How do I fix a corrupted USB drive on OS X? I accidentally bumped the drive while repartitioning it and it unmounted. After that when I tried to repartition with Disk Utility I got Partition Failed with the error: Could not open device

Now I am unable to modify the drive with Disk Utility. I don't really care about what is on the drive.

Step 1
Open Disk Utility (it is in Applications/Utilities) and click New Image with the device you want to fix selected

Step 2
It doesn't matter what you name it but put it on your desktop so you can find it easily. Make sure it is a read/write.

Step 3
Find the disk on your desktop and open it. It should be empty.

Step 4
Open Terminal (in the same place as Disk Utility) and type in diskutil list and locate your drive. It should have something similar to the name that shows up in disk utility indented under it (in my example it doesn't)

Step 5
We are going to use a Terminal utility called DD to copy the contents bit by bit of the disk image we created to the drive. Make sure you do this right because you can seriously damage your hard drive if you don't. Feel free to ask questions.
This is the layout of dd: dd if=<source> of=<target> bs=1m
So type dd if= and then drag the drive (the one I named "Something") into the terminal window. After that copy the /dev/disk# from the diskutil command of your disk. Make sure it is the right one or you will overwrite your hard drive or other connected drive. Adding onto the dd command type of= and paste the /dev/disk#. Now add bs=1m to that.
Now in the dd command you should have something that looks like:
dd if=/Volumes/Something of=/dev/disk1 bs=1m
This is what it would look like for my example.
If everything looks ok then press enter.
This can take a long time and will not tell you what is happening until it is done. It will just be a blank line in the terminal. When you press enter just let it go until it is done. You will know when it is done because it will tell you something like copied something bytes....
Final step
Now that you have done that you should be able to go back into disk utility and repartition your dive under the partition tab. If you don't know how to partition it, just click the plus button near the bottom left, name your partition, and make it Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click apply.
Remember if you are unsure, something is different in the steps, or something doesn't work, ask questions!


Bootable SSD and converting to APFS I boot my iMac from an external SSD, which is a clone of my main HDD, running Mojave. I had no issues before, recently with the Catalina being released I downloaded the update and when I choose my SSD drive I get: "this volume is not formatted as APFS".

What should I do now? I tried from recovery to convert it, but the option is disabled.

Is the only way to format it? or is there another way I am not aware of?

It turns out there was no way to change my SSD to APFS without formating.
I ended up using "carbon copy cloner" cloned my SSD to internal hard drive, then formatted my SSD to APFS, and cloned everything back to SSD. All good now and I was able to upgrade without trouble.


Mac OS X tiger not installing on iMac G5 late 2005 I’ve tried pressing/holding down c,x,control,alt,command and everything, and it still hasn’t worked. I’ve tried downloading even the ISO of the disk that came with it, and it still hasn’t worked. I’ve been trying for two days, is there any solution to this?

Probably the medium you have inserted is not bootable by your computer. You can use an USB drive for the reinstallation of Mac OS 10.4 . However, if I recall right, iMac G5 is capable of running 10.5 Leopard as well. It doesn't really matter. I am gonna continue this answer with the assumption of you have a disk image of either 10.4 or 10.5, as well as your mac is currently working or you have access to another mac; since you have mentioned you downloaded the disk image in question itself.
Preparation of installation drive:

Find an USB drive, with 8gb or more storage.
Insert it into the USB port of your computer.
Open up Disk Utility.
Select your drive and go to erase section.
Select "OSX Extended (Journaled) as your disk format and hit erase. (This will delete everything on the thumb-drive, thus make sure that you don't have anything valuable within the USB drive.)
When it finishes, right click on mounted drive and select get info.
Go to "Sharing and Permissions" section of poped up window.
Click the lock and enter your password.
Uncheck the setting "Ignore ownership on this volume".

￼

Click the lock again in order to save the change you have just made.
Mount the dmg file of the Mac OSX installation (you can copy from the installation disk or download it from internet.)
Open up the Disk Utility again, this time select the partition you have created in step 5.
Go to restore section.
Select mounted DMG file (not the file itself the mounted image) as the source.
Hit restore.

Booting with the thumb-drive:

Boot/Restart your iMac with "CMD+OPTION+O+F" keys pressed.
Type devalias and press enter.
On the bottom of response from the command in step 2 you will see a drive named ud.
In order to boot from your drive, type boot ud:,\\:tbxi
You should be able to boot from the USB drive.

Installation of Mac OSX:

You should be greeted with the welcome screen.
Proceed the installation by clicking continue.
Select your hard drive, and click options.
Select "Erase and install". Make sure the format is selected as "OSX Extended (Journaled)".
Click continue, and it should be installed.

Hope if helps, the process of creating USB drive of 10.4 , 10.5 etc. can be done via any other Mac. Steps are the same.
Ps: Sorry for lack of images during the process. I am using Mojave right now so your screen responses might vary. Only the get info screen is pretty much the same as the "kitten" era of Mac OSX.


How does one enable a terminal color profile for macOS Dark Mode? In macOS dark mode, the font becomes #fff in my terminal,
is there any way to set it to black? or just add another theme for terminal.app in macOS dark mode?

I had the same problem. Let me first clarify what the issue is,
as the first respondent apparently had trouble understanding it.
Like the OP, I have a few Terminal profiles with black or dark
gray text on pastel backgrounds. For some reason, when macOS goes
into dark mode, there is some internal logic that'll invert this
#000000 (or close to it) text foreground into #FFFFFF (or close
to it), while leaving the background color unchanged. This leads
to the effect shown in the OP's screenshot: white text on fairly
bright background, i.e. basically unreadable.
I've found a simple trick to make this go away: Go to the theme
in preferences, to the "text" tab. In the "text" section on the
right, there are three text foreground chits, for "Text", for
"Bold Text", and for the "Selection". You'll note they're showing
bright instead of dark when you're in dark mode. Click on the Text
one (or any of the others that bother you), switch the color picker
that comes up to the "Color Sliders" view, and select the "HSB
Sliders" setting from the dropdown.
What you'll see now is that although the color shown in the main
preferences screen is white (or bright gray), the bottom slider
for "Brightness" is in fact still set to all the way to the left.
Now here's the trick that I found by accident: pull it that brightness
slider just a little bit to the right, and you'll note the text color
immediately jumps back to dark. Now even if you set it back to the
previous setting, it'll now stay dark.
This reproduceably fixed it for me on Catalina on my MacBook Pro 2019.
Hope it helps others!


Stop Devices Deleting Songs On iCloud; iTunes Match I want to delete songs from my devices, not from iCloud.

Can I change settings to prevent devices deleting songs from iCloud, i.e. delete from local device but not iCloud.

When you delete a song from an iDevice connected to iTunes Match, only the local copy gets deleted. The song remains in the index and gets displayed with the iCloud icon.

The option to delete the cloud version as well is only given when deleting a song in iTunes on Mac or PC.


Apps that access the internet crash when waking up from sleep Whenever I wake my 2012 MBA 13" from sleep, all apps that were accessing the internet before going to sleep crash. This includes the streaming software Zattoo.app, Chrome.app, Firefox.app, etc.

None of the apps that do not access the internet are affected, such as Pages.app, MS Word, etc.

All software is up to date, including the OS that currently is at version 10.8.2.

I have repaired disk permissions.

Starting up in “safe mode” performs some repairs:

  Shut down your Mac and wait 10 seconds. Press the power button.
  Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold down the Shift key.
  You should press the Shift key as soon as possible after you hear the
  startup tone, but not before.

  Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and progress
  indicator (spinning gear). To leave safe mode, restart the computer
  normally without holding down any keys during startup.

Also, run Disk Utility, Repair Disk. Sounds like network problem, though, which could be as simple as trashing network settings (writing down any you won't remember,) Restarting and inputting afresh ...


Fans always on in Boot Camp I have a 2015 Retina Macbook Pro 13″ running Boot Camp Windows 8.1.

On default settings, the fan seems to idle at 0 according to "Macs Fan Control", and then slowly climb when it reaches 70℃ or so. Gaming makes it go around 102-103℃ max, and hover between that and ~90℃.

Lubbo's Fan Control seems better at gradually increasing and decreasing fan speed, but it as well as Macs Fan Control seem to stick the fan on always on with a minimum of 1299 rpm, once I enable them to override the stock fan management.

In deciding how to modify my system I wonder if OS X always keeps them running and if that is bad for the machine long term compared to windows drivers behavior?

You are correct that OS X always idles a blower/fan if they are present.

I thought it was always 2k RPM on stock hardware, but you might be correct on the 1300 RPM number - I don't have data on that specific hardware.

I doubt it's bad since Apple selects the components and probably has really great data on what percentage of failures are due to manufacturing variations and which are excessive wear on the components.


Can Late 2012 Mac Mini support two QHD Monitors? I've always understood that my Mac Mini is limited to one QHD (2560 x 1440/1600) monitor via DisplayPort and one HD monitor (1900x1200) via HDMI... from Wikipedia:

  Like the 2009 version, a Mini DisplayPort (which allows for a VGA
  connection, via a non-included cable) is included. A HDMI port, which
  Apple describes as being HDMI 1.4 compliant, replaces the Mini-DVI
  port on the prior models as one of the main video connection methods.
  The HDMI port supports up to 1080p on HDMI connections and 8 channel
  24-bit audio at 192 kHz, Dolby Surround 5.1 and stereo output. With
  the included HDMI to DVI adapter, for those currently using a DVI
  interface, the HDMI port will work with resolutions up to 1920 × 1200
  pixels, while the Mini DisplayPort can concurrently support a
  resolution up to 2560 × 1600 pixels

However this link suggests I can run two QHD monitors via the thunderbolt port and a splitter:

  Thunderbolt digital video output

  Native Mini DisplayPort output
  DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to    DVI Adapter (sold separately)
  VGA output using Mini DisplayPort to    VGA Adapter (sold separately)
  Dual-link DVI output using Mini    DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (sold separately)

  HDMI video output

  Support for 1080p resolution at up to 60Hz
  DVI output using HDMI to DVI Adapter (sold separately)

There is a lot of talk of DVI here, but my monitor only supports [Mini]DisplayPort and HDMI.

Am I right to read this that my Mac will support two QHD monitors but only by splitting from the DP/thunderbolt port leaving HDMI-out unused? In which case can I get a Thunderbolt->dual DP or DP->Dual DP adapter or do I have to get a DVI splitter and two DVI->DP adapters?!

Am I right to read this that my Mac will support two QHD monitors but
only by splitting from the DP/thunderbolt port leaving HDMI-out
unused? In which case can I get a Thunderbolt->dual DP or DP->Dual DP
adapter or do I have to get a DVI splitter and two DVI->DP adapters?!

There's no such thing as a Thunderbolt "splitter."
You are confusing the term dual-link DVI with dual DVI.  Dual-link DVI refers to the number of data channels (double) that is available for more bandwidth meaning higher resolution.  It's not a "second connection" and you cannot "split" the signals.  Dual DVI is two DVI ports for multiple monitors.  The Mac mini does not nor support dual DVI
Multiple Monitors on a Mac mini
The Mac mini will natively support two monitors:

Thunderbolt/DisplayPort - Quad HD (2560x1600)
HDMI Port - Full HD (1080p)

To get another display or dual QHD displays, you need an additional adapter and for the Mac mini, that means USB:

USB 3.0 to DisplayPort -  Ultra HD
USB 3.0 to HDMI  - Ultra HD

This will give you another USB adapter, but be aware that you are now offloading all of the graphics processing onto the USB bus and ultimately on the CPU.  In other words, this is not something for performance, but rather convenience.  The Mac mini wasn't designed for this type of setup.


My new iPad Air language My iPad Air language is correctly set up in English UK. Whenever I write (such as right now) it wants to change the words to French. Also the keyboard Go and Search keys are in French. I am nowhere near France! Help!

You have a French keyboard activated.
Go to Settings > General > Keyboards > Keyboards and select the edit button on top right. Delete the keyboards you don't want.

Alternatively, tap the globe symbol on the left side of the keyboard to rotate between active keyboards.

If you keep it pressed you can select from a list


Share iPhone WIFI with computer over USB? Due to a water leakage, we had to move offices temporarily. In our temp offices, we have WIFI network, but not cabled network (yet).

Since my computer doesn't have WIFI (it's a stationary desktop) I thought I could see if I could bridge my iPhone WIFI connection over to my computer via USB while I wait for local facilities to set up cabled network here.

Is this possible?

Sorry, but it's not possible to do this without jail breaking. The "Personal Hotspot" function on an iPhone only allows for sharing the 3G connection, not the wifi connection, so you can't use it as a wifi adapter. It's feasible that Apple could add this functionality, but it's a fairly niche case, so I wouldn't count on it.

More immediately, if you have a laptop with wifi available, you could use Internet Sharing (OS X)/Internet Connection Sharing (Windows) and an ethernet cable to get connectivity to your desktop. Or if you've got a Staples or something similar nearby, they usually have USB wifi adapters for $30 or less.


How do I display file names in an encoding other than UTF-8? I have a couple of files/directories that are named in GBK. I think because finder assumes UTF-8 encoding, all of those file names are displayed as gibberish. How do I make Finder display their file names properly?

You need to move Chinese language to the top of the Preferred languages list in System Preferences > Language & Region:

If you have Chinese file and folder names created in OS 9 and earlier, you can use File Name Encoding Repair Utility (untested).
This script gist also renames filename in GBK to UTF-8 (untested).
I found interesting information for using the Chinese language on the Mac here.
I also recommend you to read OS X: Cross-platform filename best practices and conventions.
In this forum there are user experiments about this problem.


Key combination not working when using the touch bar? In an IDE I use key combinations like Shiftshift ⎋ (Esc).

I'm now using a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar. It seems this is not working anymore, as the IDE only reports Esc being pressed.

Has anyone else experienced this?

PS: I've heard about the workaround of mapping caps lock to Esc, but I'd like to use that as a last resort.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/31347902#31347902
https://discussions.apple.com/message/31206769#31206769

Try hitting fnshiftEsc, that triggers the Shift+Esc for me. If you press the left shift key with your left thumb, it is a very similar gesture.


How not to download all emails when setting up a new Mail account? When I add a new Email account, Mail application automatically downloads All messages, but I do not need all the messages to be available on my Mac.

Is there a way to tell Mail app to only down messages of the last 3/6 months?

Are you using POP or IMAP? If you use IMAP, you can say in the Mail-settings to omit the attachments. This will only download the email headers and bodies, without heavily attachments. Maybe this can fit your needs?


Do I need Lion on a MacBook to use iCloud? As a new user, I'm trying to wrap my brain around iCloud for backup and am wondering if the following things are all true:

Can I use iCloud to back up all the files on my MacBook?
To use iCloud, do I need Lion installed (as opposed to older Mac OS)?
After I've bought Lion, is there a fee to use iCloud with my mac?

1. Can I use iCloud to back up all the files on my MacBook?

iCloud is used to store the data that an iCloud enabled application has saved.  It is not a backup mechanism for your Mac, however in principle it can form part of a backup system.  iCloud doesn't show up as one simple folder on the mac that syncs (the DropBox model of cloud storage) but instead has a fairly well hidden folder in ~/Library for ad-hoc syncing/backup and instead requires each application to tell the mac which documents should be cached locally and "stored in the cloud".

For example, if your system is modern enough to support internet recovery, then you effectively have the OS not exactly backed up as such, but available for a restore withut the need for having copies of the physical media.  Of course, you lose your system preferences, user accounts and indeed everything else, but you can recover an OS installation to a default level easily.  On top of tis, if you then login to your Apple ID on the App Store, you can then download all your apps that you have purchased.  Of course again there is no guarantee that this will be all of your apps, but for some it may well be.  Once you have recovered your OS and your Apps, any Apps that use iCloud will then have their data available for use.

So, in certain scenarios it's the final pin in the recovery of your data, but it's by no means by itself a full backup solution, and you will need to cater (preferable via Time Machine) for a better solution unless you never change your prefs, and only use app store apps. Think of iCloud as storing just a few critical documents from just a few critical apps, and not currently a viable total backup solution.

2. To use iCloud, do I need Lion installed (as opposed to older Mac OS)?

Lion (OS X 10.7) is the minimum OS version required to use iCloud, You can gain access to the App Store from 10.6.6 onwards which is the only place where you can download iCloud enabled applications anyway, but be aware that just because you can buy an iCloud Enabled App Store app pre-Lion, you may not be able to use it.

3. After I've bought Lion, is there a fee to use iCloud with my mac?

There is no seperate iCloud fee, accounts are free in perpetuity, although obviously the apps that use it may have a cost associated with them. Additionally, the free account includes 5 GB of cloud storage, so you may run into fees should you need to store more data off site than the free allotment. Yearly storage costs begin at $20 (USD) to add another 10 GB (so 15 total storage).


The volume on my iPhone decreases randomly The volume on my iPhone decreases randomly.

I'm afraid it is a hardware issue. Sometimes I listen to music and it decreases for no reason, then I push up volume button, and it increases a bit, but if I leave the button it decreases again (like if I'm pressing the down button as well).

Is it a bad news ?

With the more information supplied:

the volume issue occurs with and without headphones
the volume issue occurs with and without a case

The only conclusions I can come to are that the iPhone 4S is either faulty, or there is a software glitch causing the issue.

Addressing the second issue, Apple will recommend you perform a DFU restore to factory settings to rule out software.  If the issue persists, then in all likelihood there is a hardware issue present.

I did find this link to a discussion for other iPhone 4S users with the same/similar issue (or with the Volume Up), at least one of which was resolved by the Genius taking the iPhone apart to find a piece of material in the switch assembly causing the issue.


Spotlight data size to big I have have was cleaning up my Macintosh's Hard Drive. I was using Windows 8.1 for that purpose(Bootcamp). I found that the size of spotlight folder was too big(951 MB). Is it normal or I should delete the folder and re-index? BTW, I have disables spotlight. I have been using alfred for a long time.

I currently using Yosemite 10.10.2

It seems perfectly normal. If you have deleted files from another OS, if you want to get back to stability, boot to recovery HD and repair the OS X partition. Then boot to OS X and download the latest combo updater and reboot.

I'd add the Mac partition to spotlight's privacy tab and close system prefs. Then I'd remove it from the privacy tab and let it sit for about 30 minutes and then run the combo updater.

As long as you have a backup of your files, worst case is you'll end up with a corrupt OS X side and have to wipe and reinstall. If you want to download the latest OS X installer during the 30 minute wait above, it's nice to have it on a USB thumb drive just in case. Probably you won't need it as the spotlight system cleans and takes care of itself fairly well. The only times I've seen it have huge files is when the system gets modified externally as you describe.

Here is some data to back up my opinion that 900M isn't abnormal:

MacPro:~ bmike$ sudo du -sm /Volumes/*/.Spotlight*
2952    /Volumes/Backups/.Spotlight-V100
496     /Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100
1082    /Volumes/NTM/.Spotlight-V100
183     /Volumes/fast/.Spotlight-V100
MacBookPro:~ bmike$ sudo du -sm /Volumes/*/.Spotlight*
1419    /Volumes/Macintosh HD/.Spotlight-V100
4273    /Volumes/PassportAir/.Spotlight-V100
4567    /Volumes/Retina/.Spotlight-V100


Nedit stopped working on my iMac running High Sierra 10.13.4 I installed Nedit on my iMac this weekend. I used it several times and it worked fine. For some reason last night it quit working. When I type Nedit in the terminal window I just get the message

NEdit: Can't open display.

Using Homebrew again, I reinstalled Nedit using

brew reinstall nedit

Nedit still refuses to work. I am totally confused since it worked fine for a day and a half. Any clue why it stopped working?  Was the fact that it worked the most confusing issue or the fact that it stopped.  Its version 5.7 of Nedit and claims that its for High Sierra.

Looks from your comment that your display variable is not set. Ensure you have an X-Server running (I. E. XQuartz) and then set your display environment variable first with:

export DISPLAY=:0

Launching applications from within the XQuartz terminal will have the $DISPLAY env var set automatically. You can make this change persist by adding that line to your ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile file:

echo 'export DISPLAY=:0' >> ~/.profile

Note that in my setup, XQuartz automatically sets $DISPLAY for me without my needing to do this, so you may want to re-install XQuartz.(Or ask a follow-up question about why that behavior isn't working)


How to use external mouse and keyboard normally in bootcamp with windows 7? I just installed windows 7 using bootcamp.

I then connected an external keyboard and mouse. I understand that I need to change settings in order to use right click on the trackpad. My problem is that my external mouse's right click does not even work.

How do I enable right click on my external mouse?

Thanks!

I don't use Windows on my MacBook, but I think this is what you are looking for

http://realitypod.com/2010/08/solved-right-click-in-windows-xp-vista-7-running-on-macbook/


How to use cd with shell variable containing spaces I am trying to create an environment variable for a path that is long, has a space, and syntax.

I tried the following:

export temp=/Users/username/Dropbox (Personal)

And added it to my .profile.

I also tried:

export temp='/Users/username/Dropbox (Personal)'
export temp="/Users/username/Dropbox (Personal)"
export temp=/Users/username/Dropbox\ \(Personal\)

None of the above work. My end goal is to type cd $temp or cp $temp.

Besides the first assignment, all three work in assigning the correct value to $temp. But due to the way bash parses the command line, you need to write

cd "$temp"

afterwards to make it work (which also means that it is a good idea to always use "$var" in shell scripts).

It might be easier in your case to make an alias with

alias cdtemp='cd "/Users/username/Dropbox (Personal)"'

for use with cd.

For cp you still need to add the "" though. To avoid this, either name your folders without using characters with special meaning to the shell or create a symlink with ln -s ~/"Dropbox (Personal)" ~/DP.


How can I customise the toolbar in the new iWork apps? Since the update to the iWork app suite, it appears that it is no longer possible to customise the toolbar with option from the right-click menu. All you can do is hide the text, or hide the entire toolbar:

In addition, you can't ⌘-drag any of the toolbar buttons, whether that be to different places on the toolbar, or off the toolbar completely…

I really want to remove the Tips  button, as well as re-arrange some things to make it more like how I had iWork '09 set up.

Is there a Terminal command or other preference to re-enable the customisation of the toolbar, or at the least a command to forcibly remove the Tips button from the toolbar?

This has been fixed in Pages 5.0.1, Numbers 3.0.1 and Keynote 6.0.1.


How to use Screen Sharing if I don't know the remote Mac's IP address I have the credentials for the Mac, but there is nobody in the room with the machine to check the public IP address.

If I know the public IP, I can connect to the mac. Unfortunately the ISP provides only dynamic IPs, so I guess it changed recently.

Is there any other way to gain access?

Ah! Yeah... your options at this point are limited. The ISP might help you as it's their DHCP that assigned the address; they'd be the only ones that would know that.

This has happened to me, and as my ISP is comcast, there is no help.

In the future :), what you need is "Dynamic DNS"; available free from several sources. I use FreeDNS. It's kind of funky, but seems to work reliably.

The other alternative (to dynamic DNS) is a "roll your own" approach that would require some script-writing on your part. If you're up for that, let me know & we'll go from there.


Force umount of stale NFS shares Whenever my NFSv4 server becomes unreachable a little window pops up offering me to disconnect the affected shares.

It looks like this:

If I choose to Ignore iTunes becomes unresponsive because of the playlists that point to MP3 files located on those NFS shares that have become unreachable. I can force quit iTunes but it can never be started again. Its status becomes Not Responding, the icon jumps for a while in the dock and that's all that happens.

So, sometimes it makes sense to Ignore those stale connections to NFS shares because I know the NFS server will become available soon, but other times this ruins everything for me and I effectively cannot use iTunes until connection with the NFS server is established again. Which can "resume" an application from a freezed state immediately, btw.

My question is, can I make that little pop-up window show itself on demand somehow (run a command in Terminal, hot key, etc.) or run a terminal command to forcibly disconnect stale NFS mounts?

OS X 10.8.2, iTunes 11.0 and NFSv4 server on Arch Linux

rWhen you kill iTunes, do you kill iTunes Helper too?:

$ ps -cef | grep iTunes
1001  7878   243   0  8:30AM ??         0:05.38 iTunes
1001  7882   243   0  8:31AM ??         0:00.03 iTunesHelper

If you can't kill iTunesHelper also, you will need to add "intr" to the mount options. Having done that, you should be able to stop processes waiting on IO from the unavailable filesystem. Once you can get rid of processes using the filesystem, you should be able to umount it.


Where does OS X store USB mouse plist? I've found that often when you are experiencing trouble with a peripheral, deleting the plist file can often fix the problem.
My USB mouse has been sticking/freezing for a second at a time lately.
I've looked throughout ~/Library/Preferences/, but saw no filenames that make me confident enough to delete any of them.
UPDATE
I was able to delete the com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist file that was showing in the Terminal but not in the Finder.
Pauls-iMac: soliddev$ ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep driver
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist
Pauls-iMac: soliddev$ rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist
Pauls-iMac: soliddev$ ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep driver
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist
Pauls-iMac: soliddev$

Unfortunately, the mouse sticking/freezing persists.
UPDATE
At the end of the day, I've bought a new mouse, the problem seems to be fixed for now. Thanks for the help.

The tracking speed is stored in the  ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist file.

defaults read -g | grep mouse
"com.apple.mouse.doubleClickThreshold" = "1.1";
"com.apple.mouse.scaling" = "2.5";

The slowest speed shown in System Preferences is 0.0 and the highest is 3.0

You can change the speed by editing the plist directly or with defaults, but you have to log out and back in.

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling -float 2.1

This AppleScript code would change the speed immediately:

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal pane "com.apple.preference.mouse"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"
    set value of slider 3 of window 1 to 9.0 -- maximum, minimum is 0.0
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"

EDIT:
    defaults find mouse
will search your default domains, keys, and values for the word mouse, without the need to pipe to grep.


Is it bad that my MacBook Air is passing me electricity? Whenever my MacBook Air is connected to the AC power and I have my hands on the palm rest, I feel it passes some electricity to me. If I unplug it from the AC power it stops doing that.

This has recently became obvious, when other people can feel this tingling by touching my skin after I've been working for a while.

I have two questions:

1- Is this normal in unibody Macs?

2- Is this harmful for my health in the long run?

Electrical current passed from e.g. a MacBook Air can be avoided by plugging your Mac into a grounded power outlet. I sometimes get this too when using a non-grounded power outlet.

I am assuming you are referring to being able to sense "vibrations" as you e.g. slowly and lightly move your fingers upwards on the palm rest?

I have found that when I have my Macbook Pro plugged into a non-grounded outlet and I touch something that grounds me - e.g. a radiator, I can feel the vibrations. If I stop touching the radiator, the vibrations cease!


What is the USB plug on the Mini-Display Port to Dual-DVI adapter used for? http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB571Z/A/mini-displayport-to-dual-link-dvi-adapter

What is the USB plug used for?

The Dual Link DVI connector is an active adapter, and requires a power source (which Mini-DP cannot supply). It uses the USB as a source of power to power the adapter.


How to create a bootable USB Drive that will boot on BOTH an Intel Mac and a PC I recently created a bootable USB Thumb Drive containing a Linux Live Distro. I created it on a PC running Windows and tested it successfully on the same PC.
Now I want to run the same Linux OS on my Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip, using the same Thumb drive.
I booted into Recovery mode to allow booting from an external drive.
After restarting and holding the option key, I got a choice of "Macintosh HD" or "EFI Boot". I chose "EFI Boot".

After what looked like a Mac loading bar, I finally got the following message: "Unable to verify startup disk."

My question is: How can I create a bootable Linux USB drive (read-only, I don't need to persist anything to the drive) that will reliably let me boot it both on my Mac and a PC device ? Do I need a specific Disk Format ? Do I need to create it with a specific software?

In my Mac's Startup Security Utility, I had selecte "Allow booting from external media", but not "No Security" from the section above called "Secure Boot". Once I had selected "No Security" as well, I was able to boot from by thumb drive (FAT32).


New Touch Sync Problems Setup: Windows 10 64-bit, iTunes 12.7.0.166, iPod Classic 160Gb. I have several gigabytes of music, podcasts and audiobooks in iTunes, all of which I have been syncing to the Classic for years, without problems.

I now have a new Touch 128Gb (iOS 10.3.1). I have tried several times to sync everything* to this device, but without success. iTunes shows that it is copying many items for a long time and then "finishes", but it seems that nothing or only a few gigabytes have been copied. If I try to sync again, I sometimes get an error message about failing to start the sync.

I am now updating the Touch to iOS 11 in the hopes that this will fix it.

What else could I try?

*I have selected to sync all music, all episodes of all podcasts and all audiobooks.

I would sync one album or one playlist. That lets you know everything is fine on the overall OS and hardware connection  level.

From there, add or subtract tracks to sync until you locate the problematic ones that cause the sync to fail.


How to add a Service to Accessibility permissions I have a Quick Action which I wrote in Automator (it runs an AppleScript). It is launching from a keyboard shortcut correctly (using this).

However, when I try to give it permissions in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility, it won't allow me to select the workflow file (it's grey'd out).

Is there any way to achieve this?

Launch an AppleScript from a keyboard shortcut
AND allow it to send keystrokes (so give it Accessibility permissions)

Here's the roundabout way I achieved it.

In Automator write your application, and save it as an Application (foo.app)
In Automator, create a separate Quick Action. Get that Quick Action to launch the previous Application you created (launchfoo.workflow)
System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility: Add foo.app to the permissions
System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services: Give launchfoo a shortcut


Why does Eclipse launch so slowly on Mac OS X? I noticed sometime after updating to Yosemite that Eclipse now launches very slowly. It takes 30 seconds to a minute to get to the startup splash screen, and after that it spends a minute or two initializing itself before the IDE comes up.

I've seen this issue even after updating Eclipse. I went from Luna to Mars to Mars.1 and it is still a problem. I have a number of perspectives installed (Java, C/C++, Python, and JS), but these were installed and working admirably before the issue started.

Tried a few things mentioned in this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/316265/how-can-you-speed-up-eclipse

Increasing the amount of memory for the launcher and application in eclipse.ini (ctrl-click application -> Show Package Contents)
Updated Eclipse and all plugins

I noticed immediately after changing eclipse.ini, Eclipse opens a lot faster. On subsequent launches it is slow again.

I was able to resolve the issue.

I inspected the logs and noticed the PyDev plugin was searching for a Python 2.5 interpreter (which had been installed on previous OS X installations). After I removed the Python 2.5 interpreter from PyDev's list of configured interpreters, the issue vanished.


How do I change my icloud **I want to change my Icloud account because my phone is cracked and its covered with damages,i want to do this so i can trade my phone in for a different phone and for some reason it will not let me put in my email they always say my password or email is wrong but its not. Please help me change my icloud i really want a new phone. I already tried millions of times, So i cant figure out my password to my icloud because i forgot it but then i remember but then it said my icloud password was still wrong i dont get it.

If you want to know your data is secure and don’t trust the passcode to protect it when you sell it, connect to a computer and restore it.

Otherwise, power it off and then use any computer to remove the lock.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201441


How do I move GarageBand's Lessons and other libraries to another drive? I'd like to move GarageBand's lessons ("Learn to Play") to another drive. How do I tell GarageBand where to look to find the files?

Some context : I removed my Late 2009 MacBook's SuperDrive and now have two internal drives, a SSD drive on which I boot and the original internal drive. The "Learn to Play" directory in /Library/Application Support/GarageBand is now 7GB and I haven't downloaded all the lessons I want. It is on the SSD drive, but I need to save space on that disk. I think that for the lessons it is less important to have a fast drive than for the loops and instruments (but maybe I'm wrong?), so I'd like to move them to the other drive.

Quit GarageBand
Move /Library/Application\ Support/GarageBand/Learn\ to\ Play/ to another drive
Open Terminal
Type ln -s followed by a space
Drag the folder created in the second step into the Terminal window to insert the path
add /Library/Application\ Support/GarageBand/Learn\ to\ Play and press Enter

Test it both the external drive connected and disconnected to be sure GarageBand doesn't have a problem with the LearnToPlay content not being available.


Determine the exact date of creation of an Apple ID Is it possible to determine the exact date and time (if possible) of creation of an Apple ID?

Is there any official or unofficial way to establish this if you don't have the initial sign up information recorded?

You can request a copy of your data that Apple has (Apple ID account and Device Information) by visiting https://privacy.apple.com.  It can take up to 7 days to prepare the report and you will have up to 14 days once it's ready to download it before it's deleted.
You will need to login with your Apple ID, password and two-factor authentication token.  You will be able to select what data you wish to download.
Select Data to be downloaded...

You will then receive an email from Apple confirming the request...

When you Receive your report.
My report came in 4 days after the request. It was an email message that takes you to a secure Apple website (you must authenticate) and will allow you to download your report.
There were 3 files in mine.  The Apple ID & Account Information.csv is the file of interest.

After opening it in your application of choice (Excel or Pages is probably best), you will find a "Created Date" for your Apple ID in chronological order.  So, looking at mine, my ID was created 5/13/2009 (not the actual date, I changed it for this answer).  It includes the time as well; select the cell to see the time stamp.

Why so many entries?  Everytime you update something, your address, your credit card info, your sharing, etc. it creates an entry.  So, you may see many entries for the same Apple ID.
This report will provide you with every bit of information with respect to your Apple ID account info from creation to the last update.  A lot of columns were hidden for privacy, but I encourage you to explore the report(s) to see what data is collected.


Close empty desktop/spaces I usually end up with a lot of empty desktop/spaces upon disconnecting external monitors.

Is there an easy way to close all desktop/spaces that don't have any application windows on them?

Aside from the usual way, going into Mission Control and closing each individual Space, I don't believe so.  You can speed this up and hold the option key down and this will keep the (x) to close the Desktops shown so you don't have to hover over the selected Desktop and wait for it to show itself.

The only way that I would think you might be able close them all at once without performing the above process is probably with an Automator script or AppleScript.


What's the best way to install command line utilities such as GIT? I'm a Windows/Linux guy that just got my Macbook Air. I do web dev, and am currently trying to setup this machine for some on-the-go development.

After some research attempts, I'm wondering: what's the best way to install command line utilities in Lion, such as GIT? Best as in easiest to install, maintain, upgrade etc.

As I understand it, there are some alternatives: macports, homebrew etc. Or in the GIT example, maybe just download the installer from their website.

Thanks.

Git's bundled with the free version of Xcode 4 on the app store. That's about as easy and official as it gets in my book. You won't do wrong by choosing homebrew as it's solid and got great momentum plus mindshare presently.


How can playlists be preserved in iTunes? Steps to reproduce.

Turn off importing of tracks to iTunes Library
Import Tracks
Create playlists
Change file names or move files
Have broken playlists

I understand why this happens. It's because of the nature of linked files. Is there any way to have the playlists maintain integrity or fix them?  It seems even when I use iCloud music the playists are "brittle" and can easily break.

The best way to preserve your playlists is to manage them, as far as possible, within iTunes.

It seems to me from your question and comment that the biggest issue arises when you rename a file you've previously added to a playlist. However, instead of renaming the file within your operating system, you should do it within iTunes. One way to do this is:

Within iTunes right-click on the song
From the context menu that appears, select Get Info (or Info)
This brings up all of the metadata for the song, including the field for its name
Rename the song
Click OK

Managing all of this via iTunes will ensure you don't break your playlists.

Also, you may want to check your advanced settings within iTunes and play with the Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to the iTunes Media folder when adding to library options to determine what works best for you.


Is the Original AppleTV (First Gen) compatible with iTunes 11? I am afraid to update my Mac to iTunes 11 since I still use an original AppleTV (the old one with the hard drive) on one of my televisions. Does anyone know if the original AppleTV is compatible with iTunes 11?

I ended up testing this myself.

Syncing content works
Restoring the device works

I haven't exhaustively tested everything possible, but I did write up what I have tested in more detail on my blog.

iTunes 11 appears to work fine with first generation AppleTV


Finder folder icon showing items count when empty In OSX 10.9.1, I have a folder on the desktop which is empty in the Finder view, but the icon info says '8 items' – see screen grab:

I have checked for invisible files via search>show invisible and with an FTP app which lists files including those beginning with a dot (which are usually hidden), but cannot see 8 files.

Is this a known bug with desktop icons? Is there a solution? It's infuriating when deleting folders and wanting to make absolutely sure not to lose files.

You must have a Folder Action script that does that, but it is not working correctly.

Right Click on the Folder "Ref"

Scroll down in pop up to Services,

new pop shows up

Click on the Folder Action setup

again a new window will pop up showing the scripts

This is what they look on 10.9.2 without any modifications by me

If you have any other script, just simply uncheck it or use Edit if you know what you doing.


Error while installing Homebrew on Lion I started installing Homebrew on my Mac Lion v10.7.4 but got the following error.

==> Downloading and Installing Homebrew...
Failed during: Error: /usr/bin/xcode-select returned unexpected error. init -q

I ran the following command as mentioned on Homebrew website:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSkL raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)"

I tried to search for solutions for this error but nothing relevant came up. How can this be fixed?

Thanks.

Check that you have the Xcode command line tools installed. See Homebrew installation page.


Can you help me cure font outlines (as opposed to the font itself) showing up in webpages? I am having some issues with fonts rendering improperly across browsers. Essentially i am just getting outlines, an example can be viewed her.

For example on this page. http://book.cakephp.org/view/1442/link all of the navigation links in the teal bar appear as outlines.. as do the main nav items on the left side of the  screen. this is how my browser is showing this page

My first attempt at fixing this involved removing all duplicate fonts on my system ( there were a couple ) but that did not seem to fix it. A friend of said it was might be a conflict between Helvetica and Helvetica Neue installed but i need both of those fonts.. any suggestions?

You need to empty your font cache and restart--and there are a variety of utilities, some free, that will do this for you.


Safari 10.1 doesn’t display the page correctly: Safari 10.1 doesn’t display the page correctly in part that the picture and title that supposed  to be on the middle and display properly on Fair Fox and  Chrome displayed on the side of the screen.

I find a similar question on Apple Communities:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/31621999#31621999

The suggested solution is to Restore Standard Fonts:

  Try Applications > Font Book > File > Restore Standard Fonts

But I could not find where in  Applications > the Font Book  File located.

How do I  find it or use it in another solution to fix formatting issues in Safari 10.1?

//EDITED

<style type="text/css">
    .pics-wrapper {
  display: -ms-flexbox;
  display: -webkit-flex;
  display: flex;
  -webkit-justify-content: center;
  -ms-justify-content: center;
  justify-content: center;
  -webkit-flex-direction: row;
  -ms-flex-direction: row;
  flex-direction: row;
}

.pics-wrapper: width: 851px;

table {
  display: -ms-flexbox;
  display: -webkit-flex;
  display: flex;
  -webkit-justify-content: center;
  -ms-justify-content: center;
  justify-content: center;
}

.left-pics p,
.right-pics p
.bottom-pic p
{
  display: -ms-flexbox;
  display: -webkit-flex;
  display: flex;
  -webkit-flex-direction: row;
  -ms-flex-direction: row;
  flex-direction: row;

}

.left-pics img,
.right-pics img
.bottom-pic img
{
  padding:2px;
}

@media (max-width:960px) {
 .left-pics p,
 .right-pics p
 .bottom-pic p
 {
  -webkit-flex-direction: column;
  -ms-flex-direction: column;
  flex-direction: column;
 }
   }

It seems like you've run into a bug with the Safari renderer. Resize the window vertically and the page reflows correctly. Resize horizontally and the page extends horizontally incorrectly. I'd avoid using tables for layout and stick to using flex.

Extract the image out of the table layout. Replace the following from your code:

    &nbsp;

    &nbsp;

with the following:

Then add the following CSS to .pics-wrapper: width: 851px;.

The solution referred to in your link (not that it would solve the problem here but it's something you asked for) is as follows:

Open the Font Book app from the Applications folder.

Choose the File menu followed by Restore Standard Fonts.


Advice to use a Mac Mini without display, but using an iPad (sidecar / screen sharing / remote desktop?) I'm considering buying an iMac mini for storage (to archive my Photo library, so not like a server but to log in incidentally and make backups). Because I will not use it often, I thought of the following procedure to use the iPad as the display for the Mac.

Boot the Mac mini without display.
Connect to the Mac with Screen Sharing (with a different iPad/iPhone/Mac).
With the VNC viewer, connect the iPad I want to use with sidecar to the Mac.
Use the Mac with sidecar.

What are your thoughts on this setup?
One of the things I don't know for sure is if I can directly connect and log in to the Mac mini with VNC directly after booting.

All advice on how to do this is very welcome, also if you have different suggestions for connecting the iPad to the Mac mini.

What you want to do is entirely possible (in fact, it's pretty close to what I do).  There are a few things to be aware of.

For initial set up you will need to connect your MacMini to a monitor, keyboard and mouse.  Once you've set it up you can hide it away (provided that you have a good flow of air for cooling) and connect from your iPad.
Due to some oddity in macOS or in the Mac Mini yourself, you won't get full performance in this configuration.  To get full performance you will need to connect a dongle to your Mac's monitor port to make it think that it has a monitor connected.  Weird, no?  But it works.  Something like this. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=CompuLab+Display+Emulator&ref=nb_sb_noss

Enjoy.


Is it possible to detect which frequency band the iPhone is using I am currently travelling in a remote area. My iPhone 5S can see my carrier with good signal strength, and I can access 3G data. My wife's iPhone 4 can't even see the network, even for voice calls.

Both phones were purchased unlocked from the Apple store.

There is obviously some difference in the capabilities of the different generation phones. What are these? Is is possible to detect which frequency band the phone is currently operating on?

Not direct software solution but on the back of your iphone there are is a Model number, on my Iphone 5s it is A1530.  Different models are supplied in different countries according to the frequency bands licensed there. If you google that number with model of iphone and or frequency band you will find information as to what frequency bands your specific hardware supports.


Is it possible to use Ethernet connection on Mac without battery draining? I'm using a Macbook Pro 15" 2018 model. I want to use wired Internet connection with it. I've tried using 2 different USB-C hubs to accomplish this, both are USB-C to Ethernet plus some USB-A 3.0 ports (SD card reader slots on one of them). They both drained the battery life on my Mac by a lot, like roughly halved it or so even though I only used the Ethernet port on them.

Today I also got a pure USB-C to Ethernet adapter (not a hub). It seems to not drain the battery as much as the hubs but still has the same problem. I was hoping it would be better and I'll test it some more tomorrow.

The thing is that without the Internet connection through a USB-C to Ethernet port the battery life is just fine. It seems that it's as good as advertised, actually, more like 10 hours or so. I haven't done a real test to see how long it actually lasts before it shuts down, but it's still significantly better. Even Wi-Fi seems to use less power than USB-C to Ethernet.

Does anyone know a solution to this? Are USB-C to Ethernet connections on Mac bound to drain battery? Or could it be a software issue? I've tried searching the Internet a lot for a fix but it seems like a lot of people don't even have this problem with these kinds of adapters.

Thank you so much for any help, and kindest regards.

It might be possible that some software is using up battery power. It can be checked in Activity Monitor under the Energy tab.
Under same app usage, ethernet adapter consumes more power.

The Ethernet dongle can be using up to 2.5 watts, that's 2500mW.....native ethernet connections typically use a lot less, but the dongle to ethernet requires MORE power, ..hence more power out when using the AIR thru the ethernet dongle.
Wi-Fi in GENERAL consumes between 10 mW and 800 mW (transmitting full bandwidth); NATIVE Wired ethernet consumes 200mW to 1W

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5194898


Why does my curl command fail when run through applescript but work fine when I run directly in a terminal? I am trying to write an applescript to control an installed projector using it's built in web interface. I have a curl command that pings the appropriate URL and can controll the projector as needed from the command line, when I build this into an applescript (required by my show control software) I
My applescript currently looks like this:
set theUrl to "http://192.168.0.103/cgi-bin/proj_ctl.cgi?key=shutter_on&lang=e&osd=on"
set theUsername to "dispadmin" -- set this to the username for the projector
set thePassword to "password" --set this to the password for the projector

set myFile to (POSIX path of (path to temporary items)) & "curl_downloaded_file.xml"

set curlScript to "/usr/bin/curl --connect-timeout 1 --anyauth --user" & " " & theUsername & ":" & thePassword & " -L " & theUrl & " -o " & myFile

display dialog "my variable: " & curlScript

do shell script curlScript

The display dialog line is for debugging to show what the curl command will look like, when I run this I get the following:
/usr/bin/curl --connect-timeout 1 --anyauth --user dispadmin:password -L http://192.168.0.103/cgi-bin/proj_ctl.cgi?key=shutter_on&lang=e&osd=on -o /private/var/folders/zs/f1hpkd2x281fvzyh4zd5dpcw0000gn/T/TemporaryItems/curl_downloaded_file.xml

Which seems correct. If I add quote marks around the URL I can run this command in the terminal with no issues and get the desired effect, however the Applescript will then continue to spit out the following error:
error "sh: -o: command not found
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed

  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100   350  100   350    0     0  38888      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 38888

100   267    0   267    0     0   5235      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  5235" number 127

This looks like curl is running but it doesn't hit the projector's web server to trigger the controll, also the error "sh: -o: command not found makes me think that the command isn't being parsed/passed correctly.
What am I doing wrong here?

While
http://192.168.0.103/cgi-bin/proj_ctl.cgi?key=shutter_on&lang=e&osd=on

works fine in a browser, it does not in a shell.
To resolve the issue you need to quote the URL.
In set curlScript to ... change theUrl to either theUrl's quoted form or: quoted form of theUrl


make a certain file type hidden I am trying to find a way to make my mac see .dSYM files as hidden. I know I could do:

chflags hidden / -name *.dSYM

but the next time I create a .dSYM file it wont be hidden. There must be a way to tell finder to hide a certain file type (all currently on my machine, plus all that I will create in the future).

I am assuming that just because it is hidden, it wont affect my ability to use the .dSYM files when I am running cgdb in terminal? Or do the have to be not hidden for cgdb to be able to find them?

(I am on Mountain Lion)

AFAIK there isn't a direct way to do this. There are several alternatives though:

Folder Actions: Create a folder action (which gets triggered upon each change in a folder) to run the chflags command if needed. As Folder Actions only apply to to one folder this needs an Action for every folder you create .dSYM files in
launchd: Use WatchPaths to run a script whenever one of the listed paths is modified
Hazel: Hazel is kind of like Folder Actions on steroids and allows you to create actions based on various rules

PS: cgdb isn't affected, chflags only makes files invisible on Finder level (and in Open/Save dialogs).


How to map buttons on my mouse with AppleScript? Since BetterTouchTool is becoming paid, I was looking for an alternative solutions to map my navigation buttons (prev. page, next page) on my mouse (Logitech MX518) that I enjoy using for browsing websites. Right now these two button perform the same action like pressing the scroll wheel.

I already tried Logitech's own software but that seems to be a rather overkill solution and apart from using too much resources, it is also too obtrusive while booting up.

So I was wondering if there is an easy solution with AppleScript that I could write to just do this trick of mapping a button on my mouse to possibly a swipe gesture (like on trackpads)?

Karabiner, which Joonas suggested, natively has back/forward options for buttons 4 and 5. You do not have to create a xtml file.
The option is under 'pointing device' > 'button to key' > 'use button 4 and 5 as back/forward'.
I have only used it for 30 minutes so far, but it worked straight away by just activating those checkmarks (mouse: ttesports black v2)


How to take screenshots in rapid succession Spamming cmd-shift-3 only takes a screenshot every second or so.
How can I take screenshots more frequently than this? So that e.g. double-tapping cmd-shift-3 will take two screenshots?
I remember being able to take fast screenshots in the past, maybe before Big Sur or Catalina.

⇧⌘3 works as fast as I can press in Big Sur 11.4 Beta 1 and I don't remember having this issue on previous versions of Big Sur.
Try with a new user account to rule out interference from a running app.


Wi-Fi Through Captive Portal Does Not Connect I have a Macbook Pro running OS X Yosemite 10.10.2. My university uses a captive portal to connect via Wi-Fi.
I was able to connect and log in just fine, but after I updated from 10.10.1 to 10.10.2, I can connect and get a valid IP but I cannot access the log in page through the captive portal. When I try to display the log in page from the browser (I have tried Safari, Firefox and Chrome) the result is the same. I get the server not found error on the browsers and the website couldn't be loaded error on the captive portal.

I am able to connect and login to the network using my iPhone and I can connect to other networks from my Mac.
Manually deleting the network configuration files and resetting DNS did not work.

I hope there is a way to fix this.
Thanks in advance.

ps. I use a MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), 15-inch, Early 2013

I found a solution to the captive portal problem with 10.10.2...

Connect to the internet via iPhone and USB cable.
Now also connect to the wifi network with the captive portal. Change the default route to use the wifi.
Now the laptop uses the phone for DNS requests, but routes other traffic via the wifi interface.
Authenticate on the captive portal page.
Unplug the phone and restart the wifi.

With a bit of luck the captive portal should remember you and you should be able to use just the wifi interface.

My best guess is that the DNS setup process fails (no /etc/resolv.conf file) when the captive portal firewall is not letting traffic through. OS X probably does some test to see if it's on the internet (probably tries to reach a URL like captive.apple.com) and if this fails then it just stops setting up the DNS system).


How do I set OS X to boot by default? I set Windows 7 to my Boot Camp.
Windows 7 starts now by default in the normal boot.
However, I want that OSX boots by default and Windows 7 only as I press ALT and then select it.

How can you set OSX to boot by default?

You don't need to boot into OSX to change the default boot system ...

Hold down the Option key when booting, and when you see the system choices
Select your desired default boot device, then hover mouse over the up-arrow ↑
Hold down the Ctrl key and you should see the ↑ icon change to a "power on" icon
Left click on that "power icon" and that system will boot and that system will also be your default boot system.

Older versions of Boot Camp are similar, but I don't remember if the icon changes.

Official documentation here:

  If you press and hold the Control key during this step, your selection is saved in Startup Disk preferences, so it persists until you change it.


How to create numbered sub-lists in Mail application? Is it possible to create nested numbered lists in MacOS's Mail client? —e.g.:

1. Foo
    1.1. Foo is cool
    1.2. Foo is great
2. Bar
    2.1. Bar is not so cool
    2.2. Bar is not so great

I've been trying but all attempts so far have failed. This is very basic stuff. There must be a way.

I'm using MacOS Sierra (10.12.6) and Mail version 10.3 (3273).

In the Mail app go to the Format menu and click on lists and then on 'insert numbered list'. Go to your mail and enter text for the 1st item in the list. Now go back to the Format menu item and click on lists again and this time click on 'Increase List Level'. This will create sublists. See image below.

To go back to 1st level use Format/Lists/decrease list level.  You can create as many sublevels as you desire.


How to import self-signed certificate over SSH? (bounty) I'm trying to remotely (SSH) import a custom certificate into Firefox and/or Chrome. It looks a similar question has been asked before, but didn't get an answer. I put a 150 point bounty on it in hopes of someone being motivated to answer it. This is a work-related thing, so I could really use some help. The cert I created with done like so:

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.key -out /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt

I'm basically trying to import and fully trust the cert using Terminal. Is this possible?

There's quite a few ways you can do it easiest way would be to get a chrome Dev browser and then connect the two users together with separate names you encrypted the certificate as you clear using Firefox tabs in Chrome Dev


Can't start up MacBook Pro from OS X install discs I wanted to re-install my mid-2010 15-inch MacBook Pro (Intel Core i7 2.66 gHz 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM) which is currently running Mac OS X 10.6.8.

I inserted the retail Mac OS X 10.6 install disc, and held the C button on my keyboard to boot the machine. The disc can be heard spinning up, and the grey Apple logo appears. However, the computer hangs at that step, there was no grey spinning wheel and the installer never starts. After a few minutes, I can hear the disc SPIN DOWN, and the machine still sits at the Apple logo after more than 40 minutes.

To boot from the install disc, I also tried (1) holding down the Alt key during boot to choose the disc, and (2) using System Preferences to set the disc as the startup disc. However, the boot still hangs at the grey Apple logo.

To diagnose the problem, I tried other startup discs, including my retail Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard install disc. They all hang at the grey Apple logo.

Also, just to see if it was a problem with my optical drive, I followed instructions to use Disk Utility to make a disc image of the install disc, and "restore" that image to an USB flash drive. I am see and choose to boot from the USB drive when I hold down Alt during startup, but again it hangs at the grey Apple logo.

Next, I ran Micromat TechTool Deluxe that came with my AppleCard protection plan to check my hardware, all tests passed. I also held the D button during boot to run the Apple Hardware Test, again it found no problems.

Finally, I tried to reset the NVRAM with no success, and I used Disk Utility to verify the internal hard drive which produced the following message:

Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Invalid volume file count
(It should be 1071709 instead of 1071710)
Invalid volume directory count
(It should be 200209 instead of 200208)
The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disc), and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk.

I installed Applejack to fix the problem and scan my computer again. Nonetheless the problem remains...

Is there anything else I can do to get my MacBook Pro to boot from the install disc? Thank you very much!

P.S. As an additional test, I booted other Macs with the install discs I have, they all worked fine...

The MBP model you have shipped with version 10.6.3 build 10D2094 -- this is a special build of 10.6.3 with support for that model (and probably some others released at the same time) added. Anything older, including the standard build of 10.6.3, won't have drivers/config info/etc for that model, and hence cannot boot it. It sounds like your retail disk has an older version, so it won't work on that Mac.

If you have the installer DVD that came with the computer, you can use that. Otherwise, if you have another (older) Mac with FireWire, there's a trick you can use: start your computer with the T key held down, and it'll go into target disk mode, which essentially means it turns its brain off and acts as an external FireWire hard disk. Connect it (via FireWire) to an older Mac, start the older Mac from your retail 10.6 DVD, and have it install onto the "external disk" -- the MBP. Then, restart the old Mac from the "external disk" (the MBP should still be in target mode at this point), and update to 10.6.8. Now that the OS on the MBP's disk is new enough to support it, shut everything down (older Mac, then the MBP) and restart everything from its regular disk.


How to get mp4 files from my PC to my iPad 2 I have some .m4v videos (I believe this is mp4 format?).  In iTunes (v10.5.0) on my PC (Windows 7 - 64 bit), I did a 'add file to library' and they appear under TV shows under library.

Then I did a sync with my iPad.  They do not seem to appear in my iPad (iPad 2, now running iOS 5).  The rest of the sync seems to go fine (i.e. recent songs are added to iPad, apps are all fine).  There is no error or warning message. Either I'm failing to see them in the iPad (I looked under TV shows and some other places, where should I look?), or they weren't really pushed to the iPad.

Perhaps the format is not supported or some other problem?  Like I said, no warning or error.  Finally, I should mention that in iTunes under "Dave's iPad", they appear under TV Shows.

How can I see my .mp4 files on the iPad?

The sordid state of app names for Audio / Video is kind of annoying in iOS' history.

On the iPhone, before iOS 5, there was an iPod icon, which did audio and video.
On the iPod touch, no matter the version, there have always been separate 'Music' and 'Video' icons.
On the iPad, before iOS 5, there was an iPod icon, which only did audio, and there was a seperate Video icon for videos.

As of iOS 5, all devices now have separate "Music" and "Video" app icons. At least they're consistent now…


Temporarily turn off all notifications on iPhone I don't want my iPhone to vibrate, show me banners, etc., when I toggle the desired setting.

I tried Do Not Disturb but I don't find it solving the intended purpose.

How can I turn off all notifications temporarily? Is there some feature that's easy-accessible from Control Centre?

I want to watch videos online (in Safari) and not get interrupted by notifications during this.

There is no single settings/toggle that will let you turn off/on all notifications on your iPhone. The way notification are implemented in iOS, you are limited to configure them on a per app basis only.

A couple potential solutions are:

Turn on Do Not Disturb. This will have a side effect of suppressing any regular phone calls.

Make sure to set Allow Calls From to Everyone under Do Not Disturb settings. This will suppress all the notification banners while you are watching videos/playing games in full screen, while keeping the phone function active.

Once you have configured Do Not Disturb as above, you can easily toggle the setting via the Control Center icon.
Turn off Internet connectivity by toggling Wi-Fi/Mobile data from Settings app or Control Centre.

The second approach will have a drawback that you won't be able to access the Internet. Also, turning off Internet connectivity won't suppress local notifications.

However, disconnecting from Internet is possibly the best way to temporarily cut-off from the barrage of notification that one receives, while keeping the basic phone functionality (calling + SMS) active.


Unlinking a work laptop from my personal Apple devices I own an iPad and an iPhone. I also have a work MacBook Air laptop which I will be returning to the owners soon. How do I stop this device linking to my personal iPad and iPhone?

Your best bet would be to follow these steps on the MacBook Air:

Backup any data you may want to keep (including data on iCloud)
Open iTunes
From the menu bar go to Account > Authorizations > Deauthorize This Computer
Enter your Apple ID and password
Click Deauthorise
Now also go to Apple > System Preferences
Click on the iCloud preference pane
If it's selected, then deselect the Find My Mac checkbox
Now totally sign out of iCloud
Exit System Preferences
Launch the Messages app
Go to Messages > Preferences > Accounts
Select the Accounts tab
Sign out of any personal accounts
Follow these steps to reinstall macOS

Now you're MacBook Air is ready to hand back.

OPTIONAL: If you can't do Step 15 (e.g. you're not allowed to, etc) then you could also do the following (assuming you're allowed to):

Go to Apple > System Preferences > Users & Groups
Click on the + sign to add a new account. When you do, ensure that it is an Administrator account.
Exit System Preferences
Restart the Mac and login to the new user account you just created
Once you're logged in, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups
Click on the - button to delete your original account. Select the appropriate option and click on Delete User.

Now your MacBook Air is ready to hand back.


Automatically assign DNS How do I ensure that the DNS is being set by the network?

On Windows I would check here and make sure that Obtain DNS server address automatically was selected:

Open System Preferences and click the Network icon.

Select your network in the list on the left, and make sure that it says "Using DHCP" in the drop-down list after "Configure IPv4:"

If you've made any changes, click the "Apply" button and then the "Show All" button to make sure everything is saved.


Warnings after changing Sudden Motion Sensor with pmset I'm following the Optimisation Guide from Avid for my Pro Tools software.

On the Disable Sudden Motion Sensor section, I get these errors after entering sudo pmset -a sms 0 in Terminal for turning the Sudden Motion Sensor off:

Warning: Idle sleep timings for "Battery Power: may not behave as expected. - Disk sleep should be non-zero whenever system sleep is non-zero.
Warning: Idle sleep timings for "AC Power" may not behave as expected. Disk sleep should be non-zero whenever system sleep is non-zero.

I then typed: sudo pmset -g to verify it it had worked (as per the guide's instruction) and got this:

Battery Power       -1*
AC Power        -1
Currently in use:
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 halfdim              1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 powernap             0
 gpuswitch            2
 disksleep            0
 sleep                2 (sleep prevented by coreaudiod, com.apple.WebKit.WebContent)
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 hibernatemode        3
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         2
 acwake               0
 lidwake              1

I have no idea what any of  this means (the errors or the table).

Being worried, I then re-enabled the Sudden Motion Sensor using: sudo pmset -a sms 1, however, I was met with the same two errors messages that I posted above when turning it off.

I'm a bit worried, have I messed something up and how do I correct these errors?

Note

The message sleep prevented by coreaudiod, com.apple.WebKit.WebContent, did not appear a 2nd time when repeating. No idea what this is either.

System: Macbook Early 2015 13" Retina OS X El Capitan 11.6

I worked it out, it was due to Turn display off after x settings. Setting it to Never fixed this.

I'm the creator of this post. I'd close the thread but it won't let me log back into the account. Feel free to delete it.


Strange characters appearing in Terminal When using Terminal, I sometimes get the following appearing.

Last login: Fri Dec 27 22:04:56 on ttys002
ޕ:~ agrimm$ cd ruby
ޕ:ruby agrimm$ cd ..
ޕ:~ agrimm$ cd ruby/
ޕ:ruby agrimm$ pwd
/Users/agrimm/ruby
ޕ:ruby agrimm$

With the following screenshot (in which it can be seen that the order of text isn't correct)

I'm using "Default login shell" in my Terminal settings.

The files mentioned in this answer seem normal. /etc/profile seems normal. ~/.bash_profile seems normal apart from rbenv, homebrew, and Java stuff:

# Commented out lines not included
if which rbenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(rbenv init -)"; fi
export PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/bin
export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6 -a x86_64`

~/.bash_login doesn't exist

~/.profile seems fairly normal:

# MacPorts Installer addition on 2009-12-30_at_14:40:02: adding an appropriate PATH variable for use with MacPorts.
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
# Finished adapting your PATH environment variable for use with MacPorts.

I'm using Snow Leopard. uname -a gives the following:

Darwin ޕ 10.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun  7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386 i386

The problem seems to occasionally appear and disappear.

How do I fix the strange characters and the order of text being wrong?

I believe the name of the volume is causing the issue. Normally the prompt would be like:

$ cd ~
volume:~ user$

$ cd /
volume:/ user$

Your prompt appears similar, but like this:

ޕ:~ agrimm$

Which leads me to believe the volume has an odd character in it's name.


"All" missing from favorites bar in mail on Mavericks I used to have a choice "All" on the favorites bar in Mail on Mavericks. (This is on an iMac). It has disappeared.  Is there a way to get it back?

You can try dragging all mail from the sidebar up to the favourites bar:


How do I use Mac's Preview application text speech feature? How could I let Preview start speaking a selected paragraph? I found the speech menu item in the edit menu but this starts speaking from the beginning of the document!

There is a convenient way of making your Mac speak any selected text.

Open System Preferences.
Select Speech.
Select the Text to Speech tab if it is not already selected.
Check the box for Speak selected text when the key is pressed and provide a key combination of your choice.

You can now use the key combination to speak selected text system-wide.


Where are iOS 5 Camera Roll folders stored when synced with Windows? iOS 5 has introduced the ability to create folders in the image library, and copy pictures from the camera roll to these folders.

When synced on a PC (on Windows 7), where are those pictures stored? How can they be managed on the computer?

I'd like to find them to be able to save them, and add/remove some pictures from those folders.

I know the way to add "hard" folders to the image library from the PC, but those can't be managed on the iPhone.

The sync image location would be the same as the one you have selected as your Sync folder via iTunes Photo sync. I have also found a less complicated - drag/drop method for a two-way iPhone photo transfer between your device and the PC. It is less of a hassle since you can manage your iPhone photos, add and move them around and sync them to your PC directly from your computer.


Windows 8 won't recognize audio device on Macbook Pro (late) 2011 I just installed Windows 8 on my MacBook Pro, I then installed the Windows Support drivers and everything works great except for one thing, the audio. It doesn't recognize the audio device in my Macbook.

I've tried downloading the Cirrus audio drivers and installing them manually, but it still won't work.

Has anybody had any success getting audio working on a late 2011 MacBook Pro running Windows 8?

Yes, it worked for me, however- I had to go back into bootcamp and download the Win setup drivers again and grab them from inside the display folder ( I am assuming from that that they are part of the graphics card). It did not like the ones downloaded from the web.


Use hdmi equipped TV/projector as a Mac monitor I have a TV with hdmi inputs, and I have an old Mac Book Pro with DVI output, and I'm going to buy a new Mac Book Pro which has mini DVI output.

When I want to use TV/projector with hdmi inputs as an external monitor, is it just simply connect them with dvi to hdmi connector?

If so, what vendors are favored with reasonable price?
If not, what equipment do I need to connect them?

New MacBook Pros don't have mini DVI; they have mini DisplayPort. You'll need a mini DisplayPort to HDMI adaptor (third party; Apple don't make one), and it will need to also have an audio connector since mini DisplayPort doesn't include an audio signal.


How to use your iPad as an input pen tablet paired with an iMac? I currently own an iPad pro with an Apple Pencil, and I must say that Apple Pencil's accuracy is one of the best in the market. I am an illustartor and I don't have any WACOM tablets right now, so can I use my iPad as the input tablet and use it just like any other digital pen table and make illustrations in Adobe illustrator?

This is possible with some commercial 3rd party apps:

Duet Display is an iOS / OS X app combo (about $20) that makes it possible to use an iPad as an external monitor connected to your mac. The "Pro" version (about $20 per year) provides the requested feature to use the iPad as a graphics tablet. By "mirroring" to the external monitor (iPad) in display settings, one gets the same view on the graphics tablet as on the Mac's screen.
Astropad is another combo (about $30) that focuses more on the graphics tablet idea. You cannot use it as an external monitor, but define an area of your Mac's screen that is mirrored to the tablet.  Apparently, the basic version can already be used as a graphics tablet, but the "Studio" version (about $80 per year) provides dedicated Apple pencil support for the iPad Pro, support for custom tool palettes and some additional gizmos.

Duet also offers a Windows version. However, according to the testimonials on the internet is has a much higher lag and is barely usable.


Unable to update Remote Desktop using App Store Apple's Remote Desktop recently updated but I'm unable to install the update from the App Store, where I get the message:

  This update is not available for this Apple ID either because it was bought by a different user or the item was refunded or cancelled.

I purchased Remote Desktop before the App Store existed (or at least I think I purchased it through a different channel).

How do I update ARD if the App Store won't let me?

Is it in your purchase history? I'm guessing no.

Apple changed the policy on ARD a while ago. It went from 'serial number' to App Store, & any existing ARD on the machine should have been 'upgraded' to that at the time. Mine was showing as purchased, but not available as an update.

The App Store app was showing it as 'Open' which it wouldn't because the client had already updated to 3.9, which sent me back to the App Store -  so I was locked in an infinite loop

My fix was to trash the app [or zip it & trash] then go to it in the App Store https://itunes.apple.com/app/id409907375 which then showed it as 'Install' & I was up & running.

Alternative approach I've heard to work was - remove ARD from Apps, launch App Store, check for the ARD app, which shows as to buy, quit App Store, put ARD back in Apps & check again.

A third possibility - untested & definitely worth having a backup - see if com.apple.pkg.RemoteDesktopAdmin_AppStore either .bom or .plist exist in /private/var/db/receipts. Trash & try one of the above methods.
I'm not certain whether this is double-checked in /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist hence the backup recommendation.


Cydia WiFi Hotspot for SSH Without SIM Card I have recently jailbroken an old iPhone 4 I have and have been having a great experience with it as a device to fiddle with, however I need to be able to use it in areas where there isn't any WiFi over SSH.

Is there any tweak installable which will allow me to toggle the phone to make a WiFi Hotspot. The phone will not have a SIM Card installed to I don't care about mobile data. I simply want to connect to the phone's WiFi hotspot and SSH into its console via my iPad.

Thanks for any responses.

I don't know of a package that will let you SSH from a hotspot coming from the phone, but I think you would have an easier time starting a hotspot on your iPad connecting the phone to the hotspot & SSHing from there.


can not enter setup to receive code to move to ios from android iphone se was purchased from Verizon. Verizon setup the phone. i want to use Move to IOS. I have downloaded Move to IOS on my android device but  I am unable to access setup on the iphone. What is the solution?

You need to reset your phone. Go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.

Please note that this will remove everything on the phone.


iTunes store / Books / Column browser If I go to the Books section of the iTunes store, I see the Column browser:

If i try to go back to the standard view (my Command+B or using the menu "View" -> "Column Browser" -> "Hide Column Browser" I am redirected to the main store page. If I click back on books in the top bar, I get the books section again in Column browser mode.

How can I get rid of it?

If I do not choose the "Books" section, but instead I click on the small down-arrow near "Books" and choose a section. I get the usual view with the covers and so on.

I do not experience the problem anymore. I am now getting a normal/usual view. Since I didn't notice when it was fixed it is difficult to say if it was a bug or an issue with the Swiss iTunes store.


Is it possible to share files between iCloud Music Libraries? Previously, my wife and I shared a single iTunes store account and had iTunes match. If I added music to my library from outside iTunes, she could see it in her library and download it to her phone.

Now we have switched to Family Sharing, an Apple Music family plan, and iCloud Music Library (since our collection(s) are far larger than could fit on our phones). She signs into Apple Music with her Apple ID, I sign in with mine, and everything is great. Our customizations in Apple Music don't affect one another.  We still use the shared iTunes account on our Apple TV for kind of joint music access.

From time to time, though, either she or I acquires music from outside the iTunes store, for example directly from an artist or at bandcamp.com or what have you. Does anybody know an easy way for us to share new music additions with one another or the original joint account? The only way I have found so far is for me to AirDrop or Dropbox a folder of music files from my Mac to hers… but that requires tracking what we've downloaded, what we've shared, and for us to be in "let's do computer busywork together" mode at the same time. Even worse, since neither of us is signed into that original iTunes account, to update that library I have to sign out of iTunes on my Mac, sign in with the joint account, and add the music, then switch back, and then I have to go through the whole process of iTunes tagging my music for iCloud Music Library and waiting a long time to sync the library.

I understand the issue and simply, the answer is no.

Apple's Family Sharing is limited to iTunes purchases (music, movies, TV, books). What it does not provide is access to the main account's full iCloud Music Library. While the main account can add, access, and delete non-iTunes media to the iCloud Music Library, it cannot share that content, even with those in Family Sharing. I think it stinks and cripples the value this service.

I can only imagine this is Apple (and thusly, music industry) trying to thwart major music peer-sharing in constantly shared "Family" libraries.


Adjust Proximity Sensor back to iOS6 levels for iPhone 5 My wife recently updated her iPhone 5 to iOS 7 (from iOS 6).  After the upgrade she has had issues with the proximity sensor.

It works fine when holding the phone to her ear with her hand.  However, when she tries to pinch the phone between her head and her shoulder, the proximity sensor does not see that it is near anything and she ends up dialing keys or hanging up.

Again, this only happens when trying to hold the iPhone with her shoulder.

Your response may be, "don't do that".  But she was able to do it with iOS 6 just fine, so it is kind of hard for me to tell her that.

It is only after the upgrade to iOS 7 that she started having this issue.

So my question is, can the sensitivity of the proximity sensor be adjusted? (So I can put it back to iOS 6 levels?)

No, currently there is no way to change the proximity sensor sensitivity in iOS.

There is not even any way to change it currently in iOS 6 jailbroken, so even if a jailbreak is developed for iOS 7, it would not mean that the proximity sensor could then be customised.


Where does iTunes store the Podcast subscription info and preferences? I'm having iTunes 10.5 problems (crashes on Podcast refresh) and I've been unable to export the subscriptions (the .opml file generated is empty).

Are there text-readable iTunes podcast preferences somewhere, so I can copy the RSS URLs to another podcast client?

They're in the iTunes .plist-file on a Mac.
Since you don't specify platform, I can't offer that much. In Windows, they're almost certainly stored in a similar preference file. In Mac OS X, they're not conveniently readable.

If you just want to back up your subscription info, locating and backing up the iTunes preferences will do it. If you need to scrape/publish the subscription info, that's beyond my capabilities. Hope this at least gives you a jumping-off point.


Disable non-breaking space (Option-Space) specifically in Xcode There's a pretty general solution for disabling the non-breaking space in OS X for some apps:

https://superuser.com/questions/78245/how-to-disable-the-option-space-key-combination-for-non-breaking-spaces

Unfortunately, Xcode is not one of them, and the solution does not work.

Any ideas on how to disable Option-Space for Xcode specifically?

I'm using a slightly customized keyboard layout, created with Ukulele; perhaps it could be used to remap that particular combination?

I'd rather not use stuff like KeyRemap4Macbook (or whatever it's called), since I've experienced a considerable, unacceptable lag during typing when using that app with some remaps.

I have found a somehow dirty workaround to disable the key combination for Xcode only:

To disable alt/optspace add a new keybinding in the file  IDETextKeyBindingSet.plist in the folder /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Frameworks/IDEKit.framework/Resources.

Open the plist and add a new dictionary called 'Customized'.
Create a new child named 'Insert No Alt-Space' with type 'String' and the value 'InsertSpace:'. Save the file.

Open Xcode -> Preferences -> Key Bindings -> Customized
Highlight 'Insert No Alt-Space' -> Key and enter alt/optspace.

In the future you will get an audible error message typing the combination but nothing will be written.

Until now i haven't found a method to just insert a space instead of a non-breaking space.

Probably you have to redo the modification with every new Xcode version.


Difficulty setting the 'Open with app' to an alias I am trying to set MacVim, installed via homebrew, to be the default HEX file editor.  I started this task by creating an alias to MacVim.app located in /usr/local/Cellar/macvim/7.3-61 and placing the aliased app in /Applications.  This allowed me to see and open MacVim from the Application folder (more info here).

Now that the aliased app is there the "Open with app" selection via the RightClick->Info has the aliased app greyed out.  To make matters worse it does not allow me to browse/select the real app located in /usr/local/Cellar.

This doesn't seem to be asking to much here, any ideas on how to change this?

Not the cleanest solution, but pressing / while in the Open With dialog allowed me to get to /usr/local.  Found the solution here


Disable Trackpad and Keyboard Temporarily Is it possible to disable the trackpad and mouse temporarily while you have an external mouse and keyboard plugged in.

The keys keep getting accidentally hit while I have the mouse and keyboard plugged in.

Edit

Thank you to everyone who answered, because of this I was able to make an applescript to toggle the builtin keyboard on and off:

try
    if (display dialog "Press OK to Enable Keyboard and cancel to disable.") = {button returned:"OK"} then
        do shell script "sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/" with administrator privileges
    end if
on error msg
    do shell script "sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/" with administrator privileges
end try

For the trackpad, there’s a setting for this on 10.7 and later.

System Preferences > Accessibility > Mouse & Trackpad > “Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present”

As for the keyboard: I haven’t tested this solution for disabling the built-in keyboard and wouldn’t recommend doing it either. Apparently you can unload a kernel extension to disable it completely.


Beta iOS/stable watchOS conflicts? I have an iPhone that I fully plan to put on the iOS 11 public beta later this month, but I also have an Apple Watch that's going to be stuck on watchOS 3. Are there going to be any issues from that, such as my phone expecting my Watch to be on watchOS 4?

(I know that it's impossible to predict what bugs are going to be in a beta, I'm asking more about if anyone has experience running an iOS public beta alongside an Apple Watch on the latest stable watchOS release.)

The best indication that this is okay lies in the fact that iOS betas are generally available to the public, while there is no public beta program for watchOS. So yes, it’s fine to run an iOS beta with a stable release of watchOS.
Apple has no mechanism in place to force you to run a certain version of watchOS with a given version of iOS (other than the minimum version required to install watchOS). They don't force you to update watchOS along with iOS. Barring such guarantees, they cannot make any assumptions as to the version of the operating system you’re running on a separate product.
However, as with any beta software always be prepared for unexpected bugs. For instance the iOS 11 Beta 2 release notes mention the following issues with earlier versions of watchOS:

Known Issues
Pairing an iPhone running a beta of iOS 11 and an Apple Watch running a version of watchOS earlier than 4.0 may fail. (32587160)
Workaround: Attempt to pair the Apple Watch again.
• In the Watch app, changes to Mail > Include Mail are not saved. (32553544)
Resolved Issues
• On an Apple Watch running a version of watchOS earlier than 4.0, location activity now correctly sets the location arrow in the status bar or in Settings. (31496053)
• watchOS email alerts now use the configured settings. (32332614)


Always show menubar in full screen applications Possible Duplicate:
  How to always show menubar with fullscreen apps?

Is there a way to force full screen applications to show the menubar without having to mouse over it? I am irritated by the way that full screen chrome will have its tabs sometimes covered up by the lowered menubar when I didn't intend to open the menu.

The whole point of fullscreen is to hide all the distractions. So the short answer is no. Unfortunately, there's no way of keeping the menu bar or the dock, while in fullscreen mode.


When and how does FileVault decrypt a SSD on a T2 Machine Based on what the T2 chip, on user log in, decrypts a SSD with FileVault enabled? Bypassing the user password will result in a possible decryption of the SSD? As several years ago there where tools that bypassed the user password.
Around the web I have found:

Turn on FileVault, however, and a T2-equipped Mac engages in the same boot behavior as one that handles disk encryption in software. Instead of loading macOS directly, the Recovery partition boots in a special mode that requires entry of the password of any account allowed to use FileVault. Until that password is entered, the disk’s contents remain encrypted just as if it were at rest.

From this we can understand that logging into your mac user - an user that is approved by the T2 to unlock the drive on which FileVault is enabled - is enough to decrypt the drive. From this the question, bypassing the user password using some sort of tool will decrypt the drive?
I am curious because prior to the T2, depending on your configuration you could end with two password requests at log in:

One for the user
One to decrypt the drive

That seemed a much stronger and secure approach.

No, it is not enough to simply bypass the user password prompt. That's not how it works, and it is not a less secure or less strong approach than earlier - actually it is an improvement.
The way the T2 chip works is by always encrypting the contents of the SSD. This happens no matter if FileVault is enabled or not. If File Vault is not enabled, no password is necessary to decrypt the SSD, as you would expect.
However when the user enables File Vault, the keys for decrypting the SSD are encrypted with a key based in part on the user's password. This means that the T2 can no longer decrypt the SSD on its own when booted. No matter how much "trickery" you use to bypass password prompts, it won't work, as it doesn't have the key necessary to decrypt.
As soon as the user enters his password (or a recovery key) - the T2 has the necessary information to derive the full decryption key and can thus decrypt the contents of the drive.
Note: The above is grossly simplified explanation of how FileVault and the T2 works, but is representative of how it is perceived by users.


How do I identify a MacBook Pro from its serial number? This article on identifying a MacBook Pro lists the serial number as one method of identifying it. However, the article it links to, doesn't explain how to identify it either. How can I identify a Macbook Pro from its serial number.

You can enter the serial number in Apple's Warranty coverage checker (if you don't remember the URL, there's a link to it in the "AppleCare and warranty" section of Apple's main support page.  It'll tell you the model name, as well as the warranty status.


My output sound on my laptop is really quiet however, I cannot change the output volume. Anyway to make my MacBook Air louder? so recently my MacBook Air has been very quiet. I do not know how this happened because I did not change anything in my settings. I cannot hear anything until the volume is half way up and it is still very quiet on full blast. Is there anyway to fix this?? (This has been going on for about two weeks)

If you have gone to System Preferences, Audio and everything seems normal, it’s time for a Genius Bar appointment.

Do not be like me and have all the audio panned to the left (it happened to me more than once and it’s very embarrassing). Ensure your “balance” is centered. Your device list will likely be different (I have a bunch of Audio interfaces) but still, you should have Internal Speakers selected (and maybe as the only option, that’s normal).

If balance is centered. If output volume is decent and you still can’t hear very well, there may be a hardware malfunction and the Genius Bar is the way to diagnose it.