Sparkle updater seems to be broken or having issues I've noticed many applications on my Mac (OS X 10.8.2) fail to update. If I command them to do a manual update, the update downloads, unpacks, and then when I click INSTALL AND RESTART the updater ends with an error. As far as I have determined so far, it is only applications which use the Sparkle updater system.

The error simply says:

  30/01/13 10:28:52.411 AM Choosy[6375]: Sparkle Error: An error occurred in retrieving update information. Please try again later.

I took that from the console.

I am wondering what might cause this. Could it be a permissions issue? I have done a permissions repair.

Can anyone suggest how I might resolve this? Or should I take this up with the folks who make Sparkle?

Permissions would be my last thing to check, since if they were off, the app wouldn't even run - but it's also an easy thing to rule out. Be aware that Apple's permission repair does not affect user directories (where permission errors actually tend to hurt people) or third party software (since Disk Utility only corrects permissions on software Apple installed with the OS and updates).

This seems much more likely to be an issue with the app communicating back to the server the developer of the app has set up to serve updates. I'd start with the support for the app in question and see if you can verify the update server is alive and reachable from your network.

There were some update bugs a while back, but most of them seem to be squashed in the more recent versions of sparkle that developers can download.

https://github.com/andymatuschak/Sparkle/issues?state=open


How do I get Launchpad to see apps on an external disk? I have a large Firewire disk permanently plugged into my Mac mini.  Whenever possible, this external disk is where I install any new apps.  How do I get these apps to show up in Launchpad?

I just figured this out.  All I had to do was drag the folder containing the apps to the Launchpad icon on the dock.


Are there Korean keyboard layouts for OSX 10.9 that mimic the iOS 7 Korean layout? On my iOS7 devices (iPhone 5, iPad Air), I added a Korean keyboard and I can operate it effectively.

On the Macbook Air, I added the "3-Set Korean" input source and I cannot operate it effectively. (Some characters are not available, and those that are do not stack correctly. I am a beginning Korean writer.)

How can I get the iOS7 version of the Korean keyboard, or something very like it, to work on OSX Mavericks?

Switch to the 2-Set keyboard layout.  Let us know in detail if there is anything about that which is not working the way you want.


Is there a way to determine what application wants Java installed? After upgrading to Mountian Lion on both my MacBook Air and my wife's MacBook Pro, I recieved a prompt asking to install Java (I did not get this on my iMac).

I was wondering what triggered this event for it to ask for Java. Was it because a Java runtime was there previously? I don't remember installing one (and not sure why my Air would ask, but not my iMac, many more things are installed on my iMac).

How can I find out what triggered this? Also, how can I remove a runtime if an older, and now incompatible one was there?

Is there also a place where an older JVM may have been, and where it saw it there and decided to prompt me? If so, that would help me track down the notice, but also remove it from my machine.

I did some more research and finally found some things out:

I have the Logitech remote software installed, and when launching it, it brings up the prompt, but a slightly different one. So, I know I have a few Java apps installed, but this was happening without me launching something
My actual error was related to a Facebook chat thing I had installed a while back, that I never put on my iMac. It was named 'com.facebook.videochat.[username].plist', and was in my ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory.
I actually came across this question (asked after mine) when searching for the only Java information I found Console.app:

  8/31/12 6:44:23.606 PM Download Java Components[7588]:
  com.apple.message.domain:
  com.apple.java.usage2.DownloadOnDemand.complete
  com.apple.message.result: failure com.apple.message.signature:
  install_canceled com.apple.message.domain.version: 12A269

I would recommend checking your ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory first, and you can easily grep for java by doing: cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents and then grep -i "java" *.*. This searches for the word java (case insensitive) in all files in that directory. Thats where I found the reference to the Facebook videochat plist.


Can I setup a single Sparsebundle in RAID 1? My goal is the following: use my iMac as a TimeMachine Server (under OS X Lion Server) to backup my MBP via the network.

What I did is to choose, in the TimeMachine Server configuration, the internal drive (1TB) of the iMac as a target for the backup.

However I would like to have redundancy, not for the whole iMac data, but for that backup.

If I backup the sparsebundle created on my iMac (using CCC for example), then I'll have to copy the entire content all the time.

So would it be possible to create a virtual RAID 1 drive whose two drives are two sparsebundles, one located on the iMac internal drive and the other one on an external drive.

I think that would be a very interesting solution for what I want to do, and it would be possible to scale it for 3 drives.

You can setup a RAID 1 mirror over FireWire and connect the internal/external drives. However, I wouldn't recommend it.

First, you'll need the same size drives to do the mirror. Second, the speed of both drives will be limited by the type of connection to the external drive, so if its USB, the computer will run at USB speeds. If you are just using this iMac for backup, that may not be an issue, but it's still going to slow everything down.

RAID mirroring is intended mostly for much faster eSATA connections, as that keeps everything at nearly native speeds. What I might recommend in your case is to buy an external RAID and use that for backup. That way you aren't locked in to the internal drive on the iMac, and you can always move it to a different computer if need be (especially in the event of a restore, as it'd be faster plugged directly in than over the network.


How to sync photos+videos to both iCloud and Google Photos while simultaneously deleting from iOS devices? How can I sync my iOS (in my current case, an iPhone8) photos+videos to both iCloud and Google Photos but delete all the photos+videos from my iOS device, primarily to free storage space (on my iPhone)?

Details and (known?) problems

This answer suggests that I can not do this, because deletion of photo/video files from the iOS device also deletes it from iCloud (example scenario below), which violates my goal. However, I'm hoping there's some workaround.

Specifically, I want to "free up space on my device" like I've done several times previously with Google Photos (GP). However, the GP photo/video file deletion may effectively delete the same photo/video file(s) from iCloud--which is what I'm trying to avoid.

The following worked for me. For my current purposes, 'iOS device' = iPhone8 running iOS 11.4.1.

Procedure:

Confirm iOS device has uploaded all photos+videos to iCloud Photo Library. (How does one explicitly confirm this?)
Deactivate iCloud Photo Library
Execute Google Photo's "free up space on my device" to remove photos+videos from iOS device.
Permanently delete photos from Photos.app on iOS device; excerpt:

Delete photos permanently

If you want to permanently delete your photos or videos within 30 days, you can remove them from the Recently Deleted album. When you delete a photo from this album, you can't get it back. (An aside: this procedure can be quite cumbersome for thousands or more of photos+videos.)

Open the Photos app and go to the Albums tab.
Open the Recently Deleted album and tap Select.
Tap each photo or video that you want to permanently delete.
Tap Delete.

Reactivate iCloud Photo Library.
Future-captured photos and videos are now both synced to iCloud and Google Photos, while perviously-captured-but-now-deleted-from-iOS-device photos (prior to #2) are all retained in iCloud and Google Photos (?).


Does Find My Friends require that Wi-Fi be on & that the app be running to get notifications? I'm not getting notifications from "Find My Friends."

Do I have to leave Find My Friends always open to get notifications?
Does my friend's phone have to have Find My Friends open to send
notifications?
Do I have to have Wi-Fi on to get notifications?
Does my friend's phone have to have Wi-Fi on to send notifications?

No it doesn't have to always be open.
No, same as 1.
No, cellular connection works too.
No, cellular connection works too.

Find my Friends would need permission from you to share your location as well as your friend. Once you two are sharing your location with each other, Find My Friends can send notifications that you have requested.


Script sort MP4 (and other) videos by orientation to portrait and landscape folders >>> IMPOSSIBLE? I've been wrestling with a 14TB+ video library for the last months trying to dedupe and sort all of it into production ready folder structure.
For the life of me I have not been able to find (spent 3 solid days with no sleep) a script that will sort a folder of video files, using their dimensions, into Portrait and Landscape folders.
The closest I've found is this -
#!/bin/bash
shopt -s nullglob

for f in *.{mp4,MP4,mov,MOV,m4v,M4V}
    do
        height=`mdls -raw -name  kMDItemPixelHeight "$f"`
        width=`mdls -raw -name  kMDItemPixelWidth "$f"`
        mkdir -p "${height}x${width}"
        mv "$f" "${height}x${width}"/

        printf "File: $f\n"
        printf "> Dimensions: $height x $width \n\n"
    done

printf "All done! \n"

Which gets me closer by sorting them into folders based on dimensions, but it's not what I'm trying to achieve.
Alternatively I found this script for images using Imagemagick, (which I installed via Homebrew) it does read the files, though it moves them ALL into the portraits directory. I'm assuming the variables may be different to extract height and width from a video file?
#/bin/zsh
mkdir -p portraits
mkdir -p landscapes
for f in ./*.mp4
do
  r=$(identify -format '%[fx:(h/w)]' "$f")
  if [[ r < 1.0 ]]
  then
      echo "Portrait detected."
  mv "$f" ./portraits/
  elif  [[ r > 1.0 ]]
  then
  echo "Landscape detected."
      mv "$f" ./landscapes/
  fi
done

If ANYONE OUT THERE can help me with this, it's worth a PayPal to me. I know it's quick work for the right mind.
The same, if someone has another solution using folder actions or automator or ANYTHING else. I'm running Mac OS with terminal.
Much appreciated!
jason@speedheathens.com

You can use the test function provided by fish to compare the two dimensions:
#!/usr/local/bin/fish
for i in *.{mp4,MP4,mov,MOV,m4v,M4V}
  if test (mdls -raw -name kMDItemPixelHeight $i) -gt (mdls -raw -name kMDItemPixelWidth $i)
     mv $i portrait/
  else
     mv $i landscape/
  end
end

bash probably provides the same functionality, but I'm more familiar with fish.


Can two Macs be kept in sync using a single external hard drive? I regularly commute by bicycle from home to work and find the weight of a MacBook Pro a little excessive. My thought is to have identical MacBooks at the office and home and only carry a hard disk on the bike.

So how would it be easiest to ensure that the two laptops are totally synchronised? Would Time Machine do the job or would it be time consuming and cumbersome? Or is there a better way of doing this avoiding cloud-based or network-based sync solutions.

The only connection between the two MacBooks will be through a portable hard drive.

To keep all settings and files of two Mac's in sync through an off-line method you could place your Home folder on an external HDD.
There are plenty of tutorials on-line on how to do this, I will use this one to explain the process.

I assume you have a user account Allan on the current MacBook Pro (MBP-1) which you would like to share with the new laptop (MBP-2) through an external HDD named ExtDisk. Keep in mind that you should substitute the actual hard disk and user account names.

First create a back-up of the user account in case something goes wrong. Time Machine is an option for that, but you can also clone the drive with for example Carbon Copy Cloner.
Create a new administrator account on each MacBook Pro. This is for the case that you lose the external HDD for some reason or just don't have it with you. This way you'll still have an account from which you can use the laptop.
Migrate the Allan user account from MBP-1 to the new MBP-2. Here's an Apple Knowledge Base article on how to do that.
On MBP-1 login to the newly created admin account. Copy the Allan home folder of MBP-1 to ExtDisk. You can do this by using the following Terminal command (the Terminal application is found in Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal.app):
sudo ditto -v /Users/Allan/ /Volumes/ExtDisk/Users/Allan
This command will ask your admin account password to get permission to copy all your files to the external disk ExtDisk.
When you're done copying, open ExtDisk in the Finder and check if the user folder is there and has (roughly) the same size as the Allan user folder on MBP-1.
Go to System Preferences -> Users & Groups. Right click on the Allan account and click Advanced Options....
The Home directory line says now /Users/Allan. Click Choose... and navigate to the home folder on ExtDisk.
Connect the external HDD to MBP-2 and repeat steps 6 and 7 on MBP-2.
Do the following on each Mac with the external HDD connected: login on the Allan account and check if everything went right. To verify that it actually uses the home folder on the external HDD, select a file on the Desktop, hit cmd+I to show the Get Info window and check if the Where field says /Volumes/ExtDisk/Users/Allan/Desktop.
If all went well you can delete the /Users/Allan folder on the internal hard drives of MBP-1 and MBP-2.
Now you can use the setup as follows:

plugin the external HDD and turn on the laptop
login on the Allan account at home
shutdown the laptop at home  (maybe a logout is sufficient).
disconnect the external HDD. Go to work.
plugin the external HDD in at work and turn on the laptop.
use the Allan account at work.

Pro-tip: as you will be carrying around your HDD with you the chance that the drive has an unpleasant physical encounter is somewhat higher. Make sure to have a daily backup running, either at home or at work, or if you really want to be sure at both places.

Disclaimer: I have not carried out this process myself. I don't accept any responsibility in the case you lose files.


Photos sync from iphotos to iphone I downloaded all my photos from iPhone to Macbook Pro, and now that I have a new iPhone, I want to download from my iPhoto's photo album to my iPhone.

How do I do that?

Connect your new iPhone to the MacBook, then in iTunes, click on the device and click on Photos to select what is copied to your phone. See detailed steps on Apple's website.


Why won't iCloud let me download Pages documents uploaded from a computer? It often happens that I create a Pages document on my home laptop, upload it to iCloud, then want to download it from iCloud at school. For some reason, iCloud doesn't support this—I need to, at some point between those two steps, open Pages on an iOS device synched with my iCloud account. Then it'll work fine.

I assume this has something to do with a preview being included in the file, as in iCloud it shows up as a generic .pages document rather than the customary document preview image thing, but I can't see why. Pages does include a preview in its saves, and "Include preview in document by default" is checked.

What's happening, and is there any way I can get around it without use of an iPad or iPhone?

The same things happens to me. After some digging around I found this from Apple:

  Important:   You cannot download a document from icloud.com to your Mac or Windows computer until the document has been opened on an iOS device.

My guess is that this is a symptom of iCloud's "work in progress" status, and that this functionality will eventually be there. Considering that you are only asking to download the exact same file that you uploaded, though, it is a pretty silly restriction.

Update:

For me, the behavior has recently changed. Now if you upload a file from your computer to icloud.com, you can download the original file to any computer from icloud.com. You still must download the document to an iOS device before you can download the file as a PDF or other format.


I know my apple ID but don't know my iCloud id or password, is it the same? I am preparing to buy a new iPhone but the salesmen said I need the iCloud address and password.  I have no idea what that is.  Is it the same as my apple id?

An Apple ID is used to log in to iCloud services if you choose to use them. You can have multiple Apple IDs, but one is signified as the ’primary’ account and used for iCloud. When one asks for an ‘iCloud ID’, they refer to the Apple ID used for iCloud.

In this case, it seems a device has activation lock. You'll need the owner's Apple ID used for iCloud to unlock the device before you can use it.

Never give your Apple ID password to anyone.


How to filter for Chinese fonts in Font Book on Sierra? Font Book has Smart Collections, which allows you to filter based on font properties. I created a Smart Collection with the filter "Languages include:"

It works if I enter "French" or "Japanese", but if I use "Chinese", there are no results.

I looked in a Chinese font's properties (e.g. Baoli SC), and it lists "Chinese (Simplified)" under Languages. I tried all of these search terms, but none worked:

Chinese
Chinese*
Chinese (Traditional)
Chinese (Simplified)
Traditional
*Traditional*
Simplified
*Simplified*

It seems to me a major oversight/bug that Font Book's Smart Collection filter cannot search for a term that has spaces in it. (Or is there a way to "escape" a space?)

Side note: In Yosemite, some of the Chinese fonts' Language properties have "Chinese, Chinese (Simplified)", so those will show up if you do a Smart Collection for "Chinese", but not "Chinese (Simplified)". In Sierra, however, none of the Chinese fonts' Language properties has "Chinese" alone.

I created a Smart Collection on High Sierra for filtering Chinese fonts.
It's an Any rule set consisting of three separate Languages include tests for: Chinese, Chinese (Simplified), and Chinese (Traditional).


Remote Simulator to Windows option doesn't exist How can get Remote Simulator to Windows when it doesn't exist?

There is no iOS simulator for Windows.

Xamarin needs you to connect to a Mac capable of running it.

From Introduction to Xamarin.iOS for Visual Studio

  Xamarin for Windows allows iOS applications to be written and tested
  within Visual Studio, with a networked Mac providing the build and
  deployment service.

  There are a number of configuration options available, so you can
  decide which works best for your development needs. These are listed
  below:

  Use a Mac as your main development Machine and run a Windows Virtual
  Machine with Visual Studio installed. We recommend using VM software
  such as Parallels or VMWare .
  Use a Mac just as a Build Host. In this
  scenario it would be simply connected to the same network as a Windows
  machine with the necessary tools installed.

  In either case, you should
  follow these steps:

  Install the Xamarin.iOS tools on your Mac host and activate your license
  Configure your Mac
  Install Xamarin tools on Windows

  To develop
  with Xamarin in Visual Studio, you must be using at least Visual
  Studio 2012 Professional or higher. Xamarin will not work with Express
  Editions of Visual Studio, as they do not support add-ins.


Looking for a mac app to design beautiful illustrations automatically and easily Check out for example:

I created these using Powerpoint on Mac, and then copying and pasting the image alone into a png and using that on a web page. What a pain and also the images look like Powerpoint images.

I bet there's a nice Mac app (or web site) that lets me create a wide variety of interesting illustrations that help me make a point. I have OmniGraffle which does some of this but I still have to be 'the illustrator'. Is there an app that works at a somewhat higher 'semantic' level?

Apples Pages.

I have used this only a little bit. But in most case it suits my basic needs. I have not tried to do anything really fancy. So cannot tell you if it is too limited for you


Contents of Images Folder in AddressBook - 3 million-plus files and counting, tens of gigabytes I was getting sick of running CleanMyMac to scrape back a few GB of space here and there, so used DaisyDisk and discovered in /Users/user/Library/AddressBook/Images something like 50+ GB of space taken up. I checked online and it appeared safe to delete, so I trashed it. However, trash has been emptying since last night and it currently says "3,041,134 items deleted" and it's still going up.

As I looked through these files, they appeared to be every photo associated with every one of my connections on social media. I mean, random photos of people I'm Facebook friends with but haven't talked to in years.

Other than needing to pare back my Facebook network, can anyone tell me anything about why these would all be collected somehow and why and how I can stop that from happening again? Thanks.

It's possible as you mentioned these files are coming from macOS trying to synchronise your Facebook contacts with your Contacts.

This setting is in System Preferences > Internet Accounts.

As you can see there is an option to include you Facebook contacts in your address book, and additionally the Update Contacts button which tries to match your contacts and update details about them like birthdays and photos.

If this is going wrong for some reason it could create a large amount of files which as you've pointed out while not individually huge would take a very long time to move or delete.

Try turning off this feature, and waiting for the files to finish deleting, it may help to reboot between turning off the feature and removing the files.


What’s the Java Shebang for OS X? I just started using TextWrangler in place of Eclipse for writing Java programs. I found a script for testing Java programs in Terminal, but I’d like to handle everything right through TextWrangler. What’s the Java shebang for OS X? Or is there a Java shebang which is specifically for TextWrangler?

Here is a simple wrapper script that effectively can work as a Java shebang on OS X and Linux:

# /* ------- build and run wrapper script for Java -----------------------------
TMP=$(mktemp -d)
tail -c +3 ${0} > ${TMP}/$(basename ${0})
cd ${TMP} && javac $(basename ${0}) && java $(basename ${0%.*}) ${@:1}
RV=${?} ; cd - > /dev/null ; rm -rf ${TMP}
exit ${RV}
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- */

public class example {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello world");
    }
}

However, as pointed out in the comments this is technically not a "shebang", but it comes pretty close in terms of functionality.


Why does the SMS bubble only appear next to some numbers but not others? This is part of a screenshot showing how my father sees my contact page on iOS 8 on his iPhone:

The four contact details are, in this order:

Phone number (Android device)
Phone number (iPhone)
FaceTime email address
Email address (attached to iMessage)

Why is the SMS bubble not appearing next to one of the phone numbers? Sending and receiving regular texts on that phone number works just fine.

Before jumping on the "because it's not an Apple device" bandwagon, these are two more interesting pieces of information:

Other non-Apple devices display the bubble icon
The phone number on the iPhone device is not using iMessage

How is the android phone number labeled? The SMS bubble shows up if the device is labeled as mobile or iPhone. Otherwise, it is unable to determine if it's a mobile phone that can accept SMS messages or a landline.

The email addresses shows up as iMessage of FaceTime if they are tied to an appropriate Apple ID.


MacBook bought as new could potentially be a refurbished older model In mid-2014, Wife bought a new MacBook directly from apple.com . Said laptop has been acting in some weird ways, like freezing and rebooting itself for no reason, or taking in the order of a full minute or two to start reacting when she opened it in the morning. She attributed it the OS the laptop came with (Maverick) being an inferior version. Now the laptop stopped working altogether ---as in, it won't boot, and it won't allow a fresh reinstall of the OS (either Maverick or other). We are putting our money on a hard drive failure. When she called Apple Support to have it taken care of, the conversation went like this:

Apple: can we have your laptop's serial number?
Wife: yes, it is [serial number]
Apple: oh, so our system says that your laptop is a 2012 refurbished model.
Wife: beg your pardon?
Apple: excuse me, I was digressing, have you thought of upgrading to El Capitán?

Wife is mildly disturbed by this, and so am I. For one, she paid the amount of money that a new machine costs! The questions at this point are:

Can we independently check the origin of the laptop via the serial number?
Has Apple sold refurbished stuff as new before, either by mistake or on purpose?
If we confirm Apple sold Wife a refurbished machine, are we entitled to any type of compensation?

Click on Apple Menu -> About this Mac...
It should tell you exactly which hardware version you're using -- e.g. mine says "MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)"

If you want even more detail, there's a free app called MacTracker https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mactracker/id430255202?mt=12 on the App Store that will provide even more info.

As to the second and third questions...shrug


How to disable Airplay on IPad? Is it possible to disable Airplay on an iPad?  I recently bought a Denon receiver that supports Airplay.  The other day my 2 year old niece decided to stream what she was watching on the iPad to my stereo at an extremely high volume level.  As you could imagine, trying to tell a 2 year old not to do something can be impossible at times, so I'd like to disable the Airplay feature from the iPad so my niece, and others, can't use it.

No it is not possible to disable AirPlay.
However you could add a volume limit with Restrictions. Also with iOS 6 you can have more control over how kids control the iPad with Guided Access. You can limit the iPad to just the current app and lock off parts of the screen.


How can I correct a typo with Apple ID? How can I use iTunes with an email address that isn't actually an email address?

The answer depends. If you are using an apple email (such as me.com, iCLoud.com, mac.com, etc) then that email address is by default an apple id, and I don't know of a way to edit it.

If you are using a 3rd party email address (such as hotmail, gmail, yahoo, your own domain etc) as your appleid, then you should first TURN OFF FindMyIPhone on your device if it is enabled.  (DO NOT change your primary Apple ID with FindMyIPhone enabled, it can be enabled again as soon as you are done with the changes.)

Next navigate to http://appleid.apple.com and choose the "manage" option, then log in.  An "Edit" button will appear next to your primary appleid.  (if the Edit button does not appear then you are using an apple generated email address such as me.com, iCloud.com, mac.com etc.)

Next on your phone go to the settings app, and log out and log back in for iCloud, iTunes and App Store, iMessage, Facetime, Game Center, and update email accounts if needed).

Once everything is working as expected be sure to turn FindMyIPhone back on.  (It is possible to get out of the mess you create attempting to do this with FindMyIPhone turned on--i did it-- but it is much simpler to just turn it off before starting and re-enable it at the end of the process).


Once you remove an app from iOS notification center, can you add it back? I exited out of my snapchat notifications in the notification center (I clicked the "x" on the right hand side) and now I can't see anything and I want to get it back.

I don't know what to do.

Nope you can't get it back once you dismissed the notification.


Update to Apple TV 6.0 has stopped certain movies from being shown from my itunes After updating to the latest Apple TV software 6.0 certain seemingly random movies are now no longer available. These are all movies from my iTunes library that I ripped myself.

I can't see why its discriminating one over the other. Are there new rules for what it now shows?

They were all ripped using Handbrake (Apple TV 3 preset, mp4) and always worked before.

Also these missing movies are available to stream to my iPhone 4s and iPad 2.

Really weird, any help is appreciated.

I figured it out. I've made a blog post about it to help anyone with the same issues:

Apple TV 6.0 missing movies


Macbook Pro M.2 SSD external check My Macbook has defect RAM, so it won't run correctly. Now it also tells me, that something is wrong with my SSD (M.2-version). But it will not run a complete disk test - probably because of the ram-issue. ifixit shows that you can remove the ssd. Is it possible to place that into an external M.2 USB device and run it on another mac to check the ssd?

I ask that because my idea is the following: If the ssd is still ok, than I probably would try to change the logic board (because I cannot change the ram only), put the ssd back in and have a working macbook again. But if the ssd is defect as well, it does not make any sense to switch that too. That's just too expensive.

You can connect a harddisk (also SSD) with another mac via thunderbolt or firewire. It will see it as external harddisk so you wont need to remove it from your macbook.

How to run a other macbook as external harddisk:

Connect the two mac's with thunderbolt to thunderbolt OR firewire to
firewire
Power on the mac which has the harddisk you want to check and hold T to go to 'Target Disk Mode'.
The harddisk will be shown as external harddisk, run it with disk
utilities to check the disk.

Check for more info the Apple support page


How can I fix the OS X dictionary lookup feature for StackExchange comments in Google Chrome? When I use the "Look up word" right-click menu option on a StackExchange comment in OS X, the system selects other text and looks that up instead:

Step 1: select a word in a StackExchange comment to look up

Step 2: right click & "Look up word"

Step 3: watch OS X select some other text next to yours and look that up instead:

Why?
How can I fix this?

I'm using OS X 10.10.5.

It appears to shift the selected text by 10 characters to the right in all cases, and happens in Chrome but not Safari.

I'd be tempted to try the "standard toolkit"…

Do all of these, in this order.

Reset the SMC
As I don't know which Mac you have, read this for instructions for your specific machine - https://support.apple.com/HT201295
Reset the NVRAM
At the boot chimes, hold  Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   P   R
Keep holding all 4 keys until you hear the chimes again, then release.
Fix permissions, Verify & if necessary Repair disk, using Disk Utility
Reset Home folder permissions & ACLs using OnyX  [make sure you get the version appropriate to your OS]  - Maintenance tab/permissions, tick the box at the top then Execute.
Re-apply the 10.10.5 update using the 10.10.5 combo update, not the delta from App Store


How to undo a software installation process in Mac Mini with OSX 10.11 I followed the instructions on this site and installed qbittorent. I run the command:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; brew install caskroom/cask/brew-cask 2> /dev/null

But then I decided that I want to undo everything that this command has done since the system had another torrent program already installed.

Here is the CLI history:

Afterwards, the apple store poped up an update for the Xorg tools.

When I type brew command I get unknown command so I guess homebrew is not installed...

Can anyone explain what exactly this command did and how to undo it?

The reason for asking this is because I pasted the url of the site, from which I copied the command, in virustotal.com and it showed that the site is malicious. So I am worrying that the command might had anything "malicious" to download etc.

EDIT:
Here is the content of /usr/local folder

drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 Cellar
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 Frameworks
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 Homebrew
drwxrwxr-x  9 user admin  306 Feb  4 17:08 bin
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 etc
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 include
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 lib
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 opt
drwxr-xr-x  3 root wheel  102 Jun 13  2017 remotedesktop
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 sbin
drwxrwxr-x  4 user admin  136 Apr 24 11:52 share
drwxrwxr-x  2 user admin   68 Apr 24 11:52 var

The instructions on the mentioned website led you to install Homebrew and Homebrew Cask, and use it to install qBittorrent. Homebrew is a community developed package manager for macOS.

To completely undo everything that this command did, first uninstall all packages that could have been possibly installed by Homebrew. To do so, follow these steps:

Run brew list to list all the installed packages.
For every listed package p, run brew uninstall p.
Make sure that all Homebrew packages are removed by running brew list and verifying that the command doesn't give any output. Repeat step 2 until all the packages are uninstalled.
Now run brew cask list. This should list all the packages installed via Homebrew Cask. The qBittorrent package should be listed as it was installed by following the instructions in the linked web-site.
To completely remove a Homebrew Cask package, run brew cask zap p where p is the name of the package. For e.g., run brew cask zap qBittorrent to completely remove qBittorrent.
Make sure that all Homebrew Cask packages are removed by running brew cask list and verifying that the command doesn't give any output. Repeat step 5 until all the packages are uninstalled.
Finally, after removing all the packages, you can uninstall Homebrew itself by running the following command-line:

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

Refer official Homebrew FAQ's for more details.


Add Novel Groupwise Account via Exchange ActiveSync to Mail I want to add my Novel GroupWise account to my Mac, which is not possible due to the lack of a (reliable and recent) client. The firm I'm working for set a data sync server up for this purpose but that only supports Exchange Active Sync if I am understanding it correctly.

I am assuming this because setting up the account as an exchange account on the iPhone and iPad was no problem but it does not work in mail.

Does there exist a workaround for this situation? Maybe some daemon that pretends to be an mobile client and fetches everything? I would really like to be able to add the work calendar and emails on my mac. I'm running the latest El Capitan an a Macbook Pro.

OS X only supports Microsoft Exchange, not Exchange ActiveSync. ActiveSync is only supported on iOS/Android  This is why Mail will not connect but your iPhone and iPad will.


How would I make a keyboard shortcut to *maximize* the current window? I love using the keyboard in Windows. It's an integrated part of the OS, and it feels like it; nearly every mouse action has a keyboard equivalent.

However, as I am starting to use Macs more and more, I'm missing two things primarily from Windows: the ability to maximize (not whatever the green button does (what does it do?))- windows and the ability to maximize windows from the keyboard.

Thus, without further ado: How can I maximize windows with a keyboard shortcut?

One of the easiest ways to do this is to use BetterTouchTool. It will let you bind a keyboard shortcut or a trackpad shortcut to many commands, including maximize window.

Once you are in the BTT settings page, do the following:

Go to the Keyboard tab on top.
On the bottom near Keyboard shortcut, enter in whichever keyboard shortcut you want.
For Predefined action, choose Maximize Window.

There are many other options related to maximizing besides "Maximize Window":

Maximize Window Left
Maximize Window Right
Maximize Window To Bottom Half
Maximize Window To Top Half
Maximize To Next Monitor


How to export the contact photo in Mountain Lion? I want to use the photo of a contact in the Address Book/Contacts in another app. What is the easiest way to export the contact photo in Mountain Lion to an image file? Dragging it out to the desktop does not work for me: I always get the photo Resize window instead.

Trying on OS X Yosemite 10.10.1:

On OS X 10.8 it was possible to extract a photo from contacts on the Mac user interface.
That did not work for me on the current version.
Thus I went to look in the ~/Library.

I found the picture I had taken under

~/Library/Application\ Support/AddressBook/Sources/(some long hex string)/Images/

Thus on Finder click the "Go To" menu, holding the ⌥ ALT. Click on "Library", then navigate to the Images folder.

(On my iPhone, in Contacts, I had taken a photo of a friend yesterday.
Today I wanted to file the photo, found it as above on my Mac, though with a size of 87 KB only.)


iOS 9 iMessage notifications show sender's number, not name After some annoying wifi problems with iOS 8.3, I tried out iOS 9 public beta 2 (now public beta 3) on my iPhone 5 (Edit: in the UK). When I receive a text message (iMessage/SMS), the lock screen/home screen notifications usually come up with the sender's phone number, not their name. This happens for most senders, even though their names and numbers are in my contacts.  When I open the Messages app, all messages are correctly categorised according to the contact's name, so my problem is only with the notifications. For some reason, notifications work correctly for one contact, but no others.

Questions:

Is this a known bug?
How can I work around it?

On cause of numbers showing up instead of names is if there is a cached phone-number-only contact that needs to be removed.


Merge missing disk partition on a Macbook I tried to install a Linux distro on a partition in my macbook, but it didn't go well so i want that partition to merge it to my main partition of the OS, but in the disk utility doesn't appear. If i run the diskutil list command this is what I got:
 #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         208.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data                         525.3 MB   disk0s3
   4:           Linux Filesystem                         31.5 GB    disk0s4
   5:                 Linux Swap                         4.0 GB     disk0s5
   6:           Linux Filesystem                         6.0 GB     disk0s6

If I run the command gpt -rf show disk0 I get this:
gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: error: bogus map
gpt show: unable to open device ‘disk0’: no such file or directory

I want to merge the partition 4, 5 and 6 to the APFS disk1.
Is this possible?

Linux filesystem partitions may not not appear in the Disk Utility application. I would not recommend using the Disk Utility or diskutil command to remove Linux filesystem or swap partitions. Usually, attempting leads to an unbootable macOS.
I would recommend the following two ways to remove linux partitions.

If your Linux installer flash drive has a bootable live version, then boot to this live version. Most Linux versions include the gdisk command. Use this command to remove the linux partitions.

Boot to macOS Recovery. Basically restart the Mac and hold down the command(⌘)-R key combination. Once booted, open a Terminal application window and use the
 gpt -f remove -i N disk0

command to remove each Linux partition. You need to replace N with the correct partition index. You can use the
 gpt -rf show disk0

command to list the partitions. The Linux partitions have the following partition GUID type values.
 Linux Filesystem          0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4
 Linux LVM                 E6D6D379-F507-44C2-A23C-238F2A3DF928
 Linux Swap                0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F


Install Mountain Lion to another drive without rebooting I'm wondering if its possible to install Mountain Lion to an external drive (connected via esata) without rebooting from the host system?

I came across this hint suggesting that it was possible to do with Snow Leopard, but this method doesnt work with ML.

Not really, but once you install a clean Mountain Lion system, you can image it to a DMG file and the clone it to your heart's content without rebooting the system doing the copying.


Can't reinstall OS on MacBook Pro from 2009 I formatted the drive on the MacBook Pro because my sister used to own it (she bought it off of ebay) and it had a lot on it. When I started it back up, it booted into OS X utilities and when I tried reinstalling the OS which was El Capitan, it gave me the prompt to sign in to my apple id. I signed in but it gave me the error:
This item is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.
Afterwards I have tried many different things, none of which have worked, including:

Signing into iCloud on the device before trying to reinstall the OS
Changing the date around
Created a USB boot drive with El Capitan and Yosemite and trying to boot off of those. The MacBook did not recognize the USB drive. The drive was in GPT.
I cleared pram before trying USB boot drive too
And since the MacBook Pro is from 2009, internet recovery mode did not work either.

I figured it out. I just created a USB boot drive with Mavericks and that showed up. I waited a while and eventually it worked. From there I just downloaded an upgrade for El Capitan and I was all set.


Create a new space using a keyboard shortcut I am aware you can do it from Mission Control by clicking and there is no shortcut available in 'Keyboard'.

Are there any ways to do this by using a 3rd party program or Applescript?

OK, using the Automator recording, I made it work with a revised version of the AppleScript in the other answer.

Replace "of group 1" with "of group 2 of group 1 of group 1 of":

on run {input, parameters}

    do shell script "open -a 'Mission Control'"
    delay 0.5
    tell application "System Events" to click (every button whose value of attribute "AXDescription" is "add desktop") of group 2 of group 1 of group 1 of process "Dock"
    delay 0.5
    tell application "System Events" to key code 53

    return input
end run


How to set already-paired bluetooth devices again into discovery mode? How can I set a Magic Trackpad (or, any other bluetooth device, I guess) into discovery mode, if it has already been paired to another mac?

Anything I find on google just mocks me.

Regarding the Magic Mouse you can kick it into discovery mode by holding down the mouse button, switch the mouse on, keep on holding the mouse button until the green light starts blinking!


Trying to downgrade to High Sierra but Time Machine restore upgrades back to Mojave I've been having major issues with Mojave - slow-downs, connectivity issues, crashing - you name it. I tried to downgrade back to High Sierra.

High Sierra gets installed fresh, but my Time Machine backup was made on Mojave.

When I hit restore, all the sudden I have Mojave again.  NO!

Is there a way to have my files back without MacOS automatically upgrading me back to Mojave?

You can only do a file restore, individual files/folders rather than a full disk restore.

Once Time Machine has been used on a newer OS, it will not allow you to go back.

Related - Revert to El Capitan
& also covered briefly in How can I download an older version of OS X/macOS?


How do you edit the favorites list on Lion finder? Dragging in and out doesn't seem to be working for me, but I can see the ones I dragged in there before I upgraded:

You should still be able to drag items on to the sidebar. To remove them either right/command(⌘)-click and select Remove from Sidebar or drag while holding ⌘.


Slideshow IDE for programmers? Is there a slideshow editor similar to Powerpoint, but for Mac, that supports code pens and maybe markdown?

Thanks

I don't know if you would call it "similar" to PowerPoint as PowerPoint isn't focused on MarkDown or code, but a nice Mac app is "Deckset" 1.

Another option is to use the browser-based Remark 2. However it is not a native Mac app as such.


Do you need an @icloud.com email to get @icloud.com email aliases? If you sign up for an Apple ID with a non-apple email account (gmail, etc.) can you still sign up for iCloud email aliases (alias@icloud.com)?

Yes you can. Set up the primary ID as your gmail and secondary as an iCloud account


What models of Core i7 are available in the MacBook Pro The currentprevious 17" MacBook Pro has three CPU options:

2.53GHz Intel Core i5 [Subtract $360.00]
2.66GHz Intel Core i7 [Subtract $180.00]
2.8GHz Intel Core i7

Does anyone know what the exact CPU model names are, and which of them have 4 cores?
I can't find additional details anywhere.

The speeds are higher than Dell's options, leading me to believe that they're all 2-core.

The specs are available at this page.

The 2.53 i5 is the I5-540M (2
   physical / 4 virtual cores, and Turbo
   Boost overclocking).
The 2.66 i7 is
   the I7-620M (2 physical / 4
   virtual, and Turbo Boost).The 2.80 i7
   is the I7-640M (2 physical / 4
   virtual, Turbo Boost).


Is there a good alternative to Preview specifically for viewing PDF textbooks? Preview is great for working with documents, but it isn't very good at handling large textbook navigation and reading. Performance is surprisingly bad, especially compared to viewing the exact same ebook in iBooks on my iPad. It can't seem to figure out when I want to turn the page and when I want to pan around the current page, even when it's zoomed out completely. Zooming is slow and choppy, and can even crash the app on occasion (this is on a brand new MacBook Pro).

It's also quite difficult to open and close the table of contents. Cmd+option+3 to open, cmd+option+1 to close? That's pretty janky, considering I'm opening it almost every time I open the textbook. The shortcut to go to a specific page is also fairly complicated (cmd+option+g), and as far as I can tell there is no way to tell Preview to start numbering pages at a certain point, so all the page numbers are off due to the copyright, table of contents, etc.

Is there another app out there that solves these problems?

Adobe Reader for Mac is my best bet.

You can also try Foxit.


SSH No Longer Working After Sierra Update I'm trying to ssh into a remote server using the format:

user@ip -i ~/.ssh/path/to/key

and I get the following error:

/etc/ssh/ssh_config: line 55: Bad configuration option: gssapikeyexchange
/etc/ssh/ssh_config: line 56: Bad configuration option: gssapitrustdns
/etc/ssh/ssh_config: terminating, 2 bad configuration options

Connecting to a server without an SSH key doesn't work either.

Thanks.

Comment out or remove the lines

gssapikeyexchange no
gssapitrustdns no

from your /etc/ssh/ssh_config and you should be good.


What can cause an application to be available for sale elsewhere and not in the USA? I've an application and it's language is english. I am not in US. I changed my iTunes app store to U.S for looking at the apps in the U.S Store... I trying to access my app but I'm getting this:

But my app is downloaded in U.S and other many countries in the world. I am a little confused. My App really isn't available in the U.S Store? Then how it is downloaded in U.S? How can I see which stores sell my app?

You will want to review the regional settings for that SKU by logging into iTunes Connect.

This is documented at Apple's iTunes Connect Developer Guide

Scroll down to the part where it describes the following:

  Setting Territory Rights, Pricing and Availability

  On this page, you:

  Set the date when you want your app to go live on the App Store
  Schedule price tier changes for the future (by setting a price tier effective date and a price tier end date)
  (iOS only) Offer a discount to educational institutions buying in bulk
  Select the territories where you would like to make your app available (do nothing to have your app available worldwide)

  If you need assistance as you’re filling out the page, select the
  appropriate Help button (?) next to the field or refer to Table 7-2
  for the property descriptions. You can modify these settings at any
  time, including after the app is available on the App Store.

Also, before calling for help, be sure you didn't remove it from sale by setting a future availability date for that SKU:

  Important: Your app’s availability date ultimately determines if your app is live on the App Store or not. If your availability date is
  set to a date in the future, even if your app is Ready for Sale, it
  will not be live in the App Store until your availability date
  approaches.

I would assume there's a problem with your account in the case where you can't fix this immediately or the help doesn't work. In that instance, contact Apple directly at Developer Support for iTunes Connect


Safari 7 User Agent is set to “Custom” by default Ever since upgrading to Mavericks from Snow Leopard, Safari’s default User Agent is set to custom. Anybody has any idea why this happens? And how can I fix it?

I managed to fix it by deleting the CustomUserAgent string in the plist file.

defaults delete com.apple.Safari CustomUserAgent

But I still don’t understand how it got to be like that in the first place.


Using bash/terminal to get number of battery recharge cycles I would like to get the number of recharge cycles using bash (terminal commands). I understand the following command will display all of the battery data, but I want the cycle count on its own

ioreg -l -w0 |grep Capacity

I use the following command to get the battery percentage, so I imagine it can be modified slightly to get the cycle count instead;

ioreg -l | awk '$3~/Capacity/{c[$3]=$5}END{OFMT="%.3f";max=c["\"MaxCapacity\""];print(max>0?100*c["\"CurrentCapacity\""]/max:"?")}'

I'm new to bash, so I'm not completely sure how that code works, or how I'd adapt it for my needs.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Something like
system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep "Cycle Count" | awk '{print $3}'

should do the job.
system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep "Condition" | awk '{print $2}'

will get you the battery condition, for example: Normal.
If you want more output, run:
system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -A3 -B7 "Condition"

to get something similar to this:
      Charge Information:
          Charge Remaining (mAh): 2405
          Fully Charged: No
          Charging: No
          Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3816
      Health Information:
          Cycle Count: 187
          Condition: Normal
      Battery Installed: Yes
      Amperage (mA): -2635
      Voltage (mV): 11212


Remote call from another phone I am in US now and I need to call Ukraine, it would be way too expensive as I need to make a lot of calls (business related).

I have a friend in Ukraine so I though if there was a way to connect my phone from US to his phone in Ukraine and make calls from his phone so it’s cheap.

The requirements are:

an app that could transmit the call audio, from my phone to his phone to the final destination phone, back and forth.
less expensive than cellular service between US and Ukraine (but willing to pay in setup time, service or for an app if it will work)

Is there some way to do that with both of us using iOS and iPhones?

You can set up a voice relay. Suggest you consider an Android phone. Apple would never approve such an app.


How to copy a cell formula in Numbers Lets say I have a formula like (Q7+Q11)÷Q20 in cell O20 and I wanna copy it to another cell, lets say D47, is there any key modifier or shortcut to do it without losing the original references of the formula and without rewriting it?

Something like Cmd+Alt drag and drop?

I am with Numbers 4 on Mac OS Sierra

Using the built-in method

As per Apple’s Knowledge Base, Numbers supports absolute references:

  You can set row and column references in a formula to be absolute so that you can use the same formula elsewhere in your spreadsheet without the cell references changing, as they would otherwise.

To change your original formula to use absolute references, follow these steps:

Double-click on the original cell to go into edit mode.
For each reference, click on the triangle; then tick both boxes Preserve Row and Preserve Column.

Or, as an alternative to step 2, you can manually edit the reference to say e. g. $A$1 instead of A1.

The obvious drawbacks of this method are:

The method basically locks your formula in a mode that makes it hard to reuse the same formula in other places where you actually want flexible references.
If you you want to copy many different original formulas, you need to repeat the method over and over.


AirPlay video with audio on iOS device Is it possible to send video through AirPlay and have the audio on the iOS device?

I want to watch a movie on the Apple TV but have the audio in my EarPods connected to my iPhone.

The Apple TV can send audio through AirPlay but I can't find an app for iOS that can receive audio without jailbreak.

That is currently not possible.

You can make it a feature request to Apple

here

http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

or here

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

You can come up with your description but here is a draft:

*

  Feature request: I'd love it you could activate "private listening"
  with Apple TV. Pop headphones into your iPhone or iPad and listen to
  the audio from the Apple TV it's connected to without bothering other
  people in your living space.

*


MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) doesn't recognize 2nd monitor I bought two Dell S-Series 27-Inch monitors and they both display the image, the problem is that they are mirroring each other, it's like it doesn't find the other monitor.  This is the docker I'm using

What I tried:

Reset SMC
Bootcamp (works excellent, I can see the two screens how it should be)
General info
Updates (there are none, it's up to date)
Reset NVRAM
Pressing Option -> "Detect Displays" on bottom right corner

Look below:

That's with the lid open, if I close it, it only shows me this:

Now what I wonder is why are those two profiles there? Is it recognizing the other monitor but not doing anything?
EDIT: the profile doesn't seem to be involved in this, still not 100% sure

Any ideas?

Not sure if this would work for you, but my MacBook Pro was not detecting a Dell 2nd screen while my buddy's older MacBook Pro did.
All I had to do was reseat the cable on the monitors side - the pins were a bit loose and I just tightened them all the screws all the way.


iCloud is full, but no way to delete photos/backups anything i got an email that my iCloud was full. I went into phone settings and noticed that a lot of things i previously disabled were now enabled so i disabled them again ( backups, photos)

it seems that disabling it did not remove anything from iCloud because it's still full.

i logged into iCloud.com and i can see my storage is full but i can't find any way to delete my existing stuff.

this is so confusing! even if i turned off all the services that still didn't do anything.

i finally found it.

  settings > icloud > storage > manage storage > start turning **** off and it will actually delete on iCloud.

it was storing all kinds of things i never authorized! like "health data" podcasts, photos.. this really sucks.


What directory does homebrew use to build programs? I would like to change the directory that homebrew uses when it builds programs

Is that possible? I didn't find such option in brew command

When you install a Homebrew package, if it needs to compile it from source, it will extract the files to /tmp/package-XXXXXX and compile them there before installing to /usr/local/Cellar/package.

You can specify a different temp folder by setting an environment variable...

export HOMEBREW_TEMP=/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/temp


App to block data usage on iphone I was wondering if it was possible to block data usage completely when a certain data transfer limit has been reached? Does an app exist for that?

I am aware there are some apps that allow users to view the data usage, but is there an app to prevent completely from using Data when limit is exceeded, automatically?! This would be especially usefull to prevent the extra fees when exceeding my 1GB data usage limit.

No, that is not possible: it would mean Apple allows developers access to deactivating data access. I guess you can understand the security problem that would mean: an app could decide on its own you don't have data access anymore.

The only way to do that is to regularly check your data usage in “Settings > General > Usage > Cell network usage” (menu names may not be the exact ones, my iPhone isn't in English, sorry). You can reinitialize these statistics each time your limit is reset.

If your limit is crossed, switch data off in “Settings > Network” (iOS 5 only).


ld linker is missing when installing gcc using Homebrew on Mac OS I am a new Mac user and need to install GNU compilers (C and C++) and CMake for the code I am using.

I installed gcc and its binary utilities and CMake via Homebrew with the correct PATH to the executables (/usr/local/bin). However, compiling my code shows error messages regarding a missing linker.

It seems like installing gcc and binutils via Homebrew does not include ld linker. Does anyone know how to manually install ld (via Homebrew preferrably)?

As explained in this Homebrew Github issue:

  GNU binutils's ld does not support Darwin (macOS), and is thus not built [in the Homebrew package]

Use the ld version provided with macOS located at /usr/bin/ld.


Can I use an iPad (Wi-Fi+Cellular) as a cellphone? I just wanted to know whether is possible to use an iPad mini as a cell phone. I am planning to put my SIM card into the iPad mini, which is the Wi-Fi+cellular model.

No, you can't use it as a carrier cellphone. But if you have enough data in your plan, you can use it as a cellphone through services such as Google Voice or Skype which can give you a phone number that you can call with and be called with over the internet. They both provide apps that will "ring" your iPad when someone calls the number.

Google Voice is free to have a phone number. Calls From the US or Canada to the US or Canada are free, and calls to or from other places are pretty cheap.

Skype charges for a phone number, but that includes some sort of fee that gives you a predetermined number of minutes.


Transferring text messages with upgrade from iPhone 4 to iPhone 5 My text messages did not transfer. Is there a way to get them yet? They are still on the old phone.

I would get a program like PhoneView and just archive both device's SMS/Voicemail/call records. Unless the new phone is really new and you don't mind losing the new texts to restore a backup of all the texts from the old, there's not a way to inject or combine both stores of text messages.


Disable photos in maps The Maps app on the iPhone shows the photos from a business's Yelp page, but for some businesses these photos are inappropriate. Is there a way to block them?

No, switching to another mapping program would be the only option.


My MacBook is in boot loop My MacBook Air is stuck in boot loop i.e. When I start my mac I see apple logo for some secs and the restarts again. This happens over and over. I can't get to os. When I try to get to utility disk using command+R, it doesn't get there either as it keeps restarting. Any idea how can I fix this?

Update

When I try verbose mode I get this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOvfERZzRQ&feature=share

Update

Here are the screenshots. I'm not sure where it gets stuck but the first one is where it takes few extra seconds before it gets going further and the second screenshot is when trying to restart.

UPDATE

Based on @Ruskes answer, I created a bootable usb from another mac. And I boots infected mac from it but when it restarts the same restart loop began.

Start with the basics: PRAM reset and then check the drive/filesystem (below)

Boot your system while holding command-S.  Hopefully it will bring you to a command prompt.  You can then run these commands to check/repair the file system, and reboot

/sbin/fsck -fy
reboot

You may also want to run hardware diagnostics on your mac.


Re-downloading apps purchased in a different country? I lived in Canada for several years, but now I live in Norway (again).

In Canada, I have purchased many apps on both the iOS and Mac OS X app stores. Some of these apps I have uninstalled over the years for different reasons.

I have now switched my Apple ID account country setting back to Norway, in order to get better app suggestions, etc. I have also changed my address and credit card.

The problem is that, now I can no longer see the apps that I purchased in Canada in my "Purchases" tab in the App Store, so I cannot re-download/reinstall any of them. When I go to one of these apps in the Norwegian App Store, it's as if I never purchased the app; I have to pay for it again if I want to download it. This goes for both iOS and  OS X App Stores.

Does anyone know of a way to download the apps I purchased while my Apple ID account country setting was set to Canada, after having changed the country setting to Norway?

Note that I only have one Apple ID; I simply changed the country setting once to Canada when I moved there, and then back to Norway when I moved back.

Changing my settings back to Canada while living in Norway is not an option, since I no longer have a Canadian address or credit card and, even if I did, I would not want the hassle of switching the country setting back and forth all the time.

I was pretty much in the same situation as you and got the same answers from iTunes support. Like you, I did not want to manage two Apple IDs. So finally I just switched countries.

Here is what I did:

I went to my purchased history before changing the stores and made a screenshot of everything I own (10 pages for iOS and two for OS X).
After switching countries, all the apps that I purchased are gone from the purchased list and if I search for an app that I previously bought, instead of getting the cloud icon I just get the price tag.
However if you click Buy it will ask you for your password, think for a few seconds and you will get a message, something like "you previously bought this app so now it's free" and you won't be charged.

As long as you know what you have purchased in the past, you can get in now for free.


Applescript to delete iMessages from Messages app I have an Applescript that sends myself and colleagues iMessages when certain events happen. Some times hundreds of iMessages are sent in a short space of time to lots of people and the Messages app fills up pretty quick.

Is there an Applescript I can run that deletes conversations from the Messages app?

(It can be a blanket 'nuke all messages', I'm not worried about keeping the history on this particular computer.)

Can you create a Folder Action to empty the ~/Library/Messages folder at intervals?


Why does AirPort Utility support file sharing? The AirPort utility app for the iPhone allows you to share documents between a computer and an iOS device.

What kind of documents, if any, would I share between my Mac and the AirPort utility app?

This is so that you can load configuration profiles. Say you want to set up a campus network where all the base stations have the same network name, admin password (or printing password or iCloud accounts).

This will allow you to make a copy of a configuration and load it from iOS to a computer or the other way for standardized setup.


Transfer iPhone contacts to iCloud or Mac I just got involved into a new project at work, and I added all my colleagues to my iPhone contacts. In the middle of the process I got the idea it would be better to add the contacts to my iCloud.

So I got half of my colleagues in my iCloud and half of them on my iPhone memory. For some reason, the contacts I added on my iPhone, don't appear in my Address book. The ones I added on my iCloud do appear on my Mac and iPad (just like I want it to happen).

I've tried with iTunes and some 3th party software, but none of them worked (unless I paid for it... but I don't want to since I'm convinced this most basis function should work out of the box...)

So any advice how to transfer my iPhone contacts in vcf's to my Mac so I can import them into my Address book? Or how to transfer my iPhone contacts to my iCloud?

Try My Contacts Pro (Free). You could export all contacts on your iPhone and send them via e-mail, also could import them to your Address Book on your Mac.


Fans run after Macbook Pro lid is shut The fans in my MBP will continue to run for a minute or two after I close the lid. This is frustrating because I often want to close it and immediately put it away in its soft zipper case but I don't want to put it in the case while it's still spitting out hot air. Any ideas why the fans don't turn off immediately (or within like 15 seconds)? This started happening after I upgraded to 10.9.

This typically happens when the CPU has been working and the system needs to push more hot air out. I think the firmware within the machine manages this but I'm not quite sure. My air does it and I just put it away anyway. I've never experienced anything bad with it.


Can I detect the frame rate of a video using built in programs or tools? I want to match the frame rate of a video I am editing to a project. But I don't know the frame rate.
Is there an easy way to check the frame rate of a video using built-in tools or programs?

In QuickTime Player

press cmd-i (⌘I or Window > Show Movie Inspector)
expand the Video section
see the "Encoded FPS" value


Is there a workaround to pay for several years (stock up) with in-app annual subscription? Usually subscription services let you stock up subscriptions ahead of time. You can buy 3 annual subscriptions at the same day and have 3 years of subscription.
App Store in-app annual subscription doesn't let you to buy ahead. If you pay for 1 year, you have to wait till the end of that year to pay for the 2nd year. You can't buy the second year at the same day you bought the 1st, nor can you buy a 2nd year if there are still 4 months of the first year.
Is there a workaround to bypass that limitation?
It says at subscriptions page that I can cancel at any time and continue to use my annual subscription until it expires. If I cancel and there are 4 months of subscription left, will I be able to re-purchase annual subscription right away? Will this new subscription start after the first one or will it overwrite the 4 months that I had left?

I don’t think you get any sort of hidden features with subscriptions through Apple. Since this is a service, it’s not baked into any OS upgrade or app, it’s just logic on how the system works.
I would reach out to the developer if you need this, but I would caution you - how could Apple offer a refund for something they might not even be able to deliver in 3 years. If the developer offers a side registration process - they an do whatever they please, but Apple has been pretty set on the terms for a while - so anything could change, but I would expect them to be selling annual passes at the longest term for as long as they’re on the hook to provide refunds when a purchase has issues.
I think you have a very good grasp - there’s no hidden workarounds here - it’s like asking a bank to change how they grant interest on certificates of deposit. It’s a pretty standard transaction from a mechanism what happens at the start and end - you’re just wanting them to change the term for you and a specific developer.


What is "Entering Sleep state due to 'Dark Wake Thermal Emergency'" from pmset log? Command:

pmset -g log|grep -e " Sleep  " -e " Wake  "

Last night I see 5 instances of

  Entering Sleep state due to 'Dark Wake Thermal Emergency': Using AC

I found this article from 2011 on MacTech.com reporting that:

"Apple is working on methods to power up select components of a Mac from a sleep state, per a patent at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

Patent number 7996694 is for a "dark wake," or xemplary embodiments of methods, apparatuses, and systems for powering up select components of a computer from a sleep state, maintaining a network state, and powering down the select components of the computer to return the computer to the sleep state are described. For one embodiment, a network interface and a fan controller receive power during the network state maintenance but a display or audio components do not receive power during the network state maintenance. The inventors are Ethan Bold, Stuart Cheshire, J. Rhoads Hollowell, Joe Liu and Dean R. Reece.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "The various embodiments described herein relate to power management of a processing system. In particular, embodiments include the processing system entering a dark wake state from a from a low power state by powering up select components, maintaining a network state, and returning to the sleep state.

"Computer systems are often used to perform various tasks over a network. When a computer system connects to a network, it establishes a network state with a server or another networked device. In order to make efficient use of network resources, network states may expire and can be periodically maintained or renewed. Additionally, a computer system may periodically update a network state.

"If the computer system is placed in a low power state (e.g., a sleep state), however, the computer system typically terminates the network state (e.g., allows it to expire) or periodically "wakes up" to a full power state (including user-perceptible components such as video and audio), to maintain, renew, or otherwise update an existing network state.

"Exemplary embodiments of methods, apparatuses, and systems for powering up select components of a computer from a sleep state, maintaining a network state, and powering down the select components of the computer to return the computer to the sleep state are described. For one embodiment, the select components include a network interface and do not include a display or audio components. For one embodiment a fan controller receives power during the maintaining of the network state.

"These embodiments allow a system to appear to a user to be asleep while performing maintenance of the network state but also continue to protect the system from overheating by keeping the fan controller on. The fan controller can include subsystems which monitor temperature and determine whether to turn a fan on or off; for example, the fan controller can include temperature sensors and processing logic that determines, using information from the temperature sensors whether to turn on or off a fan or other cooling device in order to protect the system. For one embodiment, the fan controller receives power even while the system is in one or more levels of sleep."

-- Dennis Sellers

It would appear that your computer is performing a Dark Wake, but is unable to maintain good thermal management, possibly due to high ambient temps, and is therefore returning to full sleep for a cool-down period.


If I stay on 7.1.2 firmware, should I backup My Apps to Itunes? I have an app installed on my device running iOS 7.1.2.
Say I delete the app.
In a few months I CANNOT download the app without updating to iOS 8.

If I "backup the app" using Sync onto Itunes, can I recover the app compatible with 7.1.2?
or will it still require me to have iOS 8?

Alternate Q: If restoring the app via Itunes sync fails, what Other methods can I save and recover the older version of the app?

Unfortunately by "backing up the app" it only backs up the data the app has. You can go into your finder and locate the app and save that in another location and when you need it inport it into iTunes. Just remember to not update the app.

Finder/username/music/itunes/itunes media/mobile applications


I Think My Graphics Card Changed I opened System Information today only to find that my graphics card name has changed from Intel 4000 (or something like that) to AMD Radion:

I don't think I'm going crazy.

EDIT: I was right! Here it is showing Intel 3000: http://icap.me/i/yEdDGcjR1B.png

Most recent 15" MacBook Pros have dual graphics cards — one integrated into the CPU (the Intel 3000), and one discrete card (the Radeon). It switches dynamically based on what programs are running and how they use the GPU.

Some more info from Apple:

MacBook Pro: How to determine which graphics card is in use
MacBook Pro: How to set graphics performance
MacBook Pro: About automatic graphics switching and OpenGL applications


How to use all the space in extracted hard disk (remove leftover system folders) I have extracted hard disks from otherwise dead Mac laptops.
I'm using them as external hard disks, but I cannot use all the space they contain because they have a few system folders (like /Applications or /System) which are of no use at all to me now.
It seems I cannot delete them using the terminal (even as sudo) or with Disk Utility (If I ask this app
to erase the whole volume it refuses).
Did I miss something? What is the best way to do this?

If you go into disk utility select view then show all devices. For the drive you want to erase, select the upper most text/name and then click erase. You can now chose the name, its file system (for normal use I would recommend MacOs Extended) and its scheme (you most likely want to have GUID). Unless its an SSD you can also select security options to securely erase the data.
Make sure that all files on all volumes and its partitions of that physical drive are backed up, since you will reformat and therefore erase the actual hard drive, not just a partition.

More info about the file systems: Apple support page, APFS vs MacOS Extended


Is that possible to let terminal update autocomplete for new executable files in path automatically? I am running MacOS Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91) and using zsh (the default shell).
Whenever I added new executable files/scripts to $PATH, I can not auto-complete the script filename in the existing terminals. I have to open a new terminal to make the autocomplete work for the new files.
Is that possible to make the autocomplete work for new files in $PATH automatically for old existing terminal sessions?
Thanks a lot.

The issue is that the new command is not been entered into the hash table that zsh that maps commands to the full name.
The command hash table is built when you first attempt a command in a new shell as you have shown.
To make the command get added to the table without startinga new shell run the command rehash


How well will a MacBook Air work in a hot dusty environment A MacBook air would work very well for me functionally. However I expect that I may have to use it in a hot and dusty environment. Any idea how badly the cooling system would be affected by prolonged exposure to dust?

I took a look at the teardown done by iFixit and there is a single CPU fan. Would it be easy to clean this fan if required? and how likely are the air passageways to get clogged by dust?

I do not know about the dust (as a comment asked, it really depends on the amount and type of dust), but I would definitely not recommend using your MacBook Air as if it were heat resistant. Specific computers are assembled for warm (and damp) climates: if your MacBook Air, as I suppose, is not one of them, I would recommend that you do not take that risk unnecessarily, hoping for the best. Laptops can get damaged by lesser threats than prolonged exposure to heat, which is a serious one.


launchctl doesn't start cntlm daemon I've installed cntlm on osx using the homebrew formula.

Then I've copied the .plist file and started the daemon:

sudo cp -fv /usr/local/opt/cntlm/*.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo chown root /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.cntlm.plist

But after the reboot the daemon isn't running. I've tried to run it manually with

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.cntlm.plist

but its output is

/Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.cntlm.plist: Operation already in progress

I've also checked the plist file with plutil -lint and it is ok.

This is the source of /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.cntlm.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>homebrew.mxcl.cntlm</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/opt/cntlm/bin/cntlm</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/var/null</string>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/var/null</string>
  </dict>
</plist>

Do you know why this happen and how to run it correctly as a daemon?

I'm posting this as a separate answer since I did not have to fiddle with any plist files to make this work.
Here's how I installed and started CNTLM today:

Install CNTLM with Homebrew

brew install cntlm

Edit CNTLM configuration

Edit the /usr/local/etc/cntlm.conf file, update the following items:

Username: The user name for authenticating with your NTLM proxy
Domain: Set the domain (if required)
Password: Your password in plain text - only required for testing, remove this later...
Proxy: Your proxy host name/IP and port (can use multiple lines)
NoProxy: Add any hosts that don't need to be proxied

Update Authentication

Run the following to let CNTLM figure out which authentication means work with your proxy:

cntlm -M https://www.google.com

This will spit out info like this, copy this into your cntlm.conf file:

Auth            NTLM
PassNT          ...
PassLM          ...

Next, have your password encrypted:

cntlm -H

Enter your account password when asked. This command will then print something like the following (some lines are the same as from the above command) - copy this into your cntlm.conf file:

PassLM          ...
PassNT          ...
PassNTLMv2      ...    # Only for user 'xxx', domain 'yyy'

Remove your plain text password from the file now and comment out the Password line.

You will need to run cntlm -H again if you change your password.

Run CNTLM as a macOS Service

Multiple options exist for this, pick the one you like best:

# Start CNTLM at boot time - requires `sudo`
sudo brew services start cntlm

# Start CNTLM at login time
brew services start cntlm

# Run CNTLM on demand, don't start at boot or login
brew services run cntlm

# Stop CNTLM (might have to use `sudo` if you started it with `sudo`)
(sudo) brew services stop cntlm

# List all services managed by Homebrew
brew services list

More info on brew services can be found in the official documentation.


Disabling password saving for certificates I work in a HIPAA environment where we purposefully put passwords on our certificates. However, when connecting to one of our servers via SSH, it seems keychain is 'remembering' the password between restarts and hasn't been prompting me each time (as it needs to).

How can I disable this session-like behavior, so certificate passwords produce a prompt each time they are used?

When the system prompts you to save your session in the following dialog:

Make sure that you do NOT check the Remember password in my keychain checkbox.  If you did check that, then you can always delete that saved password in the Keychain Access app, located in your Utilities folder:

Notice that even if you don't check the box, SSH does cache your password until a reboot.
Dave Dribin has an excellent breakdown of what's actually going on with OS X's SSH Keychain integration: http://www.dribin.org/dave/blog/archives/2007/11/28/ssh_agent_leopard/
Summary:

The real benefit, though, is the second checkbox: “Remember password in my keychain.” While it does store the passphrase in your keychain, it actually does more than that. It also adds the identity to your ssh-agent for you.
By adding your identity to the agent, you can now log right back into the same machine, without typing any passphrase. However, ssh does not prompt for you passphrase because it gets it from the agent, not your keychain. Remove your identity from the agent, and try again:

% ssh-add -D
All identities removed.

Locking your Keychain
The other thing to consider is just locking your keychain after a reboot or sleeping.  This will essentially give you the behavior that you're looking for as well.
You can do this from the Keychain Access utility, by right-clicking on the keychain that your private key's password is saved in, and clicking on Change Settings for Keychain '<YOUR_KEYCHAIN_NAME>'
The following dialog will appear:

Just select the one that best fits your compliance requirements.


Can I increase the level from my USB microphone? I have this usb headset: http://www.plantronics.com/us/product/audio-478

With the level turned all the way up in System Preferences, it's not loud enough for some uses.

Is there a way to increase this level?

10.10.3

2014 15" Retina

You may use volume booster software like
Boom
Or
In iTunes Library select media with low volume and press cmd+i . Go to Options and make Volume Adjustments.
Or
VLC allow you to increase volume to 200% by simply scrolling all the way up.


Redirect traffic using PF along with Internet Sharing The short version:

How do I redirect all traffic from en2 port 80/443 to 127.0.0.1:8080 when I have enabled Internet Sharing in OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)?

Some background:

I am doing a master thesis where I will evaluate communication security for various smartphone apps. I have chosen to use my new MacBook Air as the router.

I have connected my Air to the Internet with USB Ethernet and setup Internet Sharing to my Wifi. This works fine. I can connect other devices to my Air via wifi and access the Internet. Great!

Now I want to intercept this traffic and modify it on-the-fly. I figured I need a proxy to do this but I need a transparent one, where I don't have to do any configuration on the device. I found that mitmproxy offers exactly these features. So I have it running on 127.0.0.1:8080, ready to intercept traffic.

Unfortunately I am stuck trying to redirect my traffic coming in from the wifi (en2) on port 80 and 443 to 127.0.0.1:8080. The mitmproxy docs suggest a config for pfctl but it doesn't work. I noticed that Apple has provided some config for Internet Sharing, enabling NAT. So if I don't use their configuration then the Internet Sharing stops working. And when I try to add the rdr lines to their config it doesn't take effect (tried several places in the file /etc/pf.conf). My traffic just passes on to the Internet, bypassing the mitmproxy.

I found the answer.

I loaded my rules as part of the anchor com.apple/100.InternetSharing/natpmp which is the one used for Internet Sharing.

The file mitm.pf.conf contains the rules:

rdr on bridge0 proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080
rdr on bridge0 proto tcp from any to any port 443 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080`

Load it using the Internet Sharing anchor:

sudo pfctl -a com.apple/100.InternetSharing/natpmp -f mitm.pf.conf


Macbook Pro Yosemite l Bootcamp Issue So for whatever reason, I am having a difficult time SAVING the Windows Support Software.  I tried restarting the process, but it didn't seem to go anywhere.  My bootcamp appears to be stuck on this step, and I am not sure why. Any suggestions?

If the Windows Support Software from the Boot Camp Assistant is not downloading and/or returns an error, you can download the software manually for the machine depending on the year/make of your Macbook, iMac, or Mac Pro.

This list can be found on the Apple KBase.

Based on you having a Mid-2012 13" MacBook, you would be looking for one of the following downloads:

Windows 7/8 64-bit (BC Support Software v5)
Windows 7 32-bit (BC Support Software v4)

Follow the instructions on the KBase article for installing the support software, and build your Win7 disk with the Support Software box unchecked in BCA.


Spilled water on Macbook Pro 13 inch, early 2015 I've spilled 5-10 mL of liquid on my Macbook Pro (13 inch, early 2015)  some hours ago. I purchased this laptop a few months ago. It has 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB storage, though this is probably irrelevant. The liquid came in contact with the trackpad (including the edges of it). I did not turn it off. Rather, I ran the Apple Diagnostics Test and it came out fine. Several hours later, I ran the diagnostics test again and it was fine. The laptop, including the trackpad, is functioning normally at this moment.

  What is the likelihood that the laptop, particularly the trackpad, will develop problems in the future?

Also,

  Is it worth the time to go to an Apple Store and get this checked out?

Normally, I wouldn't even ask; I'd take it to the Apple Store just in case. However, I am very busy this weekend and a visit to the Apple Store will take a good 2 hours of my time, at the very least. Resassurance from experts on this site will give me peace of mind.

Moreover, I would also appreciate a comment from people who know a thing or two about the hardware of this laptop model regarding how 'water protected' the trackpad structure is. I am, again, mainly worried about liquid having leaked through its edges.

You won't know anything until you take it apart, that is the sad truth. In the mean time, keeping it angled with the vent up and the trackpad down will hopefully make any liquid that got in stay away from the motherboard until is evaporates. If any corrosion is happening, you may not notice until an electrical connection is actually disrupted by it.


Photos JPEG Export Keywords I have a photo in Photos that I have added keywords (tags) to. When I export this image I can see other metadata, such as description and location that were added by Photos in the EXIF data but not the keywords. Is it possible to make Photos also add the keywords to the EXIF data?

If I export originals there is also an option to export XMP data, but I don't see this option when exporting as JPEG.

The tags are stored not in EXIF data but in IPTC tags. I was able to view and modify them using the iptc command, which uses libiptcdata.

Viewing the tags:

$ iptc test.jpg

Adding a tag:

$ iptc -a Keywords -v testing test.jpg


Connecting a PC PS/2 keyboard to Mac I've just bought a PS/2 to USB cable to use PS/2 PC keyboard (Compaq SK-2860 and Packard Bell 6301N) in my Mac (OS X 10.8.4) because my Mac's wireless keyboard doesn't work:

…but my Mac does not identify the keyboard. I've got this window:

…but when I press the key to the right of  shift nothing happens.

The cable works in Windows XP, and Linux Ubuntu well. I've seen this similar question but please note my issue is related to a specific PC keyboard. What can I do?

This are the steps I've follow to use my keyboard, I've tried so many things that I don't know which step is mandatory:

Shut down Mac and wireless keyboard
Plug in the keyboard with the PS/2 USB adapter
Switch on Mac

If Mac is stuck to the first gray window try to use a different USB in my case if I use the first USB the keyboard doesn't work but if I use the fourth it  works.

If the keyboard still doesn't work I've try to install PS/2 driver with the Kext Utility.

Maybe first you should remove:

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist

At the login the keyboard should be operative so you can write the password with your PS/2 keyboard. I simply ignore the Identify keyboard window that appear after login.


Getting the space key to act like the return key I come from a Windows background and I have gotten into the habit of hitting the Space key every time there's a popup on my screen that I want to close.  But on the Mac, it doesn't do anything, but hitting Return does.  Does anyone  know how I can get Mac to let the space key act like the Return key on modal dialogs?  I tried to find something in the Keyboard preferences but don't see anything related to popups.

Press ctrl+F7 to enable Full Keyboard Access. This setting is also available in the System Preferences under the Keyboard preference pane:

By selecting 'All controls', you can tab around keyboard focus between the various widgets in dialog boxes, including buttons like OK or Cancel. It's slightly different from Windows, in that return is like pressing the fully highlighted button, while space is like pressing the selected / outlined button.

This image shows the difference between the two:

In this example, the Cancel button has focus (from tabbing) while OK is the default. So pressing space would select Cancel, while return would select OK.

And for completeness, this one can be accepted by either space or return:

It's worth noting that some OS X dialog boxes (I've noticed this especially with dialogs asking whether it's OK to overwrite a file) will come up with, for example, Don't Overwrite as the default for return, and Do Overwrite as the focused item for space. This makes it a single key either way to do what you want, but you need to be sure you've got the right one!


Can I detect my iPhone when thief logout from iCloud in Settings? I don't have iPhone but I want to know just for knowledge purpose, Can I detect my iPhone when thief logout from iCloud in Settings ?

I know we can detect our iPhone when we login on iCloud website with same apple id as device login but what if device logout from that apple id. can we still detect our iPhone ?

You cannot logout iCloud without entering the password if Find My iPhone is enabled. At least, this counts for iOS7.

With versions prior iOS 7 you can wipe the device without having the password.


Node Program Runs in Terminal, but Not As a “do shell script” AppleScript I have a call (“mercury-parser” via Yarn, using the full path to the call) that converts Web pages to lines of structured text (the page used in the call describes the service):

/Users/me/.yarn/bin/mercury-parser https://postlight.com/trackchanges/mercury-goes-open-source

If I run it in Terminal (using either /bin/bash or /bin/sh on a 2013 Mac Pro, macOS 10.14.5), I get the proper result: fourteen lines of structured text from the Web page.

However, the very same call returns an error when run as a single-line, “do shell script” AppleScript:

do shell script "/Users/me/.yarn/bin/mercury-parser https://postlight.com/trackchanges/mercury-goes-open-source"

The error returned is:

error "env: node: No such file or directory" number 127

FWIW, here are both my .profile and my .bash_profile texts (the latter created solely to try and solve this quandary), that should not be necessary, given that the full path to the call is being specified, specifically to avoid such an error:

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH"

export PATH="$HOME/.yarn/bin:$HOME/.config/yarn/global/node_modules/.bin:$PATH"

[[ -s $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh ]] && . $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh  # This loads NVM

source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm

What do I have to do to get the call to run as an AppleScript?

[2019.6.26 at 11:25:45PM: Edited in an attempt at clarification.]

2019.6.27 at 1:36:57PM: Per Mark’s suggestion:

Thank you, Mark; I duplicated my .[bash_]profile,  renamed it to “.bashrc”, and added “bin/bash” to the call:

do shell script "bin/bash; /Users/RF/.yarn/bin/mercury-parser https://postlight.com/trackchanges/mercury-goes-open-source"

However, (after a reboot) I still get the same error:

error "env: node: No such file or directory" number 127

Thoughts?

This was solved by KniazidisR at https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196447#p196447

set nodePath to "/usr/local/Cellar/node/12.5.0/bin/node "
set mercuryParserPath to "/usr/local/bin/mercury-parser "
set pageURL to "https://postlight.com/trackchanges/mercury-goes-open-source"

do shell script nodePath & mercuryParserPath & pageURL


What would cause a CLI utility to ignore arguments except when invoked directly? Okay, so this just happened:

iMac:bin nreilingh$ tree --version
.
|____tree
iMac:bin nreilingh$ which tree
/usr/local/bin/tree
iMac:bin nreilingh$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/tree
lrwxr-xr-x  1 nreilingh  admin  29 Oct 14 22:02 /usr/local/bin/tree -> ../Cellar/tree/1.7.0/bin/tree
iMac:bin nreilingh$ pwd
/usr/local/Cellar/tree/1.7.0/bin
iMac:bin nreilingh$ ./tree --version
tree v1.7.0 (c) 1996 - 2014 by Steve Baker, Thomas Moore, Francesc Rocher, Florian Sesser, Kyosuke Tokoro

I installed tree via homebrew, and whenever I invoke it, it ignores command line arguments. When I execute the binary directly, it doesn't. How is this possible?

Maybe tree is defined as a function or alias in your .bashrc or .profile file?

Check output of \tree --version


How to change opera for mac's search engine for special dial page? I can change the address bar search engine but it doesn't effect the special dial search engine. I like to know where to find its setting. Here is a screenshot.

You can not change that search box. Even if you change the browser's search engine, it does not affect that special box.


stop iOS contact importing contact info from mail footers I recently changed from using the gmail app to the native iOS mail app on my iphone.

Now when i search for a contact in the address book to make a phone call it seems to have pulled in a load of contact info from peoples email footers, i have some email accounts for work that i dont want to clutter up my contact book, is it possible to only set the 'search emails for contact info' setting to only apply to select email accounts ?

It's not available per-account, but the setting is adjusted in iOS 10 in Settings > Contacts. At the bottom of the list is a toggle for Contacts Found in Apps and that's what controls this pseudo-importing.


iPhone XR's screen triggers other devices Recently I bought a brand new iPhone XR. When its screen is activated by some application (not necessarily a GSM call or a Wi-Fi thing), it affects other speakers or headphones around it. All of them sounds exact same 4 "buff" like sounds consecutively.  It reminds me of the way old mobile phones affected the speakers around them. Is there anyone knows why it happens and how to prevent it? It annoys me and I really need a solution.

Typically, this kind of speaker interference happens when there is a large amount of cellular data transfer. If you keep your phone on WiFi and enable WiFi calling, you may experience it less since WiFi is a lower strength signal than cellular?
I don't know if there is another way to avoid this...


Antivirus that runs only by request I just want a lightweight antivirus for my Mac that doesn't keep running on background but only scanning a file by request. Is there any?

I personally use Sophos Antivirus. You can disable On-access Scanning from within the configuration settings.


Poor performance with Virtual Box on MacBook Pro 2017 I am running Ubuntu 16.04 via Virtual Box on my MacBook Pro 2017 w/ TouchBar (3.3Ghz i7, 16 GB 2133 MHZ) and I am getting a very laggy and unpleasant experience on the machine. I have gone through the suggested changes from 7 years ago here:  https://superuser.com/questions/172989/virtualbox-running-ubuntu-is-slow-mac-os-x-host

But it does not seem to make a difference. Even when I change the resolution to 720p the performance is still quite poor. Here are the settings for the vm:

 <Hardware>
  <CPU>
    <PAE enabled="true"/>
    <LongMode enabled="true"/>
    <X2APIC enabled="true"/>
    <HardwareVirtExLargePages enabled="true"/>
  </CPU>
  <Memory RAMSize="8192"/>
  <HID Pointing="USBTablet"/>
  <Chipset type="ICH9"/>
  <Display VRAMSize="128"/>
  <VideoCapture fps="25" options="ac_enabled=false"/>
  <RemoteDisplay>
    <VRDEProperties>
      <Property name="TCP/Ports" value="3389"/>
    </VRDEProperties>
  </RemoteDisplay>
  <BIOS>
    <IOAPIC enabled="true"/>
  </BIOS>
  <USB>
    <Controllers>
      <Controller name="OHCI" type="OHCI"/>
    </Controllers>
  </USB>
  <StorageController name="IDE" type="PIIX4" PortCount="2" useHostIOCache="true" Bootable="true">

Any thoughts on the settings? I feel like I should be able to get some decent performance out of this machine. (I have tried smaller RAMsizes with no success either). Alternative solutions if this a common Virtual Box issue?

The problem is Retina itself. If you use other monitor with other resolution (no retina) you'll see much better performance.
I think it's an issue with OSX and Retina/HiDPI Resolutions.


What causes network data use besides automatic updates? Yesterday I updated my old OS to Yosemite. I saw that automatic updates were using a lot of data so I turned them off them off in System Preferences. After restarting my computer, I checked Activity Monitor > Network, and Received Data shows 1.67GB

What uses data besides automatic updates? Is there a way to reduce the data usage?

All right guys, I found the solution. I went to Finder > Library > Updates then I saw the bunch of update files their. So, I had deleted all those files and connect to Internet. Well, now it is OK. :D