What determines whether applications can broadcast to multiple AirPlay speakers? Some apps, like Remote.app, can broadcast to multiple Airplay speakers at once. Others seem limited to one speaker at a time. Is there a way to enable apps that use Airplay to have the option to broadcast to multiple speakers at once, like Remote app can?

This isn't directly a feature of Remote.app but of iTunes on the desktop, Remote.app just gives an UI for this. At this time, only iTunes running on Mac/Windows or other desktop apps like Airfoil are able to distribute to multiple speakers at once.


After installation of new SSD, Macbook Pro 15" Retina won't wake up after it goes to sleep mode My old 256GB SSD died, and I've brought a new SSD with 512GB. After installing new SSD and OS, everything works just fine.
But now I have this issue with sleep mode: Macbook goes to sleep, it won't wake up. It will start if I hold the start button for a while.
I tried to reset the NVRAM and SMC, it didn't resolve anything.
I'll be glad to hear any solutions from you, will try everything to get rid of this issue.

Specs:
Macbook Pro 15" Retina with Quad-core i7 2.2Ghz, 16GB.

That can happen with non-Apple SSD-sticks, even Apple ones from the wrong year's model can cause those exact symptoms. You can't take one from a 2015 MBP 15 and attempt to use it in a 2013 model, although it will work in the 2014.

You'l just have to find the right one for your exact model; Transcend's JetDrive line of SSD-sticks for Macs are well delineated on their product site.


Is there a way to hide songs in iTunes Christmas is over, and now there is a lot of Christmas music on my Mac. Is there a way to disable or hide a genre or a category, rather than individual songs, from iTunes.

Basically I don't want these to play at anytime, when shuffling, using genius or when playing down the alphabetical list.

You can simply uncheck the Checkbox next to the track.

  If unchecked, the song will never played!

Another Soultion:

Create just two different iTunes Librarys. One with Christmas songs, and another for the rest of the year. When it's christmas time, open iTunes and hold down the [alt]-key, to choose the other library!

There isn't any function to hide songs in iTunes. But you have great other options:

  Unselect the songs you don't want to hear
  Make a iTunes-Christmas-Library
  Create smart playlists


Stop auto-dimming automatically I've noticed my Mac didn't retain the brightness I set with the keys.

How do you stop it from auto-dimming?

Perhaps you have "Automatically adjust brightness" turned on in the Display preference panel?


How I can make sure my code is keep running? hey I am running an optimization model in AMPL. It is huge model and I know it is gonna take a lot to be solved. How I can make sure my model keep running even when the screen become lucked?
I did the following as well,

I installed coffeine and it is in enable mode.

I typed  caffeinate in terminal .

How I can make sure it is keeping running?

A simple way would be install a GUI app. A good one is KeepingYouAwake. This app is a GUI front-end to caffeinate command. It's very simple to install and configure, and keeps your computer from sleeping.

You can install it via Homebrew by running:

brew cask install keepingyouawake

If you don't have Homebrew installed, you can follow the instructions to install it on it's homepage:

https://brew.sh


what can an adult do with Family Sharing? I'm told that some children have iPhones, that are part of 'the same iCloud' as a parent. I've seen that their messages appear to be mixed in with the parent's: the child's message to a friend is replied to both by that friend and their parent.

Can anyone explain how this works?  Is this Family Sharing?  Can the adult account view all communication (e.g. WhatsApp, Skype, Discord) on the linked children accounts, or just that on Apple apps?  Can the adult delete photos on the linked accounts?

The scenario you describe is what Family Sharing is designed to avoid.

Each person should have their own iCloud account, then each person's data is exclusive to them, but apps/books/music/calendars can, at the parents' discretion, be allowed to be used on the children's devices.
That's just the apps, not the data on those apps.


External SATA drive not showing up when connected via USB adapter I've got a PATA/SATA adapter which connects via USB, and if I connect PATA drives to it they show up fine, but for some reason SATA drives aren't working. If I connect the same SATA drive to my Windows box it also shows up. Does anyone know what the cause of this is, and how to fix it?
This is on an older MacBook Pro (mid 2014), running High Sierra v10.13.6.

Assuming you’re using the same USB to PATA/SATA adapter on both the Mac and the Windows there are a couple factors which could contribute to the symptoms you’re seeing:

the USB to SATA bridge doesn’t use the universal driver that’s included with macOS. There may be a specific Windows driver for the SATA bridge. The PATA bridge may use the standard driver, which is why it works
The device may be for Windows and not compatible with macOS
The SATA drives may be formatted using a filesystem not compatible with macOS (i.e. Linux Ext2/3/4, btrfs, etc.)

Before you decide that the drive or device is not functional, you can parse dmesg to see if the device was detected.  You can also issue the command diskutil list to see the disks detected by the OS.  It may not be able to read the file system, but it will be detected.
Additionally, since this is attached via USB, you can use system_profiler to view all attached devices.  Just issue the command system_profiler SPUSBDataType and parse through the output, looking for your particular disk drive make, model, and size.


What carriers can utilize my unlocked AT&T iPhone 5? What carriers can utilize my network unlocked AT&T iPhone 5? I just unlocked it by submitting the request to AT&T and restoring it. Thanks!

On the back of your phone you will find a 5 character model number, Specifically the letter A followed by 4 digits.

You stated you have an iPhone 5, and it was original to the AT&T network you likely have model A1428 which will work in the USA on

    Aio
    Alaska Communications
    AT&T
    Family Mobile
    GCI
    Net 10
    Straight Talk
    T-Mobile
    Union Wireless

If your model number is different or you will be outside the USA, then use this table on the Apple website to look up your specifics.


iPhone 5 no phone services I am unable to dial out receive calls or text messages.

How can I fix the problem?

I've tried shutting it down waiting awhile then turning it back on and the phone still shows "searching".

If you have no phone service check following:

Disable Airplane mode (if it is enabled)
Check that your SIM card is inserted properly.
Check if you see your phone service provider name.


mac mini for software development I intend to start to develop for Apple products. My question is if a Mac mini with the below configuration will suffice for this purpose.

2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
2GB memory
500GB hard drive
Intel HD Graphics 3000
OS X Lion

I intend to develop in Objective-C but the question is if Apple will farther allow native code apps on their mobile hardware.

I have dual core i5 macbook pro with 4GB memory. I am working on an iOS game in my free time. I am happy with build times and debugging performance.

On my system (running OSX Lion) I have around 200MB free memory while debugging on the simulator, around 300MB while not debugging. Debugging on the device consumes less memory than the simulator. I have iTunes and safari open which consumes a lot of memory too. So 2GB memory may be somewhat insufficient. You should have 4GB to be safe.

As for the native code question, Apple will almost definitely allow native code apps. They don't allow Flash. They don't allow Java. They don't allow just-in-time compiling of .NET/mono. They actively develop, advertise and enforce their SDK. They allow freely mixing C/C++/Objective-C in your code. They also allow script based games for example, Corona SDK uses Lua as scripting language, and there are many games developed with Corona SDK. You should have a look at such SDKs since they allow developing both in MS Windows and OSX. Also such SDKs allow you to develop cross platform apps, which means you can develop for iOS and android at the same time. However, you must have a mac and iOS developer account (99$/yr) to debug and publish for iOS (no such restrictions for android).


My computer wakes up at 5:59:39 every morning. How do I stop that from happening? For some reason my 2017 iMac running macOS 10.14.6 keeps waking up from sleep at exactly 5:59:39 AM every morning. If I look at the logs using pmset -g log at this time it consistently reports:

2019-11-07 05:59:39 -0500 Assertions            PID 77(powerd) Created UserIsActive "com.apple.powermanagement.wakeschedule" 00:00:00  id:0x0x900009fac [System: PrevIdle PrevDisp DeclUser kDisp]
2019-11-07 05:59:39 -0500 Assertions            Kernel Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler
2019-11-07 05:59:39 -0500 Notification          Display is turned on
2019-11-07 05:59:40 -0500 Assertions            PID 77(powerd) Created UserIsActive "com.apple.powermanagement.wakeschedule" 00:00:00  id:0x0x900009faf [System: PrevIdle PrevDisp DeclUser kDisp]
2019-11-07 05:59:41 -0500 Assertions            PID 77(powerd) TimedOut UserIsActive "com.apple.powermanagement.wakeschedule" 00:00:02  id:0x0x900009fac [System: PrevIdle PrevDisp DeclUser kDisp]
2019-11-07 05:59:41 -0500 Assertions            PID 77(powerd) TimedOut UserIsActive "com.apple.powermanagement.wakeschedule" 00:00:01  id:0x0x900009faf [System: PrevIdle PrevDisp DeclUser kDisp]

I don't understand what those log entries mean and searching for the terms in them hasn't yielded anything revealing so far.

In the Energy Saver system preferences, I have the following options enabled:

Prevent Computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off
Wake for network access
Enable Power Nap

In the "Schedule" settings the "Start up or wake" setting is disabled.

Why is my computer waking up? And what can I do to stop it?

You should use the Terminal command pmset -g sched to determine if there is any repeated wake from sleep scheduled or some other app/system service which has set a wake event.


How to restart a process without user interaction I killed a process (a simple .jar running in the background as a global agent) by pkill -9 java. Since the global agent in launchd is configured as keepAlive the process gets restarted immediately.

Unfortunately this nasty popup ("The action Run Shell Script encountered an error") comes up and prevents the restart of the process without user interaction.

Is it possible that launchd simply restarts the process without waiting that the user presses OK in this popup? After pressing OK the process gets restarted properly.

EDIT:
The script is as follows

If you terminate the java process with kill -9, the shell which called gets an error code back. In your case, the execution of java is the only command in the script run by Automator, so the error code is interpreted by Automator as a general error which triggers the popup.

If you add any other command after the java call (well, any which ends successfully), the Run Shell Script action will complete successfully and Automator will not even notice that the java process was terminated. This command can be something simple like : (which in this form basically does nothing) or sleep 0 (which usually exits successfully).


What can change so the app store fails on a network where purchases used to work fine? Yesterday, I noticed that when I'm at my office on the wireless network, and I purchase or try to update an app, it doesn't work. Doesn't matter if it is on my iPad or iPhone.  I've never had this problem until this week.

I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the 4.3 update, or something with my firewall ( I have complete access to my firewall btw ). I have never had this problem until the other day and the only things that have changed are:

Cisco Tech support worked on my firewall. No major config changes though
Upgraded all my devices to 4.3

When I'm at home or on 3G everything works as expected. What should I be looking for in my firewall and/or DNS servers to resolve this?

EDIT: I just tried something and got some weird results:
I just tried downloading the free app AppShopper and it worked on both iPad and iPhone. If I try to download the Free (but pay to upgrade) app Hunters: Episode One HD on my iPad it does not work

You should be able to filter your firewall logs down to requests originating from your computer/your phone's local IP address, and look it it's outgoing requests.

I'm pretty sure all that app download traffic takes place over bog standard HTTPS, 443/tcp.

Ensure all apps have stopped running, open App Store, move over to the Updates category, wait for all traffic (app image requests and the like) to die down, then tap update. The next series of requests should fail, and you should have the reason relevant to your own configuration.


How do I get rid of this:(-bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory) from my terminal? Every time I open Terminal this is on there like 50 times.

-bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory
-bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory
-bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory
-bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory
-bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory
-bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory

I have no idea what I'm doing, I was just trying to get my Terminal to start with a folder and I found this online:

echo "cd "`pwd` >> ~/.bash_profile

I used that when I was in the folder I wanted to start with on Terminal and it didn't work so being dumb I did it like 50 times so my Terminal always starts with a bunch of -bash: cd: /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring: No such file or directory. It's ugly and I need it gone.

First we'll look at what the command did. The echo part returned the value of the arguments to the standard output. In this case, it wrote cd plus the response of the command pwd which returns the current directory. The >> part of the command writes the output of the command before it (in this case, the result of echo) to a file. The file it wrote to was ~/.bash_profile, which is a file of commands to run when bash is invoked. In this case, when you start your terminal.

To fix it, you can simply remove the lines that the command added. To do so, you can use Nano, which comes with your computer. Run nano ~/.bash_profile in terminal, and then remove the lines that say cd /Users/Dakota/Documents/School/Spring. Save your changes by pressing ctrl + x, and then press enter. Now, when you open a terminal window, you shouldn't be seeing those lines of text :)


Do I need iPhoto when I have Photos? After I updated from 10.10.2 to 10.10.3 on my mac, the new Photos app was added. What i'm asking is can iPhoto do any thing that the new photos app can't?

Basically, should I keep using iPhoto or should I start using the new photos app?

No, the photo app has all all the features iPhoto has (and more) and apple has discontinued iPhoto. Not to mention the design is much better and it has iCloud photo library implemented in it.


Why is 'xattr' not working? When I attempt to execute xattr in Terminal, I get

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/xattr-2.7", line 33, in <module>
    import xattr
ImportError: No module named xattr

What's going on here? I thought xattr was part of Darwin. Is xattr written in Python? Does it require a Python package to be installed on my system?

The file that is executed when you run the command xattr is /usr/bin/xattr which is a python script that works out what version of python you have and then executes /usr/bin/xattr-2.7 for python 2.7. This script is also python and includes a import xattr to import the python module xattr from the Apple installed python libraries


How can I make the power button on my MacBook run a custom script? I'm running OS 10.7.5 on an October 2008 unibody MacBook, and I would like to somehow get my computer to run a script whenever I press the power button, instead of prompting me if I want to turn my laptop off.

My situation is as follows: simply closing the cover of the MacBook sometimes results in Sleep mode not initiating, and the computer then closed gets very hot (not sure what's going on in there). I solved this problem by pressing the Power button and choosing "Sleep" each time I want to put it to sleep, and then closing the lid.

Now, as I use TrueCrypt, I want to unmount all my TrueCrypt drives whenever I put my laptop to sleep. So when I press the power button, I wish to run the following commands:

truecrypt -d
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to sleep'

In this case it doesn't have to give me any type of prompt, I would like the commands to be executed directly. Any suggestions appreciated!

EDIT: I guess it doesn't have to be the power button that I press when this script is executed. That is, if I can get the execution of these two commands associated with a certain combination of keys, I would be just as happy.

KeyRemap4MacBook can apparently remap the power button for some Macs, but it didn't work with my iMac.

<autogen>__ConsumerToKey__ ConsumerKeyCode::POWER, KeyCode::F19</autogen>

If you just want to assign a shortcut to a script, see this question.


Mac OS X Application to Float a Window in Front of Others It would be nice if it was a button you could press on the top right that 'tacked' the currently selected window in front of all other windows permanently (until the button is pressed again).

Does something like this exist?

Not built into the OS, but you should take a look at Afloat from Infinite Labs.


Dia command line not working I've got a problem with using Dia from the command line on OSX 10.7.4. I downloaded and installed the OS X dmg from http://dia-installer.de/download/macosx.html I've been using it to create graphics for a paper and absolutely love it.

I'm using a makefile to call pdflatex, bibtex, and R so that that it will build everything from scratch if need be, but can't get Dia's command line to work.

I want to use the command line with -e and -t to export the graphics to a specific directory so that pdflatex can put them in the pdf. (http://dia-installer.de/doc/en/re01.html)

The problem that I'm running into is that anytime I call it from the terminal, it brings up the GUI. Even if I give move to /Applications/Dia.app/Content/Resources/bin/ and use the command "./dia -v". It gives me a bunch of errors about "Input method" and then shows the GUI.

I looked on the Dia FAQ and it has a lot of information for the Windows command line, but nothing for OS X.

I'm hoping that someone here has run into this before and knows how to get it to work.

On the Mac, dia (specifically /Applications/Dia.app/Content/Resources/bin/dia) is just a shell script wrapper to the compiled dia-bin binary.  It sets a number of environmental variables, and then finishes by executing Dia as a GUI:

exec "$CWD/dia-bin" --integrated

You can make a copy (e.g. cp -p dia dia-cmd) and edit that last line in dia-cmd to become:

"$CWD/dia-bin" $@

and then you can use it as dia-cmd within the terminal.

Note:  I found that for my locale (en_US.UTF-8), at least, running dia-cmd in the terminal was way too chatty about trying to determine the correct locale, spewing ignorable warnings:

Warning: AppleCollationOrder setting not found, using AppleLocale.
Setting Language: en.UTF8

(process:33043): Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

(process:33043): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
    Using the fallback 'C' locale.

You can eliminate that by also commenting-out those lines in dia-cmd, and manually forcing the correct locale:

## LANGSTR=`defaults read .GlobalPreferences AppleCollationOrder 2>/dev/null`
## if [ "x$LANGSTR" == "x" ]
## then
##    echo "Warning: AppleCollationOrder setting not found, using AppleLocale." 1>&2
##    LANGSTR=`defaults read .GlobalPreferences AppleLocale 2>/dev/null | \
##            sed 's/_.*//'`
## fi

# NOTE: Have to add ".UTF-8" to the LANG since omitting causes Dia
#       to crash on startup in locale_from_utf8().
## export LANG="$LANGSTR.UTF8"
 export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
## echo "Setting Language: $LANG" 1>&2

Voila:

MYMACHINE:~ lars$ /Applications/Dia.app/Contents/Resources/bin/dia-cmd -v
Dia version 0.97.2, compiled 18:51:13 Mar 17 2012


No audio on Mac Pro after Yosemite upgrade I have looked at other people's problems regarding this issue but the way they solved it cannot fix my problem as I don't have any options to change anything. see images.

I had the same problem after upgrading to Yosemite and I've been looking for an answer on StackOverflow ever since. I found an answer which was not upvoted so it was harder to find unfortunately, but here is a way which solved my problem:

Open your terminal on your Mac and type in:

sudo killall coreaudiod

Press enter and you're done. It should work now.

Hope this helps.


How to control sound of connected external monitor? I know this is not natively supported in macOS, but I think it could be easily solved by an app that does the following:

Set the sound volume on the external monitor to a desired maximum level.
The app is a global volume slider for all the sounds generated by the MacBook.
You can use the app to easily control the sound volume of the external monitor.

Is there an app that does exactly this?

EDIT:

I tried SoundFlower but it was buggy and caused problems with other sound extensions. I discovered Sound Control which exactly does what I want. Even the built in macOS sound control works.

A popular 3rd party software that lets you control the volume of a connected external display is Soundflower. It is a kernel extension.

The installer for the latest signed version with support for macOS Mojave can be downloaded here. If you use Homebrew, you can also install install it by running the command:

brew cask install soundflower

Since it is a kernel extension, you'll need to enable it by going to System Preferences app → Security & Privacy → General and click on Allow.

Next, you'll need to download and install the SoundflowerBed utility. It is the user facing macOS app that will let you control the audio. To install using Homebrew, run the following command:

brew cask install soundflowerbed

You are all set up now. Simply launch the SoundflowerBed app from Launchpad. It is a Menu bar app. Click on the app icon in the Menu bar and select DisplayPort, Thunderbolt or HDMI as the output in the (2ch) list.

Now, click the volume icon in the Menu bar and choose Soundflower(2ch). You can also make this selection in the Sound System Preference pane.

Now, you should be easily able to control the volume of your external display from your MacBook.

Note: Parts of this answer have been taken from the recently published article on MacRumors.


How can I uninstall Adobe Air on Lion? I'm trying to uninstall Adobe Air on Lion.

All of my air apps won't load so I think an uninstall/reinstall will help.

I've opened the Adobe AIR uninstaller but nothing comes up.  I can't figure out how to do this.

Does anyone know how I can uninstall Adobe Air?

To uninstall AdobeAIR by hand, quit any unnecessary applications (specially applications that might use AdobeAIR). Then delete the following files and folders.

/Applications/Adobe/Flash Player/AddIns/airappinstaller (alternatively remove the /Applications/Adobe folder - first checking that its sub-folders do not contain files other than AdobeAIR files.)

/Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Application Installer.app

/Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Uninstaller.app

/Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework

/Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Adobe/AIR (alternatively remove the /Users/Shared/Library folder - first checking that its sub-folders do not contain files other than AdobeAIR files.)

The following files are in your Home Folder (represented by '~'). You can access this Library folder by holding down ⌥ while accessing the Finder menu Go > Library.

~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/AIR (alternatively remove the ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe folder - first checking that its sub-folders do not contain files other than AdobeAIR files.)

~/Library/Caches/com.adobe.air.ApplicationInstaller

~/Library/Caches/com.adobe.air.Installer

~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.air.ApplicationInstaller.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.air.ApplicationInstaller.plist.lockfile

~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#Security/FlashPlayerTrust/air.1.0.trust.cfg

~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/www.macromedia.com/bin/airappinstaller

These files were found by scanning the file system before and after installing the latest version of AdobeAIR to see the file changes that were made.


iPod Click Wheel Games disappeared from iTunes Is it still possible to buy iPod Click Wheel Games for the iPod Classic? I can't find them on iTunes. Is there a way to side-load them and get them from elsewhere?

They've been gone for a while. I don't remember exactly when, but it was more than a year ago. There's no way to buy them anywhere else.


How can I search and listen to the search result in iTunes 11? I really don't get the new search feature in iTunes 11. How can I for instance search for all the songs with a name containing "strauss" and listen to them?

In the search box, write your search term, "strauss". Then use the dropdown menu to the left in the search field (the magnifying glass) to select Filter by: Song to only get matches on song name.

Make sure you have Songs selected in the main toolbar as well to get the songs in a plain list.


Installing Ubuntu on Mac with macOS Mojave I tried to follow steps in the article Installing Ubuntu on Mac with macOS and Windows already installed.

But I have a different file system. And cannot resize with diskutil.

diskutil resizevolume disk0s2 200G 3 jhfs+ part1 4G jhfs+ part2 200M jhfs+ part3 200M
disk0s2 is an APFS Physical Store (use "diskutil apfs resizeContainer" instead to resize)

diskutil list disk0

/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         500.0 GB   disk0s2

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0 (disabled sip to get it works)
Password:
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2          4         Pri GPT table
          6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      76806  122061322      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  122138128          4         Sec GPT table
  122138132          1         Sec GPT header

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Password:
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 7602/255/63 [122138133 sectors]
Sector size: 4096 bytes
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  122138132] <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

diskutil apfs list

APFS Container (1 found)
|
+-- Container disk1 DF585E03-85EB-401C-8AAD-AFA0E08F6596
    ====================================================
    APFS Container Reference:     disk1
    Size (Capacity Ceiling):      499963174912 B (500.0 GB)
    Capacity In Use By Volumes:   189015490560 B (189.0 GB) (37.8% used)
    Capacity Not Allocated:       310947684352 B (310.9 GB) (62.2% free)
    |
    +-< Physical Store disk0s2 39E55C09-2343-4DC5-9AAE-8C0C004FE3F2
    |   -----------------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk0s2
    |   Size:                       499963174912 B (500.0 GB)
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s1 2769E4ED-BC35-43BA-8CC2-463B819B0CB4
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s1 (No specific role)
    |   Name:                      Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /
    |   Capacity Consumed:         185070796800 B (185.1 GB)
    |   FileVault:                 No (Encrypted at rest)
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s2 78FAA400-3A62-412F-BF61-8EFF61614B50
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s2 (Preboot)
    |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         44171264 B (44.2 MB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s3 30EB14BA-3B54-4B28-B6CA-566945971020
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s3 (Recovery)
    |   Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         517799936 B (517.8 MB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s4 9392BB6E-1464-4687-BEDF-6E10BFC637ED
        ---------------------------------------------------
        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s4 (VM)
        Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)
        Mount Point:               /private/var/vm
        Capacity Consumed:         3221245952 B (3.2 GB)
        FileVault:                 No (Encrypted at rest)

NOTE: for this guide I will be using an external USB disk as the target volume, and a copy of Debian 9.8 (as it is the only Linux installer I have on hand). Due to the fact that Ubuntu is based on Debian, the process should be similar enough to apply to both systems.

Due to the way APFS works, the entire capacity of the Container disk is able to be used as needed by any and all Virtual Volumes inside of it. While this comes with the downside that resizing the Container to be smaller will limit available free space for all of its child volumes, it also comes with the upside that fewer partitions have to be resized/moved in order to create a new standard partition.

For the sake of recreating your situation I have connected a 250 GB external disk to my machine, and formatted it with a single APFS Container, which holds a single Virtual Volume. The first step in this proccess is to find the disk identifier of the Container disk. It can be found in the output of the terminal command diskutil apfs list. In my case this was disk4, as can be seen in the screenshot below. According to the output you listed above, your Container disk is disk1.

To resize the Container, first decide how much space you want to dedicate to Linux, then subtract that from the total size of the Container disk as listed under Size (Capacity Ceiling). In this example I will be dedicating 1/3rd (84 GB) of my external disk to Debian. Once you have the new total size for your Container disk figured out, run the command diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk4 166G, substituting disk4 and 166G for your Container disk identifier and desired macOS partition size.

You will now have the difference in free space on your disk. It is important to note that this free space will not show up in Disk Utility (or diskutil), but it will still be available to the partition manager in the Debian installer, which is where we'll do the remainder of our partitioning from.

Now, either burn your installer image to a CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW (which I recommend), or write your installer to a USB disk by formatting it as GUID Partition Map and MS-DOS file system, then running the command sudo dd if=/path/to/installer.iso of=/dev/diskX bs=1M (where diskX is the disk number of your USB drive).

Reboot, and hold down the Option key at the chime/beep, and choose to boot from your Linux installer. Continue through the setup process until you reach the Partition Disks step, and choose the Manual option.

As previously mentioned, you'll find that the free space created is available here, and is listed under a partition with no file system, or volume label, according to Linux (this is your APFS Container disk).

Choose the Free Space partition and click Continue, select the option Create A New Partition in the following menu, and at the prompt set the size to its current value minus the amount of RAM you have installed in your machine. You will need that extra few gigabytes to create a swap partition in a moment. When it asks you where in the free space you want the partition to be created, choose Beginning.

Set the name to whatever you want, in this example I chose Main Disk.

Choose what filesystem you want the partition to use (viable options are EXT3, EXT4, BTRFS, JFS, and XFS. Personally I recommend EXT4).

Choose the mount point for the partition (default and recommended is /).

Choose mount options (recommended to leave as default).

Create a label for the partition (this is what will be displayed in partition editors like GParted).

Click Done setting up the partition.

Now select the free space following the partition you just created, which should be equal to the quantity of RAM in your machine. Once again choose Create a new partition, and this time use the default size. Change the name of the partition to SWAP, and set the filesystem to swap area. Click Done setting up the partition.

Your partition list should now contain the following partitions after your unlabelled APFS Container (with names, sizes, and partition numbers adjusted of course).

After reviewing to make sure everything is correct, click Finish partitioning and write changes to disk. Allow the rest of the installer to proceed. If you get to a page that asks if you want to install the GRUB bootloader, choose No. The Startup Disk selector in System Preferences and the boot menu presented when holding down the Option key should be sufficient to boot into your new Linux installation.

Congrats! You now have a machine that is dual booted with macOS and Linux.


When does software take over firmware during boot in Macs? This is for me the $1 million question I’ve never had a certain answer about.

I learnt long ago that in newer 32bit-64bit PCs the initial phase of the startup process is controlled by firmware and is later taken over by software (loaded from the Hard Drive or SSD into memory during boot) which controls the system from them on. The reason being that the software drivers will usually be more up-to-date and will run the system better than the initial firmware drivers necessary to boot the computer.

According to this, the POST and initial image on the screen is controlled by firmware (software in a motherboard chip rather than loaded into Memory from the hard drive).

My doubt is whether this is also the case in Macs.

This is important in troubleshooting because it helps to narrow down whether software or firmware may be causing an issue (such as the display glitching at the beginning of the startup but not at the end of the boot or afterwards, after the software has taken over, which would hint the firmware is at fault rather than the software) or "the screen glitching after boot can't be attributed to firmware as firmware is not running after boot".

My doubt is if something different may be happening: such as “the initial image on the screen is controlled by software, because the software has already taken over”, which I think is probably not the case.

I’d very much appreciate some wisdom on this.

The answer to this depends on what exactly you mean by "controlled by".

In particular it doesn't make sense to say that it is either controlled by "firmware" or "software" - as firmware is also software.

You can define "controlled by" in two interesting ways in this context: Either (a) when is the first software to be run loaded in from disk (i.e. non-firmware), or (b) when does control of the computer (i.e. primarily interrupts) transfer from the firmware to the operating system.

In either case it works the same way on a Mac as it does on a EFI PC (all modern PCs).

If you take definition (a) the change of control happens when the boot.efi file is loaded in from disk. That file is stored on disk in various places depending on your configuration:

HFS+ disk: /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi
HFS+ and FileVault 2: On a seperate non-encrypted partition
APFS (encrypted or not): //System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi or /usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi. on a seperate preboot volume

If you have a Mac with a T2-chip, additional validation can take place of the boot.efi before it is run, but essentially it is the same process.

In terms of what you see on the monitor during the boot process, the change of control has taken place (a) shortly before you see the FileVault login screen for encrypted HFS+ disks or (b) slightly after you see the white Apple logo on a black background on other systems.

If you instead take definition (b) the change of control happens when the operating system kernel is loaded in and executed. The operating system kernel is located in /System/Library/Kernels/kernel on the actual root volume. At this point the kernel installs a new interrupt table, and control of the CPUs and peripherals is now in the hands of the kernel.

This is in contrast to how it worked on older PCs (i.e. not Macs) with BIOS. In that case the BIOS was kept in place after the operating system was booted, and systems such as DOS used the BIOS to interface with the hardware.

In terms of what you see on the monitor during the boot process, the change of control has taken place shortly before you see the white progress bar or spinner indicating that the system is loading up.


Delete Photos from device and using the same device for uploading new photos to Photos afterwards It has been well explained here how to delete photos from a device without deleting them in iCloud. However, if you want to use the same (now empty) device to upload your future photos to iCloud, you have to sync it with iPhoto again. The problem is, as soon as you sync it, not only will the future photos be uploaded to the cloud, but your old photos will get downloaded again to the device you emptied. Is there no way to automatically upload photos to iCloud without synching them?

If you have iCloud Photo Library turned on on your device, it will sync all pictures on that library. You can use "optimize storage" if you need to free space on your device.

If you only want to have your new pictures on your phone and your whole library on iCloud, you need to transfer the pictures to Photos.app manually and then upload to iCloud from there.


How do I safely restore files to a shared folder after they were replaced with symlinks created by iCloud's "Optimize Storage" feature? (Thanks in advance for suggestions on how I could make my question clearer)
Context:
I have a team that uses a shared folder that we each auto-sync to our local machines. We use Google Drive and Google's Backup And Sync application to manage the syncing, but we could be using Box or Dropbox or any other cloud storage with auto-syncing.
Problem:
Some team members have had iCloud's "Optimize Mac Storage" feature enabled, which over the course of a couple of months has led to files in this shared folder being replaced with .icloud symlinks that don't work for anyone else on the team.
For example, let's assume shared-team-folder/ contains file1.pptx, file2.pptx, and file3.pdf.
At some point team member Bob's mac replaces syncs all three of those files to iCloud and replaces them with file1.pptx .icloud, file2.pptx .icloud, and file3.pdf .icloud placeholder files instead. Google Drive's Backup And Sync (or Box or Dropbox) shares Bob's changes to the cloud, which then get pulled down onto the computers of team members Alice and Carol.
Questions:

What procedure can I use to ensure that the files are safely restored back into the folder for all to use?
Will unchecking "Optimize Mac Storage" put the original files back?
If Alice, Bob, and Carol all have "Optimize Mac Storage" enabled, does the order in which they disable it matter?
Are there things we could do wrong in this process that could lead to the files being lost?

Yes, it's a pickle to have two competing cloud drive sync's running on the same files.  You need to ensure that iCloud, Google, Dropbox, Box, etc. are not using the same locations.
iCloud sync's the Desktop and Documents folders so make sure none of the other competitor cloud drive sync folders are not located on the Mac desktop nor documents folders.
I would have the problematic user disable the Google sync and download the documents from iCloud then move them to a new folder outside the Desktop or Documents folders.  Then ensure that the folder that Google uses to sync is also not in Desktop or Documents. Then enable the Google drive sync new location.  Move the files into Google drive sync folder and let them sync back to Google.  That should fix the problem once the other users sync them back down from Google.
If more than one user has turned on the iCloud Desktop & Documents sync feature they need to do the same thing. Except now someone has to figure out what's new versus old in regards to the files that have moved into individual iClouds over a period of time. So if that is the case, ouch... That's painful if it's a lot of files.
Decide on a single cloud solution and stick to it. Do not mix your cloud solutions.  This sounds like an accident. So hopefully it was just one user who did this.
Check the Google drive that's on the Google Cloud see if the files were all replaced with .cloud links. If so then the master copy should be on that one users personal iCloud.
Once you've resolved the Google mess.  Then the user can either continue to use iCloud or they can turn off the Optimize feature, download all their files (if they have enough local storage) and then they can turn off the iCloud Desktop & Documents feature if they really don't want to use it.  Otherwise they need to keep other cloud systems outside the Desktop and Document folders.


Unwanted photos on My Photo Stream I'm receiving unwanted photos on my photo stream from another user?  What setting needs adjusting?  It's an iPhone 5 with iOS 8.1.

Apple says:

  Add and remove subscribers to a shared photo stream

  Select iCloud in the Source list.
  Select the shared photo stream whose subscribers you want to change, and click the Info button in the toolbar.
  In the Subscribers section of the Info pane, do one of the following:

  To invite a new subscriber: Type the invitee’s email address.
  If the person you’re inviting doesn’t have an iCloud account, select the Public Website checkbox.
  To remove a subscriber: Select the subscriber’s email address, and press Delete.

  If you invited a new person to view your shared photo stream, an email and a notification are sent, asking that person to subscribe to your shared photo stream. If you removed an existing subscriber from your shared photo stream, the shared stream is immediately removed from the subscriber’s Apple devices. If you want to reinvite a subscriber to view your shared photo stream, delete the person’s email address from the “Shared with” section, and add the email address again.


I am an iOS development engineer,but I can not find the questions about iOS I'm a newer;Can you help me? Thanks.I want to find some iOS development questions.

Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. There is a search filter where you can find all your tag related questions and answers.

You can also find some useful links to learn things in ios by info tab:
iOS info


iTunes crashes when I press refresh on the podcast pane I'm using Mac OS 10.6.8 and I guess I've updated iTunes recently to 10.5 (141).

I pretty much only use iTunes to get my daily fix of podcasts and now it won't get new episodes and just crashes when I ask for a manual update.

I'm not syncing to any device and I've to tried to reset the store cache at the Advanced Preferences (no result).

It looks like after the last iTunes update a second empty Podcast item appeared on the left side column. The original Podcast pane started crashing as described on the original question.

I've delete the original Podcast item from the left column (it seems the application treated it as a sort of legacy playlist). And re-subscribed manually to all my podcasts (the new subscriptions get to appear in the new item).

After some frustration, it all seems to work again now.


Audio Input not working on 13-inch Macbook Pro Mid 2012 I am trying to connect an audio device (analog synthesizer) to the input of my 13-inch Mid-2012 Macbook Pro running OS X Mavericks 10.9.3. The synthesizer's output is a standard 1/8th inch stereo plug. According to http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3625, I should be able to switch this from System Preferences. However, my screen looks like this even when my device is plugged in:

There is no option to use the audio jack as an input.
How do I connect my device to the audio input?

You missed the first sentence:

  Plug the input audio device into the combination audio port using the
  proper adapter cable.

You can not use your "standard" stereo plug, use Apple specific plug.


Update to Firefox requires administrator privilege I have a Firefox update ready to install: 60.0.2. The message says, "This update requires administrator privileges". I'm new to Mac and am used to Firefox just automatically updating itself on Windows and Linux. This Mac Mini workstation is a test platform to investigate converting our office from Windows to Mac. I do not want to give the users any admin passwords, nor do I, as admin, want to go to each and every workstation and manually permit updates to a browser.

Is there a way around this?
(High Sierra)

I ran into this today updating to Firefox 61.0.2 and on restart up came a dialog saying "Firefox is trying to install a new helper tool" prompting me to enter my admin username & password.  I'm generally not a fan of typing admin credentials into a dialog box for an application update for a plethora of reasons.

Solution for me was simply to download the latest release of Firefox, mount the disk image and drag it into my Applications folder.  This probably requires the logged in user to have administrative privileges, but at least does not require them to know any password - which was your stipulation.


My iPhone is locked with an "icloud backup" message and it won't go away I know you're supposed to press the home and lock button and restart it but my iPhones lock button has been broken for awhile and I can't afford to fix it or fix it myself.

If the home button is broken, you'll just wait for the battery to die.


iPhone showing Connect to iTunes screen when updating to iOS 7 I have just attempted to update my iPhone 4 to iOS 7. The phone switched itself off after a while and now the phone won't work any more. The screen switched back on with the logo of iTunes and the charger with an arrow pointing to the iTunes logo.

I connected the phone to my Mac and it doesn't recognise my phone at all, asking to restore it to the factory setting. If I do that, would I lose everything on it?

Yes you will. The same thing happened to mine, everything was wiped out after the restore. Make sure your stuff is backed up.


Recover files after Paragon HFS+ Corruption I have been using Paragon HFS+ to get write access to my Mac HFS+ partition from within Windows 8. Suddenly half the files in a directory have gone missing.

A few months ago I copied the files onto an external drive. On discovering the files were missing, I went to copy these old files back to the same directory that has been partially emptied by Paragon HFS+, using OS X Sierra Finder.

However, when I try to copy in the files from a backup, the copy stops, saying there is already a file with that name in the destination folder. Yet the file is not visible with OS X Finder or using the ls -a command.

This gives me hope that the files do still exist on the drive. Somehow, while they are found by the OS X copy command, they are hidden from ls, sudo ls -a, and the Finder GUI. So I cancel the copy, hoping to find a way of recovering the data.

Any ideas how can I recover my hidden files?

How might they be visible to the copy operation but invisible to ls -a?

I have been trying to get help from Paragon's customer support. After 4 days they told me to uninstall and reinstall their software - it is as obvious on my support call as it is here that that is irrelevant to the issue. After another 4 days Paragon told me their software drivers cannot be to blame as they do not write to disks. I can't stop working for a week, so by now I have had to re-create the files.

I was running Paragon's HFS+ software for just 13 days before this corruption happened, and this is the second bug I have tried to get support for (the first was the software refuses to register). Neither bug has fixes or solutions, and they have refused to refund, let alone help recovering my files.

HFSExplorer was able to see and recover some of the files, but most were missing.

Paragon did refund my purchase, after a few attempts at looking at the output of OS X repair commands which showed errors, which apparently they tried to reproduce, and my refusing to send them a dump of my hard disk. I have had no problems with their OS X product to access NTFS drives, and have used that much more extensively.


Bootcamp - Multiple Windows installations, how do delete one? I've got a Mac Pro with 3 hard drives:

1 x 7200rpm 640GB - 1/2 for OS X - 1/2 for Windows 7 (Bootcamp)
2 x 5400 Western Digital'Eco-drive' (runs like a dog and is only useful for backups and archives).

In my foolishness I made two attempts to install (via Bootcamp) on the two slow drives before finally realising it was the slow speed of the drive that was making everything frustrating. So I now have OS X and Win7 on two halves of the 7200rpm drive and I'd like to get rid of the Win7 installs on the other drives. Somehow the installs ended up on partitions with other files so I can't just reformat them totally as I'd lose stuff.

I guess I could just delete the Windows folder from each location, but I don't think this will have the effect I'm after. Can anyone shed any light on what I should do?

Copy the folders and files you need from the Windows partition(s) to your Mac partition, the do what @joelseph reccommended.


Main partition on original Apple SSD or new Samsung PRO SSD in 2011 Macbook Pro? A few questions here relate to replacing the optical drive with an additional HD or SSD. Its time for this to happen on my MBP 15 inch (late 2011).

So I will effectively have:

the original 256gb SSD where it was when I got the macbook
a new Samsung 840 Pro SSD in the DVD compartment

My question: which disk would you expect to fail sooner? I'm trying to decide where toput my OS and where to put my home directory etc...  Any thoughts or experience are helpful!

I don't think that this question can be answered with authority.

However, if you are worried about failure due to memory cells wear, we can speculate. Every thing else being equal I would expect the SDD disk to last longer. That's because the SSD controller tends to spread writes among the available memory cells, and the more cells available the less writes each cell will receive.

And of course I would expect a new drive to fail later than an old and used drive.

Then I would say that generaly speaking a newer and bigger SSD will last longer than an older and smaller one.


How do I give myself full read/write/admin access to Backups.backupdb on a old Time Machine HD I have a hard disk which I don't want to use as a time machine anymore but I do want to delete files on there but I get:

The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified.

I disabled SIP but it still doesn't let me.

My goal is to delete files from this directory that I don't care about and archive it on Amazon Glacier or B2. I do not care for any other system files on there apart from the actual user data. I have nearly 50 backup snapshots on there and I can't seem to delete any files in there.

Is there a way for me to grant myself full access and just tell MacOS to give me full access.

Time Machine is very much an "all or nothing" black box, with very little customization or control.
Files inside one dated backup folder may actually just be duplicate catalogue entries to the same data as the same 'file' in another dated backup folder. That's why unchanged files don't take up more space each backup, and why TM folders are a huge mass of interconnected trouble.
Deleting files from one snapshot probably won't save you any space at all, until you've deleted them from all of the snapshots, so that all catalog entries to the file data are removed.
Normally, the way to delete files or folders from the entire backup is to do so from within the TM application itself. Right-click on the files, and select the option to delete.
My advice is to copy one snapshot of the files that you want to keep to another disk, and then delete the whole backup (or erase the disk).
Oh, and don't forget to re-enable SIP! ;-)


Is there a Windows remote desktop client compatible with Lion's virtual display feature? With Lion, you can use screen sharing to connect to a "virtual display", meaning that you log in to a new session instead of 'hijacking' the currently active one.

Is there a Windows program that can make use of this feature and let me start and operate a remote session on a Mac?

I see some kind of ambiguity in answers here :-)

I'd suggest to tell technologies and underlying protocols apart.

VNC: uses RFB protocol.

Apple Screen Sharing [SS] (which is enabled by checking "Screen Sharing" in System Prefs): it is a vanilla VNC plus some Apple-specific extensions, e.g. pasteboard auto synchronization, display selection, screen locking, encryption, drag & drop and file transfer in latest servers. Another thing it has is the Apple-specific "codec", which is easy to recognize by JPEG-like artifacts. It also includes new authentication types (by username and password and by requesting permission from remote user) and the very feature you're discussing - Session Select, which allows you to log in as active user or to create invisible ("virtual") user session.

Apple Remote Desktop [ARD] ("Remote Management" in System Prefs): uses Apple Screen Sharing as a base for the screen sharing and another very different protocol (name it ARD protocol for instance) for computer management things, like performing spotlight searches, running shell commands, sending messages, transferring files and so on.

@zneak asked for a client that supports Session Select feature. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, even Mac OS X clients rarely support Apple Screen Sharing features. These are: first, Apple’s built-in Screen Sharing client; next goes Remotix for Mac, which seems to support almost all of SS features including Session Select; JollysFastVNC which supports Apple authentication, display selection and screen locking, and Screens for Mac that supports only Apple authentication.

As for Windows, all I could find was already mentioned here Remotix for Windows, though it was marked as beta for a long time.

Probably all these things are obvious for some of you, but I spent a good couple of hours sorting it out. Hope this post will save some time to someone :-)


What is the equivalent of audacity for iPad? I'd like to edit sound files on my iPad with my daughter - copying and pasting clips, zooming in to see sound waves, and speeding up and slowing down sections of audio.

My question is: What is the equivalent of audacity for iPad?

The currently-accepted answer, WavePad, seems to be sporadically unavailable on the App Store (at least in some regions). I haven’t found another suitable alternative. Also, some would not agree a proprietary product—especially one requiring payment to unlock all features—is actually an “equivalent” to open-source Audacity.
However, there is new reason to hope for Audacity on iPad: it appears the technical obstacles cited by the Audacity team for the lack of iPad support are disappearing.
As of this writing (April 2021), the Audacity FAQ includes the following:¹

Current versions of Audacity work internally with uncompressed audio to permit high quality editing with a wide range of effects. This requires more processing power and disk space than is available on most mobile devices. Also the wxWidgets interface library we use only has limited support for mobile operating systems and small screen resolutions.
Therefore, considerable rewriting of Audacity and its interface will be required before Audacity will work on portable music players like iPod, smartphones like iPhone, tablet computers like iPad or any of the Nexus devices running Android.
However, Audacity in principle does support a tablet PC running Windows (including Microsoft's "Surface with Windows 8 Pro" tablet)…

As of 2021, some new iPads and Macs now share the same Apple Silicon M1 processor; so, according to the FAQ answer above, there should no longer be a performance obstacle—iPad should now be more akin to the Windows tablet PC situation mentioned above. Storage, too, is no longer an issue: the highest-end M1 iPad configurations include terabytes of storage.
In fact, working with uncompressed data such as RAW images and video is one of the selling points Apple is emphasizing in its promotion of these new iPads, and companies such as Adobe have promised to deliver iPad versions of some of their pro creative apps.

¹ Here’s a link to the archived version of the FAQ concurrent with this writing, and a link to current version.


SystemExtr quit unexpectedly This message keeps on popping up again and again. I tried restarting my Mac and did no good. I thought it was steam causing these problems but deleting it did not make any difference.

Do you think this is a problem with MacOS Mojave? Please help me.

No, this is not a problem with macOS Mojave. I've seen this before and it was caused by an app hiding within the Library folder.

Unfortunately I don't recall the app, but I do recall how we got to the bottom of it. In summary:

Install EasyFind (it's free from the Mac App Store)
Search for SystemExtr
Identify the file (app) responsible
Remove it

As mentioned, from memory it was sitting in the Library folder.

NOTE: I am in no way affiliated with EasyFind.


Where can I find the APN settings for an unlocked AT&T iPhone 4 running iOS 7? Today I unlocked my AT&T iPhone 4 running iOS 7 (the official method via AT&T).  In order to use my phone abroad next month I'm told I'll need to be able to set APN settings but I can't find them anywhere on my device.

I believe the unlock was successful as iTunes showed a confirmation message saying so.

I've tried looking in various places suggested by posts on various message boards but I can't find the settings anywhere.

You need to Reset your Network settings and make sure you don't have any profile saved by you, and after resetting it go to the cellular network menu and you will see the APN settings.


Why can't I open Dropbox via Launchpad? The Dropbox app is shown in Launchpad. When I click on it's icon to launch it nothing happens and I return to my browser.  Is this normal?

Dropbox has no "Window" to speak of. Everything it does takes place either:

On Dropbox.com
Via the Finder in the configured Dropbox folder (NB: right click a file in the Dropbox folder), simply named 'Dropbox' in your home directory by default. Or;
In the MenuBar

Per Dropbox's Documentation, the primary states will be a blue icon with circular arrows indicating a file is synchronizing, or the green checkmark icon like above, indicating everything is up to date.


OS X 10.5 upgrade to OS X 10.7 with data saving They gave me macbook for development, it's quite powerful, but I need to upgrade i to OS X Lion because otherwise I can't run Xcode 4.X. How to upgrade but to save existing data somewhere on the hard drive? Thank you

You should be able to upgrade without loosing any data, as long as you do not opt to have the HD erased or formatted prior to installing the OS, during the installation process.


iPad 1 stuck in DFU mode after 5.0.1 -> 5.1 OTA-update I have tried restoring through iTunes, but I only get "Error 37" at the end of the "Restoring iPad firmware" step.

Snippets from the restore log:

2012-03-11 18:00:05.684 [3132:e4]: <Restore Device 069D6950>: operation 18 progress 53
2012-03-11 18:00:05.884 [3132:e4]: <Restore Device 069D6950>: operation 18 progress 61
2012-03-11 18:00:06.169 [3132:e4]: <Restore Device 069D6950>: operation 18 progress 69
2012-03-11 18:00:06.535 [3132:e4]: <Restore Device 069D6950>: operation 18 progress 76
2012-03-11 18:00:06.821 [3132:e4]: <Restore Device 069D6950>: operation 18 progress 84
2012-03-11 18:00:09.037 [3132:e4]: device returned AMR error 37

(It fails at 84% "restoring firmware" each time)

and:

entering update_device_firmware
entering update_iBoot
write_image3_data: flashing LLB data (length = 0x14a19)
AppleImage3NORAccess::_getSuperBlock imageVersion: 3
AppleImage3NORAccess::_getSuperBlock imageVersion: 3
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0xb10)
ticket updated
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x2ea19)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0xf859)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x1d59)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0xb999)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x4519)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x1819)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x13d9)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x3e59)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x13d9)
write_image3_data: flashing NOR data (length = 0x3cf19)
0: RamrodErrorDomain/3e9: update_iBoot: error writing image
1: NSMachErrorDomain/e00002bc: write_image3_data: AppleImage3NORAccess returned an error when writing image3 object
attempting to dump restore log
writing log file: /mnt1/restore.log

I have tried pretty much everything:

Different computers (both mac and win7)
Different usb-cables
Re-downloading the ipsw
Re-installing iTunes
Removing every playlist/book/movie from my iTunes library
Disabling auto-sync of devices in iTunes

The documentation for "error 37" indicates problems with security software (which I'm not running), and judging by the restore log this looks like more a bug in the updater/firmware itself.

The iPad was running fine with iOS 5.0.1 and has never been jailbroken.

This suggests that your NOR is failing/has failed. It could be a communications error also, but strange it gets so far before failing if it is a comms error.

Almost certainly this is hardware. If you still have extended warranty, use that. Otherwise you need to get this replaced via Apple's out of warranty program.
I'm not sure any third party hardware repair place could fix this, they would need to copy the unique data that is stored in another part of your NOR chip to a good NOR chip. This unique data is encrypted and I don't know if it can actually be copied successfully.

source: http://www.hackint0sh.org/f131/212842.htm


Want iTunes to stop synching podcasts FROM my iPhone Basically, I don't know how to delete podcasts that I downloaded from my iPhone.  I can delete them in iTunes obviously, but then when I sync, iTunes just takes them from my iPhone.  Is there anyway that I can delete podcasts (audio) DIRECTLY from my iPhone?  Or some way I can prevent iTunes from downloading them FROM my iPhone?

On iOS5, just right-swipe over a podcast episode to show the delete button.  This isn't available on earlier versions.


System Crashed and Cannot Install Sierra again Suddenly my MacBook Pro 2017 running Sierra 10.12.6 crashed and couldn't pass the boot loop (stuck at the apple logo with the filled progress bar for hours)

Then I restarted with command+R and tried to back up my main disk to an external HDD but it fails.
I got the following error:

Validating target...
Validating soruce...
Validating sizes...
Restoring
Could not restore - Device error
Operation failed

I tried to reset NVRAM with holding down Option+Command+P+R, but did not help. When I run first aid from the Disk Utility, it says:

File system check exit code 8.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
File system verify or repair failed.
Operation failed...

I run the hardware check (command+D on restart) and it couldn't find any issues. So it is a still matter of software problem..

Then I have created a bootable USB (ownership ignored on the usb) from Sierra 10.12.6. It boots from USB well but when I try to install Sierra on my Macintosh HD got the following message:

The operation couldn't be completed. Permission denied

Do you have any suggestions on how to install Sierra again and/or backup my disk?

I've never had any success using the Disk Utility restore feature in data rescue scenarios. I'd install the OS on the external drive and try to pull your data from the built-in drive.

Once you're running off the external drive, more options become available.


Navigate to a certain tab and close that tab in OSX Terminal I've got multiple terminal tabs open, and I want to be able to close the current tab. How can I make the current terminal tab be the active tab, so that I can close that tab with ⌘+w?

I am in the default Mac terminal.

In OSX Terminal, hold down the keys ⌘+Shift while arrowing right or left. This will allow you to switch between active tabs.

When on the tab you wish to close, as you noted, ⌘+w will close that tab.


Can I use IDLE to write python programs instead of the terminal on Mac? The Mac terminal uses Python 2, and I don't know how to change the Python version.

Macs come with Python2 and this should not be removed. Installing a new version is fine as long as you use virtual environments. You should use the Anaconda distribution of Python, then setup and use virtual environments.

There are several sites, like this one which will walk you through the process. It's very easy using Anaconda. Another site is here. Once you get virtual environments set up, activate the one for the version of Python you want to run. You can then use IDLE or Atom to write and run your scripts.

Using virtual environments also allows you to change which Python version is used at the terminal.

If this is unclear just leave a comment and I will write a message explaining this better.


How do you enable cookies with the newest IOS? I was playing Pokémon go and for some reason it's signed me out and I had to log in again, it wouldn't let me play it because I haven't enabled cookies! I tried and tried but nothing would work,YouTube(Failed),settings(Nothing), asking the company(noresponse).nothing would work so I had to make a new account. Now the same thing has happend and I need help on how to enable cookies for my game to work! Please.

Taken from https://gaming.stackexchange.com/q/278248/105931

  Here's what I did that worked for me. Might not even need to do what I did...

  Iphone > Settings > Safari > Block Cookies > Always Allow
  Open Safari > Gmail.com > Logon with your gmail account > Open
  Pokemon Go

  More information about this issue from niantic itself


MacBook 2,1 OS X 10.6.8 - Boot screen loop My  MacBook2,1 is stuck in a loop on boot screen. It flashes from ?Folder, to an also flashing net recovery globe, and every so often an Apple logo for a few seconds, but never actually boots into the OS.

After an extensive internet search, the only results were to use the Mac OS X (command-R) recovery process.

I’ve tried everything I could find online regarding MacBook recovery, but they all refer to a globe to network restore, but I have yet to see a flashing globe like what I'm experiencing.

This MacBook is the only one I have, so if possible I need this fixed.

How can I go about fixing this, or should I just give up?

Considering the age of your MacBook (it's 12 or so years old), it's highly likely your hard drive has died.

There is also the possibility that something else could be wrong with your MacBook, so there is the risk that you'll end up spending money on a new hard drive only to find that you still run into problems.

However, if this is a MacBook that you've been using without problems until now and it's your only option in terms of having a computer you can use, then replacing the hard drive on these is not hard to do. See this iFixit guide on the process involved to determine if you feel comfortable doing this.

As for the type of hard drive you'll need, your MacBook uses a Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive interface, so buying a hard drive that suits will be easy to do. Just make sure you remember to get an internal drive that is 2.5" (not a 3.5" drive designed for desktop computers).

Once you've replaced the drive you'll need to reinstall Snow Leopard (i.e. Mac OS X 10.6) from scratch (or reinstall from whatever discs came with your MacBook). Of course this requires that your optical drive is still working fine, so if it's not you'll need to look at other options such as using macOS Recovery.


Need to backup, but can't press 'Trust Computer' button because of cracked screen I recently bought an iPhone 6s and wanted to bring my data from my old iPhone 4 to it but I have the following problem.

My iPhone 4 has a cracked screen and the sensor is a little messed up. If I try hard enough I can do almost anything (more than 10 times! and by rotating the screen if it can be rotated such as when I use the keyboard.)

I didn't have an iCloud account and used to backup with iTunes but after the screen was cracked I tried a couple of things and long story short I have no backups.

I tried creating an iCloud account and my contacts got transferred to my new iPhone but I can't find a way to transfer my notes as well.

The reason I can't backup the phone is because of a little screen that comes up when connected to iTunes that asks you to 'trust' the computer. Somehow it's the only thing/position in the screen the sensor isn't working. Same thing happens on iCloud, there is another screen asking you if you're sure you want to stop using iTunes and use iCloud and I can't get through it either.
I tried for hours.

I really want to transfer my notes on my new phone because it's 5 years worth of them and I want to keep them with dates etc etc...

Any suggestions would be welcome!

The way I finally solved the problem was to use the iPhone's AssistiveTouch. It can be enabled at the control center and when using the two finger gesture I was able to "click" on the "Trust This Computer" button that was otherwise unreachable since that part of the screen was unresponsive. I hope this helps others struggling with the same problem!


Tabs to spaces in BBEdit How can I configure BBEdit to insert 4 spaces (or at least spaces up to the next column which is a multiple of 4)? I've checked "Auto-expand tabs" in the preferences, but it doesn't seem to be doing that.

The Auto-expand tabs preference must also be set for the Language mapping setting. Also, the setting won't be applied until you create or open a new document.

See Languages in BBEdit.


Iphone 5 can not restore! Hello I have an Iphone 5 GSM it was jailbroken, i tried to do a manual update with the phone itself. Since then the devise is stuck on the apple logo and the loading bar is not moving. I tried to restore it with Itunes but it is not working, it says waiting for the Iphone but Iphone stays on the apple logo. Can anyone please help me?

Have you tried putting your iPhone in recovery mode? http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263 or https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5269891


Installing new PCIe m2 SSD on MacBook Pro 2014 I have a MacBook Pro Retina 2014 with a bad hard drive and recently found out that I can use a PCIe m2 SSD with it on macOS High Sierra.

I purchased a Samsung EVO 970 and an adapter to use in the internal Mac SSD slot. I also have a PCIe m2 to USB enclosure that I used to first allocate a FAT32 partition on the drive. I also made a bootable USB macOS High Sierra install disk using a virtual Mac. Now I have the EVO 970 installed in my Mac and the boot drive. The boot drive boots to a Utilities screen with options to install macOS etc.

I formatted the EVO 970 installed in the Mac as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) disk with the GUID Partition Map scheme. I then proceeded to use the Install macOS option, but I am unable to click on the 970 EVO drive because it says I am missing firmware for this drive.

I have not updated this Mac past Mac OS X El Capitan before and I am trying to install macOS High Sierra so my Mac will boot from the new SSD.

What am I doing wrong?

start again:
format the new ssd when still outside the mac (you need an cable to usb). Forget all software that came on the disk: all has to go with the format.
Now use a clone app on the mac, like CarbonCopyCloner, to make a clone of your actual disk with everything on it to the still external disk.
When that is ready, shutdown the mac.
Restart while holding the Alt/Option key: the startup menu is displayed: choose the new external disk: when it starts correctly and all is well:
shutdown again, open the mac, take out the "old" disk and put in the new disk, be very careful with the connectors.
Close the mac correctly, startup normally and are ready to continue where you were.
EDIT: it may be that the ssd connection is soldered: then of course you can not do it what I explained.


Possible to use two HCI controllers concurrently? I have a 2011 iMac with Bluetooth 2.1, and recently purchased a Bluetooth 4.0 USB dongle required for my new wireless mouse.

The dongle works great - I paired my mouse and keyboard to it without issue and used the following terminal command to ensure macOS uses the dongle instead of the built-in 2.1 module:

sudo nvram bluetoothHostControllerSwitchBehavior=always

(Source: Force OS X to use Bluetooth dongle instead of built in controller)

However I've noticed when I reboot or shutdown my Mac the login screen doesn't respond to any input from my wireless keyboard, so I can't enter my password to login. After logging in (using a wired keyboard) my wireless keyboard and mouse work perfectly fine. I suspect this is because I have FileVault enabled and the USB dongle's driver is not loading at boot?

It seems to me the best solution would be to leave my keyboard paired to my iMac's built-in module and only pair my mouse to the USB dongle, since I can login without needing my mouse, but I can't seem to find a way to use both Bluetooth modules concurrently. Is that possible?

Alternatively, is it possible to configure macOS or my iMac's EFI to load the USB dongle driver at boot? Replacing my iMac is not an option for me at this stage but I'm open to any other alternative ideas too. Thanks.

After some back and forth with Apple Support I've learnt that yes, macOS can use two Bluetooth HCI controllers at the same time, but the same driver cannot be used for multiple devices at the same time. As both my internal Bluetooth module and the USB dongle I purchased use a Broadcom chipset, macOS uses the same driver and that's why I cannot use both at the same time.

The solution is to use a USB dongle which does not contain a chipset made by the same manufacturer as the internal Bluetooth module. Broadcom seem to make the majority of chipsets used in most Bluetooth USB dongles - however I've found the 'Orico BTA-403-BK' which uses a CSR8510 chipset, which is manufactured by Qualcomm, who acquired a company called Atheros in 2011, whose Bluetooth drivers are natively supported by macOS. I'll report back after the Orico arrives with my final result.


iBook G4 opening procedure (for hard disk replacement) I am about to replace the hard disk of an iBook G4 (a 12" 1.33 GHz model) with a SSD. The guides I find online, such as this one, describe a rather long procedure where both the bottom and top covers of the case are removed. However, the disk itself should be accessible from the top. Is the removal of the bottom cover really required? And, if so, why?

Edit: yes, it is necessary. To remove the top cover, you must unscrew the power plug, and the screws for that are accessible only from the bottom.

And when guides talk about weak soldering of the power connector, well, they are right. Now I must boot my iBook with a screwdriver (I insert it in a hole I made in the case, to make a contact in the right place).

Yes, it's necessary. Apple's designs aren't simple, and you need to keep track of the screws and which one fits in which position. Some of the screws feed into other components on the other side. Taking the bottom off is the easiest part! I once had a unit in where someone turned their computer over to "their next door neighbor, who knows all about computers." After he was done, they couldn't get a disk to load in the optical drive. I took it apart and he put a long screw in the wrong place and drove it right through the optical drive.

This might sound stupid, but you might want to print out each page where he's taking screws out, and when you take them out, use masking tape to tape them onto the position in the diagram they came out of. If you're not used to working on these units, it's very easy to put the wrong screw in the wrong place and either end up with a part that's not secured or driving the screw right through something else.

If you think an iBook is complicated, try replacing the optical drive on a 12" PowerBook G4 sometime. :-o

Hope this helps.


Scrolling Settings - "Throw" I was trying to change my scrolling settings to keep the screen from scrolling when I take my hands off the touchpad.  Right now, if I do a two-finger scroll, and take my fingers off the pad while keeping my hand moving, the screen continues to scroll, like a throw.  I would like this behavior to stop.

I have a MacBook Pro running Leopard

Thanks!

You can remove the inertia for the two fingers scroll, just select "without inertia" under Trackpad inside the System Preferences :


How do I get Mountain Lion Calendar to subscribe to iCloud calendar another user invited me to? I have been sent an invitation to join another user's calendar.  I have previously been sent calendars by this person and have had to view the source code of the e-mail where I found a URL that I pasted into Calendar's File:New Calendar Subscription box.  However, unlike previous times, when I try to subscribe I get an error saying:

There was an error subscribing to the calendar.

The data downloaded from https://www.icloud.com/calendar/share/#... isn't valid.

I have noticed that the previous calendars that I subscribed to had a slightly different e-mail text ("Subscribe to my calendar... You've been invited to an iCloud calendar" vs. "Join XXX calendar? People will see your Apple ID if you join.", as well as a slightly different URL (webcal://p04-calendarws.icloud.com), but they are both iCloud.  I tried replacing https:// with webcal:// to no avail.

I don't understand the part about an Apple ID and iCloud.  I've got a Mac and an Apple ID (why does it want to share that with everyone else anyway?), but I don't have iCloud. I do have Calendar which is where all my other subscribed calendars are, so why can't I just subscribe to this calendar just like all the previous calendars they sent me?  I'm already subscribed to all their other calendars so it sounds like it would be a big pain if I have to go some place completely different just to see this new calendar.

Update:
The person who sent me the invitation said they have no idea what they did differently this time, so if anyone could shed light on that instead so they could simply re-send the invitation in a way that I could subscribe that would be an acceptable alternative.

The issue is that the calendar needs to be made public.  This does not mean that anybody can see your calendar, just that anybody can subscribe to it if they have the URL you send to them inviting them to subscribe.  Calendar does not appear to have the ability to subscribe to a non-public calendar, since you don't have to enter your Apple ID to use it, and iCloud uses this to authenticate that you are authorized to view a private calendar.


iPhoto11 Pictures disappear after importing After upgrading to iPhoto11, all the pictures i had at the time remained in my library, but now when i import photos from my camera memory card they only show up in last import, not in 'event's or 'photos' and after a day or so they no longer show up in last import it  comes up empty and says 'no photos'. and leaves me unable to find the photos in any other section of iPhoto.

By searching through finder i can see the photos, but i cannot get them to show up in the actual iPhoto pane so can only view them one at a time on preview. I tried dragging the photos into iphoto from here, but they say they cannot be imported. and that the files are already in the library.

I've tried rearranging the photos by date (ascending/descending) but they do not appear either way.

I would be really grateful of any advice on how i can find them!

Thank you

Have you tried the various utilities built in to iPhoto? I'm sure your photos are there, the library needs help to find them again.

Here is Apple's advice: How to Repair and Rebuild the iPhoto Library


trying to run FSF emacs in character based mode ( -nw ) on Catalina After installing Catalina on my laptop emacs vanished so I installed the latest version from FSF.  Running it in a window (gui mode) works fine but I can't get it to reliably work in character mode in Terminal.

I can run it fine like this

  /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -nw

but when I try and create an alias I get an unhelpful error:

alias emacs='/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -nw  $1'
emacs
LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed for the application /Applications/Emacs.app with error -10810.

I found references to starting emacs using open in an alias but open keeps grabbing the -nw and if I use the --args to pass -nw to emacs I get the same error 10810 as above

I actually solved this before I posted but decided that it is worth documenting what I found out.

It turns out that /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs is a small ruby script that figures out which binary to run (there are three):

ls -l /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/
total 110296

-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin      3408  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin  18889792  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs-x86_64-10_10
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin  18690016  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs-x86_64-10_14
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin  18883904  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs-x86_64-10_9

and if I make my alias

  alias emacs='/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_14 -nw $1'

it works.


Upgrading to MacOS from 10.6.8 MacBook Pro I have 2011 MacBook Pro that I have not used for a while. Now I am back to using it and would like to upgrade to the latest OS available. Currently, it is 10.6.8 an here are the issues

When I try to download the MacOS High Sierra from the App store, the "Get" button is grey and nothing happens when I click it. In fact, all the apps are like this and I cannot use the App store to download anything at all (I have signed it with my Apple ID).
Cmd+R at the booting is not working so I cannot even restore to factory settings.
I do not have recovery disks.

Could you please help me to sort this out as I am not familiar with Mac that much.

Are you using a 32-bit machine?

Unfortunately, 32-bit systems cannot run any OS after Snow Leopard (10.6). You have a few options:

Keep using Snow Leopard (be extremely careful about security, as I don't think it's still receiving updates)
Buy a newer Mac (possibly used)
Install Ubuntu and use it instead of OS X

If your machine is 64-bit, then I don't know what the problem is.


How to troubleshoot Time Machine when backup always halts at some point? Everything starts ok but then it comes to a halt and does not move. Even the HD light stops :(

Troubleshooting this is fairly straightforward to start.

When it hangs, open up Applications/Utilities and launch terminal.

Type:

 sudo tmdiagnose

That will gather many logs and statistics and allow you to have a complete picture of what Time Machine was stuck on. After collecting three such instances (reboot the Mac after the script ends), you can start looking for patterns or a specific file that's causing things to hang.

You also can capture very precise details before and after the tmdiagnose command by issuing a tmutil status command.

I've been troubleshooting this on one Mac for a few weeks now, so it's not always clear what or where the issue lies. Hopefully yours will be easier to nail down than mine.


My brand new iMac is receiving iMessages sent to somebody else, how to fix this? My brand new iMac is receiving iMessages from my daughters phone, not mine. Do you have any tips how to correct this?
I have tried to restart and shut hers off on her phone.

In messages on your Mac, check that you are signed in to the account that is yours.

If not - sign out and back in to the correct Apple ID for you and not the one your daughter uses.

Assuming you are on your account - make sure your daughter's phone number or email aren't added under the "You can be reached for messages at:" section.

This happens commonly when your Apple ID is signed in to someone else's iPhone to get apps from your account and you don't correct the messages settings. Entering your password on that phone ties their number (or possibly) email to your AppleID account for iMessage.

Going to that device and signing out of iMessage is the best way to remove that number permanently from your account. When that's done, also be sure her iPhone isn't using your Apple ID in iCloud settings - handoff could send messages from the phone directly to your Mac as well without it showing up in your AppleID account.


iCloud Backups removed by Apple I was hoping to restore my iPhone (that I use regularly and have iCloud backup enabled on) to a backup from a few days back. I have purchased a ton of space from Apple for iCloud for the purpose of ensuring everything I need stays there. Unfortunately, it only shows me the two most recent iCloud Backups. However, I have seen screenshots from people showing multiple available iCloud Backups to restore from. What gives with that?

Basically, Apple deleted my older backups, which I was not aware they did. When I spoke to Apple representatives, many were under the impression that Apple does not delete your Backups or stop backing up unless you are low on space (I am not low on space). So, extra confusion there when Apple representatives all aren't on the same page and hand out conflicting information.

I was wondering if there was any possibility that my iCloud backups still exist somewhere on Apple's servers, and if it would be possible to access them? I know things would have been at some point stored on multiple Apple servers. I understand this is a long shot, and I understand that I should have been backing up my phone in multiple ways (I actually do, but lost a message during the week I need to restore from).

Does anyone have insight into why Apple started doing this, especially when a user has purchased additional space and there is no need to delete?

iCloud Backup only stores the most recent backup of your device. Every time you take a new backup, the old one is automatically erased.

This is how it is supposed to be, and how it always has been (or at least for multiple years). It’s not something new, nor is it specific for your account. It doesn’t matter how much space you’ve bought, how much you’ve paid or how much free space you have.

You can have multiple iCloud backups stored on your account when you have multiple devices, or backups of older devices that you no longer have. As far as I recall, it is also possible to have multiple iCloud backups stored if you have done a major iOS update, so that you have the latest backup from before the upgrade, and the latest backup from after the upgrade.

There’s no user-accessible way of accessing backups that have been overwritten in this fashion. I doubt that Apple has any way to restore such backups either, as the disk blocks probably have been reused for other purposes in the mean while.

There's also no user-accessible way of asking iCloud Backup to keep two or more backups of the same device at different points in time.

If you want to have multiple point in time backups of the same device, you’ll need to use iTunes and backup on a local computer.


Is it possible to connect 3 non-Apple monitors to a 2014 macbook pro retina without adding extra hardware Like the title says - I already confirmed this to work with my 2012 macbook pro retina with 2x Dell U2515 2516x1440 and 1x ASUS VW199 1440x900 - but since Apple tech still states that it should not be possible, I wanted to hear if anyone had experiences with the 2014 model?

Even if you have experiences with 2013 or 2015 - feel free to answer!

It doesn't matter if you have the 13 inch or the 15 inch model - Apple supports two external monitors. One HDMP or Thunderbolt. The other Thunderbolt.

You'll need extra hardware to connect more displays or even ones that don't connect to the ports on the hardware.

See footnote 4 in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204154

  MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012), and Mac Mini (Late 2012 and later) computers can use an HDMI-compatible device on it's HDMI port while using one Thunderbolt display, or they can use two Thunderbolt displays.


Sync / Transfer Spotify Playlist to Apple Music Is it possible to transfer all my Spotify playlist to the new Apple Music?

I have like 10 playlists with more than 5000 songs, I would hate to lose them.

Alright I have found a way online to do it, the article was in Dutch so I will translate it for you all.

Things you Need:

MAC, preferred latest version
An TextEditor, if you don't have one get the free TextWrangler
Charles Proxy, free to download proxy tool
Python 3, download the MAX OS X installer here
Spotify2Music script

The process:

Step 1 - The Setup

Create a folder on your desktop, this will be our working folder. Place the 2 files from the Spotify2Music zip in here.

Step 2 - Exporting the Playlists

Login into Exportify and extract the playlists you want. You can export the playlist by using the green buttons Export. Once you have done this successfully a window opens containing the CSV file. Select the whole file and create a file spotify.csv and place it in the desktop folder you created in step 1.

Step 3 - Matching songs

We must match the Spotify songs to Apple Music songs. Open a terminal and cd to the folder on the desktop (see Step 1). By this step you should have installed python 3. While in the Desktop folder type: python3 retrieve-identifiers.py. The script will start working.

Step 4 - Retrieving the cookie from iTunes

We are going to retrieve cookie data from iTunes using Charles Proxy.

From the Menu Proxy go to SSL Proxy Settings
Check 'Enable SSL Proxying'
Click on add and insert '*itunes.apple.com'
In the same Menu check on 'Mac OS X Proxy'
Go to iTunes go to an Apple Music playlist but don't do nothing
Check you have enabled recording (please refer to image below)
When recording is enabled add the playlist to my Music

When Charles is stopped go to to the tabs as shown in the screenshot above. Copy the fields (x-dsid, cookie, x-guid) to TextEdit or Word.

Step 5 - Inserting the Cookie data

The 3 data files we have just "stolen" from iTunes need to be inserted into 'insert-song.py'. Open this file with TextWrangler (or equivalent) and go to lines 30,31 and 32. Paste the x-dsid, cookie, x-guid data and save the file. Remember all files must be in the same folder.

Step 6 - Ready to Import!

Open a terminal navigate to the folder from Step 1 typ in 'python3 insert-songs.py' and you are now importing all the (Matched) Spotify to Apple Music.

Tips and Tricks:

I have made folders like this to enable a quick import of all my playlists. I suggest you do the same.

If you run into sync problems, check out this post http://www.idigitaltimes.com/apple-music-problems-how-fix-issues-syncing-playlists-icloud-library-offline-455939

Remark

Don't over do it! I had all the playlists open in tabs in my terminal and I overflowed the Apple Music buffer. This process takes time so do 1 playlist at a time and go sleep or take a nape or a coffee :)

Credits

All credits go to This Post


SMB "home drive" mounts not being auto-mounted at ldap login, Mounts setup in User-group profiles In Profile Manager to mount the default home drives set for the User in Server.app, you mark a checkbox "Add Network Home," but then.  Does anyone know which plist in the system, etc, that is actually referencing? because it does not work for me, and home drives do not auto-mount.

When you click "add network home"  it adds text like {{{home drive}}} into the list of mount points (it looks exactly like that, but with less than and greater than signs instead of curved-brackets).

This specific question is regarding a small network where upon login, users get several mount points authenticated, and one not authenticated (they were originally set up using .mobilconfig files generated in profile manager, and previously in Workgroup Manager).

I've limited this question now to focus on the "home drives," because I believe so far, that overlapping device & user-group profiles were causing some of these problems, but I've removed these, and now, the OSX User/Networked home drives still do not auto-mount.

As a nice reference for the 2 steps involved in setting this up, see the question and answer on  this Server Fault forums post.  I should also add that mounting doesn't seem consitant at all, and sometimes other mount points don't come up, but this seems to related possibly to other factors.

Users login, most of the time they get these SMB shares, which via the config profiles are allowed to show up on the desktop (Finder settings), as well as get auto-mounted in Users & Groups.  The problem is that they just don't show up sometimes!  The Server logs are fairly clean, dnslookup is fine, the Server names all match the fqdn so the usual LDAP-related issues are in check.

OSX server is running on a Mac Mini running Yosemite with Server v. 5.0.1 (the same problem existed on server 4 as well), with the clients mostly on El Capitain, although I've seen this also in a mixed enviornment.  This occurs in only about 20% of User accounts, with no pattern in the directory service information that I can see.

I'm beginning to form my own answers on this, but the full understanding will take a lot of research and log review, so please edit, post other answers, and/or comments here!

In an older guide for OSX Server, I've read these comments, but surely rather than being required to allow guest access to those shares, a local account on the Server can mount them, or maybe that information is from before the authenticated-mounting made its way to OSX:

  Be sure to enable guest access both for the share point and for the
  protocol under which it is shared.

  Note: Automounted share points are available to clients only when their computers start up.

One element of this problem can be explained by reading over the Open LDAP documentation, which Apple's Open Directory is based on.  I have seen from time to time, at least once of the messages they describe, in the Open Directory logs.

Deep within OSX there may be inconsistencies of BerkleyDB versions, which for the simple-end-user in a perfect world could be resolved between the ideal combination of versions of OSX on the client, OSX (on the server), and Server.app or other changeable componts, also on the server.

from the link:

  C.2.9. ldap_sasl_interactive_bind_s: Can't contact LDAP server (-1)

  Using SASL, when a client contacts LDAP server, the slapd service dies
  immediately and client gets an error :

 SASL/GSSAPI authentication started ldap_sasl_interactive_bind_s: Can't contact LDAP server (-1) Then check the slapd service, it stopped.

  This may come from incompatible of using different versions of
  BerkeleyDB for installing of SASL and installing of OpenLDAP. The
  problem arises in case of using multiple version of BerkeleyDB.
  Solution: - Check which version of BerkeleyDB when install Cyrus SASL.

  Reinstall OpenLDAP with the version of BerkeleyDB above.
  http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin24/appendix-common-errors.html


Can't use Split View with TextWrangler I just updated TextWrangler to the latest version (5.5.1 (3944)) but Split View does not work. As I see they promote a new editor - BBEdit, so I guess they don't care about this one? Or is it possible somehow to enable Split View?

The lack of Split View is noted in Bare Bone's Text Wrangler FAQ. It's a limitation in El Capitan and Sierra that affects both Text Wrangler and BBEdit.