Different resolution when connecting to Mac remotely I want to connect from a Windows machine to a MacBook Pro remotely. What I tried is TeamViewer and VNC, but at both I'm not able to change the resolution for the remote connection. Only the resolution of the integrated screen seems to be supported (1280 x 800).

Microsoft RDP is able to do this on Windows machines. How is this done with a Mac?

There's a subtle difference in the 2 technologies-- and kind of a misnomer.

Apple's remote screen sharing technology is based on VNC -- Virtual Network Computing. You'd think this would be a virtualized technology that would provide you with whatever screen resolution you wanted, right?

And Windows RDP -- Remote Desktop Protocol -- it would only give you what appeared on a remote desktop, right?

Wrong and wrong.

Apple's VNC-based Screen Sharing will show you what the user's preferences are set to. This is great for supporting a remote user -- you see exactly what they see, even if they have multiple monitors, you can pick and choose which one (or both) that you want to see.

And if there's someone already logged on to the system and you're connecting from another Mac? You're given the choice of whether you want to connect to their account's display, or use your own account's preferences. Multiple users simultaneously on one Mac, even with different screen resolutions.

So the trick is, set your account's preferences to what you want to see remotely; by default, that's going to be the native screen resolution your MacBook Pro supports. I think that once you've set those on your desktop, you're only given the option of scaling it on the Screen Sharing session if you're logged in with a user account not associated with a physical display (the Display preferences shows your remote session as an Unknown Display.)

But changing the resolution to something that's not reflected on the remote display? That's virtualized technology only supported by Remote Desktop.

Yes, confusion, caused by poor choices in names. Apple's use of Screen Sharing is probably the most appropriate name of them all.


Selectively disable iCloud keychain syncing for WiFi passwords I have iCloud Keychain sync enabled, but I want to stop it syncing WiFi passwords.

I have a portable WiFi hotspot which I use for my laptop and iPad, but I don't want my iPhone to connect to it since it has it's own 3G

Because iCloud is syncing the settings, within about 30 seconds of connecting my laptop to the 3G hotspot, my iPhone will connect itself. If I go into wifi settings on the iPhone and manually disconnect, about 30 seconds later my laptop will disconnect too. It seems with iCloud wifi sync on, I can’t connect my laptop to WiFi without my phone also connecting.

The only way to get around it seems to be disabling Keychain sync in iCloud. I’ve tried Googling, but got no real help on how to disable it without turning off Keychain, which is what I’ve done at the moment.

I also don't want to enable 'Ask before joining networks' on my iPhone, since I'll be manually re-connecting it constantly.

I was able to stop my MacBook from using a wifi password that should only be used on the iPhone by going into KeyChain Access -> System -> UNWANTED_WIFI_NETWORK -> Access Control and then removing airport and airportd from the list "Always allow access by these applications". Seems to be still connecting on the iPhone but not the MacBook.


How to repair Mac partitions without Internet Recovery and Rescue USB? Resizing the C:\ drive under Windows(bootcamp) corrupted mac partitions. Neither Mac OS X nor Windows are able to boot. Holding the Option(ALT) key shows only Windows, which can't boot.

Internet Recovery doesn't work giving -2002F error.
No other Mac nearby to create recovery USB.
I have only Windows PC with internet in my disposal to fix this.
No single user nor verbose mode loads.

How do I recover the Mac partition table? I heard TestDisk could fix that, but how do I run it?

There is not much you can do with a stock Mac to fix the hard drive.

You could plug the hard drive in another Mac (as a secondary drive, not a boot one) and see what Disk Utility tells you (press command-space then type Disk Utility to launch it) about it but it's not guaranteed to help you much. I am not even sure it can correctly repair a boot hard drive.

Your best bet is using a disk repair program such as DiskWarrior (http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/).

It costs a bit but has a very good reputation and saved many damaged hard drives. Cf http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/ode_to_diskwarrior_superduper_dropbox for a great example of it saving important data.


How to switch off mDNSResponder as it is draining my mobile data? I was shocked to see the received and sent bytes consumed by mDNSResponder in activity monitor, please help as it is consuming high mobile data.

mDNSResponder handles DNS resolution in macOS. That means that when any other program running on the Mac wants to connect to an Internet server by name (e.g. Safari wanting to connect to www.apple.com), mDNSResponder is what does the research to turn that name into a numeric IP address so the program can actually connect to it.

This means three things: First, if you turn it off, your Mac will be unable to do very much on the Internet. Everything that uses DNS names will break, and that's basically everything that uses the Internet.

Second, it shouldn't be using that much actual data; lookups are pretty small, and in normal usage it won't do too huge a number of them. It might look like a lot if you're using something that shows cumulative usage, since mDNSResponder runs basically forever, so you'd see how much data it's used since the last time you restarted your Mac.

Third, the data that it does use isn't really its fault (so to speak). It's doing things (and generating traffic) because other programs are doing things that require it.

If you are seeing a large amount of traffic from mDNSResponder, there may be something else going on. I'd start with a malware scan, and if that doesn't solve it look into finding out what all that traffic is and what program is triggering it, and stop it at that level.


Where on the file system are my photos imported to? I'm using OS X Yosemite 10.10.5.  I have connected my Canon PowerShot A3400 IS Camera via USB to my Mac and automatically a window launched that imported my photos.  The Photos application (version 1.0.1 (215.65.0)) launched and I can see my photos within it.  My question is, where on the file system are these photos?  I want to import these into a Google photo album but don’t see any option in the Photos application to save them somewhere and I can’t seem to find them in the Finder app.

If you're using the Photos application then your imported pictures can be found at:

~/Pictures/Photos Library

This is a special folder. If you double click on it in Finder it'll open the Photos application instead of showing you the contents of the folder. To see the contents, right click on the folder in Finder and select Show Package Contents from the menu.

Once you're inside the special folder the unaltered master photos are in the Masters sub-directory sorted in to year and then month then day sub-folders.

If you're trying to find the path to the location from a Terminal command line it's:

~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary


Internet not working on iPad mini with iOS 7 Since a couple of days internet connected applications (such as facebook) have stopped working on my wife's iPad mini which has iOS 7.1.2.

Further symptoms:

internet works in Safari
internet doesn't work in Facebook (though it works with the messenger component), the app store, Dropbox
trying to install updates fails (seems to time out, doesn't even start downloading)
tried to sign out from the Apple account (Settings -> iTunes & App store) and sign back in, however it won't let me sign in (tried multiple times and confirmed that the account details are correct by signing in on a PC)
tried rebooting multiple times to no avail

Any ideas what could be done? I will try to connect it to a PC having iTunes later to see if can help - also will try to update it to iOS 8.4 (hopefully it's possible to do so without being signed in to the apple account).

I solved it - turns out the problem was a flaky internet connection! The clue was that I was unable to sign in to iTunes on my Windows laptop (the connection was timing out), even though I could do the same on my Linux laptop.

I rebooted the router and then was able to sign in to the iCloud account from the iPad and everything started working. I also updated it to iOS 8.4 just in case :-)


How to run a command on open terminal via shortcut I am developing using electron on macOS. After making changes we need to run the terminal command npm start to run the app.

I would like to create a shortcut on macOS so that it simply switches focus on the terminal and runs the command.

Currently I'm using this, but it loads a new terminal window:

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "Terminal"
        reopen
        activate
        do script "npm start"
    end tell

end run

I can't initiate a new terminal for this as the command has to be run from the current project folder to start it.

Any help in right direction would be appreciated.

Found the answer to this query so wanted to share.

The problem with the code in question was that it was opening the new temrinal window.

The solution was th prevent it from doing that by running the code in already open window, by mentioning the window 1 in it like this:

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "npm start" in window 1
end tell

We can also use keycode and keystroke technique discussed here: https://stackoverflow.com/q/1870270/953566 too, however that was too lengthy and complicated, but can be useful in someones situation.


Automatically sync folder contents in the background Since Lion still won't allow me to search the SMB volumes I need, I'm planning on syncing them to a local folder that will be indexed by Spotlight. What's the best way to sync folders automatically in the background? I don't want to open up an app and manually hit a button to capture the newly added files, so I'm hoping that there's something out there. Thanks for your help!

jared

Have a look at the answers to this question: Auto sync local files to remote
many of those suggestions are also relevant to you.

Another approach, if all you are trying to do is get Spotlight to index the SAMBA share, is to try running the commands:

mdutil  /Volumes/x -i on
mdutil /Volumes/x -p on

where x is the Volume name of the drive.

I have heard that this will enable Spotlight to index the network share.

More info and discussion here:

http://forums.apple-group.com/archive/index.php?t-3679.html


Add bookmarklet to mobile safari Is there some easy method for installing bookmarklets on an iPad/iOS device that does't involve syncing my bookmarks with a computer somewhere?

Examples showing the sync with computer installation.

http://helpdesk.lastpass.com/bookmarklets/#Installing+Bookmarklets+on+the+iPad
https://support.pinterest.com/entries/21033321-how-do-i-install-the-pin-it-bookmarklet-on-an-ipad-iphone

Copy/Paste Method

On your device, copy the bookmarklet code.

If you don't have the bookmarklet code in plain text (just a link), the easiest thing to do is open the page with the link on a Mac or PC, copy the javascript contents of the bookmarklet and email them to yourself, then copy that on your device.

Create a new bookmark for any site (doesn't matter which one).
Open the bookmarks menu, tap Edit and select the bookmark you just created.
Paste the bookmarklet code in place of the URL, then change the name to whatever you want.

That should give you a working bookmarklet without having to mess around with syncing.


How would I get rid of ios app offloading? How to get rid of iOS app offloading ? I don't want apps to be deleted when there's little space left on the device.

Settings > App Store and iTunes > Offload unused apps. Turn it off.


Boot screen hangup after upgrade from El Capitan to Sierra I have a late-2011 15" MBP. Yesterday I decided to upgrade from El Capitan to Sierra.

As it turns out, that was not a good idea: the Installation worked, but now after the first reboot, the machine won't boot any more. It'll get stuck on the boot screen (with the Apple logo) with the progress indicator completely finished.

I've tried

Waiting 8 hours to see whether it'd move after all
Booting into the recovery console and re-running the Sierra install
Booting into the recovery console and running Disk Utility's first aid (which says did not encounter any problems)
Booting into safe mode (no Change, boot gets stuck)
Resetting the NVRAM
Resetting the SMC

How can I further diagnose the problem?

Because my last full backup is a week old and I didn't make one before I ran the upgrade (I know I know) it would be very painful to format the HDD, or restore the backup.

Does MacOS have a boot log somewhere that I can look at from the recovery console?

Edit: so I discovered verbose mode and managed to find out what the system apparently is getting hung up on:

SmartBattery: finished polling type 2
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 2

This discussion seems to hint that the problem could be an incompatible kernel extension that the installer didn't recognize as problematic.

I've started removing third party kexts, but so far without luck. It also seems weird that the problem is unchanged in safe mode...

I managed to fix it. For future generations, here's what I did:

Turned out I needed to start the device in safe mode and let Sierra finish its installation - sorting out whatever incompatibility there was automatically. I did try safe mode, but when it showed exactly the same behaviour - a frozen bootup screen with nothing happening - I gave up after 15 minutes and restarted the machine.

Luckily, I then decided to try safe mode and verbose mode at the same time. To do this, I logged into the recovery console (Cmd + R during bootup), started the terminal, and enabled both modes using

sudo nvram boot-args="-x -v"

(this does not seem to work when booting the machine in Single User mode because of sandbox restrictions; it has to be the terminal in the recovery console)

With this, I managed to see on startup that while the boot screen would be frozen for a long while in safe mode, too, a lot was happening behind the scenes, and eventually I got through to the login screen.

After logging in, the Sierra installer worked for another while (the installation was not yet complete) and rebooted.

(For the record, at this point, I also removed an extension named SteerMouse - but I don't know whether that was what caused the problem. On its website, it does claim to be ready for Sierra.)

Once I was logged in again, I opened a terminal (from within MacOS now, no need for the recovery console) and turned off safe mode and verbose mode again:

sudo nvram boot-args=""

the system is now booted up in normal mode, and everything seems fine.


How to edit files on/copy to an NFTS external hard drive? I've got a WD MyBook external hard drive formatted in NTFS with files on it. How can I edit files already on it as well as paste files to it?

I've installing Mounty and when I try to re-mount it read-write I get the following error message:

"Volume "MyBook" not re-mountable. The volume is not re-mountable in read/write mode. Probably it was not clean unmounted before."

I've tried another external hard drive also formatted in NTFS and that works.

I've tried one of the free solutions mentioned in the previous post - How do I write to NTFS drives in OS X?

I have faced similar problem with my WD external 1 TB drive formatted as NTFS.

For writing, you'll need to install a proprietary NTFS driver for macOS called Paragon NTFS Driver for Mac.

You can follow the instructions on this support article on WD website, How to Install the Paragon NTFS Driver for Mac.


Trying to play steam pc games on my macbook pro So I was wondering if I put parallels on a ssd (256 GB) and kept Mac os x on a HDD and had 16 GB ram would It be good enough to play steam games.I dont care about graphics cards, Im just wondering would parallels run almost like a pc os.

It will run almost like a PC yes.

Also considering you have 16GB of Ram you are good to go! But be careful not to fill up your Hard Drive with the games you install as they can stack up your Hard Drive pretty easily.

I would suggest to install all PC games on an external Hard Drive. Since filling up the SSD could potentially slow down the performance and boot-up speed.


iPhone 5s using too much data on Wi-Fi I am using an iPhone 5s on iOS 10 and nowadays I have been having an issue. I don't have an unlimited Wi-Fi connection as I use my Samsung mobile phone hotspot for my iPhone.

Whenever I connect my iPhone to Wi-Fi, it starts using very high quantities of data, i.e, 2–3 MB every second without any app running. I also tried turning of Background App Refresh and Automatic Downloads are turned off. I tried a soft reset but to no avail. Any idea what's causing this?

EDIT: Below is my original answer (for posterity). It describes turning off "Wi-Fi Assist" which, while reducing cellular data use, DOES NOT answer OP's question of reducing data use. For Apple's built-in solution to reduce data usage on cellular, see my other answer.

Go to settings -> cellular. Scroll down past the list of apps to "Wi-Fi Assist" and turn it off! This has been a huge problem for lots of people. Wifi Assist is turned on by default. When it's on, whenever your mobile data is faster than your wifi, it uses your mobile data without telling you.
Your problem should disappear after you've completed this step.


"readlink" gets the original path of a symlink; what's the equivalent for Mac aliases? In the terminal, I can use readlink on a symlink and it prints the target path of the symlink. E.g.

ln -s original.txt symlink.txt
readlink symlink.txt  # prints original.txt

How do I do this for Mac alias? I know the path is embedded in the resource fork, because the xattr command will display it in a raw format mixed with other data:

xattr -p -l com.apple.ResourceFork alias_file

However, I don't know enough about this format to extract it. I found the perl Mac::Files man page, but it has no examples, and Google was no help with it.

Maybe there's a way to use osascript to do it, similar to this answer?

After more googling, I was able to pull together the pieces for an osascript command:

alias_path="your/alias/path"
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder"' -e "posix path of (original item of alias file (posix file \"$alias_path\") as text)" -e 'end tell'


Apps bought on iTunes not showing up on the iPhone 4 An app that i buy on iTunes doesn't show up in the iPhone with iCloud unless i sync it with a cable.

Also the reverse applies. Anything bought on the iPhone doesn't show up in iTunes in the computer unless the cable is connected.

Any suggestions?
Thanks.

You need to enable automatic downloads.

In iTunes: iTunes > Preferences > click on the Store tab: there you can enable automatic downloads by separately checking the boxes next to 'Music', 'Apps' and 'Books'.

On your iOS device: Settings > Store: there you'll find switches to activate automatic downloads for 'Music', 'Apps' and 'Books'.

Note: If you only enable automatic downloads in iTunes music, apps and books downloaded on your iOS device will also download in iTunes on your computer. If you only enable automatic downloads on your iOS device the reverse is true. If you want it to work in both directions you need to enable it both in iTunes and on your iOS device.


2-factor authentication for ssh I've seen walkthroughs to set up 2-factor authentication for ssh on linux boxes.  Is there any way to do it on OSX?

Shamelessly stolen here: Enable Google two-factor authentication for SSH connections on OS X and updated:

Prerequisites on the remote host:

Xcode command line tools, Xcode
brew working (updated, upgraded, doctored)

Other prerequisites:

Google account and some registered mobile device (Android/iOS/Blackberry)

Install google-authenticator-libpam:

brew install autoconf automake libtool
git clone https://github.com/google/google-authenticator-libpam.git
cd google-authenticator-libpam
export LIBTOOL=glibtool
export LIBTOOLIZE=glibtoolize
autoreconf -ivf
touch AUTHORS NEWS README ChangeLog
automake --add-missing
./configure
sudo make install
sudo cp /usr/local/lib/security/pam_google_authenticator.so /usr/lib/pam/
sudo vi /etc/pam.d/sshd

Add the following line in sshd:

auth       required       pam_google_authenticator.so  nullok

Reload ssh:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist

Install and configure Google Authenticator on your iPhone (or a similar device)

Set up Google Authenticator on the remote host interactively or non-interactively. Example:

google-authenticator  -t -d -r 1 -R 30 -w 21 -f

Use google-authenticator -h to sho the options.

Connect to the remote host after setting up the Google Authenticator PAM module on the remote host and Google Authenticator on your mobile device (adding the token for your user and remote host!):

ssh user@example.com
Password:    #password of user
Verification code:   #6-digit code you received on your mobile device.

To get around the error "Failed to use libqrencode to show QR code visually for scanning." install libqrencode with brew:

brew install libqrencode

and create a QR.png yourself if you don't want to create the QR code at google.com by omitting the first part of the URL and starting with otauth...:

qrencode "otpauth://totp/demo@myhost%3Fsecret%3DSECRET_KEY%26issuer%3Dmyhost" -o qr.png


Why is this playlist copying the wrong songs to my iPhone? I have a rather complicated playlist in iTunes called "Headbang." It looks like this:

There are about 50 artists included in that final criteria. This works perfectly in iTunes and the playlist gives me about 1,500 songs.

When I sync my iPhone and tell iTunes to include that playlist, I get a playlist on the iPhone that is named "Headbang," but the playlist has 5,995 songs, and I have no idea how they're selected. All of the songs that in the iPhone's version seem to be 4-star, and I do have another playlist called "4 Star Music" that is copying over, but it has only 5,935 songs, so it isn't exactly the same list of songs, although "4 Star Music" might be a subset of "Headbang."

I tried duplicating the playlist, but that didn't work, and neither did renaming it. I haven't manually recreated it yet because of how many artists are included. The only way I was able to get a playlist on the iPhone with those 1,571 songs was to select all the songs in the smart playlist and manually create a new playlist from them. Obviously I'd like to use the smart playlist if I can figure out what's wrong.

Note that I don't seem to be having problems with other smart playlists. So, any suggestions on how I can get this playlist to copy the correct songs to my iPhone?

Here are the current version stats:

MacBook Pro 17" (mid 2010), macOS 10.11.5
iTunes 12.4.3.1
iPhone 6S Plus 64 GB, iOS 9.3.3

Well, I tried a different tactic. Barring the "Location" criterion, the playlist is basically, "All the 4 and 5 star songs by this set of artists that isn't Christmas music." I have a 4 star smart playlist, a 5 star smart playlist and a Christmas playlist, so I took the time to create a "Headbang Artists" playlist (BTW, 97 artists), and created a new smart playlist that had the criteria of, in "Headbang Artists," not in "Christmas," and in either "4 Star Songs" or "5 Star Songs." This synced successfully.

I'm guessing the other playlist is corrupted somehow and that the duplication of it also duplicates the corruption somehow. But I'll keep it around for a little while in case anyone else knows how to actually fix it in case someone else has a similar problem.


Time machine: moving a source external disk to a new computer I have two external 4TB disks, one for data and the other for TM backups. I recently moved from a MBP2010 (10.8.4) to a MBP2012 (10.10.5, fresh install).

On the backup drive, TM adds a root folder for the new machine, and that's fine. But it doesn't recognize the data disk, wanting to back it up from scratch.

There are many posts about TM behavior, but I haven't seen anything about this scenario. Yet there's a ton of people who use large external drives for data. Everyone has to wipe their backup and start anew when they migrate?

(PS I'm fully aware that the backup media is too small and if my 4TB data disk reaches closer to capacity I'll have to get a large backup drive.)

To make sure I understand - you have one external HD for data, plugged into your new computer, that was previously attached to your OLD computer - and you backed up your old computer + this drive to a second Time Machine drive?

Time Machine is not recognizing the old archive because the new machine is a fresh install. So it made a new backup. The data drive (which you state is being seen as a "new drive") would have been part of that old machine backup - Time Machine should recognize things on a per-computer, not per-drive basis. Unless you tell your new machine to inherit the old backup, the existing backup of your data disk will be ignored as well, and a new backup will be created with that disk as part of your current computer backup.

SSDs are great but the lack of cheap internal storage means more people have to use external disks for data. Cloud isn't a good alternative for everyone. Unfortunately the backup systems designed by Apple are not treating externals as separate backups - they are included as part of the internal mounted disk hierarchy of your computer.


In Photos, how can I auto-split events upon import? I am having several issues making sense of the new OS X 10.10.3 Photos app after using iPhoto for years.  I imported some photos and am used to them splitting events by date into separate "Events."  I don't know what the equivalent is for "Events" in this new product.  Am I required to make a new album for each date if I want them separated?  Is there a "manual" of sorts for the new app?

Events are deprecated. Your library is just shown in an interface with date & location (if available). If you want further organization you can (have to) create albums.


How to access windows shared directory for music files? I would like to access music files on windows from my iPad.

Is it possible? I really don't think it is a good idea to transfer music files to my ipad since I use ipad at home anyway.

If you're using iTunes on Windows, I think you can just use playlist sharing?

If you're looking to access a directory that's shared from Windows, you'll need to find a utility for your iPad that supports Samba (SMB), as that's the protocol in use for file sharing on Windows.


OS X Traceroute Command: what is '*' Using the traceroute command in  OS X 10.9.x, multiple '*' characters are printed as output. Can anyone explain exactly what these are and what they mean?

Command output example:

traceroute to www.google.com (xxx.xxx.xx.xxx), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  * * *
 3  * * *
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  *

That means traceroute didn't get any responses to its probes. The way it works is that it sends out test packets set to expire after 1 hop, two hops, etc; then it listens for "sorry, but your packet expired before I could deliver it" and prints the addresses of the routers that sent those responses. The "*"s mean it didn't hear back.

You're getting all "*"s, which means that either there's no route to the destination, or there's a firewall blocking the probes and/or the responses, or something along those lines.


Malfunctioning of keyboard My MacBook keyboard is not functioning properly . If I type a it shows aq1 and also for a and q . For s sw2 and so on . I have tried running it in safe mode but it didn't help .the problem is only with alphabets and numerals all other keys are working properly . Strangely p, z, x , c,v,b, n and m are also working

Check your keyboard settings.

Go to  System Preferences... > Keyboard then the Input Sources tab.

Depending on your language, you should be able to see the current layout.

Keyboards can be configured for different languages and different layouts.  The US Keyboard standard is commonly called QWERTY as many physical keyboards are laid out that way.  Notice the keys from Q to Y left to right.  If you see your preferred layout there and it is not currently selected, change it.

UPDATE: Check that your keyboard may not have physical damage (liquid) by pugging in an external keyboard via USB or Bluetooth if you have one available.  If the external operates properly, there could be some physical damage.  If it operates the same as the built in keyboard, then the problem is in software.


Event sync between iPhone calendar and outlook 2016 calendar results in a time zone error I have a IPhone 6S w/ IOs 10.2 and Outlook 2016 (office 365) in my Menovo ideapad 710S 64 bits with Windows 10.

When I add a new event in ICloud calendar, the event apperas one hour later in the  Outlook calendar, and when I add a new event in Outlook calendar it appears one hour earlier in ICloud Cal.

Both devices are setted in the same time zone. How can I discover or correct this time zone error?

I turned away from iCloud Control Panel for Windows earlier because of some other reason that iCloud folders of contact, calendar and task cannot be used as Outlook default folder. This often gives me a headache that I have to always click into icloud folders before creating new entries. The solution I found working for me is EVO Collaborator for Outlook. Regarding to the time zone issue in the question, I have never met such problem because I think the Outlook add-in self-adjusts to the time zone you are at vs. what is on your iCloud account. You can try it out.


Do any OS X twitter apps integrate well with Notification Center? I'm looking for an app to let me keep the twitter integration from OS X (where I can tweet from Notification Center (hereafter abbreviated NC)) but also have my mentions from NC open in the app as opposed to opening Safari or another web browser.

I'm afraid the answer is no app can register/snatch the system twitter notifications intercept Notification Center links in a stand alone app rather than Safari, but I'm going to ask in case this is possible.

Even if I have to turn off the OS X twitter notification in system preferences  or log out entirely to achieve this goal, do any OS X twitter clients integrate well with notification center for either DM or mention notifications?

Tweetbot supports the Notification Center and adds clickable notifications that open in the app itself.

It does not intercept the standard Twitter notifications Mountain Lion added though, but as you mentioned, you can disable those to only see the Tweetbot ones. You can still tweet from the Notification Center after disabling standard Twitter notifications.


CLI to copy to clipboard but still output to term ? I know that piping to pbcopy copies command line outputs to the clipboard.

How can I still show the output in the terminal ?

The tool of choice is called tee. Full description is available via man tee but you canprobably just use

echo test | tee >(pbcopy)

to get the result you are looking for.


assign nothing as default open with application I usually have bunch of audio files (.mp3) with my music and some other non-audio files (.asd) in the same directory. To play some music quickly I just select all in Finder and hit CMD + o to open them in my default application (VLC). The .asd files will also get opened, but I don't ever want to open them. They are used by the Ableton Live application, but aren't meant to be opened with it.

Is it possible to assign "nothing" as a default application for .asd files? I'm thinking possibly using defaults or other some other command-line trick, if needed.

RCDefaultApp - freeware, installs as a Control Panel. Yes, it's a million years old, yes it still works to Mojave, but may not at Catalina.

Extensions tab [might take a few seconds to populate], find your .asd in the list & set the default to <disable>

New kid on the block for when RC is no longer viable seems to be SwiftDefaultApps though it doesn't seem to be so simple for this task.


macOS Big Sur Fails on Internet Recovery Mode: "Installation could not be completed." I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro Mid 2014. I have been struggling with installation process since last night. At first, I started my Mac by pressing Option + Command + R and Power button so that I opened it with internet recovery mode. After that, I cleared my disk space and tried to install macOS Big Sur. But just before selecting my disk where I am going to install, it shows an error which says "Installation could not be completed." I tried to install the os which comes with Mid-2014 and tried to update it but it didn't work either.
When I look at logs with Command + L, it says OSISPredicateUpdateProduct: Incompatible Apps List: No product found

mine is 2017 macbook pro no touchbar with updated macos bigsur i formatted the whole ssd to make sure my data is gone because i am selling my mac due to this pandemic i lost my job =# now im stuck at internet recovery and cannot usb flash... when pressed opt key while booting doesnt work... pressing opt+cmd+R shows big sur update but and it can go to accept terms and conditions select HD then it keeps failing in remaining 13mins left error 08 anyone encountering this softbrick? is the server still own by intel? cos apple is dumping them as they switch to arm our intel mac is also dumped wtf?


MacBook not detecting external display I have an old MacBook 1.1 and since I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6 it does not seem to connect to my external Monitor or TV. I'm using the Mini-DVI to VGA adapter. I've tried using detect displays and made sure the monitor is outputting through VGA.

The strange thing is I have my MacBook set up to dual boot into Ubuntu and I can use the external monitor when in Ubuntu. It seems to be software issue on the Mac OS X side.

Can anyone suggest any troubleshooting steps?

Try resetting the PRAM:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379


"drag n drop" application to convert images to base64 string (for web development) I'm after an osx program that will convert an image into a base64 string (for web development).

Basically replicates this: http://webcodertools.com/imagetobase64converter/Create

I suspect there is no application, and in that case I'd be interested if I can get the terminal command which will encode, to apply to a certain file on Right-Click

Followup question: Can I give Automator apps a window?

SOLUTION

I combined the two solutions below, to create an application with the following code

for f in "$@"
do
    openssl base64 -in "$f" | pbcopy
done

And infact I made a dropzone target using Platypus, as shown in my subsequent SO question/answer

Base64 Automator Droplet

You can use Automator to create your own Base64 droplet. Mac OS X includes openssl which can encode files to Base64; this superuser question explains how, OS X: Base64 encode via command line

Launch Automator.app
Create a new application
Add a Run Shell Script action
Set Pass input: to as arguments
Within the script, replace echo with the script below.
Save your workflow as an application

To use your application, drag and drop files onto it. A new base64 encoded file will appear next to the original file.

Shell Script

for f in "$@"
do
    openssl base64 -in "$f" -out "$f.b64"
done

To learn more about using Automator, see Apple's Mac Basics: Automator.


Doing a 'hard reset' of wifi state without restarting I live in a large building with a lot of routers, and a functioning router right next to my room, but the connection is extremely slow. When I brought the issue to IT, they told me my computer was attempting to connect to a router that was much further away, while ignoring the closer one. (All of these routers are part of the same WiFi network.)

I can fix the issue by restarting the computer, but it comes back if I bring it outside and back into the building. Toggling wifi on and off doesn't help. I'm running the latest version of OSX and I don't have anything special installed.

Is there some state my laptop is maintaining that is being cleared on a restart? If so, how can I clear it manually without having to restart?

If I understand correctly, your laptop is prioritizing one Wi-Fi Access Point over another, even though that one is further away. You can change the priority of Access Points by finding the following:

System Preferences ==> Network ==> Advanced

You will see a list of networks your laptop has previously connected to, and you can rearrange the list via drag & drop, with the first item in the list being of the highest priority.

Once you are done, click OK then Apply and restart your Wi-Fi card to get the desired results.


Best practices for a backup and fresh install I try to keep my mid-2009 Macbook Pro (5,3) pretty clean but over the last year I have definitely felt things slowing down a bit. I'm anxious to do a fresh install but I want to make sure I have a backup of everything at least, but an easy restore procedure would be best. I have files that aren't in the standard home folder locations, so I want to make sure I get everything.

What are your best practices for backing up before a fresh install?

(Option #1)

Get Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! (yes, with an ‘!’).
Get an external Firewire or USB2 Drive that has the same or bigger size than your current drive.
Using either of the above programs, make a perfect clone of your entire Old hard drive.
Boot using the image in the New drive to make sure it works (either program will explain how to do that, it’s just pressing a key at startup).
Once you’re sure your new drive boots and all your information is there, shutdown the computer, disconnect the new drive and store it in a safe location.
Proceed to format and reinstall your computer with your OS X DVD.
At the end of the install, decide whether you want to transfer all your information automatically using migration assistant (usually a good idea, but if there’s something “bad” with your profile, it will likely be copied over again, however this time the operating system will be fresh and you can always create a new user and manually replicate things). If you go this route, you’ll need to connect your New drive so Migration Assistant can pull the data (it won’t alter the New drive, it will read it only).
(Optionally) Do not transfer any settings with Migration assistant and do it Manually after the install is over. This is good if you have problems in your profile, but it’s a tedious work if you had years of “stuff”. You can have Migration Assistant to only transfer your documents (to save you the trouble later), but if you transfer your “Network Settings” and your “Applications” any problem you had in the past may “come back” in those two. You can always manually drag the apps from new drive to Old drive after the install. And unless you also drag their ~Library/Application Settings stuff, they will be “brand new and unconfigured”. I believe you get the idea.

(Option #2)

Do the same thing as Option #1, except that instead of making a clone (and booting from it), perform a full Time Machine backup to that new external drive.
Once you have the backup continue with step number 6 up there. Remember that Migration Assistant will have to be told to “migrate from a Time Machine backup” instead of “just another volume”.

Which one is better?
There’s no better or worse, but a few things must be observed:

A full clone, although may seem tedious, it’s a fully working volume that’s identical (well, almost) than your original one, it boots, you can even work from there in case of hard drive failure, in no time you have your computer back. That’s priceless in some environments and under certain circumstances. The clones can later (daily, hourly, etc.) be updated and it takes a fraction of a second to update (just like Time Machine doesn’t make a full backup every time). SuperDuper is very good at that and was a pioneer at doing it right and fast™.
A Time Machine, although a very nice and handy thing (and I do recommend you also have one once you have your working machine reinstalled and migrated), is not bootable and in case of total hard drive failure, you wouldn’t be able to start working immediately, because Time Machine backups are not bootable and the recovery process is somewhat slower and more prone to errors (in my humble experience).
With that being said, Time Machine wins hands down when you “need to find that file I had on my desktop a couple of weeks ago”. Since Full Clones (and their incremental stuff) usually do not keep history of changes (CCC has some stuff about that, but the space used grows really fast), then you always have the “latest” copy of your drive, but you cannot go back to your drive the way it was “a month ago”.

So there you have the two main methods.

An ideally backup plan (without going paranoid), will consists of a weekly (or daily) clone/snapshot to a bootable drive that you can store a few feet away from your computer every now and then and an “all the time” Time Machine drive sitting there, keeping your computer’s changes up to date in a short interval. This covers the two main problems:

I need last week’s file and I need it now! (Time Machine)
My Drive crashed but I need to continue working now! (Clone)

Good Luck! :)


Is there a way to transfer a Launchpad layout to another machine? If I spend time grouping apps in neat folders in Launchpad on one machine, is there a way to copy that mapping to another system without having to manually organize everything all over again ?

It does appear to work. Copy over the existing entry in the target ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock folder with the source file. The first use of launchpad was missing the majority of the icons but logging out and back in again to the account resolved this.


Why can my Mac charge my iPad but other computers can't? What do Macs do differently so its USB ports can charge my iPad, but if I plug into a USB port on my PC I get the "not charging" message?

Because the iPad needs more than the 500 mA that the USB 2.0 spec says computers need to provide.  Macwork has more information.


Deleted Windows Through DiskUtility, 100GB in "Free Space", Unable to Combine to Main Partition I deleted bootcamp with Disk Utility and now have lost 100GB of space that I can't recover.

macbook-pro:~ kevin$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         389.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +389.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            34.6 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.0 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US... +4.7 GB     disk2

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Kevin                   999.8 GB   disk3s2

I called apple and they had me wipe the HD clean, and reinstall the OS. It still hasn't fixed the problem, would appreciate some help!

Tried deleting the free space on disk utility but just get this error,

  An internal error has occurred and the disk for one of the specified
  operations could not be found. This may be a temporary issue, try
  again.

If you are using High Sierra and APFS. Try this.

Below command to find the list of Drives.

diskutil list

run this to retrieve the the free space.

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

Now your unused free space will be added to your existing hard disk as a single partition.


Can't use keyboard shortcuts to switch spaces unless I'm in mission control I have my Mac set up to switch spaces using Cmd + Num but sometimes, out of the blue, they will stop working unless I do the command when in mission control. Anybody have any idea why this happens?

I've found that some mission control problems are resolved by restarting the "Dock" process (which handles the job of Mission Control).  If you care to try that, the Terminal command is:

killall Dock

(But first use killall -s Dock to make sure the command will only kill the one process.)


Will a 120Hz monitor work with Thunderbolt? Will a 2011 Mac with Thunderbolt run a 120Hz monitor?

I ask because I'm considering switching my desktop from a 24" iMac 2.8 ATI to a 2011 Mac mini AMD and want to pick the best monitor.

If the monitor works with whatever adapter you want to use (Mini DisplayPort to DVI, etc.), then it should work fine on the Thunderbolt port.

When it comes to monitors, Thunderbolt isn't special: it's just like DisplayPort.


Using Automator services (Quick action) with Office 365 I've tried and searched a lot of time now but I can't get my services running under Office 365 (e.g. Word) If I right click and look under "Services" (I hope it's called that I have a german version) my Scripts don't appear there.

If I look in the menu they are checked but don't appear

I wrote the Rainbow hotkey Service. It's just a little tool to copy telephone numbers to clipboard

I hope someone can help me out.
Thank you

Services (Quick Actions) only appear in the menu if the settings at the very top of the Automator workflow window are set correctly.

You should make sure that "Workflow receives Text in Any Application" (In fact, you can even specify phone numbers.)


How do I find Preferences in bittorrent or utorrent on a Mac? I can't find Preferences in utorrent or bittorrent on my new MacBook Pro. How do I find Preferences on a Mac?

Welcome to the world of the Mac!

Unlike many other operating systems, most Mac OS X apps don't have a menu bar in the app itself but use the system-wide Menu Bar.

When uTorrent app is in focus (click on it once if you're not sure), the Menu Bar will show the menu options for uTorrent.

One of the options will be "Preferences..." as you can see in the screenshot below:


Recording on iPhone from stereo line-in I'm looking for a way to perform relatively high quality stereo line-in recording on iPhone. Unusual and third-party hardware is acceptable, but jailbreak is not. I am aware of the following options:

Griffin iMic paired with Apple's Lightning to USB Camera Adapter

Pros: Well-reviewed, USB interface.
Cons: Lightning to USB Camera Adapter is not supported on iPhone.

Blue Mikey Digital

Pros: Works with iPhone.
Cons: Requires Lightning adapter, line-in quality reportedly poor.

Neither of those satisfies my requirements. Is there some workaround I'm missing?

Check out some of the electric-guitar-interfaces.  For example, the Line 6 Sonic Port Channel Audio Interface has a stereo 1/8" input jack available. On the pricier side though.


Reset Mac OS X Bluetooth service? Any way to do this either via a utility, command-line, or otherwise? I regularly have my headphones and moused paired which causes the Bluetooth service to crash nearly daily. Sometimes I can just repair the devices but other times the service breaks completely. When that happens I have to reboot; very annoying indeed.

Is there a "Factory Reset" option for Apple Bluetooth keyboard, mouse, trackpad?

On newer OS X, you can access these advanced features from the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar. Hold shift and option (only) when clicking on the icon:

The debug menu has most of the action oriented items you'll need:

I've never seen resetting the module work better than powering it off, but I'm sure theres cases where that saves a trip to the repair shop.

Logging is useful, but the logs are very very large, so keep that in mind and set a reminder to turn it off tomorrow.

On older OS, you needed a developer tool to systematically remove pairing records and HID devices. Bluetooth Explorer ships with Xcode 3. (as of today, early June 2011 - this is something available at no cost if you agree to the terms of the free developer program. It might also be bundled with Xcode 4 - available with paid download or paid mac developer program -  but I can't vouch for that) You can also browse the developer documentation for free to learn more about bluetooth implementation.

The explorer has a detailed window with many settings to automate resetting devices for testing. Here is a portion of the window showing that not only are the local mac settings cleared, it will reach out to Apple Bluetooth devices and reset their internal state as well.

Since bluetooth has to start very soon in the boot process (and is part of the setup assistant since new macs that have no accounts have to know how to set up Bluetooth keyboards and mouse out of the box) it's not just a simple user preference file but instead a system level preference and stored in several locations.

You will be able to make your mac factory fresh to test bluetooth with the Bluetooth Explorer.


SSD boot drive does not work only on primary drive slot I have the following very strange problem with my 13″ early-2011 MacBook Pro.

The disk configuration is as follows:

Primary slot - FileVault 2 encrypted 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD
Secondary slot - the original 500GB hard drive in a caddy

For a year the computer worked flawlessly, until yesterday.
When I got home from work, I opened the laptop and it was supposed to wake up. Instead, it showed only a one-color screen and wouldn't wake up. So I closed and opened the lid a couple of times (it worked before), hoping that it will wake up. When it didn't, I decided to power it down from the power button.

Then, when I turned it on, it wouldn't boot at all.

After the initial infarct thoughts of dead SSD, playing with all possible boot modes and stuff, in safe mode it showed that it is indefinitely waiting for a boot device.

So I switched the drives, the SSD went in to the caddy and the HDD went into the primary slot, an VOILA - it worked again! The good thing was that the SSD is alive (the last Time Machine backup was 1 month old, which was bad).

When I booted in restore mode I tried to unlock the encrypted SSD in order to repair it and its permissions, but could not. Did a search and found out that it should be because of problematic encryption.

Then, I decrypted the SSD successfully from within OSX, and tried to switch the drives back to the original configuration - the SSD in the primary and the HDD in the secondary slot.

To my big surprise, it does not work! There is some problem having the SSD in the primary slot.

The laptop is out of warranty, I need it badly and I live in a country with very expensive services, so I am trying to find out the problem without leaving it in the repair shop for days or weeks.

So, any thoughts on what could the problem be?

Is it definitely the Late-2011 model and not the early-2011 model? as the early-2011 model had an intermittent problem with interference on the hard drive flex cable. It would usually only cause problems when a 6G SSD is fitted. Because it is the boot drive you can find the interference can cause boot problems, sometimes locking up or beach balling (the coloured circle going around).
If this is the case, the Late-2011 hard drive flex cable resolved this problem, so a replacement cable should sort it... but if its not working in the optical caddy either, then something else is going on (unless you have the 2.3GHz i5 Early-2011 machine. in which case, thats the only 2011 machine with a 3G SATA port in the optical bay, so your 6G drive wouldn't work in it). Can you confirm the generation? or the serial number will help identify the exact range and processor speed.

you can sometime fix the interference problem by insulating the flex cable a bit... or for testing the machine, connect your SSD to the hard drive flex cable, but instead of fitting it to the machine, leave the drive sitting on the side out of the casing unit so its away from the cable itself, as it will eliminate most of the direct interference issues.

I hope this helps. if you check your machine generation just let me know and i will see if i can help any further


What is the maximum resolution for using two external monitors with a Macbook Pro 15" Retina? I've got a MacBook Pro 15" retina with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB. I'm looking for two high-resolution monitors to hook up to it. Can anyone tell me what the maximum resolution is that is supported for both monitors in this setup? Specifically, can it support two 3840x2160 monitors? I've got the MacBook screen itself set to 2880 X 1800.

It can support 2 external screens over Thunderbolt at 2560x1600 or one 2560x1600 on Thunderbolt & one at 1920x1200 via HDMI (There is a linked report of getting all 3 working, but with overheating issues.)

Everymac is a good source of info for this sort of thing.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i7-2.7-15-mid-2012-retina-display-specs.html


Best practices for second hard drive on macOS I’ve a 1TB Mac Mini (Seagate hybrid HD + SSD) but I’m running out of space so I bought a second drive (Samsung 860 EVO 1TB).

Since it is as large as the first hard drive I don’t think using fusion drive would be a good idea and since the new drive is faster I think I should make it my boot drive, but how should I integrate the two to make the best of the new speed storage?

I’m thinking of migrating my user account to the new drive and keep iTunes Library, Photos Library and iMovie Library in the old drive. This 3 libraries are my main storage hogs. If that’s all, I think I don’t even need hard links.

Any additional tips and suggestions?

Internal or external? Which (exact model) of Mac Mini? Without that info this answert is gonna be vague.

If it is an external SSD connected via USB-C/Thunderbolt. you could do what I did, install masOS on the external and boot from it and then use migration utility to move everything to the external SSD and used the old internal drive for incidental storage and as an "emergency" boot drive.

If it is a slower interface I would benchmark your current setup. Install your OS and files on the external and benchmark it again, then decide how to configure it.

Depending on what is in your user folder in the way of files (what kind, text, graphics, video, music) and how much you use it you could keep your user folder on on the slower drive. Mostly text docs, PDFs and the like should be no problem, but if you are editing a lot of video or graphics that is I/O intensive, keep your files on the faster drive.

If you are installing a second internal drive I would pretty much do it the same way. An internal SSD would be really fast and you would get full benefit of the speed on the internal bus. I'd put everything on the SSD.


Is the flash storage firmware update 1.0 for my MBA installed? How can I verify it? On  May 16th 2013 Apple released the MacBook Air Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.0. Since I have experienced the described symptoms I really want this update.

However, the Mac App Store will show that I can still update the Firmware (again) after a restart. Since I waited for one minute, as required in the update description, I do not know what's going on.

After three attempts to install the update the Mac App Store still offers to install it once again...

The update description also mentions:

  Boot ROM or SMC Version Information: After the update, you will have Revision TPVABBF0.

How can I check latter version information, in case this is a bug in the Mac App Store app only and the firmware update has been installed successfully?

Firmware update and FileVault
A forum post suggests that Firmware updates require access to /System/... in addition to the EFI partition (disk0s1).
Since /System/... is located on the startup volume it is encrypted if you have FileVault 2 enabled - due to Full Disk Encryption.
If you search further down in /System/... you will find the Revision number mentioned in the Apple knowledge-base document for this Firmware updateTPVABBF0:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/HardDriveUpdate3/HDFW/APPLE_SSD_TS128E TPVABBF0

However, this alone is not a guarantee that the Firmware update has been installed. Before I had successfully applied the update, the contents already looked like this:

How to install...
Since there is no way around the encryption, I disabled FileVault - applied the update - and re-enabled FileVault.
You will notice that the update is installing if you see a grey bar during the boot process above which is a standard hard drive icon.
After the update, all the folders in /System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/... as you can see in the picture are still present and the Boot ROM Version: MBA51.00EF.B02 and SMC Version (system): 2.5f7 have not changed either.
While the Mac App Store still has the red badge for "new updates" it does not offer anymore to install the firmware update. So, I guess the firmware update has been installed successfully...


How to ssh with public-key on an iPad? I want to use an iPad to connect to a linux server through ssh. However, the server only accepts encrypted access using public-key authentication. Is there any way to do that?

So one question is what app to ssh. The other is how and where to put the key.

I basically want to use vim on the server. And optionally, if possible, gnuplot is also helpful.

This is totally feasible.

I would start with an app like prompt by panic that has excellent quality, proper documentation and first rate support.

https://www.panic.com/prompt/

They say shockingly good software, and I’ve found that to be an understatement as a happy customer for years, paying for many of their products. Prompt is a 5 star app in my book, best of the best for ssh from iOS.


Time Capsule Setup Woes I received a 2TB Time Capsule today, and replaced an Airport Extreme. However, after replicating the settings from the Airport Extreme on the Time Capsule, there was no internet connection (amber light). I tried:

turning DHCP on and off
manually applying the IP Address and DNS settings that the old router had
turning NAT on and off
playing with everything, pretty much

but to no avail. If I set the IP address of the Time Capsule manually (green light), my computer still could not connect to the Internet. My computer is hooked up to the Time Capsule via Ethernet).

Connecting the Airport Extreme back in allows everything to work fine. It receives an IP Address with no problems when configured via DHCP and public IP sharing. These same settings prevent the Time Capsule from working.

If the old Airport Express was connected directly to your cable/DSL modem and the new Time Capsule replaced it (again, directly connected), you may need to reboot the modem (generally by unplugging it and plugging it back in, maybe holding down the reset button) to reset its DHCP. You may also need to do this in a particular order, generally 1) shutdown Time Capsule, 2) reboot modem, and 3) restart Time Capsule.

Reason: some broadband modems seem to only assign one internal IP at a time and only check for a device on startup.


Where did my file /etc/ppp/ip-up go after upgrading to Lion? I upgraded to OS X 10.7 this morning and upon attempting to connect to my corporate VPN, I discovered that my script at /etc/ppp/ip-up has disappeared. Has anyone else encountered this problem, or do you know where it might have ended up?

It very likely got overwritten. The upgrade does nothing to back up what it considers "system files" and simply overwrites them with the latest version.

Another good reason to do a full backup before upgrading.


Execute a BASH script... by double-clicking on it? Is it possible to execute a bash script by double-clicking on it? The shell script executes with $ ./script.sh without issues.  Double-clicking the script opens TextEdit. It would be nice to execute by clicking on it...

$ system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

System Software Overview:

  System Version: macOS 10.13.4 (17E199)
  Kernel Version: Darwin 17.5.0
  Boot Volume: lily
  Boot Mode: Normal
  Computer Name: lily’s MacBook Air
  User Name: System Administrator (root)
  Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled

Maybe change the extension name to .command, but I think there should be some workaround to make .sh work.

To run by double click on the icon:
open terminal and cd to directory of script.
then chmod +x .
finder will decide if it is excutable or not.


Unable to boot Kali linux using rEFInd I am currently trying to install and boot Kali Linux on my MacBook Pro 2018 which has the new T2 chip with boot security.

I have disabled both SIP and Secure Boot on my Mac as well as installing rEFInd on my computer with the instructions of this post.

When I boot into rEFInd, I am greeted with this window:

The first drive that you see just brings me to a blank screen with a no entry sign, the second option allows me to boot to macOS High Sierra (I do not want to upgrade to macOS Mojave right now) and then the third option is my Kali Linux install disk.

The problem is, when I boot to Kali Linux (File name is) kali-linux-2018.3a-amd64, I end up getting this error:

Why is this happening and what do I need to do in order to sort this out? I do not want to update to Mojave now due to some development tools but will be updating in the next few weeks. I am also going to be installing Kali Linux onto the same USB but on another partition so I can boot it on other computers too.

Here is the layout of my disks (both macOS and USB):

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         499.8 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data rEFInd                  199.2 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.8 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            201.2 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 43.8 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *30.8 GB    disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Kali Linux              26.4 GB    disk2s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Kali Instal             3.9 GB     disk2s3

disk0s3 is where I have rEFInd installed, disk2s2 is where I would like to install Kali to and disk2s3 is where the installer is located.

Edit:

Output of sudo fdisk /dev/disk2:

Disk: /dev/disk2    geometry: 3738/255/63 [60063744 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -   60063743] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

The iso file was also installed using the dd command.

I am not sure how you doing what you have posted. Also, I question the wisdom in doing so.

I assume you installed rEFInd on your internal drive to be used to boot Kali Linux on a flash drive. You intend to use the flash drive to boot Kali Linux on other machines. How do you know if the other machines have rEFInd? If rEFInd is installed on the other machines, how do you know if rEFInd will be configured to scan for new operating systems to boot from? How do you know if the other computers will not be password protected to prevent you from booting from your flash drive?

I download the kali-linux-2018.3a-amd64.iso file from the Kali Linux Downloads website. I followed the instructions for OS X given on Making a Kali Bootable USB Drive website. In other words, I executed the following command.

sudo dd if=kali-linux-2018.3a-amd64.iso of=/dev/disk1 bs=1m

When I run the command diskutil list disk1, I get the following.

/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *15.7 GB    disk1
   1:                       0x17                         3.2 GB     disk1s1
   2:                 DOS_FAT_12 NO NAME                 720.9 KB   disk1s2

When I run the command sudo fdisk /dev/disk1, I get the following.

Disk: /dev/disk1    geometry: 1912/255/63 [30720000 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*1: 17    0   2   1 - 1019 190  32 [        64 -    6234176] OS/2 hidden
 2: 01 1020   0   1 - 1020  43  32 [   6234240 -       1408] DOS FAT-12
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

I can EFI boot this flash drive from the Startup Manager. When running the same version of rEFInd you are using, I get a different icon and text label than you posted. I can boot this flash drive using rEFInd.

I realize I am using a older 2011 iMac, but I find it strange that our results differ so much.


How to have full directory path always shown in mac terminal? I found answers but they don't work:
I added this line in .bash_profile:

export PS1='\u@\H:\w$'

It outputs:

\u@\H:\w$

Instead of:

user@host:my/Current/Path/In/This/Terminal/Window$

As I just removed oh my zsh I had to change terminal settings a little:

Terminal -> Preferences -> Startup tab, and change "Shell Opens With:" from "Default login shell" to Command and value /bin/bash.

Now string export PS1='\u@\H:\w$' works correct.


Finder is very slow in showing the content of server shared folders I'm accessing a Windows File Sharing folder on my home server in Finder on my Mac (OS X 10.7.2) using the SMB protocol. When I'm navigating through the folders, sometimes (most of the time) I have to wait up to 10 seconds until I can see the list of files in the selected folder. Also, there is no visual clue that Finder is fetching the file list, so the first time I got this behavior in Mac OS X Lion, I was thinking the folder was empty.

Even worse, when I'm copying some large files to the server, Finder is delaying the process of getting the file list more or less until the copying is finished.

Is this something I can fix? Or is it a known bug in the Finder/SMB protocol implementation?

In finder make sure you have status bar showing under view options.  You should see a spinning gif animation while the folder is loading.  If you have visited the folder recently the file list should be cached.


How to get macOS Wi-Fi device name programmatically in Bash script? bash% networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder
An asterisk (*) denotes that a network service is disabled.
(1) SAMSUNG Modem
(Hardware Port: Modem (SAMSUNG_MDM), Device: SAMSUNG_MDM)

(2) Ethernet
(Hardware Port: Ethernet, Device: en0)

(3) FireWire
(Hardware Port: FireWire, Device: fw0)

(4) Wi-Fi
(Hardware Port: Wi-Fi, Device: en1)

(5) Bluetooth PAN
(Hardware Port: Bluetooth PAN, Device: en2)

This is good for reading but how do I get 'en1' programmatically in a Bash script so I can use the device name in a cron job?

In your question I know you used networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder however I'd use networksetup -listallhardwareports instead as it's easier to parse the output using awk, by itself, with a minimum of coding so as to avoid multiple pipes using several other commands as offered in the other answer and should be robust enough to produce consistent output until Apple changes the output format of networksetup -listallhardwareports, if they ever do.

As an example on my system, networksetup -listallhardwareports shows the following:

$ networksetup -listallhardwareports

Hardware Port: Bluetooth DUN
Device: Bluetooth-Modem
Ethernet Address: N/A

Hardware Port: Display Ethernet
Device: en3
Ethernet Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Hardware Port: Display FireWire
Device: fw0
Ethernet Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi
Device: en0
Ethernet Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Hardware Port: Bluetooth PAN
Device: en2
Ethernet Address: N/A

VLAN Configurations
===================
$

Looking at the relevant lines of output:

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi
Device: en0

The easiest way to get en0, in this example is:

networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}'

It can be assigned to a variable:

wifiDevice="$(networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}')"

You can then use $wifiDevice later in the script to represent en0, in this example.

Obviously on your system, based on the output in your question, $wifiDevice would be: en1

If you want to use networksetup -listnetworkserviceorderthen you can use awk, by itself, in this manner:

networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder | awk '{gsub(/\)/, "")}/Wi-Fi, Device/{print $5}'

However, I'd use my first example over this.

I'd also stay away from using system_profiler in this case, as it takes considerably longer for the output to be generated then when using networksetup.


iOS 7 weather app shows wrong sunrise/sunset time The new update for the weather app in iOS 7 is confused as to day/night, the time for sunrise/sunset. To find sunset or sunrise, swipe left or right on the hourly overview that's in the middle under the temperature / detail tap target.

For example, Selah WA says sunrise is at 10:46 pm today (4 October) and that it's dark at 3 pm.  Is there any way to fix this problem?

The clear error would be a city in another state or country.

The sunrise and sunset data for Minneapolis, KS is going to be different than Minneapolis, MN.

Once you have ruled that out, you might need to file a bug with Apple in the case that their app is either requesting the wrong data from the weather service provider or the data source needs to be corrected. In both cases, you can't really change what happens in code or upstream and could only try to find a location that's close enough for weather purposes that has correct (or close enough) sunrise and sunset data.

http://apple.com/feedback might also be workable rather than filing a bug if enough people have issues where the current data set is lacking or off by hours.


Is MS Office 2008 compatible with Lion? I am running Lion on a MacBook Pro 13" running Office 2008. I have recently begun having trouble with Word. I will be typing along and suddenly get a beach ball for no obvious reason.

When the recovered document comes up the last hour's worth of work is missing. This has happened multiple times. I have even had recovered documents lose more the second time around. I have autosave set to every 10 minutes.

So the question: is MS Office 2008 compatible with Lion? Would I have more success if I upgraded to Office 2011?

Thanks!

Microsoft released support article that states that Office 2008 is compatible with some known issues.

If you lost your autosaved files try to look in in Trash for Recovered files (after Restart) and check if the Autosave directory is set right (and has the right permissions) in Word Preferences.


Properly edit the location in Calendar events on the Mac It is kind of frustrating what Apple says that about adding a location for Calendar events:

If you select a location from the list, a map and weather info are added to the event. If you just use the location you entered, map and weather info might not appear.
If the event info window includes a map, an alert is set so you’re notified when to leave to arrive on time at your destination.

So if I use a drop down option but want to add a room number or floor in the building, this event will lose integration with Maps.

However, I found a workaround using iOS devices. That is, type the location as you would on iOS Calendar app, then both Mac and iOS will recognize the location, and tell you about weather info, and remind you on the Maps app.
But do you guys have a smarter way?

But do you guys have a smarter way?

Not to sound flippant, but I use Outlook App.  I've used this exact feature extensively (today in fact) where I have to add floor or room numbers and the App doesn't complain.  It still links the Maps data to the event.

The App handles mail and calendar.  It gets very high reviews and some features I now can't do without like the Focused Inbox.


Is there a way to launch uTorrent and not display the GUI window? Since uTorrent to my best of knowledge doesen't support a daemon/server mode, I would like to add it to launchd to start upon login (and restart after a potential crash), but without the app window opening.

Is there a way to do this?

Try saving a plist like this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/utorrent.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>utorrent</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>open</string>
        <string>-gjWa</string>
        <string>uTorrent</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

It can be loaded with launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/utorrent.plist or by logging out and back in.

  -W, --wait-apps   Blocks until the used applications are closed (even if they were already running).
  -j, --hide        Launches the app hidden.
  -g, --background  Does not bring the application to the foreground.

/Applications/uTorrent.app/Contents/MacOS/uTorrent would display a visible uTorrent window if uTorrent wasn't already running.

Another option might be to add a line like this to crontab:

*/5 * * * * pgrep -xq uTorrent && osascript -e 'launch app "uTorrent"' || open -gja uTorrent

open -gj shows the main window if uTorrent is open but has no visible windows. launch shows the main window if uTorrent is not open.

Programs run from crontab are run in the system security / login session. For example Mail can't access keychains if it is opened by cron.


Time machine over samba, "The identity of the backup disk has changed" Samba recently added the ability to host time-machine backups over a local network with version 4.8. I set up an old Seagate goflex with Arch linux and followed this guide to get samba running. It's working except that every time a backup is started on either of my two laptops I get a warning that "The identity of the backup disk “ArchBackups” has changed since the previous backup." and have to click through. Any idea why my mac isn't trusting the backup server? There is this old question but that seems to be a more intermittent problem on an older version of OSX and never got a satisfactory answer.

Edit: Find my solution below.

I have the same problem on Raspian with a Ext4 file system (no LVM). Samba is version 4.8.5, compiled from source by myself. MacOS is High Sierra, backup is encrypted.

Time Machine pretends to have finished the backup successfully. When it starts the next time, the message about the changed identity appears. After choosing "backup anyway", it creates a completely new backup in a new sparse file. (Like @thaimin described it).

On the Samba mailing list someone states:

  Recompile samba with  --enable-spotlight and all works.

That is not true in my case, because I did compile Samba 4.8.5 with this option (what I didn't do is setting up tracker as suggested in this blog post).

Workaround

I compiled Samba in the previous version (4.8.4). Now it works as expected (same system, same dependencies, same configuration).
Someone already created a bug ticket for Samba.


Why was my drive not converted to APFS while installing macOS High Sierra public beta I was wondering why my drive wasn’t converted to APFS after installing macOS High Sierra public beta.

I tried to convert it to APFS after the fact, by booting into Recovery Mode and opening Disk Utility, but it won’t let me. The option to convert to APFS is grayed out. Is there any way I can convert my drive to APFS?

I also tried to format my external hard drives as APFS. I was able to do that only ONCE. When I tried to do it on my second external hard drive, APFS wasn’t even offered. Does anyone know why I can’t format my second hard drive as APFS?

According to various threads I’ve read, there are a number of factors that may prevent you from converting to APFS:

Third-party SSDs are not supported.
Rotational hard drives and fusion drives were supported in Developer Preview 1, but support was removed in Developer Preview 2 (Public Beta 1) due to catastrophic failures.
FileVault may need to be disabled before the conversion is allowed.
External drives may need to be unmounted.


Finder connects to FTP server, but has blank file list Description

When I mount a LAN or WAN FTP share in Finder under High Sierra (10.13.6), it lists no files or folders.

Steps:

Connect to the server via Finder's "Connect to Server..." command ("Go" menu or ⌘K)
Enter the share URL as (e.g.) 'ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/'.
Enter the credentials or sign in as a guest user (as appropriate)

Result

The connection is successful (no error). A finder window opens up for the share, but the file display is blank.

Additional info

Packets captured by Wireshark show the correct username and password are being sent, and are accepted, and that my computer receives the file list.

Other FTP clients have no issues connecting or listing files from any of the servers I've tested.

Question

How can I figure out why Finder doesn't display the FTP directory listing?

If you haven't waited more than ten minutes for the files to appear, you haven't waited long enough. Leave the blank Finder window open, and go make yourself a nice cup of hot coffee/tea/chocolate. When you come back, the files should be there. Should you need to open a subfolder, be prepared for the possibility of another long wait.

If ten minutes sounds like an excessively long time, well, yes it is. While it's cool that Finder natively supports FTP connections, it is in practice an exceptionally poor FTP client.

P.S. I chose ten minutes somewhat arbitrarily as a maximum time limit. It's not a magic number.

P.P.S. To be fair to Apple, not all servers are this slow. But it's not unusual at all.


Is there a way to hide certain apps from the cmd+tab menu? Is there a way to hide certain apps from cmd+tab?

The problem I'm facing is that I have some apps (like iTunes and of course Finder) always open. But when I'm working and switching between apps that are relevant for me (Chrome, Sublime, Terminal) with cmd+tab I'll always see these 'irrelevant' apps in the menu.

Thanks

Yes, it is possible, however the only way I know of doing it also hides the dock icon.

  you must modify the file named 'Info.plist' inside the Application's package (i.e. Sherlock.app/Contents/Info.plist). Open this file in your favorite text editor and add the following section (if it's already present simply change the 0 to a 1 in the string tag):

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

Source: Hide any program’s Dock icon - Macworld Mac OS X Hints

In the newest version of macOS, a string should not be set for LSUIElement. Instead, you need to use a boolean as follows:

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

Before OS X 10.8, use this instead (note NS instead of LS):

<key>NSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>


Does WhatsApp duplicate files when I share them with different contacts If I share the same file (say, an image or a video) across multiple contacts in WhatsApp, does the app create multiple copies of the same file (increasing the storage use)? Or is it smart enough to link always to the same file, from each different chat?

Only the developer of the iOS client app can answer this. Basically, the answer depends on how the WhatsApp iOS client manage the files locally.

The most reasonable approach would be to avoid duplication by using some kind of mechanism to identify a media file's identify and maintain a single on-disk copy.

While this could be attested to based on empirical evidence, only the actual developer of the app can give an affirmative answer to this.


Erasing everything on my current I phone besides contacts I would like a fresh start and want to delete everything on my iPhone but still keep my current contacts. I just want all of my photos, notes, and everything else to be backed up on iCloud. I just logged into my iCloud account and it looks like everything is there which is good. I just do not know how to clear all the data on the phone and then ONLY get my contacts back on the phone.
Any help would be appreciated and I hope ya'll have a good day. TIA!!

Unless there’s a compelling reasons to not take the easy route:

ensure the iCloud backup is complete for all data
Restore the contacts after erasing all content and settings.

For 10,000 contacts, this takes about 10 minutes in my experience in the US. You might need more time to backup and restore the further away from Apple data centers you are, but contacts are very small amounts of data to back up and then restore.
When you sign in again after erasing the device, just don’t sign in to iCloud when asked. Skip it from the setup assistant screen.
Sign in later from the settings app so you can control and turn off all the items except contacts.


"Unchecking" tracks playing music on iPhone My audio intake from iPhone outweighs that of my Macbook by a double-digit ratio.

Sometimes I encounter an audio track on-the-go that I would like to delete, remove from the playlist, or at least remove the track from the rotation. In iTunes, I would delete the file from the library or uncheck the box next to the track's name.

How can I remove a track from rotation on my iPhone?

iOS 7.1.2, iPhone 5s. jb solutions welcome

In the Songs list or Playlist, just swipe it to the left, like you would an unwanted email, text etc

I haven't tested whether this 'reports back' to iTunes & unchecks it there - I'm running a sync now to see & will edit...

Edit:  it doesn't delete or uncheck the track from 'My Music', the definitive iTunes list; but it does remove it from an iTunes Playlist after sync.


How to updated OS X theme so it looks like iOS 7 design I saw few people have fancy OS X design that resemble iOS 7 design. I did not find any official information about it on Apple site about Mavericks. Though this theme appears at new Xcode page. I updated OS X but I did not get this design .. and I did not find a way to apply this design via Systems Preferences.

So how would I change my Maverics design?

This is OS X Yosemite, the next version of OS X.


Destroyed text in sudo dialog I used the application "HDD Cleaner" to clear up my ~/Library/Cache folder. After this action I see the following dialog, whenever OS X asks for my sudo rights:

It's the only dialog that has this appearance. How can I restore the default dialog? I already switched the languages and region, but without success.

I'm using 10.10.1 on my MacBook Air Early 2014.

It's possible it could have messed up the Font cache.  Restart into Safe mode, (hold down shift after the boot chime) and release Shift when the grey screen and Apple logo appear.  When asked to log in, type in your password, then HOLD SHIFT and hit enter.  Reboot into OS X as normal and try again.

Hopefully it didn't delete a system font on accident.  Next, open Font Book, select all the fonts and choose Validate Fonts from the File menu.  Resolve any conflicts that it finds.  If you don't have a lot of non-standard fonts installed, you can choose Restore Standard Fonts from the File menu and reboot.  Hopefully it's something simple.


Can software cause the home button to stop working on iOS? I have a new (2 months) iPhone 5 and it just froze in the "settings" app. Everything on the phone is controlled with the round button at the bottom, when I press it nothing happens anymore.

Can this be a software problem?

Apple has a Support document describing ways to reset/restart an iPhone:

Restarting your device

Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until the red "slide to power off" slider appears, and then slide the slider.
Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the Apple logo appears.

Resetting your device
Note: Reset your device only if you are unable to restart it.

Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button together for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.


Email problems on ipad I received an email in my inbox on my ipad from somebody I know and it said what's app message press play. When I pressed play it went to a yahoo page and was like a yahoo mail login and I put my email password in. Shortly afterwards I received over 100 emails daemon mailer unable to deliver. I deleted them and changed my yahoo email password but I am now concerned that there may be a virus on my ipad. What should I do?

This is known as Phishing or Social Engineering.

You were tricked into giving away your login details, by being directed to a site that looked familiar, but which wasn't actually the legitimate site you thought it was.

You were correct to immediately change your password. In most situations this is sufficient to prevent further access by the phishers.  They don't really want to go to any effort to spread their spam, fooling you once would be enough; trying to hack you after you changed the password would be too much like hard work.

It is very unlikely that any malware is on your iPad - but it may 'remember' the fake site in your history, so be careful when going to the legitimate site that you do indeed have the right one.

If you normally use password auto-fill on your iPad, then one very good sign of a fake site is that the iPad will not offer to auto-fill. As far as it's concerned it's not the same site. It is far more likely to notice the difference between yahoo.com & yalhoo.com etc than a human.

See Jaime Santa Cruz's answer for further practical advice.


Using disk utility to expand an already existing partition MAC OS 10.15 I have an external Hard Drive that has around 5 partitions. Among them there is a partition, say, Partition 1 of 500GB. There is another partition, say, Partition 2 of 20GB. I want to get 100GB of Partition 1 and add it to Partition 2. How can I do that? Both the partitions contain data, (partition 1 has around 100GB of data only), so I can't erase them and make them again. Is there any way to do it?

The answer is no. This answer assumes the partitions are in chronological order. This is one of the problems which was solved by APFS. With APFS, more than one APFS volume can reside in a partition and the volumes can share the space.
In your case, you would need to shrink the a partition by 100 GB. There a tools provided by Apple or third parties that can shrink the volume(s) stored in a partition. The partition can then be set to a smaller size, thus creating free space below the partition. However, adding the free space to the next partition usually requires first moving the partition up by 100 GB. This can not be done by using the Disk Utility. Once the partition is relocated, then depending on the volume format either the Disk Utility or a third party tool may be able to enlarge the partition and containing volumes(s) to contain the free space.
Before attempting to move a partition, a backup of the partition should be made. However, once a backup is made, generally moving the partition becomes unnecessary. An alternative would be to delete the partition and created a new partition of the required size, then reloading the partition from the backup.


Will renaming my Windows partition from BOOTCAMP break anything? I've installed Windows 7 via BootCamp. I'd like to rename the partition from BOOTCAMP to something a little easier on the eyes. Will renaming my Windows partition from "BOOTCAMP" to "Windows" break anything? (Should I do it from the Windows side or the Mac side?)

It won't break anything. Only issue is that if you're using a FAT partition, the name will be all capitals. Rename from either Windows or OS X if you have an appropriate driver installed.


Apple software - Numbers How do I identify and add(sum) only specific cells in a row - they are not continuous cells. Ex. I1, O1, U1 total sum and show in BG1

You would use a formula for this.  In the cell you want the SUM to display (BG1 in your question), enter this formula
=SUM(I1,O1,U1)

Note that the function is SUM() preceded by an equal sign = and the cell values are comma separated. You can also include ranges by putting a colon between cells.  Say you wanted to select A1 through E1, then I1, O1, and U1:
=SUM(A1:E1,I1,O1,U1)

Here is a list containing some of the functions available to you in Numbers.  Apple - Numbers - Functions


Copy and Store notes on iCloud and device I have all my notes now stored on my iCloud but I also wish to copy and store them on my device. Can I do this?

Once on iCloud, any other device with access to iCloud can store these files locally.

For OS X, go to System Preferences, sign in, and check notes.

For Windows, download iCloud for Windows: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283

For an iPhone, sign into your iCloud account, then in settings, be sure that Notes is checked.

This should keep you in sync, and each device will store the notes locally as well.


Firmware Password Lock after Bootcamp Install Tried to install Windows via Bootcamp on my computer yesterday. When the computer restarted to try and boot on the Windows partition, I got hit with the Firmware Password. Asked my IT guy what it was and the password doesn't work. Either he remembers it wrong or entered it with a typo.

In any case, I've tried every operations i've heard people discuss to try and boot on my main system. Tried booting in Recovery Mode, tried Resetting NVRAM, tried Resetting SMC. Any combinations I try end up on the lock screen of death.

Shouldn't I still be able to boot to recovery or at least select my startup disc?

No - Firmware Passwords exist to prevent any non-approved boot methods and prevent you from bringing any other boot to the system.

It's like putting superglue in a deadbolt lock and only having the small lock on the handle. If the small handle (your normal OS) breaks - you can't get in by bringing another small handle - you need to release the deadbolt (firmware password).

Open a case with Apple Support to see if your firmware lock can be bypassed locally or you need to prove you own the Mac and have apple generate a rescue key.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204455

  A firmware password prevents starting up from any internal or external storage device other than the startup disk you've selected.


Used 2015 MBP Pro Retina dropped 300 mAh of Full Charge Capacity in three months Back in February I bought an used 2015 MBP Retina and it had 251 battery cycles and 8440 mAh full charge capacity. Now after almost three months I felt like the battery life decreased a little bit and I was shocked to find in system Information that the full charge capacity dropped form 8440 mAh to 8119 mAh.

I would like to add that I added 8 battery cycles, but other than that I used it plugged in mostly.

Is there any best practice to avoid this situation?

At this speed, the Mac will have a dead battery in around 6 years. Probably below useful levels in less than 5 years. As the Mac is already around 4 years old, that means around 7 to 9 years of battery life. Which seems quite decent considering that laptop batteries are expected to last 2 to 4 years, according to a quick Google search.

In other words, you are probably doing everything right.

As mentioned before, heat (and cold) is an issue. However, leaving it plugged in during work should not be a problem, as cycles add more to battery loss than leaving it at high charge. So the rule about 20% to 80% is more useful for storage than for an actively used Mac, as it will add cycles to always move between the two values. Reconditioning a battery also adds cycles, usually without any advantages. Do that only if the battery has serious issues. When you don't work, keep it unplugged, but make sure you reload it before it gets below 20%, and only up to 60% if you don't intend to use it for a longer time.


How to set a Monospace Font for Dashboard Sticky Notes Widget? I would like to use a monospaced font on the Sticky Notes in Apple's Dashboard widget.
However, only a few fonts can be selected, none of which is monospaced.

This is possible, because widgets are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript based. Here's how:

First, go to /Library/Widgets and find the Stickies one. Copy it to ~/Library/Widgets and name it myStickies (or something else).
Close the Stickies widget in Dashboard.
Now, go to the myStickies.wdgt version you copied and right-click it. Choose Show Package Contents.
In the new window that appears, right-click on the Stickies.js file and open it with your favorite JavaScript editor (if you don't have one, TextWrangler is great and free).
Now, use the editor to find the line var fontArray = new Array; (should be around line 407). You'll see below that line a bunch of lines similar to each other, saying something like fontArray["font name"] = 1,. You want to copy the last one of those (American Typewriter), and paste it back below itself. Then, change it so it looks like this: fontArray["Courier New"] = 8;
Save and close this file.
Now, open (from the same folder) Stickies.html in an HTML editor (TextWrangler works).
Find the line that says, <select id='font-popup' class='popup' onchange='fontchanged(this);'> (should be about line 40).
Below that, you'll find a bunch of lines similar to each other, each beginning with <option value. Copy the one for Gill Sans, and paste it below itself.
Edit it to say <option value ="Courier New">Courier New</option>.
Save and close this file.
Open Terminal and type killall Dock. This restarts Dashboard.
Now, double click the myStickies widget file you made. It will open in Dashboard. Follow the normal procedure of clicking the i and changing the font. You'll have a Courier option, and it will be that font. Yay!


How to get a mac to wait longer for external disk to wake up upon resuming from sleep? My Mac has an external disk attached, and I often get "disk not ejected properly" warnings after resuming the computer from sleep. These warnings appear only when the disk has spun down during the sleep, and it seems that they are related to how long OS X is willing to wait for a device to become present before declaring it disconnected after resuming from sleep.

It would be nice to not get the annoying pop-up upon resuming from sleep, and the messages about journal replay in kernel.log look slightly alarming, even though it is unlikely that anything wouldn't have gotten written to disk while the computer was idle before going to sleep. Can this wait time be increased somehow?

There are various google results for ejecting volumes on sleep, which should solve this problem.

First, write yourself a shell script to eject the volume.  You could avoid setuid bits by using apple script.

#!/usr/bin/osascript
tell application "Finder" to eject (disks where name = "VOLUME")

Next, install the SleepWatcher tool and configure ~/.sleep or /etc/rc.sleep appropriately.

There are similar directions for remounting the disk on wake in that Mac OS X Hints entry, but maybe you don't need that.