have your mouse over it.

You may have to trust the computer on your iPad or iOS device to get this to work. The aspect ratio will be preserved on screen, so a portrait iPad would be 3:4 and landscape would be 4:3.


How do I use time machine to access system files like /etc/hosts? Time Machine makes it easy to recover older versions of your personal users files; How do you restore an older version of a system file (such as /etc/hosts) using Time Machine?

For OS X 10.11, El Capitan, the steps are:

Open Applications > Time Machine; or use the Time Machine menu bar item and select Enter Time Machine.
Reveal the Go to Folder sheet within Time Machine using the key combination: Command + Shift + G.
Within the Go to Folder sheet enter the path /private/etc and select Go.
You can now browse your back-ups of /etc/ and restore files as needed.


How to make ⌘⌫ delete a line of text in Messages? The shortcut ⌘+⌫ normally deletes a line of text in a text field. But in the new Messages app in Mountain Lion, this is the shortcut for "Close Conversation…" (or, if you choose "Save history when conversations are closed" in the preferences, it's "Delete Conversation…").

Is there a way to disable this shortcut such that ⌘+⌫ can again be used for deleting text?

You can change the shortcut for "Close Conversation" to something else, that should avoid the conflict. To do this, open Keyboard Preferences, and then go to the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab. Click Application Shortcuts, then the + button to add a new one. You should get a popup like this one (I'm still on Lion, but I don't believe they changed much):

Change the application to Messages, enter the proper menu title (if it uses an ellipsis, you may have to enter that exact character — not just three periods — by hitting optionshift;), then enter in a shortcut you're unlikely to use.

It's also possible to disable a keyboard shortcut from the command line, rather than just setting it to some obscure command. However I haven't tested this on Mountain Lion or Messages app, so no guarantees.

If you're comfortable with the command line, the proper command would likely be defaults write com.apple.Messages NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Close Conversation…" nil. However I don't have access to Mountain Lion, so the com.apple.Messages part is just a guess. You may want to test first by trying defaults read com.apple.Messages and see if it pops up with an error. It should spit out a long list of plist-formatted preferences, if it doesn't the app identifier (com.apple.Messages) is probably wrong, so you'll need to do some digging to find out what it is.

Again let me stress that I haven't tested this second option on Mountain Lion or Messages at all, it's just based on how things work in previous versions of OS X.


10.6 crashes average of every 12 hours A couple of days ago, my Snow Leopard Mac Mini started to crash an average of once every 12 or so hours. Symptoms include the display being frozen (no changes in response to any keyboard or mouse input), and being completely unresponsive to network connections (ssh etc.; I've turned off the firewall on a NATted network).

What are the logs/diagnostics I should be looking at to figure out why it's crashing?

You should go to Console.app to see the logs (before and after the crash) and try to find a repeating pattern.


how to upgrade unlocked iphone 4s to iOS 7.0.4 How to upgrade my iphone 4s currently running on iOS 5.0 to iOS 7.0.4? I would want to get step by step instructions.

How about using google or the official Apple support?


Simultaneously using Airplay and headphones I want to play iTunes simultaneously on AirPlay (AppleTV) in one room and via the headphone socket into my audio system in another room. I tried selecting the device in the Sound tab in System Preferences but selecting one option just turns off the other. Any ideas?

iTunes can stream to multiple output devices simultaneously and it's done inside the iTunes app, not the System Preferences.

Here are the steps from Apple Support Page:

Connect your computer, Apple TV, AirPort Express, or other AirPlay-enabled accessory to the same Wi-Fi network.
Open iTunes on your computer.
To the right of the volume slider in iTunes, click "AirPlay icon". You'll see this icon only when an AirPlay-enabled device is on the same Wi-Fi network.

Click the name of the device that you want to stream content to. The Apple TV  or speaker  icons next to each device show the type of content that you can stream.


Will iOS 9 reject an iOS 10 backup restoration attempt to the same model phone? From what I've been reading, people say you can't restore a phone that is running iOS 9, from a backup of the same type of phone running iOS 10.  I'd like to know what happens if you try.  Does the phone simply not recognize the restore attempt?  If using iTunes, will you be told the device is incompatible with the chosen update?  What about OTA, what happens there?

To be clear, I'm not at all referring to restoring/downgrading the OS.  I have an iPhone SE that was unintentionally updated to iOS 10, so now I got an identical iPhone SE running iOS 9, and I'm curious to know what happens if I tell this second iOS 9 phone to restore from a backup made of the first phone after it was updated to iOS 10.

You won't be able to select an iCloud backup that contains data, settings and apps from a newer build. In the past, there wasn't helpful information explaining you need to update the iOS - now generally you get an explanation.

On iTunes with a USB backup (or Apple Configurator), you get similar experience - you don't get to attempt the restore as code to check prevents the operation from starting.

What you can do is sync data using iCloud and possibly computer / cable / third party apps. Most of what you'd want to replicate is easily done without needing to restore a whole backup.


How can I change Terminal so that I don't have to press ESC every time I want to type a meta-modified key? Currently in emacs/terminal, I have to press ESC every time I want to send an escaped keystroke, eg: to go forwards two words, I have to press:

ESC+f; ESC+f

How do I change the system so that I just have to press and hold ESC once?:

ESC+f+f

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to get ESC-f to repeat and it has something to do with ESC. Here's one solution that will work:

Currently, Terminal.app is using ESC as META. You can change this to ⌥ (option) like this.

Visit Terminal -> Preferences ( ⌘-, ).
Select the Keyboard Tab on the right
Check the "Use option as meta key" box at the bottom of the Keyboard pane

Now enjoy repeating commands that involve meta by using the option key instead of ESC.


Can I create a Siri custom voice command that performs actions in an app? I can't seem to find any docs for this so was wondering if this is possible.  I have a SmartThings app on my phone for controlling my Samsung tv.  I was wondering if I could create a Siri voice command that opens the app, clicks the power button in the app, and then goes to a specific channel.  Not even sure where to begin or if this is even possible.

If you want to open applications that are pre-installed in iPhone then you can add shortcuts for them with Siri. They are provided by apple. If you are using iOS 13 then there is an app called Shortcuts through which you can manage all your shortcuts.

But if you have downloaded any app from App Store then that application must have provided support for shortcuts. If your app is not providing such functionality then you cannot add a shortcut to open that particular app from Siri and perform any action.


Where is the power button on the 2016 MBP With TouchBar? Where is the power button on the 2016 Macbook Pros w/ Touchbar?

From the Apple Support Document, How to turn on or turn off your Mac:

  The power button is adjacent to the Touch Bar and integrated with the Touch ID sensor. Press Touch ID (power button) to turn on (or off) your Mac.


Is there a way to recover an older version of my iPhoto database? I tried uploading a photo from iPhoto to Facebook and the upload failed. I tried again, and it appeared to fail. Blaming my internet connection, I tried again. The upload worked. Then I took a look at the album online and two or three copies of the photo were in a moderation queue.

I deleted them, thinking all was well. Except it wasn't. The captions on all of my photos are the same as that one photo that uploaded a few times. I blame Facebook, but I'm wondering if I can recover an older copy of my iPhoto library from Time Machine and use that to restore my captions.

Is there any way for me to get an older version of my iPhoto library from Time Machine?

There are two ways to do this:

1- You could open the folder in the Finder containing your iPhoto library (usually ~/Pictures) and initiate Time Machine by clicking the icon in the OS X system tray and selecting "Enter Time Machine." Use the time browser functionality to select a date that you wish to restore, then select the iPhoto library file, followed by the "Restore" button (see screenshot above)

2- You could manually browse to the location of your iPhoto library in the Time Machine backup. To do this, open the Finder, and locate the Time Machine drive that you use to backup your Mac. Double-click to open the disk image for the backup of your Mac, then navigate to Backups.backupdb | [Computer Name Here] | [Folder Containing Date You Wish to Browse] | [Macintosh HD] | Users | [Your Username] | Pictures. In this folder, you will see the iPhoto library file for the backup date that you are browsing. You can copy it to your Mac and optionally replace your local copy of the iPhoto library, if needed.


How do I install Homebrew on Tiger? According to this previous question, I want to install Homebrew Tiger branch on my iBook running ... well, Tiger.
Unfortunatly, when running the Ruby one-liner,

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731/39fc1416e34b9f6db201b4a026181f4ceb7cfa74)"

I always get the following error :

This script requires the user nicolas to be in the staff group. If this
sucks for you then you can install Homebrew in your home directory or
however
you please; please refer to the website. If you still want to use this
script
the following command should work:

dscl /Local/Default -append /Groups/staff GroupMembership $USER

I have unsuccessfully tried to add myself as a member of the staff group.

What can I do to install Homebrew on my Tiger mac ?

Thanks

EDIT Yes, I have a version of XCode for my platform, it's a legacy 2.5 that I installed specifically for that purpose.

Concerning the Ruby script, a rapid overview of its code indicates that the error appears as invoking groups does not return the staff group.

And indeed, when I issue this command by hand, I get

$ groups
nicolas appserveradm appserverusr admin

So, how can I add myself to the staff group in a fashion that this command will understand ?

So, I finally managed to have a working version of homebrew, but it wasn't that simple.

First, download from sources and make install of Git following these instructions.

Then, using git, get the sceaga Tiger branch of Homebrew.

All should then work correctly (more or less).

EDIT There seems to be a tarball hidden somwhere that could be used with root installation procedure. It has the obvious interest of avoiding one to install git just for the sake of having a running homebrew to ... install another git version.


Is there a way to emulate an Xbox controller? I've downloaded Onecast which allows me to stream an Xbox One to my Mac and it supports connecting an Xbox controller. Is there a way to emulate an Xbox controller with my keyboard and mouse on my Mac so I can use it in games?

I am using macOS Mojave. I would prefer to use an application that is under $10.

I haven’t used these to emulate an XBox One controller, but I have used these to emulate a whole range of others:

USB Overdrive
ControllerMate

I’d start with USB Overdrive as it offers a much simpler interface. ControllerMate provides a lot of advanced functionality, but can take quite some time to suss out.


How to enable process accounting on macOS My Macbook Pro occasionally will use up high CPU and freeze after being left idle overnight. How can I enable process accounting so that I can track down the processes that consume most of the CPU?

You can either use an app to turn on process accounting or use command line tools:

App: Onyx

CLI:

Open Terminal and enter:

sudo mkdir /var/account
sudo touch /var/account/acct
sudo accton /var/account/acct

With sa you can print the system accounting statistics. Check man sa


Can one iPhone be registered to multiple Developer accounts? I have an Apple iOS Developer account and I registered my iPhones UUID to this account (to create Provisioning Profiles, etc.).

Is it possible to add this iPhones UUID to another iOS Developer account?

Yes

A single device can be added to as many developer accounts as necessary.


Safari 5.0.3 crashes I just update my Mac to 10.6.6 and Safari to 5.0.3 now almost every page I load causes Safari to crash, it does well on simple pages like Google but anything with a bunch of images or flash and it loads to about 3/4 and hangs until I force quit. Are there any known issues?

I haven't heard of any specific issues with 5.0.3 and 10.6.6.

However, there are times when upgrades to Safari will break things like plugins or extensions. I recommend disabling all extensions and plugins via the Safari preferences. Then you can enable one plugin or extension at a time and visit a website that you know will crash your browser. If things work fine, repeat this process for each plugin or extension until you discover the one that is causing things to break. Once you find the culprit, you might have to wait until they issue a new version.

Having said all of this, there is a very good chance your crashes are related to Flash. Flash is a known vector for Safari crashes on Mac OS X and Apple has repeteadly stated that a majority of the crash logs they receive are Flash-related.

Even if you were not experiencing these crashes, I would still recommend getting something like Click2Flash to disable Flash on all websites--this is a great way to get rid of pesky ads. This should considerably reduce the number of crashes in Safari, assuming what Apple says is true. With Click2Flash, you can always whitelist specific websites so you can unblock their Flash content or you can unblock Flash elements on a click-by-click basis (hehce the name, Click2Flash).

Hope this helps.


Syncing individual app data with iCloud This is a stupid question, but I just got an iPad mini for Christmas.  I have an iPod touch, and want to sync my app data for my games, etc., across devices.  Does this happen automatically through iCloud?

No - iCloud doesn't let you choose things to sync so the developer of each app you run needs to decide how and when to incorporate support for iCloud.

It's not such a silly question since I can't seem to find any Apple web page that explains this plainly.

As you find things that don't work with iCloud, you can pester the developer (kill them with praise and high marks even if you feel you want to give them a bad rating since you can expect them to please their fans first if they have any doubts about which tasks to add to their apps).


German keyboard Alt-D gives '∂' - how can I disable it? It should be an easy thing to do if I only could find out how to change the symbol (e.g. from ∂ to € or so) - but as a programmer with a lot of shortcuts this is the only thing that keeps doubting me, if a Mac is the right choice.

It's a 10.10.3; I'm using Intellij and Emacs.

Btw: the same happens for lots of other keys (€®†Ω¨⁄øπ•œ@∆ºª) - this makes the alt-key almost useless.

The Alt key on the Mac is used differently than on Windows. Its main use is exactly what you see: To enter special ("alternate") characters.

Menu shortcuts and such are always triggered by a Command-key ("⌘") combo (sometimes including other modifier keys, such as the Alt key). For example, closing all open windows in Finder is [Cmd]-[Alt]-[W].


iCloud won't allow me to mark some mail as "Not Junk" I have a consistent issue of some legit emails showing up in my Mail client (OS X Mavericks) as junk.  They are also marked as junk in icloud.com which is why they are coming in as junk to my mail client.  The problem is, these emails can't be marked as "Not Junk" even in icloud.com.  I can mark them "Not Junk" and they will immediately be marked as junk again and reappear in my junk folder.

How can I get iCloud to accept that these messages are not junk and leave them set that way?

Found a real solution!  If I save the sender of any of these "problem" emails to my address book within iCloud, then they are automatically not marked as Junk any longer.  Hooray!

Simply open the mail, click on the address of the sender, and click Save.  Problem solved once and for all!


iMac 2012 RAM upgrade with mixed voltages Variation of already asked question:

I now understand that I can add two matched 8 GB sticks of RAM into the two empty slots, even though the other two slots are filled with two 4 GB modules. But is there a problem having one pair 1.5v if the other pair are 1.3v?

It would appear to not be a problem, if as reported elsewhere, the iMac has 1.5v preinstalled and Crucial is recommending 1.35v sticks. Is that a faulty assumption?

I wouldn't use anything but 1.5v RAM in the 27-inch iMac (Late 2012) as that's what my go-to Apple Memory site lists as compatible.

Ramjet recommends DDR3-1600, 1600Mhz, Non-ECC, Unbuffered, 1.5V, 204pin SO-DIMMs

I also can't believe I'm seeing 32 GB of memory for sale for just under $260 as that just seems too cheap to be true.

If you are looking elsewhere for RAM, I would encourage you to select non-stacked chips on the SO-DIMM as we don't know how warm these devices run and the last generation of 27-inch iMac put out significant heat and had a lot more aluminum to radiate that energy before a fan and convection were needed to assist in heat dissipation.


Managing Grouped Terminals I often find myself with 6 ort 7 parallel tasks, with each requiring several terminals.

My ideal UI would be a hierarchical tab setup - a tab for each group of terminals, where I could name the tab, and it would be restored on startup. What's the closest thing to this?

I'm open to using any terminal app, iterm etc, not just the default terminal.app.

You can use Window Groups. Start each group of terminals and save the group from Window -> Save Windows As Group...


85W MagSafe adapter only delivers 77W? My late 2011 17" MBP was delivered with an 85W MagSafe adapter.

Under heavy stress (either CPU and/or GPU) the MBP has to draw additional power from the battery in order to keep everything running. Though I can't imagine this being particularly healthy for the battery (as it keeps starting to charge a tiny bit every chance it gets, and stops again when power consumption goes up), this seems to be 'expected behavior by design', if I'm to believe the various discussions on the internet.

What strikes me as odd though, is that the 85W adapter isn't actually delivering a full 85W when the MBP starts pulling additional juice from the battery. It stalls at about 77W, according to the DC In sensor. This doesn't seem right to me.. why leech power off the battery if the preferred supply has energy to spare?

So, in essence, my question boils down to this:

Is anyone else seeing similar behavior?
Does anyone measure higher throughput from the 85W adapter than 77W? (charging / leeching both maxes out at this rate more or less)
Would the adapter be actually delivering 85W, and is the DC In sensor just plain wrong?

When measuring the usage of power adapters, it is important to keep in mind the efficiency of the PSU when making calculations.

For PC builders, it's important to ensure that you choose a suitable PSU for the components you intend to use, to ensure it's big enough etc.  As such, the rated capacity is shown as what the PSU is capable of delivering, rather than what it uses.  So, for example, a 600w rated PC power supply for a desktop computer that is rated at 80% (considered the minimum in order to get the "80 plus" certification) will actually use up 750w at the wall.  750W * 80% = 600W.

For laptops, the maths is often considered the other way around.  As you are unlikely to be putting extra drives, graphics cards, PCI cards etc in your laptop, its internal power delivery capability should be of little interest to your average user, but the external wall-draw might be.  Given that a laptop power adapter will likely be more efficient (as it is smaller, uses less power, will therefore run cooler, and require less  active cooling in terms of fans etc etc), then it wouldn't surprise me to see it up around the 90% efficiency mark.  Add to that the fact that your average laptop user should only really need to know the wattage rating when using the laptop somewhere unusual, say a plane, or some other mobile/portable power source, it may well be more useful to know the exterior power rating rather than the internal delivery rating.  Therefore, 85W at the wall * 90% efficiency is 76.5W in the laptop, and likely explains the discrepancy.


Add password to keychain from command line without showing them According to https://www.netmeister.org/blog/keychain-passwords.html

  Secondly, we are necessarily leaking the newly generated password into
  the process table as the shell expands the backticks (more details
  here). Sadly, the security(1) utility has no other method of
  non-interactively accepting a password but on the command-line[1]. For
  this reason, it may be preferable to create the secret using the GUI
  application.

Is it possible to programmatically add passwords to the keychain without leaking them to the ps -ef output?

I went ahead and wrote a small command line app to do it for you programmatically, here it is, finally pipe-able console password entry :)

Other options:

If you run security add-generic-password ... -w then it will prompt you for your password, you can type it in there, that doesn't leak anything.

There are a few hacks to feed the secure prompt, but just using it is OK too (or use the GUI).

In my case (attempting to feed kinit) it can integrate with the keychain, though still a manual initial entry, built-in.


How to access /dev/mem in OSX? How I can access /dev/mem (or /dev/kmem, /dev/pmap) equivalent device in OSX?

As far as I know it was removed in some point.

Can I create this node manually somehow or any other way of dumping the physical memory?

See:

Visualization in testing a volatile memory forensic tool
Kernel Debug Kit OS X

According to Accessing Kernel Memory on the x86 Version of Mac OS X, /dev/mem and /dev/kmem were removed when Apple released OS X for Intel processors.

The (excellent) article also explains how to reenable the memory devices, namely using the kmem=1 kernel boot argument.

Note that, as commented below by neal, in macOS 10.15 Catalina (and probably since macOS 10.12 Sierra), NVRAM settings can only be changed when your Mac is booted into recovery mode. To enter Recovery mode, power on your Mac and immediately hold ⌘-R until the logo appears, launch Terminal from the Utilities menu in the menu bar, run:

sudo nvram boot-args="kmem=1"

and reboot. You should see these two devices:

$ ls -l /dev/*mem
crw-r----- 1 root kmem 3, 1 2014-02-28 22:09 /dev/kmem
crw-r----- 1 root kmem 3, 0 2014-02-28 22:09 /dev/mem

(In previous versions of macOS like OS X Mavericks 10.9.2, you can reenable the memory devices within the operating system, so simply launch Terminal, type the command above and reboot.)

If your Mac won't boot or you have any issues, reset the NVRAM by pressing ⌘optionPR and holding the keys down until you hear the startup sound for the second time, as explained in "Resetting NVRAM / PRAM" in KB HT1379 About NVRAM and PRAM.

If you wish to reset the argument, type sudo nvram -d boot-args and check that nvram -p | grep boot-args does not print any results.


How can I move my MS Office license to a new Mac? I have purchased a new 64-bit iMac and would like to move my version of Office for Mac 11 to it from my older iMac that is a 32-bit machine.

How do I uninstall so that I may use my existing validation codes on my new iMac?

I had installed office on a second mac, and when I accidentally opened the first copy while the second was open.

I got an error message: "this copy of office is open on a different computer on your network" a bit creepy, but that was my reminder to delete he first copy.

(Fortunately, Open Office has no such issue.)


How to get a service working upon launch A while ago, I wrote a few services and assigned them to key combinations. The problem is, even though services are under application's File menu item, I have to invoke it manually the first time, then I can use the key combination. Is there a way to be able use services when you first launch the application? I looked at this answer, but I'd rather use a 3rd party application only if I absolutely have to.

You can make this work with launchd. This requires two steps: First creating a script that invokes your service(s), and second creating a LaunchAgent plist file that will call the script at launch.

First step: Creating a script that invokes your service(s)

Write a text file with the following content, where ~/Library/Services/myservice.workflow points to the service you want to start (if you want to start more than one service, repeat the second line pointing to the different services):

#!/bin/bash
automator ~/Library/Services/myservice.workflow

Save the file, e.g. as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh
Make it executable by issuing the following command in the Terminal:

chmod u+x ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh

Second step: Creating a LaunchAgent plist that calls the script

Write a text file with the following content. You need to adapt the string /Users/myusername/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh so it points to the script created in the first step. You cannot use a relative path with ~.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>me.myname.launchmyservice</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/Users/myusername/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Save the text file to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.update-desktop-from-webcam.plist – the name should match the "Label" key in the file.
Load it by issuing the following command:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.update-desktop-from-webcam.plist


What's the easiest way to transfer photos from Google Photos to iCloud Photos? I have more than 5 000 photos stored on Google Photos and I'd like to know what's the easiest way to move them on iCloud photos. Since the free storage ends on June I want to move everything on iCloud.
Here's what I've tried :

Selecting all of them on the Google Photos app and downloading them, but it randomly skips some pictures, and it stops after some hours of download. Since it downloads them in a random order I have to delete them all and start over.
Downloading them from Google Takeout and uploading them from icloud.com on a PC, but it only accepts JPEG files, so most of the pictures are not uploaded (the file format is .HEIC) and videos are skipped.

I have no other idea on how to do this, I hope anyone can help!

You can download the photos from Google to your PC and then upload them to icloud.com


Is there a way to unlock screen programmatically? I want to be able to unlock screen, or login to physical user while I'm connected with ssh connection. I know this might be unsafe etc. However that's ok for me at the moment. What options do I have to do this?

The duplicate link I added has some really good Apple Script options.

$ osascript -e 'tell application "System Events"
> keystroke "verysecurepassword"
> key code 36
> end tell'

I might also suggest using LockScreen. It's a hidden application that comes preinstalled and is protected by System Integrity protection. It will put a lock icon on the screen, lock the keyboard and mouse, and freeze the Touch Bar (Sounds malicious, right?).

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Uncheck "Require Password...."
To lock the Mac use

$ /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/AppleVNCServer.bundle/Contents/Support/LockScreen.app/Contents/MacOS/LockScreen

To unlock the Mac use (non tested but should work)

    $ killall LockScreen


Blank Notification Banner Stuck in macOS Sierra This blank notification banner appeared out of nowhere, at the top-right corner, and won't go away even if I restart/shutdown the MacBook, kill Dock, Finder or Notification Center. It won't appear if I boot in Safe Mode though. If I have two desktops open by using Spaces, only the first one will have this on, but if I close it, the banner will move to the second one.

Has anyone experienced something like that? I'm on a 13" MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra version 10.12.5.

I had stuck notification w/ request to change password. And I killed it:

➜  ~ ps -ef|grep -i notif
    0   121     1   0 27Sep19 ??        38:04.27 /usr/sbin/notifyd
133241192  1067     1   0 27Sep19 ??         2:06.70 /System/Library/CoreServices/NotificationCenter.app/Contents/MacOS/NotificationCenter
➜  ~ kill 1067


Can I do CAD and rendering work on my Mac by Remote Desktop(ing) to a powerful windows machine? (wired connection) Ok so my monitor is an Ultrafine and doesn't have any sort of input for a PC. Also, it would be nice keeping the PC away from the desk. Also also, it would be nice doing productivity work on one computer (my Mac) and just hopping between MacOS and the Remote Desktop. The PC is a 7700k with a GTX 1080 ti. I am using it exclusively for Rhino 3D and VRay. How would the performance be if I were to headlessly connect to the PC via my Mac with -say- an ethernet connection?

The performance of any Remote Desktop connection by the laws of physics and the need to encode the data is always slower than a native display.

So, no, the performance can’t be as good with a remote connection adding latency and delay.

That being said - practically, you are always going to be more productive than getting up and moving to another computer and you can get prodigious amounts of work done remotely across a continent let alone across the room. With a decent WiFi connection (say 802.11 ac and less than 10 radios connected to the AP and low interference / SNR above 10 dB ) or any 100 megabit wired/switched ethernet you will have a hard time measuring the delay or worrying about performance. Gigabit ethernet is even better.

I wouldn’t worry about this performance loss in practice, you are likely going to be 100 to 10000x times slower than the CPU in all cases, not the remote connection.


JavaScript problem while installing NetBeans and JDK in OS X 10.5.8 - Leopard I downloaded the newest version of NetBeans and JDK and wanted to install it on my MacBook that runs on OS X 10.5.8 but I couldn't.
This is the screenshot I made :

Maybe since the this OS X version is quite old I will be pushed to install some older version of NetBeans...

Anyway, why does it say I have a problem with JavaScript?

I just found out I want to install the 64 bit version of NetBeans but I have 32 bit OS X....  So, that can be the reason...


What is the max resolution output by the HDMI port of the MacBook Pro Early 2011 The MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) has a Thunderbolt port of which I would like to know the maximum resolution. It does not say what it is on the specs site specifically. It merely says "supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors", without specifying whether this holds true for all types of connections including HDMI. I have tested a miniDP to HDMI adapter that allegedly supports HDMI up to 4096x2160, but the max resolution i get is 2048x1152. I don't know if this is due to the Thunderbolt port or the adapter.

According to EveryMac.com, there were two 13-inch, Early 2011 MacBook Pro models—the 2.3 GHz i5 and the 2.7 GHz i7. It actually doesn't matter which you have. They both have a Intel HD Graphics 3000, which does indeed support an 2560 by 1600 external display. It's your adapter.


Cannot launch Parallels Desktop after upgrading to macOS Catalina? After having installed macOS Catalina, I cannot launch Parallels Desktop anymore.

Launching Parallels Desktop from the dock results in the message in the image below. It says that I should "Allow" Parallels Desktop in "Security and Privacy" settings, but it's not showing up there.

How can I manually "Allow" Parallels Desktop in "Security and Privacy" settings, when it's not showing up there?

Your screen capture shows the Security and Privacy > :General" tab. Did you look under the "Privacy" tab?

There will be a list of categories on the left and then the permissions of each app on the right. You will need to select the categories on the left one at a time (I'd start with "Accessibility") and authorize any instance of Parallels that requests permissions for that app..

To do this you will first have to click the padlock icon and authenticate with an admin password.


How to get rid of ios beta update messages? I keep getting these, awful, pop-ups - almost every time I open my phone from lock.

A new iOS update is now available. Please update from the iOS 11 beta.

I'm on 11.2 (15C5092b).
Software Update page says:

iOS 11.2
Your software is up to date.

So: What is this mess? and How do I get rid of it?

I’ve been getting this too. I fixed it by removing the iOS beta software profile by going to Settings → General → Profiles, select the Apple beta profile and hit remove. Restart your phone once removed.

Of course doing this removes the phone from receiving further beta updates, but retains the current iOS installed. You shouldn’t need minor iOS updates for development anyways.


Turn on Proxy Without Password Prompt I am looking for a way to do the equivalent without prompting for password. I need it to be a native way that does not require the user to change any configuration files (including sudoers). And GUI doesn't count (making AppleScript open System Preferences and click the buttons).

do shell script "networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxy wi-fi 127.0.0.1 5464 off"
do shell script "networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate wi-fi on"

Maybe something with keychain?
Configuration profile?

Note:  If they have to type in a admin one time to set something up thats ok (like giving the application access to keychain), but it must be simple enough the average user can do it.

Simplicity is the most important.

Attempted Solutions

https://stackoverflow.com/a/20110726/7886229

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/236809/263848

Actually found solution that seems to work...

Copy the file to your applications Resources folder

cp /usr/sbin/networksetup /path/to/app/Contents/Resources

Change permissions from this post

do shell script "chmod u+s /path/to/app/Contents/Resources/networksetup" with administrator privileges

The user will have to type in their password once, but after that they will not have to.

Any other solutions where you don't have to type in password would be better!


splitting pdf with pdftk I have a pdf document with an even number of pages, say 2n, and I would like to split it into n documents, say pages1_2.pdf, pages3_4.pdf, ....., pages2n-1_2n.pdf, each of which consists of 2 successive pages. More precisely, for any i in the interval {1..2n}, the i-th file should consist of page 2i-1 and page 2i of the original document.
pdftk does not seem to have a dedicated function but I think that with a for loop this could be achieved.
Could you please help me in writing the right script? Thank you in advance

There is an app called PDFsam. SAM stands for split and merge. There is a free Basic version of this app and you can set the pages to keep together. You can split every n pages.  It should do what you want without coding.


Uploading from iPhone to iTunes Match Library I have used iTunes Match for years to upload MP3s from my Mac to the cloud library. I then listen to them on my iPhone using the Music app.

But I want to know if there is a way to upload items using the iPhone instead of my Mac? There are many reasons I want to do this, One of which is I’m sometimes away from my computer for long periods of time but my phone is always with me.

I know this is not exactly what you are looking for but in case you can't find an exact solution, here is an alternative:

Assuming you are getting the MP3s off of the internet, Safari should automatically save the MP3 file into the Downloads folder on iCloud. You can listen to the MP3 by tapping on it in the Downloads folder under iCloud Drive in the Files app. You can also move the MP3 to another folder under the iCloud Drive after selecting the MP3 if you want to keep the downloaded MP3s together in a separate folder. However, files downloaded as such will not be part of your iTunes / Apple Music library.


Use the Airdrop network to access a computer? I'm using airdrop to transfer files and stuff to another macbook. Looking at the output of ifconfig, I can see that airdrop creates a VNIC to communicate with the other computer.

Is there a way I can use that connection as a full fledged AdHoc network connection, i.e ping the other computer, use normal file sharing etc.?

Because even though I can use airdrop while being connected to another wifi network (i.e the network card can connect to an adhoc connection as well as an infrastructure connection simultaneously), if I use an adhoc network through the wifi icon in the top bar, I am disconnected from the other wifi connection.

Yes, the VNIC created when an AirDrop window is open can be used by any application. AirDrop simply runs Bonjour (mDNS/DNS-SD) on that interface to discover peer and the TLS to transfer files. Any network application that can be configured to use a specific interface and supports IPv6 should work.

For example, pinging (replace X with whatever the interface number is in use, see ifconfig for example): ping6 -I p2pX ff02::1


Manage a multilingual iTunes library? I just imported a huge music library to iTunes.

This library contains plenty tracks that are already in my library, but the info is in a different language, my question is, is there a way to have the file info multilingual, so I'll be able to merge the files while keeping the info in both languages?

No. Every field is part of the songs ID3 (or meta tag) and only one field can exist at any given time. A song can only have one track name, one genre, one composer, one album title, and so on:

Whether you set the name of the song, for example, to English, or some other language, it doesn't matter as it would require two distinct fields for one ID3 entry, and that is not supported in the metadata container.

This is not a limitation of iTunes, but of the songs container.


Is there an open-source iOS screen viewer/ recorder for macOS? Requirements:

better than QuickTime movie recording: it doesn't pass the sound through
Wormhole and is great but that is a paid closed source software
Open source strongly preferred

Is there a open source software which would let me view my iOS screen on macOS?

You could take a look at videosnap. It is an free and open source utility that allows you to record the screen of your iOS device from a Mac.
Note that it is a command line utility you can use from the Terminal - it does not have a graphical user interface.


Why does the desktop Hard drive icon keep moving? Every time I log in to one specific account on my mac the hard drive icon, usually in the top right, has moved to the top left and is partly off of the screen. Even when I drag it back to the right it has moved on the next start up. Any ideas how to fix this?

It looks like your hidden .DS_Store file in your Desktop is corrupted, which will cause this issue for sure.

You can restore this by using Terminal.

Open Terminal.app
Type cd Desktop
Type ls -aF
Now, if you see a list of all your Desktop items, you're in the right place. And make sure you check whether or not the .DS_Store file is there
Now, type rm -i .DS_Store
When you're prompted hit 'y'
Log out and in again

Mac OS X should have rebuild this file and your icons should be ok. Let me know if you have any issues with the steps, I'm glad to help you.


How can I control (start/stop) applications and services that start up after reboot? I have a Mac that is slow when using the internet, but other PCs on the same connection aren't as slow.

I suspect there are too many AV scanners running concurrently, or there is some process that isn't installed by default slowing the whole thing down.

Question

Where can I find all possible applications that will be automatically started when the machine turns on?  (and how do I shut them off)

This should include

Applications on the menu bar on the bottom
Services (like Antivirus)
Menu-bar applications

Applications and Menu Bar items

Most of these can be easily configured in:
System Preferences → Users&Groups → Login Items

LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons

Some applications are cannot be configured in the System Preferences (e.g. Sophos AV Scanner, HandsOff Firewall,...) It's best to configure them in their own application to assure that everything runs as designed and intended.

You can look for related LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons in:

~/Library/LaunchAgents               ~/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchAgents                /Library/LaunchDaemons
/System/Library/LaunchAgents         /System/Library/LaunchDaemons

Startup Items

After I installed the multi-boot utility rEFIt, it copied a file rEFItBlesser which is run at startup.
Items that run at startup can be found in the following locations:

~/Library/Startup Items
/Library/Startup Items


Dragging a window to a space doesn't work the first time In Mountain Lion (at least, maybe elsewhere too):

Enter Mission Control to see all windows, and all spaces.
Drag a window or a stack of windows to a space

For me, the first attempt at this fails reliably; the space doesn't get darkened focus appearance, window springs back to original location on mouseup:

The second attempt succeeds reliably; space darkens, window moves on mouseup:

Happens with all applications, on a very fresh install of Mountain Lion, with no UI hack utilities installed, etc. Very annoying at start of workday when trying to place apps in spaces. Is this a bug or some sort of feature I am not aware of?

Update: After upgrade to 10.8.2, this problem is resolved.

Confirmed: the mountain lion 10.8.2 update resolves this problem.


How to find lost iPod with no WiFi I've lost my iPod touch and I really need it. I used iCloud but it said that it has no Wi-Fi.

How can I find it now?

Use the relevant feature in iCloud to present a message on the screen asking anyone who finds it to call you.

If anybody connects it to a wifi network without resetting the device to factory defaults, then they will get the message.

I would not lock or erase the device remotely, because then they will not be able to connect it to a wifi network.


Will Apple EarPods functions work with an Android phone? Will the Apple EarPods microphone and volume functionality work with Android phones?

The audio output will work fine with any Android phone with a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The audio input from the microphone on the EarPods will only work on compatible Android devices—this is not guaranteed. As far as I am aware, there are no Android devices which work with the remote controls on the wire.


sold an iphone 5s, buyer is saying I didn't wipe and needs my 4 digit passcode Sold an iphone 5s on ebay, thought I had wiped it clean (still think I did).  99% certain.

Buyer is in Ukraine.  States he can't activate phone because there's a passcode still on it.  Is asking for $20 refund to get it done.

Scam?

I logged into icloud and it doesn't show up in my devices.  Does that mean it was wiped clean?  Or perhaps I never could see it using icloud (find-my-iphone)?

He can wipe it without your passcode, provided it is not locked to your iCloud account, which by the sounds of it, it's not.

This can be done by connecting the phone to iTunes and then putting it in recovery mode. Quoting from Apple website page here.

Connect device to iTunes.
Put in recovery mode: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time. Don't release when you see the Apple logo. Keep holding both buttons until you see the recovery mode screen.
When you see the option to Restore or Update, choose Restore.

iTunes will download software for the device. If it takes more than 15 minutes, your device will exit recovery mode and you'll need to repeat steps 2 and 3.

Once done, the device can be set up and used as normal.


Is it possible to update any iOS 6 device to iOS 6.1.6? Apple have just released software updates to fix a rather serious security problem where a valid SSL response wasn't checked properly to ensure it matches the site actually being browsed. I have an iPhone 5, but unfortunately I have a strong personal aversion to the iOS 7 look and feel, so this far I've kept it on iOS 6.1.3.

Other users have better reasons than I to stay on iOS 6. For example, some people might be reliant on an app that has no iOS 7 version (as per bmike's comment), or the device might not have enough memory for the upgrade (as in this duplicate post).

Apple have released iOS 6.1.6 ("Available for: iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (4th generation)"), but my iPhone 5 gives me no option to upgrade to any iOS other than 7.0.6. Similarly, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, iPad 2, [new] iPad (3rd gen), iPad Mini and iPod Touch (5th Gen) all ran lower versions of iOS 6 but do not have builds of iOS 6.1.6 to install.

My iPhone is not currently jailbroken, but I would consider doing so in order to avoid having to use the iOS 7 interface. I'd rather not have to choose between the iOS version I prefer and this security patch for SSL. What options are feasible?

Sadly, no.

The iOS 6.1.6 patch (as was 6.1.5) is an update only available for iPhone 3GS and the fourth generation iPod touch. Apple appears to only be maintaining that branch exclusively for devices which were never compatible with iOS 7.


Automate setup of Win7 VPN, including registry settings and security policy changes After numerous difficulties I have managed to get a Windows 7 machine to connect to OSX Server's VPN.  I am looking to automate the setup process for Win 7 clients, which would include:

add one registry key
change couple security policy settings
configure a VPN connection (import a VPN profile??)

First 2 items above are per OS X Server: How to connect to VPN service from Windows article.

Is there a way to automate the setup so it is a single operation that can be performed by the user as opposed to me having to walk through all the steps on every machine?

Here are some links on the Connection Manager to setup VPN connection and deployment to users.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc752995(v=ws.10).aspx

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2693643

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd672647(v=ws.10).aspx


Why does my iMac have one name under sharing, but then say 'new-host3.home' as well? In Sharing, my iMac is called 'iMac Quad'. But right below it, its now saying new-host-3.home as well.

This also appears that it would then be on two domains - .local and .home.

How do I correct this? If I change the computer name, it won't change this.

Unfortunately the computer name and host name can get out of sync.  Open a terminal window and use

sudo hostname <new hostname>

to change the hostname.  Once executed, it changes the system configuration, so the new hostname will be there when you reboot.

Also, be aware that some DHCP servers will assign a hostname.  Depending on the network you attach to and the DHCP server configuration you may have to work with the network administrator if you need to use a different hostname.  You don't have to worry about this for most consumer grade routers.


How Do I Recover Formatted Mac hfs+ Partition? I was installing Win8 on a Mac where I got the error that I can because of GPT disk I dont know what MAC I have but the Mainboard is number is Apple Mac 942859f58194171B. I tried formatting the specific partition not the disk but unfortunately, I formatted the disk which contained my MAC OS together with the Recovery. I am now stuck in windows and I don't have the MAC Recovery Disk. What can I do to recover my MAC OS and potentially recovery in Windows?

The easiest way (depending on your model) is to do an Internet Recovery. You can do this by holding Command+Option+R while your computer boots. You will get a globe and will either ask you to connect to Wifi or if you are connected to ethernet you will just see a progress bar. After it downloads it will bring you to the recovery partition and you can re-partition your HDD and such.


How do I type an acute accent on the Russian PC keyboard layout? I need to write an acute accent over over a Russian letter to indicate stress. Google tells me to switch to QWERTY, hold the letter key and select the accented one. This types a U+00E9 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE, but I'm using Cyrillic letters, not Latin letters and what if my letter isn't in the Latin alphabet, like И?

Here is a custom layout I made once which lets you put in the stress marks on Russian text.
The combining acute character needed for this is also available in the ABC Extended keyboard at Option Shift e, or in the Character Viewer at U+0301


Preserve the desktop where an application's window was placed, after a system restart As the image below shows, I've a few applications which I keep open on my main desktop and I've another space/Desktop for applications like Twitter for Mac, Stickies, etc.

Now, the problem is that when I restart the system (I use the setting - "Reopen Windows when logging back in"), all the application windows which are opened on the Desktop 2 come up on the Desktop 1, instead of Desktop 2 where they were present originally. Is there a way to preserve their location after the restart?

Ok, I found a solution that's working for me, and now my application windows doesn't switch Desktop randomly on restart.

For the two desktop setup as in the question, first I go to the desktop where I want to stick an application window. Say, we want to stick web browser to desktop 1, we

go to desktop 1,
open the application on this desktop,
right click on the application icon on the dock, then Options > Assign to > This desktop
similarly, stick applications on desktop 2

Now, after system restart, the applications are starting where they were sticked!


Why is Microsoft Excel 2016 so slow when Internet connected When I try to scroll up and down a sheet there is substantial delay. Using the keyboard arrows to navigate is also incredibly slow. I have no graphics or complex formulas. Just 10 columns of plain text and about 300 rows.

I'm using a registered version of office 2016 (for business) and Mac OS 10.11.6 (El Capitan).

This slow down appears when connected to the Internet.

When I had a similar problem, disabling dropbox integration (I never realized I had enabled it) made a huge difference in performance, especially for otherwise trivial things in Office/Excel like copy and paste (which had become unbearable).

System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Privacy Tab->"Allow the apps below to control your computer"  (dropbox was checked, I unchecked it). Not sure exactly what functionality this took away from dropbox, but it still syncs folders fine, which is all I used it for anyway.

(I know this is thread is over a year old, but it's one of the first results in Google so I'm adding this for all the others who come along in hopes it may help them).


Play music in iPhone using iTunes Is there a way to play music on an iPhone which is connected to a DVD player using iTunes on my PC?

If I understood correctly, you have connected you iPhone's output to a DVD player for amplification. You can stream your iTunes content to iPhone using Home Sharing (see this ArsTechnica guide) or AirPlay (using AirView on the iPhone).


iTunes match is on but I can't copy songs from my PC to my iphone without redownloading them on my iphone from the cloud iTunes match is on but I can't copy songs already downloaded to my PC to my iphone without redownloading them on my iphone from the cloud.
Is this by design or am I missing something. Seems like an odd thing.

It's by design. iTunes Match will upload (or match) your songs with your iCloud. They will show up on any other device (up to 10 devices) where you've enabled iTunes Match. But in order to play the song on your other device, it needs to be downloaded (or at least streamed).
Which is kind of obvious, since you can't play a song out of nowhere. So your iPhone will stream (or download, depending on what you choose) the song and than play it. It will even start playing before it finished downloading the song.

You can find more information about iTunes Match and the working process behind on this website.


How can I connect 2 non apple screens to my 13" mac book pro? Possible Duplicate:
  Can I plug two external monitors in to a MacBook Pro?

I've just purchased a new non-retina MacBook Pro 13" with the latest version of OS X (10.8.2).

I want to connect my two 22" displays (Samsung and LG) to my MBP and have a 3 screen workstation (laptop screen + 2 screens).

One external screen has got a VGA port and the other a DVI. The screen that has a VGA port has also got a DVI input.

Assuming I buy a VGA adapter that enables me to connect VGA to my MBP, could I connect my second screen to the first using the DVI port and see the 3 screens?

I believe the answer is yes:

This should do it: http://www.iogear.com/product/GUC2015V/

As should this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6939907&SRCCODE=WEBGOOPA&cm_mmc_o=mH4CjC7BBTkwCjCV1-CjCE&gclid=CJyRgoSVp7MCFQ-f4AodtFAAHg


ethtool Equivalent for OS X Lion Other than ifconfig, is there an app/script for OS X Lion that produces similar output/info to ethtool?

Specifically, I would like to be able to query the following:

driver info
online/offline
speed
duplex

Output from ethtool looks like this:

ajc@ajc-3] sudo ethtool eth0|grep Duplex                                                                                ~
    Duplex: Full
ajc@ajc-3] sudo ethtool eth0|grep Speed                                                                                ~
    Speed: 100Mb/s
ajc@ajc-3] sudo ethtool eth0|grep Link                                                                                ~
    Link detected: yes
ajc@ajc-3] sudo ethtool -i eth0                                                                                ~
driver: pcnet32
version: 1.32
firmware-version:
bus-info: 0000:00:03.0

My primary tools for reading OSX details on hardware are system_profiler and ioreg. For network interface details, ifconfig is the best bet. The first two will show you connection paths for the hardware as well as software driver information. In your example - media and status provide most of the details you listed.

mac:~ me$ ifconfig en0

en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=2b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_HWTAGGING,TSO4>
    ether 00:1b:63:a8:33:33
    inet6 fe80::21b:63ff:fea8:3333%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
    inet 172.16.1.8 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255
    media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control>)
    status: active

mac:~ me$ system_profiler|awk '/^Ethernet Cards/{c=15;next}c-->0'

        ethernet:

          Type: Ethernet Controller
          Bus: PCI
          Vendor ID: 0x10de
          Device ID: 0x0ab0
          Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x10de
          Subsystem ID: 0xcb79
          Revision ID: 0x00b1
          BSD name: en0
          Kext name: nvenet.kext
          Location: /System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/nvenet.kext
          Version: 2.0.17

In your case, you are grepping for Duplex, Speed and Link and on Mac hardware you can get all of that data from ifconfig en0 | egrep [media|status] as desired.


How does the iMac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX compare to Desktop cards? I'm considering buying a new iMac and am wondering what the GTX675MX will do (have a hard time finding comparisons or tests with that).  I plan to use it for gaming (part with bootcamp/Windows7 if games not available for MacOS)

I think it's a mobile card and with the space restrictions it can't have the same power as (lets say) a PC GTX 670, so next to which PC GTX cards does it fall (I have a GTX 560 in PC for example which now tends to move towards falling down the cliff on the weak side).

DO NOT GET the imac 680mx!!!! save and get 675mx same performance but with less cudas
1344 and 1 less gig of vram. Still running battfield 3 ultra 43fps 1440p
check this site http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1568279.


How do you open two or more simultaneous sessions of Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection in Lion? How do you open two or more simultaneous sessions of Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection in Lion? The RDC client comes with Office for Mac 2011. I work on a MacBook Pro but have to remote into Windows servers for a number of reasons.

Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client has two very interesting (and very un-mac like) designs:

Invoking the app a second time simply raises the connection in process. You've no doubt tried to launch a "second instance" of the app this way, and been annoyed that it doesn't work. Don't worry, you're not alone, that's un-expected behavior.
As you see from my screenshot, it's as simple as File -> New Connection

However, don't try and use the ⌘n shortcut. If you're connected to a remote computer then shortcuts no longer work, and in fact, shortcuts are actually completely unbound after you connect to something. That's invariably due to the fact that because most keyboard shortcuts get sent through to the remote computer.

So, File -> New Connection. A new icon will appear in your Dock, and you will be prompted for the remote host address. One advantage to this 'un-mac like' convention is that it's simple to switch between remote hosts with one icon per connection in your Dock.


How can I remove dependencies recursively in Homebrew? I'm trying out Homebrew, but I can't seem to figure out when uninstalling a 'formula', how to recursively remove the dependencies as well. I.e. Macports is:

$ port uninstall --follow-dependencies <portname>

How does this work with Homebrew?

A simple way to solve the problem of accumulating dependencies of deinstalled things is to periodically run brew leaves and compare it against a list of wanted leaves, and recursively remove everything else.

The following works, but of course is not very readable:

1) Show all the leaves minus the ones in your wanted list:

$ brew leaves | egrep -v 'bcwipe|brew-cask|lftp|mmv|mobile-shell|mplayer|node|octave|python|zsh'

2) Once you have adjusted the list (i.e. added new keepers), get rid of the rest:

$ brew uninstall `brew leaves|egrep -v 'bcwipe|brew-cask|git|lftp|mmv|mobile-shell|mplayer|node|octave|python|zsh'`

This usually has to be called a few times in a row to get them all, and the final call should be followed by a

$ brew cleanup

To beautify a bit, the list of keepers can of course be kept in a file somewhere.


Save web page as pdf with links? Is there a way to save a web page as PDF on the Macintosh so that I can click on the links within the page to take me to the appropriate web page?

I found out that in Safari there's a Export PDF but print to PDF also works in Safari.  However it seems that Print to PDF does not retain links in Chrome.


Is the iPhone's eSim for the home or roaming carrier? The XR, XS iPhones feature eSIM capability. Assume that the user lives in the US and uses T-mobile.  Does it make sense to use the eSIM with the home carrier or to use it with roaming carriers the Caribbean and EU countries?

If I assign the eSIM to T-mobile (USA), can I expect the phone to roam exactly as if it had a conventional SIM card?

The eSim can be used both for home and roaming as indicated by Apple's Website:

  Here are a few of the many ways you can use Dual SIM:

  Use one number for business and another number for personal calls.
  Add a local data plan when you travel outside of the country or region.
  Have separate voice and data plans.


How can I back up my iMac from the Recovery Partition? Things in my iMac are failing, most notably the hard drive. I can only reliably boot to the Recovery Partition. Booting to the regular system, either normally or in Safe Mode, does not work, and causes the machine to power off midway through boot.

This computer is most likely fubarred. Is it possible to initiate a backup through the Recovery console? I'd prefer to get a Time Machine update, but I'll take whatever backup I can get.

I am running the latest version of Lion (OS X 10.7).

Unfortunately you cannot backup the Mac through the recovery partition. However starting the Mac in Target disk mode or booting the Mac from a bootable external drive may allow you to mount the iMac's drive and copy files from it.


My photos disappeared after reprogramming my iPhone 4 I have a huge problem. My iPhone 4 went off and went to a service to fix it. I said to him that I have too many photos there and he should be careful. He said he reprogrammed my iPhone, and when I turned on the phone all my photos and apps were deleted. I had my entire life there, is there any way to get at least my photos back.

To be clear, I have never done any back up with iCloud or iTunes.

Since you don't have a backup, you will want to put the phone in airplane mode and stop using the device. Then see what companies do data recovery from iPhones.

It is trickier than recovering data from a hard drive since SSD/flash storage allocates things differently than a sector based disk does. Also, the passcode and pairing procedure make mounting the raw storage harder.

You should expect to pay some $$ for the service. The specific model of iOS and hardware will increase or decrease the cost as will your location in the world and if you need quick service vs sending it off to a lower cost location for the recovery work.


How does Finder decide whether a file extension needs to be hidden? I'm using Mavericks and I noticed some of my files have their extensions hidden and others don't. How does Finder decide whether a file extension needs to be hidden?

I know I can prevent this inconsistency by selecting the "Show all filenames extensions" option in Finder Preferences.

Finder doesn't decide this - it is a flag saved with the file. The app saving the file sets or clears this flag. You can do a Get Info on a file to toggle this setting on a per file basis.


Excel for Mac (15.33) not remembering recently used files For some reason, Excel for Mac (15.33) is not remembering recently used files.  How do I fix this?

I'm not using Office 365.

I decided to pin a document in the File Open dialog:

after doing so, the Open Recent menu was populated.

** edit **

After closing and restarting Excel, the problem reoccurred.


How can I tell OSX NOT to mount some of the drives in my computer? I have a Mac with a Windows drive that I occasionally boot to. Most of the time, I'm using the Mac, and the Windows disk always mounts and shows up on the desktop. I would like to keep it from showing up or prevent it from mounting at all if possible, without affecting the ability to boot to it when I want to. I found an answer on a blog that uses

$ chflags hidden /Volumes/Time\ Machine/

to hide the volumes. I will do that if there's no way to prevent mounting them. Thanks for any answers!

Create a file /etc/fstab with the following contents.

# fstab
#
# Identifier  mount point  fs type  options1
#
UUID=3CA41C88-3E86-3A39-88CE-9379FF44B6A5 none hfs rw,noauto

The alphabet soup after the = sign can be found with diskutility.

(Fire up DiskUtility, select the disk, right click, More Information Universal ID)

FS tab needs the following ownership and permissions:

bash-3.2# ls -l /etc/fstab
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  71 29 Aug  2011 /etc/fstab

To create the file try this:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

The noauto option causes it to not mount at boot.
In a terminal window type man fstab for other options

Not directly applicable to your problem:  VirtualBox, VMware, and Parallels can run windows in a virtual machine.  VirtualBox allows using a dedicated disk. (Others may, don't know)  For applications that are not CPU or graphics intensive, or access the hardware directly this is often good enough.  I run MS Access this way.  Anything that needs DirectX may have issues or have an unacceptably slow frame rate.  Action games don't work well.


Can I buy an Apple SIM card if I’m not a resident of the country where it's sold? Can Apple SIM cards be freely purchased, or are they tied to having an address in one of the thirteen countries where they are sold? I noticed an article on Mac Rumors that headlines “Truphone's Apple SIM Data Plans for iPad Will Be Available to Buy in Over 30 Countries Later This Year”. As I understand, data plans for an Apple SIM card can be purchased in other countries besides the 13 where Apple sells the cards. It sounds like it might be useful to have a card around, can I buy one when visiting one of the 13 countries? How much does Apple charge for the card?

Apple Support lists the countries where an Apple SIM card can be bought:

  If your iPad didn't come with an Apple SIM card, you can buy an Apple SIM kit at an Apple Retail Store in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, or Turkey.

Yes, you can1.

I can confirm that you are able to get an Apple SIM, regardless of the status of residence in the country you are buying it in. Buying an Apple SIM does not require registration.

In Canada, it cost CA$5.00 for one.

1Can’t find a source, but I tried it out.


Unable to create Guest Account after enabling FileVault After upgrading to Lion, I tried creating a guest account and it worked.

I enabled FileVault on Lion and went through the process of encryption. After that, when I am trying to create a Guest account, the option itself is disabled.

I am unable to create a Guest account on Lion . I wanted to check if this is the usual behavior with FileVault enabled Macs since I could not find any related articles on this .

If you hover over the disabled option, a tooltip appears explaining that the guest account can't be activated with FileVault turned on:

This is because the new FileVault uses full-disk encryption that's decrypted by the login password of one of the users. As the guest account, by its nature, does not have a password, that would leave your computer completely unprotected. You can still create an account for guest purposes as a regular account though.

it has been noted that this hover tip may take some time to display and can be difficult to trigger for some people, but regardless of whether or not you can see the tooltip the answer to the question is the same


I am running a while loop which ends in & and I closed the terminal, so I can't stop it now This is the code

while sleep 1; do say "1"; done &

I closed the terminal, but now I can't stop my Mac saying "one" every second.
It is very annoying.

Open a new Terminal tab/window
Run ps alx|grep "[s]leep 1" (maybe several times, until you get the sleep 1 as part of the output

pse@Mithos:~$ ps alx|grep sleep 1
  502  1268  1245   0  20  0  2432796   1460 -      S      ??    0:00.00 sleep 31536000
  502 80121   809   0  31  0  2432796   1772 -      S+   s002    0:00.00 sleep 1

Kill the shell it's running in by using the parent PID of the sleep command (the number in the third column, 809 in this case): kill -HUP YOUR-PARENT-PID-HERE


Mac OS Sierra 10.12.1 Dock behaviour and command tab issue I've got a brand new computer which I bought last week. I've noticed that sometimes when I cycle programmes using command and tab, some of the icons don't appear, even though the programme is open. The only way I can get to them is to click the icon on the dock or find the window manually.

I've also noticed that quite often when I quit a programme it remains as if it were open in the dock, even though it has been quit.

To fix it I can run killall Dock in terminal, but it then later happens again. Not ideal.

Can anyone else report something similar? I'm trying to diagnose if its an issue with the computer or Sierra; I don't want to have to send it back but shouldn't be having problems this early on. I even did a clean reinstall this morning and the problem still persists.

Yes. I have a mid 2015 MBP which I have upgraded to Sierra from Mavericks and before that all the way back to Lion.

I find that Cmd-Tab frequently (more often than not) fails to tab to the correct window, stopping 'one short' which suggests that the list of icons displayed when Cmd Tabbing is different from the internal list of programs that it cycles through for some reason.

I also recently had a problem (for the first time) where Terminal windows failed to show in the task switcher at all until I restarted the OS.


Multiple apps in one icon for the iPad My husband's iPhone has the multi app icon and wanted to get the same on my new iPad.

Is it possible to get it on the iPad?

I think you are talking about iOS folder. If so, touch and hold one icon till icons begin dithering. Then drag and drop one icon on an other icon which of two you want to folder together. Your ipad will suggest you a folder name. You may change or assume that. Then push the home button.