How to strip a Hebrew text of vowels and punctuation in AppleScript? Take the first several verses of Genesis, in Hebrew, for example:

  בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

  וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

  וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר וַֽיְהִי־אֽוֹר׃

  וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָא֖וֹר כִּי־ט֑וֹב וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל אֱלֹהִ֔ים בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ׃

  וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ (פ)

(That (פ) for some reason isn't formatting properly in the blockquote, but it does in my text file.)

Now, I'd like to strip this text of all characters except for the standard 27-letter Hebrew alphabet אבגדהוזחטיכךלמםנןסעפףצץקרשת, plus line breaks (which Script Editor automatically parses as \n) and line and paragraph breaks (: and (פ) or (ס)). You'll notice on several lines that there are hyphens - those should be replaced with a space. Some lines also contain | - those should be replaced with a single . When done, it should look like:

  בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ׃

  והארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשך על פני תהום ורוח אלהים מרחפת על פני המים׃

  ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי אור׃

  וירא אלהים את האור כי טוב ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשך׃

  ויקרא אלהים לאור יום ולחשך קרא לילה ויהי ערב ויהי בקר יום אחד׃ (פ)

I tried something simple at first - set the Hebrew alphabet plus , (, and ) to a list, set x to the length of the inputted string, then do a repeat for each character of the string: if it's on the list, then append it to the output; if it's a -, append  to the output; if it's a \ and the next one is a n, append \n to the output; and if there are two spaces in a row, delete the second.

I logged the output and got some gibberish:

(*אאית   א    ים  ת     ם   ת    ץץץץץץץץ    ה  הה   הה       ללללי    ם         ים     ת  ללללי    םםםםםאאר    ים   י   ר    ייייררררררא    ים  תתתתתר  ייייב     ל    ים  ין    ר   ין           א    ים    אאא   ם         א    ה    ייייב    ייייר   ם   דד (פ)*)

which seems to be every letter in the passage without a vowel, duplicated in the event that the following letter(s) do. (My mistake on the repeats - wrote the repeat loop poorly.) But that it skips over consonants that also have vowels is what left me wondering.

So I did a test:

set charNum to ASCII number "בְּ"
log charNum
set charNum to ASCII number "ב"
log charNum
-->result: (*63*) (*63*)

Although in the text editor, vowels and the like are separate characters overlaid on the previous ones, Script Editor doesn't see it that way, and sees בְּ and ב as the same letter. And yet, when comparing it to my list, it doesn't recognize the character and skips it.

So how can I strip the vowels and the like from the letters while not doing an if-loop for any possible letter and vowel combination?

ASCII number is deprecated and doesn't work correctly with unicode text, use id of someCharacter:

set charNum to id of "בְּ" -- this return id of 3 characters because "בְּ" is a composed character
log charNum
set charNum to id of "ב"
log charNum
-->result:
(*1489, 1456, 1468*)
(*1489*)

So, I do not know how to do this in pure AppleScript.

But, you can use a perl command in a do shell script:

-- The text look not good in this code block, but it will be correct after the compilation of the script
set theString to "בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר וַֽיְהִי־אֽוֹר׃

וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָא֖וֹר כִּי־ט֑וֹב וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל אֱלֹהִ֔ים בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ׃

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ (פ)"

return do shell script "perl -CSD -pe  'use utf8; s~\\p{NonspacingMark}~~og; s~־|׀~ ~g;  s~ +~ ~g;' <<< " & quoted form of theString

Here is a brief explanation of the perl script

the -CSD option : the output and the error will be in UTF-8, the
input is assumed to be in UTF-8
s~\\p{NonspacingMark}~~og : Remove non spacing marks
s~־|׀~ ~g : Replace all ־ and ׀ by a space
s~ +~ ~g : Replace multiple spaces in a row by one space

If your AppleScript read the text from a file, you can use perl to read the file:

do shell script "perl -CSD -pe  'use utf8; s~\\p{NonspacingMark}~~og; s~־|׀~ ~g;  s~ +~ ~g;' < " & quoted form of posix path of pathOfTheTextFile

The encoding of the file must be utf8.

Another solution is to use a Cocoa-AppleScript:

        use framework "Foundation"
        use scripting additions
        -- The text look not good in this code block, but it will be correct after the compilation of the script
        set theString to "בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר וַֽיְהִי־אֽוֹר׃

וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָא֖וֹר כִּי־ט֑וֹב וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל אֱלֹהִ֔ים בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ׃

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ (פ)"

        return stripString(theString)

        on stripString(t)
            set sourceString to current application's NSMutableString's stringWithString:t
            set myOpt to current application's NSRegularExpressionSearch
            set theSuccess to sourceString's applyTransform:(current application's NSStringTransformStripCombiningMarks) |reverse|:false range:(current application's NSMakeRange(0, (sourceString's |length|))) updatedRange:(missing value)
            if theSuccess then
                -- *** Replace all "־" and "׀" by a space, each character must be separated by a vertical bar character, e.g. "a|d|z"
                sourceString's replaceOccurrencesOfString:"־|׀" withString:" " options:myOpt range:(current application's NSMakeRange(0, (sourceString's |length|)))

                -- **** Replace multiple spaces in a row by one space
                sourceString's replaceOccurrencesOfString:" +" withString:" " options:myOpt range:(current application's NSMakeRange(0, (sourceString's |length|)))
                return sourceString as string -- convert the NSString object to an AppleScript's string
            end if
            return "" -- else, the transform was not applied
        end stripString

According to the commentary:

For a droplet, the script need an on open handler, like this:

on open theseFiles
    repeat with f in theseFiles
        set cleanText to do shell script "perl -CSD -pe  'use utf8; s~\\p{NonspacingMark}~~og; s~־|׀~ ~g;  s~ +~ ~g;' " & quoted form of POSIX path of f
        -- do something with that cleanText
    end repeat
end open

If you want to do an in-place editing (the perl script need  the -i option + '.some name extension'):

This will create backup of each file (it add ".bak" after the
   name)

on open theseFiles
    repeat with f in theseFiles -- ***  create a backup and edit the file in-place ***
        do shell script "perl -i'.bak' -CSD -pe  'use utf8; s~\\p{NonspacingMark}~~og; s~־|׀~ ~g;  s~ +~ ~g;' " & quoted form of POSIX path of f
    end repeat
end open

If you don't want a backup of each file (the perl script need  the -i option + ''), like this:

-- ***  edit the file in-place without backup***
do shell script "perl -i'' -CSD -pe  'use utf8; s~\\p{NonspacingMark}~~og; s~־|׀~ ~g;  s~ +~ ~g;' " & quoted form of POSIX path of f


iPhone 5s email deleted from Inbox not synchronizing correctly to Exchange server/Outlook inbox I have an iPhone that is configured for Activesync and has been working fine. Over the weekend I was completely offline and while my iPhone was not connected to the internet I deleted around 450 email messages from the iPhone inbox. Around 18 hours later I was back in cell phone range, the iPhone synchronized my new email messages, all looked good.

Then a few hours later I launched Outlook and found all the messages I had deleted on the iPhone were still present in Outlook. I logged into OWA and confirmed the messages were still showing there too so the Exchange server has not been updated with the changes I made on the phone.

Now my iPhone is happily receiving new messages and if I delete these from the iPhone they are deleted in Outlook as expected. However, my Outlook Inbox is still showing the 450ish messages I deleted. These messages have not synchronized back to the iPhone.

I want my Inbox as it currently appears on the phone, not as it currently appears in Outlook.

How do I resolve this apparent sync conflict and just make my iphone 'win' so that it updates the Exchange server?
Why did being offline for around 18 hours while deleting messages on the iphone cause this to happen?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Well I ended up solving this problem with a slightly lateral solution. Despite the fact that the iPhone was not updating the changes I made while I was offline, it was synchronizing all new changes just fine. Given I wanted to maintain the inbox on the iphone, I just created a sub-folder under the inbox and moved all my messages there (on the phone), that change was successfully sync'd to Outlook and then I just deleted all the messages from the inbox on Outlook (Inbox represented the 450 messages I had deleted on the iphone while offline) and then moved the messages from the temporary sub-folder back into the inbox. Everything continues to sync correctly.

Obviously this is not a technical solution as I had only 75 messages on the iphone inbox that I wanted to maintain it was an easy fix. If anyone knows how you might better deal with this scenario when there are thousands of messages in play I'd be curious to know!


I dismissed "For You" in iTunes 12.2 for Mac, How do I get it back? Context

OS X 10.10.4 (14E46)
iTunes 12.2.0.145

Question

I just installed iTunes 12.2 for OS X, the first version of iTunes with new Apple Music features.

After installing (which went perfectly smoothly AFAICT), I launched the new iTunes (with the new white icon). There was a new tab in the top center called For You. I clicked on this tab, and was shown a screen with a lot of exciting For You content. Then I clicked a text link on this page that said Go to My Music.

I was taken back to the My Music tab, and the For You tab disappeared entirely. I didn't expect that For You would completely disappear if I clicked that text link. I'd like to get the For You tab back.

I've searched thru the iTunes main menu, and thru the iTunes (modal) Preferences window, and thru my iTunes Account Info page in vain. I cannot find any way to reinstate the For You tab. How can I get the For You tab back?

OP Here. I found two ways to reinstate the For You tab.

There is also a setting for this in the iTunes Preferences Window after all:

Preferences > General > Show Apple Music

Alternatively, in the main menu, click Account > Apple Music…. This will make the For You tab and another New tab return. Although the content under the For You tab is now gone, and in its place there's just a button for trying Apple Music and another for Go to my Music.


Mac Lync Conversation History Storage Location Anyone know where Mac Lync 2011 stores its conversation history? Since it isn't tied to Outlook, it isn't stored on the Exchange server is it? If not, I need to back it up...

Found it!

/Users/<username>/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Microsoft Lync History


Network sharing using AFP command line: mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error 2, errno is 2 I have a server with some directories exported for AFP.  I can mount afp volumes from Finder without any problem.

When I try this from the command line:

$ sudo mount_afp  'afp://me:mypass@my-server/home/me'  /Users/me/myMountPoint

I get the error
mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error 2, errno is 2

As stated, I can mount my-server's /home/me using Finder and my credentials on that machine just fine.   Also tried with mount_afp -i ... interactive mode with no luck.

apparently, error 2 is:

error 2 siInitVBLQsErr: VBLqueues for all slots could not be initialized. or dsAddressErr: address error

Which doesn't help much

Turns out /home/me wasn't the share name on my-server - just the local path.   It is actually "me's home".  I went in to the server and changed that behavior in /etc/afp.conf


Why is migration from Mac Thunderbird to Mac Mail not working properly? I want to switch from Mac Thunderbird to Mac Mail. To do so, I compressed all folders of the account in Thunderbird and after that, I used the import wizard of Mac Mail. Unfortunately, a lot of Mails are missing. A folder that contains hundreds of mails in Thunderbird, contains only one message in Mail, but I get no errors or warnings. How can I migrate my local folder? (I cannot switch to IMAP, thank you ;-) )

A friend of mine had a similar problem when migrating local mails from a POP mail account from Windows XP (Thunderbird) to a Mac (Mail.app).

This is what we did:

Create an IMAP account (we chose aol.com, gmail.com is another good choice).
Configure the new IMAP mail account in Thunderbird.
Drag and drop all mails from the local account to the IMAP account. This may take a while.
Configure both your current mail account and the IMAP account in Mail.app.
Copy the files back to your current mail account (again, drag and drop).

(You may consider keeping the IMAP mail address...)

This may be easier than troubleshooting why the import doesn't work properly.


How do I remove crashplan from my Mac I recently tried out CrashPlan on my Macbook, but I decided not to go through with that.  However, now that I'm not going to be using CrashPlan after all, I can't figure out how to remove their app from my Mac.

I've tried simply opening up Finder and moving it to Trash but I get the following error when I try that:

I've also tried deleting it from the command-line using rm -rf CrashPlan.app; even when I run this as root, I still get:

rm: CrashPlan.app/Contents: Operation not permitted
rm: CrashPlan.app: Operation not permitted

I also tried doing this with the GNU version of rm, but I still get an error:

grm: cannot remove ‘CrashPlan.app/Contents’: Operation not permitted

I ran, get info on the CrashPlan app in Finder, and I noticed this:

However, when I uncheck the locked field and then try to move it to Trash, I still get the same error that I got the first time.

Any ideas?

Since Crashplan runs with elevated / non-standard permissions for an ordinary app, you will want to:

Reinstall the same or newer version of the software to correct whatever changes non-standard or half-removed. (Free download from http://www.code42.com/store/)
Run the uninstaller that is inside the package contents of the app. (Documented https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/Latest/Getting_Started/Uninstalling_The_CrashPlan_App)
Optionally delete these two folders if they exist:

~/Library/Application Support/CrashPlan
/Library/Application Support/CrashPlan


Can I send encrypted e-mail using Mail and self-signed certificates? I want to be able to send signed and encrypted e-mails between a Mac using Mail and another Mac using Thunderbird, by using self-signed certificates on both ends.  I used to be able to do so, but over the years things have gotten more difficult on both ends.  To make the Thunderbird end work, I now have to create a self-signed certificate authority and then use that to make an e-mail certificate.  But I can't get encryption to work on the Mail end.  (I think Apple broke it in Mountain Lion.)  In my keychain on the Mail end, I have the CA from the Thunderbird end, which is marked as trusted, and the e-mail certificate created by that CA, which says "This certificate is valid".  But when I create an e-mail going to the other Mac, the encryption button is dimmed.

I read somewhere that the secret is to add the "key encipherment" extension when creating the certificate, and I did that, but it still doesn't work.

I can only answer the Mac Mail part of this question as I do not want to test the Thunderbird part.

I am just writing this part for the people who are not familiar with asymmetric encryption:

In this form of encryption you need two keys, a private one and a public one. A certificate in that sense is nothing more than the public key but it has some more information than just a key, it tells who you are, your organisation, etc.
The private must never ever be lost and given to others. If it is you have to start over and the person who stole it can decrypt everything, so keep it save and password protected. Usually certificates are signed by so called Certificate Authorities and they most often take money for their service. This is why some people create their own CA and self-signed certificates, which is cheaper.

The way e-mail encryption works is that you send someone your public key (certificate) by signing your e-mail with it. You can sign any e-mail, because no harm is done by giving away your public key. Then this other person has your public key and encrypts an e-mail to you with this key. From this point on nobody, other than the NSA with a possible Quantum computer, can decrypt this message in a reasonable amount of time given proper key length. Or some people infiltrate the actual encryption libraries like the HEARTBLEED (heartbeat) bug, which might have been intentional and who knows how many more of these backdoors are there.
Certificates usually have a limited lifetime and need to be renewed every now and then.

So things to take away: You need public and private key and you only give away the public one.

Here is what I have done:

Created a Root CA and a Signing CA (you do not need that, but it is what I did) and I used this very good tutorial for it: Multi-level CAs in http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~zmiller/ca-howto/
Then I changed my openssl.conf in such a way that Mac Mail allows me to use the certificated for e-mail encryption as well.

The important bit is to have the keyUsage and extKeyUsage

[ v3_req ]

# Extensions to add to a certificate request

basicConstraints = CA:FALSE
keyUsage = nonRepudiation, digitalSignature, keyEncipherment,       dataEncipherment
extKeyUsage = emailProtection, Apple .Mac email signing, Apple .mac email encryption

For the people who like specs, read this https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2459, but you will not find the MacOS specific parts in it.
Created the private key and the certificate:

openssl req -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout <e-mail>.key -config openssl.cnf -out <e-mail>.req -days 3650

openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -out <e-mail>.crt -infiles <e-mail>.req

You might argue that ten years is too long as a certificate life time, but I wanted to have something that is working now and in 10 years time or even less this way of encryption will not work anyways. I did not want to renew the certs all the time as I created them for all my family.

If somehting goes wrong in this process, you can revoke the cert by:

openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -revoke <e-mail>.crt

One should also create crls, but I did not do that either.
Converted keys to a p12 format

openssl pkcs12 -export -in <e-mail>.crt -inkey <e-mail>.key -out <e-mail>.p12

Imported p12 to the KeyChain on OS X 10.9.4 (13E28)
Marked it as trusted
Associated Certificate with mail account in the MacOS Mail preferences under Account Information in the field TLS Certificate. Send mail to other mail address that also has a cert and key and signed the message with my public key, well MacOS Mail did this for me.
Received the mail and send back my first encrypted mail.

What happened to me when I tried the procedure with my wife was that the lock symbol in my reply mail to the first signed mail was greyed out and I was puzzled. This meant I could not encrypt mails. The reason was that I received the signed mail that my wife had sent to me, but I did not mark here signature as trusted in the MacOS keychain, as all signatures that one receives also end up there. After marking it trusted and restarting Mail everything worked fine.

Maybe someone or even the person asking can add the Thunderbird part to this answer.


The Dock was moved to the right side of the screen but still auto displays when cursor on bottom? Using this tip from basic Google Search I was able to move the Dock to the right side:

The Dock does show only on the right side now.  However it also displays (auto-unhides) when the mouse/cursor travels to the bottom of the screen.

It is distracting when interacting with full length windows. Can that behavior be disabled?  I am on Sierra.

If you get unexpected behaviour after manually moving or adjusting the Dock, you can try restarting the Dock.

Open your Terminal (Applications > Other > Terminal or search for Terminal in Spotlight)

Type killall Dock after the prompt and enter.

Your Dock should restart with the expected behaviour.  You can verify your settings in the System Preferences > Dock

Edit: It May be necessary to reset the Dock to factory settings then customize as needed. Some have experienced various dock bugs in Sierra.

Open the Terminal
Type (or copy and paste) defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock
Hit return


How to create an accurate byte-level copy of an SSD to another drive? TL;DR I need to recover lost files from an SSD but don't have the time to do it right now. How can I clone an SSD to another drive on byte level, including drive areas which the OS thinks are free?

I did a cut and paste (Comd+C then Comd+Opt+V) on my Mac 10.14’s Finder to move some .mov files from my internal SSD to my WD My Passport External Harddrive (connected by USB 3.0 with a USB-C to USB adapter. My 15-inch Macbook is the 2018 version which only has USB-C ports, and has the touch bar).

Alas, after a while, I move my Macbook and the connected got unstable, and was eventually lost. To my horror, when I tried to do a transfer again, I see that some files are greyed out on my external WD harddrive (see screenshot), and these files are no more on the original folder on my internal SSD!

I tried to recover these files by using the following software on my SSD (**but not on the external hard drive yet) to no avail:
Disk Drill
File Salvage
EaseUS Data Recovery
Techtool Pro 11

**I ran the software immediately after discovering the issue, because I know that if I continued using the Macbook, there would be risk that the OS would overwrite my files.

Can someone tell me:

(a) I am so tired of doing all this recovery, and want to move on to something else. But I need to use my Macbook! If I use it, I will definitely overwrite the lost files’ bytes one day. Can I do a byte-for-byte clone of the SSD to somewhere and work on this recovery issue some other time?

(b) If yes, what software should I use and how do I make sure that the clone is both byte-for-byte AND it includes the parts of the SSD that are now seen by the OS as “free” (since that’s probably where the lost files reside?)

(c) For (b), prefer software that can also show me the bytes in hexadecimal so I can inspect manually to see if it’s really byte for byte.

P.S.: For more context, see: Data loss due to lost connection when transferring from Mac 10.14 SSD to External HDD

P.S.: the SSD I am looking to clone is 256GB

My favorite tool for that is the "dd" command that comes with macOS. It needs to be used from the Terminal, so if that puts you off - there are also GUI alternatives.

"dd" is quite simple and will copy all data - including "free" areas. You take a clone by first rebooting your computer into Recovery mode.

Then mount an external drive where you want to store the backup - make sure it has enough free space to contain the full size of the original drive.

Open Disk Utility to find the device name of your original drive. This is probably something like /dev/disk1s1 or similar. Also, if your original drive has been mounted for some reason while in Recovery mode - unmount it from Disk Utility.

Then open Terminal and run a command like this:

dd if=/dev/rdisk1s1 of=/Volumes/ExternalDrive/clone.img bs=1m

Note that I put an "r" in front of disk1s1 - this bypasses buffers to make the transfer faster.

Also note that the output file name is specified as /Volumes/ExternalDrive/clone.img. You'll want to replace "ExternalDrive" with the name of your own externally connected drive.

The last part of the command bs=1m means to copy in block sizes of 1 megabyte. This just speeds up the operation.


Google Photos won't stop syncing on iOS I have Google Photos installed on my iPhone 6S and would like it to stop automatically syncing my photos.  I like to view my pictures but don't want everything backed up.

I have gone into settings on the app and turned off "Backup & sync" but if I take a picture it still gets uploaded!  I've tried restarting the app and the iPhone but it still does it.

If you turned off back up & sync, then it should not upload the photos to the cloud. However, you can still view the photos in the app, but each picture that is not uploaded will have a no cloud sign -- a cloud icon with a line through it.


How do I transfer Phonegap app to my iPhone Apple removed the ability to transfer apps to your iPhone via iTunes, which is the workflow I was using before.

What is the correct way to do it now? Is there some way in Xcode? I typically use a Windows machine for development (but have a Mac for certificate signing and other good stuff that Apple requires), so I'd prefer to not have to transfer my app over to the Mac machine in order to transfer it to my phone, but if I have to do that, I'm willing to.

What is the current workflow?

The easiest way is using a Mac.  Xcode (using the Devices window) can install ipa files on developer registered iOS devices.  The Apple Configurator 2 app (available from the Mac App store) will also allow you to select ipa files and install them (assuming they are provisioned correctly) on iOS devices.

Without a Mac, it may be possible to use an https service that allows downloading a correctly provisioned app (Ad Hoc or Enterprise) using a wireless installation manifest.


Starting Keynote presenter mode without an external monitor Before a talk, I'd like to try the presenter mode for Keynote - to get familiar with it - on my Macbook Pro, without an alternate display being attached.

Is this possible? How?

Keynote has this functionality built-in. In Keynote, go to the Play menu, then choose Rehearse Slideshow. You'll then have presenter mode on your single screen.


Can't change the screenshot directory because "com.apple.screencapture: command not found" I used to be able to change the screenshot directory by just changing the location and typing in the specifics to the terminal but now I am getting this code and I have no idea what to do.

I went through everything a month ago to manually erase everything because my Mac was running slow. I think I might have accidentally deleted something I needed. What should I do? My desktop is getting extremely cluttered. I am using a MacBook Pro with macOS Sierra.

MacBook-Pro:~ ChristianJ$
MacBook-Pro:~ ChristianJ$ com.apple.screencapture location /Users/mac/Documents/Zoology/edited\ screen\ shots
-bash: com.apple.screencapture: command not found
MacBook-Pro:~ ChristianJ$

The error message is telling you that the shell (bash) is expecting the first expression on the command line to be a program, script, or shell built-in. com.apple.screencapture is none of those.

The command you are missing is defaults, with a sub-command of write, like so:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/mac/Documents/Zoology/edited\ screen\ shots


Time Machine started to backup files, it is still working and data is larger than actual disk data I cleaned backup disk as it was full and started a clean (empty) Time Machine backup.
On a disk of 465Gb my data occupies 321Gb. Time Machine has started backuping files and I found interesting that estimated backup size was increasing during the day. Left it to work overnight, and in the morning at time of writing it has backuped 485Gb out of estimated 533Gb. The difference between backuped files and estimated full size is increasing as I see.

How is this possible? What went wrong? Should I exclude some folder?

The Mac is OS X Yosemite. Time Machine worked correctly before upgrade.

This procedure helped to resolve the issue:

Turn off Time Machine and wait to completely stop
Erase Time Machine folder with all data (in my case a folder on NAS server but can be an USB disk).
Erase Time Machine configuration file on Mac: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Setup Time Machine options. E.g. set exclude folders
Turn On Time Machine

I'm not sure about the conclusion, but suspect that .plist file was somehow corrupted.


I want to capture screen of my iPhone (video call) I want to capture screen of my iPhone (video call). When i use quicktime, i get this horrible echo, so i can't listen to the call and record it simultaneously. Is there any way to overcome this echo?

iOS 11 includes a built-in Screen Recording function, which also includes an option to turn the microphone on during the session, by long-pressing or hard-pressing the screen recording button.

You might want to try that.


Why does this applescript not actually set the input volume to zero? I have this command that builds a script to mute the input volume. The input volume is not fully muted, though. It seems to be closer to 10% than 0%.

osacompile -x -e 'tell application "System Events" to set volume input volume 0' -o ~/bin/mute_mic.scpt

This is odd, because the slider bar is as far left as it can go, but as you can see from the attached image, sound still is registering. However, if I use the mouse to click on the slider at zero, then it does actually mute the input.

Why does this happen? Am I using applescript improperly here?

I can even replicate this with the basic AppleScript Editor, so I know it's not a problem with the compilation.

(Note: I originally took my cue for the solution to this problem from this question's answer.)

As far as I can tell, the script works as expected, the problem is in the OS X audio input code. When I run it, the slider goes to 0%, verified by mousing over the slider until the tooltip appears:

This is the same as if I drag the volume slider manually.

The problem is seemingly that "0%" doesn't actually mean off, but rather a very low threshold. In some quick testing, I could record the sound of my finger tapping on my MacBook Pro's casing near the mic (on most machines I believe it's around the right speaker grill) when the volume was set to 0. I could replicate that regardless of whether I set the slider manually or via AppleScript. It did seem to be low enough that virtually any other sound isn't picked up, but clearly the microphone isn't truly off.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to properly mute the built-in mic. The best I can suggest is changing the audio input to use the line in, if your Mac is equipped with a line in port. Doing that via AppleScript requires some GUI scripting unfortunately, but this should do it (source):

tell application "System Preferences"
   activate
   set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.sound"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
   tell process "System Preferences"
       set frontmost to true
       --get properties of UI element of tab group of window "Sound"
       click radio button "input" of tab group of window "Sound"
       tell row 2 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of tab group 1 of window "Sound" to set selected to true
   end tell
end tell

If you have more than the two standard audio inputs (Mic and Line In), you may need to change the number in row 2 to whichever is appropriate, according to the order in your Input preferences.


MBP - have to re-enable Wi-Fi every 30 mins I have a MacBook Pro running on El Capitan (but the issue was already present before the upgrade, so it's not related). I have the Mac since a bit less than a year.
It is still running perfectly but since a couple of weeks, the internet is really weird. It's constantly completely blocked and just not working.
The wifi works well: on my iPhone it is never down, but every 30min or so, it just blocks while I am browsing (but the issue is there on all the apps used, from Xcode to my FTP client, and so on), and it doesn't work anymore.
When I just turn the wifi off and on again, it works well for some time, and then the issue comes back again.

I tried changing the DNS (by using this software that indicates the fastest DNS to use) and I thought it worked at first, but the issues are back again.

I have tried deleting the wifi from my keychain and adding it again the problem is persisting.

Obviously I have restarted the modem a couple of times too, no difference.

Any advice?

You can run a Cron action who turn on/off your wifi connection every 30 minutes ;)

Turn Wifi Off

networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

Turn Wifi On

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

http://blog.mattcrampton.com/post/64144666914/managing-wifi-connections-using-the-mac-osx

Schedule a Cron task :

http://benr75.com/pages/using_crontab_mac_os_x_unix_linux

Edit : Ohh sorry I was thinking that you wanted to turn on/off your wifi every 30 minutes :/ However, if you don't find a solution...


Increase the size of bootcamp of Windows 7 on virtual machine Someone just helped me install VMWare Fusion and Windows 7 as virtual machine.

And I realize that the disk BOOTCAMP (C:) for Windows 7 is just 39.90 Go, which will be too small... The disk Z is the shared folder with Mac OS.

Is there any way to increse the size of the disk BOOTCAMP (C:) for Windows 7?

You might be able to use the application GParted to do this. It's not an extremely simple process, since, "The problem is that if you resize your boot/system partition, you will be completely unable to boot without repairing windows," according to this guide from How-To Geek. However, that same guide will guide you through the entire process of doing so.

Mac Rumors has a list of several alternate methods to accomplish your goal.


Disk Utility Cannot erase USB Drive (Error: -69877: Couldn't open device) I have a PNY 128gb flash drive that I can no longer modify (can't delete files). I've tried to reformat it using Disk Utility but I get the following message and my usb is unmounted:

I've followed the solutions found from these two postings with no luck.

Disk Utility cannot erase

Disk Utility won't erase

When I type in 'diskutil eraseDisk free EMPTY /dev/disk2'
into terminal my usb is unmounted just like before and I get this message:

Any ideas on what I can do to erase and reformat my USB drive? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

Before trying anything more radical, do make sure (if you're using a microSD-SD adapter) that the adapter isn't write protected / locked. D'oh! It can be missed easily.


Maximum number of audio channels over HDMI Is MacOS Mojave capable of sending more than 8 audio channels over HDMI?

For example, if I purchase a DisplayPort -> HDMI 2.0 adapter, will I be able to select more than 8 audio channels in the MIDI settings app?

No.
It's not a Mojave limitation, per se - DisplayPort can only carry 8 channels, up to 192kHz 24-bit, max bitrate 36,864 kbit/s

Source Wikipedia - DisplayPort


Is there a way to get different Google calendars syncing with different Apple devices? I'm trying to sync several Google calendars with my iPhone, iPad and Mac, but I don't want all of my Google calendars to show up on the phone, just a certain few. You used to be able to go to the Google sync settings and choose which calendars to sync with which device, but when I tried to make some changes today (at google. com/sync/index.html), it changed for all of my devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac mini). Searching Google Support confirmed this is intended (https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/99358):

If you’d like to sync any additional calendars, or remove any of My calendars from syncing, visit https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect and select the calendars you’d like displayed. Refresh iCal, or close and restart in order to see your new selection.
These settings will apply to any device you sync using CalDAV, such as your iPhone or other iOS device.

Is there still a way to get different Google calendars syncing with different Apple devices?
Edit: To clarify, say I have Google calendars A, B, and C. I want my Mac to sync with all three (A, B, C), but I want my iPad to sync with A & B, and my iPhone to sync with just A. How can I accomplish this?

From my understanding you decide at  https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect which calendars are to be synced with CalDav devices. No more, no less.

On the devices themself you can choose which calendars you want them to displayed. (It know this is quite trivial, but I do not quite see why this does not suffice).

Alternatively I would suggest creating mutiple Google accounts each one with its own CalDav syncing settings.
For each one you can decide which calendars are to be shared via CalDav. Each of your devices would be connected with one of these Google Account.
Then you share calendars among the Google accounts.

E.g.: Lets say A has all the calendars. You have an iPad and an iPhone. For each one create a google account (B and C). Now A shares the iPad related calendars with B and the iPhone related calendars with C. The iPad syncs with B, the iPhone with C.

It is not ideal but once set up it should run without any overhead.


How do I restore a Windows 7 System Image to a OS X Lion Boot Camp partition? I just updated the hard drive in my MacBook Pro. I decided to also take the opportunity to upgrade it to Lion. I previously had Boot Camp under Snow Leopard. I created a new Boot Camp partition and went through Windows 7 installation. Now, I am trying to restore my previous Windows 7 system image. Windows restore seems to insist on wanting to format the entire drive though. Clearly I don't want to do this.

Is there any way to restore the image back into the Boot Camp partition?

I am willing to hack around the recovery console if necessary.

Winclone might be a good solution.

Winclone allows you to image a Bootcamp partition and migrate it to a new Mac, or in this case a freshly installed OS on a new HD. Here's their tutorial: http://twocanoes.com/asset.php?id=9


Is there a way to stop an app creating its own space at the back of the stack when you maximize it? Is there a way to stop an app creating its own space at the back of the stack when you maximize it? I like to have my apps in the same space always but they keep jumping around to the back of the spaces stack, any help appreciated!

I'm using macOS Sierra.

Full-screen windows always appear in their own spaces. This has been the case for a while. There is no way to change it that I am aware of.

The settings that affect which space an app can be in only apply to non-full-screen windows.


Outlook to iPhone contact synchronisation I ran into a weird problem involving the synchronisation of contacts between Outlook (on a Windows Computer), an iPhone and an iPad.

It all began when I had to do a couple of changes to a number of contacts in Outlook on PC. I had to switch a couple of names (first-/last name). The changes did sync on the iPad without any issues. The contacts on the iPhone however remained unchanged. When I tried to Change the contacts manually on the iPhone a duplicate was created in Outlook as well as on the iPad.

It seems like the problem is for the iPhone to download the contact data from the Server.

Here are some specs of the devices.

iPad OS: iOS 11.4.1
iPhone OS: iOS 12.1.4

Does anyone have an idea how to fix that issue?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I have seen a lot of weird sync issues between iOS devices and Outlook/Exchange. As an FYI I am the admin for our 2013 MS Exchange server, so I see a fair amount of these.

Very little of what makes sense to do works reliably. I gather there is some kind of issue with Activesync on iOS devices and I have seen where some people claim it is an Apple bug and some, Microsoft's problem. The end result being it never gets fixed (so far...)

You can try the standard things with this, removing and then re-adding the account on the problematic phone, resetting network settings, doing a backup - reset - restore on that iOS device too; all are as likely to work as anything else.

The only permanent solution to the problem that I have found, and this may not be an option for some people, is to use Microsoft's free iOS Outlook email client rather than the email, contacts, calendar apps that come with iOS. I switched over a couple of years ago and completely stopped having sync and account issues with my Exchange-based (work email) email. And actually Outlook is a pretty good iOS email client.


Website subscribed to calendar Some how my iPhone calendar subscribed to a website and now I get reminders of really bad things in my calendar. I cannot go to the web page to unsubscribe because it’s spam and takes me to a different website every time. Is there a way to delete this from my calendars?

Put your device in airplane mode and disconnect from wireless. Now you can open the calendar app and settings app and clean any accounts or subscribed calendars.
Track down all the events you feel are wrong and delete them, make note of which calendar they reside.

https://support.apple.com/HT211076

From there, you can likely turn on networking and test you removed the data that was added as a subscription.


Contacts sync via CardDav misses some I recently set up a CardDav account on my iPhone 4S which is running iOS 6.01. It synced with my GMail account just fine, however, the Contacts app only shows those that are within the My Contacts group. I have a handful of other groups that I've created to organize my contacts, so not all of them are shown under My Contacts (what they call a contact group seems to be just a label).

My question is, how can I view/use all my GMail contacts on my iPhone, regardless of the GMail group they are in? Or is that something Google doesn't support yet?

As far as I know this is a default behaviour of Google Mail.
On Android there is a fairly hidden way to select more groups but not on iOS or other normal cardDAV clients.

You may find fruux an alternative that works fine for me in this case.
If there is a single addressbook at fruux with a default name like “contacts”, iOS will attempt to interpret vcf-Groups as contact groups. E. g. eM Client will create contact groups for each new assigned category simultanously.


MacBook Pro Mid 2015 Display flickering to static/weird colour during usage About a day ago my 2015 MacBook Pro running macOS 10.15 Beta (19A536g) started experiencing an issue where the display would flicker to different colors randomly during usage. Moving the mouse around causes the display to revert back to its normal colors temporarily but it tends to alternate between the two very often.

I have already tried an SMC and PRAM reset as I had no ideas on what to due.
As well there is currently no system updates available.

Any ideas on what could be causing this and/or how to fix it? Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated. I'd really like to avoid bringing my laptop into the Apple store if possible.

Here is what it looks like when the display shifts colors. :

This is a hardware issue; most likely a failed GPU.

I wrote an answer addressing this same issue but diagnosing by booting a Linux is not so easy anymore.

You can attempt to run Apple Diagnostics by booting and holding D.  It may or may not return an error code.

However, virtually every time I’ve seen something like this, it required a logic board replacement.


Where did the info at the bottom of the Finder window go? I've re-installed my old system (10.7.5) and "things are different!"

Is there a setting somewhere I need to change?  I always used to see useful information at the bottom of a Finder window in list view and in other views.

I remember a series of small Folder icons representing the path, into which I could drag files, or click to move to that folder. Also the total number of files, and number of files currently selected. Oh, sometimes the available space left on the volume as well!

Now there's nothing at the bottom of the window at all!

Would this question be helpful ? It gives at least a searchable option using "View -> Show Status Bar" or "View -> Show Path Bar".
(Sorry I can't just write this as a comment yet).

Finder does not show Path Bar and Status Bar, what to do?


Deleted 1 of 2 partitions in Mac OS High Sierra and cannot see it any more with Disk Utility I deleted 1 of 2 partitions with the following commands to merge 2 partitions:

diskutil apfs deleteContainer disk0s3
diskutil eraseVolume free n disk0s3
diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

But I got the following error when I run the last command:

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0
Started APFS operation
Error: -69771: The target disk is too small for this operation

Now the partition which I deleted is not shown any more with Disk Utility. How do I get it back?

You received the error message because the Apple_KernalCoreDump partition resides immediately after the Apple_APFS partition. This I was able to verify.

I can not think of a reason to keep the Apple_KernalCoreDump partition. So, I would enter the commands given below to add the free space to the Apple_APFS partition.

diskutil  erasevolume  free  n  disk0s3
diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  0

If after deletion, the Apple_KernalCoreDump partition reappears, then I would assume you drive is corrupted. In this case, I would backup important files, repartition the drive and reinstall macOS.


How to add additional "contact me" information to an apple-id For Christmas, our kids gave us a second iPad (new) to go along with our old first generation iPad. Since I'll be starting a new job in a new city next monday, I want to get it set up so we can face time using the two iPads on one apple ID. My plan is to add her phone number or email address to the "reachable at" information on the applied.apple.com site, and then change the FaceTime settings on each iPad, so that we have different numbers/emails associate with each.

Alas, when I log into appleid.apple.com site and try to add a new number, I take the code they text me, but the system comes back and tells me it can't make the change right now, and that I should try later.

After multiple attempts, it's clear something's not working. Any thoughts on how to add additional emails/phone numbers to an appleid account?

Thanks

mo

Try add an Apple ID using these steps:

To add an additional email address, follow these steps:

Sign in to your Apple ID account page.
Click Edit in the Account section.
Under Reachable at, select Add More.
Enter your additional email address and we'll send a verification to that address. Enter the verification code and click Verify.

If you didn’t get an email:

  Make sure that you enter an email address that you're not already using as an Apple ID. If you want to delete one of your additional email addresses, click  x next to the address.

If the error keeps showing people who have experienced it:

  They had to transfer me to a Senior Advisor who after listening to my explanation concluded that this had to be forwarded to the Engineering Department and for this he had to create a ticket and do some folllow-up.


Is there any way to recover a deleted Notes.app note that was deleted from the "Recently Deleted" folder? I created a note on my Macbook. I opened the note on my iPhone. The note was accidentally trashed on my iPhone. Once this note was deleted, it was accidentally deleted again from the "Recently Deleted" folder in Notes app. (Hey Apple, ever heard of a delete prompt?)

By the time I'd returned to my Macbook several hours after this incident occurred, my iPhone Notes.app had overwritten my Macbook Notes.app; the note was not found in the main folder or the "Recently Deleted" folder on the Macbook.

The note was created after my last back-up.
I can't shake the phone and "undo" the deletion because the "undo" feature only goes back two steps and I had already performed two actions before I knew about the "undo" feature. (Hey Apple, ever heard of an undo button?)
Dr.Fone was able to recover the note's title, but not the note's contents.

Any hope to recover this file?

You can recover your deleted notes as long as you have an iTunes or an iCould backup. Don't make any new backup on your iPhone because the backup files can be overwritten.

Take a look at this tutorial. You can extract your deleted notes from an iTunes backup file on your computer. You also have a solution if you have a newer iCloud backup, as long as your phone has enough space on it and the data was not overwritten.


Insert saved signature in Pages.app Currently I export PDFs from Pages.app, open it in Preview.app and insert a previously saved signature. Is it possible to save a signature in Pages.app to insert it to documents later on?

I couldn't find any solution for a similar shortcut, and I ended using:

"Capture screen" any white and small space from the screen.
Open the "Captured picture" with the Preview app.
Add your signature to the "Captured picture".
Add the "Captured picture" with your signature to the page document.

Here is a video about the short trick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSEQeQ-8kNI


Mirror macbook air screen to external display and then extend that display with another external display? I have MBA mid 2013 and two 24 inch Dell external monitors. How to make mirror of laptop screen to one Dell display and then extend (or maybe I don't know which term should I use) with another Dell screen .

Like this one :

You will either need an Apple TV and a thunderbolt to HDMI/DVI/VGA cable OR some thunderbolt dock capable of multiple outputs.
And then check out the final option at the bottom here PH19039


Disk Utility shows partition NOT appearing through diskutil list HighSierra, 500 GB SSD

Disk Utility shows two partitions that does not appear through diskutil list.
First, the ouput from diskutil list:

sh-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         500.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +500.1 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume APPLESSD                23.1 GB    disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 19.4 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.8 MB   disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk2s4

Now, a screenshot from Disk Utility application with 2 partitions not listed previously:

This last one is OK :

How can I solve this?

Here is the output from gpt:

sh-3.2# gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  976695384      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  977105024          3
  977105027         32         Sec GPT table
  977105059          1         Sec GPT header

You are confusing APFS containers, APFS volumes and partitions.

You have a 500GB drive which has one APFS container containing a number of volumes. Of those volumes Preboot, Recovery and VM are used by the system and hidden in Disk Utility. The volume APPLESSD contains a number of partitions, one of which is of zero size.


Is MBP Pro 15'' Retina fan noise reduced noticeably? Is there really noticeable reduction of noise from fans in new MBP Pro 15" Retina compared to original MBP Pro 15"? I'm curious if the asymmetrical blades configuration of fans really makes that significant difference which Apple is stating.

I have one, and it make a big difference. It's also a less unpleasant sound. I have to get the machine running pretty hot before I notice the fans at all. On my last machine, I would hear the fans all the time (granted, mine was a 13'', but several of my coworkers have 15'' and I hear their fans more than mine).


Lion ISO size VS. Snow Leopard The DVD of Snow Leopard was something like 7.09gig in size, and the Mac Store download of the new Lion install is <4gig.

Why the big difference in size?

Since Snow Leopard was a physical disc, did it include extra drivers or such, where the d/l of Lion is 'just' the base OS?

The Developer Tools (760 MB) included on the Snow Leopard DVD are not part of the OS X Lion installer. They are a free separate download in XCode 4.1
A whole whackload of printer drivers (~400 MB) are not included in OS X Lion. Presumably they are downloaded when a new printer is added.
The Snow Leopard DVD includes a Library folder (1.3 GB) with frameworks etc. needed because the DVD is bootable, while the OS X Lion installer creates a bootable partition for installation.
That said, the Essentials.pkg is actually bigger in OS X Lion: 1.35GB vs. 882 MB

Those are the major differences that jumped out at me, I'm sure there are other minor differences I've glossed over. The actual "Installation" package on the Snow Leopard DVD is ~4 GB, the OS X Lion installation DMG is 3.74 GB.


Can you download Xcode on iPhone? Can you download Xcode on iPhone?

Briefly, no.

Xcode is OS X only. You must have a Mac to download Xcode.


Can apps on an external display be moved to a new space on disconnect? I use an external monitor with my laptop while at work but when I'm not working I just use the regular MacBook Pro display. What I would like is for the windows I have open on the external display to be moved to their own space when I disconnect it instead of moving to space 1 on my MacBook. It just gets a little crowded and moving 4-5 windows over to a new space manually every time I disconnect has gotten a little tiresome.

I'm running OS X 10.10 (14A389) on a late 2013 Retina Pro (15") in case anyone was wondering.

Looks like if you create a blank space on your laptop side of things and place it in the Desktop 1 spot all the external display apps will go there on disconnect. Only weird thing is when you reset your computer if you aren't plugged into an external monitor then some of the apps seem to move around a little bit, otherwise this method seems to be exactly what I was looking for.

Cheers


Applescript with get every file loop fails I want to run a script on all files with two specific extensions on a disk with a hierarchy of multiple nested folders.  My script works fine when I choose a folder further down the line with fewer subfolders but I'd like to run it on an entire archive with over a thousand folders.  The AppleScript takes forever to get all the files and then exits without returning anything and without executing the operations after getting the files.  No timeout message, no error message.  And the Finder becomes unresponsive (and remains stuck after the script exits).

set myFolder to choose folder with prompt "Choose a folder:"
    tell application "Finder"
        try
            set eafFiles to (every file in entire contents of myFolder whose name ends with ".eaf") as alias list
        on error
            try
                set eafFiles to ((every file in entire contents of myFolder whose name ends with ".eaf") as alias) as list
            on error
                set eafFiles to {}
            end try
        end try
        try
            set pfsxFiles to (every file in entire contents of myFolder whose name ends with ".pfsx") as alias list
        on error
            try
                set pfsxFiles to ((every file in entire contents of myFolder whose name ends with ".pfsx") as alias) as list
            on error
                set pfsxFiles to {}
            end try
        end try
        set myFiles to eafFiles & pfsxFiles
    end tell

    repeat with CurrentFile in myFiles
        set CurrentFile to CurrentFile as string

        do shell script "perl /path/to/perl/script.pl " & quoted form of CurrentFile
    end repeat

Perl's File::Find is ideal for iterating over all the files in a folder. This approach deals with one file at a time, is fast, and memory efficient.

Use AppleScript to present the folder choice and then pass the selected folder path to your perl script:

set myFolder to choose folder with prompt "Choose a folder:"
do shell script "perl /path/to/perl/script.pl " & quoted form of POSIX path of myFolder

The perl script can then deal with traversing the files. Below is sample perl script for iterating over files and filtering to only eaf and pfsx suffixes:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use File::Find;

# Get the first argument passed to the script
my $argument_path = shift;
die("ERROR: an argument must be provided\n") unless $argument_path;
die("ERROR: the argument must be a folder: $argument_path\n") unless -d $argument_path;

# Iterate over every file and folder within the $argument_path
find sub {

    my $filename = $_; # relative to current working directory

    # Skip all but .eaf and .pfsx file types
    return unless $filename =~ /\.eaf$/;
    return unless $filename =~ /\.pfsx$/;

    print $filename."\n";

    # ... deal with the file or folder here

}, $argument_path;


How do I stop my AirPort Express from showing up under AirPlay? I just got an AirPort Express and it's great but I don't have the audio port hooked up to any so it is useless to select it for AirPlay. Is there a way I can keep it from showing up in the list of available AirPlay devices?
Edit:
I discovered the turn off AirPlay check box in AirPort Utility however if I turn off the AirPort Express's AirPlay then I can't select my TV or any AirPlay device for that matter (The AirPlay icon doesn't show up at all). With my old router I could select the TV when it was in standby.

Uncheck AirPlay
Goto the the AirPlay tab in AirPort Utility and uncheck 'Enable AirPlay'.
Reboot all AirPlay playback devices
To ensure that you will be able to wake output AirPlay devices through the Airport router reboot connected output AirPlay devices.
Also, the connected AirPlay device might have to be connected through ethernet for it to be able to wake from sleep when video/audio is sent to it.


Restoring an OLD iPhone backup I recently made a full backup of my iPhone 4S to my computer. I was having some issues with it, so I went into DFU mode and did a clean install.

Unfortunately as soon as iTunes finished installing iOS 6, it automatically made a full back-up of my phone, and I now can't see the previous back-up I made. Please tell me it's still there!

How may I recover a previous back-up?

[I realize this is an older question and may not solve the problem for the OP, but this answer is intended to provide guidance to others.]

If you use iTunes backups, there is only one backup (the latest) maintained per device at any point in time. So in this case the new backup overwrote the older backup, and it would be possible to recover only if a copy of ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ was made before the clean install (through Time Machine or any other solution), restoring that folder on the system and doing a restore from iTunes.

You can see the device backups (with the timestamps) available in iTunes by going to iTunes → Preferences and then navigating to the Devices tab.

Some recommendations and points to note to avoid such a situation and have something to fall back to:

You can have multiple backups in iCloud for a device and choose which backup to restore from (assuming there are no device/iOS compatibility issues).
Use both iCloud and iTunes backups together (once iCloud backup is turned on, automatic backups in iTunes would be turned off; so a manual backup would have to be triggered in iTunes).
When using iTunes backup, trigger a manual backup in iTunes followed by a manual backup in Time Machine before major changes to a device, like re-installing iOS or jailbreaking or recovering from older backups.

See:
Choosing an iOS backup method (Should I use iTunes or iCloud to back up my iOS device?)


Is there a Java IDE for iPad which can compile and run Java locally? I'm about to have a coding session with some buddies. Problem is, one doesn't have a laptop. He's pretty new to programming so I was going to set him up something either on a rickety laptop or my iPad with a bluetooth keyboard / mouse.

Is there any app that would give me these capabilities:

Java IDE
compile java locally
run java locally

There are web-based IDEs that support Java like IDE One and CodeBox that should work from an iPad. Obviously there are limitations with both but they might suffice.

This is my immediate thought, because I believe Apple have rules against people creating apps that include their own runtime. Which I'd assume you'd require if you wanted to compile Java code directly on an iOS device.


Best release of MacOS for mid-2010 iMac I have a mid-2010 iMac that I haven't used for a while. I wiped the disk and installed High Sierra (10.13.6). I don't remember the previous release of MacOS it was running with. It has a 3.2GHz i3, 1T HDD and 12G of RAM.
It's incredibly sluggish, clicking or typing will often result in the spinning wheel for a few seconds before anything happens. I've installed nothing on it beyond what High Sierra does by default.
My intention for this Mac is to use is for web browsing, writing, watching videos and music creation (with Garageband or other DAW).I have no intention of changing the HDD to an SSD - I don't think it's worth the cost and I have 2019 iMac that I have access to. This is just a secondary computer I'd like to have in my house.
Would an older release of MacOS fix this sluggishness? What release of MacOS would you recommend?

I have the 27" Mid-2010 iMac with High Sierra. Mine is sluggish as well but not as bad as you say yours is. My internal Fusion drive is dying and that, I believe, is why mine is so sluggish. I've had High Sierra for a long time and never experienced a problem with it. It ran fine until my drive started failing. Since you still have your original drive you may want to check its status. I use Drive DX to get the SMART status of my drives.
You may want to run EtreCheck Pro which will tell you if your machine is sluggish and possible causes and solutions. EtreCheck Pro on my machine tells me its too sluggish to be caused by software and it's probably due to a failing drive.


What version of Apple TV is required for a HomePod mini stereo pair to work? I have two HomePod minis configured as a stereo pair, that is not recognized by my Apple TV. Instead I see each individual HomePod in the audio settings for the TV and can only select and play through one at a time. I have a very old Apple TV (a replacement is on order) and also a very old AirPort Extreme Base Station (also about to be replaced).
What version of Apple TV is required for a HomePod mini stereo pair to work?

Unfortunately, Home Theatre Audio does not currently work with HomePod mini (just HomePod). It also seems to require Apple TV 4K. The benefit of this feature is that you can set your Apple TV audio output to permanently use the HomePod pair.
But you should be able to (manually) Airplay to a pair of HomePod Mini’s with an Apple TV that supports tvOS 14 (an assumption, based on its support of being an audio hub): this would mean Apple TV HD or Apple TV 4K.
If you’re buying a new Apple TV and you’re interested in using your HomePod Mini’s as your permanent tv speakers, I would suggest getting the Apple TV 4K with the assumption that Apple will eventually add Home Theatre Audio support for the HomePod Mini’s.


Without a backup, can I downgrade from Sierra to El Capitan? I haven't been making backups on my laptop (I know, this is something I'm going to change!) but I really want rid of Sierra, it's mucking about my wifi connectivity loads and I'm sick of it restoring Mac apps to the Dock that I just don't want there.

All the solutions I've seen so far to downgrade rely on having backups of your machine from a time where it was on El Capitan - which I don't have!

How/can I do this without having backups?

If you downloaded El Capitan Installer in Mac App Store before, you can find the application in your Purchased section on the top of the app, where you can download it again, write the installer to a usb and boot from that USB in order to install El Capitan to your Machine. Details are written here.


macOS Catalina: "file already exists, replace it?" popup, how to select Replace with keyboard? When trying to save a file that already exists, macOS typically shows the "File already exists, replace it?" popup, like this:

In previous versions of macOS (like Mojave, High Sierra, etc) I was always able to choose either Cancel or Replace using the keyboard.
However since Catalina, it doesn't seem to be working. As displayed in the screenshot above, the Cancel button is highlighted by default. If I press the Return key it will choose Cancel. However I used to be able to switch between Cancel and Replace by using the Tab key. But not anymore.
Also tried the cursor left and right keys (← and →) but to no avail.
This particular example is from macOS' default Preview app, but it's the same in pretty much any application.
Also in some applications I could previously use something like ⌥+Return or ⌘+Return to choose either the left or right option respectively (Cancel or Replace in this case) but that doesn't seem to be working either.
Is there a different keyboard shortcut or combination of buttons nowadays? Or do I really HAVE to use the mouse to choose Replace ?

Is there a different keyboard shortcut or combination of buttons nowadays?

In macOS Catalina, using a keyboard shortcut to Replace instead of Cancel when confronted with a ... Do you want to replace it? sheet, press: ⌘R


Location Indicator, Hollow vs. Solid The location indicator in the top bar of iOS seems to have two states: hollow and solid.

Hollow:

And solid:

I know that the icon is visible whenever an application is using Location Services, what's the difference hollow and solid?

The hollow location indicator is used to show that one or multiple applications have active geofences. For example, you can use Reminders.app to remind you of something “when you get home”. To detect when you are near your home location it has to check your location every now and then to compare it to your home. This will usually happen when you unlock your phone (indicator goes solid for a moment), when your GSM chip hands over to a different cell and when you associate with a wifi network (WPS). This icon is shown so you know that location services are activated at irregular intervals which may affect your battery life.

The solid indicator means it is actively locating your device. You will notice, after opening the Maps.app, for example, that the indicator turns solid and remains solid. This is because Maps.app wants your exact location constantly. For a few other examples, when you start Siri, this indicator will also appear, as well Local Weather, or the Camera app (if geo-tagging has been left on).


How to reset the built-in Dictionary app for Look Up function? After I downloaded some custom dictionaries, copy-paste them into ~/Library/Dictionaries folder, and reordered them in Dictionary app's Preferences, some options in the Preferences cannot be selected anymore (the check-sign cannot be selected, it blinks). How to solve this problem?

This is a bug specific to MacBook Pro 16-inch with Catalina 10.15.X (In my case X=2), so reinstall the OS will not help. If you're in the same situation, I can solve this problem for you as follows, which is my conclusion from the Apple Communities thread discussing the same problem:

Remove all folders under /System/Library/AssetsV2/PreinstalledAssetsV2/InstallWithOs/com_apple_MobileAsset_DictionaryServices_dictionaryOSX.
Restart your computer. (In my case the Look Up didn't show some dictionary definition before I restarted my computer.)


Can you sync only a group of contacts from a Mac to an iPhone? I'm running iOS 6 on an iPhone 3GS. I see that all my contacts from my computer have appeared in the Contacts app on my phone. Now my contacts database on my computer is, to say the least, messy. It includes just about everyone I exchanged e-mail with over the past twenty years. Most of them are just a name and e-mail address, because I've never used this database for phone calls before.

How can I set up a useful subset of these contacts on my phone? Can iCloud sync just one group of contacts to the phone? I don't particularly want to purge all these people from my contacts database, but I also don't want to scroll through them all when trying to order pizza or do some other routine task on my phone.

I see here that this cannot be done with iCloud. How do I select specific contacts to sync using iOS 6 and iTunes 11.0.2?

This wasn't intended to be a Jeopardy question, but I think I've figured it out.

On the iPhone, go to Settings » iCloud and set Contacts to  Off.
On the computer, turn off iCloud contact syncing
Connect the iPhone to the computer
Click on the iPhone button that appears top right in iTunes
Go to Info
Check Sync Contacts
Select Selected Groups
Select the group you want synced.


Assign keyboard shortcut to Safari Extensions? Is there a place in safari that allows user to assign keyboard shortcut for extensions?
For more specific information, I am trying to assign a shortcut key for this extension: Recent Tab list
However I did not find shortcut customization page on its page. So I am experimenting whether there is such a customization page at the safari level. Any advice is appreciated.
I am using MacBook Pro with OS X Sierra 10.12

It is possible to do this yourself using AppleScript and other tools.

Requirement: System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility to be checked on for Alfred 3.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Safari"

    with timeout of 0 seconds
        set allElements to entire contents of toolbar 1 of window 1
    end timeout

    repeat with uiElement in allElements
        if class of uiElement is button and description of uiElement is "Recent Tab List" then click uiElement
    end repeat

end tell

I use Alfred to trigger the AppleScript using a hotkey or keyword.

Here's my workflow: https://0x0.st/s_jz.zip

(I originally posted this answer on GitHub)

EDIT March 2019:

Quicker AppleScript is as follows. It works from Script Editor but I've not been able to get it to work from Alfred. YMMV.

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Safari"
        set extVar to "Recent Tab List"

        tell first UI element of last group of last toolbar of first window
            click (first button where its description = extVar)
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


What terminal command or program can list an SSD's Power On Hours? I'm looking to script using the unix shell the retrieval of SSD (and HDD) data that disk utility shows in the information window.

I'm immediately interested in the Power On Hours and Power Cycle, but if all the data comes from one data structure or tool, so much the better. The usual tools diskutil info disk0 and ioreg -l are not producing the "of interest" values listed in the screen shot above.

Is this information available from any of the built in OS X terminal tools or do I need to locate an open-source package that makes the same API calls to get this level of detail about a Mac drive?

The command that works for me in 2019 is:

smartctl -a disk0 | grep -i hours

Homebrew install is probably easiest and here are some details on installing and usage of the tool.

smartmontools is an open source package that provides most of the values you are interested in.

If you use Homebrew, install it with:

brew install smartmontools

(In the standard Homebrew installation, commands install to /usr/local/bin.)

Otherwise, download it from https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/Download and compile it as usual:

$ cd smartmontools-6.0
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

(Unless otherwise specified as an option to ./configure, smartmontools commands install to /usr/local/sbin, so update the $PATH variable if necessary.)

The tool we are interested in is called smartctl.

First activate S.M.A.R.T.:

$ smartctl /dev/disk0 -s on

Then run it:

$ smartctl /dev/disk0 -x

This is an excerpt of the output, which provides a wealth of information. The values for Power_On_Hours and Power_Cycle_Count below match (once converted from decimal to hex) the ones Disk Utility reports.

smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [x86_64-apple-darwin12.2.0] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     JMicron based SSDs
Device Model:     APPLE SSD TS128C
Serial Number:    37AR11AGLTMZ
Firmware Version: CJAA0201
User Capacity:    121,332,826,112 bytes [121 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)

(...)

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     -O-R--   099   099   000    -    0
  2 Throughput_Performance  P-S---   100   100   050    -    0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--C-   100   100   050    -    0
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--C-   100   100   000    -    3237
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--C-   100   100   000    -    1485
168 SATA_Phy_Error_Count    -O--C-   100   100   000    -    0
170 Bad_Block_Count         PO--C-   100   100   010    -    8 252 82
173 Erase_Count             PO--C-   196   196   100    -    1 136 64
175 Bad_Cluster_Table_Count PO--C-   100   100   010    -    0
192 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct  -O--C-   100   100   000    -    14
194 Temperature_Celsius     PO---K   072   053   030    -    28 (Min/Max 14/47)
197 Current_Pending_Sector  -O--C-   100   100   000    -    0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -O--C-   100   100   000    -    0
                            ||||||_ K auto-keep
                            |||||__ C event count
                            ||||___ R error rate
                            |||____ S speed/performance
                            ||_____ O updated online
                            |______ P prefailure warning

ATA_READ_LOG_EXT (addr=0x00:0x00, page=0, n=1) failed: 48-bit ATA commands not supported
Read GP Log Directory failed

SMART Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
SMART Log at address 0x00 has    1 sectors [Log Directory]
SMART Log at address 0x01 has    1 sectors [Summary SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x02 has   51 sectors [Comprehensive SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x06 has    1 sectors [SMART self-test log]
SMART Log at address 0x09 has    1 sectors [Selective self-test log]
SMART Log at address 0x80 has   16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
(...)
SMART Log at address 0x9f has   16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
SMART Log at address 0xe0 has    1 sectors [SCT Command/Status]
SMART Log at address 0xe1 has    1 sectors [SCT Data Transfer]

SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log (GP Log 0x03) not supported

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Extended Self-test Log (GP Log 0x07) not supported

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

SCT Status Version:                  3
SCT Version (vendor specific):       1 (0x0001)
SCT Support Level:                   0
Device State:                        Active (0)
Current Temperature:                    28 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature:     22/30 Celsius
Lifetime    Min/Max Temperature:     14/47 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count:   0/0
SCT Temperature History Version:     2
Temperature Sampling Period:         1 minute
Temperature Logging Interval:        1 minute
Min/Max recommended Temperature:      5/40 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit:            0/70 Celsius
Temperature History Size (Index):    128 (77)

Index    Estimated Time   Temperature Celsius
  78    2012-11-29 19:48    25  ******
 ...    ..(  7 skipped).    ..  ******
  86    2012-11-29 19:56    25  ******
  87    2012-11-29 19:57    26  *******
 ...    ..( 19 skipped).    ..  *******
 107    2012-11-29 20:17    26  *******
 108    2012-11-29 20:18    27  ********
 ...    ..( 16 skipped).    ..  ********
 125    2012-11-29 20:35    27  ********
 126    2012-11-29 20:36    28  *********
 ...    ..(  7 skipped).    ..  *********
   6    2012-11-29 20:44    28  *********
   7    2012-11-29 20:45    29  **********
   8    2012-11-29 20:46    29  **********
   9    2012-11-29 20:47    28  *********
 ...    ..( 67 skipped).    ..  *********
  77    2012-11-29 21:55    28  *********

SMART WRITE LOG does not return COUNT and LBA_LOW register
SCT (Get) Error Recovery Control command failed

Device Statistics (GP Log 0x04) not supported

ATA_READ_LOG_EXT (addr=0x11:0x00, page=0, n=1) failed: 48-bit ATA commands not supported
Read SATA Phy Event Counters failed

To end, deactivate S.M.A.R.T.:

$ smartctl /dev/disk0 -s off


Will a Keynote with a video in it export to PowerPoint properly? If I put a video in a Keynote presentation, and save it as a .ppt file, will the video work in PowerPoint?

I just tried it with a QuickTime movie and was able to run the exported .ppt in PowerPoint as well. But this is probably no guarantee that it will work in all cases given the multitude of video formats, codecs, drivers etc. So in your case you probably get the best results if you

start with a specific video format/codec on the Mac side (QuickTime and either MPEG4 or H.264 would be my first choice)
do a test run yourself, maybe involving various target PCs (if this is a scenario you have to be able to work with)
stick to the setup once you have proven it to work


The Apple ID you entered couldn't be found or your password was incorrect. Please try again. | In-App Purchase I bought an In-App Purchase yesterday. While buying the app crashed, so I tried to restore the purchase (money was already taken from my account). But if I'm entering my correct Apple-ID password (works when logging in into iTunes), it says:

  The Apple ID you entered couldn't be found or your password was incorrect. Please try again.

When I'm entering a wrong password, it just says:

  Your Apple ID or password is incorrect

What am I doing wrong?

Contact the developer, if no solution ask for a refund via https://reportaproblem.apple.com/


Automate opening multiple tabs when starting Terminal I am trying to automate opening of multiple tabs, naming each tab (printf "\e]1;${TAB_NAME}\a") and doing a cd and maybe something else in each tab.  Can that be done either in a startup script or, better yet, configured within Terminal itself?

You can try this.

You can use the Terminal Profiles to give each tab its own profile.
This way, you can set the shell command for each tab individually.

And you can save the window group (tabs) so they will open on Terminal launch.

Example of set up

Set up your tabs in a window, i.e., cd to the directories in each tab as desired.

Then, go to the Terminal Preferences and to  Settings Tab menu:

Select the Basic Profile.
Click the + button at the bottom. This will duplicate the profile.
Name the new profile (for example, home).

Repeat steps 1 - 3 as many times as the number of tabs, and name each of them with unique names.

In my example, I will have 'home' and 'work'.

Now, for my 'home' profile, I will:

Select the Shell tab.
Check 'Run command'.
Set the command string to  cd ~
Check 'Run inside shell'.

For each profile, I will repeat steps 5 - 7, changing the cd command accordingly.

In my tab named 'Home Dir', I will:

Ctrl + click on the window to get the contextual menu, and select 'Show inspector'.
Select the 'settings' tab
Set its profile to the 'home' profile.

For each tab, I will repeat steps 1 - 3, changing the profile accordingly.

Now, my Home tab's profile should be the 'home' profile and my tab named 'Work Dir'  profile should be the 'work' profile.

Now using the Windows Menu "Save Windows As Group".

Check the checkbox  - "Use window group when Terminal starts".

I have tested it as best I can and this set up works.

Each tab opens in the cd's to its own directory. And does so on Terminal start up.

I like this so much, I am going to use it myself.


Error / Hang Installing Yosemite and Mavericks on Mac Pro SSD Having had a hard drive failure, I'm attempting a clean install of Yosemite on a 2010 Mac Pro, with a brand new 120GB OWC SSD.

I've tried using a Yosemite boot disk, using both an external hard drive and a USB memory stick, which both suffered the same symptoms, and now I'm seeing something similar with an old Mavericks USB memory stick, which I believe has worked before.

The problem I had with the Yosemite install was that it would start the installation, I'd accept the terms, and it would get to the "Preparing to install" screen. It would then count down from 8 minutes, stop at "1 second remaining" for about 10 minutes, then "0 seconds remaining" for about another 10 minutes, before finally presenting the error message, "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."

With Mavericks, I'm seeing the same thing up to the "0 seconds remaining" problem, but then it just hangs - on the last attempt I waited about an hour, and I'm in the middle of a second attempt now.

I've tried resetting the PRAM, and checked the date in the terminal which is correct (albeit the wrong time zone, but I'm guessing that's not important).

The only entry in the Installer system log is:

localhost Install OS X Mavericks[387]: Can not connect to /var/run/systemkeychaincheck.socket: No such file or directory

Any advice much appreciated!

Not a brilliantly helpful answer, but a resolution nonetheless.

I contacted OWC's online chat tech support, who were incredibly helpful - continuing the conversation for an hour and a half - and talked me through diagnosing the problem.

The tech support rep first suggested using my old boot drive, and from there, testing whether my SSD was writable via the OS. The setup of this Mac Pro was 1 boot drive, plus 3 RAIDed drives. I found that with the RAID card still in, I couldn't access the SSD, but after removing the RAID card, and resetting the PRAM again, the SSD appeared and was certainly writable.

I don't think the RAID card was part of the original problem, because I'd tried installing without it as well, but getting feedback that I could write to the SSD was very encouraging!

I then simply tried installing Mavericks from the USB drive while already booted using the old boot drive and it worked!

So - as far as a solution for someone else encountering the same problem, I'm not sure what I can suggest, other than - if you can - boot normally, and install it that way, having selected the new drive that you want to install on.


Using `jar` to create “zip” file … Mac won't open the zip, says “It is an unsupported format” … why? I have a build system with a command line driven batch file that uses jar (from Java JDK) on a Windows machine to make a zip file like this ...
jar cf c:\target\Application-1.5.zip -C Application-1.5/ .

It "zips" up everything in the Application-1.5 directory into zip file Application-1.5.zip.
I used jar because there's no zip command at the command line on Windows.
When I download the zip file on a Windows 10 machine, Windows extracts the zip fine.
However, when I download the zip file on my MacBook (Catalina), and double-click on the zip file, the Mac won't unzip the file ... it says ... "Unable to expand "Application-1.5.zip".  It is an unsupported format.
Also ... when I use the jar command on the Mac to unzip it like this jar -xf ./Application-1.5.zip it works, so the file is "valid" but Mac's built-in unzipper doesn't like it.
What do I do to make a zip file that Mac will like?

I worked around my problem by installing 7-zip on Windows 10 and using that instead of jar like so ...
7z a c:\target\Application-1.5.zip .\Application-1.5\* -r

Mac likes the zip file produced by 7-zip, so this will work for me.
But I'd still like to know how to make a zip file with jar that Mac's default unarchive can unzip.


What are the trusted Certificate Authorities in iOS? I'm wondering if StartCom is a trusted CA on iOS.

I'd like to setup a mail server for a TLD, and use their free certificate. It's only about $10/year cheaper than more well known authorities, so the deciding factor is if it's trusted on my iPhone.

I know it is on OS X, Windows and many linux distributions, but would like to be certain.

I think this Apple support article has the list you're looking for. It is updated as changes are made:

iOS: List of available trusted root certificates

And StartCom is on there.


Where does Microsoft Word store autorecovered documents in Catalina? I can't seem to find the Autorecovery Save folder in Catalina. Previously I used a command line string to see the files, but that command doesn't work anymore.

Is this feature still implemented with Word using O365 subscription and macOS 10.15.1 Catalina?

You will get the AutoRecovery folder under the Library of your user folder.

The library under your user folder is normally hidden. So press command+shift+. to see all the hidden folder.

After this, go to

/Macintosh HD/Users/xxx/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery

Here xxx is your username

You will see your recovered files over there.


I have several memory questions regarding OS X 10.9.5 I have just purchased CS3 and it has been legally transferred to me. Do I have enough memory to handle it? In addition I want to upgrade to Yosemite or El Capitan. Do I have enough memory to do that too?

Also, can I erase photos from iPhoto that I no longer need and will this give me more memory?

Attached is my memory indication.

It looks like you're running Mavericks (10.9.5) based on the screenshot you provided. That being said, why would you want to downgrade to Snow Leopard (10.6.x)? Yes, it is probably a touch faster than Mavericks, but it isn't supported anymore and doesn't have the memory compression feature that might help a bit for a memory hungry application like CS3.

Either way, you have 4GB of RAM which is enough to do basic things on the machine but with CS3 it is probably going to be a potentially sluggish experience if you use it heavily and have more than one application open. I would suggest upgrading your RAM to at least 8GB if you can. What kind of Mac do you have?


How do I reference a cell from within a "...IF"-type function condition string? When using a ...IF type of function (like COUNTIF, AVERAGEIF, etc.), I use condition strings:

e.g. ">100", "=Mr. Smith"

Instead of using a literal from within the string, how do I (or can I) reference a different cell from within the table?

e.g. ">ColA Row2"

Stuff I've Tried (that doesn't work)

...,"=A2",...
...,=A2,...

When directly referencing a cell from within an IF type function, don't use a condition string. Also, no need to use a comparison operator.

Condition string usage, to compare against a literal value:

COUNTIF(A1:A20, "=Mr. Smith")
Direct cell reference, to compare against cell B1:

COUNTIF(A1:A20, B1)


MacBook randomly shuts down This is likely the same problem I saw reported countless times. However, mine comes with a twist, so I wonder if anyone can provide extra insight. Briefly, my laptop randomly shuts down (I think it happens only on battery). It's an early 2011 17" version running the latest macOS.

A few weeks ago I reinstalled the whole macOS after it wouldn't turn on anymore. I thought it might've been a hardware issue as many people suggest replacing the motherboard, but I was still able to boot it in the safe mode, which would suggest it's a software component issue.

Fast-forward and it's started happening again, although only infrequently and I am able to turn it back on very quickly if I have a charger nearby. Now, here are 2 insights I noticed and wonder if anyone can explain futher.

1/ Once the laptop "dies", I usually need to connect it to the charger to start it again. It feels like giving it some juice to power up. The battery level doesn't seem to play a role here (happens on 90% too). Sometimes if I connect the charger, turn it on, remove charger, it dies instantly. As if I had to keep the charger in for a certain amount of time until it feels confident to run without it. Feels like teaching a child ride a bike.

2/ Lately, I developed a new theory that it happens only when discharging AND I have to have the laptop on my lap, bed, or other unstable surface. I am paying attention now if it happens again when I work on desk, I couldn't replicate it so far. It's this point that drives me crazy, wondering what it could be.

Any experience with this issue is welcome.

[UPDATE]: I removed case from the Macbook, dusted it off a bit and since then it's been running without any issues again. I haven't changed any settings or components. Computers are weird.

The symptom of powering off suddenly at various charge states (sometimes 25% left, sometimes 75% left) is almost always a battery that can’t keep up with the designed current.

Some times it’s physical damage from a drop, sometimes chemical damage from being in a car trunk, sometimes just an out of spec battery.

Any service technician with Apple diagnostics can diagnose and repair that for you. Be sure your firmware and software is up to date before paying for service, though.  Also, try once a SMC reset.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/297277/5472
MacBook Pro randomly shutting down
Fully charged MacBook Air turns off when power cord removed

DIY repair is possible, especially if you are patient and aware an improper battery swap is a fire hazard and can afford a do over if you damage the battery when it’s out or don’t get the adhesive properly handled.

Is it possible to replace a whole keyboard on a MacBook?


Why  does my MacBook Pro's keyboard freeze when it wakes up so I have to hard reboot? Sometimes, but not every time, when I open my MacBook Pro to wake it from sleep, the keyboard doesn't respond, so I have to reboot my Mac using the power button.

There's a good chance that it happens when I close the lid without the laptop being plugged into power (the MagSafe plug), then plug in either power or headphones before I wake the computer again.

It is a MacBook Pro 15"(2011), 2.2Ghz Intel Core i7, 500GB 5400 RPM, 8G RAM running
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D50d). I have zh-CN (PRC Chinese) (Mainland China, simplified characters) as the preferred language for all users by default. I upgraded my Lion one by one (from 10.7 to 10.7.1,... till 10.7.3) and while upgrading, I didn't get any error or alert. So the updates went well.

I tried to solve it following a work around involving inserting and unplugging my headphones, but that didn't work out.

Is there any solid solution, or is this a known MacBook Pro issue?

I'd suggest taking the laptop into your local Apple Store or an Apple Authorized repair location. This definitely seems like a hardware fault: I would hope they'd replace or repair the laptop. Make sure you make a complete backup before you go to the store.


How can I download podcasts directly to my jailbroken iPhone? With a jailbroken iPhone 4.x, is there a way to download podcasts (about 60-100megs in size via an rss feed -- they are not in the iTunes store) directly to the phone without syncing?

Ideally, I'd like them to appear in the standard iTunes player on the phone with the other podcasts synced from my PC, but if this isn't possible, perhaps another app is available?

Similar question here, but I'm jailbroken.

Get safari download manager from cydia so that you can download it and ifile which lets you play it.


If i install Cisco any connect inside my iPhone, can our system admin access my iPhone without my knowledge I work for a company, and i need to access some internal sites inside my iPhone. so i got the instruction from our network team to install Cisco any-connect to my iPhone and connect to our network. but my question is, since this is my personal mobile device, so if i am connected to our network using Cisco any-connect, can our system admins or network admins access my iPhone content while i am connected through Cisco any-connect?

Thanks

Cisco anyconnect is nothing more than a VPN app that is designed to connect back to your work network securely.

They likely have resources on the Intranet that are not available to the outside world and the VPN will put you onto that network using that Cisco VPN software.

Generally speaking this will not give network administrators (your IT dept.) access to your phone. VPN software is designed to give you access to their systems. So unless your IT people have inserted a trojan into Cisco's VPN software (doubtful in the extreme) you are safe from your IT department gaining access to your personal device using that software.


My bluetooth keyboard and touchpad seem to be interfering On a Mac Air running the latest OSX I find that the keys that I type are not showing up quickly on the screen sometimes with a multi second delay. It is very intermittent but it happens regularly all day. It's intolerable.

The keyboard is a cheap bluetooth Anker keyboard. The touchpad is a Logitech magic pad equivalent.

Is there such a thing as Bluetooth interference? Because the keyboard, computer and touchpad are all very close to each other. And can it make sense that a bluetooth keyboard works well on an iPhone and badly on a Mac Air?

The other thing I noticed is from time to time I get the "touchpad reconnecting" message as a ghost overlay over the screen - you know the one I mean?

What is going on?

I've had this same exact issue with a Bluetooth apple magic mouse. The culprit for me was the rechargeable batteries that I was using. Before I changed the batteries it would constantly lose connectivity and then connect again a few seconds later. It was very frustrating.

Did your keyboard and touchpad come with any drivers? If so are the up to date?


A REAL iTunes server on NAS I am certainly not the only one dealing with the issue (looking into questions here which deal with some aspects related to an iTunes Server or looking at the Apple Support Forum). So I ask:

What is a way of having a real (explanation of real follows) iTunes Server on a NAS?

Driving force of course is the desire to centralize my iTunes Library, photos, big data, that I do not want to carry around with my me. Solution: A Network Attached Storage (NAS). For all the other stuff except the iTunes library this solution is great. Of course I can put the library on it BUT:

I will not be able to stream content to my iDevice directly (I could if my Mac is, but not directly)
I cannot tell my library to stream some music to an AirPlay device from my iDevice (again, only if my Mac is on)
In principle: Without any other device(s) running, my library can do nothing. It is not stand alone! To stream content requires additional devices running.

Any NAS that can store any of my data (ok that's every NAS :)) and serves as a stand alone iTunes library I consider a real iTunes Server. I would consider it a real real iTunes Server if I can remote it via Apples Remote App and stream music/videos via Apple appropriate apps  (yes I kinda favor Apples solution whenever available).

I will give myself an answer for one possibility (an additional Mac) with pros and mainly cons. But I am very interested in other solutions (please as well do not hide disadvantages from your proposed solutions)!

One possibility: An additional Mac.

Pros:

Could do everything asked for.

Cons:

Expensive.
Power consuming.
To save some power, one would let it sleep. So everytime one wants to connect to the library, the Mac has to be waked up.
Setup not as easy as NAS.


Can removing the internal hard drive help me recover my data? My mid-2015 MacBookPro will not boot up, can I remove the internal hard drive and back up my data that way?

Yes indeed. Here is a kit that would get you a new drive and a sled to do data recovery on the old drive.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-display/2013-2014-2015

If you just need the sled, that’s cheaper. Or you could pay a recovery service to do all the work.

https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/

For DIY recovery, Data Rescue is amazing and great value for what it does.

https://www.prosofteng.com/


Where are system UI image files stored? On OS X Yosemite, where are the image files for system UI elements such as buttons, sliders, menus, traffic lights, etc. stored?

The resources are stored at

/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemAppearance.bundle/Contents/Resources

Note there is currently no known way to extract the art from the .car files, as far as I can tell.


How to slow down clock speed of processor I recently bought a new MacBook Pro which sometimes goes too fast.  I frequently program for Mathematica, and on my old 2007 MacBook Pro I usually got a feeling for inefficient code when it runs sluggishly (that's when I decide "gee, I wrote some garbage code.  Maybe I should spend a couple hours fine-tuning it").  However, on my new Mac, everything just runs zippy fast.

Is there a switch on the Mac that lets me slow down the CPU to, say, 1 GHz?

If your concern is how efficient your software is, let me suggest a more engineering-oriented solution that will let you keep your MacBook running at full speed:

Use the profiler built into Mathematica.  This will let you identify the parts of your computations that consume the most time without having to resort to seat-of-the-pants measurements that only work on slow hardware.