Blank page removal tool for PDF? A command line tool is preferred, but not required.

Preview and PDF Pen and dozens of other apps can delete arbitrary pages from a PDF file and save the result. The key problem I can’t solve is how to systematically detect a blank page and have it deleted. Blank is defined as no visible line or text or content.

Do you know of any tool that can detect and remove blank pages from a multi-page PDF file and be controlled by automation (script / Automator / something other than click, look, click)?

Here are a few tools I found on the web. I haven't used them, so I can't comment on how well they might work for you.

A-PDF Scan Optimizer has an option for detecting and removing pages with not many visible marks.

the CoolUtils TIFF PDF Cleaner "detects blank pages in TIFF and PDF files and deletes them".

Edocfile's Blank Page Remover has the effect of deleting blank pages from a PDF file, though it's intended for use with a scanner and a printer as a way of converting a document with mixed single- and double-sided sheets into a document with all single- or double-sided sheets.

Axpertsoft's PDF Page Remover can remove blank pages from multiple PDF files at a single command.

All these requires Windows of some flavour, so I hope you have a virtual machine on your Mac.


How can I initiate OS X installation from a dmg in Windows on a Mac? I have a MacBook Pro with a working BOOTCAMP partition running Windows 8, and a damaged OS X 10.10 beta partition. The problem is that I cannot boot with the OS X partition, and in order to reinstall the OS I have to set a bootable media.

NB: I already tried to make a bootable usb using TransMac with the InstallESD.dmg extracted from the Install OS X Marvericks.app but it doesn't work

Can I launch the installation directly from the Windows partition?
Is there any other way to make a bootable media?

As far as I know, you can't "launch" the installation directly from Windows. From there, you have two choices :

Normally, you should have a recovery partition on your Mac. Boot on this one, you'll be able to repair or reinstall OS X.
Create a bootable USB stick with OS X on it to reinstall your main partition. There are lots of tutorials that show how to create a bootable OS X USB stick on Google, it's pretty easy to find.

Good luck


Determining source app of IP traffic in NETunnelProviderManager I am using NETunnelProviderManager in "routing by destination IP" and am able to get IP traffic from various apps on the device.

The challenge I am having is that I need to determine which application each packet has come from so I can filter and block traffic as needed, so I can prevent a rogue app being created to access an internal location. It is not feasible for me to use NETunnelProviderManager's "per-app" mode since I am not using MDM.

It seems that if I had access to the system's TCB table (or access to the TCB table for each process) I could do this, but it looks like iOS does not publish this information and I haven't found any private APIs either to get this information on a non-jailbroken device.

Any ideas?

It says specifically on the NETunnelProvidermanager specs, "The only way to configure "per app" VPN is with MDM..." so in terms of the mainstream way of meeting all the Apple specifications, and at least in the context of Apple Stack Exchange, it seems this would not be possible.  I hope someone else, or I, can find a nice workaround for you though if it doesn't work.

One tip though:  it does discuss directly below the VPN settings, in the spec guide, how to configure on-demand VPN, and if your requirement is not that that the VPN is "always on," you may be able to meet your specific goal just by creating the necessary certificates.

You may prefer to to make the .mobilconfig files by hand once you see the options and syntax available, but you might be able to generate only exactly the certificates you need, for example the VPN, using Apple Configurator without having to completely take control of the device.


JetDrive 725 - SHould I use TRIM enabler? I just installed a JetDrive 725  and it is really nice!

As I am using Yosemite, TRIM can not be enabled that easily, and the TRIM Enabler is needed. Now there is a certain risk when using it, as kext-signing needs to be disabled.

Now my question: is it worth enabling TRIM? Is it be really that beneficial? Any experiences with it?

I've had a 960GB JetDrive 720 since September 2014 and have been running Yosemite since release. I found that enabling trim on Yosemite caused instabilities, and the system would lock up very regularly. I was in regular contact with Transcend about this for a while. I like to think that the removal of trim from the JetDrive toolbox on Yosemite was down to my insistence, but we will never know for sure!

Turning of trim has solved all my problems. I did that in January 2015, and have not had any issues since. I work with a lot of virtual machines and this can be quite I/O intensive and I have seen no downsides of not enabling trim. I do boot into the recovery console about once a month to run Disk Utility to verify disk but I've not had any problems so this seems overcautious on my part.

OS X 10.10.4 and later

Apple has included a command line tool that enables trim. If you're running 10.10.4 or later, be sure to save all open documents as the following commands will result in a system restart.

Launch Terminal
Type sudo trimforce enable. There will be some scary warnings about data loss, but this is standard CYA legalese. You will be prompted about whether you are sure twice.
This will reboot your system. After the reboot, TRIM is now enabled.


Additional characters when I press longer How to turn those additional characters off? After updating to macOS Sierra when I hit a key a little bit longer (it's the same amount of time I always did) i get this and it's constantly disrupting my flow

This "feature" has been around for a few years.  See if this helps:

https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os_x_lion_using_and_disabling_the_character_picker


How to just play one song in iTunes? iTunes Version 12.9.5.5
If I click the "play" arrow on the song below, iTunes will add every song in the album below it to the current playlist. That's not what I want. I just want to hear the song I selected.
How do I do that?

Following assumes that:

you want to listen to one song in your library
you know the name of the song (or part of it)
Spotlight is indexing your music (by default it's enabled)

Invoke Spotlight, enter song name, select it from suggestions (it may already be selected by default), press enter and listen this one song (in Big Sur it's Music, but it should work in similar fashion with earlier versions with iTunes as well).
Scenario using keyboard:

⌘+Space (to open Spotlight search)
enter song name (like 'Wasted Words')
music file should be displayed in results (maybe even selected as default)
file selected press Enter (starts playing song)

If there are too many files found one can narrow search by adding kind:music right after song name. It is also useful then one remembers only one or more words from song name. Just enter word(s) and narrow results down with kind (like Words kind:music)


How to regain features from Safari 5 that are not found in Safari 6? I upgraded to Mountain Lion, there are a lot of differences in Safari 6.

Have the four features below been relocated?

If not relocated, are there fixes?

Activity window (previously: Window -> Activity) is gone.
Bonjour access from the bookmarks menu is gone.
Ability to empty cache (previously: Safari -> Empty Cache) is gone.
delete/backspace key no longer works for going to the previous page.

Actually, Bonjour is still there, but you have to include it yourself. Just go to Preferences > Bookmarks, and enable what you'd like there.


iOS 11: How do I replace the emoji keyboard button with a punctuation menu without third-party tools? I have no idea how anyone types quickly on the default iOS 11 keyboard considering you have to bring up a full different keyboard to type punctuation. My previous phone was a Google Nexus 4 and the default keyboard there had a punctuation button which you can hold down for a dropdown menu to select common punctuation marks.

I can't figure out why the devs thought it was a good idea to prioritize emojis over punctuation. How do I fix this without downloading a third-party keyboard or tool?

Slide your finger from the punctuation button in the bottom left of the keyboard, to the punctuation mark you want, then release. This automatically switches the keyboard back after typing the punctuation you chose.
Hold the punctuation button whilst tapping a punctuation key with another finger. Releasing your finger from the punctuation button returns the keyboard to the standard keyboard.

Both of these techniques are much faster than separately tapping the punctuation button, entering punctuation, then tapping again to return to the standard keyboard.

It's not possible to modify the standard iOS keyboard more than the settings available in Settings → General → Keyboard, which does not offer any way to change the language input menu. If necessary, you can replace the iOS keyboard with any third-party keyboard from the App Store.


Unmodified F4 no longer summons LaunchPad When I press F4, it no longer summons LaunchPad. F3 still invokes Mission Control, and the other function keys, without modifiers, have their respective meanings (volume, play, etc), but I can only invoke LaunchPad with my hot corner or the Dock button.

How can I reset this to default behavior?

One solution is to rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist and log out and back in. I just tried this and it seems to have restored the binding, no hack like FunctionFlip required. My other special keys all work, too. However, I lost my other customized Keyboard Shortcuts, like ctrl+← for switching spaces Mission Control. They worked after I re-enabled them.

It looks like com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist is the preferences file, and MacOS works fine if it's missing. After I'd edited my Keyboard Shortcuts via the preferences panel that file was recreated and everything's back to normal except Launchpad launches again. Based on a diff of the two plist files I'm guessing the keycode for Launchpad is one of 118, 119, 64, or 65.

I found this solution on a MacRumors discussion.


MacBook Air mid 2011 - Handoff not supported Is there a failure with OS X Yosemite?

I have a MacBook Air mid 2011, with:

Bluetooth Version 4.3
Bluetooth Low Energy Supported
LMP Version 0x6

  Does somebody experience the same behaviour?

As of 10/23/2014 The creator of the tutorial below (@dokterdok) has released a software tool to automate the process.

Below is from the original macrumors post...

  (@dokterdok)

  Update 23.10.2014: I've released a Continuity Activation Tool. No more
  painful manual hacking. Link.

This is how i fixed it (according to this wonderful MacRumors Tutorial mentioned by @Hank):

  Download and install 0xED in your Applications folder, you can get it from here: http://www.suavetech.com/0xed/
  Download and install KextDrop in your Applications folder, you can get it from here: http://www.cindori.org/software/kextdrop/
  Open Terminal and type : sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"
  Restart your machine.
  Open Finder, type CMD+Shift+G and go to /System/Library/Extensions/
  Copy those two files to your desktop and then delete the originals: IO80211Family.kext IOBluetoothFamily.kext
  Go to Terminal, and type: ioreg -l | grep "board-id" | awk -F\" '{print $4}'
  Your result should look like : Mac-742912EFDBEE19B3, (yours might be different.). Copy it to your clipboard (Select and CMD+C). Don't
  close terminal yet.
  Open Finder and hit CMD+Shift+G, go to ~/Desktop/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/Plugins/AirPortBrcm4360.kext/Contents/MacOS
  Note: if you have a different OS language, you might need to replace
  "Desktop" in the path with your local translation.
  Right Click on AirPortBrcm4360, and choose OPEN WITH: OTHER: 0XED
  Press CMD+F, search for "Mac-" (without the quotes). Make sure the search type is Text and not HEX.
  Look at the first result, for example, it might be Mac-C3EC7CD22292981F
  Go back to the FIND box, in the FIND field enter that first "Mac-" number that you found.
  In the REPLACE field, enter the number you got in Terminal, (remember you left it open.)
  Click REPLACE
  Repeat steps 11 to 15, but this time for the last "Mac-" result that you can find in the file.
  Click SAVE
  Open Finder and hit CMD+Shift+G to open the "Go to" popup, and go to ~/Desktop/IOBluetoothFamily.kext/Contents/MacOS
  Right Click on IOBluetoothFamily, and choose OPEN WITH: OTHER: 0XED.
  Press CMD+F.  In the SEARCH field type: MacBookAir Click FIND NEXT.
  You will find a block of text containing 'MacBookAir4,1''MacBookAir4,2''Macmini5,1''Macmini5,2''Macmini5,3'
  Manually replace the numbers with ones only so they all look like:
  'MacBookAir1,1''MacBookAir1,1''Macmini1,1''Macmini1,1''Macmini1,1'
  Click SAVE (the red circle button) and quit 0xED.
  Open KextDrop, and Drag and drop the IO80211Family.kext that you modified into the window.
  Click INSTALL.
  Repeat steps 23 and 24 but for your modified IOBluetoothFamily.kext
  Go Back to Terminal, and type the following commands. Wait for each one to finish. sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel and
  sudo kextcache -system-caches
  Reboot. Make sure you have an Internet connection for the next steps.

  Last: SignOut and in again your Mac and iPhone, reboot both.

Here is how it should look like after this:


Getting Apple TV 2 to work with third-party iPad app I've got a non-Apple app which is supposed to use AirPlay to stream both video and audio to an Apple TV (or other AirPlay-enabled device). Following the AirPlay setup instructions on Apple's website, I turned on my Apple TV, and then, having started playback on my iPad, switched the output from the iPad to the Apple TV. The Apple TV plays audio, and responds to all of the iPad's playback controls, but there's no video. In fact, when the media shows up (as "now playing", under computers), it's shown to be an audio track: the Apple TV shows the default iTunes graphic for albums with no artwork.

I'm using the original iPad running iOS 5.1.1 (the latest this model supports)

Am I missing something here? Is it possibly that it's just an ill-coded app?

From Apple's Apple TV 2 AirPlay page (in the footnotes at the bottom of that page):

  AirPlay is available on all devices running iOS 4.3 or later. Some features require the latest software. Second-generation Apple TV or later required.
  AirPlay Mirroring is available with iPad 2 or later; iPhone 4S; iMac (Mid 2011 or newer), Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer), MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer), and MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer) with Mountain Lion.

This explains your situation as far as what you're describing, which sounds like mirroring. In my experience with the 1st gen iPad, there is usually a speaker icon next to the name of your Apple TV when you are attempting AirPlay and audio-only capability is available. When you're using hardware with video AirPlay capability (i.e., Mirroring), there is a TV icon next to the name of the Apple TV. Beyond the footnotes listed above, this is a sure indicator of your iPad to Apple TV connectivity options.


Is there a way to download a setup file for macOS Sierra on Windows computer and then install later on my mac os For a long time I avoided upgrading to macOS Sierra, reason being my slow home internet connection. At my home, it predicts to take something like 1 day 2 hrs.

On the other hand, my workplace internet speed is very fast. So I was thinking of downloading the Sierra setup file at my workplace and then verifying the installation media (if there is a way for verifying mac os because Xcode does have a way of verifying) and install it on my MacBook Pro. Only problem being my workplace computers have Windows operating system. So is there a way to download the setup file for macOS on Windows? I tried searching on Developer downloads and Support downloads but the only thing  I could find there were just updates and no main setup file.

There is probably no legal way to download macOS Sierra on a Windows PC. Non-legal ways (it depends on your country jurisdiction) are either macOS Sierra torrents or a macOS VM transferred to your PC (which requires some type 2 hypervisor like VMware Workstation or VirtualBox) to download the Sierra installer from within the macOS VM.

But: since you own a MacBook Pro, why don't you simply take it to your workplace and download macOS Sierra there?


Windows 7 install on MacBook Air without Bootcamp I burned  my DVD of Windows 7 64 bit to an iso file. Moved that file to my USB flash drive using Rufus, and when I boot while holding the option key my flash drive isn't recognized. Not sure what else to do but Bootcamp only supports Windows 8 or later.

I assume your MacBook Air is 2015 or newer model. If so, then you can not install Windows 7 on this model. The reason is that Windows 7 requires a BIOS boot method and Apple removed the ability to BIOS boot operating systems starting with the 2015 model year Macs.

The instructions for installing Windows 8.1 are given at the Apple web site: Use Windows 8.1 on your Mac with Boot Camp.

The instructions for installing Windows 10 are given at the Apple web site: Use Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp.


How do I change the PIN on an iPhone? A simple one, I guess:

I recently bought a new (unlocked) iPhone, and at the same time changed my phone subscription to another operator. How can I set the PIN code on the new SIM card to something other than the default? With a quick look, I couldn't find anything related in iPhone settings.

You can find the option under Settings > Phone > SIM PIN.


Get list of all fonts containing a specific character On macOS Sierra, I would like to get a usable list of all fonts that cover (contain a glyph for) a particular Unicode character. Is there a way to do that, either via a tool, or the commandline, or writing a program?

Right now, this is what I can do:

Under System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard, there is an option to "Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar"

which I have turned on. This enables a menu in the top-right corner of the screen, next to the time and date.
In that menu, I choose "Show Emoji and Symbols" (which I think was previously called "Character Viewer"):

Here I can search for the character and under "Font Variation" I can click on each rendering and see the corresponding font:

This is usable when there are few enough fonts that contain the character, but is unwieldy (requires a lot of clicking and copying) when the list of fonts is large. What I'd like is to get a list of all such fonts in plain-text copyable form.

How can I do that? I'm willing and happy to write code if necessary.

It's still not clear to me how this is done by macOS itself, but in the meantime here's what I ended up doing.

The solutions I found all were of the following form:

Get a list of all fonts available.
Loop over the list to find fonts that contain the selected character.

Listing all fonts

As at this question, there are two approaches (plus a third one I found here):

system_profiler SPFontsDataType to which you can add -xml to get output in XML,
fc-list which can take a pattern (: is the empty pattern that matches all fonts) and a format specifier.
Instally python-fontconfig, then run import fontconfig; fontconfig.query() to get a list of font paths.

Comparing the two approaches (I wrote this before I had noticed the third one) is interesting:

Speed: On my computer and for my set of fonts, fc-list takes about 24 seconds the first time and 0.04 seconds each time after that, while system_profiler consistently takes about 3 seconds each time.
Comprehensiveness: On my current system, system_profiler lists 702 fonts while fc-list lists 770: all those 702 plus 68 more. On the one hand, system_profiler seems to be the "official" way, and matches the fonts visible in Font Book, the ones that show up in "Font Variation" in the character/symbol viewer (as in the question), the menu in TextEdit etc. On the other hand, at least some of the fonts that it misses are genuinely usable fonts. This includes not just the 5 fonts /Library/Fonts/{Athelas.ttc,Charter.ttc,Marion.ttc,Seravek.ttc,SuperClarendon.ttc} about which you can find some confusing pages online (e.g. this and this), but also /Library/Fonts/{DIN Alternate Bold.ttf,DIN Condensed Bold.ttf,Iowan Old Style.ttc} and 57 of the 177 Noto Sans fonts I have installed on my system. For example, I have Noto Sans Brahmi installed but this font doesn't show up in Font Book or in "Font Variation" when I search for a Brahmi letter (say ), but it does get used in TextEdit (and displayed in my browser).
Whatever the reason for this weirdness, I'm happy that I can get the full list with fc-list.
Ease of use: with either method a little bit of parsing the output is required. With fc-list I can specify the format (e.g. fc-list --format="%{family}\n%{file}\n%{lang}\n\n" but I couldn't find a reference for the names of the fields!); with system_profiler I can either just grep for Location: or output to XML and parse the XML (examples with xml.etree.ElementTree, with plistlib).

Does this font cover this character?

However we get the list of fonts, next we have to check whether a character is covered in a specific font (given by name or path). Again, the ways I found:

Use one of the FreeType bindings. For Python, there is freetype-py but I couldn't figure out in a few minutes how to use it.
Dump the font's cmap table with ttx/fonttools, then loop over the table. This is certainly doable and I've used such dumping many times (one can just ttx foo.ttf to get the foo.ttx xml file which is even human-readable), but for this use-case (searching over all fonts), it's not the best as it takes seconds per font.
Look up the cmap table from a library written for that: use Font::TTF::Font in Perl, from fontTools.ttLib import TTFont in Python -- this would be something like:

def has_char(font_path, c):
    """Does font at `font_path` contain the character `c`?"""
    from fontTools.ttLib import TTFont
    from fontTools.unicode import Unicode
    try:
        font = TTFont(font_path)
        for table in font['cmap'].tables:
            for char_code, glyph_name in table.cmap.items():
                if char_code == ord(c):
                    font.close()
                    return True
    except Exception as e:
        print('Error while looking at font %s: %s' % (font_path, e))
        pass
    return False

Unfortunately it fails on far too many fonts to be useful.
If you use the python-fontconfig solution, there's a has_char, used like: font = fontconfig.FcFont(path); return font.has_char(c)

Summary

I ended up using the solution from here, which I've lightly rewritten to keep it minimal:

#!/usr/bin/env python

def find_fonts(c):
    """Finds fonts containing  the (Unicode) character c."""
    import fontconfig
    fonts = fontconfig.query()
    for path in sorted(fonts):
        font = fontconfig.FcFont(path)
        if font.has_char(c):
            yield path

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    search = sys.argv[1]
    char = search.decode('utf-8') if isinstance(search, bytes) else search
    for path in find_fonts(char):
        print(path)

Example usage:

% python3 find_fonts.py 'ಠ'
/Library/Fonts/Arial Unicode.ttf
/Library/Fonts/Kannada MN.ttc
/Library/Fonts/Kannada MN.ttc
/Library/Fonts/Kannada Sangam MN.ttc
/Library/Fonts/Kannada Sangam MN.ttc
/System/Library/Fonts/LastResort.ttf
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/Kedage-b.TTF
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/Kedage-i.TTF
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/Kedage-n.TTF
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/Kedage-t.TTF
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/NotoSansKannada-Bold.ttf
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/NotoSansKannada-Regular.ttf
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/NotoSansKannadaUI-Bold.ttf
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/NotoSansKannadaUI-Regular.ttf
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/NotoSerifKannada-Bold.ttf
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/NotoSerifKannada-Regular.ttf
/Users/shreevatsa/Library/Fonts/akshar.ttf

(Works with both python3 and python2, whichever python you have. Takes about 29 seconds on my computer, for the set of fonts I have installed.)


Trying to pass images to shell command using automator I am creating this service for Finder that will receive image files and pass to a shell command.

The idea is this:

I select image files on finder.
I right click and choose the service I am creating
the service receives the files and passes to sips, so it will scale the images to a given size.

this is how I created it.

sips would run on terminal if I type

sips -z 750 1334 *.png   (or any other extension, including *.*)

I am hoping that $* would pass a list of arguments to sips, but this is not working.

How do I do that?

I found a following solution that works for me:

for f in "$@"; do
  sips -z 750 1334 "$f"
done


Run applescript as a service I have the following applescript bundled as .app (using Platypus) and starting on user logon (12.4 MB for each user)

#!/usr/bin/osascript

-- INICIO DAS FUNCOES EXTRAS
set app_path to path to current application
set app_name to get name of me
set myPath to path to me
tell application "Finder" to set myFolder to (container of myPath) as string
set commonScript to load script alias ((myFolder) & "FuncoesExtras.scpt")
-- FIM DAS FUNCOES EXTRAS

set WhiteList to {app_name, "App Store", "iTunes", "FecharProgramas", "Finder", "Mail"}

repeat

    tell application "System Events"
        repeat with this_app in (get processes whose background only is false and windows is {})
            set NomeDoApp to the name of this_app
            if NomeDoApp is not in WhiteList then
                try
                    tell NomeDoApp to quit
                    log_event("App " & NomeDoApp & " encerrado com sucesso", app_name) of commonScript
                on error
                    do shell script "killall " & quoted form of NomeDoApp
                    log_event("Forcando interrupcao do App " & NomeDoApp, app_name) of commonScript
                end try
            end if
        end repeat
    end tell

    tell application "System Events" to set myPID to (unix id of processes whose name is app_name)
    do shell script ("/usr/bin/renice 18 " & myPID)

    delay 60

end repeat

How can i make it a service, so it only run 1 instance and when the system starts, not at user logon?

Any other suggestions about my code?

EDIT

Here is my current (working) .plist located in /Library/LaunchAgents

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>EnableGlobbing</key>
    <false/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>ram.ramon.FecharProgramas</string>
    <key>LowPriorityIO</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>Applications/FecharProgramas.app/Contents/MacOS/FecharProgramas</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

When i move it to /Library/LaunchDaemons the app doesn't work anymore.

05/10/13 10:43:24,375 FecharProgramas[90]: 3891612: (connect_and_check) Untrusted apps are not allowed to connect to or launch Window Server before login.
05/10/13 10:43:24,376 FecharProgramas[90]: kCGErrorFailure: This user is not allowed access to the window system right now.
05/10/13 10:43:24,376 FecharProgramas[90]: _RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.
05/10/13 10:43:24,382 FecharProgramas[90]: kCGErrorInvalidConnection: CGSGetEventPort: Invalid connection

Do i need to trust my app? If so, how?

You can use launchd.plist or use a program like Lingon (which is easier to use to create a launchd plist).


Is there a way to add To-Do's to iCal from the iPhone? Is there a way to add To-Do's to iCal from the iPhone?

With iOS5 and iCloud, iCal's reminders appear in the Reminders app.


How to control where script run by cron saves files? I've got the following cron job that runs at 6 am every morning:

00 6 * * * /Users/username/path/to/script/wget.pl 1;

The script, written in perl, fetches the latest files from a website.

Within the perl script, the path gets changed with:

`cd '/path/to/directory'`

However, all the files downloaded aren't getting saved to /path/to/directory they get saved in /Users/username.

What can I do to get the script to save it in the directory I want?

Doing a `cd /path` within your script only changes the directory for the shell that is spawned to execute the shell command.  It's the same thing as doing

system('cd /path');

It doesn't change the cwd (current working directory) of the script itself.  The best way to do it is to have your script write the files to a specific directory.  If your perl script is a straight wrapper for wget, you can do away with the perl script and do something along the lines of:

wget -O /full/path/to/file http://host/url/here

If you want to do this within perl (example idea, not tested)...

use LWP::Simple qw(get);
my $url = 'http://host/url/here';
my $result = get $url;
open(my $fh, ">", "/path/to/file");
print $fh $result;
close($fh)

One final option (again not tested)...

00 6 * * * cd /path/you/want;/Users/username/path/to/script/wget.pl 1;


Software written for Mac that was later ported to Windows What notable software is there that was originally written for Macintosh and then later ported to Windows? What makes this software notable?

Let's stick to actual software packages that stand on their own and not ideas or implementations like a window system or menu idiom.

Microsoft Word in 1984
Microsoft Excel in 1984
Aldus PageMaker (later Adobe PageMaker), circa 1986
Adobe Illustrator, 1986
Fontographer, the first commercial scalable-font authoring software, 1986.
Microsoft PowerPoint, 1987 (originally called Forethought Presenter)
Adobe Photoshop circa 1987
Adobe Illustrator circa 1987
QuarkXpress, 1987
Macromedia Freehand
Avid, the first professional personal computer-based video editing software, 1988
Make Music Finale circa 1989, the publishing industry's leading application for typesetting sheet music
AOL, 1990-1991. America Online and its client software application were originally Mac-only.
Digidesign Sound Tools and Pro Tools, starting 1989
Adobe Type Manager, circa 1990. The first scalable screen fonts on a computer display.
FileMaker Pro database software (an independent division of Apple), circa 1986
Apple QuickTime
Apple iTunes
Apple Safari
Scrivener, 2009

The Mac and its operating system went on the market in 1984. Remember that while Microsoft Windows existed in various forms in the late 1980s, it did not catch on and become widely adopted until Windows 3.1 in 1991. Before that time virtually all PC users were still using MS-DOS with a text-only interface and no graphics, GUI or mouse.

Microsoft provided text-only applications called Word and Excel (no graphical user interface or mouse) for MS-DOS before 1985, but the first programs called Word and Excel with a GUI were designed and written for the Macintosh. It's not accurate to call them a "port" from MS-DOS as they had to be re-designed and implemented with the Apple Macintosh assembly language and proprietary new API for the mouse, GUI and specific user interface elements in mind. So practically speaking, Word and Excel as we know them were first written for Mac and then ported to Windows.

The entire industry of digital photo editing and desktop publishing was born on the Macintosh platform, which was the first platform to support PostScript laser printers (and Apple designed and marketed the first of those printers, the Apple LaserWriters, with PostScript software licensed from Adobe. HP or Hewlett-Packard laser printers did not support PostScript, resolution-independent fonts, or graphics until some time later.)

All of the original software applications for editing photographs and doing text layout and typography first appeared on the Mac. Those that survived the marketplace competition and flourished were later ported to Windows. This includes essentially the entire Adobe product portfolio throughout the 1980s.

Microsoft and Adobe also bought software from smaller independent companies and adapted it to their needs. The predecessor to PowerPoint was an independent Mac-only company, and the very first version of Microsoft PowerPoint was Mac-only. Aldus was an independent company that made the first great desktop publishing program, PageMaker. It was bought by Adobe.

The adoption of personal computers for editing film and video for the industries of motion pictures and broadcast television also began with applications on the Macintosh platform, starting with the Avid offline film editing program.

The same thing happened with the music and recording industry. While there were MIDI sequencer applications for MS-DOS and other platforms, the first widely-successful personal-computer-based programs for recording and editing music appeared on the Mac, from Digidesign and others. This hastened the demise of professional multi-track analog tape recorders. I should mention that with regard to music and audio, capable Windows-based programs that were not ports (Cubase, Sony Acid, etc.) appeared very shortly after the first Mac programs. At this point, in the early-to-mid 1990s, computer processing power was more up to the task and Windows was becoming a viable alternative to the Mac platform, so implementing solutions on Windows rather than the Mac became more attractive to developers.

AOL (America Online) was originally for Mac users only and its original software was licensed from Apple Computer. But some time after the launch for Mac users, AOL ported their GUI Mac application to Windows and accepted Windows users. All this was well before AOL had any connection to the Internet. It was a stand-alone closed system accessible directly by dial-up modems.

Before Adobe Type Manager, circa 1990, computers could not display fonts at any arbitrary point size, or "zoom in". Fonts for screen display before that time were only fixed-size bitmaps, and text on the screen of Macs or Windows could look quite blocky and hard to read. I seem to remember that Adobe Type Manager for Mac predated Adobe Type Manager for Windows by some length of time, but I have not confirmed this. Subsequently Apple and Microsoft worked jointly to develop the TrueType font scaling specification and method of screen display, which was rolled into the Mac operating system and Windows, circa Windows 98 in 1998. This made Adobe Type Manager obsolete. I have not researched the exact dates.

The entire Microsoft software development division that wrote games for the XBox was created when Microsoft bought Bungee, which was up until that time a Mac-only game company. When Microsoft absorbed Bungee, they cancelled all their Mac products. The developers who created Halo, therefore, had been working on Mac products only--up until the time that Halo for XBox was released.


External Hard Drive on Mac Won't Mount I can't mount an external hard drive. I have tried booting into Safe-Mode, mounting via Disk Utility and running First Aid, which won't proceed due to the following error:

  diskutil eject disk1 Volume timed out while waiting to eject

I have also gone through the steps oulined here and here, as well as using Clean My Mac.

Any suggestions?

There is a 3rd party app named Mountain which I use on my mac. It puts an icon in your menu bar and when you click on it. it will show a list of Volumes and you can mount or unmount them. The app is $6 but has a free trial period so you can test it and see if it solves your problem.  See image below.


Why does Mail.app take three minutes plus to open? For some time now, Mail.app takes three minute or more to display its window, and for that interval, is labeled "not responding."  There are several things that are related somehow:

During that interval, fseventsd consumes 82%±3% of CPU.
If we run /usr/sbin/repairHomePermissions, Mail launches normally, but the fix only lasts a couple of days.
If we rebuild mailboxes, it is not fixed; if we remove all the IMAP accounts and reinstall them, it is not fixed; but if we rebuild mailboxes after that reinstall, it is normal, but again, only for a day or two.
If we remove everything from /Library/LaunchDaemons, and reboot, it works normally.  Did that today, so I don't know yet how long it will last.

Here is what was in LaunchDaemons:
com.acapelagroup.iVoxHelper.plist
com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist
com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist
com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing.plist
com.barebones.authd.plist
com.malwarebytes.HelperTool.plist
com.malwarebytes.mbam.rtprotection.daemon.plist
com.malwarebytes.mbam.settings.daemon.plist
com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist
com.paragon-software.installer.plist
com.paragon-software.ntfs.loader.plist
com.paragon-software.ntfsd.plist
com.prey.agent.plist
homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq.plist
homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist
homebrew.mxcl.unbound.plist
org.macports.rsyncd.plist

I believe all of that has been around for longer than the problem.  I recently got a new 2019 MBP with Catalina, upgraded to Big Sur, and used Migration Assistant to bring everything in from a 2012 MBP with Catalina.  This problem never occurred on the old MBP, and I think (not certain) that it did not start immediately on the new one.  I'm fairly sure I used it for weeks before this started happening.
Ideas?  It's going to take two days to find out whether removing some LauchDaemon is a permanent fix, and if so, weeks to figure out which one.  And it would still be a mystery how it interacts with permissions and mailboxes.
fseventsd is known to suck up CPU for Time Machine, but this problem has happened with Time Machine turned off and when the TM disks aren't even plugged in.  And opening Mail should be making roughly the same disk actions each time it is launched.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5/7/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1502226
Another oddity (but I think it's unrelated) is that Photos.app is allegedly using a lot of energy when the Dock, ps -ef, and Activity Monitor all say Photos is not running.  (Though sometimes, photoanalysisd appears in Activity monitor briefly.)

Let’s see what Mail is doing:

Run the following Terminal command to enable kernel symbolication: $ sudo nvram boot-args="keepsyms=1"
Reboot your machine and don’t open any apps except for Terminal.
Open Mail and wait a few moments for it to reach its steady-state unresponsiveness.
Run the following command in Terminal, making sure you’re only running it during the window of time that Mail is unresponsive: $ sudo spindump -reveal -noProcessingWhileSampling
After waiting for 10 seconds to collect a sample and another minute or two to symbolicate and format, you’ll get a file in /tmp/spindump.txt that contains a stackshot of every process.
Upload the file to PasteBin or some equivalent place and we can take a look to see what Mail’s main thread is blocked on.


Is it possible to have the iPhone automatically open iTunes/sync on one computer and not on others? I want to be able to plug my iPhone in to my main computer and have a fire-and-forget sync happen with iTunes automatically. But leaving the box(es) ticked about doing this appears to be a device option, not a computer option. Thus, when connecting to another PC (e.g. just to charge, or grab a photo), I have to wait whilst iTunes starts up and the device does some strange mini-sync (that doesn't seem to actually do anything other than lose track marks, scrobbles etc.). Have I got something set wrong?

Both the main machine used for syncing and the second machine this is most often a problem on are Windows machines. However, I have also seen it happen on a Macbook Air.

The situation which I envisage is:

Computer A is synced to iPhone A
Computer B is synced to iPhone B
User A wants to be able to plug in to computer A, triggering an automatic backup and sync
User B wants to be able to plug in to computer B, triggering an automatic backup and sync
However, User A wants to be able to plug in to Computer B (e.g. to charge, to look at photos) without starting iTunes starting or performing any kind of sync whatsoever.
Likewise for User B on Computer B (or Computer C,D...)

iTunes/iPhone syncing is done on a "per Mac" basis. In iTunes Preferences, go to Devices, and check the box for "Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically". This will prevent iTunes from opening when a device is plugged in.

UPDATE: There used to be in previous versions of iTunes, in the old "Syncing" Preferences, a way to disable automatic syncing and that prevented iTunes from even opening. But it seems they have changed the behavior because searching for answers on other sites yield the same behavior but in previous versions of iTunes. I set this preference ages ago, so the preference must be holding over.

In response to your comments:

  iTunes still starts, still does some
  kind of mini-sync, but doesn't
  recognise the name of the phone or
  allow access to its contents.

Are you sure you are syncing with the iTunes install you originally started with? Syncing is strictly a one-to-one relationship for iPhones and iTunes. Once you sync an iPhone to an iTunes install and wish to sync with a different one (like on another Mac), you are then forced to clear the phone and start anew.

My iTunes behaves the way you are describing, but when I plug in my iPhone, I get the "mini-sync" you mention because that's the device registering with the OS and iTunes that it exists and iTunes puling needed info to interact with it. Can't really get around that one.

  it would prevent the machine being
  used at all for syncing, no?

No. You could still sync if you wanted, but that's if you are syncing with the iTunes install that recognizes the phone. Otherwise, see my comment above.

BTW, save the downvoting for the really egregious answers. Downvoting costs points. Otherwise, just leave it alone.


How come web apps don't run as efficiently as native apps on the iPhone? I was comparing the Twitter web app to the native app, and noticed a couple of differences in how they perform. I observed that scrolling was not as smooth in the browser as the native app, among a few other minor quirks. I believe the web app could perform just as fast if not faster in the web app version, so its hard to me to understand the difference. I believe WebKit is baked right into the core of iOS.

Apple initially wanted to keep it as web apps only, but now I wonder if their focus shifted more towards native.

The focus shifted from WebApps to Native when the App Store was unveiled with the release of the iPhone 3G with iOS 2.0.1, which was introduced on June 9, 2008 at the WWDC.

Initially Web Apps were intended to be used with the first iphone, but the major shift took place with the release of the dedicated iOS (or iPhone OS as it was called then)  Software Development Kit announced at the iPhone Software Roadmap event on March 6, 2008. The SDK allows developers to create applications using Xcode that will natively run on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.  Even prior to that, the included applications were written natively despite the fact that Steve Jobs once remarked:

  The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web
  2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly
  like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with
  iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they
  can look up a location on Google Maps.

  And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need
  if you know how to write apps using the most
  modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So
  developers, we think we’ve got a very sweet story for you. You can
  begin building your iPhone apps today.

The difference is as simple as that age old difference between "interpreted" and "compiled" applications.

Native apps are written using lower level languages (Objective C, C, C++ using Xcode development environment) and are compiled against APIs that are designed to extract maximum speed and efficiency using algorithms and functions that are written specifically against the hardware they are intended to be run on.  Compiling code into directly executable machine code almost always the fastest method of execution for a given software task.

WebApps are generic uncompiled pieces of code that are not able to make use of these APIs and have to either recreate them or not use them.  They are written in lower level languages such as Javascript, Python, or Perl and they are interpreted via a runtime environment at the point of execution, which allows for a certain flexibility at the expense of raw speed.  The scrolling function is one example of where the native app has access to highly optimised routines to allow super slick scrolling, but a webapp doesn't because it has no knowledge of or access to the relevant APIs.  Many web-apps are compiled on the fly using 'just in time' compilation techniques, but whilst this can gain some speed improvements it cannot cater for the lack of a proper optimised API platform at a higher level language then Javascript (which is the only client side runtime that iOS actually supports, although other OS, mobile and desktop may have access to others) that iOS webapps are written in.  Other runtimes are available for use so long as they perform server side, which provides a further performance hit.

In the specific case of Twitter, the twitter app is simply not using webkit, it's using other routines written in objective C which are again (the key word I suppose) optimised for the best results in a way nothing in a browser can achieve.  Oddly, I think the Facebook native app is actually a thinly veiled wrapper around a webkit UI.


Do I have a Recovery HD? I replaced my MBPs HDD with an SSD and put the HDD in the optical bay. Since then, I was missing the Recovery HD partition. That was still on Lion

Now I have upgraded to Yosemite, and running diskutil list gives this:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            490.8 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         119.2 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS SSD                    *118.8 GB   disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk1s2
                                 89637DB5-6258-4E8A-A43B-814E61E23A8E
                                 Unlocked Encrypted

There are a couple of strange things here. Firstly, the SSD which was formerly /dev/disk0 has now moved to the end. I recently encrypted it, I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Second, the same drive is also listed above as /dev/disk1, evident by the  size of it (120GB Samsung EVO).
Third, there is a mysterious Apple_Boot Boot OS X partition on the HDD, I do not know what that is. But the point of this question is the presence of a Recovery HD partition on the HDD.

When I hold CMD-R at boot to start recovery, it puts me straight to internet recovery (unless I connect my backup disk), which probably means no recovery partition has been found. The Disk Utility GUI also does not show one (debug enabled)

I was under the impression that the installer creates a new recovery hd if not present, does the one for Yosemite not do that? And if no, why does diskutil list this Recovery HD which seemingly cannot be used for recovery?

With the encryption process included in Yosemite there is a duplicate drive created in the space after the drive that was encrypted. If I'm entirely honest I don't know how that works or what its purpose is I just know that every encrypted machine in this situation has it. That being said you can see using diskutil that your ssd does have a recovery drive on it. Disk Utility no longer shows that in its list. So... not a lot of science to back it up but all signs point to a proper install having occurred and the recovery partition being right where it should be.


How can I make songs I delete in iTunes also delete songs of synced devices? I have an iPod Touch 5 and and an iPad 1 (don't ask), and I have them both set to sync entire library with iTunes. My library mainly consists of mp3 files stored on my computer, with a few iTunes purchases here or there.

I like to keep a small library of songs on my devices, but I'm having trouble deleting songs from iTunes, the iPod and the iPad all in one action. If I delete songs off iTunes directly, they stay on the iPodPad until I delete them manually. If I delete songs off only the iPodPad, iTunes puts them back on next time I sync. Is there a way for me to just do this in one action?

Also to throw a spanner in the works, a lot of my library songs are no longer on my computer (broken hard drive I haven't gotten around to fixing), but are on my devices. So I can't just simply unsync and then resync the entire music library, since iTunes won't be able to put the broken-hard-drive songs back on the devices.

(This is kinda irrelevant anyway, I don't think I should have to resync the entire library just to delete a few songs)

Looked around can't seem to find an answer. This thread is similar, coincidentally no answer too... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6122231

TL;DR: How to delete some songs off my entirely-synced iTunes, iPod and iPad without doing them all separately?

You have to understand that iTunes is the 'master' in all this, the mobile devices merely 'slaves'.
Anything you do in iTunes will be reflected in the mobiles when manually synced.

The question you linked is for 'what to do when this sync misbehaves?' & is not the same as your situation.

Your issue really stems from your iTunes library not being complete, removing the simplest option from your choices. Google 'iTunes iPhone copy' for a slew of apps that will transfer songs from the mobile to iTunes, then you can go back to doing it the recommended way - by syncing with iTunes.


Mac running macOS Mojave doesn't boot I've updated to macOS Mojave weeks ago, and everything was working very well. However, yesterday my iMac (2014, I think?) didn't even boot, nor does it today.

The verbose mode shows this (I know I should post text, but I can't, for obvious reasons):

I found only one question about the same error message on Apple forums, but it doesn't have any answers...

The boot drive check (from recovery mode and via fsck from Single user mode) didn't find any errors.

How can this be solved?

I run fsck -fy three or four times, as suggested in the comments, but it didn't reveal any issues and kept telling me  "The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 appears to be OK".

I was lucky to have Windows installed alongside macOS with Bootcamp, so I booted into Windows to see whether the data on the macOS partition were fine. It turned out that one can't just view APFS drives in Windows, so I had to install a trial version of APFS by Paragon, which allows you to mount such drives from Windows.

The partition mounted successfully, and I was able to see all my data, so, apparently, nothing was lost or corrupted. I was even luckier to have a spare hard drive lying around and a device to connect it to a computer through USB, so I did that and copied the vast majority of my files from the (faulty?) macOS partition to this drive.

After the data were safe, I rebooted into Recovery mode, checked the partition from Disk Utility once again, which showed "...appears to be OK" again, and tried to reinstall the OS.

I know the installation process is supposed to be kinda long, but this one was insanely long. Everything seemed to have installed (no errors whatsoever), and it attempted to boot itself. It was doing that and showing me the usual apple logo on the white background and a full progress bar for literally fifteen hours because I was told to "let it work" and that it might repair the drive in the comments, and was hoping not to lose any data. Well, that went nowhere, so finally I just shut the Mac down. (BTW, after booting from Windows again I found out that all the data on the macOS partition were still intact)

I ended up wiping the macOS partition from the Disk Utility in the Recovery mode and installing macOS once again. This worked fine, and I got a fresh macOS Mojave installation, from which I'm writing this (semi-)answer. I can access all the data I copied to the external drive, nothing is corrupted.

TL;DR - did a backup (the partition was not corrupted), nuked the partition from orbit and did a clean installation; still no idea why this happened.


How can I instantly move the cursor to the end of a long document in iOS? I edit Markdown documents on iPhone 7 sometimes. Some of the documents I want to work with are pretty long — 15,000 words or more.

When I open a document to work on it (for example in the Byword or Ulysses apps, or even just a really long email), usually I want to append new text to the end of the document.

Scrolling to the end of a 15k-word file by swiping repeatedly takes a really long time.

Is there some functional equivalent of an "end" button in iOS?

UPDATE

Hm. We seem to be getting hung up on the idea of an "end button." Maybe I shouldn't have used that analogy.

By "equivalent to" I mean any UI control, whether it's a gesture or a hidden control or anything at all that will take you directly to the end of a file. It doesn't have to be a button.

To be clear, what I'm asking is, is there some way, any way, to go instantly to the end of a file?

Based on your updated question, the answer is no; there's not a standard, built-into iOS way to go to the end of a file.

Individual apps are able to create custom gestures or menu commands to perform that function, so it might exist in specific apps but there's no standard way that works with every app.


Rescue Shortcuts for "Frozen" OS X? Though it doesn't happen often, I sometimes find myself in the situation where OSX will not respond to any commands.

The last time this happened I was closing a fullscreen VM - the app went away but then I was on an empty screen and wasn't able to switch away (the mouse still worked but not the brightness/volume keys).

Is there any way to escape from such a situation other than holding the power key?

(I only found a few shortcuts that are supposed to force quit but none of them worked. Some mentioned an "EJECT" key which I do not have on my MacBook Pro keyboard.)

From the article at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3411

Press Command-Option-Esc to force quit, it brings up a dialog so you can choose which app to quit.

Command-Option-Shift-Esc for three seconds will force quit the front-most application.

Here is another helpful article: http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/02/force-quit-mac-apps/


iOS8 step counter - unusually high number of data points This is my first chance to use an iPhone with a motion co-processor running iOS 8 (in this case a new iPhone 6 with the barometer built in.)

Go to Health > Health Data > Fitness > Steps > Show All Data

I'm finding that even during continuous periods of walking (hundreds of steps without a break even for a second) the phone is nearly always grouping them into many, many entries but with only a few (it's usually 5) steps at a time.

Is anyone else seeing this? Is it normal?  There's been the odd screenshot in the last month or two (from iPhone 5S owners using the iOS8 beta?) showing maybe a few hundred steps and then a few groups of 5, 10, 20 steps – which makes it much easier to read.

The total does seem extremely accurate – I've counted in my head a couple of times as I'm going along, and you can also leave the app running and see it add entries as you're walking along – incredibly it can still count  perfectly if you walk but keep your hand really steady...

But I don't understand why the groups are so small?

There don't appear to be any other problems with my phone – the compass and the spirit level seem very precise, as does the GPS.  I'm not sure how I'd test the barometer (although flights climbed is about right – outdoors anyway – indoors it logs I've climbed the stairs (2x7) about 50% of the time.)

I've tried with the phone in front and back pockets, I've tried walking faster and slower.  The highest number of steps I've had is ~20 a few times when walking around indoors.  I did wonder if was something to do with it wanting to group steps according to GPS position.  Putting the iPhone into airplane mode doesn't make any difference either.

Yes - I see the same very small data sets from the 5s running iOS 8.

I also get over-estimates of my step count when running and walking yet somehow over the day, I believe the total counts are reliably the same small over-estimation of my actual effort.

My only conclusion is that the devices need to handle motion data from people with short legs, tall legs, stiff shoe soles, cushioned running soles, pavement and trail runs, etc...

I'm sure the engineers know that some class of people are over counted and another are under counted and my suspicion is that they are attempting to be as close to accurate for as large a group as possible and still work within the constraints on the firmware code size/complexity in the motion coprocessors and not drain the battery more than the allowed power budget for each device.

FWIW - the iPhone 6 is even better at estimating, still has lots of small data bursts logged to health app but still slightly over estimates my effort.


Install Windows 10 Creators Update on iMac11,2 without first installing Windows 8 Having trouble installing Windows 10 version 1703 on the old iMac (iMac11,2  MC509LL/A) running macOS 10.12.5.

The official page said it didn't support Windows 10, but according to my experience as long as it supports Windows 8, it supports Windows 10, too. I'm trying to setup W10 directly without first setting up W8 and then upgrading. Tutorials of modifying Boot Camp failed because codesign keeps on telling me "bundle format unrecognized".

Is there a way to setup Windows 10 Creators Update directly on this iMac?

There's a difference between the Microsoft & Apple definitions of "support".

If Apple says it's unsupported that means there are no Windows 10 drivers for your hardware.

Whether that is a minor inconvenience or a catastrophic fail you'd have to try it to see.

The difference in definition isn't only an Apple/MS distinction... MS allowed people on regular Windows PCs to update to WIn10 even though Intel themselves weren't making drivers available for their hardware.
At least Apple are telling you up front you will have no proper hardware support.


Why Will Xcode 9.2 beta not Download? Xcode 9.2 beta (9C30) was released today, but I have been unable to download it from developer.apple.com. I am using a non-paid Apple ID, but this hasn't caused trouble for Xcode downloads in the past. When I click the blue "Download" button next to the latest Xcode beta, I am presented with a "403 Forbidden" error.

I've tried using Chrome, signing out of my Developer ID, and clearing cookies/cache for apple.com, but nothing has worked. Has anybody else had this issue or know how to resolve this issue? Thanks in advance!

Apple seems to have resolved this issue.


Should we use smb or cifs to connect to a Linux NAS? If it is a Linux NAS (WD EX2100 or EX4100), should we use

smb://MyCloud

or

cifs://MyCloud

to connect to it if for some reason, it doesn't show up at the side panel of Finder?

The above line is to be typed into

Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server

and for a Windows PC, I think it is to use smb. For an NAS, we can use either smb or cifs but which one should be used?

CIFS was a implementation of SMB created by Microsoft a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

Use SMB.

This amazing blog post, and this one, will explain all.


itunes on PC autofills music on iphone 7 despite option settings itunes keeps autofill music on my iphone 7.  I have "manually manage music" checked device summary page in itunes & the "prevent ipods, iphones, &ipads from syncing automatically" option check in device preferences. However when I delete songs from the iphone itunes will start automatically coping / autofilling songs to the iphone. I'd like this to stop so that I can delete a bunch of songs then manually add new ones I want. Seems like itunes isn't looking at/obeying/caring about settings.
It looks like itunes wants to fill in "missing" songs on the iphone i.e. the songs with gray dotted circles in the left hand column. I'd like it NOT to do this automagically. What else do I need to do to not have it do this?  I could delete them on the iphones but I'd like to see which ones are missing before I do that.
Is there a solution for this?

If you set the Summary page in to 'Manually manage'

and then also Enable sync and select 'Selected playlists…' then an option appears to automatically fill free space with songs.

These options are all very interactive so you don't necessarily see them all at the same time.


How to show/hide invisible files and folders from Service menu? How to show/hide invisible files and folders from Service menu?

By default files and folders whose name start with . is invisible. In order to show them, you can use the following command in Terminal.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true; killall Finder

To restore the default state, in which those files are hidden, use the following.

defaults delete com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles; killall Finder

How can I toggle the status of AppleShowAllFiles key without launching Terminal?

Apologies if this is a little off-topic from your question, but, in macOS Sierra you can toggle showing hidden files right in the Finder with Shift+cmd+.


How can I clean up old notes left in my Gmail account by notes.app? I keep my Notes.app notes synced with my Gmail account.

In Gmail, I can see all my current notes in the Notes label and associated sublabels.

I can also see many older versions of current notes, and previously-deleted notes, not attached to any label.

Is there any search I can do in Gmail which will reliably find all messages that were created by Notes.app, so that I can delete old versions / "deleted" notes permanently?  (I can find individual notes by searching for their subject line, but I no longer remember all the subject lines of all the notes I've deleted, and I can't find any search string that will reliably find Notes.app notes which no longer have the Notes label.)

Relatedly: is there any way I can configure Notes.app so that when it removes a note (or older version of a note) from the Notes label (or a sublabel) it moves it into the trash, rather than leaving it cluttering up my messages archive?

It appears that the following search will find all messages created by Notes.app, and, for me at least, no messages not created by it:

from:username@gmail.com -in:drafts -in:sent -in:chats -l:SMS

(Where username is my Gmail username.  The SMS label is used by the SMS Backup+ android app, which stores SMS messages in Gmail in a similar way to Notes.app, albeit under a different label.)

To find messages which are no longer "live" in Notes.app (i.e., are older versions or deleted notes), and also exclude any other labels like SMS, use "-has:userlabels", like this:

from:username@gmail.com -in:drafts -in:sent -in:chats -has:userlabels

N.B.: For me the results are 100% old or deleted Notes.app notes, but this search will find any other messages created in the same way (i.e., via the IMAP interface, with your address in the from field) so have a look through the search results carefully before doing any mass deletions, just to be on the safe side!


Mac Mini server - Dual screens? I'd like to setup dual screens on the new Mac Mini OS X Lion server, however as I understand it you need to use the HDMI port and the thunderbolt port. The only problem I have is I'm already using the thunderbolt port for a thunderbolt drive.

Will a HDMI splitter work? Or a thunderbolt splitter?
The thunderbolt drive has an extra thunderbolt port in the back (2, I'm only using 1), can I connect the other monitor to that, will that work? I doubt it but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Or, is there another way around this?

You can daisy chain up to 6 Thunderbolt devices from a single port, so you can connect the display via an adapter to that without any problems.


USERS AND GROUPS advanced options cannot access I wanted to change my mac's name so I changed the "computer name" in SHARING and also the "account name" and "full name" in USERS & GROUPS. Only thing is I didn't change the "home directory".

Now I cannot make any changes to my mac that require hitting the little lock and enter my details. Nothing works. And I get the "not in the sudoers file" error when I try to fix my problem through the terminal...
I think my mistake was to NOT change the "home directory" along with the account name and full name? I was worried making changes to the directory might alter more than I wanted.

Please help me!

Changing an account name in the Users & Groups preferences pane is (as you've found out the hard way) not recommended unless there already exists on the system another  account with Admin level permissions so the resulting issues can be fixed.  You might be able to resolve this by activating the root account following instructions given here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204012, then editing the sudoers file using vi in terminal to add your current username as shown below.
(from my sudoers file:)
User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
[new username][doublespace here]ALL=(ALL) ALL

Save the edited sudoers file then restart and see if using the new username account to login & make any other fixes to permissions that might be necessary.


How to keep Night Shift™ enabled indefinitely on macOS 10.12.5+? Settings only have "turn on until tomorrow" I want to keep it turned on until I turn it off, not until some fixed date. How to achieve this?

(I know about the option to use f.lux, but I'd prefer to not depend on it now that macOS is so close to being able to do it itself)

In the preferences (System Preferences > Display > Night Shift) do the following:

set 'Schedule' to Custom
set 'From:' to 00:00
set 'to:' to 23:59
adjust the Color Temperature as desired

Now night shift will be enabled all the time. Disable it using the Notification Center or using the 'Manual' toggle in the preferences pane.


How to parse output from diskutil activity in bash script I want to be able to run a bash script over each line output from diskutil activity", I haven't been able to figure out how to do this though.

I thought maybe I could simply:
diskutil activity | xargs bash myScript.sh

I have a feeling that xargs is just going to wait until diskutil activity is finished talking, which it will never do until you end the process.

Any suggestions on how I can execute a script per line of output would be appreciated!

Cheers!

The delay is probably due to buffering.

Try xargs -L 1 bash myScript.sh if you can process the data line by line.


Batch editing metadata in Aperture In Aperture 3.2.2, is it possible to batch edit photos' metadata? For three days, my camera's clock was one year ahead but with the correct date, and I want to set them right all at the same time.

You can do a batch adjustment of time and date, in Aperture under Metadata > Adjust Time and Date. From there you can specify an increment (one year back in your case) and all of th dates will be adjusted relatively. More information from the Aperture manual is here.


How can I have my shell always start in a certain directory that is not my home directory I've tried putting

cd /Users/my_name/my_directory/structure

in both .bashrc and .bash_login but neither works, i.e. when I open a new terminal window I am in my home (/Users/my_name/) directory.

No error messages, just not cd'd into the directory as hoped when starting a new terminal window.

First of all, if you are not using iTerm2 already, I suggest you download this free software as a replacement for Terminal.app.

Among many other extra features, in iTerm Preferences, you can configure the default working directory for new shells. You'll find these settings in Profiles - General.

The advantage here is that you can set different behaviors for opening a new window vs opening a new tab or even creating a new split pane. I personally like staying in the current working directory when adding a split pane, for example.

You could do it in your startup script as well (though I find the iTerm solution cleaner, or at least more flexible), but then I advise you to use ~/.bash_profile instead.

~/.bashrc is not automatically sourced when opening a new shell window, and ~/.bash_login is only sourced if no ~/.bash_profile is present.


Read from MS Duo memory sticks with iPad 4 (Lightning connector) I have an iPad retina and would like to load data from a MS Duo memory card (the proprietary format for Sony digital cameras). What are my options?
Unfortunately, using the USB port of the digital camera is not an option as my camera does not have one.

EDIT
According to several forums, using a USB memory card reader with the camera connection kit used to work, but recent CCKs apparently do not supply the necessary power for USB memory card readers anymore, so a normal reader might not work.

Buy a USB memory card reader that supports MS Duo cards. Make sure that it is compatible with OS X.
Attach the card reader to a powered USB hub and connect that to the USB port of your Camera Connection Kit. Insert the card in the reader. Attach the kit to the iPad.


How to hide non-openable in the finder while using an application to browse/open For example, in the following picture. I am using TeXstudio to open a .tex file. After pressing Cmd-O, the files with extensions that are not in the extension drop-down menu ("TeX files (*.tex, *.bib, etc)") are gray items in the pop-up Finder window.

My question is: How to hide these files? Is there a keyboard shortcut to do this?

No, there is no way to hide these files. It's a usability decision by Apple.

The dialog always shows the same list of files but greys out the ones you currently cannot open. Technically you could go to the pop up at the bottom and change it to All files and open any of the files listed. Of course they may not make sense in the application, but you could open them.


Can I use dual 4k Dell P2815Q monitors on the Retina MacBook Pro (late 2013) with Yosemite at full resolution? Will this monitor plug-and-play with Yosemite on this MacBook model without having to install Xcode and mess around with creating custom settings?
Can I have two of these plugged into this MacBook and run them both at 4k (at either 30Hz or 60Hz)? - I don't care so much about refresh rates as I do about resolution.  I won't be gaming or watching movies on them.

This model supports a simultaneous maximum resolution up to 2560x1600 on two external displays via Thunderbolt.

Alternately, it can support a single display up to 2560x1600 via Thunderbolt and a single 1080p display at up to 60 Hz, 3840x2160 at 30 Hz, or 4096x2160 at 24 Hz via HDMI.


How do I update java manual pages with Homebrew? I am using Homebrew to install AdoptOpenJDK 11. I want to see the documentation via the manual pages.
Symptoms
When I run man java, I see documentation from 2004. At the bottom:
SEE ALSO
       javac(1), jdb(1), javah(1), jar(1),

       See (or search java.sun.com) for the following:

       The Java Extensions Framework @
         http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/extensions/index.html

       Security Features @
         http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/security/index.html

                                 23 June 2004                          java(1)

When I run man javac, I see documentation from 2002. At the bottom:
SEE ALSO
       jar(1), java(1), javadoc(1), javah(1), javap(1), jdb(1)

       See or search the Java web site for the following:

       The Java Extensions Mechanism @
                 http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5/docs/guide/extensions/index.html

                                 05 March 2002                        javac(1)

I find the location of the java manual:
man -w java
# /usr/share/man/man1/java.1

I see Homebrew is storing manuals for other software: /usr/local/share/man.
Based on the cask source, I do not see man pages installed, but I don't know what OpenJDK11U-jdk_x64_mac_hotspot_11.0.8_10.pkg is doing. When I run fswatch /usr/local/share/ while reinstalling adoptopenjdk11, I do not see any changes.
brew cask cat adoptopenjdk11

# cask 'adoptopenjdk11' do
#   version '11.0.8,10'
#   sha256 'c9ce3e78a7ec7f8c23041af63a66bfe18bbf75c7bfa8f8a51148a098f3653699'
#
#   url 'https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK/openjdk11-binaries/releases/download/jdk-11.0.8%2B10/# OpenJDK11U-jdk_x64_mac_hotspot_11.0.8_10.pkg'
#   appcast "https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK/openjdk#{version.major}-binaries/releases/latest"
#   name 'AdoptOpenJDK 11'
#   homepage 'https://adoptopenjdk.net/'
#   pkg 'OpenJDK11U-jdk_x64_mac_hotspot_11.0.8_10.pkg'
#   postflight do
#     system_command '/usr/sbin/pkgutil', args: ['--pkg-info', 'net.adoptopenjdk.11.jdk'], print_stdout: true
#   end
#   uninstall pkgutil: 'net.adoptopenjdk.11.jdk'
# end

What I tried
I read Are my macOS man pages outdated?, but I do not think the answer applies here, because Java is not an old Unix tool, and I have installed Java with Homebrew.
I checked that I have the latest version of AdoptOpenJDK 11 installed:
brew reinstall adoptopenjdk11
# ==> Downloading https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK/openjdk11-binaries/releases/download/jdk-11.0.8%2B10/OpenJDK11U-jdk_x64_mac_hotspot_11.
# Already downloaded: /Users/alex.ordonez/Library/Caches/Homebrew/# downloads/1d0d41e7cf8f14ebb4df0ff39fa16e0fe2a1ac85f05ae404c62841c6ff01d4c8--OpenJDK11U-jdk_x64_mac_hotspot_11.0.8_10.pkg
# ==> Verifying SHA-256 checksum for Cask 'adoptopenjdk11'.
# ==> Uninstalling Cask adoptopenjdk11
# ==> Uninstalling packages:
# net.adoptopenjdk.11.jdk
# ==> Purging files for version 11.0.8,10 of Cask adoptopenjdk11
# ==> Installing Cask adoptopenjdk11
# ==> Running installer for adoptopenjdk11; your password may be necessary.
# ==> Package installers may write to any location; options such as --appdir are ignored.
# installer: Package name is AdoptOpenJDK
# installer: Upgrading at base path /
# installer: The upgrade was successful.
# package-id: net.adoptopenjdk.11.jdk
# version: 11.0.8+10
# volume: /
# location: Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk#

I can verify the versions are correct:
java -version
# openjdk version "11.0.8" 2020-07-14
# OpenJDK Runtime Environment AdoptOpenJDK (build 11.0.8+10)
# OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM AdoptOpenJDK (build 11.0.8+10, mixed mode)

javac -version
# javac 11.0.8

Also, I am able to compile and run Java 11 code.
Additional information: I am using macOS Catalina 10.15.6 (19G2021). My shell is Fish. I also have AdoptOpenJDK 8 installed.

I have a solution, but if anyone finds a simpler solution, then I will accept it. Here is mine.
Remember, I am using fish.
~/.config/fish/functions/java8.fish
function java8
    if set --local idx (contains --index -- $JAVA_HOME $fish_user_paths)
        # Remove other JAVA_HOME from path
        # Otherwise it will take priority
       set --erase fish_user_paths[$idx]
    end

    set --export JAVA_HOME /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-8.jdk/Contents/Home

    # We do not need JAVA_HOME on the path for the executables
    # We need it for the man pages, so man will search $JAVA_HOME/man
    # If we add $JAVA_HOME/bin to the path, then man erroneously searches $JAVA_HOME/bin/man
    set fish_user_paths $fish_user_paths $JAVA_HOME
end

I copied and adjusted this script for Java 11 (abbreviated):
~/.config/fish/functions/java11.fish
function java11
    if set --local idx (contains --index -- $JAVA_HOME $fish_user_paths)
       set --erase fish_user_paths[$idx]
    end
    set --export JAVA_HOME /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home
    set fish_user_paths $fish_user_paths $JAVA_HOME
end

Now my fish_user_paths (and PATH) have JAVA_HOME:
echo $fish_user_paths
# /usr/local/sbin /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home

echo $PATH
# /usr/local/sbin /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home /usr/local/bin /usr/bin /bin /usr/sbin /sbin

This means manpath also has $JAVA_HOME/man (abbreviated):
manpath
# /usr/local/share/man:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home/man:/usr/share/man

And it means man reads from the correct directory:
man --path java
# /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home/man/man1/java.1

And I can switch to Java 8 and back to Java 11:
java8
man --path java
# /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-8.jdk/Contents/Home/man/man1/java.1

java11
man --path java
# /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home/man/man1/java.1

There is a separate problem, which is that JDK 11 seems to ship with JDK 8's documentation.
man -M /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home/man javac | tail -n 1
# JDK 8                            03 March 2015                        javac(1)


How can i insert an Intelligent Mail Barcode into Pages 09 document I've Googled around for a solution to this issue but nothing is readily apparent. I have a company newsletter with existing merge fields for an address block (company, street address, etc..). The merge data is being pulled from a numbers spread sheet. The postal service will charge me extra postage per each newsletter for not including an Intelligent Mail Barcode. I am trying to figure out a method for doing so in Pages 09 version 4.3. Ideally this would just be part of the mail merge process but I am open to alternate methods to resolve this issue.

One way you could achieve this is a multi-part batch process, it very much depends how you need to generate your barcode though.

Do you need to from Address to barcode?
Are the addresses clean and normalised?
Do you already have, or can generate the barcode identifier?
The better your data is the easier it'll be to put this together.

If you don't have the barcode identifiers already is it possible to get a third party in your country that does address validation and partners with the postal services data to clean and add these so you've got valid addresses + barcode identifiers returned.

Assuming you can do this process, either via a third party or software, to get
barcode identifiers into your source spreadsheet.

I'd do a multi-part mail merge, i.e:

Run the spreadsheet against a compliant barcode generation tool e.g. ID Automation's Image Generator output your barcodes in batch, with a unique name to a named folder.
In your Pages mail merge include the relevant barcode image.

Other options are using a barcode font, you've got to be careful with the source data you pass in to make sure it's a real valid barcode e.g. IDAutomation's font

I've only recommended paid software, likely you can do the generation cheap-free in the open source world but make sure you get your barcode checked for compliance before committing to the full print run!


Won't turn on after dead battery I have mountain lion on MacBook pro mid 2012.

So if my battery dies, because I left noSleep on or just because of being sat untouched for a week off of 2%, when I turn my computer on, Instead of the picture of the screen last used with the loading bar under it, the apple logo with the loading bar. I let it sit for a while, and it stays at the last bar of the loading thing. I wait and wait and nothing. I have to reboot using the power button to get it to work. A message then appears that said "your computer shut down cuz of a problem" . I have always saved my work
, but I am assuming it would all be deleted if I had an unsaved word doc on low battery.

What is going on?

Things I have tried:
 reset SMC
Reinstall OS on network recovery

And eventually if I have to, I guesss I will have to factory reset it

This sounds like a defective hardware issue. Take your Mac to an authorized Apple repair/service center, or an Apple Store, and have them diagnose the problem. If it is under warranty, or if you purchased AppleCare to extend the warranty, they will replace any faulty components.


How to manage my own reviews and ratings in Mac App Store? Is there such an option in Mac App Store? I know in iTunes Store we can manage reviews and ratings in personal account.

Open the Mac App Store. On the Featured tab, in the right sidebar, there is a link called Account. Under Settings > Reviews and Ratings, click Manage. You can edit / delete your reviews there.


Windows 10 won't boot on El Capitan Every time I try to boot into Windows 10 , I get this message in a black screen:

"no bootable device – insert boot disk and press any key"

Note that it was working before.

Any ideas?

diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                  Apple_HFS empty                   209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            199.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS em                      650.0 MB   disk0s4
   5:           Linux Filesystem                         119.8 GB   disk0s5
   6:                  Apple_HFS disk0s10                22.0 GB    disk0s6
   7:                  Apple_HFS e                       343.7 MB   disk0s7
   8:                        EFI NO NAME                 2.8 GB     disk0s8
   9:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                149.6 GB   disk0s9
  10:           Windows Recovery                         471.9 MB   disk0s10

diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=500277790720; sectorsize=512; blocks=977105060
gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 977105059

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
     409640  389032888      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  389442528    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  390712064    1269536      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  391981600  234019258      5  GPT part - 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4
  626000858   42952704      6  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  668953562     262144
  669215706     671368      7  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  669887074    8617504
  678504578    5541888      8  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
  684046466  292136960      9  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  976183426     921600     10  GPT part - DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC
  977105026          1
  977105027         32         Sec GPT table
  977105059          1         Sec GPT header

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 60821/255/63 [977105060 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55

         Starting       Ending
 id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE 1023 255  63 - 1023 255  63 [         1 -  977105059] <Unknown ID>
2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

So after almost 48 hours of trial and error this is what saved the day.

Boot on recovery mode and csrutil disable
boot back on OSX
Run diskutil list
Find BOOTCAMP from 'diskutil list' and check the ID (the very first number at the start of the line)
sudo gdisk /dev/disk0

now just input those single letters and press Enter each time

r go to the recovery & transformation menu
h create a new hybrid MBR.
ID add partition ID to the MBR.  Your’s may be different! Use what you got from line 4 above.
y if you are asked “Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)?”
accept the default MBR hex code of 07
y set the bootable flag
n do not protect more partitions
o print (display) the MBR.
w Recovery/transformation command (write partition table to disk)
y Say yes to question: do you want to proceed.


Creating and deploying a standard build of OS X 10.6 company-wide My company is growing quickly and we are purchasing a lot of iMacs. Up until now each one has been configured individually but I'd like to be able to define default settings (network settings, Safari settings, dock settings etc) which I can apply automatically on a machine.

I'm assuming this can be done, but where do I start?

This is done using Apple Remote Desktop 3 and a Task Server(s). It's available in the Mac AppStore for $79.

Another useful and powerful software is DeployStudio, which automates disk image installation over a network.


ITunes volume noticeably lower than browser volume Can anyone think of a reason why (and a possible solution) the volume on my ITunes player is lower than other apps (like for example playing videos on youtube or music in grooveshark)?

Perhaps you're not aware that there is a volume slider on the iTunes window?

Also, Are you using an Equalizer? (Window -> Equalizer)

Change the preamp setting if you feel it is too quiet.


iPhone: Show clean Camera feed without any on-screen controls Is there a way to show a clean feed of the Camera on iPhone screen? For example, if I go to the Camera app, I can see the record button, as well as the other controls and options.

I want to see nothing but what the Camera is seeing on the screen of my iPhone. Is this possible?

After testing and searching paid and free apps for hours. I found a free app that does this. TrueVisage. Tested with iPhone 8, connected to my MacBook with USB-C cable and recording into Quicktime. It has a minimal interface that disappears after a few secs. Leaving beautiful, HQ, controls-free, watermark-free views of front or rear camera. Also has a handy flip function. Winner!

This allows me to use my iphone like an external web camera, connected via USB-C, which looks much better than the icam native to my MacBook Pro.

Note: Notifications from other apps may still come on screen and show in the view. Disable notifications before going live.


3Gs after 5.0.1 upgrade, all third-party apps can not open and work After iPhone 3Gs upgrade iOS to 5.0.1, all third-party apps can not open and work. Any advice?

Try this:  Delete one app, then add it back.


Does iMessage cost extra if I have another device? I have iMessage on my iPhone 5, and I signed in to iMessage on my iPad 2.

Will it cost extra to have iMessage on my iPad 2?

I think iMessage might be free but I'm still curious.

Messages is free if you are texting someone with the email address ( which is the only thing available on the iPad). If you are on the iPhone and texting another phone, then it will count as a text for the service provider. However, any iOS 5 and above device has messages installed and it is free.


Can automator create symlinks but skip existing files? Today I discovered the awesome Create Symlinks action from JuneCloud.  It works great, but creates duplicate files (appending a number to each one) for any symlink that already exists in the final location.  I want it to just ignore those files and keep on trucking.

I tried using a shell script ln -s but that just plain fails with a The action “Run Shell Script” encountered an error. message after hitting a file that already exists.

Is there a way to create a symlink but SKIP existing files?  I know I can us -f to overwrite but I'd rather just skip.  How can this be done either in Automator or shell script?

Yes! You can do it easily in the shell script. The -h flag fits the bill, as described (sort of) on the ln man page. So instead of doing ln -s, do ln -sh.

Here's an example. Say you wanted to make a symbolic link of each of your downloads, which would exist on your Desktop, but you already have some symbolic links there. Then you could do this:

cd Downloads
for f in *; do ln -sh ~/Downloads/"$f" ~/Desktop; done;

For any files that you have that you already have symbolic links for, the command will print out:

    ln: /Users/******/Desktop/FlashPlayer.dmg: File exists

The command does this printing after running so it does not throw any errors nor require any additional inputs.


How to send non-HTML mail from Apple Mail? Can someone help me to find out how to send non-HTML mail from Apple Mail client?

The alternatives are described as Plain Text or Rich Text - however I am reliably informed that 'Rich Text' is, in fact HTML.
(Thanks to @TomGewecke for correcting me on that in comments)

Swap permanently in Prefs > Composing, or as a one-off in Format Menu, last item, or  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧
  T

To prevent replying in HTML to an HTML mail, also uncheck 'Use the same Message format...'


Versions.app: How to select Kaleidoscope.app as diff tool? Setup

OS X 10.8.2
Versions 1.1.11
Kaleidoscope 2.0.0

Problem

I am a registered user (DirectSales, not AppStore) of both Versions and Kaleidoscope (both from BlackPixel). The latest versions of both apps are installed on on my system.

I would like to configure Versions.app to use Kaleidoscope.app as its diff tool.

However, when I go to

Versions.app > Preferences > File Comparison

I see Kaleidoscope grayed out with a generic icon (see screencap below). Since both apps are from the same developer, I think I must be missing something obvious, or there may be a problem with my system.

So: How to select Kaleidoscope.app as the diff tool in Versions.app?

From the Kaleidoscope app go to Kaleidoscope menu > Integration...

Install the ksdiff tool

Quit and relaunch Versions and Kaleidoscope should be selectable.

If that doesn't work, check with Black Pixel's amazing support team after being sure you have build 104 of Kaleidoscope 2.0


How to "synchronize now" the ipod touch with google calendar? My ipod touch synchronized well with google calendar. But I would like a "synchronize now" button, is there something like that?

It's possible that, for some reason, push can't go through. In those situations, your iPhone will fall back on the fetch schedule. Go to Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars->Fetch New Data and make sure that you select the most frequent Fetch, which is 15 minutes. It's certainly a far cry from the instantaneity of push, but you shouldn't have to wait more than 15 minutes for stuff to come through.

Also, you should check under Advanced just in case your schedule for your Google account was changed for some reason - it should be "Push".


Do MacBooks slow down when not connected to power? I recently read about a device that reported its "minimum CPU speed" (which was 50MHz; max was 1500MHz) and I wondered if my MacBook Air (and other devices like iPhone/iPad) slows down the CPU when not plugged in.

Yes. Intel calls it "SpeedStep." Variable CPU clock speeds that adjust to conserve power based on demand. The feature is engaged whilst the device is on battery power. All Apple products support this feature (it's actually supported at the hardware level and the operating system's kernel) but since desktop devices don't have batteries, you'll never experience it on anything that isn't mobile.

Your MacBook Air supports SpeedStep, as does the iPhone, iPad, and the traditional MacBook Pro.

More info on SpeedStep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpeedStep#Mac


concerned that my app developer wants private information I have a freelancer creating an iOS app for my website.

He's asked for my apple developer account username, password and UDID.

Is this legit? It sound like EXACTLY the sort of thing you're not supposed to do. However, though I'm competent in a website/db environment, apps and mobile dev is a sealed book to me (hence needing a freelancer).

Should I provide this information?

As an app developer with my own apps and client work on the store, I understand your concern, but there's nothing shady about this request.

Your app is being made from a mixture of code files, images, and maybe some mp3s, etc. Once it's ready, your developer needs to package it up and upload it to iTunes Connect so Apple can review it for the store.

The way this works is that he or she (well, someone with the source code) needs to enter your credentials into a tool called Xcode in order to be able to upload the finished product, often called the "binary." (Xcode is the development environment that iOS developers use. Uploading apps to Apple is a small feature, but that's generally how it's done.)

It's actually a little more interesting. The reason we usually don't like giving out our passwords is because we don't want other people to impersonate us. In this case, that's exactly what you want.

To understand this a little more deeply, let's talk about code signing for a minute.

There are two elements here. One is the signing certificate, which is for your security, and one is the "provisioning profile" which allows Apple to control apps from being widely distributed outside the App Store.

When you or your developer creates your finished app, Xcode compiles the code, links it, and the copies the product and other resources into the final app bundle.

Then, the bundle is "signed" with what's called a "signing certificate" which is created through the Apple Developer Portal. This reassures Apple that the app submission is coming from you and not someone else.

A provisioning profile says what devices may install a given app. There are profiles for the App Store and profiles for development and profiles for enterprises to distribute to their employees.

The development profiles limit installation to a specific number of devices, and it does that by containing  a list of valid UDIDs - or device identifiers.

So Xcode has to get into your account, download your signing certificate and provisioning profile(s), and then upload the app. This is why your developer has to "be" you.

The truth is that for testing, your developer should be uploading to Apple and then using TestFlight to distribute the test version of the app but regardless, it's completely reasonable for a developer to have to access your iTunes Connect and/or Member Center account.

You can do this a few ways:

You can give your developer your credentials, or
Invite them to be part of your team in iTunes Connect. That way, they can log in and do what they need to without having your password.
If your arrangement and your comfort level allow, the developer can send you the code and you can submit yourself.

You can remove them from your team or change your password when you are finished.

If you're really uncomfortable, offer to screen share with your developer and enter the passwords for them. It's not really the best option but could be a good compromise.

Best of luck with your new app!


Move windows around a desktop -- and to different desktops -- using only the keyboard? Here's what I'm trying to accomplish using only a keyboard:

Move a window to different areas/corners of a desktop
Move a window to different desktops
Set/unset a window as shown/sticky on all desktops

Yes, I know #3 could solve #2 by stickying a window, pressing ctrl+⌘+←/→, then unstickying it, which would be acceptable, but i'm hoping for something a little more elegant :)

  NB, if 1..3 can be solved in AppleScript, that would be great because Spark has been invaluable to tie an AppleScript to a global keyboard shortcut. However I don't think AppleScript can do this type of window location manipulation and a native Cocoa app may be required.

I really want to return to my keyboard-only nirvana but in my adoptive platform and shed Ubuntu Desktop.

Moving windows to another space:

SizeUp (still works for me in 10.8)
Spacey (stopped working in 10.7)

Moving windows to another display:

BetterSnapTool
BetterTouchTool
Flexiglass
Moom
Optimal Layout
SizeUp
Spectacle
Window Mover


root user can't create a file in /usr/lib I am trying to follow this advice from stackoverflow and copy some library files from /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1c to /usr/lib/.

I have tried cp, ln -s and even touch, but they all fail. I am using the root credentials:

joyce# whoami
root

In the right directory:

joyce# pwd
/usr/lib

But no write operation is permitted:

joyce# cp /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.2e_1/lib/libssl.1.0.0.dylib .
cp: ./libssl.1.0.0.dylib: Operation not permitted
joyce# ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.2e_1/lib/libssl.1.0.0.dylib .
ln: ./libssl.1.0.0.dylib: Operation not permitted
joyce# touch blah
touch: blah: Operation not permitted

Any idea how can I write to /usr/lib as root?

/usr/lib is protected by SIP. Even if this wouldn't be the case, it's not the best idea to put your own stuff there as any system upgrade can wipe it.

The better place to store such stuff (or link to it) is /usr/local/lib. You may need to pass appropriate flags to the linker then (or you point it directly to the Cellar folder).