Mac Port install arguments I need to install ROOT on my mac. Since I prefer Python for Scientific Computing I though that it would install PyROOT by default. That didn't happen. After I looked on PyROOT site i found that installation is done by that line:

./configure <arch> --enable-python [--with-python-incdir=<dir>] [--with-python-libdir=<dir>]
gmake

What would be alternative for that line above for enabling python on my macports installation?

You need to reinstall root from macports and tell it what variants (i.e. additions it needs)

port info root lists the variants e.g.

  avahi, clang31, clang32, clang33, cocoa, debug, fftw3, fitsio, gcc43, gcc44, gcc45, gcc46, gcc47, [+]gcc48,
                        gcc49, [+]graphviz, [+]gsl, ldap, mariadb, [+]minuit2, mysql, mysql51, mysql55, odbc, [+]opengl, percona,
                        postgresql90, postgresql92, pythia, python26, python27, python31, python32, python33, python34, qt_mac,
                        [+]roofit, ruby, [+]soversion, sqlite3, [+]ssl, [+]tmva, [+]xml, xrootd

The ones with [+] are installed by default.

So in your case choose the python version you want (e.g. python 3.3 as latest released one), also anything else you need as they are done all at the same time, so I might add qt_mac and sqlite3 as well

sudo port install root +python33 +sqlite3 +qt_mac

Note that python executable will be /opt/local/bin/python3.3 but you can use the select port to make it the one that /opt/local/bin/python uses


What did iOS do before multitasking? Was there an app switcher or did you have to stop an app and start a new one?

FWIW, Apple has always allowed some of their own apps or services to persist in the background, i.e. the Phone, Mail, push notifications, Find My iPhone, and so on, based on the need and functionality.

One thing to consider is that multitasking today on iOS is still limited, especially when compared to desktop operating systems (and perhaps some Android environments).

Beginning with iOS 4, Apple gives you the illusion that all your apps are running by having created the app switcher. While some of the apps may still be running, most are in hibernation, depending on what background tasks they've registered to run and what RAM is available.

The app life cycle has generally behaved like this since day one:

User taps app icon
Launch screen is shown
First screen (view) is loaded
User does stuff with app
User pushes home button (or, with later versions, tapped screen of another app)
Previously opened app gets signal that it is no longer in foreground
App gets signal that it's about to be suspended
App is suspended (state saved in RAM)
App's state is moved from RAM to disk (flash) when RAM fills up
User returns to app
If state is recent enough, state is reloaded from RAM or disk
If state is stale, app starts over fresh

Nuances in how state is dealt with have changed over the years, and developers have been increasingly given more control over what they can do in between states.

When people go through and "force close" all their apps, they essentially are throwing away any state saved by the app, and killing any background tasks that app may have started.  Many think they are helping to reduce battery consumption and keep RAM clean, but Craig Federighi pointed out that by doing so they may actually cause more battery drain, since the CPU is doing more to reopen those apps every time instead of merely bringing them out of stasis.

Also since iOS 4, developers are now allowed to create tasks that can persist even if an app has been suspended, such as audio playback, monitoring network traffic (VoIP), background data refreshes, and location updates.  This is effective because only a portion of the app is running and using resources.

As devices get more powerful (more CPU, more RAM, more storage, bigger battery) and as code gets more efficient, these additional tasks prove to be less of a drain on resources.  Newer things like widgets and the forthcoming Siri, iMessage, and CallKit extensions can make it appear like popular apps are always doing something in the background.


From what country does iTunes payouts come from I'm a new iOS developer in Sweden and i'm gonna upload my app with in-app purchases to the App Store. The problem is that my bank requires me to fill out from what countrys i will be getting transfers from.
So i wonder from what country my payouts will come from when my bank country, and upload country is Sweden?

Interesting question. I’m a U.S. developer and have always received my payments in full, indicating that there was no exchange rate involved. The payments originate from Apple’s bank, which given this information, I would imagine is in the United States.


I have a 4 yr old MacBook  and screen that has started to "bleed" into the viewing area I'm in college (poor),  I have a 4 yr old MacBook that has started to "bleed" into the viewing area of the screen making it difficult to see.

Will Apple replace this or do I have to buy a new one?
What other options do I have without spending a fortune?

Apple will not generally pay for any repairs at the 4 year point in a product, but taking it in and asking is the only way to know.

You would be out some time, but have a quote for a paid repair as well as an explanation on exactly what is happening to the screen and whether it is something one time damaging or something that you can expect to get worse. You also have the option of taking it to a nearby computer repair man, just phone them fist to see if they can repair Apple products.

If you are broke you can try to do it your self using an online how to, I will not link to one as I do not reccomend this as you can end up doing even more damage.


Bootcamp software for MacBooks older than 2012 Ever since Windows 10 Tech Preview was released I've been running it with very few problems on my Late 2011 A1278 MacBook Pro. Now since Windows 10 Final was released Apple is not openly providing Windows 10 drivers for MacBooks older than 2012.

Bootcamp driver version 5.1.xxxx intended for Windows 7/8/8.1 will install on Windows 10 and all peripherals, excluding the function keys, seem to work properly. Unfortunately, the function keys are a necessity because when my MacBook boots into Windows 10 the screen brightness is OFF; after a few minutes I guess the Bootcamp drivers engage and the function keys are usable.

Now to the important questions:

Is it possible to download/obtain the Windows 10 Bootcamp drivers without having Bootcamp 6? i.e. from the internet like version 5.1.
If a copy of the fresh Windows 10 drivers was obtainable, what is the outcome of the installation on a MacBook older than 2012? I would imagine it would install and operate normally.

Download BootCamp and open command line as an Admin (cmd+x -> command line), cd to bootcamp install folder/BootCamp/Drivers/Apple/, run BootCamp.msi. It should skip the check for your MacBook compatibility.

P.S.: I installed BootCamp like this on my PC for compatibility with my apple keyboard. The normal install fails with message about compatibility.


What is Logger.bundle? I am running a late 2010 MacBook Air running OSX Mountain Lion with latest update.

Looking around in my system folders I found a file called Logger.bundle and it's in my /System/Library/SystemConfiguration directory. The file logger.bundle was apparently created Monday, June 25th 2012 (so very recently). If I "view package contents" inside the /Contents/MacOS directory is an executable called Logger.

Is this Logger.bundle some sort of trojan or something like that, or is it a normal part of the file system?

It's a normal part of OS X.

The name isn't very searchable, but you could copy the bundle identifier from the Info.plist. logger.c was the first result for com.apple.SystemConfiguration.Logger site:apple.com.


What is the wattage of my iPhone? I am trying to make a transportable charger for iPhones, but before I can start this I need to know how much power my iPhone uses when I make an emergency call.

If nobody knows this, I will be glad to have any information related to this.

Anandtech has some nice charts detailing the wattage of the iPhone 4S running various apps, which could be a good starting point for you.

You may also want to check out existing kits/projects, such as MintyBoost - they seem to work reasonably well with iPhones. There's a specific MintyBoost page detailing Apple device charging that may also yield some useful info.


How do I save ftp.plist file when using sudo nano? I edited ftp.plist by using sudo nano in terminal, and I saved by control + O but after reboot, it changed again. How can I save the file?

In Finder navigate to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

File > Get info Command + i
Tick the "Locked" box

The file should not change now when you reboot.


Time Machine cannot locate external disk I have an iMac11,2 running MacOS 10.8.5. Time Machine (TM) has made backup on a LaCie 320GB Firewire400 HDD for almost 2 years now. It stopped working 2 weeks ago, stuck on 'looking for drive'. My HDD is full, but I am quite sure it already deleted older backups successfully. I tried:

to connect a new external HDD (Seagate 2TB with USB cover) and switch TM to this, formatted in MacOS extended,journalized (no encryption);
to turn off TM, delete /System/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist, turn on TM, reselect my disk; once again rebooting before turning on TM;
entered StarWars mode, copied com.apple.TimeMachine.plist from my last working backup to my internal HDD;
copied Backups.backupdb from the 320GB to the 2TB disk; I can enter StarWars mode and browse, but still the infinite 'looking for drive' message
checked the drive permissions: 320GB's Backups.backupdb is drwxr-xr-x+ root:staff. 2TB is similar due to the copy. I am currently changing the 2TB's Backups.backupdb persmissions to drwxrwxr-x+ root:staff recursively, but it takes some time, I will post the result later. Took the night to do that, still no luck.

Any ideas?

Eventually upgraded from 10.8 to 10.10 (Apple having removed 10.9 from AppStore...). And Time Machine is now up and running. I'll never know what happened.


Transferring a single folder from a Time Machine to a different Mac Recently, I purchased a new MacBook and I wanted to transfer files from the old one to the new one. I used Time Machine to back up all my files from the old Mac. Is it possible to retrieve not the entire disk, but a single file or a single folder from that back-up Time Machine to a new Mac?

You can also copy the folder from Finder from /Volumes/<Time Machine volume name>/Backups.backupdb/<Mac name>/.

If your backup is on a network volume like a Time Capsule, open the sparse bundle file like /Volumes/Data/Your Mac.sparsebundle/ first.

You can also run a command like cp -a /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Your\ Mac/2014-07-17-184058/HD/Users/username/folder ~/Desktop or tmutil restore /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Your\ Mac/2014-07-17-184058/HD/Users/username/folder ~/Desktop in a shell.

Finder and tmutil restore remove extended attributes like com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot but cp doesn't.


How to export/backup Notes in macOS in one go I have a lot of Notes on my machine which I don't want to loose. It's not logical to export them one by one. Is there any way to export them in one go, which would make me either use them on my new

I learned that I could backup ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes but I am not really sure if this would be helpful. This is what I get as for this directory.

$ du -sh ./*
4.0K    ./Library
256K    ./NoteStore.sqlite
 32K    ./NoteStore.sqlite-shm
3.0M    ./NoteStore.sqlite-wal

I am running macOS Mojave.

I copied the three files NoteStore.sqlite, NoteStore.sqlite-shm, and NoteStore.sqlite-wal from ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes of one Mac to another and my notes appear there now. All my notes were there, albeit half a day out of sync.


What's the correctly way to make Postfix run permanently on Lion (not server) I can start Postfix temporarily with:

$ sudo launchctl
launchd% start org.postfix.master

However, Console.app shows that it only runs for a short time:

26/11/11 2:00:55.710 PM postfix/master: master exit time has arrived

I think the file  /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist needs to be updated to make Postfix run permanently, but I haven't found the answer yet.

What's the correct way of getting Postfix starting at boot time and running permanently?

Update
In order to edit the file as recommended by the selected answer, I first converted it to XML.

plutil  -convert xml1 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist

Then just edited it with Vim:

sudo vim /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist

I had issues trying to get Xcode to edit the file.

The following changes worked for me:

Remove the following two elements from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist:

<string>-e</string>
<string>60</string>

This will stop it exiting after 60 seconds.
Add the following element as a child of the <dict>...</dict> element in the same plist file:

<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true/>

Reload the file:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist

postfix should now be running as a daemon.

The above works on Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan. For systems that have System Integrity Protection (El Capitan and later) there are two options:

Copying /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.custom.plist, changing org.postfix.master to org.postfix.custom and then unloading and loading as above.
Disabling SIP (using csrutil), making the edits and then re-enabling SIP.

Note: With High Sierra and Mojave, the configuration file is com.apple.postfix.master.plist instead of org.postfix.custom.plist.


In which case I would lose my OS X license? I'm planning to install Arch linux on my Macbook Air (mid-2015), and installing means I'm going to mess with the partitions on the disk, and lots of stuff, and I'm not expert on these topics, so there is a chance that I might delete something important for OS X on the other partition, or about recovery partition etc.

So my question is in which cases I would lose my OS X license? I mean for example if I unintentionally delete the recovery partition would I lose anything? etc.

What I'm trying to understand here is that what is the worst thing that I can do unintentionally during the installation?

Edit:
It would also be helpful if the answer contain how is licensing works for OS X on Macs.

The worst thing you can unintentionally do is lose data!

So, before doing anything, ensure you have a backup regime in place (such as using Time Machine). Once you know you have a backup, then the risk is limited to potentially wasting a lot of time reinstalling macOS if things go wrong and then migrating your data across from your backup.

If you do need to reinstall macOS, then you have three options you can try:

commandR to reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version
optioncommandR to upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac
shiftoptioncommandR to reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available

But remember - you must have a backup regime in place!


How to remove applications on a Mac I've installed some software on my Mac, such as R language environment, .djvu file reader, etc.

How do I remove them? There's no "Control Panel -> Add/Remove programs..."

I'm using a Mac Book Pro, but I suppose it's the same on all Macs.

To get rid of the application, you can just drag it to the trash.

There might be a few leftover files in  ~/Library/Application Support/ and ~/Library/Preferences/; there are a few ways of getting there.

You can check by going to the Finder, the "Go" menu, holding down the Option key, and choosing "Library". Just drag those to the trash, too.
Or, you can copy one of the above paths, go to Finder, the "Go" menu, then "Go to Folder" and paste the location.

Find and drag those leftovers to the trash, too.


iOS and OSX Helvetica Neue Issues Snow Leopard came with HelveticaNeue.dfont (Truetype).
iOS5 also came with HelveticaNeue.
Presumably, a Keynote document created on the Mac, using this font and shared by iCloud to an iPhone will display the same.

But what happens if I install and use the large OpenType font HelveticaNeueLTPro from Linotype?

Conflicts? Flames?

The font file does not travel with the document. There is currently no way to "load" a font onto iOS.  If you want to use a font that is not installed by Apple, your only option is to represent the text as an image.

I occassionally do this for a font-critical headline but best practice dictates use of iOS compatible fonts in Keynote presentations intended for those devices.

I wouldn't even trust that iOS would (necessarily) default to Helvetica in the scenario you present.


MacBook with a new hard drive fails to start I have a 2009 MBP (7,1) which I recently upgraded the hard drive to a Crucial BX100SD.

The hard drive was configured via. a USB to SATA cable on my desktop machine.  I used a Flash install of Yosemite to get the OX onto the new hard drive.

After completion, I was able to successfully boot to that hard drive on my desktop via the USB to SATA cable.

I went ahead and then swapped the drives in the laptop and booted it up.  At about 30% the start up hangs on the grey screen with the apple logo.  I tried booting into recovery, and it hangs at about 20%, never successfully loading the recovery.

So far I've reset the PRAM, and tried booting directly into recovery via. Command+R and also using the option key to select the recovery directly.  I've also tried to boot directly from the flash drive OSX install, but it doesn't seem to work on the machine.  However, I can successfully boot the flash drive on two different desktop machines.

Starting to run out of ideas on how to make this work, I'm extremely perplexed as to why the SSD and Flash Drive boots just fine on my desktop, but not in the Laptop.

Edit: My assumption is that there's some sort of incompatibility with the hardware and OSX 10.10.1, I'm going to try a boot of Mavericks from a flash drive I'm creating now and see where that gets us.

Second Edit: Apparently RAM I installed months ago didn't want to play nice with the new SDD.  Switching back to the old ram got the computer to boot no problem.  (Weird, because I previously had no issues with the RAM before upgrading the SDD)


iPhone: View Photo Location in Maps I though this would be so obvious that the answer should be simple.

I have a photo taken somewhere. I select it in the Photos app, and select the Share icon. I would simply like the option to view the location of this photo in the Apple Map.

I have installed ViewEXIF, which does the job, but does too much, and takes an extra step to get to the Maps App.

Is there an extension which would do this job simply?

Thanks

There is a map view built into iOS 9. Go to the photos tab and select the location at the top of the photos area!


How do I get Terminal.app pasting behavior in iTerm 2? I often paste stuff into my terminal from websites, sometimes with newlines in wrong places, sometimes with newlines where you would expect them. However, iTerm seems to ignore any paste that contains newlines. This often leaves me confused as to wether I copied the contents of the text I wanted to paste correctly, and when I've found out that I copied them the way I wanted to, I have to reformat those lines in some text editor which all unnecessarily breaks flow. Above that, iTerm also has this weird feature that always pastes slowly instead of just putting the clipboard contents there. I know these things might have been implemented for safety reasons, but I can tell you now that I am going to execute every command I want to execute, wether they have newlines in them or not.

I've fixed this last annoyance kinda by altering some sort of delays or something in the preferences, but I would kinda rather get rid of these features and let iTerm behave as Apple's terminal app, or any OS X application for that matter. Anyone know how to tackle this problem?

You hit a bug. Upgrade to 3.0.9 to fix it.


MBP Battery Consumption and Charging Speed app? I'd like to know if there is an app that shows you how fast (how many Watts) the MBP is consuming and how fast it is charging (Watts and Voltage).

I know that there is the Activity Monitor but it only shows an Energy Impact that doesn't translate to Watts.

The 15" model has a 76Wh battery, and the charger is 87W. Is it correct to say that if I charge a 0% battery MBP while it is turned off it should take a little bit less than 1 hour? Also if I charge that with my smartphone chargers that output 18W at max (QC2 and QC3) is there a way to know if it is charging using the full power (and the voltage/amperage)?

Your best bet would be to try coconutBattery. It provides a whole heap of information that you'll find useful, and from memory includes both Discharging with and Charging with measurements in watts!

As for your other questions, it's really best to just ask one question per question, even though they may be related. However, in a nutshell:

No, you cannot assume the 87W USB-C Power Adapter will charge a 76 watt hour battery in less than an hour. There are a lot of factors that can affect charging times, and typically this means you'd be waiting longer than an hour. However, in theory and under the best case scenario (e.g. your MBP is powered off and the charger is working at the optimal 20.2V and 4.3A and has absolutely no efficiency loss) it could in theory be fully charged in about 52 minutes. If we assume the same scenario but with a typical efficiency loss of 20%, it will take a little longer than an hour (63 mins to be exact) to charge your battery. Of course, in real life many factors can affect this.
I would not recommend using a smartphone charger to charge your MBP. Yes, in some cases this will work, in many it won't. However, while it may be okay to do this on a one-off basis because you've forgotten your MBP charger, it is not something I would recommend doing on any sort of ongoing basis. Eventually it will most likely damage your smartphone charger, although this will depend on its quality and design.

NOTE: Calculations used in my answer assume a 2016 or 2017 15" MacBook Pro.


iPhone doesn't sync calendar to iCloud, calendar via iCloud.com still works I'm having a major headache inducing issue with iCloud sync. My wife and I have shared calendars for a long time and it has helped us a great deal.
The problem now is that my wife's iPhone has stopped syncing it's calendar with iCloud. If we log onto her account at iCloud.com and add somehting, it syncs to my iPhone as usual, but not to hers.
If I add something to my calendar in my iPhone or iCloud.com, it does in fact sync to her iPhone with some lag. What seems to be cut off from iCloud is her own calendar. I have tried all possible settings with iCloud and calendar app etc, nothing works. And yes, I've tried turning it off and back on again. Did a soft reset, didn't help.

Please, any ideas as to what can be causing this?

Regards,
Martin

Try creating a new calendar within her iCloud account. Don't share it yet. Add, edit, and delete events both on her iPhone and iCloud.com through a browser. If this works as expected, share the new calendar with your iCloud account. Repeat the add/edit/delete cycle to see if changes propagate across all devices now. If this works too, use the new calendar instead of the old calendar going forward.


MacBook Pro 15 inch (2011) screen has stripes My 15 inch MacBook Pro recently has horizontal stripes on the screen.
It looks like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaPt6FHJmtg
It happens randomly and sometimes it gets worse (flickering with horizontal lines,stripes)

Does anyone know what might cause this and how to fix it?

No such issue during the past year...it has just started happening since yesterday.

Take it back to an Apple Store or send it in for repair - that sounds like faulty hardware, and you'll still be in warrantee so they'll repair or replace completely free.

In case they decide to replace it outright (it's fairly new so they may) you'll want to use time machine to snapshot your hard drive for backups.


Running (Perl's) CPAN in OS X: error "Can't open perl script –MCPAN" All the instructions I can find for running CPAN on Mac OS X (eg. 1, 2 & 3) say to start by running this command in terminal:

sudo perl –MCPAN –e shell

However when I do so I get this error:

Can't open perl script "–MCPAN": No such file or directory

Why is this and how can I fix it? I'm running Lion (10.7.3) and have installed XCode 4.2.1.

Try this:

sudo cpan

cpan is an executable that comes installed in OS X (or installs with Xcode).


Disk Utility weirdness: Macintosh HD cannot be repaired but then has no problems? Earlier today, I decided to clean up my hard drive of extraneous files and other materials that might be taking up space. After doing some looking around, I found an application, OnyX, that was recommended for what I was aiming to do. After starting OnyX and it doing a check of the HD, it said I needed to reboot my computer using ⌘ + R and run Disk Utility to repair the disk. After running Repair Disk on the Mac HD, I got these errors:

  Incorrect number of file hard links
  Invalid directory item count
  Orphaned file inode (id = 515789120)
  The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired

Most ominous, however, was the last error message presented:

  Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

Trying to avoid what would be the worst case scenario, I quit Disk Utility, restarted the computer, and looked for answers. After finding some solutions, I tried once again to boot my computer with ⌘ + R. I ran Verify Disk as well as Verify Disk Permissions a few times, each time getting the message:

  This volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.

I restarted again, this time not rebooting with ⌘ + R, and ran Disk Utility normally just to be sure, after I found and read this question. Unlike the question asker in that thread, however, I didn't face any more errors after running Disk Utility again. Multiple verifications have shown that the disk is fine and does not need to be repaired, but this leaves me puzzled.

Is my hard drive actually functioning fine and I don't need to worry about any irrevocable errors, or is the underlying problem still there and I need to fix it before it worsens?

I have found that when Disk Utility can't repair a disk then it is time for DiskWarrior or another third-party disk repair utility. They can often fix what Disk Utility can not.

However that the issue went away, seemingly by magic, makes Froggard's guess probable.

I would, however, keep an eye on the disk with disk utility. Use the verify function from time to time and if it does not return then it was indeed a transient error that the O/S was able to repair itself.


How to remove Local Disk entries in DCIM sub-folders in iPhone? in iOS 8, multiple entries of "Local Disk" spawned every time I use Windows 7 File Explorer to transfer files to my computer.

How to remove those? and when will iPhone / iOS re-index those random sub-folders in DCIM folder?

Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data > Remove All Website Data

Worked for me with iOS 8.  Disconnect then reconnect the phone to the PC and all the "Local Disk" rubbish is gone.


How can I describe three different situations on a cell in Numbers We have business rules as follows:

If it is bigger than £35 we charge 75% of it
If it is smaller than £20 we charge 70% of it
If is is between 20 to 35 we charge 72% of it

I don’t know how to set up a formula to automate this calculation in numbers. Is there a way to do this?

Let B3 be the cell you are trying to reference.

=IF(B3>35,B3×0.75,IF(B3<25,B3×0.7,B3×0.72))

More information on using IF functions can be found in the formulas reference for Numbers


How to install MacPorts on user-only account? On my Mac I use an Admin and an everyday User account (without admin / sudo privileges). Currently I am setting up a new Yosemite system and found that after installing MacPorts (using its installer), I cannot do sudo operations, such as sudo port selfupdate. In the user account it tells me that it does not have sufficient privileges and on the admin account the command port is not found.

So I am wondering what is the correct way to set up MacPorts on OS X? Should I install it rather on the Admin instead of the User account? Or is there some other way to use it from the User account?

Neither.

Macports is installed as root and uses its own account macports for some things. It does not use your account for anything.

To do MacPorts actions e.g. install, selfupdate you need to run it as root. Which in this case is run via sudo. So to do these actions you do need an admin account.

To use MacPorts executables or libraries you just need to add MacPorts to your user environment, which is the same for any user on your machine. e.g. add /opt/local/bin to $PATH to put the executables on your path, as described in the MacPorts manual.

The one edge case is the install from the disk image which will run a script on your current user to add a line to your .bash_profile to set up your path.
You can also manually add the following line to your Admin's .bash_profile:

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH


How do I set the Mail app's default font running under Mavericks? Mail says its default font is 12pt Helvetica.

How do I change the default to something more readable, such as 14 pt Georgia?

Appreciated.

Open Mail Preferences and then the Font setting.

You have 2 settings.

Set the Font for the List view and set the font for the message body.

When you click Select and new widow will open showing the font choices.

This will change your mail display.


How to access MacBook mail preview files after the email is closed? I am using MacOS Sierra 10.12.3 and recently I closed an email account using the Exchange servers. Despite the email account is closed all my email can be previewed in mail. I would like to retrieve all preview data that is stored somewhere on my MacBook. Does anyone know where these preview files are stored?

Open mail and then export all the messages to a file in the .mbox standard format.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19174

There is wide support for parsing that file format or importing it into other clients if you wish. Apple's format changes for time to time and is optimized for tasks other than easy parsing like spotlight search, minimizing file system changes for time machine, etc...


Google AMP of iOS Chromes wastes quarter of screen Google AMP results show on mobile search results, leading to pages like the following on iOS Chrome:

This wastes about a quarter of my phone's screen compared to normal results, e.g.

On non-AMP pages, the address bar of Chrome for iOS normally hides as you scoll down, but not with AMP.

Is there a way to disable AMP, get the address bar and AMP banner to hide, or easily get to the original page from an AMP page?

You can easily hide that AMP banner by loading the regular page instead of the AMP page. To do that, hit the three dots in the top-right and choose Request Desktop Site. This works in the iOS and Android versions of Chrome.

For more on what AMPs are, visit ampproject.org.


How do I delete files older than N days? The content in my Downloads folder is getting bigger and bigger. There are many older documents that I don't need any more. Is there a way to bulk erase files from a given number of days ago?

Sure - a safe way is to have a backup like Time Machine - you can then delete files knowing you can restore them with ease.

I like to sort a file listing by date - select the first file to be deleted, scroll to the end of the list leaving that one file selected. Then use shift to select the last file - shift then selects the entire range.

Then put all the files in trash. Once you're sure your backup was was good or you selected the correct files - empty the trash.


Not seeing new start page for Safari on Catalina Downloaded the new update to Catalina that was supposed to come with a new look to the Safari start page.  I see things exactly the same as they were before.  Am I supposed to do something to enable this feature?

I don’t know what you are seeing or expecting to see, but from what I see in Safari 13 on macOS Mojave, the favicon styles of Favorited websites look different. They are rounder and have a more transparent background. From a picture I saw about Safari in Catalina, it looks like it also has Siri suggestions below the favorites section. It didn’t look like there where any extreme differences.


Macbook freezes, disk errors, symptoms of SSD death? Macbook freezes, system disk "disappears" from system, I get errors about reading/writing. Spinning ball of death appears on the screen, I am able to move pointer for a few seconds after first symptoms but then computer freezes completely.

After hard reset everything is ok. After 30-60 minutes of work it happens again.

Since I am able to use Macbook after reset it doesn't look like problems with SSD, does it?

Tried to boot from Live CD — system freezes too.

Memtest — perfect results for short test, system freezes on 40+ minutes test.

Tried to make fresh installation of Mavericks — system freezes after some time spent for install.

ps. Macbook 13" 2011, 10.8, SSD Crucial M4 (about two years old).

Well the problem never appeared after I replaced SSD, so probably the answer is yes.


drag file from file chooser or get path Editing a file using text wrangler. Want the path so can pass it to a program in the terminal. Is there an easy way to do this? Don't seem to be able to drag it  nor right click and get info.

I'm not in Finder, but in the file chooser dialog that you see when executing File/Save as.

If there is no way to drag would be nice to be able to right click and get info OR/AND send it to a list of program, one of which could simply copy its full path to the system clipboard.

In general you can just drag the icon from the Textmate window title to get hold of the file. If you drag it into a Terminal window, the path will be inserted automatically.


AMSupportURL* "is implemented in both"? I get the below error message when I run git for the first time after a reboot:
objc[728]: Class AMSupportURLConnectionDelegate is implemented in both ?? (0x1eff3a7a0) and ?? (0x1188402b8). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[728]: Class AMSupportURLSession is implemented in both ?? (0x1eff3a7f0) and ?? (0x118840308). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

It doesn't happen with other commands like go. Any idea what it means?
This is on a new M1 MBA.

I encountered the same problem.
I installed Xcode, and installed "git" on "brew", I uninstalled "git" on "brew" and it solved the problem for now, no more errors.


How to remove page marks in pdf file with iPad viewers? I found some of the pdf files has some page marks(or three holes I don't know the official name for the marks) as is shown:

Most of the iPad pdf viewers can't recognize this to show the marks, only the good reader app can show only the area inside the marks. I wanted to stick to the good reader, but it sometimes doesn't show the pages properly, so I need to find a way.

I was trying to use crop method : Crop multiple pages in a pdf file to cut out the marks in Mac, but Mac pdf viewers (Preview, Skim) are smart enough to show the region inside the marks.

Do you know any way to resolve this issue?

Do you know how to show the marks so that I can crop them?
Do you know any smart iPad pdf reader that shows the region inside the marks?

I just could use Crop multiple pages in a pdf file method to remove the bleed marks. I cropped the original pdf book by making the cropping area the same as the page that is shown.

After the cropping the file size became 6.1MB from 3.8MB, but it didn't matter to me.


Retina MBP - "time remaining" not available on menu-bar battery icon? On my new Retina MacBook Pro I'm finding I can't show the time remaining next to the battery icon on the menubar. The option is available in the right-click menu on non-Retina laptops.

Any ideas on how I can get this useful indicator?

Battery Time Remaining is a github-hosted, open source project that aims to solve this problem. From the project page:

  Battery Time Remaining

  Show the estimated battery time remaining on top of your screen in Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

  Why does this project exist?

  Apple removed the option to show the battery time remaining in the statusbar since the Mountain Lion release. This App will do exactly that, show the battery time remaining on top of your screen.

  How do I install it?

  Two options:

  Download latest version, unzip and run the App
  Download the source here from Github and compile it with XCode


High memory usage on iMac MacOS Catalina I'm not a Mac power user by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm hoping for some help from someone here that is.  There are similar questions being asked, but the answers seem to all be similar... that the person asking the question doesn't have high usage.

I have a iMac Retina 5K, 27in, 2017 with a 3.4Ghz i5. Purchased a year ago and barely use it, so it's basically brand new. I just recently upgraded to Catalina version 10.15.3. my iMac has been unbareably slow since the Catalina install. it barely worked with 8GB of RAM and an Apple support person took a look at my iMac and saw that I was using 7.6GB of memory and suggested I downgrade to Mojave or install more RAM, so my first step was to remove the 8GB and install 32GB. My iMac is running only slightly faster with the 32GB installed. It stopped crashing on a daily basis, which is great, but things still take a while to open after I click on them. I still get the spinning beachball and if I look at Activity Monitor my memory pressure is in the red even when I have nothing running (except for Activity Monitor).

The attached screenshot is taken about 5mins after turning on my iMac and the only thing I have running is Activity Monitor.

Is there something wrong with Catalina? Is something wrong with the memory I installed? Why  is my memory pressure in the red?  Does it have something to do with sharingd or suggestd? They are always at the top of the list.

Any suggestions on what I should do?

Thanks

I too started experiencing this problem after I installed Catalina on my 2019 iMac Retina 5K with 3.6 Ghz 8-Core I9 processor and 32 GB memory (4 days ago).  I had no such problems prior to my upgrade.  I turned off Airdrop with no effect.  Unfortunately, I can't disable remote disks as I'm very much in need of icloud and screen sharing.  I tried turning off all my other icloud devices, but that didn't seem to have any effect either. My CPU usage by the "sharingd" processis 15 times higher than my next most CPU intensive process.  It also appears to be cycling up to 100% plus CPU usage for about 5-10 seconds every 20-30 seconds.  Fan speed is also varying in line with the cpu temperature,  as would be expected (1200 RPM goes to 2400 RPM).

I tried taking the issue to Apple Support, but even after getting pushed up to 2nd level, they were no help.  They seemed clueless about what sharingd does and how to troubleshoot it.  They basically ran me through POPO and SMC Reset and then gave up.  They suggested it must be a hardware problem even though diagnostics ran clean and no other evidence supports that conclusion.

I've also tried shutting down all my 3rd party apps and no effect from that either.

I am now wondering if possibly Apple is running some form of file conversion/tweaking on my icloud stored photos, movies, or music in background as part of the upgrade and maybe this is causing file sync issues. If so, hopefully it will eventually finish and go away! But I'm not hopeful.  Personally, I think it is a Catalina bug that Apple is not yet acknowledging.

UPDATED 4/19/2020  (PROBLEM PARTIALLY IDENTIFIED and TEMPORARY FIX)

After further investigation, I found that turning off icloud on my system (or turning off the network so it couldn't talk to icloud) caused sharingd to go quiet (vs. near 100% CPU utilization).  I also started to notice that the process AddressBookSourceSync is also running (at moderate levels) when sharingd is running at high CPU.  On a hunch, I turned my icloud back on, but just disabled Contacts (in System Preferences > AppleID).  With Contacts off, my system is back to running quietly.  Therefore it appears that the high CPU utilization of the sharingd process somehow relates to trying to sync with Contacts (address book) in icloud.  So at least I have a temporary fix (i.e. turning off contacts, except when needed), but caution, losing contacts has negative impacts on identifying people in imessage threads, etc.  So admittedly this is a very limited fix.

FIXED 5/3/2020  (at least on my system)

Realizing my above temporary fix was not cutting it for me and still being suspicious that my address book system (Contacts) was somehow corrupted during my upgrade to Catalina, I decided I needed to completely unload and reinstall my local copy of my address book system.  Not knowing exactly how to do that, I searched and found this article https://ugetfix.com/ask/how-to-fix-addressbooksourcesync/ which walked me through the process.  This procedure should work as long as your local address
book is synced with iCloud.  Although the article addresses symptoms I didn't have, it did the trick as far as allowing me to unload and reload my local address book system.  Once I performed this procedure it was immediately apparent that this fixed my problem with high sharingd process CPU usage and the corresponding high memory usage by addressbooksourcesync. My sharingd process is now only using small amounts of CPU, somewhere approximately in the range of .1% to 4.5% CPU (vs 100+% CPU previously).  AddressBookSourceSync's memory use also is much lower now too, about 300MB vs. Gigbytes prior to the fix (sorry I forgot to record the exact memory usage initially).  I don't know if this will help others, but it might be worth a try.  Just make sure your local addressbook (Contacts) and icloud addressbook (Contacts) are in good syncronization before you start. I also added one step to this procedure as an added measure of safety.  I exported all my Contacts to a PDF file prior to starting.  I did that just in case something went horribly wrong and I had to re-enter them manually. Fortunately, that was not necessary!  One last comment: for whatever reason, I found no .plist file (the one that the author of this procedure mentions) in my ~/Library/Application Support/Address Book/ folder, either before or after performing the procedure.


Save the iTunes download queue Is there a way to save the download queue in iTunes ? I had to reboot my Macbook, and to my surpise, the queue was empty when I restarted iTunes. Is this behaviour intended ?

Edit:

It appears that this problem was related to the fact that my installation was not a clean install but an upgrade. It was OS X 10.7 upgraded to OS X 10.8. I did a fresh install, and now everything is back to normal; the queue is correctly saved and restored across sessions.

It should still be there, if it never downloaded? I suggest you contact in to Apple iTunes Support and explain you had items in your downloads queue, when you restarted, they disappeared.

First try signing out and back into your iTunes Store account in iTunes, if they download queue is still empty, email in.


Add Compose key to OS X I want to change one of my keys on my keyboard to a Compose key so I can easily type common accents or characters, e.g.: Compose+e+' -> é.

Is there a setting I can change or a program I can install to add this feature? For instance, I would like to use Caps Lock as Compose.

I wrote a complete article explaining how to set up a real compose key (ie. Right Option + ' + e → é for instance), using a combination of KeyRemap4MacBook and specific Cocoa input rules.

Step 1: choose a Compose key

Choose the Compose key so that it is easily accessible but does not prevent you from doing anything you ordinarily do. I use the Right Option key as my Compose key. I already have a Left Option key so the right one is a bit useless to me. And it somehow matches the position of the Compose key on old Sun keyboards.

That would be Right Option on a Mac keyboard. I recommend that.

Step 2: remap the Compose key

The problem is that the Mac OS X keyboard preferences:

do not let you differentiate between Left Option and Right Option keys
only let you remap modifier keys to another modifier key (or to nothing)

Fortunately, there is KeyRemap4MacBook that lets you do very low level things with your keyboard. Install it.

We will now remap our compose key to something that the next layer will understand. I chose Shift Control F13 for that. It is very unlikely you will need that key combination.

In the file ~/Library/Application Support/KeyRemap4MacBook/private.xml put the following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Send Shift-Ctrl-F13 for Right Option</name>
    <identifier>private.send_shift_ctrl_f13_for_ropt</identifier>
    <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::OPTION_R,
                          KeyCode::F13, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L
                                      | ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L
    </autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Finally, from the System Preferences, open the KeyRemap4MacBook settings and click on the ReloadXML button. Then activate the new option.

Step 3: create compose bindings

The last step is the creation of the actual bindings. I chose to import the rules from /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose on my Debian system.

Bob Kåres wrote a script that lets you convert X11 compose rules into Cocoa key bindings.

Either convert a Compose file of your own using Bob’s script, or download my DefaultKeyBinding.dict from the article. Save it in ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict.

Be careful: by default Bob’s script uses F13 instead of Shift Ctrl F13 so in DefaultKeyBinding.dict you need to change:

"\UF710"

into:

"^$\UF710"

If for some reason you decided to go for another combination, check out this article by Xah Lee to find out the proper syntax.


Web browsing on Mac slows down after a few days of use When trying to browse any website, such as nytimes.com, yahoo.com, etc, it take sometimes anywhere from 15s-120s for the page to display. For example, in Chrome, when I browse to nytimes.com, in the status bar, I see the message "waiting for css.nytimes.com" or "waiting for www.nytimes.com" for a long period of time.

This is happening at home (on VPN to my employer's network or off) as well as when I'm connected to my employer's network directly. The problem occurs on all browsers on my Mac [Chrome, Safari, Firefox] and the curl command line tool in Terminal.

This problem seems to be isolated to my Mac. For example, when I browse on my iPhone (or my Windows laptop or another Mac laptop) on my home network, performance is great. It's terrible on my Mac. So this is definitely an issue with my Mac (OS Mountain Lion). This seems to be isolated to HTTP/HTTPS and not all TCP traffic since I can use SSH/RDP w/o any issues.

Using Activity Monitor, I can see ample free RAM and CPU utilization is minimal.  I noticed this problem a couple of weeks ago.  A reboot clears it up and then after 2-3 days, browsing starts to slow down again.  Some pages take minutes to appear (or some suddenly appear in a flash when I stop loading the page).

What can I do diagnose the cause?

I have the Cisco AnyConnect agent installed, which is only used for VPN and not Web Filtering. Still, the acwebsecagent process is running and slowing down my web browsing.

To uninstall acwebsecagent, run:
sudo /opt/cisco/anyconnect/bin/websecurity_uninstall.sh

Credit to this post for the above command.


Save attachments from Mail.app based on subject I have been trying to write an Applescript to help me saving attachments, but realized quickly that I do not have the knowledge to do such a difficult script. Here is some background.

We receive daily sales reports, and flight manifests. The format in the subject should be: dd.mm.yyyy/"two letter airline code".DSR.Weight.

I.e. 30.01.2013/VS.DSR.1110KG

In the case of the manifest, in the same format, substitute DSR with MNFST.

I.e. 30.01.2013/VS.MNFST.1110KG.

There are however countless variations to the subject, and we are all human, and sometimes , is used, or more / etc. Our staff are great and work extremely hard, and the last thing they need me to do is be on their case about subject formats.

Therefore I was trying to get an Applescript to look at the two things that are always in the subject. The airlines two letter code, and the word DSR or MNFST/MFST/Manifest

We have the following two letter codes, sometimes in lower, or uppercase or a mix.

CV VS SAA TK DHV LH

Now the DSR can be in the subject in a number of ways, its not always seperated, ie. 30.01.2013/VSDSR1110KG

Same applies for MNFST/MFST/Manifest.

Ideally, I need a script to work in two parts:

DSR:

Check the subject for the flight code and DSR
Save the .xls attachment to /DSR/Airline two letter code
If File is more recent (A correction might be sent later that day/early the next morning.), add 1, if another 2 etc.

I.e. 30.01.2013/VS.DSR.1110KG.xls: Macintosh HD/Users/(My username)/Dropbox/DSR/VS
I.e. 30.01.2013/CV.DSR.1110KG.xls: Macintosh HD/Users/(My username)/Dropbox/DSR/CV

Manifest (Sometimes a .xls/.pdf/.zip file. It varies.)

Check the subject for the flight code and (Manifest or MNFST or MFST)
Save the .xls/.pdf/.zip attachment to Manifests/Airline two letter airline code
If the file is more recent (I.e. a file conflict with the same name. A correction might be sent later that day/early the next morning.), add 1, if another 2 etc.

I.e. For VS: Macintosh HD/Users/(My username)/Dropbox/Manifests/VS

From the 3 hours I spent attempting this and getting nowhere fast, I thought someone might find this an interesting challenge, and it would be greatly appreciated!

Meanwhile, I am going to be reading up on Applescript in my free time, very powerful tool and time saver!

First create a rule that looks for ANY  of the Manifest in all of the variations or DSR

Like So:

Then save this script (assuming you are using 10.8 Mountain Lion. )
In the folder ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.mail/

    using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule

        set codeList to {"CV", "VS", "SAA", "TK", "DHV", "LH"}
        set subFolder to ""
        set theDate to do shell script "date +%Y_%m_%d_%H%M%S"
        --set ruleName to name of theRule

        -- The folder to save the attachments in (must already exist)
        tell application "Finder" to set attachmentsFolder to ((path to home folder as text) & "Dropbox:DSR") as text

        tell application "Mail"

            repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
                set theSubject to subject of eachMessage
                repeat with i from 1 to number of items in codeList
                    set this_item to item i of codeList
                    if theSubject contains this_item then

                        set subFolder to this_item

                    end if
                end repeat
                if (count of (eachMessage's mail attachments)) > 0 then

                    try

                        tell application "Finder"

                            if not (exists folder subFolder of folder attachmentsFolder) then
                                make new folder at attachmentsFolder with properties {name:subFolder}
                            end if
                        end tell
                        -- Save the attachment
                        repeat with theAttachment in eachMessage's mail attachments

                            set originalName to name of theAttachment
                            set savePath to attachmentsFolder & ":" & subFolder & ":" & originalName

                            tell application "Finder"

                                if (exists file originalName of folder subFolder of folder attachmentsFolder) then
                                    set savePath to attachmentsFolder & ":" & subFolder & ":" & theDate & "_" & originalName
                                end if
                            end tell
                            try
                                save theAttachment in file (savePath)

                            end try
                        end repeat

                    end try

                end if

            end repeat

        end tell
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

And point the Run Applescript at it.

If you are using an earlier Mac OS. Then you should be able to place the script where ever you want.

Thats it.

My tests all have worked. But it is late here and I should be in bed. So let me know if any issues and I will try and sort. :-)

The one thing to note is I have added a time stamp instead of a number for same named files. It is more reliable.


How to modify cupsd.conf on 50+ machines I need to modify the cupsd.conf file (removal of PAUSE-PRINTER/RESUME-PRINTER) on 50+ machines to allow non-admin accounts to resume the print queue.

Is there a way I can script this (through AppleScript or shell scripts) so a local admin could run this on each machine?

cupsenable - stop/start printers and classes

You should not need to use sudo to resume print queues. The CUPS command cupsenable can be run by a standard user.


Is there a way to determine what application/process is supposedly using a file/folder? There is a stubborn folder in my trash bin that apparently cannot be deleted because "something is using it". I know how to force empty the trash bin, but rather than doing it, I'd like to know exactly who is using this file.

Is there a way to determine what application/process is supposedly using a file/folder?

Mac OSX Yosemite.

Yes, the lsof command will show you that.
Open a termin and type "lsof [folder name]" and the command and process id should be listed.


Restarting in safe mode without using the shift key under Mojave I'm trying to restart my MBP (now running Mojave) in safe mode, and for whatever reason holding down shift isn't doing the trick (this complaint is scattered across the internet). Apple offers this alternative for cases in which you don't have a keyboard:

Access the command line by opening Terminal remotely, or logging into the computer using SSH.
Use the following Terminal command:
sudo nvram boot-args="-x"

Unfortunately, when I run this command I get nvram: Error setting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) not permitted. Googling this error gets me a pointer to this bit of info:

  ...you must use the nvram command to properly set boot-args NVRAM
  variable. Starting with macOS Sierra, you must be booted to the
  recovery partition to run this command.

Booting from the recovery partition sounds even harder than getting into safe mode, so it appears I am back to square one. Are there any other ways to get to safe mode?

Problems with MBP's internal keyboard and Mojave not Restarting in Safe mode using Shift key, can sometimes be resolved using External keyboard instead.


Is it legal to burn an iTunes playlist to an audio CD and give it a friend as a gift? All the music on my iPod is legal, either ripped from my own CDs or purchased from the iTunes Store.

On a road trip recently a friend said she liked the music, so I was thinking of making her a mixed CD of some of the songs.

I know I can make a mixed CD of the songs for my own use in my own car, but is it legal for me to give the mixed CD to her as a gift?

Thanks.

Note: Author of question is from Canada.

In Canada this is not legal. Private copying is covered by a levy you pay on the blank CD-R media you are burning the tracks to but private copies are for your own use, they cannot be given away. There's some contrast here with CDs that's interesting. With physical media like tapes or CDs the "owner" is the person in possession of the original copy. This definition made it legit, at least in Canada, to borrow original materiel, copy it, and then return it. The levy on the CD-R covered the royalty payment for the copy (in theory) and you weren't obligated to destroy copies if the original left your possession. With downloaded content you can't give away the original in the same sense as physical media. Lending downloaded media and non-private copying of downloaded media are essentially indistinguishable actions.

Some legal alternatives in Canada:

Buy all the songs in physical format and make your mix tape from those
Buy her the tracks as gifts via iTunes
Buy you and her a month subscription to Rdio and make her a shared playlist there

Downloaded content has taken all the romance out of making mix tapes, that's for certain.


Difficulties with 4k60 support on my Late 2013 27" iMac I have a late 2013, 27" iMac with a GeForce GTX 780M graphics card, which I'm trying to get to connect to two 4k displays (Asus MG28U) at 60Hz. When I connect them, I am limited to 30Hz (but importantly, the 3820x2160 resolution does work):

I also have an early 2015 MacBook Pro, which supports these displays at 4k60. This confirms that the cables I'm using (Mini DisplayPort to Display port) are not the limiting factor). Interestingly, the preference pane looks different on my MacBook Pro, offering a bunch of scaling options, with no mention of refresh rate (although I can visually confirm it's 60 Hz):

I am trying to figure out why these two computers treat these monitors differently, and show different settings for them.

There is conflicting information about 4k support on this Mac. According to Apple's official technical specifications for this (iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) - Technical Specifications), its limited to only 2560x1600:

  Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display
  and up to a 30-inch display (2560 by 1600 pixels) on an external
  display

This is clearly (no longer) correct, given then my iMac is running two of these displays at 3840 x 2160 at 30hz.

Apple's page on Mac 4k support (Using 4K displays, 5K displays, and Ultra HD TVs with your Mac) contradicts this, claiming that 4K60 is supported for SST displays (emphasis mine):

  With OS X Yosemite v10.10.3 and later, most SST 4K (3840 x 2160)
  displays are supported at 60Hz on these Mac computers:

  MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and later
  MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) and later
  Mac Pro (Late 2013)
  iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) and later
  MacBook Air (Early 2015)

...

  Multi-stream transport (MST) displays

  These Mac computers support MST displays at 60Hz:

  MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) and later
  MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and later
  Mac Pro (Late 2013)
  iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) and later

Assuming this information is correct (I'm skeptical given the contradictions) this iMac can support 4k60Hz for SST displays, but not MST displays. In that case, I suspect that these Asus MG28U displays use MST, but I cannot find any information regarding whether they're SST or MST.

Has anyone gotten 4k60 to work with a late 2013, 27" iMac? Is there some setting or something that I am missing? Any help would be appreciated.

DisplayPort v1.2 -- vs 1.0 and 1.1 -- newly supported 60Hz UHD (4k), where the older specification had only enough speed to support 30Hz.  [Search "specifications displayport".  (On the Wikipedia page, you have to look at two separate tables.)]

I would infer that DisplayPort port on the older machine was v1.0 or v1.1, with the newer machine's being v1.2 (or higher).  (Apparently your cable is v1.2 (or higher).)

Since the two machines are running the same version of the OS, I would guess that the difference in the presentation of the resolution is a function of the DisplayPort version... although I would have thought that it was the OS itself.  ["Larger text" means (non-native) larger dots on the same screen (and fewer of them), and "More space" means, in the last case, full native resolution.]

As for the Apple specification page... one might wonder if there was an improvement in the hardware capability enabled by the software (i.e. the OS)... but I would guess that it actually was a mistake (surprisingly enough); the NVidia specifications for all the pertinent graphics cards say 3840x2160.  [I note that Apple has been known to cripple its hardware -- as in, such that you can get more than advertised, out of it -- on occasion [ref. incl. my own machine], but I can/do not see that here.]

BTW, my experience with my dual-panel display (which I think is "MST") is that you can catch it out sometimes, with one side lagging behind the other briefly.


Error Code 90161 Invalid provisioning profile I've developed an Xamarin Forms App and want to publish on App Store.

Have bought Apple Developer Program for 99$

I have created IPA using Visual Studio in ad-hoc mode and selected Distribution Identity and Distribution profile. But while uploading get the following error

  ERROR ITMS-90161: "Invalid Provisioning Profile.The provisioning
  profile included in the bundle x.x.x.x[Payload/x.x.x.app] is
  invalid.[Missing code-signing certificate.] For more information,visit
  the iOS developer Portal."

If you get this error, you probably don't have the correct type of Provisioning Profile. There's a few types of Provisioning Profiles, most notably are the "Development" and "Distribution" profiles. I suggest looking at your provisioning profiles, and if necessary recreate them.

You have to use App Store (not Ad-hoc) provisioning Profile while creating your .ipa in order to upload to App Store with Application Loader.

Try this, and see if that helps. Be sure to haul the new profiles in Xcode (or any other method you'd use) and edit your project's settings.


How to remove old identities from Mail? I previously had four e-mail accounts (and thus four identities) set up in the Mail app. I have now removed two of these accounts but when I compose a new e-mail the "From" drop-down box still lists four identities.

How do I remove the identities from the removed accounts?

Apparently removing the file
~/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState
resolved Daniel's problem without resorting to a factory reset.
Mac OS X is great for saving your progress but once in a while that savedState file causes these types of problems.
Happy Day!


What is the name of the long cable/plug attachment on the MacBook MagSafe charger? My MacBook 2015's MagSafe charger has two attachments for plugging it into the wall:

a simple plug, which slides/snaps onto the charging block
a loooong cable, one end of which can slide into the charging block and the other end has a plug on it for going into the wall

I would like to know the name of the second attachment.

The cable in question (pun intended) is called Power Adapter Extension Cable.

  Overview

  The 1.8-meter Power Adapter Extension Cable is an AC extension cord that provides extra length for your Apple power adapter. Use it with MagSafe and MagSafe 2 power adapters, 10W and 12W USB-A power adapters, and 29W, 30W, 61W, and 96W USB-C power adapters.

P.S.: The attached image is for illustration purpose and is obtained from the aforementioned hyperlink from the Apple Online Store.


My Macbook Pro is acting as if the SHIFT key were pressed when it absolutely isn't This started happening suddenly yesterday, and it's annoying/making my life impossible, to say the least.

I've tried searching for a solution but every solution given points toward a hardware issue. However, I'm sure I don't have any. I've checked in pages such as http://keyboardchecker.com and http://whatkeyamipressing.com and the SHIFT key doesn't appear as pressed—unless I actually press it, and when I release it, it shows as no longer pressed. However, my MBP still acts as if I were holding on to that key for dear life!

I use a USB keyboard, and have done so for a long time; nothing has changed in that respect, so I don't know what could be going on. I will say it's a Logitech MX Keys and, if you know that product, you'll now it's the buggiest thing in the world! So I disconnected it to see if perhaps a happy firmware update was culprit, but the issue continues with the USB keyboard off and/or disconnected.

Because this only leaves the internal keyboard as the possible culprit, I've tried disabling it to see what happens but apparently in MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 you can't do this. I've tried disabling it following instructions given in this forum. I've entered the following into Terminal:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext

All I get is:

  (kernel) Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyboard not found for unload request. Failed to unload com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyboard - (libkern/kext) not found.

And although it says you probably get an error but the keyboard is disabled anyway, I'm not seeing that: my internal keyboard still works fine and the issue persists.

Elsewhere I also read the workaround/solution for when this happens was to press SHIFT and, simultaneously, press CAPS LOCK several times (5-10 times). But this doesn't work either.

I've also checked, and Sticky Keys isn't enable. I've enabled it, pressed SHIFT 5 times, pressed SHIFT 5 times again, disable it again, etc., and the issue persists.

The only thing that's changed in my setup is that a week ago I added an external monitor connected to my MBP through the HDMI port. However, this was a week ago and the issue I speak of started yesterday.

What solves it? Well, clearing my Mac's cache folder and rebooting it seems to be the only way to fix it. That is, until it comes back late run the day.

Has anyone run into something similar? ANY input will be highly appreciated!

P.S. As you can see, this text has been written in normal sentence form, i.e. not entirely in Caps, which is weird, right? Because I'm having the issue right now, as I'm writing this message. So how do I know that my MBP thinks the SHIFT key is pressed? Well, when I click on a link it sends it into my reading List instead of opening it (to send stuff to your RL you click holding down SHIFT, of course); when I click somewhere on this text, for instance, it paints the text from the last place the cursor was to the place I've clicked, as if SHIFT were pressed; when I click on 2 or more files on my desktop it selects them, as if I were group-selecting them pressing SHIFT; etc.

P.S.S. Nor does my computer boot in Safe Mode when restarting. When I restart it starts out fine; it's later on it become wacky.

In your case, when you reboot and if it has a shift button press then it should boot in SAFE mode. As you are not facing this, I am sure this is not a full hardware issue. So NVRAM reset should help because temporarily you are able to fix by a quick reboot.

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

NVRAM (nonvolatile random-access memory) is a small amount of memory that your Mac uses to store certain settings and access them quickly. PRAM (Parameter RAM) stores similar information, and the steps for resetting NVRAM and PRAM are the same.

Settings that can be stored in NVRAM include sound volume, display resolution, startup disk selection, time zone, and recent kernel panic information. The settings stored in NVRAM depend on your Mac and the devices that you're using with your Mac.

If you experience issues related to these settings or others, resetting NVRAM might help.

How to reset NVRAM:

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

More detail from the Offical Apple Support page


Is there an AppleScript or Automator action to quickly edit Info for Video in iTunes? I ripped the DVD set of a television series to my iMac. But now, the filenames are weird and there is no meta info.

In Automator, I see there is an action to edit Info for a song. That's great, but it doesn't really work for TV Shows - it won't handle the stuff that you'd see in the "Video" tab when viewing Info in iTunes.

Is there an Automator action for this that I can use? If not, AppleScript?

It's possible on iTunes, here's a example

tell application "iTunes"
    repeat with i in (get selection)
        tell i
            set episode number to 1
            set episode ID to "blah"
            set season number to 1
            set show to "blah"
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell


Run GUI application in MacOS 10 in Docker I'd like to run an application in a Docker container that can start a GUI. This guide recommends using XQuartz. After starting XQuartz, run the following:

ip=$(ifconfig en0 | grep inet | awk '$1=="inet" {print $2}')
xhost + $ip
docker run -d --name firefox -e DISPLAY=$ip:0 -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix jess/firefox

This gives your local device permission to access the host server. Running the above, I get the error:

cannot connect to X server 10.0.0.69:0

I was not using the right display number. The guide above uses the default display number :0.

Find the correct one by running:

  display_number=`ps -ef | grep "Xquartz :\d" | grep -v xinit | awk '{ print $9; }'`

Then change your docker run command to include the flags:

-e DISPLAY=$ip:$display_number \
-v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \


Split an Apple-supplied Fusion Drive back into two separate volumes? Is it possible to take an Apple factory-created Fusion Drive and downgrade it into two separate volumes?  I understand this would also necessitate reinstalling the OS and Recovery Partition etc.

The reason to do so is that the company-mandated Sophos SafeGuard disk encryption software won't work on a Fusion Drive (unsurprisingly), and FileVault 2 is prohibited (for now).

Yes, you can split up a Fusion drive:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2015664/how-to-split-up-a-fusion-drive.html


How to make itunes stop asking "do you want to allow this computer to access information" on my iphone? I have an iphone and a macbook. Whenever I plug the phone into the laptop for charging, itunes starts dancing in the dock cause this alert demands my attention:

  do you want to allow this computer to access information on

  if you don't allow access you will not be able to manage or sync your iphone with this computer

I always say no. This is a work laptop. I just want to charge my phone. I don't want to accidentally opt my phone into some draconian corporate device management. Is there a way to get itunes to never ever ask this again?

Have you checked this box in the laptop's iTunes preferences?


Update ipod touch 2g to iOS 4? I have an iPod Touch (second generation) with iOS 3.1.2. Will I lose battery life or performance if I update to the latest iOS (4.2.1)?

These are the closest answers I could find:

iOS 4.2 on iPod Touch 2d Gen: is it worth it?
Does performance degrade between iOS 3.1 and 4.1 for the iPod Touch 2nd gen?

However, these relate to somewhat different versions of iOS.

I second that. No problems. I am sending you this post from my iPod touch 2nd generation with iOS 4.2.1.


Is it possible that a self cut micro sim is killing an iPhone ? When Apple introduced the iPhone 4 there where many mobile providers that didn't have micro sim's available so at that time I cut one with a sim card cutter into micro format. Since then I'm using this sim card. Now I borrowed this card to a friend for activating his refurbished iPhone 4, however the iPhone couldn't activate and always fell back to the setup screen. Now at the genius bar the blame the sim card. When I put this card in other iPhones it works perfect.
Is it really possible that an iPhone gets damaged by a sim card in this way ?

At the same time I heard from somebody that iPhone 4 have often issues with the sim tray overheating.

An iPhone that is failing activation certainly sounds like a self-cut SIM card could be a problem.

There's an easy way to tell, however: take someone else's non-cut SIM card and see what happens. If it works, the SIM card is at fault. If it doesn't work, the phone is at fault.


iPhone 4S before upgrades I have upgraded my iPhone 4S to the iOS 8.0 version and it has made my phone extremely slow. Can I restore my iPhone 4S to its original state before any upgrades were done?

Short answer - 'No'

Apple stopped signing iOS 7 in Sept 2014 for any device capable of running iOS 8.

There is no going back, even if you have a legitimately downloaded ipsw file for iOS 7, as it will never validate.


How to reinstall Snow Leopard on my MBP? I've been installing some applications and some things are not working properly. I want to reset my MBP to factory settings. How do I do a clean installation so I can start from scratch?

Just put in the Install DVD.
You can do that with the computer running and run the installer from the disc.
You can also boot directly to the disc by turning off the computer, putting it in, holding down the c key, and turning the computer on.

Follow the directions, and you'll have a clean install. Your personal files and preferences will be saved, but system files will be replaced.


Use iPhone or iPod touch as an external hard drive I have an iPod touch 4g with 64GB storage space. Is there some way to store files of any file type on the device? I know that there are plenty of apps which let you share files via iTunes. Is there a way to make file storage independent from iTunes? Can I exchange data between a PC and a Mac that way?
I have read that you have to use Jailbreak to access the file system. Is there any other more "legitimate" way of doing this?

If you have any apps or music on there, there's probably less than fifty GB available.  If you are that low on space, you might be better off with  a 64GB USB drive or SD card.

DropBox, OneDrive, iCloud, and their several competitors make it easy to keep files on it, but they also keep a copy of the same files on your other device.


Unable to delete third-party app from iPad I started to download Microsoft Excel app from App Store onto my iPad, but after almost an hour it was not yet half way downloaded (it's a huge file and I have slow wifi, so it's understandable). I decided to cancel the download. Now Excel is on the home screen and cannot be removed the usual way. I press and hold on it until it wiggles, then I click the x, and the usual message appears to ask me if I want to remove it, and I say yes, but nothing happens. The grayed-out Excel app icon just stays on my home screen.

How can I remove this app?

From this site:

Sometimes iPhone applications get stuck waiting or loading when installing. These apps might be frozen with a blank icon and no way to remove them for days. Holding down on the home screen to delete the stuck app won't even show the black circle with an "x" that appears on other icons. Here are instructions on how to delete these waiting applications:

Reboot your iPhone normally. See this link for instructions on how to restart your iPhone.
If the apps are still stuck on the home screen, try logging out of the App Store temporarily. Navigate to Settings -> iTunes & Store -> Apple ID -> Sign Out. Now open the App Store and Navigate to the Featured section. Scroll to the bottom of the page and touch the Sign In -> Use Existing Apple ID. Log in and the stuck apps should reset.
Still have strange icons on the screen or frozen downloading apps? Connect your iPhone to the computer and open iTunes. Navigate to the app store. Install the apps you are having a problem with on the computer then sync your iPhone.


Does macOS keep iSight Camera usage logs? Let's assume for this question that it is possible for hackers to gain access to your iSight camera, is it possible for you to check to see if such an incident has occurred by accessing the activity logs of the device?

That being said, does your iMac even keep activity logs of your camera and if so, how does one go about accessing them?

On recent hardware with the T2 chip and new macOS - the camera is controlled in firmware and Apple makes it clear when it's engaged.

Look for a product like MicroSnitch to let you know when recording is happening - whether it's a legitimate program or a covert one.

https://obdev.at/products/microsnitch/index.html

As long as you are on El Capitan or newer, I have seen zero cases where this isn't a solid detection mechanism.


Create firmware partition for macOS to be installed Here is what I did. I removed my internal SSD from my MacBook and now I am using an external SSD (a Samsung SSD T5) with macOS on it. Currently I have Mac OS X 10.9.5 installed on it.

I want to upgrade that to the current version version of macOS (Catalina). While doing so, I got the error below:

You may not install to this partition because the computer is missing a firmware partition.

How can I fix this issue so I can use my external SSD?

possible that I'm wrong, but even if it works, Apple does not provide this mode of operation and when it makes a major update.  It checks the compatibility of the material.  But in your configuration, you do not have an internal disk.  So no firmware at the place where Apple is looking for it.
Possible that if you put a disk and you do your update on the ssd, it could work. (if Catalina is supported of your mac ...)


External monitor on HDMI but no sound This has been asked again but none of the answers apply because I've tried them all:

My MacBook is a 2013 Retina Macbook Pro, so it supports audio through HDMI
the HDMI cable is plugged directly into the HDMI port (no adapter)
the monitor has speakers, and their volume is to 100% (Asus PA248Q)
I've selected the HDMI audio output in the system settings
I've tried with a different HDMI cable

But still no audio through the monitor's speakers. What am I missing?

FYI, the audio works fine in any other case.

From what I can tell from reading the Specifications Page, there are no speakers built into  this particular monitor.  There are however, two different audio outputs:  HDMI 1.3 and 3.5mm headphone/speaker jack

The easiest way to test this out is just get a cheap set of speakers or a headset with the 3.5mm jack and plug them in.  If it works, you know all is well with your setup - you just need speakers.


How to find the location of the items I created in iTunes? I created music as .wav files using a program called Mackie Traction. I then used iTunes to convert them to .mp3 files.

How can I attach these files to an email to export them to MySpace or other similar sites?

Select track in iTunes
Right-click -> Show/Reveal in Finder
Drag files from Finder window into new mail message

Alternatively (if dragging directly in step 3 doesn't work) you can click the Attachment icon in the new mail message, navigate to the folder opened in step 2 (or just drag the MP3 from the folder window into the Open dialog) and attach the file directly.


Files stuck in Trash So I recently had to reinstall my OS on my MBP.  After the reinstall I attempted to open Chrome, but it would not open...I forget the error message.  It was like there was a file missing or something.  So, I tried to reinstall it and this was a struggle too, since I had to do it multiple times before it took.  One of the things I had to do was delete the old copy of Chrome and I used App Zapper for that, since I could not remove it any other way.  After deleting the App, I ended up with a bunch of folders in the Trash that I cannot delete no matter what I try.  These folders are mostly empty with the exception of one which is basically full of what appears to be folders containing all the various languages that Chrome supports, however those folders are all empty too.  When I try to delete these files, I get a message saying that they cannot be deleted because they are being used, yet when I check Activity Monitor, I cannot find them anywhere.  I do not use Chrome often, so i don't understand how these files can be in use but they can't be found running anywhere.  I have taken them out of Trash, put them in a different folder that I renamed and tried to delete them, but nothing.  I have tried commands from the Command Prompt, like -rm and I don't remember what else, but that doesn't work.  I have uninstalled Chrome again, and tried to delete them and nothing.  What can I do?
[]
[]2
[]3
[]4
[]5

And this just continues through all the language files, so you get the idea...  So let me reiterate, NONE of these files are actually in use no matter where I search for them, I can't find them.  So how do you delete files that not being used but the OS claims they are....?

Here is the result of the rm -r * Terminal command:

How about:

Type the following with empty space at the end into Terminal:

  sudo rm -rf

Drag the files you want to delete (from the trash) into the Terminal window and hit ender.
Enter your password. Done?

Disclaimer: Caution! The in this way deleted files are deleted forcefully and cannot be back easily. But I think you want exactly that...


Powerpoint: compress or downsample large images/graphics I'm using Powerpoint 2011, and I'm not able to find an option to easily downsample or compress images to produce a smaller output PPTX or PPT file.

I don't need the high resolution in some of the images in the slide, so the downsampling wouldn't hurt, but the option just does not seem to exist in the Mac version of Powerpoint (the Windows version has this feature.)

Is there any way I can compress the image and graphics sizes while saving or exporting a Powerpoint file in Mac? Or do I have downsample each of the individual images?

In PowerPoint 2011, you can use File > Reduce File Size to auto-downsample images. The dialog gives you a few options for quality:


A few drops of water on my Macbook Pro I was quietly working on my Macbook Pro today when my misguided colleague (what goes through some people's heads sometimes, I'll never understand) decided to have some fun with the plant water sprayer, he wasn't aiming in my direction but a few drops of water ricocheted off the plants and onto my Macbook (and on me - but that's less worrisome altogether), on the screen, the case and the keyboard. Now we're just talking a few stray drops, and everything seems to be working just fine but is there anything I need to do to prevent potential damage? This was more than six hours ago and I've since turned the MBP off and back on and haven't noticed anything unusual. Any word of advice would be appreciated. Also is there anything I can use to protect my MBP from similar incidents in the future?

EDIT: It is a 15-inch 2012 MBP and the drops landed on the trackpad, on a couple of the keys, also one landed between the keys and a couple landed on the screen. Altogether, I noticed 6-7 drops tops. I didn't immediately turn the MBP off, I finished what I was doing and turned it off about an hour after the incident occurred. I turned it back on a couple of hours later.

In general - drops will not find the sensitive places and unless you live in an area with salt spray saturating the air - it won't gather much salt and be corrosive before it dries.

Statistically, there are only a few places where water will get wedged into a small crack (capillary action also can move a drop quite some distance from where it lands) and cause corrosion before it evaporates.

You did well to power it off. The only other thing would be to flip it upside down after closing a cloth between the keys and the screen.

You can edit your question to specify exactly where the liquid landed and what model (year and size) and I'll see if you need any more details in the answer.

In short - don't worry. Let the water dry, and use the Mac. Take it in to a genius bar or someone well used to repairing that mac. They will be able to educate you on the risks of using it (not much - and back up your data anyhow - something will eventually fail spills, accidents or perfect maintenance nonetheless).


How do I extract X.509 certificates embedded in executables? This should be very simple, but I am unable to find a straightforward answer to this question. I have a few Mach-O binaries that have certificates embedded in them. Some of these might not be signatures, but rather root certificates that the code uses to verify other signatures with. Some of these might also be signatures. I'm working on some of Apple's core executables here, so that might help. How can I extract these from them?

Apple's root certificates are available via Keychain.app in the System keychain. Both expending too much effort, confirm the certificates you are trying to extract truly differ from those in the System keychain.

Be sure to review Apple's published source code for their tools, code signing, and signature verification at https://opensource.apple.com or ask on the Apple cryptography mailing list to chat directly with Apple's security engineers.

Mach-O Maybe?

Assuming the embedded certificates are stored in a data segment of the Mach-O files, see the article Parsing Mach-O files for details about how to access this content.

The open source tool MachOView will probably provide enough insight to judge if the certificate is encoded as a Mach-O segment.


Most suitable Mac OS 10.6 through 10.9 for early 2009 iMac I have an early 2009 iMac (9,1), currently running Mac OS 10.5. Now I want to use it as a media center and install XBMC, which only supports Mac OS 10.6 and upwards. The question arises, which OS version is the one that gets the best performance out of my system.

It is a 24' iMac with a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM.

Which OS between Snow Leopard and Mavericks will be the smoothest on my system? Has there been some comparison of the performance with different OSs?

I would suggest to use Mac OS X 10.6.

For my iMac 24" I have tested all newer versions (on different volumes), and 10.6 is running as it should be. 10.9 seems to be okay, but sometimes I see the "ball" and it takes more time until I can go on...

But it depends what you want to do and what you like - newer systems offers new features (and for me this is exactly why I stay on 10.6). AutoSave and recent application (documents) after computer (re)start might be keywords...

By the way: I would recommend to install LittleSnitch. This tool enhances the firewall for outgoing messages.


Apple pulled Mojave 10.14.0 -- Where can i get it? -- 10.14.4,,,10.14.6 etc., are still available from Apple I cannot upgrade to MOJAVE.  After spending a lot of time searching through Apple's download site, I contacted Apple support and they told me that I cannot download Mojave 10.14.0.  That version has been removed from their download files.  Other later versions are still available.  However, I CANNOT INSTALL 10.14.4 OR 10.14.6 without first installing 10.14.0.  Are there any non Apple sites that make that 10.14.0 download available?????

If you can't install macOS Mojave, your Mac may not be compatible.

First check the requirements on Apple Technical Specifications. Then, you can manually download the installer through Apple Official Support or the Mac App Store.

If you still can't update to macOS Mojave, you may download the installer from an external source, like I did when I needed to update from Snow Leopard (10.8) to El Capitan (10.11).


Can I toggle Do Not Disturb on/off on my Mac as easily as I can on my iPhone? On my iPhone I can use the Control Center to toggle Do Not Disturb on and off whenever I want.

On my Mac I checked in System Preferences > Notifications and I can set it on a schedule, but there’s no option to show a Do Not Disturb icon in the Menu Bar.

How can I easily toggle Do Not Disturb on/off on my Mac without going into System Preferences or having to use Terminal?

Option + Click the menu bar

Actually, there is a Menu Bar icon, of sorts.

To toggle Do Not Disturb you can just hold the option key down while you click on the Notification Centre icon at top right of your Menu Bar.

Doing this will instantly make any visible notifications disappear and grey out the icon. You can still click on it to manually show/hide the Notification Centre whenever you want, but Do Not Disturb stays active.

NOTE: Do Not Disturb will stay active until the next day (when it becomes inactive again) or until you once again hold the option key while clicking on the Notification Centre icon.

Keyboard shortcut

You can also create a keyboard shortcut. To do this:

Go to Apple > System Preferences...
Select the Keyboard preference pane
Select the Shortcuts tab
In the left-hand pane select Mission Control
On the right-hand side tick the Turn Do Not Disturb On/Off checkbox
Now press the keys you want to use for your shortcut (e.g. in the screenshot below I've chosen ⇧⌘D)

Exit System Preferences

Now you should be able to use that Keyboard shortcut to toggle Do Not Disturb on/off as required.

NOTE: If a keyboard shortcut you've set up doesn't work, then it's most likely already in use for another purpose within macOS. Likewise, if it doesn't work while you're in a particular app, then it may conflict with an app-specific shortcut. In either case you will need to change your shortcut.


Does the MacBook Pro 15'' 8,2 Early 2011 accept both A1321 and A1382 batteries? I have a MacBook Pro 15'' A1286, model 8,2 Early 2011 (with i7 @ 2,3 GHz).

Inside is a A1382 battery telling that it must be replaced.

I have in stock a A1321 battery which is in good condition.

The two batteries use same voltage, have same shape and the connector is at the same location. Furthermore, the both connectors plug without problem into the female socket on the motherboard.

The majority of vendors MacBook batteries commercialize:

the A1321 for 2009-2010 MacBook Pro
the A1382 for late-2011 and later versions of the MacBook Pro

For above MacBook models, the two batteries are uncompatile.
In this thread, Jozef Vaclavik explains that the order of pins is different, although the connector is same. With proper equipment and knowledge, the pins could be inverted.

But what about the early 2011  MacBook Pro 15''?
It seem that most vendors commercialize the A1382 battery for it, but some other commercialize the A1321.

I would be surprised if a corporation like Apple had designed a model that could possibly present a risk of battery explosion in case of a improper battery swap.

So, could the early-2011 MacBook Pro 15'' be a transition model and natively accept both batteries thanks to a voltage inverter on the board?

Is anyone using a A1321 battery inside the early 2011 MacBook Pro 15'' 8,2?

Regarding your statement that:

  But what about the early 2011 MacBook Pro 15" ? It seem that most vendors commercialize the A1382 battery for it, but some other commercialize the A1321.

I haven't come across this scenario, so can't comment on your source for this.

However, officially the A1382 battery is compatible with all of the 15.4" A1286 models of MacBook Pro from the Early 2011 models up until the Mid-2012 models.

And, officially, the A1321 battery is compatible with all of the 15.4" A1286 models of MacBook Pro from the Mid 2009 models up until the Early 2010 models. They are not officially compatible with the Early 2011 models.

Were you to use an A1321 battery in the Early 2011 models you would be doing so at your own risk.


Music library deleted from iPhone I switched from the iPhone to a Samsung last May and today decided to charge my old phone to use it as a regular iPod. However, when I turned it on all of my music was gone. The computer I had it back up on crashed last year too so the music on my phone was the only copy. Any ideas on what happened or how I can recover it?

Apple doesn't back up music files as part of iOS backups since they either came from iTunes Match / iTunes in the Cloud or they came from a computer.

You should try a tool like PhoneView to see if the files are still on the storage and just the catalog has become missing or corrupt.
You could reconnect it to the computer that has the music.
You could reconnect it to the cloud music.
You could pursue data recovery on the device itself - that would likely be extremely expensive or you'd have to be very lucky and have the device jailbroken and no further usage of the storage since each time a new file gets written, it can and will over-write the music.

If the music was truly on the phone, then it would be best to get a quote from a data-recovery specialist and then see if you want to try DIY recovery and/or if it would be cheaper to get the music elsewhere.


The Date is a Day Ahead The date on my iphone is a day ahead and creating the wrong dates for emails and tests and such.  Anyway that I can reset it or rewind it?

Go to Settings->General->Date & Time and switch "Set Automatically" on. This should sync the time your iPhone has with Apple's servers, correcting the problem.


How to avoid Mail.app grouping mails While i generally like the newest Mail.app, i particularly dislike that it groups all messages that i receive from a specific sender. This makes it difficult to remove a specific message and i would like to disable it.

Is there a way to turn grouping off and show messages in single message mode, like the older Mail.app was doing ?

Toggle the View > Organize by Conversation menu item.


Can't copy media to iPad through iTunes File Sharing because not enough free space is available I'm getting the following error when trying to copy a MKV file to VLC on iPad using the iTunes File Sharing on Windows:

  "Movie.mkv" could not be copied because not enough free space is available.

The movie is 2.2 GB, and iTunes is reporting that my iPad has 6.75 GB free which should be plenty.

Identifying the problem

This issue is widely reported on Apple support and individual app support forums all over the Internet. I believe it has little to do with the amount of free space on your iOS device, but instead iTunes is ambiguously informing you concerning the amount of free space on your computer's hard drive. Though the support article I link is concerning backups failing to restore through iTunes, it does describe the issue.

What is happening is iTunes has determined there is not enough free space on your hard drive to backup the iOS device once that file syncs over. The reason for this is that by default, iOS device backups include all apps and all documents those apps store (including your large mkv file), which is why when you sync, the longest process is usually the first one, the notorious backup process, which occurs at every sync.

Solutions

disable full iTunes backups

Changing the behavior of iTunes backups to ignore the documents stored on your iOS device is one solution to your issue.

to disable full iTunes backups on OS X, enter this command in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app :

 defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true

to reenable the full iTunes backups switch to false:

 defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool false

For disabling full iTunes backups in Windows, please see these instructions.

free up space on your hard drive

delete iTunes backups

One easy way is to delete the old iTunes backups you're storing. See the "Deleting a backup in iTunes" section of the Apple support article linked here, which I will quote below:

  If you want to delete a backup created by iTunes, follow these steps:

  Open iTunes Preferences:

  Windows : Choose Edit > Preferences
  Mac: Choose iTunes > Preferences

  Click Devices (the iOS device doesn't need to be connected).
  iTunes will show the phone number, IMEI, and serial number of the backed up iPhone when you position your mouse pointer over a backup (iTunes shows only the serial number for iPad and iPod touch). You can use this to find the backup you want to delete.
  Select the backup you want to remove and click Delete Backup.

5 Quick Tips to Free Up Disk Space in Mac OS X

See the article linked in this subheading for easy ways to clear space on your hard drive if you have a Mac. For clearing up free space on Windows, try this guide.

Monolingual

Another reasonably painless way to free up hard drive space is to use an open source utility like Monolingual to remove unnecessary language resources from OS X, which by itself can free up hundreds of MB.

Other recommendations

You can view your video in the iOS native media player without transcoding

Subler is a utility designed specifically for adding subtitles to video files. It will also, however, simply copy and rewrap, and not transcode, the AVC (h.264) encoded video wrapped in mkv to a friendly format, and it will transcode the audio from ACC to AAC if necessary. Further, it will also optimize the location of the mpeg-4 atom in the resulting file for iTunes friendly use. It uses a friendly drag and drop paradigm. Download Subler, unzip into your Applications folder and launch Subler. Type command-n to begin, and drag your mkv file into the window, and choose from the simple available options to convert your mkv file without transcoding. Then import your new mp4 file into iTunes and sync to your iOS device.

For Windows systems, MkvToMp4 is an application that similarly will reformat your mkv to mp4 without transcoding. Whether the resulting mp4 file will be friendly to iTunes remains to be seen, but it is worth a try to be able to losslessly convert video files from one format to another.

Alternatively, this bash script uses ffmpeg, SublerCLI and HandbrakeCLI to batch rewrap, transcode or otherwise convert video files of various codecies and iTunes/iOS incompatible wrappers to iTunes/iOS friendly formats, automatically choosing a method that retains the best possible quality resultant file. It, however, takes bit of reading and understanding the script to get it to install its dependencies. Also it will take a lot of time to complete processing if set upon a lot of files requiring HandBrake transcodes, and while doing so eventually eat up all your free memory in the process. It is very covenient once it is working and set in your $PATH, will eat through directory structures converting unfriendly video formats where it finds them, and nondestructively will place original files in your ~/.Trash so you can preview the resultant files before eliminating the originals.

Technically, you can use bash scripts on Windows if you first install Cygwin. The script linked above would likely need some adjusting to work under Cygwin, but if learning a little bash doesn't kill you, then it will only make you stronger. ;-)