How do I selectively sync music to my iPhone? I share an iTunes account with my children and they purchase music with the account on our Mac. How do I keep the music they purchase from appearing on my iPhone when I sync?

If I were you, I would pay the $25 a year for iTunes Match. Provided you all share a single Apple ID, this will let all of you use it's features.
The one you are interested in is

Turn on iTunes Match (having synced your computer iTunes to Match already)
Make sure "show all music" is on
Go through and download the songs you like onto your device.
Turn off "show all music"

With that you have only the songs you care about, don't need to even see your kids music, and can manage it all from your phone.
i am an iTunes Match power user, and there are dozens of other ways to use it, but that is a whole different question.


Can‘t setup an iPad or Apple TV as Home Hub I tried a lot of different things and running out of ideas. I wanted to start using the HomeKit and failed to setup a Home Hub, both with my Apple TV 4 and with my iPad. My Apple ID is setup with Two-Factor-Authentication and Keychain enabled. Home is switch on my iPhone and iPad. I also rebooted the devices several times and signed off and on e.g. in the Apple TV. I use latest OS versions. HomeKit does not show up in Apple TV and if I set to use the iPad a Home Hub, nothing changes.

All Home applications on iPad, iPhone or Mac indicated that remote access is not set up and suggest to setup a home hub.

Anything you see that I missed?

Try using the same Apple ID.

Make sure you follow all the steps in this article:

  Set up two-factor authentication for your Apple ID. On your iOS device, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and make sure that
  iCloud Keychain is turned on.
  On your Apple TV, go to Settings > Accounts and make sure that you're signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID as your iOS device.
  After you sign in to iCloud, your Apple TV automatically sets itself up as a home hub.   To see if your Apple TV is connected as a
  home hub, go to Settings on your Apple TV. Then go to Accounts >
  iCloud and look under HomeKit.


SysPref > Keyboard > Text auto-spell-correct is OFF but persists in Numbers I switched off spell-correct in SysPref > Keyboard > Text, but Numbers 3.2 continues not only to suggest corrections, but - when I decline the suggestion by hitting ESC - to replace my text with its suggestion.  How utterly annoying of it!  Any idea how to shut it up?

Have you unchecked "Show suggestions when editing table cells" in the Numbers Preferences panel? ( ⌘+, )


Viewing a mms:// live broadcast on my Desktop? I want to view an upcoming live broadcast on my MacBook Pro The URL is mms://media.citris.berkeley.edu/webcast

I am only familiar with MMS with use on Mobile Phones, not desktops.

Is there a desktop application which can view the MMS protocol?

VLC Player
You can also take a look at the VLC features list.


Can Photos app on macOS sync faces (or People)? I'm running the Photos app on several Macs and have iCloud Photo Library enabled. One of the Macs downloads the originals as well, the others use the Optimize Mac Storage feature. But I can't seem to find out how to sync faces across the devices.
In Apple Support article #HT204486 it states the following:

Photos lets you tag people's faces in your pictures so you can find friends easily. When you use iCloud Photo Library, these faces automatically update on all your devices.
iCloud doesn't automatically update changes to the names associated with Faces or the contents of the Faces photo album in the Photos app. You can tag people's faces with names on multiple Macs, but the face tags and Faces photo albums will remain unique to each computer.

Now I've read this a couple of times but I really can't figure out what this actually means; the first paragraph says "sure, it can be automatically updated on all your devices" but the second paragraph states "but it doesn't update changes".
Simply put: is it, or is it not, possible to have the same faces on all my macs? And if so, what is the best approach for periodically assigning photos to faces/people?
Note that I've seen a similar (one-liner) question, with an appropriate response. But these do not reflect what is stated in the support article.
Update 27 Sep, 2016: now with macOS Sierra and the accompanied Photos app this is still not possible. Meaning the new "People" feature is device specific and is not synched into the cloud. And is therefor useless if you have multiple devices. There is another question for this as well.
Update 20 May, 2017: with Photos v2.0 (3150.4.120), on macOS 10.12.5, the "Faces" feature has been renamed "People". However, it is still not possible to sync people across Macs AND iOS devices.

The key part is where it says: "These items are available only on the Mac where you created them: Faces tiles and Faces data".

Essentially, Apple Photos is the next version of iPhoto, but with much better syncing added. However, they haven't yet added sync for everything. I would like to be able to start a book project at home and finish it at my work computer, but because, like faces, books are not yet synced, this isn't possible.

Hopefully, they will start syncing the rest of the data in the next release or two.


Mail.app: Moving Emails from local folder to imap folder -> HDD space decreases temorarily At the moment I am moving large quantities of Emails from a local folder in Apple's Mail.app to an imap folder. I am talking 10+ GB here and more than 10,000 Emails. I am using Mac OS X 10.6.8. It is a slow process, which is to be expected. It happens what is supposed to happen: Emails vanish in local folder and appear in imap folder.

What happens that I do not get is that HDD space decreases considerably during the process (approximately the same amount of GB I move) and stay down temporarily but for a considerable amount of time (several hours). Theoretically I am supposed to have around 9 GB of free space on my hard disk which went down all the way to zero and has in several hours recovered only to 2.5 GB again and goes up only very very slowly.

My guess is that this is what is suppose to happen in the process, but I would be interested in what exactly is happening here. Why does it take up such large amounts of space to move emails and why does it take so long afterwards until HDD space becomes available again?

Thanks.

Edit: Looks like I was mistaken. Space is not recovering. With "Get account info" I see that I moved 8.6 GB to the IMAP Mailbox. At the same time I deleted about 2 GB of files on my system to free up space. With the initial 9 GB I had free on my system I should be at 11 GB. So in fact I actually lose the same amount of space on my system like the emails I moved, since I am now down to about 2GB. But the mails in the local folder are deleted, so normally the space should have been freed up! This does not make any kind of sense to me!

My hypothesis is that what you observe is happening because you are setting your IMAP account not to have all the message for offline consumption, but only headers. If you had it set to full messages, you would be decreasing your space even more, because the IMAP metadata needs to be kept in a database, apart from the full messages.


How to browse /usr in an Open File dialog? I came to the necessity of browsing and picking up a file from /usr while using some programming tools, but I cannot do so because /usr seems to be hidden from Open File dialog.

Is there any workaround?

Inside the Open File dialog, press : shift + command + g . This will let you enter a path.

type /usr and press return


Make open file 'finder' larger by default How do I make this window larger by default so whenever I 'open a file' in any program, it's not super small?
I am referring to the window size, not the text size.
I have the finder (outside of 'open a file') larger by default, I am unsure how to make this one larger.

Generally speaking a window remembers the last size it was set to before closing it. That can and will be overridden on an individual folder basis. EG a folder will usually remember the size and position of the finder window that was opened to view it.
Unfortunately the days of a truly spatial Finder went away with macOS X. So the Mac does not always remember the window size, icon arrangement and such. A feature I really miss from the Classic MacOS days.
But, again, macOS should remember the size that the last Finder window that was opened.


MacBook Pro 15" Mid 2010 Update Firmware to read APFS hard drive? Good day everyone, I have a 15" MacBook Pro Mid 2010. It's working well with the current hard drive (El Capitan). However when we swapped in our SSD (High Sierra) and booted, it gave the blinking folder which means that it can't find an OS to boot from.

I reset the laptop and held down the alt/option key. I then saw two options, an "EFI Boot" and our SSD. I was able to boot from our SSD and everything is working well.

However, this presents an inconvenience, it would be quite the hassle to reset the laptop and remember to hold down the alt/option key to be able to make the laptop boot properly.

When I looked up updates for our MacBook Pro model, the updates I found were dated way back 2010/2012, and I don't think these are the updates I'm looking for.

One solution we're looking at is to get a blank SSD, install El Capitan or until Sierra (whichever is available), and then upgrade to High Sierra. This way, we are guaranteed that the firmware will be updated as well. However, this solution is time consuming.

So here then is my question: Is there a way to update my Firmware so that it can read APFS hard drives?

Installing the full "Install macOS High Sierra" app over again will re-apply the firmware update, whether or not it was done previously.
Installing 'over the top' in this manner will leave all your data intact.

As an added bonus, it will add or fix the Recovery Partition too.


MacOS Mail cannot access folders on external drive via symlinks My 2012 Mac Mini is running High Sierra, and I have copied older mail folders to a partition of an external drive. In the User mail folder, I then placed symlinks. In Finder, the symlinks show the complete hierarchical contents of the folders; but, while the Mail program sees all of the folder structure, it does not display the messages within.
Any clues will be appreciated!
Edit 01/28 – Permissions look Ok; wonder about "Sandbox" – can't seem to find about that.
I found these similar questions, also relevant, but older OS versions:     Moving individual Mailbox to external drive and    How to move all of my mails to external HD and make them appear only when its connected  and
Transferring Emails saved on Mac to generic folder  and
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7001081
2/2/2020 - Ideas, anyone?
11/28/2020 – add Move mail boxes data to external drive on Mac Mail on Mavericks to the list

Wow, I just discovered that while this would not work in High Sierra, it does work in Mojave!
And then as I did some further importing, it no longer worked ... sigh ...


What non-Apple external monitors are currently recognized as 2 pixels per point? I was thinking about getting a Dell 4k or perhaps a 2560x1440 display, but then I realized that not all non-Apple displays are recognized as 2 pixels per point even though the ppi is high enough.

Is there a list of non-Apple displays currently accepted by OS/X as 2 pixels per point?

Since Retina is an Apple trademark, the "official" answer is no third-party display gets that recognition.

According to wikipedia, all Mac that are marketed with Retina displays have a pixel density of 220 PPI or thereabouts, so you could make an argument that any external display that's IPS and at least 220 pixels per inch would be in the "Retina class".

The iMacs are slightly less than 220 PPI:

Retina 4K iMac - 21.5-inch diagonal - 4096 × 2304 pixels
Retina 5K iMac - 27.0-inch diagonal - 5120 × 2880 pixels

Apple markets color depth, lack of distortion, wide viewing angle in addition to pixel density sufficient for a normal viewing distance to make things non-pixelated to the average sighted person. You may or may not care about those other metrics when shopping, but pixels are easiest to count so I'd start there.

You can also read Apple's documentation on what is required to drive these high pixel count displays:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202856


iPhone Visual VoiceMail in Israel I brought my unlocked iPhone 4S to Israel and got a local SIM card. The voicemail button is calling the voicemail instead of showing me the visual voicemail.

I asked my provider about it (Cellcom) and they had no idea what I was talking about. They didn't even know Visual Voicemail existed.

Is there a way to enable it?

Nope.

Visual Voicemail needs to be activated by the service provider as it uses their services. It requires some work on their side, so I would imagine they need a big group of people wanting it.

Out of interest, this Wikipedia article briefly covers the topic. There is no open standard for this feature, so it hasn't been deployed on a lot of networks due to the service provider having to provide the required interfaces.


Share links, notes, and pictures between iPhone and Mac? Just like the newly presented iMessage but instead of just between iOS devices, with the Mac too.

I've looked at Handoff. It can only send links to the iPhone from the Mac.

I've looked at Droplr. It requires public sharing on a Twitter account. Not what I want.

I've been using email and have been recommended Evernote. But these solutions require a document that I must create, wait to sync, and/or later delete to free up clutter. I just want to send a quick message.

I just want an app/application pair that can quickly share links, notes, and pictures between devices, like iMessage.

Does what I desire exist?

Apple OSX Mountain Lion has been announced, it includes a few of the iOS apps on the mac desktop such as Notes, Game Center, reminders, twitter and message.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/


How do I move a row between two rows in Numbers? Simple question. In iWork's Numbers, is there any way to move a row of data between two rows, as opposed to just plopping it on top of existing data? You can easily do this in Excel if you hold down the Shift + Command key or some simliar combination when moving a row or even a group of rows.

Click and release in the column header
Drag the column header. You'll see an insertion bar drawn between the destination columns.

You are probably moving the cursor over an edge of the selection rectangle until it turns into the hand and then dragging. That will replace the column you drag to.


Prevent iCloud Drive from removing specific folders I'd like to use iCloud Drive to sync my documents + desktop.

However, many times it will remove projects while I'm still working on them (even small ones, like 10MB).

Is there some sort of flag that will tell macOS to sync a folder, but never remove it until I say so?

Mind that I wouldn't like to not sync a certain folder, I'd like to keep macOS from removing it to create purgeable space.

As of macOS Sierra 10.12.4, it is not possible to flag individual folders to stay on your local drive at all times. This is an all-or-nothing toggle.

You may access it under  → System Preferences → iCloud → iCloud Drive Options… There, uncheck Optimize Mac Storage.

This will prevent your files/folders backed by iCloud from being purged automatically from the local storage.


How do I tell what processes are driving I/O loads? Something is driving a lot of Disk I/O on my system lately. I can see in ActivityMonitor that there are huge volumes of reads and writes every second. But none of the "normal" suspects are active when this is happening. (i.e. it's not time machine.) and I have plenty of free memory (800MB to 1.3GB out of 6GB total) so it shouldn't be paging. I don't see any apps in top that are blocked on I/O when this starts. (once it's going then I see things start to pile up... but everything I see in there appears to be victim.)

What tools can I use to get a sense for what process is causing the disk io?

I think it started with 10.6.6. :( I don't recall ever hitting this with 10.6.5.

Try sudo iosnoop; it shows I/O as it happens, including the process ID and process name doing the I/O, as well as data size, file path, etc.  There are options to restrict it to only show a certain device, mount point, process, etc.


VPP app for business worldwide distribution After a long submission process Apple suggested to deliver an app via VPP for business. The app is marked as "distributable worldwide", but apparently the redeem codes are enabled only for one country.

The app is designed for different users (not employee of a single company, so no 300$/year solution) which resides in different countries.

Is there a way to give the users redeem codes when they are not necessarily in the country of the VPP store?

I've asked Apple but they REALLY didn't seem to have a clear picture of their own voucher code system.

After explaining a couple of times the situation, the App is now distributed on iTunes.

VPP is very country-specific, so if your client is a multi-national which has business in various countries (and some countries don't even have VPP so far, see Russia) you can still have your app published on the "public" iTunes.

Pay attention that this approval process will last at least 1 month.


Running shell scripts in single-user mode I'm planning on running a couple of scripts in single-user mode to speed up (and simplify for less savvy users than myself) the configuring of a few aspects of some Macs that I set up for other people.

I've read the few threads I could find about this, and my question is simply is there anything I should be particularly aware of when it comes to running scripts from single-user mode?

I'm aware that I can't invoke any commands/apps that would require a GUI to load, and that the /sbin/fsck and /sbin/mount commands would still be required before a script can be run at all.

Two more specific questions: If I set the script as executable before depositing it on the disk image that will be booted in single-user mode, will it remain executable?

And lastly, when it comes to removing user accounts I've seen on some threads e.g this one the need to invoke this command:

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist

However, as I simply want to rm various files - is there any need to do this, the process seems to work just fine without it?

Yes, files flagged as executable will still be executable under Single User Mode.

opendirectoryd is just for handling logins/authentication and using root doesn't require that, and you don't need to launch it if you just intend to manage files.


NFS server support in OS X 10.15.x Catalina? Does anyone having information on the state of NFS v3 and v4 support in Catalina?  I have a question related to my configuration that follows.

I read at:

https://www.bresink.com/osx/143439/Docs-en/pgs/0020-Intro.html

  Apple’s support for NFS in this operating system is very immature at the moment and you have to expect a variety of different technical issues, including crashes of the system kernel. Depending on what NFS features you are planning to use, we strongly recommend to stay away from Catalina.

So far, I read this thread:
Thread on NFS Support in Catalina

that NFS v2,v3 is supported as a server and NFS v2,v3,v4 is supported as a client.  I'm curious if there was better support pre-Catalina and if something changed in Catalina.

I'm interested in serving a home directory to a VirtualBox instance of Debian Linux.  This will allow me to share a single home directory with multiple Linux guest OSs.

My configuration is:

On Mac edit /etc/exports

/Users/x/unixhome -mapall=username -network 192.168.56.0 -mask 255.255.255.0

Restart nfs

$ nfsd restart

On Linux mount

$ sudo mount -t nfs 192.168.56.1:/Users/np/unixhome /mnt/tmp
mount: /mnt/tmp: bad option; for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might need a /sbin/mount.<type> helper program.

Any insight and use cases appreciated.
Check that NFS is being served
The port is open!

$ telnet 192.168.56.1 2049
Trying 192.168.56.1...
Connected to 192.168.56.1.
Escape character is '^]'.

So why am I having trouble mounting from Linux?  Is there any more debug I can do?

Thanks

Do you have the NFS client utilities installed on the Linux system? The error message from your Linux system states that /sbin/mount.nfs isn't present, which suggests that the NFS client utilities are missing. On Debian/Ubuntu systems they're in package nfs-common - install that package and see if the mount then succeeds.

If you're all you're interested in is sharing a directory between your VirtualBox VM and the host there's no need to use NFS. If you install the VirtualBox guest additions you can share directories quite easily between host and guest.


How to check how much battery each application uses? How would one check how much battery an application uses from a full charge of 100%?

Are there any applications out there or is this impossible?

This is pretty much impossible. Each program doesn't directly use battery power - they all use the CPU, which uses battery power. But every other hardware component uses power as well - the screen, GPU, hard drive/SSD, etc. And of course you're not just running one program at a time, you're typically running several, plus all the background processes for the OS and other services. This is further complicated by how the OS and CPU allocate resources - despite how it appears, everything isn't running simultaneously, the CPU just switches between tasks every quickly, giving the appearance of everything running concurrently. On top of that, modern CPUs can change the amount of power they draw depending on the tasks going on.

So the effect that each program has on battery life depends on a lot of factors, most of which aren't easily measurable. The closest you could get might be tracking the CPU utilization of each program over time, and making an estimate based on the battery drain over that period. However that would be a very rough estimate, and not very accurate for any useful purpose I can think of.


iPad won't do anything So I installed the iOS 8 upgrade, however now my iPad does nothing. It won't charge. It won't show anything but the Apple logo. I've tried soft and hard reboot. Nothing! I am furious!

This is a bit fiddly, but you should be able to restore your iPad using iTunes on a Mac or Windows computer.

Please be aware that both of these options will restore your iPad to factory settings, so if you don't have a backup you will lose your data.

First thing to do is make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed. Then connect your iPad to your computer and open iTunes.

If your iPad appears within iTunes then...

Select your iPad within iTunes and click the Restore button.
You'll be prompted to confirm that you want to restore to factory conditions. Click Restore to confirm you are okay with this, then iTunes will download a fresh copy of iOS and install it on your device. Click here for more info about this option.

However if it doesn't appear within iTunes then...

Unplug your iPad and turn it off completely. You should be able to do this by holding the power button on the top of the device until the display goes dark.
Then, with iTunes still open on your computer, hold in the home button on your iPad and reconnect it to your computer. Keep holding the home button on your iPad until the Connect to iTunes screen appears.
Once you see that screen you can release the home button and iTunes should tell you that it has detected a device in Recovery Mode that needs to be restored.
Select your device within iTunes and click the Restore button. As above you'll be asked to confirm you want to Restore your device, and if you confirm that, iTunes will download and install a fresh copy of iOS on your device. Click here for more info about this option.

Hope this helps.


2 HDMI 1080p monitors from 1 usb c port I have the 15 inch MacBook Pro 2016, is there a way to plug in 2 hdmi displays into 1 port.

Technically this is possible. The trick, however, is finding the adaptor you will need to achieve it. I've seen many USB-C to HDMI adaptors on the market, but I don't recall seeing a USB-C to dual HDMI adaptor.

On the other hand, some people have achieved connecting two displays to a single USB-C port using a couple of different connectors. By this I mean they have purchased a USB-C to multiple port adaptor and then connected one HDMI display to the HDMI port, and a second HDMI display to one of the other ports through a second adaptor cable. I've generally seen this done in one of two ways:

Using a DVI to HDMI adaptor, with the DVI end connected to the DVI port on the USB-C to multiple port adaptor and the HDMI end into the display
Using a USB to Video adaptor, with the USB end connected to the USB port on the USB-C to multiple port adaptor and the DVI end into the display

However, your mileage in doing so may vary. I would ensure that if you go down this path that you're purchasing your adaptors/cables from somewhere you can return them if they don't do the job. Of course, if you can find a USB-C to Dual HDMI port adaptor, that should make things a lot easier.

EDIT

Another option may be using a USB-C hub (or the like) that has additional USB-C ports and then using two USB-C to HDMI adaptors plugged into those.

However, you will need to ensure that any such USB-C ports are not limited to only data transfer, charging, etc and that they will support output to a display. This is also true if you opt for a USB to Video adaptor.


How to specify DNS server with USB hotspot? A combination of two problems: (1) Either my Mac or my iPhone has a Wi-Fi problem; and (2) the cell provider's DNS servers have issues.

Because of the second problem, I explicitly specify other servers for the iPhone Wi-Fi.  But due to the first, I use the USB connection.

When the Mac thinks (right or wrong) that the Wi-Fi signal has disappeared, the USB connection remains good, but I can't reach web servers (except through Tor, which won't let me log in to S.E.) and mail has frequent failures.

The GUI lets me specify DNS servers explicitly for each Wi-Fi SSID or Bluetooth pair (but Bluetooth won't stay connected--again, I don't know whether it's the Mac or the phone).

But the GUI has no DNS settings for the USB connection, and I have not been able to find one in the 'defaults' settings.  I could (maybe) use ipfw or iptables to redirect DNS queries but that would be a bit of a nuisance.  Any other solution?

(Yeah, another cell provider, but Peru doesn't have many and I hate to toss what cost 120 soles on the hope that another is better.)

I suspect the wireless issues are in the Mac, because the iPad works much better.  However, on the iPad, it frequently quits, but a quick off-and-on of both devices brings it back, while when the Mac Wi-Fi connection drops, it's gone for a long time.  The phone SSID doesn't appear on the menu.

Another oddity is with rebooting the iPhone:

Rebooting the iPhone gets the SSID to show up in the Wi-Fi list, but the Mac fails to connect.
Rebooting the iPhone gets mail working again, but web browser still can't find hostnames.

The answer seems to be

sudo networksetup -setdnsservers "iPhone USB"  address  address  …

For more details, see How can I quickly change DNS server


finding all directories with whitespace at the end of name I have a client who I'm switching to SMB to connect to a network drive, but we have an issue with users not being able to see certain directories over SMB, but they can see it using AFP although, while using AFP they have major connectivity issues.

I found that the directories can't be seen in SMB because they have white spaces at the end for some reason, also some directories have illegal names so they contain characters like / and " which won't work in SMB.

I can do 'find . -name "[<>:\|?]*" ' to find files with illegal characters but how can I change it to do directories as well? Also, how can I also detect the white spaced folders?

I'm quite sure I'd have to use the find command but I'm a bit stumped on how to refactor it to do this.

You can try this: find . -d -name "* " -type d -exec bash -c 'TO=$(echo "{}" | sed "s/.$//"); FROM=$(echo "{}"); mv  "${FROM}" "${TO}"' \;


After (exactly) 5-months, my cellular data usage logs reset to zero. What happened? Starting on 06/26/2017, at the end of each day, I began logging the cellular data usage for each of my Apps and System Services in a spreadsheet. On 06/26 all the cellular usage was at 0-MB. On 11/26 the data was as such:

/Settings/Cellular/
} Google (994 MB)
} Pokemon Go (625 MB)
} Uber (2754 MB)
...

/Settings/Cellular/System Services
} iTunes Acct. (115 MB)
} Messaging Services (241 MB)
} DNS Services (32.3 MB)
...

On 11/27 (yesterday), I started to input my cellular usage into my spreadsheet, and both Apps, and System Services, had reset to zero!!!

I did not do anything unusual to the iPhone.
What could have caused this "reset to zero" of my cellular usage logs (coincidentally) exactly 5 months after I started logging the usage?

  I guess the logs can't go to infinity.
  Actually, is this how cellular data logging is suppose to work on an iPhone?

thanks.

Go to Settings > Cellular and keep swiping up until you get to the very bottom of the page. You'll notice a blue Reset Statistics option. Below this check the Last Reset date to see if it coincides with when your data went to zero.

If it does, you have your answer. It's likely you've accidentally tapped on Reset Statistics, or that perhaps someone else did.
If it doesn't, then it's impossible for anyone here to give you a definitive answer as to what happened.

As for how it's supposed to work, there's no time limit as such. One of my devices shows it was last reset on 19 September 2013!


Import music into iPhone without deleting everything My OSX crashed and I installed it completely new (no backup). Now I wanted to import some music into my iPhone and it seems it is not possible. Every time I get the warning that everything get deleted if I synchronize it with iTunes. If I want to manage the music/video manually I also get this message. What can I do? The data on my iPhone should stay. I only want to add something ...

PS: Does it mean that my backup made with iTunes will not work?

If you never synced the iPhone with your PC/Mac, you cannot manually add songs without first deleting the iPhone (I am 99% sure about this).

You can use third party iTunes alternatives (i.e. CopyTrans Manager for PC and Sharepod for Mac to add songs to the iPhone without the need to sync with iTunes.


Add different iCloud email to existing AppleID Lets say an AppleID is created with the iCloud email address somebdy@icloud.com (misspelled).

Is there any way to correct the iCloud email to somebody@icloud.com? Creating a new AppleID would lose old purchases and is not an option.

Is iCloud permanently linked to an AppleID? Is there a way to change the @icloud.com address?

According to this Apple support article, renaming the iCloud/AppleID prefix is possible as long as it is not an @mac.com or @me.com (quoted from link).

However, when I follow the instructions, I only see an option to add a new primary email, I don't see the same screen as in the last illustration in that article.

Apple's screenshot:

My screenshot:

Even though the Apple support article referred to doesn't specificaly say this (I'm assuming it's because @icloud.com was only introduced recently and the article was never updated), what goes for @me.com and @mac.com goes for @icloud.com (they're all aliases for the same address).

ie, read: Some Apple IDs, like those ending in @mac.com, @me.com or @icloud.com, can't be changed.

So no, unfortunately you won't be able to change.

iCloud: About your icloud.com, me.com, and mac.com email addresses
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5441


Why are my top-row keyboard buttons not working on Mac Lion? A kid tampered with System Preferences on my Mac Air running Lion, and now, none of the top-row keyboard buttons work. For instance, altering screen brightness, toggling the dashboard, and altering volume don't work.

There does seem to be some mismatch though. For instance, pressing the eject button now takes me to the dashboard.

How can I restore the default functionalities of the top-row keyboard buttons?

If you check the Keyboard pane in System Preferences, you should see an option called Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys. I think you'll find it checked. The default is to have it unchecked.

Then within the Mission Control pane in System Preferences, I think you'll find that "Show Dashboard" is set to F13. The default is F12 (note that the default doesn't work if Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys isn't checked).


Where on the target computer can I find the files the Migration Assistant left when the migration process was interrupted? As a newbie, I decided to use Migration Assistant to copy my files from my Sony Viao windows platform to a newly purchased macbook pro.

Within the process the connection was interrupted, as it is taking ages to copy 300GB. The decision was made to copy them on a HDD and manually move them to the Mac.

However, I kept on looking for the files which were processed halfway, I am not sure where I could find them.

I'm not sure, as I've only used MA on occasion, and only from mac to mac. But as MA would not know what are desktop files, documents etc,(as the files are coming from a Windows system if might have put stuff in the Home directory.

To check, see the attached screenshot. Could the files be located in the equivalent of "David"?

Second, any idea how much of the copy had taken place? IF not much, why not just copy everything by folder, and then it would be easy to copy each folder into its mac equivalent. (i.e. don't use MA at all).


Dell USB-C Monitor (U2520D) connection to an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) There are many options and cable types that I am mighty confused about the best way to connect the Dell as a second monitor to my iMac.

I would like the Dell to wake up when the iMac wakes up and I would like to have the best color and resolution that I can have. I assume that using HDMI is not the best way but that some flavor of DisplayPort is better.

But which one? There's USB3, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, and then there are several cables. The monitor came with a cable that fits in Thunderbolt but I think is called a USB3 cable. I am not averse to ordering a new cable if that's what is needed.

Can someone help me sort this out?

The only signal that comes out of your iMac is DisplayPort.  So, going from DisplayPort to DisplayPort is the best and most reliable connection as there’s no signal conversion.

USB-C is just a port type.  Thunderbolt is just a multiplexing of several signals:  PCIe, DisplayPort, USB, and power.  The cable that came with your monitor (USB-C) will support DisplayPort so, its perfect to use with your monitor; plug it into one of the two Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Converting to HDMI will undoubtably require an active adapter.  I don’t recommend it as it adds unneeded complexity because the signal must be converted; it’s inherently a point of failure.


Disable page curl animation in Lion's iCal I can live with the skeuomorphic skin of the new iCal, but the useless page curl animation when switching months is both slow and jittery. Is there any way to disable it?

For some reason, holding Option down with the keyboard shortcuts doesn't work (iCal just beeps at you), but you can change the keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences to include the Option key, then it'll work.

For example, I changed the shortcut for "Next" from Cmd-Right Arrow to Cmd-Option-Right Arrow and changed "Previous" to Cmd-Option-Left Arrow. Now the keyboard shortcuts will navigate without the annoying page flip animation.

To do this, go to System Preferences, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Application Shortcuts, then hit the "+" icon, and enter the following details - Application: iCal, Menu Title: "Next", Keyboard Shortcut: Cmd-Option-Right Arrow. Then hit "+" again and enter Application: iCal, Menu Title: "Previous", Keyboard Shortcut: Cmd-Option-Left Arrow.


macOS Big Sur version 11.0.1, no paste option in Finder I upgraded macOS yesterday to Big Sur version 11.0.1, since then there is no paste option in finder, using Cmd + V doesn't work either, just plays a sound.
I can see that the file is copied to the clipboard, but there is no way to paste it. I spent over an hour talking to Apple support on this issue, no solution.
I've searched online and found several posts saying to kill pboard, which I've done, still doesn't work.
During the conversation with Apple we created a new account and logged in, everything works on that account, seems that my account which is the one I need is the one thats now broken.
Has anyone got a fix for this?

Any problem that only occurs in one user account has a standard solution:
Your problem is caused by something in your user account. This could be:

third-party software that is triggered to launch automatically, or something like a Finder extension.

A setting or preference that is wrongly configured.

Something else that exists inside your ~/Library folder. (the ~ sign means the current user's home)

Check System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items to see what is set to load at Login. It's possible that one of those might be incompatible with Big Sur and causing problems. Check for updates. Disable all of them, reboot and test the problem.
Check Finder Extensions in System Preferences > Extensions. Test the problem with any third-party extensions disabled. (You'll need to reboot or restart Finder, at least.)
Check the LaunchAgents folder in the ~/Library. This may contain scripts that trigger background apps. These may need updating. Again, remove the plist files to another location, reboot and test.
If none of those things work, then you'll need to 'divide and conquer'. Start removing entire folders from the ~/Library, reboot and test. If the problem is still there, replace the folder. If it goes away, restore half the contents of that folder, and test again. Gradually, you'll focus on the problem.
Likely folders are the Preferences folder, which contains ... well, preferences; and the Containers folder, which contains individual apps' working files.
Note that this is all in the user's Library, not the root level Library. The user's Library may be hidden in the Finder. Hold the Option key and click on the Go menu in the Finder, and Library should be a menu item.
Things not to do:

Don't reinstall the OS. The OS is working fine, as shown in the new user account. That will do nothing, except waste your time.

Don't migrate to the new user account. Changing user account can cause problems with existing file permissions. Also, if it happens again, will you keep moving on to new account after new account?


How to type a long/em dash `—` When writing emails and articles I often find myself in the need to use a long/em dash — character, not to be confused with the hyphen - character. Normally what I end up doing is I type two consecutive hyphens -- and hit the Space key, which then ends up replacing the two hyphens with the long dash.

However, when posting articles in browser-based editors this doesn't always work — such as with the post editor here — so I have to type the double hyphen + Space elsewhere, like in a dummy email, copy the long dash from there and paste it here. This is very inconvenient of course.

I'd like a shortcut to enter the long dash character directly.

This might be one of those that changes by language, but on a UK English keyboard [& from comments, also US English], there are 4 dashes available from the key to the right of 0, Minus.

-  -  key alone (hyphen)
–  -    Opt ⌥  (en dash)
—  -    Opt ⌥   Shift ⇧  (em dash)
_  -    Shift ⇧  (underscore)

Late Edit...
To complete the set, & from comments...

 Ctrl ⌃   Opt ⌥   -  will give 'information separator one' which looks like a space "" & doesn't even seem to print in here. You could, however use the keyboard replacement tool to turn that into a true minus sign...  −


What is a PPP server, and why do I keep getting disconnected from it? I am using a Huawei e160 USB modem and I regularly lose connection to the internet with the following error: You have been disconnected from the PPP server.

It has nothing to do with reception, and I am always able to connect immediately back up. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this may be happening? Or at least explain to me what a PPP server is? Thanks.

PPP is the Point to Point Protocol is a data link layer (see the OSI 7-layer model). It's an older protocol that's generally used to connect two points together over a physical link like a phone line. It's been in use as a connection protocol (mostly in the PPPoE -- PPP over Ethernet -- form) for ISPs for quite some time now. Your modem uses this protocol to identify you as a customer to your ISP and create a tunnel to them over some larger network, through which your data will flow. Your modem establishes a PPP connection and then over this connection your Ethernet packets flow.

It sounds like you're disconnecting from your ISP at regular intervals. It could be any number of things causing you to lose your connection. You may have poor signal to the ISP end point and the connection is timing out. You may be overloading the connection and your ISP is dropping the link. Your ISP may be having issues. You may have failing or buggy hardware. Or you may have buggy drivers for your hardware.

It's impossible to tell exactly from what you've written.

If you can check your Console logs, see if there are related console messages about the PPP tunnel, you might be able to find something additionally useful to add to your question.

Have you called your ISP? That's where I'd start.


Download code needed for updating to macOS Sierra GM When I click on the GM download link it asks for a download code or a gift card number? I already have a developer license. Where do I get the download code. I have already installed and use the last Developer Beta.

You'll need to go to the Apple Developers download page and click on the Download button next to macOS 10.12 GM Seed.

If you already did so and signed into the app store to redeem your code then your redemption code should be visible underneath that line.


Wireless keyboard pressing the command key by itself Recently, my Apple wireless keyboard has been pressing the command key by itself repeatedly. It's stuck like that until I turn off then on the keyboard.

Anyone know why this is happening and how I can fix it?

Sounds like a hardware problem - you could try disassembling it and cleaning the contact layer.


How to sync all my Google calendars to iPhone with Exchange I have three calendars under "my calendars" in my Google account and I'd like to make it sync with my iPhone. This is a Google Apps for Work account so that I can have Microsoft Exchange enabled. The problem is, when I login to my account on iPhone as an Exchange account, I only see my default calendar and there's no option to choose other calendars.

I tried setup in https://calendar.google.com/calendar/syncselect and I can see all my calendars there if login as a normal Google account. However it doesn't work with Exchange account.

I don't want to give up Exchange because events and emails can be pushed to my iPhone instead of manually fetching them.

It turns out I missed one step:

After login to Exchange, go to https://m.google.com/sync/settings and
select iPhone (or other iOS devices) and choose calendars you want to
sync on it.

This is really confusing that I can hardly tell the differences between this and the settings in https://calendar.google.com/calendar/syncselect


Retrieving a clicked on notification on iPhone 8 I received a notification from Dooordash that was a coupon for 50% off my next order by a certain date with a code in the notification. Seeing this made me decide I would use it so I clicked on the notification to open doordash, placed my order, and went to add the code.  I hadn’t memorized the code fully so I went to go back to the Look at the notification but it had disappeared when I clicked on it and now I can find no way to pull it up again to retrieve the coupon code. This meant I could not get my discount from doordash and their support help said I need a screenshot of the code to get help retrieving the code which is beyond stupid as having a screenshot of the code would mean I still had it and would need no help.

Is there anyway to pull-up recent notifications that you have clicked on? I saw nothing like that in the notification settings pages.

There's no "archive" or "history" of notifications built-in to iOS unfortunately. Each app has to individually provide such a feature.

The best hope is if you happen to have another device running the same app, such as an iPad - perhaps that device still shows the notification on its lock screen.


Burn Movie to DVD on a Mac Possible Duplicate:
  How can I convert MKV files and burn them to DVD?

Does anybody know a good program for Mac that can burn a .avi or .mkv movie file to a DVD to play on any regular DVD player? I am looking for something like ConvertXtoDVD for Windows.

Sounds like you need Toast Titanium. Toast will take individual video files and put them into a DVD player compatible format. It doesn't have many options for the DVD's menus, but it's a quick and easy way to burn video files to DVD. It supports both AVIs and MKVs.


All contacts disappeared from my iPad 2 Sometime overnight, all of my contacts have disappeared from my iPad 2. All contacts are still available on my iPhone 4s and my 4th-generation iPod touch. I do use iCloud sync but I can't seem to get the contacts back on my iPad. What do I need to do to get my contacts back?

Go to settings>iCloud, and turn on contacts and everything else you want to come over from iCloud.  This should bring them all back.


How to get a value from a list with a string in AppleScript? What I try to achieve is that the dialog should output the IP adres that is in the list.

set ipList to {DNS1:"8.8.8.8", DNS2:"8.8.4.4"}
set input to "DNS1"
set output to input of ipList
display dialog output

it gives an error:
error "input of {DNS1:\"8.8.8.8\", DNS2:\"8.8.4.4\"} kan niet worden opgevraagd. " number -1728 from input of {DNS1:"8.8.8.8", DNS2:"8.8.4.4"}

If I do:

set output to DNS1 of ipList

it works, so my guess I should do something with variable input.

I've been googling for some time now but I can't seem to find a hint. I'm pretty sure the answer is already somewhere on here but I can't seem to find it. Sorry for that.

UPDATE: I think I asked the question all wrong.

Let me retry, I have a list:

set ipList to {DNS1:"8.8.8.8", DNS2:"8.8.4.4"}

I would like to loop through the items. So have this coded with less code:

set IP_address to "8.8.8.8"
try
    set ping to do shell script ("ping -c 2 " & IP_address & "| head -2 | tail -1 |cut -d = -f 4")
    if ping contains "ms" then
        set Output1 to "DNS 1 UP"
    else if ping contains "timeout" then
        set Output1 to "DNS 1 DOWN"
    end if
end try
set IP_address to "8.8.4.4"
try
    set ping to do shell script ("ping -c 2 " & IP_address & "| head -2 | tail -1 |cut -d = -f 4")
    if ping contains "ms" then
        set Output2 to "DNS 1 UP"
    else if ping contains "timeout" then
        set Output2 to "DNS 1 DOWN"
    end if
end try

display dialog (Output1 & return & Output2) buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "Resultaat"

Again, I'm a newbie, I'm sorry

This would be my take on this:

set ipList to {"8.8.8.8", "8.8.8.6", "8.8.4.4"}
set Output1 to ""
set Output2 to ""
global Output1, Output2
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in ipList
    set this_item to item i of ipList
    my ipCheck(this_item, i)
end repeat

if Output1 is not "" or Output2 is not "" then
    display dialog (Output1 & Output2) buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "Resultaat"
end if

on ipCheck(IP_address, i)
    try
        set ping to do shell script ("ping -c 2 " & IP_address & "| head -2 | tail -1 |cut -d = -f 4")
        if ping contains "ms" then
            set Output1 to Output1 & return & "DNS" & i & "  UP"
        else if ping contains "timeout" then
            set Output2 to Output2 & return & "DNS" & i & " DOWN"
        end if
    end try
end ipCheck


Lingon open source version for editing launchd on Leopard (10.5)? I'm looking for a free GUI app to help run programs on a schedule.  It seems that launchd is the underlying tool to use, and in the past Lingon has been recommended as a good GUI interface to launchd.

But now it seems that the open source (Apache License V2.0) version of Lingon 1.2.1 doesn't work on Leopard (10.5), and the newest version of Lingon (2.2.1) requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later and is no longer open source.

Has anyone gotten a version of Lingon to run on Leopard (10.5)?

Or is there another free alternative?

Update - thanks to Mark I found and tried 2.1.1 which seems to work.  But it requires a restart or logout when making a change - is that always needed for launchd?  Or just for Lingon?  If so, cron with the cronnix GUI seems like it would be much easier to use.

Sourceforge has all the previous versions.


Unable to write to any external USB, even after formatting it I have a MBP running OS X Mojave (10.14.2)
Any USB drive I connect is always read-only and I can never write to it. I've tried the following:

Multiple USB sticks
Multiple USB-C slots (just in case)
Formatting a drive as FAT32
Formatting a drive as ExFAT
Restarting (with and without the USB plugged in)
Confirmed the USB is write-able from a Windows laptop
Confirmed there is no physical write-protection switch on the USB

In each case I'm consistently blocked from writing to the USB drive, both from the UI and via the command line.
See below the "Get Info" display for a freshly formatted 32GB ExFAT drive. Note the permissions are "ready only" at the very bottom
Any idea what the issue could be here or what else I could try?
Thanks!

There is two possibilities here:

Your drive is mounted as read-only
You do not have permission writing to the filesystem

(The system can definitely write to the drive because you can format the drive)
To address the first one, please enter the following command in Terminal:
mount

You should get something like this:
/dev/disk1s1 on / (apfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
/dev/disk1s4 on /private/var/vm (apfs, local, noexec, journaled, noatime, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk#s# on /volumes/<drive name> (ExFAT, local, (...))

Look at the line that say ... on /volumes/NONAME, and see if there is a "read-only" in the bracket, like this one:
com.apple.TimeMachine.2020-08-15-213432@/dev/disk1s1 on /volumes/BK/Snapshots/2020-08-15-213432 (apfs, local, noexec, read-only, journaled, nobrowse)

If there is, try:
mount -uw /volumes/NONAME

and see if you can write to the disk. There is probably a record in your /etc/fstab that causes the mount to be readonly.
If your drive is readonly for whatever reason, you should get this error:
root@Joys-MacBook-Pro /p/v/root# hdiutil attach -readonly test.dmg
/dev/disk2              GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk2s1            Microsoft Basic Data            /Volumes/1 1
root@Joys-MacBook-Pro /p/v/root# mount | grep /volumes/1\ 1
/dev/disk2s1 on /volumes/1 1 (exfat, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners)
root@Joys-MacBook-Pro /p/v/root# mount -uw /volumes/1\ 1/
mount: unknown special file or file system /volumes/1 1/.

You should not get any other errors. If you do, edit your question to include a complete log of commands you type and the result. (Or put it in the comments).
If that is not the case, then it's likely a permission issue. In your terminal, enter:
sudo -i

and enter your password. The password will NOT show on your screen. When you are done, hit enter. Then, enter the following:
touch /volumes/NONAME/1

and see if there is any error. If not, then it's a permission issue. Execute the following command:
chown -R <your account name here> /volumes/NONAME
chmod -R 755 /volumes/NONAME
exit

See if you can write to the folder. If not, then there is something wrong with your system. You can consider reinstalling it (this won't remove your application, settings, or data).


Deleted Files from my IPhone still shows up when I hook my phone to Itunes I deleted Music and Video from my Iphone 5, 8.1.2; But whenever I hook it up to the PC it still shows the deleted files as ghost datas under "On my device", furthermore Itunes says that my device has 6.05gb free space but my Iphone says 8.00gb free space. What is wrong with this? Thank you for the help.

I think the best solution might be to factory reset your iPhone.
You can use this link for further guidance on this topic:
Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings.
:)


How can I make multiple directories in Mac OS terminal? I'm trying to make multiple folders at once but when I press enter it says: mkdir: i/like: No such file or directory.

I do this
mkdir i/like/icecream

I think I have the latest version of python.
Any help? Ty.

The switch -p allows deep folder creation along a path

mkdir -p  i/like/icecream/too

You don’t need python for this, unless it reminds you of “p” instead of the pattern passed in to create the full path prefix.


Google Chrome on Mac and switch between it and Safari? Can I download Google Chrome on my Mac and switch between it and Safari? I have a website update I need to do and don't want to change my mac but must use Google Chrome for the updates.

You can install Google Chrome and use it side by side with other browsers such as Safari (built-in), Firefox (need to download & install), and Opera (need to download & install).

One of the browsers will need to be set as your default.  This can be changed in System Preferences > General.

It's worth noting, Safari is the default browser in all versions of OS X and iOS.  Google Chrome is also a browser, and Yosemite is an operating system.  Your question is a bit misguided.  You don't necessarily "switch between Google Chrome and Yosemite".  That said, if you're talking about editing a website via online tools through web hosting providers such as Squarespace, presuming they support Chrome they'll also likely support Safari.  I'd suggest first trying to update the site in Safari before you download and install a browser which you may not even need.


Change guest account photo in Mavericks? In Mavericks, how do you change the user account photo to something other than that gray silhouette?

I've searched for an answer to this question and it seems people figured it out in Mountain Lion and earlier, but not Mavericks as far as I can find.  I'm using OS X 10.9.4.  Thanks.

The image is located at the following location. Change it and reboot.

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/LoginUIKit.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LoginUICore.framework/Versions/A/Resources/GuestUser.png

GuestUser@2x.png is the image used for Retina displays


Time Machine failing: "an error occurred while copying files" As of 1/1/2017, my Time Machine backups are failing with the following message:

  Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "WDMyCloud". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.

The drive itself is a 3TB Western Digital My Cloud NAS. I can mount it in the Finder and it seems to be okay (in that I can browse it and open files), but it doesn't appear in Disk Utility at all, which doesn't seem right...

I ran the full diagnostics test in WD's utilities (it exposes a page at wdmycloud.local when the drive is powered on) and it reported no problems.

I've tried restarting both the drive and my MacBook Pro, which didn't help.

Is this a fixable problem, or is my drive dying? I'd be surprised if it's the latter, since it's less than three years old, sits untouched next to my router in a well-ventilated area, and again the diagnostics reported no issues.

Looking for backup errors in the log, what I found was ; backupd[3278]: objc[3278]: __weak variable at 0x7f9227c07600 holds 0x7f9227c00003 instead of 0x7f9227c0e060. This is probably incorrect use of objc_storeWeak() and objc_loadWeak(). Break on objc_weak_error to debug

Searching for these terms, I found this solution, which solved my issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7686484?start=0&tstart=0

theperlarsen Dec 27, 2016 9:40 PM in response to theperlarsen  Level 1 Level 1 (4 points)
Dec 27, 2016 9:40 PM in response to theperlarsen
SOLVED: Turning off iCloud Drive fixed the issue for me.

The weak variable error in the console is misleading. The logging mechanism was changed for macOS Sierra. Use the paste command into a terminal to view time machine errors:

log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 4h | grep Error

I saw lines containing starting with:

Error: (-34) SrcErr:NO Copying Copying /Users/myusername/Library/Mobile Documents/ ...

The mobile folder is used by iCloud drive, so I turned that off. That allowed the backup to complete. Hope this helps others that are experiencing this issue. Hopefully the final version of 10.12.3 fixes this.


How to remove restrictions in latest IOS? This is probably a duplicate, but the &@$#& app won’t let me scroll through the suggestions.  I keep getting “page is restricted” in Safari for pages that are obviously quite innocent.  (Some of them confirmed so by checking on laptop.)

Multiple web pages say Settings: General: Restrictions, but there is no such path in IOS 12.1 and I have so far failed to find anything anywhere in settings.  Checked Privacy, Safari, and several other places.

One of those pages claimed to be telling us that it was for IOS 13.

Things have changed with iOS 12 and the inclusion of Screen Time.

To access restrictions, follow these steps:

Go to Settings
Tap on Screen Time
Tap on Content and Privacy Restrictions
Enter the Screen Time passcode
Go to Content Restrictions > Web Content to access the restrictions related to web content


How can I track detailed analytics for my iTunes Library? Is there a way to view an "iTunes Analytics Dashboard" or some type of plugin that would have similar capabilities?

There's all this really good data locked up in iTunes, from Play Counts to Ratings to Last Played Date, etc... but I'd like a beautiful interface to view detailed charts and graphs that break things down simply yet informatively.

This could hypothetically be marketed as "Personal Media Collection Analytics Software" going above and beyond what conventional media player software currently offers.

Sample capabilities:
 - proportion of 5-star tracks vs. 3-star tracks
 - which month do I listen to genre X or artist Y the most
 - at what hour of the day do I prefer songs with BPM > X
 - etc...

Last.fm and its API opened to developers gave birth to some nice web applications. Of course, you must have an account (free) and scrobble your songs to benefit from them.

Two of them related to analytics (I'm not a specialist, I guess there must be other ones) :
http://www.mymusichabits.com/visualize/cosmokraymer
http://lastgraph.aeracode.org/user/cosmokraymer/

The latter enables you to generate visually impressive timelines of your listening habits ...

... and play history for each of your artists


How long does Apple provide support for Mac OS X? I am currently using Apple 10.6 (Snow Leopard). How long will Snow Leopard be supported for? Does Apple provide an end-of-life policy in writing?

I have read that Apple tends to only provide security updates for the latest two versions of Mac OS X (an 'n-2' support policy, where 'n' is the latest version of the OS. Since Lion and Mountain Lion are out, Apple might drop security updates Snow Leopard.

According to "Mac users left wondering if OS X Snow Leopard's retired" from Computerworld and "Where are the Safari security updates for Windows and Snow Leopard? Users left exposed" on Sophos's blog, some believe that Apple has already, quietly retired Snow Leopard. However, those pages have some contradictory information (Tiger was updated in 2009).

However, the articles above seem to cite rumor. Does Apple provide their support policy in writing?

Apple don't provide any end of life information unfortunately, and you're correct that they only support the current and previous versions, although they do still release security patches for the one before that from time to time for another release cycle after this.

So you'll get up to 3 years out of an OS release, and that usually an Apple computer will be supported by new OS releases for around the same time.


How do I view mouse-over text with an iPad? Some websites have text that appears when you hover over an image or link with the mouse cursor.  Touching the screen of an iPad does not appear to activate this text.

Is there a way to see mouse-over text on an iPad?

This hint at MacWorld recommends a bookmarklet that you can install that allows you to tap an image to display its alt text.

Try that - works great for me on my iPhone.


Wireless with 802.11r, 802.11k and 802.1x I was recommended to seek for assistance here from the Networking/Stack Exchange site towards OS X queries, do hope someone has the answers.

Have El Capitan on a testing iMac and deploying 802.11r/k with FT-dot1x from a Cisco WLC showed no issues with wireless connectivity. Though one client showed up with a MacBook with wireless issues. Turns out the OS X version on the Mac is 10.7 "Lion"...that is apparently old and obviously doesn't support 802.11r/k. Found a good page within Mac support for iOS (Wi-Fi network roaming with 802.11k, 802.11r, and 802.11v on iOS) but not a support matrix for OS X.

Is there any available support matrix/table/information for listing which versions of OS X hardware and operating system versions towards 802.11r/k support?

As of 10.13.6 macOS doesn't support 802.11 v, k or r but interoperates with APs that have it enabled.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206207
https://framebyframewifi.net/2017/08/20/macos-wi-fi-roaming/
EDIT: No change (e.g. no support) in 10.14 Mojave.
EDIT 2: Still no support in 10.15.


iTunes doesn't list my apps I'm not sure if this is normal but I've never been able to list all my apps in itunes.  As you can see, the list is completely empty.  This has been for the last few years and on different computers with the most updated itunes.  Any ideas if this is  normal?

It's funny, but have you tried to scroll the page?

The first block of apps is empty, but apps that support file sharing is in another block at the bottom.


How to install homebrew to /usr rather than /usr/local I'm wondering if it is possible (and if so, how) to install Homebrew package manager to /usr directory rather than /usr/local directory. I have macOS High Sierra.

One way is to modify the install.sh script in homebrew git source and change HOMEBREW_PREFIX to point to whereever you want homebrew to install.
In my case, I've decided to use /usr/local2, because of some restrictions on /usr/local in OSX Catalina, so modify install.sh with HOMEBREW_PREFIX=/usr/local2 and HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY=/usr/local2/Homebrew before running ./install.sh.
Two problems you have to watch:

Some packages insist on installing in /usr/local unless you manually hunt down and modify the source (not trivial)
Installing in a directory that already has similar/equal files can overwrite them and render your system unstable. Especially /usr, where a lot of system commands exist there, which you never want to replace at all.


Getting contacts from Microsoft Exchange on my iPhone I recently brought an Android phone and I'm trying to move my contact list from my iPhone to the new phone. Someone suggested using Exchange so I added Exchange to my iPhone using my Gmail details and selected Mail, Contacts, and Calendars.

It asked if I wanted to delete contacts from my iPhone and I said yes thinking my contacts were backed up with iTunes.  Now I have lost my contacts from my iPhone and I don't know how to get them from Exchange.  I have also tried selecting Sync contacts with Google in iTunes but this does't seems to have done anything.  What should I do?

Although your phone and your exchange are now in sync, you did not merge both databases.
By 'deleting' you relpaced your phones contacts with those of the Google Exchange Server.

Your contacts are backed up inside the general backup of your phone and if you restore your iPhone from those backups you get your contacts back, though loosing everything new since then. You can extract the contacts directly from the backup with tools like iPhone BackupExtractor. You should be able to import those directly via the gmail webinterface.


Save and Restore Launchpad Layout? I've spent a lot of time arranging the apps the way I want them on my Mac and would like for them to stay that way. Is there anyway to save the current layout of Launchpad for a later restore if it gets all mixed up again? I already know about LaunchpadCleaner 2 but would rather not buy an AIR app.

The database it uses (a simple sql database) is located in ~/Library/Application Support/Dock. That holds all your apps and their placement.

You could back up the file (or simply use TM) so that it can be restored at a later date.


Is there a way to suppress valid files beginning with dot (.) in a tar archive giving false errors and files? I have a tar compressed archive created on a linux system that has valid files in a directory beginning with dot (.).

When I extract that tar file on a Mac, tar thinks that the dotted file is a resource fork

On linux:

# mkdir test_dir
# cd test_dir
# echo hello > ._SUCCESS.crc
# cd ..
# tar cvzf test_dir.tar.gz test_dir
test_dir/
test_dir/._SUCCESS.crc
# tar tf test_dir.tar.gz
test_dir/
test_dir/._SUCCESS.crc

On the Mac:

$ tar xzf test_dir.tar.gz
tar: copyfile unpack (test_dir/SUCCESS.crc) failed: No such file or directory
$ ls -la test_dir
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  4 xxxx  xxxx  128 Jul 31 16:31 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 xxxx  xxxx  128 Jul 31 16:31 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 xxxx  xxxx    6 Jul 31 16:22 ._SUCCESS.crc
-rw-r--r--  1 xxxx  xxxx    0 Jul 31 16:31 SUCCESS.crc

Is there any way to suppress the belief that any given dot file is a resource fork?

For the curious, this is part of a sequence file export from HDFS.

A more refined search brought up:

http://xahlee.info/UnixResource_dir/macosx.html
https://norman.walsh.name/2008/02/22/tar

using export COPYFILE_DISABLE=true before extracting the archive prevents the dotfile processing:

$ rm -r test_dir
$ export COPYFILE_DISABLE=true
$ tar xzf test_dir.tar.gz
$ ll test_dir
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  3 xxxx  xxxx    96B Jul 31 16:47 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 xxxx  xxxx   128B Jul 31 16:47 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 xxxx  xxxx     6B Jul 31 16:22 ._SUCCESS.crc


Free alternative to Charles Does anybody know a free alternative to Charles (an HTTP debugging proxy), preferably with a GUI and similar features?

Features that I'm interested in:

Inspect HTTP requests/responses (header, body, etc)
JSON syntax highlighting and formatting
Request filter (by host, URL, etc)
Search
Would be awesome if it could render HTML (Charles can't do it)

You can also check out mitmproxy which even has a web interface. You can inspect HTTP request/responses and even filter requests by certain parameters.

It doesn't render HTML like you asked but it sure gives out the raw response which might be enough.

Another suggestion I can think of is the developer tools in Firefox which render HTML and also support request filtering. You can obviously inspect HTTP requests in Firefox too.


Monitor if users accessed my Mac when sharing was open to all? I had opened sharing to everyone on my Mac as a "temporary" experiment to exchange files with another Mac. I forgot, and later that night when I went to shut down, the Mac reported that 2 users were connected.

Is there a log to see who those users were? I assume one was me given my experiment. But the other?

The file sharing protocol AFP used by OS X does not log access per default. While (at least for OS X Server) reporting to a log file can be activated before starting file sharing, it is quite a "chatty" log process (meaning it generates huge, meaningless log files easily).

To put it simple: No, there's no way to find out who accesses your Mac beside yourself after file sharing ended.


Macbook Pro Retina 13" performance for designers I am a designer and I use an iMac 27" late 2009 with Intel i5, ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB and 12 GB of RAM.

I will start traveling a lot, so I need a 'secondary computer' and I am considering a Macbook Pro Retina 13" [i5 2.4ghz, 8gb, 256gb], but I am afraid of the performance compared to my iMac.

So, my question is...

The Macbook Pro Retina 13" performance is good enough for front-end designers?

I usualy use Photoshop, some code editor, localhost server, Spotify and Chrome at the same time. Will I have some delays or it will handle okay?

Thanks.

If you can handle going from a 27" screen to a 13" screen (even though it's retina, the 'apparent' resolution is set quite low), then the rest of the system is fast.

Of course, you would want as much RAM and SSD as you can afford (you can't upgrade it later), but there is nothing to worry about with the CPU or the SSD speed.

In fact, the SSD alone will make it seem SUPER fast compared to a 3-4 year-old iMac (assuming it didn't have an SSD in it also).

If you needed an external GPU, then your only laptop Mac option these days is the top-end 15" Retina MBP, but that's larger and quite a bit more expensive than the 13" models.


No user on brand new OS X installation I just opened a new Macbook Pro out of the box and, after going through the initial setup (language, timezone, name, etc.), I see the login screen without my username. I tried typing in my username (manually) and password but nothing happens. The only option is to click the back button which then shows a blank alias picture with the word Other underneath it

If I reboot the computer pressing ⌘Sand then do ls /Users to see the users on the system it only has .localized and Shared directories, which indicates to me that the user was not created properly.

How do I correct this so I can have an initial user account?

Definitely a strange situation, however there's a relatively easy solution.

Boot to single user mode as you did before by holding ⌘S while power it on.

Once you reach the command prompt you can enter the following commands, pressing return after each one:

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot

This will remove the file that OS X checks for when booting to determine if the Mac has already been setup.  When it fails to detect the file it will start the setup assistant, which includes the step that allows you to create your user account.


Does Google Maps iOS have voice navigation I have been using Google Maps iOS (Australia) and i have never received voice navigation. Is this supported? And if so is it supported in Australia? And if so once again, where should I check to get this working. I am using an iPhone 6Plus.

Yes, voice navigation is available in Google Maps for Australia.

To enable it:

Make sure you have the most-recent version of iOS.
Make sure Notifications for the app are turned on.
In the app, after you've started the navigation, tap on the 3 vertical dots on the bottom-right of the screen
In the panel that slides up make sure Mute is Off.

Doing all this will allow you to hear the turn-by-turn navigation prompts.   Here's a Google support site with additional information.


Why is my external HDD failing to mount on my MacBook? All of my MacBook Pro 13" 2017 backups are kept on my Toshiba External HDD. I decided to update my MacBook to macOS Big Sur developer beta (because I am a dev) and test it out. I backed my MacBook up onto my external hard drive before installing macOS 11 Big Sur beta, expecting to be able to use it just in case I need to go back to macOS Catalina.
After I installed the beta:
Just about a half a week ago, after using the drive completely fine in macOS Big Sur, I plugged in my external hard drive and found that it did not appear on my desktop or in Finder. I opened Disk Utility to find that the disk was displayed as not mounted. I tried to click Mount, which was not greyed out, and I received an error that the disk could not be mounted:

Could not mount “TOSHIBA EXT”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 0.)

I automatically assumed that this was just a bug in the new beta update and I reported it to Apple. However, I soon came to find out it was also happening on another MacBook Air that has macOS Catalina 10.14.2 installed. So it was obviously not the beta, it was the disk.
Why exactly did this happen on a disk that was working perfectly fine the day before? Was the disk affected by something in the macOS Big Sur beta or is it a completely unrelated issue? I was searching for solutions for this issue and found that it was somewhat common, and that people recommend using DiskWarrior to repair the disk, however, I cannot justify spending $100 to repair a disk when I might as well just buy a newer and faster SSD. Are there any other cheaper and even free solutions to this?
And in terms of data, I do not have data on the disk that is vital except for my MacBook Pro backups, which I was hoping to have on hand if something went wrong. If I bought a new drive, could I back up that from macOS Big Sur, erase Big Sur and install Catalina with the data from Big Sur?

Why exactly did this happen on a disk that was working perfectly fine, driving down the same road the day before?

For the exact same reason your car breaks down on the road when it was working perfectly the day before.  In other words C'est la vie.
Is it your drive or the enclosure?
Now, as to your situation, you've presumed that the drive went bad without ruling out the other factor - the enclosure itself. The USB port would be the third factor, but you automatically ruled that out by going to a different computer.
There's a very similar question to yours already posted:  External Hard Drive no longer working.  That one involves an enclosure and an SSD, not an HDD like yours, but the principles are the same.
Recovering your data
It's a bit confusing as to what's exactly on the external drive - data or backups.  If it's backups, there's really no need to expend the time and money to recover something.  Get that external SSD and just continue making backups like you normally have.
If it's data - you need to determine what that data is worth to do.  For data recovery, I've used DiskDrill; it's absolutely free to scan and see if your files are recoverable and if they are the software is (IMO) reasonably priced at $90USD.  If your data needs to be recovered, it's a cheap price to pay to get it back - it's also a good reminder to back up your data wherever it exists; - on your boot drive and your external drives!


How to resolve rejection on App store with In-App purchase, free trial and links of web application We're developing an app for iOS devices. It has a subscription option if the user wants to upgrade from the free trial.

Our app is rejected as we had an option to pay with PayPal along with In-App Purchase. They reverted with the insights and resolution steps.

  We noticed that your app or its metadata provides access to external
  mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, which
  does not comply with the App Store Review Guidelines.

  Next Steps

  To resolve this issue, please remove the account registration links
  and any other fully qualified links to your site that could indirectly
  provide access to these mechanisms, such as links to web pages for
  support, FAQs, product or program details, etc.

But we don't have links such as they have mentioned. We'have two main links of web pages, privacy policy and terms & conditions. Also, we've subscription option for the registered users in web application.

There are several doubts we have.

We are using the same API for iOS and Android app, hence, do we need to remove PayPal related information from the API's request-response for iOS?
Is it acceptable if we have the option to subscribe through a web app?
Even my app doesn't contain links of registration, do I need to remove links of the privacy policy and terms & condition pages?

Remove Indirect Links

You need to remove every link from the privacy policy and terms of conditions pages. Any link from these pages can indirectly lead to your alternative payment methods.

The key phrase in Apple's response is:

  …that could indirectly provide access…

Any link in or from your app should be carefully checked for ongoing links.

Multiple Payment Methods

A service accessed non-exclusively through an iOS app can support multiple payment methods. From within the iOS app, the only method of payment can be through Apple.


Identify connected external disks programmatically I want to write a shell script that ejects all currently-connected external drives (either USB or Firewire drives). I can use the disktuil eject <disk-path> to eject a specified drive. But I still can't figure how to find out what are the external drives. For instance, /Volumes shows internal drives, external drives, and mounted images. Is there a way to identify only external drives programmatically?

Have you considered using diskutil info /dev/disk[n|s{n}] | grep Ejectable which allows you to identify whether the device (or device slice) is ejectable.

This would need to be expanded upon in a script using awk to work through each disk device that is currently attached to determine whether it can be ejected and then eject it.


Tabs opening in a minimised safari window, not the active one I’m often using multiple windows in Safari minimizing the windows I’m not working in. However, when I click on a link i.e. in Mail it opens it not in the active window but in the minimized one instead (the one that has been created first after opening the Safari).

How can I set the Safari to open links in the currently active window, not a minimized one?

I believe the default behavior of Safari is to open a link in the oldest open window. Minimized windows tend to get old, hence the annoyance of Safari bringing up minimized windows when opening a link from another app.

You can easily test this. Wait for it to happen. Then re-minimize the window. The behavior should be repeatable infinitely. Next copy the URL of the window you want minimized and close that window. Open a new window, paste the URL, hit return, and minimize it. Then open the external link and it will no longer go to that window.

Of course this doesn't help - it just explains the behavior. The only thing that might eventually help is filing a bug report:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html


Where I can find My Lists in the recent Foursquare v8 app? After recent upgrade of Foursquare app (v8.0.2), all my Lists disappeared, so I can't find any method of accessing them from the iPhone app (I can still see them when accessing from the website).

Does it mean it's a bug, feature or managing of the lists are now no longer supported?

I've asked the support and I've received the following answer:

  Currently you can save to your to-do list on the Foursquare app.
  Saving to other lists should be coming soon. Your lists are available
  if you visit Foursquare and navigate to Profile > Saved Places. See
  you existing lists by tapping on "See all of your saved lists."

  To add to your list, simply go to a listing on Foursquare and hit
  “Save." To remove, simple tap "Save" again. Keep in mind lists are
  viewable to the public.

  To learn more about lists and how you can use them on Foursquare check
  out this article:
  https://support.foursquare.com/hc/en-us/articles/201104950-Lists


How to remove apps from iTunes? 12.2.x I have a bunch of iphone apps inside Itunes, one of them automatically tries to install itself whenever I remove it from the phone. (Its button in the App itunes list shows "Installing")
If try to delete it from itunes using this method, the delete button just doesn't do anything. How to remove an app from Itunes 12.2.x ?

Followed @lax solution: clicked the iTunes Apps tab (not in the "iPhone" tab!) there I could select and delete the apps.


The Notes App is now gone from my Macbook Air. How do I get it back? The Notes app is now gone from my Macbook Air. It used to be in the doc and sync'd with my iPhone and iPad. Earlier today, I saw the icon still there, with a question mark on top of it, and I could not open the app. Now, there is just a question mark. How do I get the Notes App back on my Macbook Air?

The easiest thing to do might be to check in Lauchpad (the silver rocket in the dock or in /Applications ) to search for notes.

If it's still there, it just got moved, so you can search in Spotlight to find it.

If it's really gone, you can restore it using Time Machine or another backup. Worst case, you would have to re-install the OS but that might need some details about how you purchased Mountain Lion (whether it was an upgrade or came with the Mac for instance).


Why are my iPhone 7 charge & transfer contact & cable less and less reliable (keywords: loose / defective contact, slack joint)? Why are my iPhone 7 charge & transfer contact & cable less and less reliable (synonyms: loose / defective contact, slack joint)? Of course, the question stands for any iPhone version with the same contact type.
Context.
I seem to lose more and more reliability of the cable contact or the cable during charging or file transfers. Often the connection stops almost immediately, I have to adjust the cable with some pressure. I know now that it is not about the cables, since I have bought a new one that led to the same result. Today it started to lose contact after a while, without any clear reason.

It is just dust in the contact.
There was just dust inside the contact of the iPhone coming from carrying it around. The flat charging cable added to the problem, as it can only press the dust further inside. That is why I think it is a specific iPhone-7-upwards problem which you do not necessarily have with other contact shapes. I noticed at some point that I could not put in the cable completely. Then I got the most of the dust out with a plastic-bristled brush. You could not get rid of the dust just blowing at it. With a very thin kitchen knife I could get a ball of dust out in the end, solving this.
I am sharing this though it might be totally obvious. It took me a month to find out, that is why it might still help someone else.


How can a spammer create an email that can't be deleted on an ipad mail app from an imap server? My mum received a piece of spam, that could not be deleted or moved on her iPad using the mail app. It was only removed after deleting the account within the mail app, and recreating it.
Question:
Is it possible to send an email that can't be deleted from the mail app?
Details
My mum received a spam email claiming to offer $500 at Sainsbury's (yes, $$ at a UK supermarket!). After opening the email on her ipad (with image loading turned on) she recognised this as an obvious scam and touched the "trash" icon to delete.
The email appeared to be deleted, (the animation showing the email moving to trash ran and the email went from her inbox). However the email was not moved to trash, and after restarting mail, the scam email was still in her inbox. She subsequently received several more spam emails (offering viagra etc), and all further attempts to delete the original email produced a dialog "Unable to delete this email [OK]". (the later spam emails could be deleted as normal, she had not previously had a problem with spam on this email address)
The email was sent through her ISP's IMAP server (talktalk). When she logged into the same email account on a windows PC the original spam email was not on the server.
She then asked me to help her sort this problem. I turned off image loading. Then I tried to move the spam email to "Junk", again it appeared to move but after restarting the mail app, it was back.
Next, I followed the instructions given at https://forgetcomputers.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201010530-Can-t-Delete-Email-from-iPad-or-iPhone- (to check the "On the server" next to the folders in the account view of mail settings). This did not solve the problem. The line "on the server" was already checked and I changed no setting. The email could not be deleted or moved to junk
Following another forum thread, I also tried setting the email as "unread". This had no effect, except marking the spam email as unread.
I then deleted her account in settings>mail, and created a new account (with the same email address) When she connected to the new account, the spam email was gone. So I hope the prime issue is now resolved.

If your mum can't delete the mail after restarting or disconnecting from the network and restarting, you can look at one of two

Delete the mails using a webmail interface and then delete the account from the iPad.
Then contact your ISP/Mail provider if the mail syncs down after you have cleared it from webmail.

If you can't delete the mail off webmail - then it's 100% on the server side so contact them in that case, too.

Good luck - you can expect dozens more emails about viagra and more since there's no signs that the hard work that will need to be done to eliminate spam / abusive / promotional / malware laden emails will ever be funded by free email services. Also good news, if this was on a computer, you’d also probably need to remove malware from the computer as that’s usually the end result of these spammy/sticky emails.


Scan lot of documents and output them in PDF I have a lot of documents I would like to scan to produce PDFs. Some of them are single-page, others are multi-pages.

As of today, I'm using Image Capture for this purpose but I don't find it to be handy to treat a lot of documents.
The main issue is that I will for example scan 10 pages, being one 3 pages document, one 4 pages document and three 1 page document.
I currently have to scan all pages which will end up as images or pdf on my desktop and I then have to combine them to produce multi-pages PDFs.

Is there a tool which will help me achieve all of this more quickly and easily?

Two answers:

1) By far the easiest/best document scanner for Macs is the Fujitsu ScanSnap series. You just insert a stack of papers, press a button, and out pops a PDF. It scans both sides of each page in a single pass.

2) To convert a scanned PDF to something searchable, by far the most reliable OCR program available (for any platform, Mac included) is the AABYY FineReader package. It is miles ahead of any other package- especially Adobe Acrobat's built-in OCR which is barely usable. This comes bundled, at no additional cost, with the ScanSnap, or you can buy it separately.

I've used one of these for several years... have scanned all of my old bills, receipts, documents, etc. so whenever I need to find something I just use spotlight and can find it in seconds.


How to install Tesserocr on Mac I'm trying to install Tesserocr for python

I'm not sure what the replacement for apt-get in apt-get install tesseract-ocr libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev is in this case. I'm new to this and don't fully understand how it works.

I installed tesseract successfully, but I think (to my understanding) tesseract is a command line program. I check brew but I don't think brew has it.

To install tesserocr's dependencies on macOS, you can use a package manager like Homebrew or macports. These install the C/C++ libraries and executables that are needed.

For either of them you need to install the base package manager the install tesseract

For Homebrew brew install tesseract

For Macports sudo port install teseract

After that you will be able to install you tesserocr wrapper using pip install without errors:

pip install tesserocr


Changing an itunes account My husband now has my ipad but it has my itunes account on it instead of his, how do we change it to his account?

Log out of the old account in Settings → iTunes & App Store, then log in with the new account.


Add apps to Input Monitoring I would like to grant access for google chrome or safari to my microphone and both redirect me to security & privacy section.

There are no plus or minus signs and no apparent way to allow these apps to use my microphone.

I also tried the same with Skype. All of those apps just redirect to this blank preference pane.

How can I add an application here?

The core question here is "What have you done to make / install any application that would request this entitlement?"

A system call by an app you install and then run is what populates this preference pane. Additionally - there are several entitlements, so you might need to allow an app like Microsoft Teams several clicks for screen sharing, controlling the input, accessing the camera and microphone, etc...

I’ve found as I get used to this release, stating from the top of the pane and looking at each in sequence helps to get used to the different security restrictions.


Opening a pdf file from the command line I have been using latexmk to make a pdf file in the following way:

latexmk -pdf filename.tex; open filename.pdf

This opens the pdf in Preview. However I want to open the pdf with a given zoom (problems with vision), and Preview reverts to a default zoom at every opportunity. This is annoying because I like to recompile my latex quite often.

I have tried using "open -a" with both skim.app and Adobe Acrobat Reader, because I have gained the impression from reading about these pdf viewers on the web that one can change the default viewing parameters. Unfortunately, a command line such as the one above, possibly using "open -a skim.app filename.pdf" produces the error message that either the file or the program "can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer". This happens whether of not I tell the system (via Command-I) to always open filename.pdf with the appropriate application (skim or Reader).

Since skim provides some kind of AppleScript access, which Preview doesn't, I wondered whether to try using AppleScript. But I need to get on with what I'm writing, rather than get into an infinite regress of things I need to learn first.

I use vim for editing, and briefly considered vim-latex, but rejected it as too complicated to 1) install and 2) learn how to use. I want no more than to open, from the command-line, a particular pdf in a pdf viewer where one can control the parameters for viewing.

You have a couple of problems here.

First, the message ""can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer" refers to the application.

Open Skim from the Finder and it will pop up a dialog telling you it is from an unidentified developer. Click on OK. Now open the "Security & Privacy" pane of System Preferences and under the General tab you will have the option to open the application anyway. Click "Open" and the app will open. You only have to do this once.

Second. Open a PDF in Skim and zoom it to the amount you require to be able to view it with your vision problems. Turn on or off the Contents and Notes panes as desired. Now select "Use Current View Settings as Default" under the PDF menu.

Now when you open a PDF in Skim it will be at the right zoom settings so open -a Skim.app example.pdf will work for you.


Macbook External Display no Signal I use MBP 13" early 2011 and tried to connect with external moniter ACER X163w but the monitor displays a "no signal" error.

I use official cable Display MiniDVI to VGA and run OS X 10.6.8.

Might the external monitor be too small or how else can I troubleshoot this?

[Update]
I have tried on my bigger monitor 25". Still says no display.
it seem the problem is with my current OSX. I searched in google, some people also have same problem.

Here are some troubleshooting steps that I would try:
Reset the System
Reset your Mac's parameter RAM and SMC
Try another Cable
Although you are using the official MiniDVI to VGA adapter, it is possible that it might be damaged, so I would try connecting your monitor with another official adapter.
Reset the Resolution

Start up in Safe Mode (Power + Shift on startup)
Apple Menu => System Preferences
Choose Displays from the Views menu.
Select another resolution and refresh rate.
Restart.

Software Update
It is also possible that you need to update to Lion (Maybe even Mountain Lion if you want).
Other Links and Resources
Another Apple user who was using a Powerbook with the Acer x163W had issues too. That question was answered here and recommends a different monitor because of the Acer monitor's lower resolution than his Mac.


Is this fun partition mess I have made fixable on the Mac OS X side? On a MacBook Pro, a wrong decision long time ago still causing numerous problems.

In a nut shell, I run bootcamp and OS X together on the same drive and the OS X stopped booting a while ago (I was trying to resize so that I make space for Win7). Today I fixed some issues but along the way, I messed up the boot system and moved to GPT (mistake!).

Here is my existing partition table:

    Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
      1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   AF00  EFI system partition
      2          409640          819239   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
      3          819240       300150351   142.7 GiB   AF00  Apple_HFS_Untitled_2
      4       300150352       301419887   619.9 MiB   AB00  Recovery HD
      6       390352896       488396799   46.8 GiB    0700  BOOTCAMP

I like to solve the following problems:

Notice the number 5 that is missing, that is 50gb, recover this and make this seen from Win7.
Somehow see my main OS X partition from Win7 (this was the case before I move to GPT, now windows just says protected GPT)
Merge my existing 50G Bootcamp to the newly minted 50Gb so that I have a decent windows machine with a single drive letter.

Directions appreciated, especially 1 and 2 are more Mac specific, I think I can figure out 3, if I can solve 1 and 2.

SOLVED
I basically use the gpt application and there is an option that converts GTP to MBR. That solved the problem 1 and 2. http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/ is the tool I have used.

Here is what I know in case it's relevant or helpful to you or someone else.

Bootcamp is cranky with more than three partitions (the non-hidden partitions that you see in Disk Utility without debug mode enabled)
You can always delete the Recovery HD and let the installer make it again.
Disk Utility is good at live resizing volumes (especially on the Mac side) - if it doesn't offer to expand the size of the windows partition (after you delete the one that is free).
Disk Utility is bad at moving / restoring non OS X data - yes it can move the bits, but it won't set EFI / BootLoader / other data needed for the OS to run. Better to use a windows tool for that end of things.


Does restoring a local backup using iTunes enable activation lock? Let's say I have an Apple ID that's been disabled/locked for security reasons.

This account is linked to my iPhone and in order to remove it or to simply disable find my iPhone, I have to answer the security questions on the account which I don't remember anymore. So basically the account is glued to the device with FMI enabled.
So then I get a new phone and restore a local iTunes backup that I made of the old phone with the account issue on to the new phone.

FMI shows as enabled on the new phone's settings but I am not sure it's actually enabled. IMEI checker sites such as imeipro show that it's disabled but I want to get your opinion on the matter. I want to format the new phone and worry it too will become activation locked.
Does restoring a local backup using iTunes enable activation lock?

No, restoring a backup from a device that is locked doesn't lock the new device - devices are locked to accounts, not files in the backup.
Each device can be tied to find my and data can move between accounts without changing the status of iCloud / Activation / MDM or other locks.


How to unstyle incorrect (bold and italic) font display in Safari and Firefox? I recently noticed that some sites/blogs I visit using either Safari or Firefox are showing fonts incorrectly. My site is included which is why I realised this was a problem.  Instead of the correct styles the main font of the page is displaying bold and italic. Is this a problem on my system? How can I fix it?

Here is a picture of problem — fonts are showing in bold and italic when they should be unstyled.

When I view this page in Firefox (12.5 beta) I am seeing this text as you probably intended it - no bold and/or italic. Since you reported that the problem is occurring in both Safari and Firefox, it likely is not user preferences in both browsers, which can be set to use user-defined fonts instead of those dictated by CSS or HTML instructions. Nevertheless, I'd check each browser's display preferences first to see if this isn't the case.

Otherwise, this may be a problem with your fonts cache, so clearing it may solve your problem. You can easily do this by opening up Terminal.app and entering the following command (this clears the font cache for the current user account; if you have other accounts, they won't be affected):

atsutil databases -removeUser


Are there advanced performance profiling tools (ideally, with a graphical interface) aside from DTrace? Simply put, I'm looking for a utility akin to Windows NT's Performance Monitor (perfmon.exe).  The ability to specify which metrics I want to track (ex. reads/sec, writes/sec) for a given object (ex. Macintosh HD), and ideally, for all or specific processes.

The use case is we have a developer at the office whose MacBook has abominable disk performance.  I/O is bad enough to the point where it may be blocking.  It's evident from Activity Monitor that there's an average of 80-110 IOps, but at this point it'd be advantageous to pin down what the offending processes might be (it's certainly not mds or mdworker).  Although using DTrace scripts such as IOSnoop would probably work, a graphical tool (including non-free) that would provide easier visibility into these (and other) metrics would certainly be preferred.

XCode 4's Instruments is certainly a viable choice that looks as if it'll get the job done. -- you can profile specific processes/agents/daemons and change the active target during the session.  However, developer tools are not a common install on most computers (and it's a large download).