Time Machine says not enough space but there is plenty of space I'm not sure what happened but I used to be able to backup to a drive shared with a networked Mac Mini using OSX server. Now all of a sudden it says there is not enough space.

So I reformatted the drive (12TB) and restarted the whole thing. However Time Machine now tell me there is not enough space. It says:

  The backup disk needs 5.35 TB for the backup but only 499.49 GB are available.

I'm not sure why only 499GB is available.

I've run into this before when using networked backup, also said something like 497GiB were free when actually 4TiB were free. Seems this is caused by TM not creating a large enough sparsebundle for the initial backup. I found a workaround that at least worked for me (El Capitan) and submitted a bug report to Apple.

Workaround: You should notice that the sparsebundle on the OS X server has only ~499GiB as its capacity. Manually enlarge it by running this command on the server: sudo hdiutil resize -size [number of gigabytes]g [path to sparsebundle], e.g. sudo hdiutil resize -size 10000g /Volumes/Backups/mybackup.sparsebundle. Make it as large as you need. Retry your backup.

Edit: You may also have to resize the sparsebundle's partition in Disk Utility. I didn't have to do this, but maybe that's because my backup wasn't encrypted. For instructions, see the first (not accepted) answer here: Increase size of sparsebundle for TimeMachine


how to remove Yosemite installer? I had begin the update and left it overbite for download, it downloaded completely but then failed. I started the download again and this time it had finished successfully but I didn't notice it and thought it had failed again so started the download again. When it downloaded about 3 GB I saw the Yosemite installer and upgraded. But now the second upgrade icon is still there. How do I remove it and its data?

Nevermind, got it.

App Store -> Purchases -> Press Option and you will see cancel.


Cannot login to macbook pro due to keyboard not working. Mouse can move, but not click I was just watching a youtube video on chrome with no other programs running, when my keyboard stopped working.

I could still move the mouse with the trackpad, but not click. I could use the upper row of keys (brightness, volume…) but not the other ones.

I left the computer alone for a few minutes, thinking it was lag, so it logged me out.  Now I cannot log in because the keyboard does not work, and although I can move the cursor around on the login screen, I cannot click the switch user button.

In the past this issue has been resolved by resetting PRAM and restarting, but as the keyboard failure happens randomly, it is very frustrating to loose all my unsaved work every few weeks when this happens.

7 hours later, testing my keyboard every hour, I discovered the problem disappeared as it appeared.

Is there anyway to fix this without restarting?

How can I prevent this from happening again?

To regain keyboard access to your machine to troubleshoot the fault and restore correct functionality, here are (2) options to get back into your machine:

Option 1: Wireless Keyboard

Buy a Wireless (USB) Keyboard which uses a USB dongle that looks like a USB Flash Drive that you can just insert into a USB port (or USB-C adapter) and it should "just work".  This should enable you to regain the required access to troubleshoot the fault to restore normal keyboard functionality. A wireless Keyboard I like is:

Logitech K400 (Wireless)

Note: Although I initially suggested a Bluetooth keyboard in addition to the Wireless one, since it's not possible to "click" to add the Bluetooth device to your system this is a non-starter on a system broken in such a way as you describe.

Although I'm in Amsterdam at the mo' and unable to test it on my Macbook, I Googled and the k400 is Mac compatible.  I actually use this one with Raspberry Pi's, but might need it when my own Macbook's keyboard craps-out ;-)

Option 2: Remote Access Via SSH (requires another computer)

When I’ve had issues with things like this in the past, I’ve gotten in remotely via SSH. If you can get into the machine via SSH, you can troubleshoot the fault as well as get files you require until the issue Is resolved. Could use a cheap £32 Raspberry Pi to get a terminal session going into the Mac with the broken keyboard.

This possible solution implies of course you’ve enabled the SSH access in your system preferences as below:

Given the problems with Apple's keyboards these past few years, I don't doubt others might be having similar issues.

Finally, I'd suggest storing docs in iCloud (DropBox is also really good, but with the codicile that it's not integrated into Apple's ecosphere like iCloud) so you can access your data if you keep having grief with your keyboard-


How can I erase my Macintosh HD? I have already booted up my pc pressing Cmd+R and tried to erase the Macintosh HD partition, but I still can't do it

Go to your Disk Utility [it's in Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility] or by Spotlight Search.

Click on the Volume where your Mac HD is on.

Click on Partition tab and select the corresponding partition you want to erase. Now click on the minus (-) button in the bottom bar.

Note this option will be grayed out if you don't have more than 1 partition. Instead you want to erase the drive. Click on the Erase tab of Macintosh HD and erase accordingly.


How does macOS allow Standard users to ping I've got a pretty deep question here that I hope someone can answer.  In macOS, regular users can ping as well as root.  Normally, root access is required to open the raw socket necessary to run ping.  I've noticed on Linux that this usually accomplished by adding extended attributes to the ping program file to allow root-level access for opening raw sockets (in the past, this was done by just setting the setuid bit on the ping program, allowing it to do anything in its programming as root).

I've looked at /sbin/ping on macOS (High Sierra, specifically), and no such attributes are set, and neither is setuid.  So what is macOS doing to allow Standard (non-root) users to ping?  Are they sending ICMP packets over TCP or UDP?  If so (or if there's another mechanism I'm just missing entirely), can you point me to some docs?  Any help would be appreciated.

Let's take a look at the source code for Apple's ping implementation. Notably, we see this:

if (getuid())
    s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_ICMP);
else
    s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_ICMP);
sockerrno = errno;

getuid returns 0 if root. So this code is saying, "open the socket in DGRAM (datagram mode) if we are not root. If we are root, open as raw".

So a raw socket is only used when you are root. An IMCP ping packet is a standard DGRAM packet and does not require raw sockets.

However, there are some flags that can be passed to ping that do require root, and for those you will get an "Operation Not Permitted". For example:

>ping -f
ping: -f flag: Operation not permitted

When run as root, I do not get the operation not permitted. So Apple's implementation will let you do standard ping operations which does not require root, but require you to run as root for certain flags and operations.

Depending on if you are root, it may set some additional socket options:

if (uid == 0)
    (void)setsockopt(s, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SNDBUF, (char *)&hold,
        sizeof(hold));


Does a mac support UAS (USB Attached SCSI)? Does a mac with USB 3.0 support UAS (USB Attached SCSI)? If it does, how can we enable it in OS X and bootcamp? I need better speeds for my external RAID.

Apparently what you need is already in Lion see this blog OSX Mountain Lion 10.8 UAS UASP USB Attach SCSI drivers

Note I have nothing to do with the blog.  It was at the top of the list when I googled USB Attached SCSI OSX


All Music Off iPhone I have an iPhone 4S, and I recently upgraded to Spotify Premium (it's awesome) and want to clear all the music off my iPhone (through the normal iPod app).

Thing is, I use iTunes Match so plugging into iTunes won't let me wipe it all out - and there are a lot of artists that I want to delete - it would take a long time.

Is there any way to expedite the process?

This isn't through the iPod app, but it (should) delete all the music from your device.

Settings > General > Usage > Music > Edit (button, upper right hand corner) > "-" button > Delete.


Mid 2014 Macbook Pro Retina - Black screen on boot, no chime I recently tried to install big sur on my macbook through a bootable USB drive. Everything went well until during the install the computer auto rebooted and showed the apple logo and load bar then went blank. I guessed the system was still installing so I waited 10 hours but still a blank screen. Now I have tried to unplug the USB and restart but the computer seems to be stuck in some kind of limbo. Here are the symptoms:

No chime when powering on
Backlight turns on but nothing is displayed
Fan spins
Ignores closing laptop lid (Fan still runs and backlight on)
No display signal (external displays say no signal)
USB gets powered on
Cannot boot into anything (Recovery, internet recovery, verbose mode, safe mode, usb drive)

I have tried:

Resetting SMC
Resetting NVRAM
Removing battery, leaving for an hour and reconnecting.
Replacing SSD with a working SSD from an identical macbook model. (still nothing)
Removing and wiping SSD using another computer
EDIT: I tried letting the computer sit with the screen blank to drain the battery as a last resort and now it will display the red low battery graphic if I press power on. But still no boot.

It seems base system is missing or corrupted. I have tried everything. What do you think?

It’s the I/o, disconnect it and it will work again. Or change the I/o board. Tried it and it worked! Good luck


How can I set Firefox to respect my custom Mac keyboard shortcuts? In System Preferences, I have ⌘D set to Enter Full Screen and Exit Full Screen. I have been using these shortcuts for close to a decade now, and I'm really not interested in relearning them.

Unfortunately, ⌘D is also Firefox's built-in shortcut for creating a new bookmark. Unlike most Mac apps I've used, Firefox's built-in shortcut appears to take precedence over my custom one.

How can I make Firefox to respect my ⌘D shortcut for entering and exiting fullscreen?

(Small note: I happen to be on a very old version of macOS, specifically 10.9 Mavericks. I don't think this is relevant to the question.)

Unfortunately, this is a long-running, documented bug in Firefox. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1333781
You can add custom keyboard shortcuts which Firefox does not already use, but you cannot remap a shortcut that is built into Firefox.


How do I install and run MySQL? I installed MySQL:

but MySQL certainly isn't on the path when I open a terminal, nor do I see it in applications, as I seem to recall Windows handles MySQL.

My favourite way to install and run MySQL is via the Homebrew package manager. With Homebrew installed it's as straightforward as:

brew install mysql

This gets you the server and the command line connection tool. It's setup to run with no password, so it's not suitable for production use, but it's perfect for developing with. Homebrew takes care of putting everything you need on your PATH for you, no digging around in .app bundles for binaries.

Once installed, to connect:

mysql -uroot

To have launchd start mysql at login:

ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/mysql/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents

Then you can start it with:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.mysql.plist

Or if you don't care about having it start on machine boot/restart, you can just run the server directly with:

mysql.server start

The configuration file it reads will be in at /usr/local/etc/my.cnf.

Bonus: having Homebrew on your system puts you one command call away from installing all kinds of other packages. It's a reasonable package manager without a lot of fluff and cruft.


Late 2011 MacBook Pro 15" broken graphics - want to use external monitor I recently wanted to add a monitor to my late 2011 MacBook Pro, but I have issue with main graphic card (failed AMD GPU) that is connected to the HDMI port and the other graphic card doesn't seem to have any port I could plug into. Note I have verified the HDMI port is currently non-functional.

I'm thinking about alternatives:

Apple TV or AirPlay (is this still supported by newer monitors?)
USB/WiFi connection?

What would be the best option here? Except buying new MacBook Pro of course.

Current state of my MBP:

OS: High Sierra 10.13.6
it works fine until I have to reboot (below copy from the link to the forum what I do when MBP gets restarted)

Procedure I use:

1 - Boot Single User (press Command + S) at boot (If you have MacOS installed on your hard drive).

2 - If you have a blank HD, then use the USB stick/Pendrive with the MacOS installer (El Capitan, Sierra or HighSierra).

2.1 - Press Option key at boot, Position the mouse on the MacOS installer icon.

2.2 - Press Command + S and keep holding these two keys.

2.3 - Click the MacOS installer icon -> continue holding the Command + S keys until you finish the MacOS installer Single User boot .

Enter these commands (change gpu-power-prefs to Intel GPU and boot verbose):

nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00
nvram boot-args="-v"
reboot

The linked forum thread has 109 pages; What is your current state of MacBook - what have you tried from that forum post?

If your MacBook is now working and using the integrated graphics card, you can try to buy a USB to VGA/HDMI/... adapter.

Streaming to an Apple TV (which then connects to a TV/monitor) should work, even without the dedicated graphics card, but there are some limitations to it (e.g. may be slow, not ideal for videos/transitions,...). At least I could not find anything that implied it being a problem.

AirPlay is as far as I know only for music.

But you should probably read more about this problem here.


AppleScript: Tell Google Chrome to activate/deactivate extension I want to have AppleScript activate/deactivate a plugin, using a keyboard command.

I have set the keyboard command in Google Chrome > Settings > Extensions > Keyboard shortcuts and it works when I do it manually. For this example, I'm using Shift + Alt + U.

I've tried a few variants of this script.

tell application "Google Chrome" to activate
tell application "Google Chrome" to key code u using {option down, shift down}
delay(1)
tell application "Google Chrome" to keystroke "r" using command down

The last past refreshes the window, and it works – but not the second line which is supposed to toggle the extension. Again, I can toggle the extension manually with Shift + Alt + U, but the script won't do it,

I also tried this:

tell application "Google Chrome" to keystroke "u" using {option down, shift down}

Is the script actually supposed to work, making the problem reside somewhere else, or is there something wrong in it?

Try this code instead.

tell application "Google Chrome" to activate
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "u" using {option down, shift down}
delay(1)
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "r" using command down

I actually ran this applescript along with yours. First time I did not test yours seeing you called for a key code but gave it a keystroke value. When I ran your code, it gave me syntax errors(even with proper key code and keystroke values). When I ran my code, it compiles properly and runs the script as intended.


Can I get windows 7 like window resizing on Mac OS X? Windows 7 has a nice new feature for moving around windows.

The one that I am particularly interested in is:
Windows Key + Left/Right : Move the window to the left or right of the screen, or over to a second monitor.

But, Windows Key + Up: Maximize the current window and Windows Key + Down: Restore or minimize the current window. are also quite useful.

Is there anyway that I can get this functionality in OS? Preferably replacing the windows key with Command Key.

Shift It

If you read this Article I think you get what you want.


macOS Full Bluetooth menu as default If I Option-Click the Bluetooth icon in macOS it shows extra options and information. What do I need to change to have these options shown with a normal click?

There is no setting exposed directly to the user to make that change in the Bluetooth menu behavior, i.e. e.g., in System Preferences > Bluetooth > [] Show Bluetooth menu in menu bar, it only determines whether or not it's shown on the menu bar, not which menu is displayed by default or with modifier key(s) pressed upon being clicked. That is hard coded into /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Bluetooth.menu.  Nor do I know of an indirect setting, e.g. using the defaults command, that can be used to achieve that which you've asked.

You'll just have to continue to option-click to get the secondary menu and shift-option-click to get the tertiary menu, or of course just click to get the default menu.


Firewall denies sshd-keygen-wrapper despite configuration After upgrading to Lion, I cannot connect via SSH.  I get a timeout:

$ ssh -o ConnectTimeout=5 not.my.actual.hostname
ssh: connect to host not.my.actual.hostname port 22: Operation timed out

In /var/log/appfirewall.log I get this:

Firewall[541]: Deny sshd-keygen-wrapper connecting from 192.168.1.1:49380 to port 22 proto=6

I have specifically added sshd-keygen-wrapper to my firewall rules and set it to "Allow incoming connections", but I still get the same message in the firewall log.

If I disable the firewall, I can connect without issue, but I'd rather not disable it completely.  What am I missing?  Thanks.

I was having the same problem and this is how I fixed it --

Delete sshd-keygen-wrapper from firewall list
Click + to add it back
In the Open dialog press Cmd-Shift-G and specify /usr/libexec
select sshd-keygen-wrapper

Explicitly adding it in this way worked for me.  Good luck!

After step 4. you have to reboot. Or just restart the firewall by disabling and enabling the firewall in the system settings. Without the restart the new configuration will not be activated.


OSX keyboard shortcut for pushing button with underlined character Is it possible on OSX to push buttons that have an underlined character? In Windows you can hold in ALT and push the key that is underlined on the button.

Example:

On Windwos I can hit the "Replace"-button by hitting ALT+p, the "Replace all"-button by hitting ALT+a, etc.

How can I achieve this on a mac?

On my Macbook Pro with external keyboard and PHPStorm workd CTRL+ALT+P.
But, before try this shortcut, you need remove from phpstorm internal shortcuts.


Magnet damage to Macbook Pro I was an idiot and put a magnet on the right hand side of my trackpad on my MacBook Pro! I took the magnet off quickly, after realizing what I had done, but it seems I was too late!

The laptop started making a weird sound so I switched it off, thinking it was the best thing to do. After a minute or two, I turned on the laptop again and it started up but with a folder with a question mark in the middle of the screen. I turned it off and tried again, but the same image came up.

I'm almost certain I've wiped it, but obviously I'm no genius. Is there any way to fix it without taking the laptop to Apple?

Unfortunately, the magnet damaged the data on internal hard disk, which is located near the trackpad inside your MacBook Pro. Data on standard Hard Disks is stored on the disk using patterns of magnetization.

You will have to erase and restore from a backup if you have one.


Duplicate Tracks in "Music" App I used ITunes to download to my new IPad3 a variety of songs and albums I had already purchased.  However, in some cases, I have two copies of every song.  When I play an album with the "Music" app, I can see two copies of each song - and yes it plays both copies as it moves forward.

I've seen instructions online of how to get rid of ITunes duplicates on a PC.  But I'm dealing with my IPad3, not a PC.

You should have duplicate tracks on iTunes as well. If not, then try this out

Plug in you iPad and open iTunes.
On the "File" Menu Click on "Transfer Purchases from Brent's iPad" (I
Assumed the name of your iPad but you get the point).
Wait for sometime for all of your purchased tracks to transfer into
you computer (PC right?).
After that you can try out the steps mentioned in the link you
posted. This will erase all the duplicates from your iTunes Library.
After all is done, Sync you iPad and your duplicates should have been erased.

Hope it works!


Install gcc to mac via Terminal I have installed Xcode and the command line tools from the Mac Developers website, which I have read a few times is a prerequisite. I also installed the MacPorts program. In terminal:

sudo port install gcc48
sudo port select -set gcc mp-gcc48

All the above went smoothly until I type:

hash gcc

When I press enter, I get the following error message:

-bash: hash: gcc: not found

I am at a loss and do not know how to proceed to successfully install gcc on my Mac (which is running Mac OS X 10.9.1).

Much obliged to any suggestions and or alternatives to installing the gcc

You might be better off installing gcc from homebrew than Macports.

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
brew doctor
brew update
brew search gcc

There're are about 6 versions of gcc available from this package manager. See http://brew.sh for more details on the homebrew tools. Also this thread has more details on gcc and homebrew: How do I install GCC via Homebrew? Lastly, the gcc error in your shell is similar to this thread: I installed Xcode but I still don't have gcc in my terminal


Can I delete this recursive link to my Home directory? My home directory has a symlink to my home directory. I'm not sure how it got there. Is it safe to delete?

~ steve$  ls -l steve
lrwxr-xr-x  1 steve  staff  12 Jun 21  2012 steve -> /Users/steve

In command line you´ve more power with the following code line

cd ~ && unlink steve

so you´re shure that only the symlink will be deleted and not the complete home path :)


Can't find my apache error_log folder new Mac (Yosemite) and setting up a new dev environment. At the moment cannot find any error_log folder at the following paths:

/var/log/apache2/error_log
/private/var/log/apache2/error_log
/var/log/httpd/error_log

Any thoughts on where that folder may be?

The location of error_log is defined in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf. Run

grep '^ErrorLog' /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

to see the definition.


Getting Beach ball when selecting "open with" on context menu I have multiple external disks on my machines.

They are "green disks" and spin down/power save when they have not been accessed for a while.

When I right click on a file in Finder, then select "Open With" I get a spinning beach ball for a few seconds and I can hear my external drives spinning up. I have no applications on my external drives.

How can I stop the spinning beach ball from happening when selecting "Open With"?

It seems to be related to the external drive being in power save mode. Although I can't confirm this.

Usually, you can stop the startup disk from spinning down by going to System Preferences > Energy Saver, then unchecking "Put the hard disks to sleep when possible". However, whilst this is certainly true for the startup disk, whether this is adhered to by external drives seems to be wholly dependant on the drive itself.

This page has more information, including a description of your problem, but also says

  Second, some non-startup drives simply ignore the setting of Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible and spin down on their own schedule. This appears to be a function of either the drive itself or, in the case of external drives, the firmware or chipset employed in the drive's enclosure. In such a case the drive's Standby behavior cannot be changed. One can contact the manufacturer of the drive or enclosure to see if a firmware update is available to improve its cooperation with Mac OS X power management.

The only other way I can think of around this, if the above doesn't work, is forcibly keeping the drive awake. To do this you could simply set up a script to touch a file on the external drive at fixed intervals.


Why won't my iPhone Apps appear in iTunes 12.5.5 on El Cap? I have an older (2011-2012) MackBook Pro running El Capitan (10.11.6) and iTunes 12.5.5 (in other words, the latest of both).  I have an iPhone SE running iOS 10.1.1.

I don't use this MBP very often, but I happen to be doing some mobile music recording, and I need to get a file out of a specific application on my phone (Propellerhead Figure) and onto my MBP.  The only way to do this, is via the app's file-sharing via iTunes.  I've done this plenty of times before on my Desktop mac, but not on my MBP until now.

Unfortunately, my phone does not seem to sync at all with the MBP.  The computer is authorized to my iCloud account, and the sync looks like it's working but completes in a couple of seconds, and no apps are brought over.  The images of each of my phone's screens show all the apps, but no apps are actually transferred to the MBP.

Does anyone know why this is happening and what to do about it?  I've been googling like crazy but coming up empty.  I've got to get this working.  Thanks!

WOAH I did not expect to be answering my own question so fast.  But in case anyone else ever runs into this, here is what just fixed it for me.

I had an old iPhone 4s laying around (iOS 8.x) so decided to see if it would sync.  Hooked it up and sure enough, no problem... apps came over, etc.  Plugged my iPhone SE back in (in addition to the 4s still connected), selected the SE, and lo & behold - all my apps show up.  I can't explain it as they were never transferred to the computer... but there are there and I can access the file I needed.  Very strange!


Two developer licenses under the same Apple ID (same company) We already have one developer license, but want to buy one more developer license.

Is it possible under the same Apple ID?
We want to buy one more license under same company name, same Apple ID.
Basically Apple ID (having agent role) is legal owner. So under the same Apple ID, we wanted to buy a 2nd license.

If no, what are the alternate ways?

No it is not possible with the same Apple ID.

You can simply just create a new Apple ID, then join the developer program (as Individual), then your company can invite you to the team as a developer. You will have access to the tools and profiles just like user #1.

Every time you log in you will be asked if you want to be logged into your Individual account, or your company account you are apart of, just choose the company team.

Note: Your company account needs to be a entity type, 'Company / Organization'. This will not work for entity type 'Individual'.  As an 'Individual' count as 1, you can't have any other members.


FM Tuner for iPod Touch Is there a way to add (or even enable) a FM tuner for the iPod Touch? The only thing stopping me from getting one is the missing FM tuner. By the way, I need the FM tuner to listen to TV shows at the gym (they transmit the sound through a FM transmitter). So I cannot replace the FM tuner by Pandora.

I don't know for sure whether the fourth generation iPod actually has a built in FM Tuner. However, external FM Tuner adapters are quite prevalent.

Edit: Whoops, sorry about that, I did link the wrong item. Chops is correct, that was a transmitter. The link now points to the original item I had intended to link.


Forwarding a single port from one network adapter to another? I have a Parallels Desktop virtual machine with Host-Only networking. I want to set up Remote Desktop on Windows (port 3389) while not exposing any other part of Windows to the external network. Parallels adds a virtual network adapter that allows me to communicate with the Windows machine. On OSX I tried to add the following rule:

sudo ipfw add 100 fwd ,3389 tcp from any to 10.37.129.3 dst-port 3389

But it doesn't seem to work. Is there anything wrong with my rule? Is there another way of doing this?

According to what you're trying to achieve, your rule is in a wrong position.

This Source will show you how to set up a rule.
However, you're navigation FROM:

  sudo ipfw add 100 fwd 10.37.129.3,3389 tcp from any to any 3389 in

Please don't hit me with a stick, I'm unable to forward this on my Mac to test.


How do I tell Safari not to change the active tab on the error console when I reload a page? When I reload a page on Safari 9.0, El Capitain, with the developer tools open and the "Console" tab active, it will automatically switch to the "Resources" tab. How do I stop this deliberately stupid behavior?

Close the Resources tab then it always stays on the tab where you are on every reload


How do I unlock my Mac without having to click my name? In Snow Leopard, at least, I could press Cmd + L to select my name and then press Enter to get the password prompt, but I can't get that to work in Mountain Lion when I've left the computer locked for an extended amount of time.

How do I unlock my Mac without having to click my name when I've locked it?

Just by typing the first letters of the user's name should select that user. Afterwards, as you say, pressing Enter will prompt for the password.


5GHz WiFI speed much slower than on 2.4GHz on my Macbook air 2017 I just setup my new Xiaomi WiFi MiRouter 4A gigabit edition router but my Macbook has only 3MBs speed of uploading while on 2.4GHz speed is 60MBs. Also on iphone and other devices is almost 200Mbs speed. I deleted my antivirus app and vpn but still didn't help. I don't know what to do.

Found solution. Issue was in the settings of bandwidth, changed from 20Mhz to 80 Mhz.


Left headphone have significantly lower volume than right one - Macbook Pro 2012 After upgrading SSD and traveling with my Macbook Pro and traveling while low temperatures outside (I don't know if this is relevant).

When I connect headphones the sound on the left one is significantly quieter.

Is it connector problem or not ? Should I try to put something to the hole, and bent a little bit connectors ?

I found out it was volume setting problem, that could be changed in "Audio MIDI setup"

Plug in the headphones (if there is problem with headphones - if problem exists when using internal speakers, don't plug headphones)

Find in Spotlight "Audio MIDI setup" app:

And open app :

Make sure that channel 1 and 2 have THE SAME volume set up. Set every channel to value "1" as here :

I have no idea how this disproportion in volume happened. But I would like to know. (I haven't tinker with volume before - except simple volume up/down via headphone control or keyboard's function keys)

This answer is based on the "The Hefster's" answer from :

https://discussions.apple.com/message/18797385#18797385

(I post screenshot because https://discussions.apple.com doesn't support linking to stand alone posts)


Get Open Sound Control (OSC) Input Names Since beginning to learn Quartz Composer, I've stumbled onto Open Sound Control (OSC) and have begun looking for OSC compatible iOS apps. I have a universal iPhone/iPad app called Control which seems to be capable, if not just a bit ugly.

I'm attempting to use it as an interface into Quartz Composer projects via the built-in OSC Receiver but there is no documentation for the Control iOS app, so I don't know what key is bound to the various objects from within the iOS app.

Is there software that will plainly listen for OSC events, and report on the keys and values being transmitted? This can either be standalone software, or a built-in component of Quartz Composer that I have not seen yet.

I found a drop dead simple way of doing this, at least for a person like me. Control iOS was configured to send to my computer on port 60000. So what do I do? I listen to Network Traffic.

From the terminal, run tcpdump -v -i en1 'port 60000'. (Note that en1 is my wireless interface, you may have to consult the output of ifconfig to figure out your interface name.) Among the multitude of other lines while drawing my finger across the application's space, I saw:

17:46:43.789027 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 42497, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 72)
192.168.1.109.53578 > 192.168.1.110.60000: UDP, length 44
E..H....@.Px...m...n.J.`.4j.#bundle............./multi/1....,ff.<6.n....

Considering I had a rough idea what an OSC key name looked like, I plugged /multi/1 into the OSC Receiver block of Quartz Composer, and I had control over the circle used in the example!

Note also that XY type communication occurs as "floats". NOT FLOAT, but plural, "floats". Because it's a float of the x-axis, and of the y-axis.

If your input does not take a structure, you can use the Structure Index Member or Structure Key Member Patches to isolate the X or Y value, and put it into your input patch.

Note that I'm still very interested in a simpler solution to this, especially for readabilities sake. If I wish to test multiple buttons quickly, the tcpdump text will be scrolling too quickly for me to be able to adequately read in some cases. So, I will not accept this answer if it goes over a week without any other answer.


How do I share an entire album in iCloud photos? Not just individual pictures I have several albums with photos taken on an iPhone, which I view and work with at https://www.icloud.com/photos/. I can select individual pictures and create a share link, and I do this all the time.

But when I select an album, all the share links ghost out.

How can I use iCloud Photo to share whole albums with others?

PS: I'm aware of How can I share an iCloud photo album? but this recommends to use iCloud Photo Sharing which isn't available from iCloud Photos.

Unfortunately, Shared Albums are not currently available on the web:
Can I view shared photo albums on the icloud.com web interface?

You cannot share albums created on your iPhone or Mac or on iCloud Photos with other iCloud users.

These albums are synced to your other devices via iCloud, which is why you can see them on the web.

In the image you are attempting to share a normal album. These cannot be shared.

You must use the dedicated "Shared Albums" feature of iCloud Photos. This is different than the "Albums" feature, which you cannot share.

Shared Albums are not available via the web interface.


How to get Torch browser to stop prompting me to update to new version? I have the Torch browser (Version 29.0.0.7181 (7181)) installed on my Mac (10.11.4). It's no longer updated or supported on the Mac but I use it as a tester browser for some things so I like it.

But Torch periodically asks me to install a new version of Torch. There's a modal window that says:

A new version of Torch is available.
Would you like to install it now?
"Remind me later"      "Install now"

I have to click the "Remind me later" to dismiss it. And if I click "Install now" nothing happens.

How can I get the Torch browser to stop prompting me to update to a new version? There is no new version. There is nothing in the Torch settings to disable this. Is the prompter a binary I can just delete from my Mac? Anyway at all to disable this annoying dialog from ever appearing again?

Scroll down on this site (http://www.shouldiremoveit.com/Torch-5557-program.aspx) and you'll see something that's known to come with Torch called torchhelper.dll.

I dug into Activity Monitor to gather data about Chrome (I really don't want to download Torch) and found all this when expanding the Chrome app section (while using Chrome to bring it up to the top):

So try this and tell me what happens: open up Activity Monitor on your Mac, go to the Memory tab, then search (top-right) for Torch. Take a screenshot of what comes up! Try killing the processes (tap on whatever helpers come up and press the X in the top left) and see what happens).


"Time Machine must erase your existing backup history and start a new backup to correct this." Why is that? I seen this message for the past two days:

"Time Machine detected that your backups on “SynologyDS216.local” cannot be reliably restored."

"Time Machine must erase your existing backup history and start a new backup to correct this."

I can access the backup history just fine. The NAS (which have RAID 1) is fine as well.
When I look at the backups:
~ ᐅ tmutil listbackups | tail -n 5
2020-10-15-144522
2020-10-15-151447
2020-10-15-154125
2020-10-15-184439
2020-10-15-195406

We can see that it stopped doing backups exactly 2 days ago, so I decided to do a check:
tmutil verifychecksums /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/Thomas-MBP

and an error that popped up is:
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Thomas-MBP/2020-07-08-200220/Macintosh HD/System/Library/DirectoryServices/DefaultLocalDB/Default: error 257 enumerating path

The directory exists:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root  wheel   102B Aug 25  2019 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 root  wheel   170B Sep 29  2019 ..
drwx------+ 7 root  wheel   238B Aug 25  2019 Default

but the permissions are an issue. This file has extended attributes, so I look to see what's up:
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Thomas-MBP/2020-07-08-200220/Macintosh HD/System/Library/DirectoryServices/DefaultLocalDB ᐅ sudo ls -le Default
total 0
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel   340 Aug 25  2019 aliases
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel   102 Aug 25  2019 computers
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel  4420 Aug 25  2019 groups
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel   102 Aug 25  2019 networks
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel  3468 Aug 25  2019 users
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown

When looking on the host machine:
/System/Library/DirectoryServices/DefaultLocalDB ᐅ ls -l

    total 0
    drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel    96B Jan  1  2020 .
    drwxr-xr-x  5 root  wheel   160B Jan  1  2020 ..
    drwx------  7 root  wheel   224B Jan  1  2020 Default

the permissions are not the same and the data can be accessed.
It looks like TimeMachine claims it can't use the backup due to some permission issues...
I tried to ask about it on the Apple forums but my post got removed because I'm running a beta version of the OS...
Has anyone seen this problem before?

“Has anyone seen this problem before?”
I have, and from what I have heard from reading forums over the years, it sounds like a very common problem with Time Machine: every once in awhile, it says “I need to delete your backup and start over.”
Or it says “I can’t backup because your backup device is full” (even though Time Machine is supposed to prune itself as needed).
Or something else comes up that causes Time Machine to choke.¹
Howard Oakley has cataloged a long list of issues with Time Machine, and even has some free apps to help work with Time Machine archives (unfortunately, nothing that can “repair” a “damaged” Time Machine backup, as far as I know).
In response to this I have developed the following attitude towards Time Machine:

Never rely on Time Machine as your only backup.

Use Time Machine to multiple locations (e.g. a Time Capsule or other remote Mac plus a local Mac) with the expectation that if one gets corrupted, you will still have the other one. Note that Point #1 still stands, even with Point #2

In addition to Time Machine, also use at least one (preferably two) of:

Backblaze
Carbon Copy Cloner
SuperDuper
Arq

¹ This is usually where someone will chime in and state that they have used Time Machine since it was first released and never had a problem with it. I do not doubt that there are some people who have had that experience, but I tend to consider them sort of like people who win the lottery: I am happy for them, but I would never expect to be one of them, and have decided to assume I never will be. YMMV.


Why does OSX use 6GB of RAM after restart? Just had OS X crash on me because of swap pressure. I have 2012 rMBP running the latest version of Mavericks (10.9.1), and it only has 8GB of RAM.

Since reboot, OS X now consumes 6GB, which leaves me almost no memory to do any work.

Is there anything I can do about it?

EDIT: Just had it crash again. I only ran Chrome with few tabs, and my super lightweight workspace. The trouble is, workspace lives in memory, so when system crashes, I lose everything. I guess I have to throw this shitOS away, and get a proper PC with GNU/Linux.

Memory being used doesn’t mean the memory can’t be used for anything else. Mavericks will put idle memory to work if it can.

For instance, 2.5G is being used for file cache — storing files in memory so it doesn’t have to hit the disk for them. As you consume more memory, that will go away.

Now, if it crashed on you due to swap pressure, you may not have enough memory for the work you’re doing with the machine (Or maybe not enough free disk.), but there’s no indication you have a problem right away.

I have 4GB on a non-retina MBP. It’s been up for four days, I run a fair amount of crap. It’s using 3.96GB of that memory, and hasn’t touched swap at all. (It’s also compressed about a gig of memory.)


2011 MacBook (10.6.8) connects to AirPort but intermittently won't connect to webpages I have never experienced this problem before. I know that the problem is not the internet, because the internet works fine on all my other devices, both Windows and Mac. I brought my MacBook in to the Apple Store this morning and they renewed the DHCP and deleted the internet plist files from my system preferences library folder. They ran a hardware diagnostic and my hardware is fine. At the Apple Store, the problem was duplicated also when connected via ethernet cable to the network - so it's not an airport problem.

It's very strange because sometimes the internet works and sometimes it doesn't, so it's very hard to know if a fix works or not. Renewing the DCHP seemed to work at the Apple Store, so I brought it home, and now can't get back on the internet here. I re-renewed the DHCP, re-added my network, manually entered the DNS, rebooted, and still not working. AirPort shows it is connected to the internet, but when I attempt to load a website, it "thinks" for a long time without loading anything and then eventually gives me a "can't establish connection" error message.

My network settings are as follows:

In the main Network window:
Status: Connected
Network Name: ibahn
AirPort is connected to ibahn and has the IP address 10.58.207.44.
802.1X: WPA: Awarenet

On the "Advanced" window:

AirPort tab:
Network Name: ibahn    Security: None
"Remember networks this computer has joined" is selected, all other options not selected.
AirPort ID: 10:9a:dd:bb:25:7b

TCP/IP tab:
Configure IPv4: "Using DHCP"
IPv4 Address: 10.58.207.44
Subnet Mask: 255.255.252.0
Router: 10.58.204.1
Configure IPv6: "Automatically"

DNS tab:
DNS Servers: only one in the list - 10.58.207.44
nothing in "Search Domains" field

WINS tab:
NetBIOS Name: MACBOOK-5BF526 and next to it it says "MACBOOK5BF526 is currently being used."
Workgroup and WINS Servers fields are empty

802.1X tab:
User Profiles:
WPA: Awarenet
Awarenet Profile
(both of those are boxes that are checked)
"WPA: Awarenet" : User Name - egoodwin; Password - ? (seems to be a password but I have no idea what it is); Authentication - PEAP, TTLS, and EAP-FAST are all enabled, TLS, LEAP and MD5 are disabled; Wireless Network: Awarenet; Security Type: WPA2 Enterprise
"Awarenet Profile"  User Name - egoodwin; Password - ? (seems to be a password but I have no idea what it is); Authentication - PEAP is enabled, TTLS, TLS, EAP-FAST, LEAP and MD5 are disabled; Wireless Network: Awarenet; Security Type: WPA Enterprise

Proxies tab:
under "Select a protocol to configure" no options are selected/enabled

Ethernet tab:
Ethernet ID: 10:9a:dd:bb:25:7b
Configure: "Automatically"
MTU: "Standard (1500)

Anyone have ANY idea what could be wrong? The Awarenet thing seems off, but I'm not sure what that's all about and what the default would be - so if anyone has suggestions or knows what's going wrong, please do tell me!

The main thing that looks odd from the setup that you've mentioned above is the DNS server. It appears that the IP address your computer has allocated is being assigned as the DNS server? If you're not running DNS services on your computer, this won't work very well.

Try to remove the single DNS server (i.e., your computer's IP address) from the list of DNS servers, and see if the machine populates that list with other entries (that were potentially provided via DHCP). If there are no DNS servers listed in that dialog box after you remove the single entry, I'd suspect configuration problems on your network.

Alternately, it may help to manually configure that network interface to use Google's open DNS servers (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) to see if they will respond correctly to DNS lookups.

You can use the Network Utility program at /Applications/Utilities to perform further network troubleshooting. For example, it should be possible to "ping" the DNS server, router (gateway) and some outside host from where you are. This lets you know that your machine can communicate with those devices. First, I'd recommend trying to use Network Utility to ping the DNS servers that are being provided via DHCP. Under the "Ping" tab, you can enter the IP address of each of those hosts, and click "Ping" to see if you get a response. If all of the DNS servers are responding to pings, see if you can ping the gateway (10.58.204.1). If you receive responses for pings to all of the 'internal' hosts, see if you can ping some outside host (gmail.com?) to see if your computer's network traffic is being routed to the Internet.

If all of the ping tests are passing, I'd recommend trying to perform DNS lookups on the servers that are showing up in the DNS table in Network System Preferences. You can use the Network Utility program to perform lookups, but it may be more helpful to diagnose the DNS servers individually using 'nslookup' through the Terminal program. Open Terminal from /Applications/Utilities. When the program opens, you'll see a command prompt. Type in the following queries, and observe whether or not you receive valid responses from all of the DNS servers provided:

nslookup gmail.com 172.16.2.5
nslookup gmail.com 172.18.82.11
nslookup gmail.com 4.2.2.2

Those servers should respond with some answer (and IP address for gmail.com) within milliseconds. If you're seeing the commands hang for excessively long periods, that particular DNS server may not be responding correctly.

It's odd that you're having intermittent issues when using Google's DNS servers...If you're on some larger private network (as it appears you are based on the private addresses being provided), it's possible that traffic is being filtered.

Lastly, the Awarenet profile that you're using is simply utilized for authentication to a wireless access point named "Awarenet" that uses 802.1x (WPA Enterprise) security to authenticate users (you're signing in as egoodwin). If you no longer use/join a Wi-Fi network named "Awarenet" (for work, or school?), the profile can likely be deleted.


How to sync audiobooks using iTunes Match/iCloud from macOS to iOS 11? I have a couple of audio books on my MacBook which I want to listen to on a Road Trip. I imported the files in iTunes and then changed the media type to "Audiobook".

Now they show up as an audiobook, but it seems they won't get uploaded to the iCloud.

Q: Do I have to label the files as normal Music files with the genre "Audiobook" to be able to listen to them on the go, or is there a way to upload audio books to iCloud?

How does the iCloud in general handle audiobooks by the way? It seems in earlier versions of OS X and iOS I could just upload the files via iTunes Match.

iTunes Match will only sync music.

Yes, in order to upload an audio book using iTunes Match to make it available on your other devices you need to change thy media type to "Music".

I subscribed to iTunes Match when it became available in 2011 and can't remember being able to sync anything but songs. The same is also true for Voice Memos.


How to remove birthdays from iCal? Does anyone know how to do this? I already unchecked birthdays in the iCal > preferences

I am the Admin

I had to unsubscribe from birthdays in Google calendar in order to remove it from iCal.


AppleScript Error using Adobe Photoshop CC to batch convert CMYK profiles I'm using AppleScript to process a folder of TIFF images that need to be converted to a specific CMYK profile in Photoshop. The script first asks for a folder containing the images and then prompts for an output folder location. However, I get the following error when running the script:

  Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 got an error: Can’t get current document.

The first thing I tried was to remove current from the save command. It looks Photoshop is actually opening and saving the document(s) after doing this, however, the TIFFs are not in the folder specified in newFilePath. Not sure how I should be handling this since it is supposed to process multiple files. The current script is below:

on run
    tell me to open {choose folder}
end run

on open droppedItems
    set destFolder to choose folder with prompt "Select Output Folder"
    repeat with anItem in droppedItems
        tell application "Finder"
            -- Make sure each item is processed by this script is a folder
            if class of item anItem is not folder then
                -- Not a folder, notify the user of the error
                display dialog "Please drop folders containing images"
            else
                -- A folder, get the Adobe Photoshop files and process them
                set fileList to (every file of anItem) as alias list
            end if
        end tell
        HPConvert(fileList, destFolder)
    end repeat
end open

-- fileList is a list of aliases to Photoshop files
-- destFolder is an alias to a folder where the converted TIFFs are to be saved
on HPConvert(fileList, destFolder)
    set destPath to destFolder as string
    repeat with aFile in fileList
        tell application "Finder" to set fileName to name of aFile
        set newFilePath to destPath & fileName
        tell application "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015"
            open aFile
            convert to profile "CGATS21_CRPC6 V2" intent absolute colorimetric with dithering
            save current document in file newFilePath as TIFF with options {embed color profile:true, save layers:true, save spot colors:true} appending lowercase extension
            close current document saving no
        end tell
    end repeat
end HPConvert

The problem appears to be the tiff options.

It's missing in the front of the object class:TIFF save options,

That line as a whole (as it should be):

save current document in file newFilePath as TIFF with options {class:TIFF save options, embed color profile:true, save layers:true, save spot colors:true} appending lowercase extension

How I figured it out:

Step 1:

First thing I did was open a new file in the Script editor and ran:

tell application "Adobe Photoshop CC 2017"

    return current document

end tell

Sure enough returns a document name as long as a document is open in PS. So no surprises there.

Step 2.

Took your script and stripped away all but the essentials and replaced input and output with static values. Well technically the input was just an open document...

set fileName to "Filename.tif"
set newFilePath to "/Users/joonaspaakko/Desktop/test/output/" & fileName
tell application "Adobe Photoshop CC 2017"

    convert to profile "High Quality Print" intent absolute colorimetric with dithering

    save current document in file newFilePath as TIFF with options {embed color profile:true, save layers:true, save spot colors:true} appending lowercase extension

    close current document saving no

end tell

Still complains about the document, but I know that is not the issue based on my first test.

Step 3.

So I took a look at the reference document for applescript and in there I looked at the tif save example. Can be found if you search for: save current document in file myFile as TIFF in the pdf.

I'm not too experienced with Applescript in general let alone scripting Photoshop with it... So I don't know if there are better ways to debug the code, but Script Editor was complaining about that save line and highlighting it, so I figured that is where the error must be... or around that area.

Just manually looked for differences and possible syntax errors, and I found out it was missing the class:TIFF save options, in the beginning of the tif options object and adding that in fixed the error.


Can't run Apache Maven via command line on El Capitan I have installed Apache Maven 3.3.9 and tried to run it with command line using mvn.
For this purpose, I added the following symlink but it doesn't work :

sudo ln -s /opt/local/share/java/maven3/bin/mvn /usr/local/bin

I tried first :

sudo ln -s /opt/local/share/java/maven3 /usr/local/bin

But Man mvn and mvn -v don't return anything except errors.
Any idea what I should do ?
I'm using last version of El Capitan.
Thanks.

EDIT :

ls -l /usr/local/bin/mvn returns lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin  35  2 aoû 21:34 /usr/local/bin/mvn -> opt/local/share/java/maven3/bin/mvn

My PATH contains a bunch of stuff:

/Users/sbdy/anaconda3/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin/java:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/usr/X11/bin: No such file or directory

I assume your JAVA_HOME is not configured properly. This will result in an info and error output entering mvn -h or mvn -v.

To install Java 8 and Maven properly do the following:

Download and install the latest JDK
Open Terminal and enter /usr/libexec/java_home. The result should be (as of August 2016):

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_101.jdk/Contents/Home

Download and unzip Maven. Move the resulting folder to an appropriate folder (e.g. /opt/)
In Terminal enter nano .bash_profile. Add the lines

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)
export PATH=/opt/apache-maven-3.3.9/bin:/...other_paths_already_in_your_profile..:$PATH

save the file to disk and quit nano with ctrlO and ctrlX
Source your modified profile with source .bash_profile or better restart Terminal.

If you have installed maven and/or java with MacPorts or homebrew, the approach is similar the paths to Java/Maven may differ though.


Encrypting contents of Macbook Air How much of a performance hit is there when encrypting the contents on a Macbook Air? I'm at the point in its setup where it asks me if I want to encrypt. If I say "no", can I encrypt it later?

Yes, you can activate or deactivate FileVault later in the settings. Of course there will be a performance drop when running FileVault, but only so little, that you would have a very hard time measuring the slow down let alone having it affect your system in any meaningful way.

The system might take 10 seconds longer to boot at most and have a pause where you have to enter your password before the rest of the normal start up happens.


How do I manually add a URL as a bookmark in Safari? When I visit the URL it redirects to a different site even though I want the bookmark to initiate at the original URL. I don't see a way to manually add a bookmark with the URL that I specify, I only see a way to add a bookmark on the page I'm currently viewing.

Add a new bookmark (any site will do)
Navigate to Bookmarks -> Edit Bookmarks in the menu bar
Find the bookmark you just added and edit the URL/Title


Why doesn't my iPhone 6 scan certain QR codes? My iPhone 6 works fine for common QR codes, but won't scan certain 2D codes (mac parts QR codes, for example).  Are these codes different?

Not all 2D codes that look like QR codes are QR codes.

QR codes have a distinctive square position pattern in one or more of the corners of the code, like this one for Wikipedia.

Based on this iPhone X teardown, it looks like Apple uses Data Matrix for 2D codes on their parts.

The iPhone camera can only scan QR codes, and not other 2D or 1D codes like UPC, Code 39, PDF417, Data Matrix, MaxiCode, etc. There are apps on the App Store that can read these codes.


How to delete iOS 9 install file? I have an ipad 2 with iOS 7. I got a notification about iOS 9 ready to install. I don't want to install iOS 9.

The problem is before this I used to have 1GB+ storage space and now I only have 100MB+ storage space left. I'm almost 100% sure the space is taken by iOS 9 install file.

In settings general usage I can see iOS 9 update but the size is only about 40MB. I have deleted it and restarted the ipad but the space recovered is only the 40MB.

Where is the rest of the install file? Can I delete it?

Go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage.

The full file is around a GB but some people have partial files as small  as only 40 MB so You might need to carefully search for your download.

Tap Delete Update, and tap Delete Update again to confirm.
hope This will effectively remove the downloaded update from your device and prevent you from accidentally installing it.
if you are going to upgrade in future keep save the shsh blobs (ios 7) so you can downgrade to ios 7 later .


Running OSX from Bootcamp It's well known that to run Windows on a Mac you can either use a virtual machine install or reboot into a Boot Camp partition.  You can also, with suitable software like Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion, open your bootcamp partition whilst booted into OS X.

Is it possible to do this the other way around?  If I boot into Windows via Bootcamp, can I start my OS X partition via virtual Machine software?

I am afraid not, it's not possible to virtualise Mac OS X in order to allow it to run within Windows, at least not by effectively opening up your genuine OS partition and running is as though it was a virtual machine, which can be done for a Windows Partition within OS X.

It is possible to run Mac OS X in a virtual machine from a Windows OS, but it is not officially supported by any of the major vendors, and requires a lot of messing around.  Even if you did this, you would not have the ability to genuinely boot straight into that instance of Mac OS X, as it would only be available as the virtual machine.

If you need to access both simultaeniously, you need to stick to booting to Mac OS X, and then opening the Windows partition as a VM.


Safari 6: Open and close tabs with middle click? On Lion I installed an extension which game me the ability to use middle click to open and close tabs, and I used Better Touch Tool (BTT) to use a 3 finger tap to act as a middle click.

Since using Mountain Lion DP4, and subsequently the final release with Safari 6, I am only able to open tabs with a middle click, and I have to use keyboard shortcuts or by clicking on the tab close X.

Is there anything which will give me middle click to close a tab which works on Safari 6 under Mountain Lion available now?

I've set up the same 3 finger middle click gesture in BTT and it works great with Glims for Safari's middle click to close setting.


Ctrl key on Microsoft keyboard does not map to Mac's command I am just settling in a new job and what I got on my hardware setup is a Mac with a Microsoft keyboard.  This support page indicates that the Control key on my PC keyboard should be mapping to Mac's Command key but it does not (e.g. CtrlC/V does not work).

How can I fix this?

The Control key on your PC keyboard maps to your Mac's Control key.  The Windows key on your PC keyboard maps to your Mac's Command key.
When using a PC keyboard you would use windows keyC to copy and windows keyV to paste, etc.
You can set universal keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts > All Applications, you can enter menu values (Save, Copy, Paste, etc) and then assign new key combinations to them.  In the example below I've set controlC to copy and controlU to paste.


Where are Apple's default desktop images stored? When I go to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver, I see many images in folders such as "Desktop Pictures", "Nature", "Plants", etc. Where are these images located?

I want to use them in an application such as SpaceSuit to set them as background images for different spaces.


My mac won't recognize my headset Since Apple change my motherboard last week, my early 2011 MBP 15" won't recognize the mic of my headset... I tried to reboot, search in the settings panel but I can't make it work...

I tried in both holes, in and out (it used to work with both) with no success...

What else can I try ?

New motherboard comes with new SMC controller.

I would suggest your run a Reset-SMC on yours to correctly identify your hardware.


Can I use an iPhone to remote desktop to a PC, show the desktop on a TV with airplay, and use the iphone as a touchpad for the remote desktop? I've seen descriptions of running an RDP client on the iPhone.  I've also seen descriptions of using the iPhone as a touchpad/mouse replacement for a PC.  But I haven't seen a description of a combined application that shows the remote desktop screen via AirPlay (to an Apple TV) on a TV while enabling the iPhone to act as a touchpad for that remote desktop.  It would make the iPhone/AppleTV/TV combo a complete remote desktop solution without additional hardware (other than a network).

This works out of the box with AirPlay mirroring and any RDC client such as Screens for iOS.

Just establish a remote connection then double tap your home button and swipe the multitasking bar to the right. Enable AirPlay mirroring and you'll have what you described.


Unable to login due to broken key on built-in keyboard The 0 (zero) key on my MacBook's built in keyboard stopped working. I am unable to login as the password contain that character.

Do I need to get an external USB keyboard to login? Is there an on screen keyboard that can be invoked without logging in? I have a 201 MacBook Air.

An external USB keyboard will allow you to log on. Then you can change your password using the external keyboard, and you will be able to log on with the internal keyboard again. But you won't be able to type the character 0 ever again, unless you get the keyboard fixed.


iPad won't accept WiFi captive portal logon I am building a captive portal for a university network.  It works quite well on all devices I have tested with, but I am having some iPad troubles.  Let me explain my steps:

I go to Settings, WiFi
Select my test network
Immediately upon connecting to the WiFi, Safari slides up from the bottom (sans URL box, with "Log In" at top) with my captive portal page.
I login to my captive portal page
I am redirected to Apple.com, which loads fine

The iPad is now allowed to use the internet, and all is well.  The problem is, the iPad doesn't see it that way.

The "Log In" form of Safari never slides back down out of the way, as I would expect.  If I press Home open up Safari, and try to open a page, I am immediately given the error:

  Cannot Open Page

  Safari cannot open the page because it is not connected to the Internet.

There are no connectivity issues at all, and the iPad indeed can connect to the Internet.  It just believes that it can't.

A few things that the problem isn't:

DHCP/DNS/IP Addressing issues... I assure you it has a valid IP address as assigned from DHCP, and the correct DNS addresses, and gateway.
WiFi Connectivity... Signal is strong, I am sitting 5 ft. away from the AP, and I can continuously ping the iPad with no packet loss or high latency.
"Turn it off/on again", or "Forget the network and rejoin it" are not solutions, and do not solve the problem
A problem with my captive portal...  The captive portal itself is fine, and there are no problems with it.  Again, the iPad can load apple.com from its own "Login Safari" just fine.

I believe the problem is that Apple has written some code, trying to be "intelligent" that detects when my captive portal page logon is complete, so it can save any form data for posting to the server later for automatic logon.

My question is...

What cue is Apple looking for to know when captive portal logon is complete?

For what its worth, I stumbled across a forum thread discussing the captive portal detection.  I'd rather not outright disable it... I just need to find a way to make it work.

alright I may have some light to shed on this:

I just got off the phone with an Apple Engineer and he said a few things to me that make sense.
He has stated that the "crippled browser" should never be displaying any other page than
our captive portal page. He stated that if after logging into captive portal I am redirected
to www.apple.com/library/test/success.html the iPad's "crippled browser" will close.
If I see another page (like I saw apple.com and not http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html which would have closed the browser.) it is likely that the system hosting captive portal is not directing me to the exact original page requested. Which was http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html
It could in fact be truncating or altering the original URL, which is possibly why I see apple.com's main page in the "crippled browser"

No resolution yet, as I still need to confrim that the wireless controller is indeed doing this, but it makes sense, and might help.


Mac on High Sierra won't shutdown cleanly: black screen with mouse Similar to issue "mac book pro sierra does not shutdown stays idle with a black screen and mouse".

Apple logo > Shutdown leads to black screen with mouse cursor. Stays like that for hours.

Realized this problem because it wouldn't install Mojave (also won't install 10.13.6 update). Seems I'm stuck on 10.13.3.

I tried verbose mode, but get the same black screen with no text on shutdown (did see lots of black screen with text on startup).

I get a bit more information when shutting down from Terminal:

$ sudo shutdown -r now
...
shutdown: / is busy updating; waiting for lock

Stays like that for hours. I used Activity Monitor to kill some random applications (starting with launchd) and it proceeds to shutdown. I narrowed it down to killing kextd to complete shutdown.

I've tried resetting PRAM.
I've tried resetting SMC.
I've tried removing everything from Login items (in Users & Groups).

Restarting in safe mode allowed proper shutdown:

  Start your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Shift
  key. The Apple logo appears on your display.

  Release the Shift key when you see the
  login window.

I was able to use safe mode used this to update to 10.13.6 (problem still existed) and 10.14 (problem resolved -- can now shutdown).


How Can I Use AirPlay Globally for System Sound? Is it possible (and how) to have all the system sound played on AirPlay? Or at least for some specific (random) application (e.g. Songbird)?

What you want is AirFoil by Rogue Amoeba. Plays any audio from your system via AirPlay.


"Accountsd wants to use the 'iCloud' keychain" I, too, am suddenly getting this message.  I don't see a Keychain First Aid option in Keychain, and the two Login Keychain Settings were already unlocked.  Any other ideas for what the error message is all about, and what I should do about it?

A reboot solved this issue for me.

I had this same pesky popup with no apparent source. There were actually two of them:

acountsd wants to use the "iCloud" keychain.
Address Book Source Sync wants to use the "Local Items" keychain.

Clicking 'cancel' on the first one would cause it to reload instantly, so there was no way to opt out of responding.

I closed all open applications and restarted, apparently resolving the issue. Several things make me nervous about this: (a) The persistent behavior of the modal, (b) the lack of clear source and reference,  and (c) the request for password on keychain which I never use. Is this a new virus?

Here is a screenshot:


Battery care if I don't plan to use my MacBook Pro Let's say I plan not to use my rMBP for a few days (5-7), is there anything special I should do in order to keep the battery in good condition?

No. 5-7 days is way less than an extended period of time @FoamyBeer refers to. Imagine that a lot of devices stay in warehouses longer than the time you want not to use your MBP. Just handle it as if it was a book:

Don't drop it
Neither heat nor freeze it
Keep it dry

In addition to that, do NOT leave it with a discharged battery. Actually, it's no big deal to have it connected to the charger the whole time. If your going on vacation, disconnect it from the charger to prevent damages by lightning strikes.


What is the difference between MDM and third party services for distributing the app from Enterprise Developer Program? am asking this because I really need to explain it to my client. My client wants to distribute apps only to his employees for business purposes, like in-house application. He wants the feature like TestFlight which is acting like App Store where we can update the app and install the app every time the developer update the app. He doesn't want to submit his app to App Store. In order to make his employees to use easily, he also said, his employees can install the app easily and show the update easily like Testflight without expire date or limited testers. I found hockey app , but it requires testers to be Hockeyapp members.

Any Help?

Mobile Device Management (MDM) or Mobile Application Management (MAM) solutions can be used to distribute in-house apps to the employees. For this, they'll need to enroll the employees' devices in MDM or MAM. After this, they can upload in-house apps to the MDM console and bulk push to the enrolled devices. It is also possible to distribute apps that are in the App Store.

Can you make it clear what you told about TestFlight, as I didn't catch it? You said "He wants the feature like TestFlight", but TestFlight is an independent service (MDM do not come with TestFlight). Head on to the section 'TestFlight Beta Testing' in this article and you'll learn more about it.

The app that distributed through TestFlight is the 'beta app' which have a life of 60 days for each build. On the other hand, 'in-house apps' have an infinite lifetime.

If you need to know anything from me, leave a comment. I am happy to help.


How to list all available .plist keys on a certain domain application by defaults command? I want to know all keys (property list) which available on certain domain application, as example I could list available key for com.apple.dock by entering this command:

$ defaults read com.apple.dock

but somehow the output of this command only showed the active property list key, and yet not all available key for com.apple.dock listed there.

Anyone can help me on this?

This is not a trivial task, if I recall correctly people run the strings utility at the command-line against an Application, and look for things that match a structure similar to com.domain.FeatureName. (com.apple.iTunes, ch.cyberduck.CyberDuck, com.panic.Coda, etc.)

The likely easiest way to manage these overrides is by a System Preferences Pane by the name of Secrets. Using this installs a Preference Pane into System Preferences, and gives you an interface into choosing an application and changing their settings to your particular preference.


Locked file that I can't remove Long story short, I downloaded a file as a replacement for an app that no longer works on Catalina (macOS 10.15). This file is locked, and I cannot chmod it to let me unlock it. Even sudo fails.

I need to delete this file. How can I delete it? It doesn't seem I can...

I managed to figure out the problem.

First I used ls -laO which showed the flags for all files. It turns out that both schg and uchg had been set on the files. To override those, I did:

sudo chflags nouchg /Applications/Karabiner-Elements.app
sudo chflags noschg /Applications/Karabiner-Elements.app

This unlocked both flags, and allowed me to delete the files.

Thank you all for your help.


Why does 0^0 in the macOS and iOS calculator give different results on different versions? I have checked the result of 0^0 in the calculator on different versions:

iOS 10.3 => 1
iOS 11.4 => Error
macOS 10.12.6 => 1
macOS 10.13.5 => Not a Number

What is the reason for the difference?

While 0⁰ is generally undefined, some branches of mathematics do explicitly define it as 1 because, as you can see, this is the value to which the function y(x) = xˣ converges at n=0.

Less formally, note that 0.50.5=0.707…; 0.20.2=0.725…; 0.10.1=0.794… and 0.010.01=0.955…. As you approach 0, the result will be approaching 1, which makes it quite logical and handy to define 0^0 as 1 in some cases.

Thus, none of these 3 results are incorrect per se and instead they all reflect different conventions on the value of this undefined expression.

There is a good Wikipedia article explaining the issue. See also Zero to the zero power – is 0⁰=1?.


Get fan speed from terminal without spindump or third party software I was wondering if there was a way to access the computer fan speed through terminal. I've heard that you can use software like smcFanControl, but I was wondering if there was a way to do it without any third party software.

Another way i've heard of is using the spindump command, but from what I remember it can take a bit for it to finish.

Is there a way to get the info from terminal almost instantly without using third party software?

Also, is there a command I could possibly use to adjust the fan speed using terminal without any third party software?

I'm using a MacBook Pro 2015 running macOS High Sierra.

macOS command /usr/bin/powermetrics

sudo powermetrics -i 200 -n1 --samplers smc

output:

**** SMC sensors ****

CPU Thermal level: 0
GPU Thermal level: 0
IO Thermal level: 0
Fan: 1199 rpm
CPU die temperature: 56.30 C
GPU die temperature: 79.00 C

sudo powermetrics -i 200 -n1 --samplers smc | grep "Fan" | sed 's/Fan: //g' # -> 1200 rpm


Updating / Upgrading Xcode to 6.0.1 does not work so I tried to upgrade my Xcode to 6.0.1 from 5.6 or something. I'm running on Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 yet.

The problem is that it starts downloading Xcode form the Mac AppStore and already
replaced my old Xcode. So in the dock it is shown like a normal icon and when I click on it it says

"Xcode is being updated. Xcode can not be launched while updating"

When I open the AppStore it restarts the update and so on. So what I did was to download Xcode from the Developer's Resources site. Then I opened the .dmg and it gave me the image like opening a CD (I don't know how to call it, sorry). Then I copy the program to the desktop and it starts copying (preparing to copy) and nothing happens...

Then I tried to open it directly from the opened .dmg but just literally nothing happens...

Also I tried to deinstall "Xcode 6" with CleanMyMac2 but it starts deinstalling and says it finished right a second after.

Sorry for the long text but I thought an exact description might help you. Thanks for taking your time reading this, i'd appreciate an answer if you have one ;)

Try deleting the Xcode.app from your /Applications folder and replacing it with the Xcode.app from inside the dmg that you downloaded. Once you have replaced the Xcode application try to open it and it should work. You usually can't run packages or applications from inside of a mounted dmg. It is recommended to copy what you need from the dmg and then running it.


Will backing up using time-machine also backup all the users? I have two users on my MBP, and IIRC, both are Admin accounts. I want to upgrade to Lion GM, and have the dmg to do that. However, to be safe, I want to have a backup. I am not familiar with Time-machine, being new to this ecosystem and all.

Will running a backup from an Admin account backup all the user accoiunts on the machine? Is it a 1:1 backup?

Time Machine backs up an entire drive/partition/volume unless you specifically remove files and folders under "Options".  All User accounts are included unless you uncheck them in Options.

All of this info is available in your Finder Help menu.


How to fix “swipe up” and “swipe down” gestures in Reeder after installing Lion? After upgrading to Lion, Reeder swipe up and swipe down gestures stopped working.

How do I fix them?

This problem is a known issue and has been fixed in recent versions.

However, it is not specific to Reeder and seems to also affect Twitter and other apps.

To work around it, hold ⌥ Option and swipe using the same count of fingers that you have set for Mission Control in Trackpad preference pane:


How do I set the static library path in OS X Lion? Instead of typing :

g++ functions.cpp  /opt/local/lib/libhdf5.a /opt/local/lib/libsiloh5.a  /opt/local/lib/libz.a

I would prefer to type:

g++ functions.cpp  -lhdf5 -lsiloh5 -lz

I think that I need to add /opt/local/lib (Macports lib install location) to my library path. I have tried:

export LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/local/lib"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/local/lib"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATHS="/opt/local/lib"

None work

The normal command line is to use the -L option to add the path to the library search

g++ functions.cpp -L/opt/local/lib -lhdf5 -lsiloh5 -lz


How can I publish apps under my own name if I'm under 18? In order to sign up for a developer account, I'll need my parents credit card. However, after going through the signup process, my Dad's name shows up because he is the credit card holder. How can I publish an app under my name, if I don't have access to my own credit card? Should I buy a prepaid one?

Apple is a stickler for the legal name being legal and legitimate. As you're aware, you must be at least 18 years old to legally sign up for Apple's Paid Developer Program.

I've seen children who publish apps with the by line saying "By Child's Name and Parent's Name" and the seller simply being the parent. Here's an example. The child, Thomas Suarez, is 12, and he published the app like above.

I don't believe that there's any other way, besides creating a company and publishing through that. Then you'll have a company enrollment instead of a personal account. It's more work, but if you can't abide by having the legal name of the parent show in the App store, it's your only avenue other than lying and not getting caught.


Where are Google Chrome bookmarks stored in macOS for multiple profiles? I can find bookmarks for one profile at ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Bookmarks. However I don't know where I can find the bookmarks for the other profile. Where should I look?

As you've stated, the default location is found within:

Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default

However, when you create additional profiles, the name Chrome uses on the associated profile folder is a generic numbered name (e.g. Profile 2, Profile 3 and so on)

The best way to find the folder path for a particular user is to:

Within Chrome switch to the other profile
Chrome will open a new window using the profile you just selected
Now in the URL/address bar enter the following: chrome://version
Press Enter
The browser window will now provide a whole range of data
Look for the Profile Path entry
This will show you the exact file path location of the profile you selected at Step 1
Now you can use that path to find all the data associated with that profile


Is it possible to add an Apple compatible remote control to an audio cable for headphones? I'm wondering whether there is some TRRS extension cable available which has a remote control for volume and play/pause that would allow to extend any headphones by a remote control, or alternatively whether I could build one myself using the remote control from broken Apple earbuds.

Yes, there are lots of them, check eBay, amazon, probably aliexpress.

Keywords I used are: iphone extension cable remote.

Most of them have a microphone as well.


MacBook Pro Charger has stopped working properly - any short-term fixes? I have a MacBook Pro 15", about a year old. Today, the charger started working only intermittently. I've seen a few other people talking about similar problems, and most people say it's a problem with the charger.

However, I'm on a working holiday and the only Apple suppliers in this city are very expensive. If I have to, I'll buy a new power adapter, but I'm hoping somebody might know some fixes I can use to get me through the next couple of weeks until I'm back in the UK.

This is a very common problem and has happened to me twice in the past -- unfortunately the adapters are very fragile at the tip.

Apart from getting it replaced, you can try gently wiggling the thin wire connection right where it meets the metal adapter tip.  Pushing it in towards the computer can also help.  Sometimes it will start working again if it's in just the right position, but it's easy to knock out of place again.  Either way, it will be difficult to live with for two weeks.  :[

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, the gentle wiggling/pushing should be done while the adapter is attached to the computer.  You can judge your success by whether or not the computer starts/stays charging.  Keep the computer on a stable surface while you do this, and if you get it working, don't touch it -- or it will likely stop working again.


On a MacBook with macOS Catalina, how do I unlock the Keyboard-en.plist file? File path:

/System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/PlugIns/PAH_Extension.appex/Contents/Resources/Keyboard-en.plist

After disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP) in macOS Catalina, the Keyboard-en.plist file still remains locked. Each time I deselect the ✓ checkmark appearing in the "Locked" menu in the titlebar of the opened file, the following message appears:

"You don't have permissions to unlock the file "Keyboard-en.plist." You can duplicate this document and edit the duplicate.

My goal is to unlock the original  Keyboard-en.plist file so that I can edit text in the file or unlock the original file so I can replace it with a duplicate file containing edited text.

By default the system drive is mounted read-only in Catalina. You'll need to remount it as writable in order to edit the file.

You can do that by opening the Terminal in Recovery Mode (after disabling SIP) and then running the following command:

sudo mount -uw /

Note that after a reboot, the system drive will be back to its previous read-only mode.


How to play .wmv file with a MSS1 stream encoded? Just wondering if anyone know how to play .wmv file with a MSS1 stream encoded?

Try MPlayerX Version 1.0.17, better support for WMV than VLC (MMS1 is ok for me).


How do I clear cookies from the Twitter app internal browser on iPhone? Just to clarify, I've tried cleaning the Safari cookies with no success.

I don't believe there is anything you can do sans uninstalling and reinstalling the Twitter app.   Each application that uses the WebView has its own cookie store.

A developer can programmatically remove cookies.  So the Twitter app would need to give you a way to clear cookies which I don't think it does.


How to change keyboard setting when app changes I am currently learning the Dvorak keyboard at the moment so I need to change keyboard when I am not in the training application 'Type Fu'.

What I want to do is:
1) Have the Dvorak - QWERTY ⌘ when I am in the 'Type Fu' application
2) Change to the QWERTY keyboard when I am in any other application

Later on when I have learnt it, I would like this to happen:
1) Have the Dvorak - QUERTY ⌘ keyboard for all applications apart from developer environments such as Xcode and Terminal
2) Automatically switch to Programmer Dvorak when I am in developer environments such as Xcode and Terminal

I know that the second option I want is similar to the first, however it has more exceptions.

Is it posible to do this in any way (even by downloading third party software)? This would make it so much easier when I am learning the new layout and when I change from programming environments to non-programming environments.

I know other questurns like this have been asked before, however, (https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/222844/automatically-change-keyboard-layout-based-on-app-focus) does not have an answer (or any comments) and (Auto change keyboard layout based on application focus) does not change per application, only per document. This means if I were to create more tabs in my enviroments, it may or may not switch to the correct one.

Since you mentioned that you could use 3rd party apps you should have a look at Keyboard Maestro, allowing you to create macros and triggers. For example you could have Keyboard Maestro switch to the Dvorak keyboard whenever you are using Type Fu.

Here is how I would go about this:

Create a new Macro called "Switch to Dvorak".
Pick "Application" trigger and select Type Fu.
Select "Set keyboard Layout" Action.


safari iPad: disable ipad cache while its connected to mac? i read online recently that there is a way to disable safari's cache on the iPad using the mac's safari developers tools as long as the iPad is connected via usb.

I can't find the article i was reading but is this possible? If so please provide steps.

By connecting your device to your Mac, you can use Safari Developer Tools to open the JavaScript console for the WebView on your iPad. Therefore, you can use the following JavaScript to refresh the page which will ignore the cache:

window.location.reload(true)


How do I change user account used by the Update tab of AppStore? On the bottom of the Featured tab Apple ID is correct, but when I try to update an app App Store asks me a password for the old Apple ID that I no longer have.

You bought the apps with your old Apple ID. Apps are permanently tied to the ID with which they were bought.

I'm fairly certain if you deleted them, and re-downloaded them with your new ID, the problem would be solved. You would, however, have to pay for them again if they were not free.

Relevant questions:

Attempting to update app asks for a different iTunes account password (pretty much a duplicate)

How can I find which account I used for downloading my iOS apps?


Can iPhone be used with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse? Can an iPhone (mine is 7) be used productively with an external keyboard and mouse -- connected via Bluetooth?

Such peripherals -- combined with a screen-magnifier -- would turn a phone into a decent personal computer...

A Bluetooth keyboard would work with your iPhone. I used an Apple one with my iPhone once. As of mouse I don’t think iOS has support for that (unless some individual app do support it, which almost all apps don’t).


What is the small microphone icon floating on top of the screen in macOS and how do I turn it off? I'm not sure how I did this, but I now have this floating over everything:

I'm curious what it is, and how I can turn it off.
I'm currently running macOS Catalina.

This microphone floating on your screen IS NOT the dictation feature. It is the Voice Control.

Go to System Preferences > Accessibility
Scroll down until you see "Voice Control"
Disable Voice Control.


iMac: update OS X from 10.5.8 to 10.6 (and beyond) A friend of mine has a desktop Apple computer (I googled Apple computer images and it looks like an iMac). He has Mac OS X version 10.5.8. When we tried to upgrade it the OS reported that there are no updates available.

We googled around to find alternative ways of upgrading the system - 3-4 different clicking paths all leading to the same system update program - but with same outcome.

Finally we tried to download it but we could not find the 10.6 upgrade anywhere. The system does not allow to upgrade to any version higher than 10.6. I'm not able to check it now, but I remember for sure that the computer was bought around 2009-2010, and it is one of these two (1, 2), which should mean that it can be upgraded even up to Maverick.

How to upgrade to the latest OS X version?

When you say…

I remember for sure that the computer was bought around 2009-2010

…do you mean that the iMac was bought brand new (i.e., the newest model available in stores in the 2009-2010 time frame), or did you potentially buy an older model (i.e., from 2007-2008) in the 2009-2010 time frame?
Because you have OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard) currently, and assuming that you never downgraded your OS X, you can narrow down which iMac model you have. Since 10.6 (Snow Leopard) came out in August 2009, and since Unibody iMac [see 1st link in your question] was released in October 2009, it can be assumed that you don't have a Unibody iMac.
Thus, you must have what Wikipedia calls an Aluminum iMac [see 2nd link in your question]. If you are sure you bought it brand new in stores between 2009-2010, it was probably what Wikipedia calls the Early 2009 model.
Even if all of the previous deductions were incorrect, as long as you are 100% certain that the iMac has an aluminum housing (i.e., the outside is gray, and not white), then even in the worst-case scenario in which your iMac is from Mid 2007, you are guaranteed to be able to install OS X 9 (Mavericks).
So rest assured, you can upgrade all the way up to Mavericks if you so desire. I've outlined the steps below.

1. Upgrading from OS X 10.5.8 to 10.6
You can up-grade from 10.5.8 to 10.6 by purchasing the installation DVD for $19.99 (w/ free shipping), then up-date 10.6 to 10.6.8, for free using the Apple Software Update application already installed on your iMac.
2. Upgrading from OS X 10.6.8 to 10.9
Though it goes against Apple tradition, Apple has (thankfully) released 10.9 for free as long as you have the system requirements to run 10.8; a simple Google search will help you determine that. If you do, then download and install it onto your computer.


Can I restore lost photos fron backup? I have an iPhone 4,16G.

I had a ringtone issue and Apple support did a software reboot.

Before starting, a phone backup was done. All apps are back as well as phone contacts. However, all my photos are missing.

Can these be restored?

Photos and Videos in the camera roll (not photo stream) are indeed in the backup file. I would copy the backup file to a second location so that you can have a backup of it. There are also tools that allow you to examine the contents of a iPhone backup. http://addpod.com/juicephone

Try juicephone first and if need be you can restore your phone to the backup temporarily.


Randomize group of modification dates I have several files that have the same modification date in a folder, and I would like to change the date for all files within that folder, and the same with other folders in the directory so that each the  content of any folder's modification date is different to any folder.

If that didn't make sense, here's a screenshot of an example directory. The aim is to change the modification date to a different date on the folder's contents and do the same with the other folder's contents with different date.

I know it is possible to touch multiple files in one go by using touch -t YYYYMMDDhhmm file1 file2 file3, however is there a way to automate this process with a random date?

This is an unusual request. I'm not sure why you would want to do this but it sparked my interest. We'll use jot to pick us a random number between 1 and 16000.

jot -r 1 1 16000

This will be the number of hours we subtract from the current date.

seed=$(jot -r 1 1 16000)
date -v-"$seed"H "+%Y%m%d%H%M.%S"

Note that date above, formats the date to work with touch.

Now we use find to list all the directories within the current working directory and use an "inline" script to touch all the filesystem objects within each directory with a unique modification time in each directory.

find . ! -name '.' -type d -exec bash -c ' for dir
    do
        seed=$(jot -r 1 1 16000)
        echo touch -t "$(date -v-"$seed"H "+%Y%m%d%H%M.%S")" "${dir}/"*
    done
' sh {} \;

We are not done yet because we have indiscriminately changes the modification times of nested directories. We want unique mod times for each directory.

find . ! -name '.' -type d -exec bash -c ' for dir
    do
        seed=$(jot -r 1 1 16000)
        echo touch -t "$(date -v-"$seed"H "+%Y%m%d%H%M.%S")" "${dir}"
    done
' sh {} \;

And to put it all together-

#! /bin/ksh

find . ! -name '.' -type d -exec bash -c ' for dir
    do
        seed=$(jot -r 1 1 16000)
        echo touch -t "$(date -v-"$seed"H "+%Y%m%d%H%M.%S")" "${dir}/"*
    done
' sh {} \;

find . ! -name '.' -type d -exec bash -c ' for dir
    do
        seed=$(jot -r 1 1 16000)
        echo touch -t "$(date -v-"$seed"H "+%Y%m%d%H%M.%S")" "${dir}"
    done
' sh {} \;

This script could fail if you exceed ARG_MAX and currently will only list the changes that touch would make. You can remove the echo in front of touch to make the changes. Please be aware that this script has only limited testing and is offered AS IS.


Detect Displays sets default wallpaper I have ext. monitor connected to MacBook.
I use macbook with closed monitor most of the time, sometimes I need second monitor:

I open notebook's monitor
call Detect Displays to turn on monitor
and after that my wallpaper on external monitor resets do default

How can I prevent it?

OS X saves unique wallpaper settings on a per-device (per-monitor) basis. The wallpaper setting you make when using only your laptop, vs. the wallpaper setting when you run the laptop in "Clamshell mode", vs. the wallpaper setting when you run with the lid open and external monitor connected, all have different wallpaper settings.

The solution to this problem is quite simply to run your computer in dual-monitor mode as you've listed, and configure your wallpaper settings. Now those specific settings will be remembered when you are running the same external monitor and built-in laptop screen configuration. Changes to this multi-monitor mode will not affect the other monitor configurations.


How to get around “say” command bug when setting volume? Context:

I have an AppleScript .scpt file that speaks the selected text in the System Voice. The selected text is copied to the clipboard, and then the text is spoken via the say command. The script is triggered by keystroke via FastScripts.

Because the macOS Text-to-Speech volume is too loud by default (and there is no global volume control for the Speech), I use AppleScript to set the volume as a fraction of the current volume. I learned how to achieve this from this post:

How to change volume of “say” in AppleScript?

Here is the part of my code that is relevant to my question:

set the clipboard to ("[[volm 0.35]] " & (the clipboard))
set this_say_Pid to do shell script "LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt | say > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!"

The above code speaks the clipboard text at a volume that is 35% of the current system volume, which is what I desire. (Yes, the audible Speech is really that loud by default.)

The code works well, except I've discovered a bug.

How to reproduce the bug:

To observe this bug, copy the following text to the clipboard, and then run the above code:

  - This is a test.

The problem-text is difficult to format in Markdown (which is what Stack Exchange uses) because 1) blank newlines are automatically removed, and 2) a hyphen-space combination is converted to a list bullet point. This is why the above text formatting looks wonky; I had to use a blockquote to get around issue one, and I had to add a code block to get around issue two.

Here is the problem-text, literally spelled out in words (if you want to open a text file and recreate the text):

newline
hyphen space Text

Make sure that you include the blank newline when you copy the text onto the clipboard. Make sure that there is a space between the hyphen and the first word of the text. Otherwise, the bug will not surface.

The problem-text must be the very beginning of the clipboard text. That is, if the problem-text is in the middle or at the end of the clipboard text, the bug will not surface.

Additional ways to reproduce the bug:

The hyphen (-) can be substituted for an en dash (–) (⌥ option + -) or an em dash (—) (⌥ option + ⇧ shift + -), and the bug will still surface. As far as I have found in my tests, there are no other punctuation symbols that can be substituted for the hyphen that will trigger the bug.

There is another way to trigger the bug, which does not involve a hyphen or dash. If the text is preceded by at least 2 newline characters, the bug will surface.

For example:

If there is 1 newline character, the bug will not surface.
If there are 47 newline characters above the text, the bug will surface.

Whether there are any spaces between the 2+ newline characters and the text does not matter; the bug surfaces either way.

The effect of the bug:

When running the AppleScript code with the problem text on your clipboard, the volume is not decreased one bit; the clipboard will be spoken at the system volume level.
Also, there is a noticeable delay before the text is spoken.

To be clear, while the context of my question is an .scpt file, this is not technically an AppleScript bug. The bug exists when using say directly in Terminal.app. For example, type the following in Terminal to reproduce the bug:

say "[[volm 0.35]]
- This is a test."

Is it possible to remedy this bug, so that, when the clipboard contents begin with any type of problem-text, my script remains sensitive to the custom volume, and a delay is not introduced?

The best is to put '[[volm 0.35]] ' into the shell (not in the clipboard), like this:

set this_say_Pid to do shell script "say '[[volm 0.35]]\\ '$(LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt) > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!"

Or, if you want to put "[[volm 0.35]] "  into the clipboard, use the single quotes, like this:

set the clipboard to ("'[[volm 0.35]] '" & (the clipboard))
set this_say_Pid to do shell script "LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt | say > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!"