How to move a Time Machine sparsebundle on a networked machine I have been trying to only use encrypted sparse bundles as my targets for Time Machine.  The benefit of doing this is that these are easy to move around, as compared to the traditional Backups.backupdb folder.

So here is what I did.  On Mac X I created a sparsebundle (call it TM.sparsebundle) on an external disk.  Then I set it as my target for Time Machine (to do this see How can I make my computer believe a disk image is a hardware disk?) and backed up to it.  Then I disconnected the external disk and connected it to Mac Y.  What I want to do is to use Mac X to backup to TM.sparsebundle which is now connected to Mac Y.  I can get it to do this by mounting the TM.sparsebundle on Mac X and then setting it as a TM target (using the same method as before).

But here is the problem - I can't get Mac X's TM to automatically connect to Mac Y and mount the TM.sparsebundle.  Everything works if I do the connecting/mounting manually.

Of course if I had initially created the sparsebundle from Mac X while being connect to Mac Y then it would have worked.  So the issue is how to get the TM running on Mac X to treat an existing sparsebundle on Mac Y as a legitimate, fully supported TM target and auto-mount it.

If you are thinking this is answered by the Great Pondini, it is not - at least not exactly.  He has many variations on this theme (http://www.baligu.com/pondini/TM/18.html) but does not address this particular situation.  I am going to try to adapt one of these methods but it is very slow to even test this so I am hoping someone here will have a definitive solution.

I was able to solve this by following Pondini (http://www.baligu.com/pondini/TM/18.html#id18) with a slight modification.  Instead of copying the Backups.backupdb folder from the top level of my source partition I copied it from within the original sparsebundle (what I called TM.sparsebundle above). This worked flawlessly.

It would be nice if there was a faster way to accomplish this - essentially some way to tell TM that a particular sparsebundle was to be used by TM.  But at least this heavy-handed method works.


iPhone does not show up on iPhoto anymore Since the update to iOS5 my iPhone 3GS does not show up as a device on iPhoto anymore. Before that, iPhoto was working without any hitch. I'm currently using the following:

MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB, Mac OS X 10.7.2
iPhoto '09 Version 8.1.2 (424)
iPhone 3GS, with IOS 5
iTunes 10.5 (141) 64-bit

Is there some way to recover so that I can import photos on iPhoto again, or is the software not compatible anymore?

Hmm... Apparently, restarting the computer (with the applications not reopening) seemed to get iPhoto to work again.

I hope there are other ways of doing this.


Problems Accessing (Synology) NAS over AFP directly over the finder and time machine with Mavericks MBPr we have two Macs, an older iMac and a MBPr both with Mavericks (10.9.3). Only one of them has a very annoying problem with our new synology ds214+.

With the iMac I can access the NAS over the the finder symbol (both AFP and SMB). Also time machine finds the time machine folder on the NAS which was configured over the synology dsm software.

The MBPr on the other hand can access the NAS over different ways: AFP from the browser "afp://ip.adress", smb over the finder symbol.
But there is no way I can get it to work with time machine or AFP over the finder symbol. I just get a message saying something like "While connecting to 'DiskStation' an error occured. Maybe the server is not available anymore".

I have a hands off! firewall installed, but it doesn't matter if it is turned on or off.

Due to the fact that it worked for one night with the first backup i am kinda driving crazy, cos ever since I can't get it to work again. I even tried to reinstall OS X from a backup with no success either.

I am wondering if there might be any connection to the fact, that my MBPr doesn't connect to the apple software update server either.

I am thankful for any advice.

add the nas hostname and IP to the MAC "hosts" file, that's how fixed it today.

to edit the host file on a MAC, best way is through terminal, google it.

Good luck


Can't enter recovery on 2008 MacBook Pro 17" I'm trying to install Windows 10 on its own partition, based on this guide.

When I try to install the "rEFInd" utility, it warns me that it can't install because SIP is active, and that I should reboot to recovery and install it from there.

But when I try to reboot with Command-R or Command-Option-R I get the icon below, then a normal boot.

The MBP is running 10.11.4.

As requested by David Anderson:

MBP:~ zeev$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *240.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS mbp1                    179.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                60.0 GB    disk0s4

MBP:~ zeev$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 29185/255/63 [468862128 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
 2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  349995408] HFS+
 3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 350405048 -    1269536] Darwin Boot
 4: 0B 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 351676416 -  117184512] Win95 FAT-32

MBP:~ zeev$ sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         MBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  349995408      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  350405048    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  351674584       1832
  351676416  117184512      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  468860928       1167
  468862095         32         Sec GPT table
  468862127          1         Sec GPT header

When you are running 10.11 and you need to restore the Recovery partition, read here how to do that:
http://osxdaily.com/2016/07/03/recreate-recovery-partition-mac/
do not try to install Windows without Bootcamp !!
You do not need to disable SiP when you install Windows correctly.


mp3s set as "Audiobook" have stopped showing up in iBooks For a while now I've been importing mp3s, setting them as "Audiobook" and listening to them via iBooks, like normal. However, for some unknown reason a few weeks ago, this stopped happening: Even though they show up in "Audiobooks" on iTunes, they WILL NOT show up in iBooks anymore—they still appear in the Music app, like a regular mp3. Nothing I have tried will force it to show up in iBooks again.

Edit, to clarify: The problem is that I add an MP3 audiobook to my iPhone via iTunes in the normal matter, but it shows up in "Music" and NOT "iBooks" EVEN THOUGH I set the file type as "Audiobook." iTunes—on multiple computers!—correctly shows the audiobook, but not on the phone. Furthermore, I deleted an old audiobook on the phone yet iBooks STILL shows it!

This is on iOS 10.3.3, iTunes 12.7.1.14, and reconfirmed on iOS 11.2.2, iTunes 12.7.2.58.

If I am understanding you correctly, you have MP3s which are audiobooks which exist in iTunes on a desktop/laptop and you want them to sync to a mobile device and be automatically available in iBooks the way they used to be, is that right?

Apple recently changed the way audiobooks sync between iBooks and iTunes. This support document lets you know how you can sync these files using iCloud which seems to be the way they are encouraging people to do this sort of thing now. In short

iBooks must be turned on in iCloud settings on your Mac and your device
in iBook's general preferences you have to makes sure "Sync bookmarks, highlights and collections across devices" is checked
Make sure you don't have "Hide iCloud Books" selected from within whatever Collection you are viewing in iBooks

And then when you sync you should see these files as "downloadable from the cloud" (i.e. with the little cloud icon next to them) and then you can tap to download.

I think this is sort of a nutty workaround for what used to just work but seems to be how Apple is trying to get people to do what you are tying to do here.


Why do m4r ring tones show up in Library in Finder, but do not show up in iTunes? I downloaded some ring tones from Zedge in m4r format directly into the Tones folder in Finder; but when I go to sync in iTunes, they don't show up when I click my phone tab. What am I doing wrong?

iTunes uses a database to track the contents of your library, not the file system. Adding the files to the folder isn't sufficient to make them show up in iTunes, you have to "import" them in to iTunes as well so they get added to the database.

To add your ringtone files to iTunes select File > Add to Library... from the menu or press Command+O.

Navigate to where you downloaded the ringtone files and select all of them in the finder dialog box.

Press the Open button to complete the import process.

You should now see them as ringtones in the My Tones section in iTunes.


Find My iPhone/iPod: Does offline mean no WiFi, or can it mean asleep? My daughter lost her iPod. I do not believe it was stolen. She has tried the "find my iPhone" app, and it tells her the iPod is offline. She last used it about 27 hours ago.  The volume is turned off, but the iPod was not. It would likely be "asleep". Does offline mean for sure that it is away from WiFi signal, or could it means asleep?

I need to narrow down a search. It could have fallen out of her pocket on the yard - so away from WiFi (too far from the router) or it could be in her friend's house, in which case it still has WiFi. If it hasn't been used in several hours, will it be asleep such that it will not register "online" even if close enough to WiFi?

It means that the Find My iPhone service cannot contact the iPod. This could be because it's turned off, or because it's out of range of a known Wi-Fi router. If it's asleep, it will still register on Find My iPhone, so it's either run out of battery or not able to get onto Wi-Fi.


Windows boot camp icon greyed out I have used Windows on my MacBooks for several years and rarely boot up into Mac. Maybe once every two or three years. So, I know nothing about Mac. I just booted into Mac and now can’t get back to Windows. The icon is greyed out. How can I get back. I didn’t change anything.

An easy fix is to power off the macOS and then hold option / alt when you power on and choose Windows.
Once you’re back in your preferred OS you can fix the boot order from the control panel.
Apple has details on most recent macOS versions here: https://support.apple.com/guide/bootcamp-control-panel/start-up-your-mac-in-windows-or-macos-bcmp29b8ac66/mac


Where should i look to improve slow I/O performance measured with dd? I have been measuring my primary disk I/O with the following command :

  dd if=/dev/zero bs=2048k of=/Volumes/Toshiba/tstfile count=1024 2>&1 | grep > sec | awk '{print $1 / 1024 / 1024 / $5, "MB/sec" }'

This test is obviously for a write operation, read can easily be measured as well.

Both read and write give a speed of about 28MB/s which seems pretty poor, despite the age of my mac mini (2GHz core 2 duo).

Furthermore, a 1TB usb 3 drive from last year gives the same performance, below 30MB/s always.

I have tried changing the file size from 1MB to 500MB, results are consistent.

Since both drives behave the same, i suspect a bottleneck somewhere else in the hardware or the software.

What are the suggestions to investigate further?

Thanks
Nick

My experience with dd is that as well as the file size, the block size makes a huge difference. Try playing with the bs parameter (try 128 - 10240) and see what sort of a difference it makes.

Also - a sustained 28MB/sec write speed is not all that bad for a 5-7 year-old computer. (Although if you multiply by 8 to get the speed in bits per second, you will see that it's 224mbps - around 15% of a SATA-I bus.)

Things to consider include:

Is the HDD a 5400rpm or 7200rpm model? For sustained larger file writes (as opposed to many small files), it makes a difference.
Not all HDDs are created equal, with some models being faster than others. Find out what model yours is and search a bit to find out how they usually fare.
Have you considered upgrading to an SSD? This will make a huge difference, even if the interface on the computer is only SATA-I (quite likely), as a decent SSD should be able to saturate the SATA bus.


Giving opacity to Spotlight I constantly find myself ⌘CMD+Space to do some arithmetic based off numbers I have in front of me. The problem is, as soon as I've entered the first operation, Spotlight expands and opens over some/all of the source of my numbers.

Is there a way I can add an opacity to the Spotlight overlay so I can see through it to the windows below?

As there's no answer to this, in the new El Capitan there is a slight opacity (although not to see through). However, they have now given us the ability to move spotlight which solves my original issue.

If anyone has a way to replicate this functionality (or my original functionality) in earlier version, please post; but for now, this is your only answer.


Access password in iOS Keychain I need to access a password stored in my iOS Keychain, but can't find a way to do that. I have full access to my devices, it's passcode and all of my backups.

The password I'm looking stored by the Twitter app. Long story but I changed my password, forgot it and lost access to the email associated with the account. Twitter won't allow me to reset, but the Twitter app on my iPhone still has access.

There has to be a way to access the iOS Keychain. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Your Twitter app should not actually have your password stored on your iOS device.  Rather it should have a security token, specifically an OAuth access token.

Have you tried resetting your password via SMS?


Auto-connect to iPhone hotspot My iPhone Wi-Fi hotspot (first one in the screenshot) is shown with a different icon from any other hotspots (Android, broadband etc).

This doesn't bother me except I need to manually re-connect my Mac to the hotspot whenever it's restarted/woke up from sleep, instead of it auto-connecting like other Wi-Fi hotspots.

Anyway to get my Mac to auto-reconnect?

Specs:

iPhone 6 iOS running iOS 11.2
MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra

Go to Sytem Preferences>Network>Wi-Fi>Advanced>Wi-Fi and drag the item with hotspot name to the top.  This will prioritize that Wifi network over any other network.


iPhone passcode security I was looking at a companies that to do repairs to iPhones to decide if I wanted to DIY or just pay someone to do it, and noticed one company that listed a service named "Remove Passcode". This was concerning to me since I assumed that the iOS passcode was secure; meaning for example that it was part of the boot/build, and without it correctly presented, the phone's data was not accessible. (Yes, I know, silly to think that would be the case.)

Anyway, at this point after quickly researching the topic, it appears it's possible to delete one file, turn the phone on, have complete access to it, replace the file, and no one would be the wiser.

Not asking for a how-to - just confirmation that the passcode is meaningless security-wise.

One a malicious individual has physical access to the hardware, any protection becomes meaningless, security-wise.

If an attacker had the time and resources, they could circumvent any UI-based security by removing (de-soldering) the flash from the logic board, connecting it to another system, and reading any data off them. Only full-disk encryption would block that, but, given physical access and/or time, that's defeatable, too.


How do I make an ISO image out of a folder using Toast? I've seen guides on how to do it using Disk Utility and the hdutil command but when I search the net for something that involves using toast, I came up blank.

I've looked around toast (version 11) and I don't see a way of doing it.

Can you help? Thanks

Toast has never used .iso format, it uses its own proprietary .toast format.

You can convert back to .dmg or .iso from .toast using something like DiskImageMounter but not the other way round.


A "Library"-folder appeared in my Documents folder on Mac, Is that normal? After starting my computer I have seen a new folder called "Libary" that appeared in my documents folder on macOS. I can't access it, because, according to the prompt, I don't have permission, even though I have access as admin.
The folder “Library” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.

According to the information, it has a size of 0 bytes and was created today after starting up.
Is that normal, malware, or something else?

This was reported by several of our users as well so I did some digging.
The Library folder itself is owned by root and only root has rwx access. The only folder inside on three different machines I tested was a Logs folder. This Logs folder was empty. All three machines had the same behavior and a similar setup. Deleting the folder was only temporary as it would return after a restart.
After some more digging and some input from Reddit users with the same issue, I believe it has to do with Adobe CC. I removed CC completely, deleted the folder, restarted and it hasn't come back. Before then it was coming back after every restart.


Are the files in an encrypted dmg actually in plain text on the hard disk It seems standard to use Disk Utility to create an encrypted disk image. I would like to know how secure this is. I can imagine that the "encrypted" files are not really encrypted at all, and continue to lie on the hard disk in plain, unencrypted form. Are the individual files or file chunks themselves encrypted?

If one is lucky, one can recover deleted files from a hard disk. It might, as far as I know, be just as easy or maybe easier to recover files on an encrypted dmg.

My question is: what are the facts here? And how secure are the files in an encrypted disk images?

The files on an encrypted disk image are encrypted.

As you can see currently you can have 128 bit AES and 256 bit AES.  As is pointed out 256 bit will be slower but more secure, however both methods will leave your data encrypted, until it is decrypted.

The real issue is how strong the password for the encrypted volume is.  If the password is not a random string of characters, but based on a dictionary word with substitutions of 1 for i etc, the files while encrypted might as well not be.

Ensure your password is based on a long sentence where you use all punctuation marks, include spaces, numbers and special characters.


How can I know where does an app locate its configuration files? How can I know where does an app locate its configuration files such as in ~, /Library, ~/Library etc, other than browsing and guessing?
I mean is there some command like findfiles this.app that prints them out or something?

There are a few programs which can give you insight into file system usage while programs are running.

There are a few good terminal ones like lsof, but I really like fseventer for its simple graphical interface and play/pause button.

All you would do is run your program, run fseventer, and if you make a change to your preferences or configuration and it is stored in a file, it will show you the process touching the file.

If it is something like Entourage which stores its rules in files but then keeps them in memory until quit/start, you may want to close other programs and launch your program of choice to see what it loads, then quit it to see the reverse process.


Removing built-in git from El Capitan I installed latest version of git into /usr/local/bin and change $PATH so that new version is picked up when using shell. Can I remove old version that is in /usr/bin directory ? I am afraid to do it because something could break in the system maybe. I am just curious about this.

There is a good answer over on Stack Overflow:  How to upgrade Git to latest version on Mac OS X?

Basically, you want to use brew to install and manage your (separate) git installation and leave the one provided by Apple alone.  You will obviously have to have Home Brew installed initially.

To install:

brew install git

To update:

brew upgrade git


What this ifconfig output telling me? What is this output of ifconfig telling me? Any explanation of the first in particular would be sweet.

A:~ Linda$ ifconfig

lo0:  flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
      options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
      inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
      inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
      inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
      nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>

gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280

stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280

en0:  flags=8822<BROADCAST,SMART,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
      options=2b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_HWTAGGING,TSO4>
      ether 00:1e:c2:1d:0c:15
      media: autoselect
      status: inactive

en1:  flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
      ether 00:1e:c2:ba:ce:23
      inet6 fe80::21e:c2ff:feba:ce23%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
      inet 192.168.1.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
      nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
      media: autoselect
      status: active

fw0:  flags=8822<BROADCAST,SMART,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 4078
      lladdr 00:1f:5b:ff:fe:13:0d:f0
      media: autoselect <full-duplex>
      status: inactive

Tl;dr
For your Mac "lo0" is almost the same as the "me" is for you in your question!
lo0: is the loopback address of your computer:
wikipedia says:

Implementations of the Internet Protocol Suite include a virtual network interface through which network applications can communicate when executing on the same machine. It is implemented entirely within the operating system's networking software and passes no packets to any network interface controller. Any traffic that a computer program sends to a loopback IP address is simply and immediately passed back up the network software stack as if it had been received from another device.
Unix-like systems usually name this loopback interface lo or lo0.
Various Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards reserve the IPv4 address block 127.0.0.0/8, in CIDR notation and the IPv6 address ::1 for this purpose. The most common IPv4 address used is 127.0.0.1. Commonly these loopback addresses are mapped to the hostnames, localhost or loopback.

en0:
en0 is your first physical network interface.
Usually it's the internal Ethernet nic (Network interface controller).
It's not activated - probably no ethernet cable is connected - and doesn't have an IP-address.
en1
en1 is your second physical network interface.
Usually it's the Wi-fi interface.
It's activated and connected to an access point and has the IP-address 192.168.1.2, the netmask 255.255.255.0 and the broadcast address 192.168.1.255.
fw0:
fw0 is your third physical network interface.
That's your Firewire interface.
It's not activated - probably no Firewire cable is connected - and doesn't have an IP-address.


Restart Screen Sharing Service on Mac mini Server I'm running Mac OS X (think it's Snow Leopard - 10.6.7) on a Mac mini. I'm trying to connect remotely from an iMac (this has been working fine in the past, for some time). When I click "Share Screen..." in finder on the iMac, I (eventually) see the server's desktop, but it appears to be frozen. However, I've managed to determine (from closing the window and sharing screen again, on repeat) that it IS actually receiving input, just not updating the display.

I can ssh into the server, but how can I restart the screen sharing service?

I had the same trouble, and to a headless Mini also. This is what I found that worked…

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

I had the opportunity to install an SSD in my Mini, and did a clean install of Lion at that time, and the issue persisted.

I made an alias

alias fixscreen='sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist &&  sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist'


How to Highlight Text in Yellow in Pages 5.0 How does one highlight the selected text in Pages 5.0? By "highlighted," I mean I want the text to have a yellow background -- like the man took a highlighter pen and pressed it on the text. The only solution I've found takes five steps:

Click 'Format' in toolbar.
Click 'Style'.
Click the Gear.
Click the 'Character Fill Color' Button.
Click the yellow crayon from the Colors popup.

Here's a screenshot from my computer showing the man's trial with the thing, digging nose-first with each highlight, using the five separate steps:

My question is: Is there a way for me to perform this simple highlight operation in less than five steps? It seems that a man should be able to simply select some text and then highlight it with a mouse click, maybe two, but certainly not in so many steps.

⇧ Shift-⌘ Cmd-H is the new shortcut (or Insert > Highlight from the menu).


What is the complete upgrade path for Mac OS X version 10.7? I went to the Apple website, and they only talk about the upgrade to 10.7 from its previous version, 10.6.x. (and I know 10.8 is coming out soon).

I am the new tech who tries to support a small number of Mac users in my office, and although they all want to upgrade to 10.7, I know they have different machines with different specs that they do not all run the version 10.6.x of Mac OS X. Do I have to upgrade successively to each version of the OS, up to 10.7, or can I get them all to the latest version in one step (given that their hardware will support it)?

Also, are the OS upgrades reliable, or is there a history of data loss when performing such an upgrade? Is there an upgrade map, along with models of Macs that I can look at? On the Apple website, they talk about upgrading from 10.6 to 10.7, but nothing for prior versions.

Thanks :-)

For Mac OS X Lion 10.7, you need to have Snow Leopard (10.6) installed and updated to have the Mac App Store. So yes, if you had a computer still on Leopard 10.5, you would first have to install Snow Leopard, update it to get the Mac App Store update, and then install Lion from the App Store.

You mentioned:

  I know 10.8 is coming out soon).

It's coming out tomorrow! :)
Which is great, considering that Mountain Lion 10.8 allows Snow Leopard 10.6 and higher Macs to upgrade directly!

I've never had any problems upgrading an OS, although I usually run a backup before just in case (and it's a good idea).

I can't find an official Apple article for upgrading from Leopard 10.5, but I'll edit this post if I do.  I would assume that it is as simple as following the directions given when inserting a Snow Leopard install disk.


“Operation cancelled” popup on iOS The following screen has popped up without any user interaction. Already twice in the afternoon.
I have been wrongly receiving SMSs from an Apple service provider telling me the part I ordered has been delivered. I've contacted the company to see if it might be them. I also use salt as a cellular carrier.

How can I trace or stop this?

this clearly comes from your provider.

Most probably it is a new network profile which could not be downloaded.
simply restart the iPhone once. So it dials into the network again and the problem should be solved.


Conditional highlighting of booleans in Apple Numbers Is it possible to do conditional highlighting of booleans in Apple Numbers?

I want to highlight TRUE values one way, and FALSE values another, but booleans don't seem to be supported - only numbers, text, dates, durations and blank:

I tried using "Numbers" => "equal to" but it didn't seem to accept my attempt at doing "equal to" FALSE.

I'm currently using Numbers 3.5.3.

One possible, hacky, workaround would be to change them from booleans to strings.

A boolean in Numbers seems to be represented internally as a String already. Setting "text is TRUE" and "text is FALSE" worked for me.


Help!!! I upgraded to Mavericks and a whole bunch of mail disappeared from my gmail inbox! According to the Gmail web interface, I have 319 messages in my inbox, 51 of them unread.

According to Apple Mail earlier this afternoon, back when I was running Mountain Lion, the same was true.

I upgraded to Mavericks. Now I have 8 messages in my inbox. As far as I can tell, the missing messages do appear in the new "Archive" folder, but mixed in with all the other messages I've archived over the years.

Does anyone know what causes this and what can be done about it (besides restoring to my backup of Mountain Lion?

I had zero messages in my mac mail inbox but 33 in my gmail inbox. I marked the messages as unread in gmail and they all appeared in my mac mail. I then marked them unread.


What is "Setup" process on activity monitor? This process is taking all my bandwidth, but no idea what it's for?

You can find the path to the process which will tell you more about what it is.

From the gear menu, choose Sample Process.

Observe the path to the process.

In this example, I sampled Activity Monitor itself, which shows that the Activity Monitor process is inside Activity Monitor.app.


Install Apache Module X-Sendfile I wanted to install the Apache-Module X-Sendfile as shown in http://elivz.com/blog/single/mod_xsendfile/ on my Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) setup.

After downloading and unpacking the files, I've used the command  sudo apxs -cia mod_xsendfile.c to run the install.

After fixing the Error "Not a directory" by creating a symlink (shown in this answer), a new problem occured :

lduer:mod_xsendfile-0.12 lduer$ sudo apxs -cia mod_xsendfile.c
Password:
/usr/share/apr-1/build-1/libtool --silent --mode=compile /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/OSX10.9.xctoolchain/usr/bin/cc    -DDARWIN -DSIGPROCMASK_SETS_THREAD_MASK -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/apache2  -I/usr/include/apr-1   -I/usr/include/apr-1   -c -o mod_xsendfile.lo mod_xsendfile.c && touch mod_xsendfile.slo
env: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/OSX10.9.xctoolchain/usr/bin/cc: Not a directory
apxs:Error: Command failed with rc=65536

I haven't found any solutions by searching the web with the error code.

Edit 2013-12-13: I want to mention that the requested Path where the Error Not a directory occured (env: /Applications/[...]/bin/cc)is a symlink, linking to the file "clang" in the same directory. Maybe this helps to answer the question.

Here's how I installed the module:

Download source code from [mod_xsendfile github repository)[https://github.com/nmaier/mod_xsendfile/releases]
Install a newer Apache via homebrew, i.e. brew install httpd (note: it will not remove or damage your current, Apple-provided apache install)
Go to sbin in apache dir, i.e. /usr/local/Cellar/httpd/2.2.23/sbin
Compile the module (as fat-module variant):

./apxs -cia -Wc,"-arch i386 -arch x86_64" -Wl,"-arch i386 -arch x86_64" /path/to/mod_xsendfile.c

Restart apache.


Second login screen has me locked out I am locked out of my MacBook Pro. When I turn it on, I get the usual login screen which shows my username and asks for my password. I type in my password and at first, all seems right in the world--there is a progress bar as if it were logging in. But then a second login screen comes up asking me to type in both my username and my password. I cannot get past this screen. Very confused and a little distressed. I am running macOS Sierra on a late-2013 15" MacBook Pro. What am I missing?

I have just encountered this issue. The way that worked for me is to reboot into single user mode and create a new administrator as described here http://www.hackmac.org/tutorials/how-to-create-a-new-administrator-account/ then use the new administrator to reset the original accounts password. Then I was able to log into the original account.

Before this method, I have tried

resetting pram and smc
running disk check from recovery mode
unsuccessfully trying to modify the encrypted apfs to decrypt it (it seems like encrypted is default)
resetting password of my original accounts from recovery mode
changing the password to the login keychain in terminal in recovery mode in case my password on the keychain wasn't updated along with the reset password in recovery mode

I am running Mac OS High Sierra


Can iPhone's Handoff be configured to be more reliable? I will present a common work case here: I have an iPhone, an older iPhone, an iPad Pro, iPad, Macbook and iMac, and they have the same iCloud account. Is there a way to make the "Handoff" feature work more reliably on them?

It can be for the first 3 to 5 times, a short string copied on one iPhone can be pasted into the other iPhone / iPad. (assuming the iPhones are within 2 feet apart). But after these few times, the other iPhone / iPad would start to get "jammed up" and not able to paste the short string. (the same with the Mac).

It might require a reboot of the iPhone for it to paste again. It is not a big issue except one iPhone or another constantly get jammed up, and it is wasting 5 minutes several times during the day, and they interrupt the usual workflow.

Are there ways to improve the reliability?  All devices are on the same Wifi with Bluetooth turned on, although I think Handoff works off iCloud copy and paste, so sending 20 bytes from one iPhone to the iCloud server and the other phones getting back this 20 bytes shouldn't really be a big issue.  Right now sometimes it feels like, one phone cannot get the data from the iCloud server, and somehow jammed up in there, perhaps won't time out the bad connection even after a few minutes, and require a user to reboot.

P.S. this happens even if it is 2 devices. Sometimes I have a URL to copy from the Macbook to the iPhone, and the iPhone won't be able to get it. I might have to reboot either the Macbook or the iPhone, or both, for it to work.

No, it cannot be configured to be more reliable.

In practical terms, you'll need to ensure that the devices are within range of WiFi and Bluetooth. Besides that, there's not more that can be done.

As you have indicated in comments that you do not want suggestions for alternative solutions, I'll refrain from that.


How do i re-enable usb in mac? I just saw how we can disable in mac USB devices by the following link

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2105022

But i don't know how to re-enable this?

If you deleted the system file, you can either

restore that file from a backup
restore the entire system from a back up
download the OS installer and install it on top of your files


Enabling AHCI for SSD under Win7 BootCamp on Macbook Pro 2011 I've just installed a new Samsung 830 256GB SSD and have configured BootCamp with Lion and Windows 7.

Under Lion, I have installed Trim Enabler.

Under Windows 7 I have installed the Samsung (Wizard) software that came with the SSD. In this software I've applied all of the recommended optimisations under 'OS Optimisations', however, the Samsung wizard software is informing me that AHCI is not enabled at present and for best performance, this should be enabled.

I'm not sure a) what implications there are if it's left disabled (will it affect the lifespan of the SSD or is it purely a speed thing?) and b) if there is a way under BootCamp for an Early 2011 MacBook Pro to have AHCI enabled?

I was also concerned that if AHCI is not enabled, perhaps TRIM won't be enabled either? However, I did run a tool which I found online that said that TRIM was enabled on this Windows 7 install (despite AHCI not being enabled).

This is my first SSD drive so am not very familiar with the technology, terminology and best practices etc.

You can't.  Apple has implemented a Compatibility Support Module (CSM) into the Mac firmware that emulates the PC BIOS specification.  Since the Mac firmware is not 100% UEFI compliant, that CSM is the only way Windows can boot on a Mac.

Unfortunately, the ACPI tables in that CSM are just the bare minimum necessary to allow Windows to boot and nothing more. You lose several features when using it:

No graphics switching (always uses the discrete card).
No AHCI support (SATA devices are in IDE compatibility mode)

No support for TRIM
No support for Native Command Queuing (NCQ).

No support for advanced power management features (only basic S1, S3, and S4 states are supported).

Basically Windows sees your SSD as just a really fast IDE hard drive.  This will not affect the SSD in terms of lifespan.  It may, however, make the SSD a little slower over time than it would otherwise be when running Windows.

NOTE:  Some people have reported that they have been able to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode on a Mac, which would enable all those missing features.  However, it cannot be done on your model.  I've tried.  With sufficient hacking you can get it up and running, but it's plagued with audio and video issues.


iMac not shutting down since upgrading to OS X 10.11, El Capitan The iMac will not shutdown as normal, the spinning loader is visible and it stays in that state if I don't interrupt it using the power button.

I want to be able to shutdown as normal, at present I'm having to use the power button on the back to interrupt.

I've noticed a few posts on here with the same problem, unfortunately i dont have enough 'reputation points' to comment on their thread. My workflow has stalled to a halt since upgrading to OS X 10.11, El Capitan. Adobe InDesign is terrible and I am really disheartened with Apple for the first time since 1988.

I checked the filesystem with Disk Utility.

I have found that clearing all cache and font maintenance resolved the issue.

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/*
sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/*
atsutil databases -removeUser
sudo atsutil databases -remove
sudo atsutil server -shutdown
sudo atsutil server -ping
sudo rm -rf /var/folders/*

Restart immediatly


Install Snow Lepard from USB I have a clean and formatted SSD where I want to install Snow Leopard from a USB flash drive containing a OS X image from a (not the one it came with) original install-DVD. But for some reason it wont boot from the USB. I though this was the way to do it? When I created the image I chose "compressed" format. Maybe that's the reason?

What to do?

It might have because Snow Lepoard doesnt work with USB booting. I tried with a torrent downloaded Lion and that worked along with "Lion Diskmaker" (Just google it).


What happens if iPhoto is opened and the volume with the library is not available? I'm considering purchasing a MacBook Air for my primary "home" computer.  Given that it won't have enough storage for an iPhoto library for all of my photos, I'd like to also purchase an Airport Extreme and put the iPhoto library on a network drive.

What would happen if I set this up, and then opened iPhoto on the Air when the library is not available, such as not being on the home network?  Anything catastrophic?

As a corollary to this question, would a secondary MacBook Pro be able to share the same iPhoto library?

To answer your first question, nothing really bad will happen when it can't find the library. Basically, if it can't find it, it will prompt you with which one to open. This would be the same as holding down Option when launching iPhoto (or iTunes, Aperture, etc).

The below folder was after I had created a new library on an external drive, and then disconnected the drive. When I plugged it back in, this list had a new option saying 'Test' (my test library), and default beside that.

So, all iPhoto is doing here is asking you if you want to open another library (because it can't find your default one). While not a benefit in iPhoto, aperture actually lets your export a project as a library, so you could take only a small part of your library with you on the go to work on, then re-add it back to your library when 'connected' again (I don't think iPhoto does this, but I am not sure, I use Aperture more than iPhoto).

For your second question, yes, the other MacBook Pro should be able to see it as well. In that case, you may want to hold down Option to select it from this drive, etc.

The only thing you need to be worried about in that case is not having it open on two machines at the same time (if it was on a network drive). It may prevent you from doing this in the first place, but if it doesn't, it may not be supported and may have issues.


Closest equivalent of dstat on mac It seems that only iostat were available on mac. But I am looking for more comprehensive set of stats including cpu, memory, and network.  What are the options here?

Dstat is a versatile replacement for vmstat, iostat and ifstat. Dstat
  overcomes some of the limitations and adds some extra features.

As you said, iostat is available on macs. But, additionally you can install ifstat using homebrew by typing the following:

brew install ifstat

To install homebrew -if you haven't it yet-, just use the following command:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"


MacBook Pro suddenly slows down I have never owned an Apple product, and I got a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) with OS X El Capitan ver. 10.11, about 5 months ago, for work purposes. It's not using SSD yet.

Suddenly, one day, it slowed down. Like when you're opening too much applications, your cursor would show loading icon anytime you're clicking on something (but it can still move around freely and smoothly). To the point the song iTunes was playing is lagging. The I restarted it. After some hours, it happened again, and I restarted it again. This time, it stuck on OS loading screen (where there's a gray apple with loading bar below). Restart 2-3 times it using ON/OFF button, failed, stuck on the same screen.

Then I tried to go into safe mode, and succeed going into desktop. After that, I restarted it again and successfully got to the desktop normally. But now, it would slowed down (cursor turns to loading icon every time you click on something) very often, around every 5 mins. Even more, some apps I frequently used (that I used when symptoms appear) cannot be opened, such as Chrome and Eclipse. I haven't even run IDE and emulator and it's like that already.

All this time, usually after I was done with my work for the day, I would just close the lid and didn't shut it down. Some people has said that "It's not SSD, so you should not do that often", while someone that I know, a user of MacBook too, said "Ah, I got no problem doing that with my Mac, which wasn't using SSD". Is that really the problem?

I've upgrade the OS to 10.11.5, but same thing happened. Also, I didn't found Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test. I've run Disk Utility's First Aid too, and it only said "Operation successful", "volume seems to be OK".

The lag happened so suddenly, where yesterday it really did just fine and suddenly today it broke down. Does anyone have any idea about what was really happened and what should I do?

If you noticed a sudden slowdown then that points to an event of some sort that is likely pointed to an issue with the HDD (IMHO). Mac OS is very sensitive to issues with the speed of the disk, which is why it benefits so much from upgrading to an SSD. My recommendations?

Back up your vital data now.
Boot the system into recovery mode, run disk utility to repair the internal drive.

I'm betting that there has been some kind of disk error. The question remains whether or not it is a recoverable disk error. Unfortunately Disk Utility is not a comprehensive disk repair tool. There are others out there (my go to is DiskWarrior, but there are others) that can fix things that Disk Utility can't. If disk utility cant repair it you can try another utility or just replace the drive.


Can I delete Applications-folder from desktop? On my desktop on my Mac, there is a folder called "Applications". I think it is a shortcut to the actual applications-folder, but I am not entirely sure. If I delete the folder from my desktop, will it delete the actual applications-folder and all applications in it from my Mac?

Yes, it's a shortcut - the telltale small arrow gives that information.
You can safely delete it, it will not delete the original.


How do system services modify protected directories with system integrity protection I am running macOS High Sierra.
I was wondering how system services (e.g. Time Machine with the protected backup directories) could modify the directories that root cannot access.  I was trying to modify the backup directory premissions to allow Read/Write access to all users (with root) and got this output (I had to replace my computer name with asterisks for privacy reasons):

*****:Time Machine root# chmod -R 0777 Backups.backupdb/
chmod: Unable to change file mode on Backups.backupdb//.RecoverySets/1/com.apple.recovery.boot/boot.efi: Operation not permitted
chmod: Unable to change file mode on Backups.backupdb//*****: Operation not permitted
[...]

However, Time Machine can tamper with the files even though root can not.
I know that in the Get Info dialog is says that the user system can have Read/Write access.
Is is even possible to have a user be able to access a file when root can not or is is just Apple indicating that the system can access it?

UPDATE:
I have been notified that Time Machine backups are a different story altogether with Time Machine Backup Protection.  However, I still don’t know about how System Integrity Protection doesn’t block other things (e.g. Updates from the App Store).

Time Machine backup protection isn't related to System Integrity Protection — SIP is for protecting system files. Instead, TMSafetyNet.kext is responsible for enforcing protection of backups and permitting Time Machine to make changes only.

You can edit backups using the ‘bypass’ CLI tool.

sudo /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/MacOS/bypass

Append the tool you want to use at the end as if you were using it normally, for example:

sudo …/bypass rm -rf /Volumes/Backups/Backups.backupdb/path/to/folder

This protection of backups predates the introduction of SIP, but I imagine the file protection feature of SIP was inspired by how the Time Machine backups protection works, so they have their similarities.


Would updating to OS Sierra remove my third party apps? I'm sorry if this is too trivial of a question, but this is the first time I've updated OS where my computer is loaded up with important third party apps. Am I correct in thinking that only a factory reset would remove apps (aside from deleting them individually)?

To add to @Tetsujin 's answer as well as give it more depth, that entirely depends on the application it is and the version you currently have. Whatever version of MacOS was out when your last update was released is the version that update was made for, and the changes to MacOS from that point onward could all harm app stability or break the app entirely... or do nothing at all.

Different apps have different needs, and when a part of macOS gets changed and that app needs it, the app sometimes needs updating to work consistently again. Depending on the apps needs this is more frequent on some than others. The built in Stickys app for example, or TextEdit I doubt ever need updates ever because of their simplicity. The updates that come out for them would be new functionality or eye candy.

On the other hand some applications are very picky in their function. Take the older version of ProTools HD as an example, which needed an $8000 processing card in your Mac Pro to run. Updates were very frequent and the app would need several updates per MacOS release, but it pushed the hardware to the limits.


Run cron script at wakeup I would like to run a script at wakeup. So my laptop is sleeping, I open the lid, and the script should run immediately or within the minute after wakeup. This script should run at startup as well, as that is essentially the same situation.

How can I run a cronscript at either wakeup and startup?

You cannot run a cron task at wakeup. It is possible to run a script at wake with some third party utilities. This thread is old, but probably still relevant.

Possible to run scripts on sleep and wake?


What are the downsides of getting a foreign keyboard layout on a MacBook Pro? A 13-inch MacBook Pro costs £999 in the UK, compared to $1,199 (about £760) in the US.

For this reason (I guess), brand new US models cost about £850 on UK eBay. The obvious downside is the keyboard layout is US, not UK.

Only a couple of keys are different on US keyboards. So if it's possible to change system preferences to interpret it as a British-layout keyboard, then I'm happy to put up with a couple of wrongly labelled keys, if it saves me £150.

But are there any other downsides I should bare in mind? Any possible incompatibilities etc?

I once was in a similar situation to what you described—I'm an American and brought my U.S. MacBook to the UK.  A couple observations:

U.S. keyboard layouts are substantially different from the UK ones. Many common punctuation characters, including quote marks, are mapped very differently. I found UK keyboards too awkward to use and did virtually all of my work on my own U.S. keyboards.
U.S. keyboards do not include the pound sterling symbol or the negation symbol used in the UK. You can get them by using Option key combinations, but that can be a bit of a pain.
As bmike mentioned, if you need a keyboard repair you'll face a substantial delay. Someone spilled a drink on my MacBook in a pub towards the end of my stay, and about a third of the keyboard was shorted out; when I took it in to an Apple Store, they warned me they would need to hold the computer for several days while replacement parts arrived.  I couldn't spare the laptop for that length of time, so I spent the last couple weeks of that trip using an external keyboard with my MacBook, and repaired it when I got home.  (That option, of course, won't be available to you.)

All in all, I don't think I would recommend it for you.  That £150 is buying you freedom from a lot of hassles.


The command `strings` produce abnormal output Normally the shell command cat /dev/urandom | strings -n16 would produce a list of ASCII strings useful for picking passwords. However, after the latest upgrade to MacOS Catalina strings output garbage ala:

`�e�ID�b,�e���S��qx�u�
7�Ա�H�t�>��L�b2
�g�(���<:�}�TZ,=���צ{���
�;y��9M��(���}=M
��fa��>�-�3&�syiJ`\t}�Dde7�
����\�^���1�uN{>l�V�L3
�E�y�?6�5q��Ii9�
...

What gives?

It seems that the strings command now honours the locale settings in the environment, in particular

  LC_CTYPE

  This variable determines the locale category for character handling
  functions, such as tolower(), toupper() and isalpha(). This
  environment variable determines the interpretation of sequences of
  bytes of text data as characters (for example, single- as opposed to
  multi-byte characters), the classification of characters (for example,
  alpha, digit, graph) and the behaviour of character classes.
  Additional semantics of this variable, if any, are
  implementation-dependent.

Setting LC_CTYPE to C restores the previous behaviour:

% cat /dev/urandom | LC_CTYPE=C strings -n 16
X! \*H=:e9c1`nzWk
$Hr/Q9q_b:BE-tS,[
/]59=+fPU"x-B9kk
:"*J9{5Q-tFpL=Xm$>
...

An alternative approach (taken from Shell Script /dev/urandom on Stack Overflow with minor modifications) is to filter out non-printable characters with the tr tool and take the first 16 characters with dd:

% cat /dev/urandom | LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc '[:print:]' | dd bs=16 count=1 2> /dev/null

This is much faster because it does not wait for 16 consecutive printable characters from the random source.


How do I delete just the videos from my iPhone? So I'm running out of space on my iPhone (iOS 4.3) and the quickest thing to do is delete the videos that are already backed up in iPhoto.

How can I do this quickly? That is, without scanning through the 4000+ items in my Camera Roll and looking for the video icons.

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not looking to delete all the videos, just enough to free up some space.

Sorry for the self-answer, but I found a way to do it quickly using just the iPhone and no third-party software.

In iOS 4.3, do the following:

Open Camera.app
Click the photo thumbnail to view the photo library
Click Camera Roll to view all photos
There's a capsule button at the top that says 'All|Photos|Videos'. Select videos
Press the Export icon - you can now tap on videos to select them before hitting Delete.

Not sure why this functionality is not available from Photos.app, but there you go.  Thanks for all the other answers.


Are true dynamic folders (NOT a "Smart Folder" SavedSearch) possible? I'm using an application that loads the contents of a folder of audio samples for my use.  The samples I want to use however, are scattered amongst many folders on my machine, and I don't want to copy them all into a single folder first.

Aliases work just fine, and I was able to make symlinks of all the desired files, put them in a single folder, and load that folder.  Excellent solution, except for one thing.

I'm going to be adding more files over time that meet the criteria I use for this application.  I would love to be able to use a dynamic folder that would essentially be what "Smart Folders" are, except a real folder.  A Mac "Smart Folder" is not actually a folder at all, but really just creates a "SavedSearch" file, which is unreadable except by the Finder so my application can't see into it.

Is it possible to create a true dynamic folder that will just update as the filesystem changes?  Or maybe being realtime would be too much of a strain, so on a schedule?  I could see maybe concocting something in Automator but... I dunno sounds a bit heavy.  Love to know if there's a better way!

I have found a solution to create a dynamic "soft link" folder:

Preface:

$HOME is the result of the environmental variable HOME here. When you log in as user example_user, $HOME is then the path to the home folder of example_user: /Users/example_user.
If $HOME appears in the text below you have to replace it yourself with /Users/your_user_name/ (e.g. saving the launch agent). If $HOME appears in a code box below (e.g. in the shell script) it will automatically expanded to your home folder by the (bash) shell while executing the script.
mdimport -A|sed $'s/\t\t/;/g;s/(null)//g'|tr -d \' shows a lot of metadata attributes to choose from as search criteria (e.g. kMDItemAudioBitRate or kMDItemDurationSeconds)
mdls /path/to/file lists all metadata attributes of a chosen file

Creating a dynamic link folder:

Create a shell script samples.sh in $HOME/bin/sh/ with the following content:

#!/bin/bash

# Define folders
# Source folder (including files in subfolders)
MusicSamples=$HOME/Music/Samples
# Destination folder
DrumFoldr=$HOME/Desktop/Samples

# Remove orphaned soft links in the destination folder
find $DrumFoldr -type l -exec sh -c 'for x; do [ -e "$x" ] || rm "$x"; done' _ {} +

# Add soft links in destination folder depending on some criteria (here: BitRate and UserTag)
for File in $(mdfind -onlyin $MusicSamples 'kMDItemAudioBitRate >= "44000"  && _kMDItemUserTags = "Sample"')
do
    ln -s $File $DrumFoldr
done

# Remove soft links in the destination folder depending on some criteria (removing UserTag from original file)
for File in $(mdfind -onlyin $MusicSamples '_kMDItemUserTags != "Sample"')
do
    filename=$(basename "$File")
    rm $DrumFoldr/$filename
done

In the shell script define your music folder containing the sample files (in my example that's a Samples folder in the Music folder) and the "DrumFoldr" containing the soft links later (in my example that's a Samples folder on my Desktop).

Now choose some Spotlight search criteria (in my example I have chosen the bit rate and a user defined tag "Sample" - you can define user tags by right-clicking a file > Tags... and adding a tag by just writing something. The user defined tag is then available for other files and folders.

The above shell script will add only files with a sample rate of 44000 or higher and (this is a logical and!) with the user tag "Sample" as soft link to the DrumFoldr folder. So the destination folder will not contain links to files without the Sample tag but with a sample rate of 96k or files with the Sample tag but without a kMDItemAudioBitRate (like txt files or pdfs). It also does some cleansing in the DrumFoldr folder.

BTW: the music length can be searched/determined by using the key kMDItemDurationSeconds: kMDItemDurationSeconds <= "2".
Create a file usr.samplesync.plist in $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents (that means: /Users/<username>/Library/LaunchAgents/) with the content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>usr.samplesync</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>/Users/<username>/bin/sh/samples.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>10</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Replace <username> by your short user name. The shell script will be executed every 10 seconds. You can increase the interval depending on your needs and environment to higher values (e.g. 60 = 1 minute or 600 = 10 minutes)
Load the launch agent with:

launchctl load $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/usr.samplesync.plist

If you want to save the shell script somewhere else you have to apply the path in the plist accordingly.

Caveats:

the original sample files mustn't contain spaces in their paths or file names (I try to solve this restriction later)
the original sample files mustn't be moved or the removing of the user tag won't delete the soft link

Things to improve:

don't create a soft link if a proper one already exists


Change web search engine for Spotlight Search the web from Spotlight (⌘ CommandSpace) by entering search text and pressing ⌘ CommandB. The expected result of opening the default web browser (Firefox) and completing the web search occurs. However, the web search engine uses Google rather than the default (DuckDuckGo).
How can I set it so the search is done with my chosen search provider?
macOS 10.15.7

You can't change this.
It used to be Bing was the default search for Spotlight, but doing some research I found that of recent, Google has been paying Apple a significant sum of money to be the default search engine.

Apple Doesn’t Truly Let You Change Search Engines

Apple switches from Bing to Google for Siri web search results on iOS and Spotlight on Mac

While using Spotlight for web searching is a nice feature, until the ability to change the engine becomes a reality, the only workaround is to search from your browser.


MenuBar doesn't show up in full screen mode I'm trying to use the full screen mode in Lion, but I can't get the menubar to show up at all.  I push my cursor up to the top of the screen, wait a second, and nothing.  Some apps will seem like they're trying to do something (e.g., Safari will change what's visible in the toolbar), but in no case does the menubar actually appear.  Needless to say, I really effectively can't use full screen mode this way.  Any suggestions on how to get the menubar to show up?

This was a known issue.
Please download the 10.7.2 OS X Lion update (Apple Menu > Software Update).
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4767

The OS X Lion v10.7.2 Update includes Safari 5.1.1 as well as fixes that:
...
Address an issue that may cause the menu bar to not appear in full screen apps.
...


Can I change "All Songs" order in iPhone 4s Music app? My iPhone Music collection has several albums by the same artist.  When I select that artist in the Music app I see these albums listed, & "All Songs" at the top.  When I select "All Songs" the songs are listed in alphabetical order on track name.

Is it possible to change the "All Songs" order to keep albums together, eg alpha on album name (or numeric on album year), & then by track number within each album?  This seems like the most likely way you'd want to play all songs by an artist, so I'm surprised it's not the default & that I can't find a way to do this.

The answer to this question is incredibly simple, and needs no elaboration other than enough to justify the size of the post and prevent Stack Exchange from automatically marking it as low quality or affecting it. That answer?

No, you can't. The All Songs section of an artist view, exactly like the all Songs category on iOS, is always by alphabetical title.


How can I setup iPhone as a wifi hub? Good afternoon all, I have a simless ipad and an iphone. My iphone can connect to the internet however the ipad can only connect to the internet using wifi.

I was wondering if there's any way I can setup my iphone as a wifi hub so that The iPad can access the internet through the iPhone?

Yes, it's called Personal Hotspot in iOS5.

under the Settings App on iOS, hit the Personal Hotspot section.  If the feature is currently enabled, you will be able to set a Wifi password and turn the Hotspot on.  Instructions on how to connect to the iPhone are built into the page.

The facility is built into iOS, however you will find that it may or may not be available through your carrier.

If you find that the above is not enabled, then you will need to contact your carrier and subscribe to Tethering support for your contract, if it is available, once done you should be able to enable the Personal Hotspot facility inside the Network preferences.


Is it possible to browse my iTunes backup files? I use to store older backups of my iPad, iPod and iPhone made using iTunes.

So, as long as some data (i.e: photos) is stored on one of these backups, I feel free to delete it on the devices.

If, in a future, I need only some specific data (say music, document, video, email... etc), may I access to the backup to...? :

Browse it to see what is there inside.
Extract some specific info.

If yes, what kind of data could be extracted? :

Only files like photos, videos or documents?
Or is it possible to dig for some more complex data like SMSs, notes, emails, phone lists... etc?

Remember that I don't want to restore any backup. I just want to look inside it.  Also, I don't want recommendations on software that reads the files. I'm looking for how to understand what's on the filesystem.

Yes! It is possible to view the contents of backups. There are several programs you can use, the one I use is iExplorer v3.

You can view and extract:

Messages
Contacts
Voicemail (though I have not tried this)
Call history
Notes
Safari (bookmarks and history)
Calendar
More if you are willing to dig into folders

The free version allows you to view the contents, but has restrictions on extracting them.

There is also iPhone Backup Extractor which does:

Photos
Recordings
Again, perhaps more

This is also a free / paid app, so have a look at what you need.

Hope this helps.


What does the indicator on Settings>Privacy>Facebook mean on an iPhone In iOS Settings, what do the items listed in Privacy>Facebook control?

If it is green does that mean I am limiting Facebook's access to my data?  Or do I need to turn it off to limit Facebook's access?  I'm very confused and the screen doesn't help guide you.

Settings->Privacy lists the social accounts that iOS can store info for. If you go into one of them, such as Facebook, you will see a list of individual apps on your phone that want to access those accounts to do the following:

Create a network session.
Get the activity feed for a user.
Make a new post.
Set properties on a post, add attachments, etc.
Publish a post to an activity feed.

If the toggle next to the app is green, then you have given permission to that app to do these activities. If the toggle is not green, then the app has requested permission, but you have denied it.

It is interesting in that Facebook is also listed as an app looking for Facebook data.  This lets it keep using the login and password you've entered if you've shared something on Facebook from another app.


Enable Apple Music on iTunes I'm unable to activate Apple Music on iTunes 12.7

When I go to Preferences -> General There is no Show Apple Music option.
Apple music works fine on my iPhone.

How do I enable Apple Music on iTunes?

The solution was to go to Account on the top bar and then click Authorisations-> De-Authorise This Computer and Authorise again.
After this the Apple music will be shown in iTunes Preferences.


iPhone 7 Sim Switching, Account Switching or just Normal Domain Traffic? I think there is some funny business going on with one of the devices in my house.

I'm not sure if the person is changing into between iCloud Accounts on the same device, or switching Sims or using multiple Sims on an iPhone 7 or not? It just seems strange and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it.

I'm seeing patterns like this below. I think some might be add networks but I'm seeing a lot of the certificate stuff. Here's an example in order.

6:18PM - ocsp.godaddy.com

6:18PM - ib.adnxs.com

6:18PM - prg.kargo.com

6:18PM - match.adsrvr.org

6:19PM - match.adsrvr.org

6:19PM - sync.mathtag.com

6:22PM - ocsp.apple.com

I see the ocsp domains a lot along with items like;

ocsp.digicert.com

sr.symcd.com

inet.ess.apple.com

Just wondering if any of the above will show up a lot if;

the device is being restarted

a new sim is being initiated

or if an apple id account is being switched between

This looks like normal advertisement and certificate network traffic to me.

A SIM card swap, device restart, or Apple ID login wouldn't/shouldn't produce traffic to ad servers. A device restart might ping OCSPs (Online Certificate Status Protocol), but it makes more sense for that to be checked by a browser when visiting a website.


Clicking on folder in iTerm2 opens in web browser instead of Finder I have iTerm2 v1.0.0.2 and I am correctly able to open folders in my home directory if command-click on them.  However I am not able to open folders on my Desktop or Documents if I command-click them, instead it opens the folder name in my default web browser. How can I change this so it opens a Finder window as well?

That feature is based on the current directory. For example command-clicking untitled\ folder works here:

$ cd Desktop; ls
untitled\ folder

But not here:

$ cd; ls Desktop
untitled\ folder


Deleting iCloud contents locally I haven't really ever intentionally used iCloud; however, upon browsing ~/Library/Mobile Documents, I noticed that I must have unintentionally saved several files to iCloud.

Unfortunately, I can't remember any of my password/security credentials--or even the email address--I provided when I set up the facility. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'm not going to be able to recover any of these credentials (unless somebody provides some untried suggestion), rendering the account pretty much useless.

As a result, I'd like to remove all documents saved in error to iCloud. Can this be done locally without the credentials?
Will deleting files from ~/Library/Mobile Documents delete files from iCloud too or just locally (on my MacBook)?

Deleting files from Mobile Documents will delete them from iCloud if you are currently signed in to iCloud and the Documents & Data service is active.

If you are not currently signed in, you can delete the files to reclaim local space but this will not delete the files from iCloud.


Change Screen Resolution for Mac Built-in VNC (Screen Sharing) I am attempting to connect to a MacBook Pro from a Mac Pro with a 2560x1600 monitor using the built in screen sharing client.  I would like to be able have the connection fill the entire screen, but currently the best I can do is set the MacbookPro's resolution to 1680x1050 which fills about 2/3 of the 2560x1600 monitor.

Since the built in client is really a vnc server, I would like to be able to set the 'served' resolution to 2560x1600 instead of the native resolution of the MacBook Pro.  On a linux server this would be as simple as $vncserver -geometry 2560x1600 and then connecting to the created server.  Is there a way to get the native mac vnc client to do this?

For what it is worth, I found the location of the client (on Sierra):
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/AppleVNCServer.bundle/Contents/MacOS/AppleVNCServer but can't figure out what arguments it might take (if any)

This post seemed to use ARDAgent to activate and configure the VNC server but did not mention anything about setting the resolution for the server.

I found the solution in this article:How to change Macbook Screen Resolution Manually.
I used the DisableMonitor application.
https://notebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/disablemonitor-resolution-menu-1024x754.png


Terminal command ncdu I've seen the terminal command ncdu is available in various flavors of UNIX. Does anyone know if the same terminal command is available in OS X? Thanks for any help. It is greatly appreciated.

No, ncdu is not natively available in OSX. But, if you want it, you can install it via homebrew. You just need to type the following to install it:

brew install ncdu

This is the version available:

$ brew info ncdu
ncdu: stable 1.10, HEAD
http://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu
Not installed
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/ncdu.rb


How to fix my external hard drive after connecting it to a pc? Possible USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 problem? I bought an external hard drive, connected it to my MacBook, put some stuff on it, connected it to a pc, tried to transfer video files to a friend (pc owner), spinning wheel of death, friend pulls out usb without ejecting, connected external drive to my MacBook and nothing pops up. Sometimes it’ll pop up if I restart my MacBook with it plugged in. But there’s a pop up and has three options: initialize, eject, ignore. I click initialize but Disk utility doesn’t find a problem when first aid is used. System Information knows it’s there, plugged in. Both tell me partition map is “not supported” or “unknown” and I don’t know anything about this, but is that where the problem is?

Note: Okay, so I feel like this may be a usb 3.0 to usb 2.0 problem. I still have the same issue where it only shows up on MacBook after restart. But disk utility shows me more on an old MacBook (usb 2.0) than my MacBook (usb 3.0). My external hard drive is a seagate. Some information disk utility gives me is. USB Serial Number is all zeroes. Total capacity is 144.12 PB. Partition Map Scheme is unformatted.
I also would prefer if I can fix it on a MacBook. When I tried to verify it said unrecognized file system. The PC I have access to is slow and I don’t really know how to work it.

"With friends like that, who needs enemies?"

If you don't care about the stuff on the drive, you may still be able to erase and repartition it for use on your MacBook. In Disk Utility, select the drive in question, then click the Erase button. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled):

If all works as intended, then the drive will be usable again on your Mac.

If you want to be able to plug it into your friends PC to share files, you will need to erase it with a different format, this guide will help.

Essentially:

Launch Disk Utility
Connect the drive you wish to format for dual compatibility to the Mac
Click the drive name on the left side list in Disk Utility, and then click the “Erase” tab
Click the pulldown menu alongside “Format” and select “MS-DOS (FAT)”
Optionally, give the drive a name
Click the “Erase” button to format the drive for Mac & Windows PC compatibility

NOTE: MS-DOS (FAT) format disallows files over 2 or 4 Gb in size. A better choice is ExFAT, especially if you're dealing with video files:


How can I diagnose a Mac running hot and having high fan usage? My Mac is running hot with the fan cutting in often. How can I diagnose what's wrong?

PS: Some sources mentioned Activity Monitor as a tool to diagnose this, but I couldn't find the application.

As IconDaemon mentioned in their comment, Activity Monitor is by default located in Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities.

However, since your question seems to really be about your Mac running hot with the fan cutting in often, and since you say you're not proficient with Mac OS - any pointers welcomed, I thought I'd suggest you try starting in Safe Mode and potentially also resetting the System Management Controller (SMC).

Boot into Safe Mode

As a troubleshooting step you can boot your Mac into Safe Mode to see if your issue persists, both during Safe Mode and afterwards when booted normally again.
Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. is your Mac still running hot, etc)
Now exit Safe Mode to restart your Mac as normal
Again, take a note of what happens (i.e. is your Mac still running hot, etc)

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, let me know how you went. However, if the issue persists (especially if it persisted during Safe Mode) you can reset the SMC to see if that resolves the issue.

Reset the SMC

Your computer's System Management Controller (SMC) is responsible for a wide range of functions, including your Mac's cooling fans, power management, battery performance, and the list goes on. The instructions for resetting your SMC depend on whether your device runs

from a built-in battery?
a removable battery?
off AC power (i.e. plugged into a power point)?

Since you don't actually specify your model of Mac, I will provide the steps for all three scenarios. Ensure you select the one that applies to you!

For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button

For iMacs, Mac Pros, Mac Minis, etc that only run from a power point in the wall

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from power
Wait 15 seconds
Plug the power cord back in
Wait for an additional 5 seconds
Press the power button to turn it back on

Once you've used the appropriate steps to reset the SMC for your model, report back on how you went.

Intel Mac temperature database

As an aside, you may be interested in the Intel Mac Temperature Database. This will give you an indication of the typical temperature ranges experienced by users of various intel Macs. The list can be filtered to suit your needs.


iMac password stopped working, Apple Persistent State Encryption shows a recent modified date I'm not sure if we should be worried... Mom does not change passwords for her iMac system login, nor do I, but when I went to update some software this morning, the password doesn't work, nor can I login at Keychain repair. I opened Keychain Access and see that a file named Apple Persistent State Encryption - application password - was modified on April 2, 2015. I know she worked on the computer on the 3rd, but don't know if she tried to update software or do anything that would have called for a password.

Is it remotely possible her computer has been compromised and someone changed her system login password?? If so, is there any back door I can use to repair?

+++
Follow up: I was attempting to update an Epson printer driver and M/S Office. I did some further searching here on AskDifferent and found a helpful answer about rebooting and changing the admin password in Utility/Terminal mode. I did so and was able to change the password -- altho when I restarted the computer, Keychain would only load with the old password (the one that didn't work to permit the software updates). Go figure. I think we are now good. Many thanks!

What is "Apple Persistent State Encryption"

  Used by the persistent state feature to encrypt window snapshots to
  ensure privacy.

  It is changed frequently.

So that one is normal.

As for your password, no one can change it without knowing the old password. If you have set up your log in with Apple ID assistance you can use it to recover your password. Read more here.


Why do movies sometime lag on my 15" MacBook Pro (2011)? I have a new 15" MacBook Pro with the highest specifications, running Lion version 10.7.2. However, when I watch movies they sometimes lag on my computer: frozen screen (for 3-4 s) with lots of broken cubes and with the audio track still playing).
What could be possibly wrong with my computer?

For example, today I watched the Fast Five Blu-ray movie (which is almost 50 GB) with the VLC media player and suddenly it started lagging on some episodes (especially on intense action ones with lots of special effects). Moreover, it lags not only on Blu-ray movies but movie files ripped from standard definition DVDs and other formats as well.

I play all those movies with the power plugged in from downloaded files, not from optical DVDs. Even Stanford University lectures from iTunesU sometimes lag for me.

UPDATE: I was in the Genius bar several times, reinstalled Lion by my own and also in the Apple Store.

After the fresh install I tried to test videos. I watched House, M.D. season 8 episode 2 (395.9 MB) yesterday, and it started lagging all over again.
I do not really know what to do. Is this a bug in VLC, iTunes, and other media players,  or it is something wrong with my hardware (they actually tested my Mac in the Genius bar with their cable plugged in but did not find any problems)?

When formulating a question, it's best to ask it accurately. In this case, the issue has nothing to do with Blu-Ray or DVD files. You aren't playing back from disc media. Instead, you are playing back from very high-bitrate files ripped or copied from the disc media. You are using the free VLC player to view the ripped files.

Let's analyze: a 50 GB file of Fast Five (130 min running time) would appear to be a copied, uncompressed file, since you can find .mkv or .mp4 files of the movie on torrent sites that run between 6 and 10 GB. So the file you're talking about is a very high-bitrate video file. You don't say, but I'm guessing it's a .m2ts file.

Two things:

The problem could very well be in VLC. Its support for .m2ts files is not optimized (due to licensing issues and other problems, the Blu-Ray format is not publicly well-documented).
I don't think there is anything wrong with your Mac. You are simply throwing a tremendous amount of data at it, and the software you are using for the video playback can't keep up.

Suggestion: obtain a 1080p version of the movie in .mkv or .mp4 format, then attempt to play that back with VLC. If the movie plays well, with acceptable quality and without lag, then you have your answer, and can watch future movies accordingly.


iPod Touch 5 vs iPhone 5s sound output (Line Out) I bought an iPod Touch 5 two months back, I love the sound quality of the device. But after 1 month when my brother bought iPhone 5s, I checked the sound output of the device through the same earpods that came with my iPod. The difference in sound output was huge, I am not talking about the sound quality but the loudness.

I checked everywhere but there was no proper explanation why the difference in sound is so huge.

Is it because the two DACs r completely different or is it something to do with Output Source Impedance?

That is very weird; do you have a European version?  The output power on those is heavily limited. That is the only explanation.

I have both the iPhone 5s and the iPod touch five and they have the exact same output voltages and voltage drop when headphones are connected. The output power is the same, I have heard from a few sources that the distortion levels on the 5s is better but they definitely have the same output level. Be sure to verify that the equalizer is disabled and sound check is off


MBA 13 2017 High Sierra. External LaCie 1TB SSD Time machine added, partition grayed out After loading TimeMachine I decided to partition the SSD; via Disk Utility the partition button is grayed out. I erased the SSD to start again but partition button remained grayed out.
How do I partition the SSD now?

The Disk Utility application can partition the external drive, if you use GUID Partition Map scheme. Also, you need to create a one or more temporary Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partitions in order keep the partition button from being grayed out.

Below is an example of how to create two MS-DOS (FAT) partitions using a 16 GB flash drive.

Erase the drive.

Partition the drive.

Erase the first partition.

The results are shown below.


10.5.7 Recovery Disk I've got a mid-2009 MB Pro that I'm setting up to run some tests.

I've got Lion and Snow Leopard partitions up and running, but struggling with Leopard.

The initial OS with mid-2009 MB Pros is 10.5.7

The only full recovery disk I can get on Apple Developer is 10.5.0 (build 9A581), and machine won't boot into that.

All this leads me to believe that someone out there has got to know where I can get my hands on a 10.5.7 recovery DVD .dmg

Any and all ideas would be very appreciated!

Thanks,
Alec

I'm not sure about Apple's current policies, but you might be able to order replacement DVDs via an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Store -- if so, they'd be treated a bit like repair parts, not as retail items.  Also, note that you'll need disks specifically for your model, as there was a special build of 10.5.7 (build 9J3050) with support for the new hardware in the Mid-2009 MBPs.

Another possibility would be to borrow an older Mac that can boot 10.5.0, install the base OS and update it to 10.5.8, and then clone the volume to your MBP.  I'm pretty sure the drivers etc for that model got rolled into the standard build of 10.5.8, so it should work properly.  For cloning, I recommend putting one of the computers into target disk mode, so it essentially acts as a FireWire disk; then boot the other computer from a third volume (your MBP's 10.6 system should work), run Disk Utility, and use its Restore feature to copy the 10.5.8 volume onto a blank partition in the MBP (be sure the enable the Erase destination option).

In case of trouble, once you have the system installed you should probably make a disk image so you can restore it if anything goes wrong (you're running tests, right?).  Again, while booted from another volume (e.g. 10.6), run disk utility, choose File > New > Disk Image from Folder (don't use the from device option), select the entire bootable volume as the source "folder", save the image as either compressed or readonly on some volume with plenty of free space (compressed takes a lot longer to create, but the space saving is generally worth it).  Once that finishes, choose Images > Scan Image for Restore, and select the newly created image (again, this takes lots of space as it actually copies the entire image in the process of "scanning" it).  When that's finished (it takes quite a while -- everything in this process does), you have an image that can be used as a Restore source in Disk Utility.


Leopard in VMWare Fusion I have an essential PPC OS X app. I want to use Leopard (10.5) in a Virtual Machine (Fusion).

I have the ISO but when I attempt to install, it says that its not supported.

Any workaround to this?

for about $20 USD you can buy Mac OS X 10.6 Server from Apple.  I did so just the other day ordering by phone.

This version of OS X IS allowed to be run as a Virtual Machine as long as the host is Apple hardware.

So this will allow you, for example, to run 10.6 in a virtual machine on a modern iMac running Mac OSX 10.11.


13'' MacBook Pro 2010 stuck at blank gray screen, no boot option working My 13'' MacBook Pro 2010 running Yosemite suddenly stopped booting today. After I press the power button, I can hear the chime and the computer proceed to go to a blank gray screen immediately. The screen has no apple logo or loading bar.

What I tried as of now:

Booting in recovery by holding CMD+R -- no effect, blank screen
Booting in single-user mode by holding CMD+S -- no effect, blank screen
Booting in verbose mode by holding CMD+V -- no effect, blank screen
Booting in safe mode by holding Shift -- no effect, blank screen
Booting in hardware diagnosis mode by holding D -- no effect, blank screen
Resetting PRAM by holding CMD+ALT+P+R -- reboots, chime again and then blank screen (from this I deduced that the keyboard actually works)
Resetting SMC by holding Shift+Alt+Control while pressing the power button, then pressing the power button alone -- no effect, blank screen
Choosing another booting drive or recovery partition by holding Alt -- no effect, blank screen

Is there something else I could try to get past this gray screen and try other recovery procedures?

Thanks.

EDIT: placing another hard drive in the macbook made it boot properly, so the issue doesn't lie in the rest of the hardware. Now can I recover the data on the malfunctioning drive?

Since you are talking data recovery now, until you get all your data back DO NOT WRITE TO THE DRIVE YOU ARE RECOVERING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER, OR YOU WILL LOSE ANY AND ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE WITH ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHANCE OF RECOVERY!!!

If you really want to play it safe you should send your drive to a data recovery service. Those are expensive but you have a better chance at getting your data back. A good data recovery service can not only get data out of a drive with messed up metadata, but also a drive suffered from mild to medium damage.

The best bet without contacting a data recovery service is to boot from another device and image your drive off to another storage media. Then you can try to mount the disk image and fish your data out of it. Some Linux-based tools can be very useful.

I would suggest against using that drive ever even after you have recovered all your data. That puppy have suffered from some damage and will have a shortened lifespan. For laptops since physical movement is a daily occurrence I suggest you get an SSD for it. Not only will your laptop load faster the SSD is virtually immune to most physical trauma that can damage a hard drive so it will survive longer. By the way you can force TRIM under El Capitan so there will be no long-term speed and lifespan penalty.


Mac Frequent SSL errors when trying to reach google.com On my mac, I often try to go to Google.com and chrome gives me an error: "You attempted to reach www.google.com, but instead you actually reached a server identifying itself as www.apple.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration on the server or by something more serious. An attacker on your network could be trying to get you to visit a fake (and potentially harmful) version of www.google.com.
You cannot proceed because the website operator has requested heightened security for this domain."

Does anyone know how or why this is happening and how I can fix it? Generally if I restart my router the problem will go away temporarily, but it always comes back. It has been going on for several months now. The issue does not occur on my ThinkPad running Windows 7, my iPad 2, or my Nexus 7 tablet... only the Mac (OS X 10.8.2).

It seems like some sort of DNS poisoning, but I'm not sure why it would only happen on the Mac. I have tried the following, but to no avail:

pointing my router straight to Open DNS servers because I first thought it was my ISP's fault.
Using the "Keychain First Aid", but no issues were found.
Removing the "GTE CyberTrust Global Root" certificate and that created lots more problems, so I put it back.

I don't know enough to know what to try next or how to even go about diagnosing the issue.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Quit Safari. Then go to

System Preferences > Network

Click the padlock at the bottom, enter your Admin Id to unlock it. Then click 'Advanced...' and hit the 'DNS' tab. Remove the DNS address(es) with  the +/- buttons at the bottom and replace with Google's DNS server

8.8.8.8

Click 'OK' and close System Preferences (command-Q).

Flush the DNS cache by opening Terminal.app and pasting this into the Terminal window:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

press 'return' on your keyboard, then enter your admin password, which will be invisible when you type it (so type carefully).

Restart Safari and test.

If the problem persists, open the /etc/hosts/ file by typing this in Terminal

sudo vi /etc/hosts

Look for any lines that mention either google.com or apple.com. Highlight them with the mouse and 'control-c' to copy. Past them as a response here. You can close the vi page by

first hitting the 'esc' key, then typing

:q

(that's a colon and a 'q') then pressing 'return'. Quit Terminal.


Hide ONLY .app file extensions but show the rest Is there a way to hide ONLY .app file extension? I know that you can enable or disable the visibility of file extensions in Finder but I'm interested in avoiding .app file extensions from showing up. I hate the redundancy of seeing that the files in my Applications folder are Applications.

The "Show all filename extensions" option overrides the "Hide extension" option in Get Info. This means that there are a few possible solutions one could try to find in order to hide ".app" extensions while showing the rest:

Find a way to exclude certain extensions from "Show all filename extensions".
Find a way to hide extensions, other than the "Hide extension" option, that it is not affected by the "Show all filename extensions" option.
Find a way to override the "Hide extension" option, other than the "Show all filename extensions" option, that can be configured to include or exclude items based on their extensions, or perhaps even by their location (e.g. exclude the Applications folder).

To the best of my knowledge, none of these are possible, but I would be happy to be proven wrong about that.

Possible Workaround

The easiest workaround I can think of is to leave "Show all filename extensions" unchecked and to manually set other files to explicitly show their extensions, which can be done very easily with Automator and the SetFile command.

You can set this up as either a service or an application. In both cases, it can be used on both files and folders, and will also process the contents of subfolders.

To set this up in Automator, add a "Run Shell Script" action, set "Pass input" to "as arguments" and set the script to this:

(Note: You have to install Xcode to get the SetFile command.)

for f in "$@"
do
    find "$f" -name "*.*" -exec SetFile -a e {} \;
done

If you set this up as a service, be sure to change "Service receives selected" to "files or folders".

You could also look into using this as a folder action. As files are added to a folder, the script will automatically set their extensions to be shown. For example, it could be useful to attach such a folder action to Downloads, Documents and the Desktop, or any other folder which frequently receives files with "Hide extension" checked.

Hopefully, setting this up as a service would make it so trivial to use that you wouldn't even need to worry about batch-processing an entire volume (which could take awhile). Rather, you could simply use it as needed whenever you come across files or folders of files with hidden extensions.


/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.servermgrd.plist Is Missing - Causing postgres to not start properly I recently updated my Mac Mini Server to Yosemite and the Server app 4.0.  When I tried to verify that Postgres is available by executing sudo serveradmin fullstatus postgres I get the following error:

postgres:error = <62706c69 73743030 d4010203 04050618 19582476 65727369 6f6e5824 6f626a65 63747359 24617263 68697665 72542474 6f701200 0186a0a4 07081112 55246e75 6c6cd409 0a0b0c0d 0e0f1056 4e53436f 64655a4e 53557365 72496e66 6f584e53 446f6d61 696e5624 636c6173 73100180 00800280 035f1014 636f6d2e 6170706c 652e7365 72766572 6d677264 d2131415 165a2463 6c617373 6e616d65 5824636c 61737365 73574e53 4572726f 72a21517 584e534f 626a6563 745f100f 4e534b65 79656441 72636869 766572d1 1a1b5472 6f6f7480 0108111a 232d3237 3c424b52 5d666d6f 7173758c 919ca5ad b0b9cbce d3000000 00000001 01000000 00000000 1c000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 d5>
postgres:errorDescription = "The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.servermgrd error 1.)"
postgres:errorCode = 1

When I attempted to execute sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.servermgrd.plist  I got the following error:

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.servermgrd.plist: No such file or directory

I tried doing the same in /Library/Preferences/com.apple.servermgrd.plist and got the following error:

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.servermgrd.plist: Invalid or missing service identifier

My guess is that the first file is the one it's trying to access which is missing.  I'm not sure what deleted the file.  How can I create this file?  I have websites using the Web Service that are down.

I guess if I cannot figure it out I will restore to the backup right before I upgraded to Yosemite on both my servers.  Oh well.

"Invalid or missing service identifier"  seems to mean that your plist file has not got or has  misspelled a section like

<key>Label</key>
<string>com.foo.bar</string>

Note "Label" must start with upper case L.


uTorrent keeps crashing (after upgrade to Mavericks) I've been using uTorrent for more than a year. But since I've upgraded to OS X 10.9, uTorrent (now version 1.8.4) keeps crashing: sometimes it works for maybe couple of hours, sometimes for about 15 minutes — and then just disappears (without displaying crash reporter or anything).

Example search for "torrent" in Console.app:

11/29/13 5:12:33.569 PM uTorrent[29203]: XPC error messaging com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Connection interrupted
11/29/13 5:12:33.569 PM uTorrent[29203]: XPC error messaging com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Connection invalid
11/29/13 5:26:33.990 PM uTorrent[29203]: uTorrent(29203,0xa081c1a8) malloc: *** mach_vm_map(size=8388608) failed (error code=3) *** error: can't allocate region *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
11/29/13 5:26:47.186 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[177]: (com.bittorrent.uTorrent.41744[29203]) Exited with code: 1
// crash @ 5:26, (manual) restart @ 5:50 PM and crash again @ 6:16 --G.M.
11/29/13 5:50:38.483 PM WindowServer[96]: disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "µTorrent" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.
11/29/13 5:50:38.797 PM uTorrent[29519]: *** WARNING: -[NSImage compositeToPoint:operation:] is deprecated in MacOSX 10.8 and later. Please use -[NSImage drawAtPoint:fromRect:operation:fraction:] instead.
11/29/13 5:50:38.797 PM uTorrent[29519]: *** WARNING: -[NSImage compositeToPoint:fromRect:operation:] is deprecated in MacOSX 10.8 and later. Please use -[NSImage drawAtPoint:fromRect:operation:fraction:] instead.
11/29/13 5:50:40.450 PM WindowServer[96]: common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "µTorrent" after 2.97 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)
11/29/13 6:16:58.007 PM uTorrent[29519]: uTorrent(29519,0xa081c1a8) malloc: *** mach_vm_map(size=8388608) failed (error code=3) *** error: can't allocate region *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
11/29/13 6:16:59.226 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[177]: (com.bittorrent.uTorrent.41744[29519]) Exited with code: 1

I've tried to google something either about uTorrent and Mavericks in general, or about uTorrent and errors from this log — to no avail.

Does anybody else have this problem? Any advice?

Upd. Following advice from answers I've tried upgrading to uTorrent beta 1.9.1. It seems to be slightly more stable but the problem persists:

11/30/13 11:15:53.540 PM uTorrent[3250]: uTorrent(3250,0xa081c1a8) malloc: *** mach_vm_map(size=8388608) failed (error code=3) *** error: can't allocate region *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
11/30/13 11:15:53.541 PM uTorrent[3250]: uTorrent(3250,0xa081c1a8) malloc: *** mach_vm_map(size=8388608) failed (error code=3) *** error: can't allocate region *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
11/30/13 11:15:54.434 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[178]: (com.bittorrent.uTorrent.41744[3250]) Exited with code: 1

P.S. Warning: uTorrent beta 1.9.1 corrupted some of my files (instead of something.avi I now have something.avi and something.avi.1 — in different folders and neither of them is playable). I can't recommend this 'upgrade', to say the least.

It's time to try some other client, I guess.

The 1.8 version of uTorrent isn't updated for Mountain Lion notifications and the malloc errors you posted indicate a fairly severe memory management problem. Unless an update past 1.8.4 gets released, you might try running the 1.9 beta version as it has memory leak corrections listed in the release notes.

It contemplates newer OS explicitly and the fix for this error might arrive there first or exclusively.

http://www.utorrent.com/downloads/mac