How to fix Safari print preview crash after upgrade to Mountain Lion? After upgrading to Mountain Lion, opening the print dialog in Safari.

Printing was fine before the upgrade. Also printing still works in my VMs under Parallels.

How to fix Safari print preview crash after upgrading to Mountain Lion?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4213152?start=0&tstart=0

It's an issue with the most recent driver version. Open Finder, select Go > Go to Folder and write:

/Library/Printers/hp/PDEs

and delete:

hpPostScriptPDE.plugin


Finder new window change location I recently did a clean install of the MacOS Mojave and I am a little bit annoyed by the default folder I get when I press CMD+N in Finder.

How can I change the default folder when I open a new window in Finder?

Actually that is pretty easy, and pretty easy to overlook.

Open a new finder window
Press ⌘ Command  ,
Click on the leftmost icon, "General"

Near the bottom there is a pop-up menu, "New Finder windows show:"
Select the location you want from that menu. You will note my Finder windows open with my Home folder, YMMV...


What iOS 6 features does the iPhone 4 lack? Under iOS 6, what features will I not get if I were to buy an iPhone 4 vs. an iPhone 4S today?

What I already know is the new navigation (continuous navigation on the lock screen, if I understood that correctly), which will be available in 5 and 4s, and won't be available in 4.

Anything else?

Apple has a nice iOS page up at http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/

In case it changes at a later date, here is the relevant text from the end of that page.

1. Flyover and turn-by-turn navigation are available only on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 2 or later, and iPod touch (5th generation). Cellular data charges may apply.
2. Siri is available on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad (3rd generation), and iPod touch (5th generation) and requires Internet access. Cellular data charges may apply.
3. FaceTime video calling requires a FaceTime-enabled device for the caller and recipient and a Wi-Fi connection. FaceTime over a cellular network requires iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, or iPad (3rd generation) with cellular data capability. Availability over a cellular network depends on carrier policies; data charges may apply.
4. Offline Reading List is available on iPhone 4 or later and iPad 2 or later.
5. Made for iPhone hearing aids require iPhone 4S or iPhone 5.
6. Panorama is available on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and iPod touch (5th generation).
7. Find My iPhone and Find My Friends enable you to locate iOS devices only when they are on and connected to a registered Wi-Fi network or have an active data plan.
iCloud requires iOS 5 or later on iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch (3rd generation or later), or iPad; a Mac computer with OS X Lion or later; or a PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Outlook 2007 or 2010 or an up-to-date browser is required for accessing email, contacts, and calendars).

Some features require iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion. Some features require a Wi-Fi connection. Some features are not available in all countries. Access to some services is limited to 10 devices.

This text above is straight from the footnote portion / small text at the bottom of the web page.


Is it safe to use non-Apple adapter to charge Apple devices? Is it safe to charge your apple devices with an international adapter with multiple slots like this one?

Travel Adapter, All in one Worldwide Power Adapter Travel Plug, Fast Charging USB Type C, Smart USB Ports, Auto Fuse, International Plug Converter AUS, EU, US, UK, 220 Countries, AC Power Wall Plug

My concern is that this non-Apple adapter seems to be very compact, whereas Apple adapters seem to be much bigger.
I have iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple MacBook Pro. So I plan to use the adapter to charge all of these devices, potentially at the same time.
international adapter from Amazon

Is it safe to use non-Apple adapter to charge Apple devices?

Possibly.

There's an old consumer's adage... You get what you pay for and it's especially true when dealing with (expensive) Apple gear.

You've listed a number of "specs" but specs mean nothing in terms of quality.  The question is, do you want to plug your $3,000 USD MacBook Pro, $800-$1000 USD iPhone and $500-$800 USD iPad into a discount 3rd party charger?

Cheap chargers can wreak havoc on your expensive gear - if you can't get a genuine Apple product, get an adapter that's MiFi certified - at least you know that they have gone through the effort and cost to become certified by Apple that their products are compatible.


How do you create an alias for iPhoto package folders in mountain lion? Has the ability to create aliases to folders inside the iPhoto package file been disabled or removed?

I used to sync up my LightRoom library with iPhoto by using an alias to the Originals/Masters folder inside the iPhoto library package. But it now appears as disabled in the finder file menu and completely gone in the context menu and cannot figure out a way to create aliases to these type of folders.

Am I going to have to ditch iPhoto completely or is there a workaround for this?

Edit: Example of what I mean

This still is possible via a work around.
The right-click contextual menu does not contain an option Make Alias for the Originals/Masters directories, but it does for subdirectories. The option Make Alias always shows in the menubar under File → Make Alias but is greyed out for the Originals/Masters directories.
Workaround

Go to a subdirectory of Originals/Master in Finder.
Create your alias, ⌘+L.
Open the Info of the created alias folder, ⌘+I.
Click the button Select new Original
Press ⌘+⇧+G to enter a custom path.
Enter your path, e.g. /Users/my_name/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Masters
Rename the Alias folder.


iPhone how to disable “No speakable content can be found on the screen” My phone randomly pops up “No speakable content can be found on the screen”. In response to some gesture. How do I disable this feature completely?

Go to Settings → General → Accessibility → Speech and turn off Speak Screen.

This disables the two finger swipe down gesture from the top of the screen, which will speak content on the screen or show the message you're getting if there is no speakable content.


After installing Adobe Acrobat, can I revert to Preview for handling PDF from Firefox? I was used to download PDF from Firefox and open them with Preview PDF.

Yesterday I installed Adobe Reader and now each time I click on a PDF link Firefox tries to open the PDF with Abode Reader. And it doesn't work even. See the picture below.

How can I go back to the previous behavior?

1st thing to try

Open Firefox
Open Preferences (Firefox > Preferences, or Command + ,)
Select the Applications tab
Search for "pdf"
Change action to something else, then change it back to "Always Ask"

Verify this is set correctly

Open Finder
Search for .pdf
Right (Option) Click the first PDF that appears.
Click Get Info
Expand Open With (if it isn't already)
Change it to "Preview"
Click Change All button below the drop down menu
Accept the prompt.

For a visual representation:


How do I set the default file permissions for GUI apps in Lion? I've set my umask in my .bashrc file to 007. Any files created on the command line after loading my bashrc file respects this setting. I want to be able to set the umask to 007 for any files created using non-command line apps.

This document talks about setting the umask via launchd. And it kind of works. If I follow these directions I can change the default permissions on a GUI created file from rw-r--r-- to rw-rw---- but the directories still are not group writeable (i.e. I want them to be rwxrwx--- but they are rwxr-x--- instead)

The analog on Linux would be /etc/login.defs as the place to set the umask.

What do I change in order for the umask to be set properly (i.e. the way I want it)?

I think you have done what you could; the umask really is 077. When programs create files or directories via the mkdir system call, they specify a mode. The file or directory ends up with a mode which is the specified mode, but with any 1 bits from the umask cleared. So in all likelihood, the GUI programs create their directories with a specified mode 755, and if so, there is no change of the umask that will help. (If all GUI programs do this, it is probably because they all use the same library to create the directories they want to exist.)


Open a favorite web page quickly using the keyboard? I have a Google spreadsheet that I open every morning

I'd like to open it quickly using just the keyboard after startup, as opposed to:

opening Firefox
going to the address bar
typing in the tag name
arrowing down
hitting enter

Is there a way to do this with just a few keystrokes?

Assuming I don't already have a browser running (I prefer to use Firefox if that matters)

Also, I would rather not have to use a third party app to do this

UPDATE:

Realize that I could have FF run at startup which would save me at least one step...

SUMMARY:

I would really like to have an experience like opening the web page from Spotlight if possible; the webloc file does show up in spotlight but it's way down the list... I'd like the first few letters to bring it to the top. Perhaps there is a way to assign priority to Spotlight items?

You can create shortcut to Your page somewhere on Your hard drive (drag and drop address from Your browser). Then use BetterTouchTool http://www.boastr.de to launch this link using global keyboard shortcut.

You can also drag this webloc file to Dock.

Edit: you can also add this webloc file to LoginItems and Your webpage will start automatically when You log in.


When Do Not Disturb is set on iPhone, what will fire off and what will not? It seems if Do Not Disturb is set to on (manually or daily scheduled) on the iPhone, then alarm (in the Clock app) will still fire off, but Calendar alerts will not fire off?

What are the rules?

Source.
Mastering DND

Do Not Disturb effectively silences almost all notifications while you aren’t actively using your phone. You can set it so your phone won’t ring or buzz when you receive phone calls, new text messages, new email, or new invitations from annoying “friends” who want to challenge you to a game of Candy Crush or whatever.
Certain notifications get through no matter what, such as timers and alarms set through the Clock app. You may still receive various government alerts too, such as emergency alerts and AMBER alerts.

Continue to the source article for more detailed info on customizing DND to get the most from the feature.


Show github notifications in Mountain Lion Notification Center Simply put: Is there a way to show the notifications on github in the notification center of the new Mountain Lion?

The simplest way at the moment would be to install one of the github growl notifiers, either githubnotifier or gitifier, which forwards github notifications to growl and then use hiss (a separate app) to forward growl messages to the Notification Centre.


iPhone 6s, Jailbroken Stuck in Recovery Loop I jailbroke my phone and one day I accidentally dropped it in some water.
The iPhone around an hour or two later while charging decided to not charge any more saying that this cable is not supported by Apple (but it was), and didn't charge. I tried different cables and power sources, none of which worked.

I then proceeded to panic, and reset my phone in the settings app. The phone began to reset and then got stuck after a while on a full progress bar, so I did a reboot of the device, and now it is stuck on a boot.

It starts normal, than a progress bar appears, which goes about 1/5th of the way and then the phone reboots to a normal Apple logo, and then it turns a bit orange (F.lux from the jailbreak), and then just stays like that forever.

I was wondering if there is a way to enter DFU mode or recovery mode, without the phone being plugged into anything and then reset the device so I can go to Apple, or have I lost this phone forever?

Also, I have tried cleaning out the charging pins multiple times.

I thought this is not issue of jailbreaking. Please try to restore with Factory Settings or iTunes.


UK spelling dictionary - teach OS X *all* -ize spellings The British spelling dictionary in OS X is customized to UK spellings, a very useful feature. However, the designers have made the unfortunate choice of only listing -ise endings for words such as advertise, customise, etc. Many Brits, such as myself, prefer the -ize spelling.

In Lion, auto correct keeps changing all my -ize spellings to -ise. Not what I want!

Can any of you suggest a clever way (perhaps a perl script?) to quickly add all -ize variants of corresponding -ise spellings to the local dictionary?

Note: the suggestion "switch to US spellings" is not acceptable!

I found a good-enough fix for this.

I copied the Oxford English dictionary -ize words from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Spelling/Words_ending_with_%22-ise%22_or_%22-ize%22

and pasted them into

/Users/danbrowne/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary

This seems like a fairly comprehensive list. Anything which is missing I can add by hand.

One remaining issue: Apple doesn't seem to be able to intelligently conjugate these words, but using copy-paste on the list (ize -> izes, izing, ized, etc.) sorted that out.


Texting and phone I am texting is asking for my name I have my neighbor's phone number and he said that I could let him know if I needed any help moving.  When I went to text him, it seemed like his phone required my name or it wouldn't let me text him. First of all, how would his phone do this? And, second, why would I have to give a name?  Is this my iPhone 4 doing this or his phone?

It sounds like you are just trying to send a regular text.

Here's how to do it:
Open the Messages app, (tap "Messages" in the upper left corner if you are in a thread), tap the compose icon, enter the recipients phone number (I've never had it ask for my name), then type your text.

If you are using the Messages app, it should not ask you for your name.


How to run an application in a different language? I have my Mac OS X Yosemite system configured in spanish, but I have an app with a horrible spanish translation, and I would like to run it (and just this app) in english. How could I do that?

So... there is two ways: change the main system language for some time or use this freeware, Language Switcher, which helps to launch single applications with a different language. Also you can try this variant - App Language Chooser.


Size of /Users folder is way too low, where is my data? My client called me because she had spilled some water on her MacBook Pro Retina.

We did all the standard things: turned it off, unplugged it, turned it upside down, etc.

She brought it to me and I'm having a look. I have little faith that the keyboard/logic board will be ok, but I had no reason to believe the SSD would be a problem.

I plugged the SSD into my external enclosure, attached it to my Mac and voilà! "Macintosh HD" (999.33 GB) appeared on my desktop. Yay! I open it up and I see this:

But....Users folder is only 32.2 MB?! This computer was in active use, so Family Photos, Mail, Documents, etc.

So, then I looked at the Get Info for the disk:

This makes no sense to me. Until now, my belief was that either the SSD would be unmountable or it would be 100% fine.

This is clearly somewhere in between.

Has anyone else encountered this? If so, was anyone able to retrieve data?

Finder is probably just counting the /Users/Shared folder or other public folders. You probably don't have permission to the folders containing data for the user, so even though the data is there, Finder can't enumerate it to calculate the size. All you need to do is navigate within the Users folder and give yourself permission to the inaccessible folders (e.g. Documents) with Get Info.


What are the differences between minimizing and hiding an application? Coming from a Windows background, I'm confused about the concepts of minimizing windows and hiding applications. What are the differences between the two, and when would you want to use one method over the other?

Each has it's own benefits and weaknesses... these are the technical differences between the two.

Each attribute will be marked with an "M" for Minimizing or "H" for Hiding. While it's very subjective, I'll put the one that I think is better on top

Hiding windows:

M: Individual windows can be minimized.
H: All windows must be hidden.

Accessing windows via Expose:

M: Windows can be accessed via Expose on the bottom row.
H: There's no way to access the app's windows via Expose.

Accessing windows via Application Switcher:

H: Windows are restored exactly as they were when using the Application Switcher.
M: Windows cannot be restored via the Application Switcher.

Accessing windows via Dock:

H: Clicking the dock icon (or any window in the icon's menu) restores all of the app's windows, except those that were minimized.
M: Clicking the app's icon in the dock only opens up the last window minimized, and only if there aren't any visible windows.

Application Switcher icon location:

H: The app's icon moves to the right-hand side in the Application Switcher, moving it out of the way.
M: The app's icon stays in the same place, even if all windows are minimized.

Indication of hidden windows:

M: Minimized windows are displayed in the dock, and diamonds are displayed next to each window's title. (There's a setting is System Preferences to hide the windows from appearing in the dock.)
H: No indication that the app/windows are hidden whatsoever, not even diamonds appear next to the window's titles. (This can be changed by running the following in Terminal: defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES; killall Dock. You can undo this by typing: defaults delete com.apple.Dock showhidden; killall Dock.)

Switching focus to a new application:

H: After hiding an app, the focus is sent to another app.
M: Even if you minimize an app's last window, it will still remain focused.

Other Differences:

H: You cannot hide all open applications. At least one has to remain visible.
H: As @Ian pointed out, some apps will use up less resources when they are hidden.


Can I use 4k Dell P2715Q monitor with Thunderbolt 27" on the Retina MacBook Pro 13" (late 2013)? The Apple support website states:

  You can use 4K displays and Ultra HD TVs with these Mac computers:
  MacBook Pro (Retina, Late 2013) and later

However there is no mention about the type of MacBook Pro Retina, I mean between the 13" which has the Intel Iris Graphics and the 15" which has the Intel Iris Pro Graphics.

If it's not possible to connect both monitors in full resolution at the same time, is it possible at least to just connect a 4k like the Dell P2715Q in full resolution?

According to Apple, the 2011 and later MacBook Pro's can support up to two Thunderbolt Displays (2560x1440)

The Late 2013 MacBook Pro will support two external displays with a resolution of 2560x1600.

A 4K resolution is 3840x2160.

So, your MacBook will be able to drive both monitors, the Thunderbolt at full capability and the Dell at reduced resolution.  It won't be able to drive any monitor at 4K


How can I disable Spaces in Lion? I used to use spaces a lot on Leopard and Snow Leopard, but the way it works on Lion is annoying for me, especially when it sends the full screen apps to a Space at the end of the row.

Is there a way to disable Spaces altogether on Lion?

Enter Mission Control
Hover over the selected space or hold ⌥
remove by clicking on the x


How can I fix the gpg-agent: Bad CPU type problem? If I log in my account (osx 10.15.6), I get from the start-gpg-agent.app an error message:
error "sh: /usr/local/bin/gpg-agent: Bad CPU type in executable" number 126
How can I fix it? Apple support recommend to change the default shell to zsh. But this not change the error.

Most probably you have gpg-agent installed in a 32-bit version. macOS 10.15 only supports 64-bit programs, so it tells you the CPU type in the executable is not supported.
The fix is to reinstall gpg-agent in the 64-bit version.
You can check the type of executable by running the following in the Terminal:
file /usr/local/bin/gpg-agent

Most probably it will say:
/usr/local/bin/gpg-agent: Mach-O executable i386

Here "i386" means that it is compiled for a 32-bit CPU architecture.
After replacing gpg-agent with the 64-bit version, you should see an output like:
/usr/local/bin/gpg-agent: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64


Does a purchased iTunes song contain my Apple ID? Do the files that I download (purchased) from iTunes contain references to my Apple ID? Could you (or anyone else) know what Apple ID purchased the song just by having the .m4a?

Yes. Purchased .m4a files contain the purchaser's name & email address used in the related Apple ID.

A quick way round it is to just re-encode them as AAC.

With iTunes in Music view, My music

right click the column header & make sure 'Kind' is showing.
click that column to sort by Kind
scroll to find 'Protected AAC' songs.
right-click/Get Info [or  ⌘ Cmd   i  ] then see the File tab [iTunes 12] or the Summary tab [iTunes 11 or earlier] This will show the purchaser info.

To remove...

Preferences > General > Import Settings... Make sure it's set to AAC Encoder (& iTunes Plus for better quality)

Then for each protected song...

right click or File Menu - Create AAC Version.

Then delete the old protected versions. You'll have to do that alphabetically, as in your current sort view, they won't show in the same place in the list.

Examples of tagging before & after re-encoding as AAC...
Incidentally, it was proved empirically back in 2007 that the audio itself contains no watermark. EFF: DRM-free iTunes files carry “more than just names and e-mail addresses”

Before - from iTunes Store
 I've blurred anything that could possibly be identifying

After...


How to logout from iCloud without password? and without resetting I have an iPhone 6 Plus, and the previous owner forgot to sign out his iCloud account.
What should I do? Can I reset this? It may upgrade into the latest ios which will make the phone crash, and I am afraid it might downgrade to iOS 9.

You cannot sign out of Find my iPhone without the password from the previous account.
The previous owner needs to sign out from the web, the device does not need to be returned to complete this process.
These are the instructions the previous owner should follow. The new owner is you.

If you no longer have your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
If the steps above weren't completed and you no longer have your
device, use these steps:

Ask the new owner to erase all content and settings using the above steps.
If you're using iCloud and Find My [device] on the device, sign in to iCloud.com/find or the Find My app on another device, select
the device, and click Erase. After the device has been erased, click
Remove from Account.
If you can't follow either of the above steps, change your Apple ID password. This won't remove personal information that's stored
on your old device, but it prevents the new owner from deleting your
information from iCloud.
If you're switching to a non-Apple phone, deregister iMessage.
If you're using Apple Pay, you can remove your credit or debit cards at iCloud.com. Choose Account Settings to see which devices
are using Apple Pay, then click the device. Next to Apple Pay, click
Remove.
Remove your old device from your list of trusted devices.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201351


Starting a call from MacBook - Your iPhone needs to use the same iCloud and Facetime I'm trying to start a call on iPhone 11 using MacBook Pro on macOS Catalina, however I'm getting an error message that says "Your iPhone needs to use the same iCloud and Facetime".
I've double-checked that FaceTime and iCloud accounts are the same on iPhone, yet the message won't go away. Is there a way to know what macOS thinks the accounts on iPhone and macOS are and how they are different? Or is there any other fix for this?

To see devices attached to an account:

Sign into the Apple iCloud via a browser as the account you want to check
Drop down the arrow next to your name (top right)
Choose 'Settings'

The screen will then show you devices that are attached to that account.
The device MUST be running iOS 8, macOS Yosemite, or watchOS 1 or above (not an issue in your case).


Catalina: Login Screen Freezes After Password Entry iMac mid 2014 has been working fine for 5 years (well, sort of since I made the mistake of upgrading to Catalina).

As of today:

start the mac
select a user from login screen
enter password
A few seconds elapse and then the cursor changes to the spinning colour wheel

At this point the UI is frozen. I have tried leaving it in this state for 24 hours to see if it clears, it does not.
While in this state I can SSH into the mac and sudo kill -9 the login window daemon to get back to the user selection screen.

Tried so far:

Safe Mode login - same result
Safe Mode boot - same result
Reinstall MacOS - same result
SMC Reset - same result
Disk Utility fschk - no problems found
Macbook Pro stuck after I enter my password: I deleted csstore but no help.
My Mac gives me a black screen after logging into one account, but not another: Created a new user in the terminal via ssh. Same issue, can’t log in.

If I can I'd like to avoid having to backup data via scp, wiping the disk and reinstalling from scratch - I've got better things to do with my life.

I also have no intention of visiting a Mac Store only to be told my a smug child that he's going to wipe the disk and reinstall.

Someone out there must know what specific breakage Apple and snuck in via auto update the night before and how to undo the damage, surely?

Hardware:

    Hardware Overview:

      Model Name: iMac
      Model Identifier: iMac14,2
      Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i7
      Processor Speed: 3.5 GHz
      Number of Processors: 1
      Total Number of Cores: 4
      L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
      L3 Cache: 8 MB
      Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
      Memory: 32 GB
      Boot ROM Version: 140.0.0.0.0
      SMC Version (system): 2.15f7
      Serial Number (system): DGKLG0SXF8JC
      Hardware UUID: 78775D43-2857-5894-88AC-36ED44B3DE84

Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 10.15.2 (19C57)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 19.2.0
      Boot Volume: Macintosh HD
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Computer Name: iSpartacus2
      User Name: Richard Hodges (rhodges)
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      System Integrity Protection: Enabled
      Time since boot: 23:03

Not really a good answer. In the end I had to nuke the entire disk and reinstall from the recovery partition.

I'll stay with linux going forward.


What are the downsides to using Time Machine? I hear a lot about the good aspects of using Time Machine, particularly the fact that it's so easy to use that people actually do backups!

What are the downsides to using Time Machine compared to other contemporary backup programs? My particular interest is the disadvantages of using it in a (semi)-managed environment i.e. at a university.

Here are some of the limitations you have to accept or mitigate if you choose Time Machine:

Time machine requires an apple specific HFS+ filesystem to store backups.
The backup isn't bootable.
The backup doesn't record differences inside a file. Large (database) files with tiny changes make each incremental save longer and move more data. This also can eat up storage space faster if these type files are not excluded and potentially backed up another way if they can't be regenerated after a restore (like mail stored on IMAP servers)
It must be an external drive or an official apple network destination like TimeCapsule or Mac OS X Server to be a supported by Apple.
It will delete backups according to the official scheule ( hourly backups combine and expire after a day. Dailies expire after 31 days. Weekly backups can be deleted if there isn't enough space to contain the estimated size of the next backup.  In odd cases or if there is a bug, you could end up with all the history gone an one copy of the last backup.
The destination volume must be larger in size than the boot volume.

Once you are aware of these limitations, it's fairly easy to work around all but the first limitation with some planning and/or extra software / hardware. The HFS+ format for storage is pretty inflexible with no realistic mitigation or workarounds.


I bought 200GB of ICloud Storage, iCloud Settings shows 200GB, but the iCloud Storage tab says I have 4GB When I try to backup my Iphone it will take more than two hours and still not be halfway completed. My phone is only 32Gb with 6GB of free space. What's the problem with my IPhone?

Sign out of iCloud on your phone by going to Settings > iCloud > and tapping "Sign Out." Then sign back in. This will prompt your iCloud connection to update the information it is displaying. If it does not update, sign out of iCloud, restart your iPhone, and sign back in.

Additionally, you may want to download the Ookla Speedtest app from the app store, and check the speed of your internet connection, as that is the most likely culprit of a slow backup, but will be a separate question as it involves router settings, and/or your Internet Provider.


Strange color transitions in dark regions of images Since updating to macOS 10.12 Sierra, there has been an increase in artifacts in regions of images where color transitions from dark to light.

Consider the following image:

While processing the image in Adobe Photoshop 14.0.0, there was no evidence of artifacts in the darker color transitions. However, upon opening the image in Preview, this was the result:

Here is a closer inspection:

Around the edges where the color transitions from dark to light, there is a strange pattern consistent with temporal dithering. I have confirmed that it does not only occur in this image, but in other images where there are transitions between dark and light colors.

Strangely, this only occurs in Preview, QuickLook, iMessage, Chrome and almost any other application, but not in Adobe Photoshop. The patterns/artifacts can be captured by a screenshot.

Does anyone know what causes this issue, if it is of concern, if it can be avoided/disabled or any other information about this issue? Help is much appreciated.

Upon further investigation on color profiles after Agos's comment pointed me in the right direction, it turned out that using the incorrect color profile was responsible for the dither-like regions.

For others who have a similar issue, navigate to System Preferences > Displays > Color and select the profile that the image was exported in.

I would assume that the dithering-like region was due to the colors in that region being out of the color space of sRGB, and as a result the computer attempts to compensate.


Unremovable partition after trying to install ubuntu I tried to install Ubuntu on my MacbookPro (mid 2015, OS X Yosemite) dual boot, using the following: How to Dual-Boot OS X and Ubuntu (PDF)

I was finishing up part 3 and Ubuntu was starting to download, until everything froze. Nothing was responding so I force shutdown my computer and now OS X seems to be working fine. However I have a partition disk0s3 (Linux Swap) and a bunch of Free Space I can't get rid of.

/dev/disk0
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            182.6 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Linux Swap                         16.4 GB    disk0s3

I tried getting rid of them through Internet Recovery but that didn't work either. How can I get rid of the partition and the Free Space?

If you are using El Capitan (OS X 10.11), then the document you are referencing will not work as expected.

As for your question. The command below will remove the Linux Swap partition.

sudo diskutil erasevolume "Free Space" "" /dev/disk0s3

The next command expands your Macintosh HD volume to contain the free space.

sudo diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 R

  Note: I am not sure if the prefix sudo is necessary. (But, it will do no harm if you include the sudo)


iPhone won't turn on I have an iPhone 4 with a broken power button. Today it suddenly went black even though there was more than enough battery left and won't respond when I hit the home button or try to charge it in an outlet or in the computer.

This has happened once before, but it was an easy fix when I could just hold the power and home button in for several seconds, but now I can't do that because the power button is jammed.

Does anyone know of another way to turn the iPhone on again without using the powerbutton or charging it?

Unfortunately you belong to a very large, very angry community.

That community > 800,000 has decided to sue Apple over this issue.

You can wait for the outcome of the lawsuit, or have it done for $150, or try some DIY for $5 for the part.

One other way is to try to clean the stuck power button.

Use a can of compressed air (for computers) found in computer stores and blast it. You can also try to flood it with some alcohol (ethanol or isopropanol) to try to wash out debris.

To be more effective, removing the back cover (two screws) could help.

If neither of these worked then you can consider replacing the power button.

There are plenty of online instructions on how to replace the power button.
I won't fool you, that procedure is not easy. It is time consuming and requires lots of patience and skills + tools... that is why the angry mob. :)


No responsive MacBook air Tried starting in the morning after power drained, plugged in, everything came back for a few seconds then the screen went black. Can't restart. If I hold powe button down 10 sec machine emits an intermittent beep which continues until I push power button again. Any ideas on how to fix?

It sounds like your system is stuck in the completely empty battery mode (warning tone).

Try holding the cmd+r after you pushed the power button.

or

To completely reset it, remove power and disconnect the battery, then reinstall.


Update PHP in shell and install Mcrypt I want to update to PHP 5.6 in shell (via Terminal) before I want to install the Mcrypt extension

I followed this tutorial:

  http://justinhileman.info/article/reinstalling-php-on-mac-os-x/

But when I do all of that and I type in php -v it still says PHP 5.4.24.

And when I install the Mcrypt extension with this tutorial:

  http://jenssegers.be/blog/49/installing-the-php-mcrypt-extension-on-osx-10-9-mavericks
  (I used PHP 5.6 instead of 5.4)

I still cannot install Laravel (that's why I'm doing this). It still gives me an error

  Mcrypt PHP extension required Script php artisan clear-compiled handling the post-install-cmd event returned with an error

What can I do?

The easiest solution for your problem is: (I don't know you experience with the terminal so just humor me if I take you for an unexperienced user)

which php

This will give you the php binary that is used. Use your Terminal and go to that folder:

cd /path/that/whichphp/gives/you

When you punch you way to the folder do this:

sudo mv php php.old <- rename the old php binary to back it up (just in case :) )
sudo ln -s /path/to/the/new/php/binary php <- This will create a symlink that points to your new php binary

Easiest way to locate all your php instances and identifying the new one would be:

sudo find / -name php

After you create the symlink write php -v again into the console and you should see the version output from you new instance.

If you still have problems just contact me.

I hope this helped you : had the same problem as you once :)


What can I do when my SSH session is stuck? Sometimes my ssh session in the terminal hangs. How can I exit the ssh session and reconnect?

Type ~. (i.e. tilde, period) at the beginning of a line. In other words, press Enter, then ~, then .. (In some languages, you may need to press Shift or Alt to enter the ~ character.)

Generally speaking, the ~ character is an escape character in an SSH session when you type it at the beginning of a line. Type Enter then ~? to see the list of escape commands. The most common ones are

~. to terminate the connection
~^Z (press ~ then Ctrl+Z) to suspend the connection and type a command locally (run the command fg to return to the SSH session)

If you want a tilde at the beginning of a line, press ~ twice.


Why is my mac sharing the macintosh disk, and home folder? I have just fresh installed an ubuntu 18.04 on my desktop and decided to try connecting each other (my macbook pro) via SMB.

To my surprise, when I connected to my mac, using my ubuntu desktop, the Macintosh (the disk itself), and the home folder, along with the public folder is completely accessible.

The problem is, aside from enabling the smb file sharing on my macbook pro, I have not added anything to allow for file sharing, aside from the public folder, which is the only entry on the file sharing settings.

How do I prevent access from the disk, and the home folder?

You can remove all the default shares easily from the system preferences. Search for sharing and then configure (by selecting and then pressing the - ) to remove each share you don’t want to be active.

Then you can leave sharing on and just add the specific shares you want.

Here is an article with a picture showing what you would select and then use the + - control below the shared folder to remove that specific share.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204445

If you granted more permissions editing the config file and didn’t save a backup copy, you can recover an unmodified  version of that from back up or from the installer / recovery HD as well.


Wipe iphone, switch carriers, get new carrier-locked iphone, restore? Let's say I have an AT&T iphone 5. I regularly back it up with itunes.
I decide to switch carriers to Verizon. I wipe my iphone, sell it, and get a brand new Verizon iphone 5.

Can I simply plug that iphone into itunes, do a restore from backup, and have everything exactly as it was before? Or is there enough of a difference between the carrier-locked phones that this would not smoothly restore?

You will be able to restore the backup, especially if your old device wasn't jailbroken (if it is, some space might end up wasted due to the unofficial apps' preferences & files).

Even if you look to already expect this, remember the unlock won't carry over.


How do I close a port on a Mac? I was wondering if someone could tell me how to close a TCP/UDP port on a Mac completely.
I don't want to kill a process or anything behind it. I want the port to be closed off completely.
Thanks,
PN

If all you need is a firewall, that is well documented how to turn it on and make exceptions to the default rules.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201642

In the advanced settings there is a “block all incoming connections” toggle for that specific simple configuration.


Change default mail application without configuring mail.app I'd like to change my default application for handling mailto: links to be the gmail browser-based client. I'd like to do this without configuring the default mail.app. That means I cannot get to the mail.app preferences panel. Does anyone know how?

RCDefaultApp allows you to pipe mailto: links to an app different to the app you have set as the default mail app.


Making use of fullscreen on the extended display Possible Duplicate:
  How do I run an app in Full Screen mode on OS X Lion on my second monitor?

I recently bought a MiniDisplay Port to VGA to make use of my unused monitor.  So far I'm using it but one thing I notice is that when I try to use the fullscreen option of a certain application, Safari for example, OS X Lion only seem to use the main display (my MBP's monitor).

When I drag Safari's window on the extended display and then fullscreen from there, the fullscreen window still returns back to the main display.

Is there a way for putting the fullscreen window to the extend display?

Cheers!

This is possible in Mountain Lion by dragging the window to the secondary screen before entering fullscreen, but unfortunately cannot be done in Mac OS X Lion.


How to remove/reset mp3 from ipod? I'm trying to remove some artists from the iPod, but it's not working. I can remove in the iTunes, and sync, but when I look in the iPod, they are still there.

The iTunes show more "empty space" in the graph, but in the iPod there's almost no free space.

I've tried to remove all mp3 and synchronize, but after the process I look in the iPod and the mp3 are still there.

Is there a way to remove the mp3 without need to format the iPod?

(I don't want to loose some applications saved data, and I'm not sure if iTunes would correctly bkp my saved games achievements, for example)

Go to settings, general, usage, music, swipe across all music and tap delete. If that doesn't work, try restoring it in iTunes. Plug it in and turn your iPod off, then hold the power and home buttons for eight seconds(a little bit after the screen turns black again) then release the power button but hold the home button for about seven seconds, or until iTunes recognizes it and tells you to restore it. After it is restored you will be able to restore your save data with iCloud if your device runs ios 5.If it doesn't, wait for another answer.


How can I remotely control an iPhone from a Mac? I'm looking for a way to be able to remotely access an iPhone. I have moved fairly far from home for college, and would like to help my parents with various problems they have on their phones. It would be much easier if I could fix problems for them instead of trying to explain the solution. I would prefer to do it from a mac, but could also do it from another iPhone. I will not have physical access to the device for the foreseeable future.

I have already tried Apple Configurator and Jamf. Apple Configurator requires physical access to a device, and Jamf only allows editing certain settings (security, email, wifi, etc.). Any ideas would be a great help.

An iPad or iPod Touch and FaceTime is the best solution. Any old book or stand can prop the latter to show what’s on the former screen in real time to you.

Nothing else compares for ease of setup, quality and responsiveness.


cp from shell (Terminal) or Finder: "Operation not supported" An odd issue here after an upgrade from High Sierra to Catalina.  When I try to copy files from an SMB network share in the Terminal (bash and zsh), I get:
$ cp /Volumes/share_name/path/file.ext  ~/Documents
cp: /Volumes/share_name/path/file.ext: Operation not supported

When I try to copy the same file via Finder, I get "The operation can't be completed because it isn't supported":

I've tried to execute this with sudo and I've tried to repair user permissions (user ID is501, so: sudo diskutil resetUserPermissions / 501) and the same results.
Important to note: Other systems with Catalina work just fine with the same SMB share.

It turned out that the problem was actually an existing /etc/nsmb.conf. When this was removed the SMB client behavior returned to normal in this regard. Within it, the previous user had defined:
[default]
signing_required=no
protocol_vers_map=1


How do I run a GUI app via SSH? I'm used to working on Unix/Linux and recently moved to Mac. In used to be able to do this:
derick@linux1:~$ ssh -X linux2
derick@linux2's password:
derick@linux2:~$ xclock

I've install X11 from maxports and I can do the same from my mac. If I try the reverse by ssh-ing into my mac from linux I can only run certain apps:

/usr/X11/bin/xclock works fine

Something like /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/MacOS/Preview opens the GUI on the mac.
It seems that this is not possible on a mac? If not, how do I run an application remotely (on a mac) with a local (linux) display? Do I need some third-party app?

Update:
To be more precise: I have synergy and use Mac for coding. On my linux PC I would like to see another application's display (GUI) from Mac. Thus, 'live screen sharing' apps like VNC will not work.
For example I'm working on my mac in app A (say Word) and want to see the output of Excel (running on mac) on my linux PC next to me. (Simulating a dual screen via the network). It worked nicely on linux, hoping for a solution for mac.

The Mac OS X native application do not use the X protocol for the rendering, but the Mac specific protocol. So you cannot use ssh X protocol forwarding as you could with a Linux workstation.

As you discovered, the reverse is not true, you can install an X server on Mac OS X and have the Linux program appear on your Mac.

What you can do is use either Mac own desktop sharing facility or install a VNC server. Then from your Linux box, you connect to your Mac through VNC instead of ssh.


Way to Copy Text From OS X to Evernote and Keep Formatting? On my MacBook, I have various lists and information, of which I use TextEdit to edit. Usually, these will have indents where I use tab to create kind of charts with columns. Like so:

Item 1 [TAB] Info 1 [TAB] Info 2
Item 2 [TAB] Info 3 [TAB] Info 4

I also use Evernote. It is a great app, but the text format support seems awful. When I copy these lists like the one above to Evernote, apart from the first column, I get a zig-zag of all the various parts.
I've researched for a way to correct this within Evernote, but there doesn't seem to be one. Is there a way, to convert (using an application, AppleScript, etc.), type everything in a completely different text software as TextEdit, modify the settings in TextEdit, or anything else to make it so that copying text to Evernote results to what the original text was?

For me, this only appears to happen when copying from a plaintext document to a rich text document (or vice versa.)

Make sure your source and destination text programs are the same format. If your setup is like mine, Evernote is rich text, so make sure you haven't set TextEdit to plaintext. With TextEdit open, go to 'Format > Make Rich Text' (shortcut: Shift + Command + T).

If your setup is different then mine, then maybe Evernote is plaintext. Which would mean, if this error is still occurring, that your TextEdit is set to rich text. Use the same menu shortcut to switch it (or go to 'Format > Make Rich Text'.)

In either case, switching your TextEdit document will result in the table zigzagging like you mentioned. But if, going forward, you format your tables in the text mode that matches your destination's text mode, the problem should abate.


AirPlay button in multitasking bar? I don't have an Apple TV, so I've never had an AirPlay button anywhere. However I noticed while switching apps in a call that the AirPlay button appears while making a call. Pressing it does nothing. Also when the call in on speaker the AirPlay button goes blue (and still does nothing on pressing it) Why has it suddenly appeared, whats it's use during a call?

Also I then discovered a program for Mac which allows you to AirPlay to a Mac, increasing the AirPlay functionality vastly. And tryed pressing the button when I had that working, it still did nothing. (though the Mac program works as I can send youtube videos and photos to it)  And in the photos app, opening the multitasking bar and pressing the AirPlay button does nothing. So what is it there for anyway?

It's not just for AirPlay.  It's general-purpose media redirection. You can use it to switch between the built-in earpiece, the speaker on the bottom, Bluetooth earpiece, etc when on a phone call.  For example, I placed a call then went over to the audio controls in the multitasking bar.

It just so happens that the primary use is for AirPlay and media playback.


Sudo Shutdown Now on Mavericks I had read that you can "quietly shut down to single user mode" by running, within terminal:

sudo shutdown now

This sounds far preferable to having to restart the computer and hold CMND+S. However - at least in Mavericks it doesn't seem to work.

I'm getting:

shutdown: -h, -r, -s, or -k is required
usage: shutdown [-] [-h [-u] [-n] | -r [-n] | -s | -k] time [warning-message ...]

I thought that anything within square brackets was optional.

When I run it with the -k flag (which kicks all users off): sudo shutdown -k now, the output is:

Shutdown NOW!

*** FINAL System shutdown message from user@computer_name ***
System going down IMMEDIATELY

System shutdown time has arrived
but you'll have to do it yourself

Then if I try to open a new terminal:

NO LOGINS: System going down at 12:53
#my password
Login incorrect
login:

Restarting again and terminal login is restored.

Can anyone offer some insight as to what's going on here?

First I would note the day of that hint - April 2001 - so a very old version of OS X

Next look at man shutdown

-k      Kick everybody off.  The -k option does not actually halt the
        system, but leaves the system multi-user with logins disabled
        (for all but super-user).

This means that all users are kicked off but also that noone can login, which is as you saw. This means the only user still logged in is root. However in recent OS X root is not enabled.


What is a CPX port or driver? What is a CPX port?  More specifically what is CPX as relates to a Datacard embossing printer?

A buddy dropped off an ancient Datacard 150i embossing machine with me to see if I could get it working. It actually works perfectly but I can't for the damned of me figure out how to communicate with it.

On the MFG website they pretty much stopped supporting it after Windows 2000 and the documentation refers to setting up a CPX port which is a term I have never seen before and can not find any further information online after searching Google extensively.

To make matters more complicated I'm attempting to communicate with it on a Mac using the native OSX or I have VMware partitions setup with Windows 7 and Ubuntu.  But thus far I can't get anything to even see the device.

CPX ports are virtual ports that use your existing COM ports to communicate with your Datacard printer. No additional hardware is needed. Setting up an additional port in this way tells Windows to use a software component (called a Port Monitor) for printing to your Datacard printer.

From: http://www.datacard.com/downloads/ViewDownLoad.dyn?elementId=repositories/downloads/xml/150i_2XX_PrinterDriverInstructions_Win95-98.xml&repositoryName=downloads&index=0


iOS Keyboard Backspace and Foreward-space Capabilities Is there an app (or a way in settings, that despite searching I cannot seem to figure out) that can change the keypad on an iOS device to allow for both forward and backward delete (or delete/backspace depending on your outlook on semantics), like the OS X offers? This is the one big drawback for me with Apple vs. other mobile devices. Editing is much more difficult without this feature.

If not, is there a away to do this if I jailbreak my device(s)?

Currently, there is no way to do this without a jailbreak. The software keyboard has no functionality to do what you want, and as a developer, I know that there is not way to program any other delete but the backspace.

As for the jailbreak, I am sure there is a way, but make sure you Google it first, since I wouldn't jailbreak without knowing for a fact.


Some program windows in Windows 8 on macbook pro has small text size On Retina Macbook Pro I am running Windows 8.1 via Bootcamp on Macbook pro

Here is my DPI options(default):

But some windows showing incorrectly or with a small text size or icons:

Also I am experiencing similar issues with some other programs

Is there any way to fix hat?

Basically it is happening when program is not adapted to run in high DPI screens.

High DPI explained:

Windows 8.1 - High DPI
Resolution explained (pixels, DPI, inches)
High DPI Settings in Windows


LAN Chat via OS X Server — Will Messages App Suffice? I'm setting up a network for a small business with two geographic sites, which will be run on OS X Server.

We need a "chat" tool of some sort, and the contents of those chats could possibly contain sensitive data we can't store on someone else's servers.

Does Apple's Messages app for OS X (Mountain Lion or greater) and iOS fit the bill?  I've never set up something like this before, so I'm not sure if every message sent/received via Messages app hits Apple's servers at some point.

If Messages isn't a good fit, please suggest possible alternatives which would work across Mac & iPad?

You have a couple of options using native Apple tools:

Apple's iMessage service utilizes free iCloud accounts. The service works with the Messages app (both on Mountain Lion & iOS). All messages are routed through Apple's servers. Certificate-based encryption is used, but Apple does not document its exact nature or whether the messages get unencrypted on their servers. Here are some resources that might be helpful for looking more into this option:

IMFreedom
iCloud Security

OS X Server also has a Messages service that can be turned on. This creates an in-house messaging service based on the Jabber/XMPP protocol. It is by definition secure, as it routes through your in-house server. It works natively with Messages and/or iChat on the Mac (depending on OS X version) and works with a variety of apps available on the App Store. This is the way to go if you are seriously concerned about security of your conversations.


Upgrade to Yosemite with two hard drives in iMac I'm running 10.9.5 on an iMac, where I have two hard drives (SSD + HDD) and Superdrive installed. The way the disks are mounted is not conventional:

/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
/dev/disk1s2 on /Users (hfs, local, journaled)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)

disk0s2 is internal SSD drive and disk1s2 is internal 1TB HDD drive.

I've read that upgrading to Yosemite will convert my drives to fusion drive1, though I have not found detailed information what would happen in my situation. I have a couple of questions:

did anybody try upgrading Mavericks to Yosemite with similar drive configuration? What were the results?
will Yosemite convert my two drives to Fusion drive? (I read that in order to convert it, it needs to erase contents, so I'm assuming that upgrade procedure won't create fusion drive)
if the fusion drive will be created automatically, I guess I can't control which data is on SSD and which data is on HDD anymore, right? I use virtual machines heavily (vmware) and I don't want them all on ssd...

Since this machine is my primary workhorse, I'm reluctant to just try and see if it works. I've upgraded my Macbook air (single ssd drive) without issues, fwiw.

The answer is: OS X did not upgrade my disks to Fusion Drive (or CoreStorage).

[miha:~]diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

Probably because of the unconvetional layout. Or perhaps some other unknown reason.


Apps deleted from jailbroken iPad after battery died My iPad's battery recently completely died and when I plugged it in all the apps were gone. I've rebooted it and checked iFile and it says all the apps are still there but they don't show.

SSH into your device as the mobile user and run uicache then respring.


Start a process at boot I need dnsmasq to run at boot on Mavericks. I've got dnsmasq working fine. I've created a .plist file in /Library/LaunchDaemons with the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>uk.org.thekelleys.dnsmasq</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
            <string>/usr/local/sbin/dnsmasq</string>
            <string>--keep-in-foreground</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

This runs perfectly if I do:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/uk.org.thekelleys.dnsmasq.plist

However, it does not start at boot.
Permissions are: -rw-r-xr-x
What am I missing?

Thanks to LCC for pointing out LaunchControl. It indicated the ownership of /Library/LaunchDaemons was incorrect.

The solution to this problem was to be sure /Library/LaunchDaemons had ownership root:admin, and permissions for the directory were rwxr-xr-x


I turned off iCloud... How do I get my files back iCloud was hammering my CPU since I got my new computer so I turned it off... Not realizing it would delete ALL of my local copies (WTF).

I also canceled the "final sync" that happens when you turn it off..

Luckily I'm seeing some of my files still in iCloud web interface..

So i turned icloud back on, but they aren't coming back into my local folders...

How do I get my files back!

When you turn icloud off you were asked if you wanted to keep a local copy of your data. You said no, by canceling the sync.

iCloud is a syncing service.

When you turn it back on after it was off it needs to re-sync all your data again. That could take 24 hours if your computer and network aren't doing anything else.  If you're using the computer, it will put your iCloud download on a lower priority than the other work you're doing.

Make sure your computer remains awake, plugged in, and maintains a network connection. Avoid doing anything else for a faster re-sync.

In the meantime, if you need a specific file/folder you can go to icloud.com and get it from there.


Is there an iPhone dock with a headset jack? Does anyone know of a dock for an iPhone that has standard usb data/power, but also a headset jack (not just speaker / headphones output)?

I wonder what is that for, if it's to connect to a stereo, the jack on the Universal Dock is more than enough.

If the idea is to use the phone to answer calls while in the dock, I would strongly suggest a Bluetooth set as that's what they are made for. You will find plenty on the Apple Store as well.


Is Notes sync broken on iOS 14 and macOS Mojave 10.14? I remember that I read somewhere that notes in iOS 14 will not be compatible with notes in Mojave. But I cannot find any more updated information. Some claim that they only stop working after one upgrades the format in which they are saved on iCloud.
Can someone please post their experience/knowledge whether it is safe to upgrade to iOS 14 without losing sync of notes with OSx running Mojave?

I'm using iOS 14.4 and macOS 10.14.6 and notes actually sync better as compared to iOS 12.
Keep an eye on apple forums, release notes etc in case other iOS updates break sync.

https://developer.apple.com/forums/
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ios-ipados-release-notes

Downgrading iOS version from backup seems not impossible as per Can I install any iOS version I wish by picking and choosing which firmware to restore?
So wait for a few weeks before upgrading iOS and see if people are complaining about sync problems.


Flag disappears after reading a message in Mail In Mail 9.0 (OS X El Capitan) I have set a rule that marks a message with a flag if it satisfies some conditions.
When I receive a message which satisfies that condition, it is correctly marked with the flag, but when I read the message, the flag disappears and the message is automatically unmarked.
How can this be explained? I would like to always keep the flag, also after reading the message.

I reported this as a bug in 2006. It appears that Apple either doesn't use Mail or doesn't care about this feature.

You can get add-on software, such as Mailhub, to repair this feature.


say command says wrong text (for some voices) I'm running 10.8.5 and installed some of the newer text-to-speech voices, including "Samantha" (aka Siri), "Tom", and "Jill". They work fine, except for the word "seq":

say -v Jill seq

produces the spoken words: "the following".

say -v Samantha "consider seq question"

produces the spoken words: "consider the following question".

I tried the above test on each of the voices I have installed, and only "Samantha", "Tom", and "Jill" exhibit this behavior.

I haven't found any other words that produce wrong output, but there may be more.

These voices come from Nuance. If you try their Vocalizer Demo you can hear that "seq" is replaced by "the following" there as well.

This appears to be similar to Nuance's recognition of "homographic abbreviations", where Nuance will attempt to convert an abbreviation into the full word.

I have noticed that there are other words that are interpreted

e.g. "for example"
sat. "Saturday"
mar. "March"


WD My Passport 0820 USB HFS+ data disk drive partition problem following accidental use of Recovery Assistant I have edited this post in view of recent developments

I have a 2 TB USB Disk used for all my data. I accidentally ran Lion Recovery Disk Assistant on it, instead of my Pen Drive, to make a bootable installer. Now I can't mount the disk.

Disk shows up in Disk Utility

Now surprisingly one of the folders showing up from the corrupted USB HD 2TB  but the folder is empty

Last login: Mon Jul 18 14:48:54 on ttys000
bash: alias: ll-ls -lahG: not found
sanjeevvyas$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MacPro HD               250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Blank                   650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk1
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS ELEMENTS                999.8 GB   disk2s2
sanjeevvyas$

Ideally /dev/disk1 should have the same partition structure as /dev/disk2 .I am missing 2 partitions, is there anyway I can fix the partition structure?

I have tried TestDisk, Data Wizard and Disk Drill, however nothing has helped.

OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0

If you allowed that assistant to complete its work on the wrong disk (with your data) then it's reasonable to assume that hundreds of megabytes of your data were overwritten. However, from your screenshot it appears that the WD My Passport 0820 Media does still contain a VideoUSBPASS1TB volume; so maybe the assistant was unable to proceed with a drive that uses hardware and/or firmware encryption.

I suggest taking advice from Western Digital …


How to specify the target directory with mv? I'm trying to move some files with GNU find on the command line, as in this answer:
gfind path_A -name '*AAA*' -exec mv -t path_B {} +

(added a 'g' prefix to find to use the Homebrew version of find.)
Problem: MacOS' version of mv doesn't have the -t switch and without it the command doesn't work. So, how can I move files with find on MacOS?

gfind path_A -name '*AAA*' -exec mv {} path_B/ \;

should work, you can even use find as long as you don‘t need any special functionality only gfind provides. You can also basically use any other answer in the Q&A you link to in the question :-)


Wrong sorting of non-English characters (iTunes 11.2 for Windows) Since version 11.2 of iTunes for Windows, I am experiencing a problem with sorting of names with non-English characters (such as ž, š, č, ř or other in Czech). It seems that iTunes completely omits these characters when sorting. As an example, I have Čajkovskij (which is the Czech spelling of Tchaikovsky) among artists in my library and it is currently sorted between Adele and Alan Parsons Project, i.e. it seems that the character Č has been completely omitted while sorting and thus the artist is sorted as Ajkovskij.

All my ID3 tags are of version 2.3 and in Unicode, thus this should not be any encoding problem. I even tried to change the ID3 tags to version 2.4, i.e. UTF-8, and it did not help.

I think that there must be many more people experiencing this problem. Not everyone has only English or ASCII names in the library and I am surprised that I could not find anything on this bug anywhere on the net yet.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Do you think it is a bug of the iTunes software? Thanks for any help.

EDIT:
I concurrently added this question to the Apple Discussion forums and it seems that it might possibly really be a bug in the latest version of iTunes for Windows.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6387079

iTunes has a Sort tab in the info panel. In this panel, the fields on the right side are used to sort songs. Check it.

For example, my song עוד לא אהבתי די has a Sort Title set to Od Lo Ahavti Dai, so the song appears between Octopus's Garden and Ode To My Family.


Offline download of Enhanced Dictation in Mavericks I want to use the amazing Enhanced Dictation Feature available in OSX Mavericks, like the screenshot says is required a download of 785 MB.

The only problem is that in my home where i have my Mac i haven't internet connection so i need a way to download some kind of pkg or dmg to use at home when i have my offline Mac.

Is there any way to do that, links are appreciated if exists.

I had the same problem and i figure out how to solve it

I wanted to keep the file so I don't have to re-download every time

here is the way tested on mavericks 10.9.3 and it works

download the file 785 mb

when it finished go to

SYSTEM --> LIBRARY -->SPEECH Recognizers

SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguages this is the folder

hit get info and look at the size simply copy and paste that folder and save it , if you need to install in another computer copy and paste the folder to that location , if you ever reinstall the system you don't need to re-download because you already have it

here is the link for the pkg i haven't try this pkg yet i just got you the link

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6hsk71croja/SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguage_en_US.pkg


My Notes App Disappeared I am using an iPhone 7+ and noticed my Notes application is missing this morning! I keep stuff in there I have trouble remembering so I always save it to my iPhone and iCloud when I add something to my Notes. I have 19 folders in there. When I go to Manage iCloud storage the only selection is to delete. When I open the notes icon there it only gives me information about the notes app. Where’d it go? How do I retrieve it? HELP!

It is possible that it got deleted somehow. Yes Apple now lets you "delete" built-in apps.
...Unless it is hidden. Do a search on your phone for "notes" to make sure it is not installed.
You would re-install a coup[le of different ways. 1) by going to the App Store, searching for "Notes," tap on it and look for the familiar yellow on top of white icon. You can tap on it to make sure that the developer is "Apple"
Then just tap the cloud download icon (the cloud with the downward pointing arrow) and wait for the App to install.
...Or in your search results next to Notes is a "View" button. That will bring it up in the app store. Follow the above directions to install it.
your Notes app is restored.


What is the purpose of ⌘+Fn+← (Command-Function-Left) in Safari? I think I've found the most secret and disappointing easter egg on Mac.
⌘Fn← (Command Function Left) in Safari goes to Apple.com; does anyone know why, or when, this was added? Cmd-Fn-Up and down and right don't do anything.

I couldn't find anything on this after about 10 seconds of skim-reading on google search.

BTW I was trying to do ⇧⌘← (Shift Command Left) which selects everything to the left of the cursor.

Also noticed ⌃⌘← (Control Command Left) does some weird right-align thing.

Apparently it is a shortcut to go to your homepage and not an easter egg and does not necessarily open https://www.apple.com but I haven't changed my homepage so in my case it does.


How turn a folder into a print queue? On MacOS, you can drop a PDF directly onto the window of a Printer's print queue, and it will be sent to print immediately (with the printer's default settings).

I'm looking for a way to do a similar thing with a specified folder. E.g. Any PDF or PostScript file dropped onto that folder (or saved there through any other method) will be sent straight to the printer.

The obvious thing is to use Folder Actions and an AppleScript, but I'm wondering if there's a neater solution that I've overlooked? Essentially, I'm looking for a filepath that works as a print queue.

There is a simpler solution in 4 steps and a small shell script:

make your own spool directory:

/usr/bin/sudo mkdir /var/spool/my_printer

write the following shell script within your usual local bin directory
let's say /local/bin

cd /local/bin

copy the following inside my_spooler:

#!/bin/sh

# go into the spool directory
cd /var/spool/my_printer

# main loop: loop till end of time
while : ; do

    # check for any newly arrived text file
    for _file in * ; do

       # if _file is a normal file, print and remove it (-r option to lpr)
        [ -f "${_file}" ] && lpr -r "${_file}"
    done

    # don't loop like a fool
    sleep 300
done

make your my_spooler executable:

chmod u+x my_spooler

start it:

my_spooler &

it should start without a full path if /local/bin is within your PATH
if it isn't, then start it this way:

/local/bin/my_spooler &

The ending & means start it in background so as not to block your session waiting until the end of time.

How to use it

To use it you simply have to move any text or PS or PDF file within your own defined spool directory how you prefer. Either with the Finder or with basic command line:

cp my_file.pdf /var/spool/my_printer


How can I ditch iTunes and find a suitable audio player? With the recent features added to iTunes player I find it to be pretty heavy and resources consuming, just to do just what I would like it to do, which is play music. It is almost becoming a full OS which I do not like.

Therefore, I'd like to find something lightweight to build some playlists based on the music I have on my hard-drive, possibly free (but not a requisite). Do you have any alternatives which you would like to share?

I suggested you try SongBird.

also you can choose:

PicoPlay
VoxApp
Banshee


Can I hook up a MyBook Thunderbolt Duo external drive to a late 2009 Mac with mini DisplayPort? Can I hook up a MyBook Thunderbolt Duo external drive (only has Thunderbolt ports) with a Thunderbolt cable to a late 2009 iMac (with mini DisplayPort) and use it for storage (at a slower speed) until I can buy the new iMac comes out and I use it with that? Will the data still be accessible then?

Nope. Mini DisplayPort has a physically compatible connector to Thunderbolt, but it's a totally different technology. You can only use Thunderbolt devices with Thunderbolt equipped Macs (or PCs).


User fingerprint sensor to control media playback Is it possible to use the MacBook Air's fingerprint sensor to control things like media playback?

I haven't seen anything about this, so I decided to ask here. My guess is that Apple's T2 chip blocks the fingerprint to 3rd party apps, but I'm not sure if I'm correct.

You guessed correctly. Speaking as a developer, there are no APIs Apple provides to interface with the fingerprint reader directly. Even the process of asking to store credentials goes through a system API that really only gives you a success or failure result and an optional reason. As their docs put it:

  The context handles user interaction, and also interfaces to the Secure Enclave, the underlying hardware element that manages biometric data.

You never get to see or interact with that data.

Also, the fingerprint reader on Touch ID-enabled Macs functions as a power button, so there's no way to remap that key to do anything else useful either.


Create 2 independent audio outputs to apple TV and headphones So I have this setup:

MacbookPro, external DELL monitor and Samsung TV that is connected to Apple TV.
I study at home at the moment and use the laptop extensively. Sometimes I play movies to my flatmates via my Mac, but I want to keep the ability to watch my study videos on a Mac too.

So for example:

Playing a movie via Apple TV and have the audio output on the Samsung TV, at the same time having videos playing on my mac and have the sound coming from the headphones connected directly to my Mac.

I have looked at Aggregate Device in Audio MIDI setup on OS X, but I can't seem to figure out how to set it up properly.

I hope it is possible to do what I am looking for and I would really appreciate any advice.

Thanks

An aggregated device is intended to play the same audio on multiple devices. As you want to play different audio on multiple devices, I can recommend several methods.

Use iTunes to play the video file on your Apple TV. You can choose the Apple TV as a playback device in iTunes, and stream the content to it without having to change your system audio device. That means, audio produced by other applications is still processed by your Mac (and therefore by your headphones, if they're plugged in)
Use VLC and another playback application of your choice in combination. Use screen mirroring to display the content on your Apple TV. Obviously, this will change your system audio device to the Apple TV, and any other audio will be played on the Apple TV, as well. But that's okay, because with VLC you can choose which device to play the audio on - seperated from the system audio device. So setup any playback application on the Apple TV, and choose Headphones in VLC audio menu for playing your video.

Obviously, the first method will work best, because streaming the video content from iTunes will require less bandwith than mirroring your desktop, resulting in less latency or connection drops.


Is there a web browser I can use safely on Mac OS 10.5.8? Sometime in 2012, Adobe Flash asked me to update it. I tried, but it didn't work because my browsers (firefox and chrome) didn't support the newest flash. I tried to update my browsers, but neither firefox nor chrome supports mac os 10.5.8 anymore. Safari keeps telling me to update flash too. I know that using an older version of flash can be a security hazard, so I really want to update.

My question: Are there any browsers (perhaps a firefox variant) I can use more safely now than the browsers that shipped with 10.5.8?

For the impatient:

You have two possibilities:

PowerPC-based Mac: TenFourFox and no Flash.
Intel-based Mac: Opera (thanks to Cybermatatu for this one!) with  older Flash 10.3 (beware, Flash 10.3 is an archived version and is no longer supported nor updated with security fixes by Adobe).

Long version:

If you use an Intel processor you can use Opera:

  Opera 12

  OS X Leopard (10.5), or greater: 32-bit and 64-bit Intel
  systems supported

Opera supports Flash Player plug-in.
If you use a PowerPC processor you may want to try TenFourFox. TenFourFox seems to be actively developed (version 17.0.3 was released Feb 16 2013). TenFourFox supports add-ons, but not plugins, that is, you can't use Flash at all.

Please notice that Flash Player 11 only supports 10.6 and newer. You can still download version 10.3 for 10.5 Intel (beware, Flash 10.3 is an archived version and is no longer supported nor updated with security fixes by Adobe).

As for other browsers:

Firefox no longer supports PowerPC processors (PowerBook, PowerMac):

  Firefox 3.6.28 is the last version of Firefox that works with Mac OS X
  10.4 (Tiger) or with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) on a computer with a PowerPC processor.

Firefox 16 is the latest version that supports Leopard on Intel-based Macs as Firefox 17 requires 10.6 or newer.
Apple no longer releases Safari updates for Mac OS X 10.5 (as stated here).
Chrome doesn't support Leopard, either:

  Google Chrome on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) will stop receiving any
  updates following Chrome 21.


Mac App Store shows update count but section is collapsed/empty My updates badge shows 6 (also in the  menu), but the section in the updates tab seems to be collapsed (top separator line is thicker, like two lines) and not showing the available apps. I'm currently running macOS 10.12.1 (Mac App Store 2.2) and first noticed this problem today. The other tabs are behaving normally and this badge has changed from 5 to 6 updates today. I've tried restarting my computer, but the problem persists. Any ideas for fixing this?

Had the same problem. Solved by going to the "Purchased" tab on the App Store, looking for software that needed to be updated (xCode, iMovie, GarageBand, Numbers, Pages, Keynote) and clicking there on "Update". I also started downloading a new App. Some 15 secs later they appeared on the "Updates" tab as well. Including a "Software Update" that contains a new iTunes, what I was looking for actually.


iPhone camera app to document wear and tear of items? I'd like to document the wear and tear of everyday items. For that, the photos taken must be taken from similar distances and angles. Is there an app that helps achieving the right angles and distance, for example by overlaying the live camera image (before shooting) with a semitransparent older image or by using markers on the object? Or is there another way to do this with the regular camera app?

Look for photography apps that support onion skins. Time lapse photography and stop motion apps are a good example. Frameographer gets very good reviews, but is a bit pricey. Check the web for alternatives!


Macbook Pro USB 3.0 ExpressCard snail slow I have an old MacBookPro3,1 to which I've added an ExpressCard/34 USB 3.0 adapter. The card is recognised by OS X out of the box, but when I connect a device to it I can't talk to it unless I wait forever. It's like the transfer rate is snail slow rather than not being able to communicate.

I'm running OS X 10.11.4 (15E65). The card is described like this:

  Type: USB eXtensible Host Controller
  Driver Installed: Yes
  MSI:  Yes
  Bus:  PCI
  Vendor ID:    0x1912
  Device ID:    0x0015
  Subsystem Vendor ID:  0xffff
  Subsystem ID: 0xffff
  Revision ID:  0x0002
  Link Width:   x1
  Link Speed:   2.5 GT/s

This card works fine on my Linux laptop. It also works fine on the Mac when booted into Ubuntu. It feels like I shouldn't need any 3rd party .kext on OS X.

What else can I try to get this to work?

I also have that Macbook Pro (15-inch, 2017, 2.2Ghz) and a non branded USB 3.0  ExpressCard with the NEC UPD720202 Chip. I had been able to install it in my Mac some time ago following instructions found on web, but it stopped working as soon as I upgraded to El Capitan. Now I decided to give it another shot, as some time has passed by. So I found some potentially useful information in some in "hackintosh" related websites and I believe I was able to get it to work again by following the instructions on this site:

https://remonpel.nl/2015/02/usb-3-0-on-macbook-pro-2011/

Basically, it implies that we give up on some important Apple's security measures by enabling the "kext-dev-mode", typing this command in the Terminal:

sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1″

You may also need to get an updated kext file. That page is providing the download link for one that should be compatible with El Capitan, and maybe you can find some other option in tonymacx86.com.

You also need to disable System Integrity Protection. The instructions are here:

http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/05/disable-rootless-system-integrity-protection-mac-os-x/

It consists in entering Recovery Mode (CMD+R right after turning on your Mac) and typing this in the Terminal:

csrutil disable; reboot

Obviously, I would advise you to first start by making a full backup of your files and also by reading those articles and try to understand the security/privacy implications of each step and consider you you are willing to take the eventual risk. I would try to get those two security measures back in place and see if the ExpressCard keeps working as expected. That's what I intend to do in my next reboot, when I get my current backup done. ;)

Update:  I have just re-enabled System Integrity Protection by using the shell command csrutil disable; reboot in Recovery Mode. It seems to be working just fine.


How to remove space character (whitespace) from end of filenames and foldernames? Problem with mac is that it allows space character at end of file or folder.
If this file or folder with space character in end is beeing copied to FTP using Filezilla or Dropbox then mac makes folders with "Foldername_WhiteSpaceConflict"
To get rid of this problem all files and folders with space character needs to be renamed without space character.
What solution could be the best using terminal or some program?

Here's the script to find and remove trailing space from files and dirs:

#!/bin/bash

IFS=$'\n'
for file in $(find -d . -name "* ")
do
  target_name=$(echo "$file" | sed 's/[ \t]*$//')
  if [ "$file" != "$target_name" ]; then
      if [ -e "$target_name" ]; then
          echo "WARNING: $target_name already exists, file not renamed"
      else
          echo "Move $file to $target_name"
          mv "$file" "$target_name"
      fi
  fi
done


Macbook pro late 2016 USB-C Stop working after sleep Almost every time that I put my macbook pro late 2016 (touch bar) to sleep while the USB-C adapters are plugged they stop responding when I wake up the laptop.

All my adapters have multiple ports (i.e usb, hdmi, ethernet). If I unplug them and plug them again in different ports only the hdmi works again, and the only way i found so far to make USB and Ethernet work again is rebooting the laptop.

PS: I have have Sierra (10.12.6 (16G29))

The first things I'd try is resetting both the NVRAM and SMC.

Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and that you're using the built-in keyboard.

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). To reset the NVRAM on all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note 1: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Note 2: These steps will also work to reset the NVRAM (or PRAM) for all Macs. However, the late-2016 and 2017 MBP models actually required the commandoptionpr keys to be held down for 20 seconds, while earlier Macs did not require this, but doing so does not cause any problems either.

Reset the SMC

There's a couple of ways you can reset the SMC on your MBP, however I prefer the following steps:

Shut down your MBP
Keep the power cable plugged in
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button

After resetting both the NVRAM and SMC, use your MBP to determine if the problem still occurs. Let me know how you go.


How do I speed up a USB external hard drive? I am using an external USB drive for video. Is it possible to increase the speed of the drive to make rendering/copying/, etc., faster? When I have a couple of applications writing to the drive, and I open up the hard drive in the Finder, it takes awhile to load the files/folders.

There's not much you can do to "optimize" your transfer rate. OS X should be maxing out your USB connection as it is.

If that's not fast enough you might want to look at a USB 3 drive (if you're not already using one) or a Firewire drive which will give you better throughput. FireWire enclosures are a bit more expensive but they're worth it if you need higher throughput (for say, video rendering, etc).


My MacBook Pro won't exit out of iPhotos I was importing pictures from my Nikon d3200, i had to stop it early, so i pressed the stop importing, and the delete the pictures that you have already imported, then I left. Now, it won't close out of iPhotos and it says it is importing photos, but it said that all day. Since it won't close out, i can't shut down my Mac or restart it. And I can't import the rest of my photos either. What should I do?

There are two ways to exit an application that is stuck:

Hold alt+cmd+esc and then Force quit the application that is not responding.

If that did not work force shutdown the computer by holding the power button for 5 seconds or longer.

In both case you will lose all unsaved information.


OS X codesigning certificate expriry We use Apple code signing certificates to sign apps so that users can know we made the app. What happens to the users when our certificate expires?

Does it mean that app will now appear untrusted or does it only affect us and no longer let us sign code using that certificate?

When you sign an app using a code signing certificate, you are establishing an end date for that app (in terms of it having an unexpired cert).

You will not be affected directly (except hopefully for getting warnings that you are using an expired cert) but your users will notice when the expiration passes and they will not get a warning beforehand. One day it will break, precisely when their clock passes the date of expiration. It will still be signed of course, so you may want to prepare your customers to expect that the trust the OS extends to your your app will expire. They can choose to keep running the app by disabling the checks or stripping the code signing. You might also to supply users with newer versions of the same app that are re-signed should they want he same exact binary but simply extend the signing for a different time range.


How do I press hotkey ⇥ I have an OS X application, which has shortcut

^⌥⇥

I know that it means Ctrl + Alt/Option + ???

I can't figure out what does last character mean. I tried Fn+Right, Fn+Down, it doesn't work. I have Macbook keyboard, so no "End" button here.

It's tab. The same character is printed on the keyboard.


Risks of shared Wi-Fi What are the risks when using a shared Wi-Fi in a group home? I am not the administrator. My device is an iPhone 6s Plus. The OS is iOS 9.2.

The question is, do you trust the person that maintains the wireless network? Do you trust the other people that are using the wireless network? There are all kinds of risks when you connect to someone else's network. For example, man-in-the-middle attacks, DNS hijacking, etc.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use the shared Wi-Fi in a group home, but just be aware there are risks connecting to any network that you don't control.

A security researcher, Troy Hunt, recently published a blog article on a related subject. He is explaining why he doesn't allow guests to connect to his home Wi-Fi, but the risks he mentions hopefully explain better some of the things that can go wrong with Wi-Fi networks. No, you can’t join my Wi-Fi network


What is PPPMonitord.app? I was looking to disable some startup daemons and apps on my Mountain Lion iMac, and I noticed that inside /Library/LaunchDaemons there is a file called cn.com.zte.PPPMonitor.plist which point to an application at /Library/Application Support/ZTE/PPPMonitord.app.

Does anybody know what this is, or at least if it's something internal, or installed by third-party applications?

ZTE (Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation) is a manufacturer of USB mobile internet access devices.

PPPMonitord.app is a companion application that belongs to such "surf stick".

Often these devices are sold by mobile carriers such as Vodafone, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etcetera.


Re-upgrade to macOS Mojave (esp. parts relating to iCloud) without loosing data, etc So my iCloud setup is brokenly, apparently because an incomplete macOS Mojave upgrade (from High Sierra). How can I "re-upgrade" to (reinstall) Mojave without loosing my existing data (e.g. in /Users/) and applications (e.g. /Applications/Audio\ Hijack.app/)?

For instance, is Command + R on startup (then "Reinstall macOS") the right entry point, or can I just repeat the part of the installation that is concerned with iCloud?

In response to the original question:
You can't just select parts of the system software to reinstall; you have to reinstall all of it but that shouldn't affect your mac.

To clarify about reinstalls/clean installs:
As far as I know/can remember there isn't an "option" to just reinstall/repair install mac os.
Apple actually make it simple - if you boot to recovery mode (hold command and r while restarting on mojave (especially with an apfs formatted drive- holding alt down to select the recovery drive doesn't display the recovery drive to select it anymore)). When the screen loads up and you select install mac os, if you select your drive with an existing install of mac os on then it will just reinstall the system files (including ONLY the apple software (terminal, textedit, iTunes, etc) BUT won't touch your data files, user accounts or the applications that you installed yourself and they should work as before).

IF you want to do a clean install (removing all of your own data and applications) you must first select disk utility, select your drive and erase it/format it. THEN it will install just the mac os and everything will be like factory default settings.


Installing a software from Xcode I'm trying to develop a program using Xcode on macOS.

The program compiles and links fine, but when trying to execute it, I get an error message stating that a library can't be found in "/usr/local/lib".

The library in question is actually developed by myself, and is part of the project bundle.

How can I install my program in order to test it inside Xcode?

There's no such "install" function in Xcode.

If your program needs a library in order to run, you'll need to either bundle the library with the program or create an installer that copies the library and your application into place.

You can bundle the library with the program by statically linking (effectively not having a library at runtime) - or by embedding. Embedded is explained by Apple here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2435/_index.html

Usually on development machines, you install internal dependencies such as libraries through the use of build scripts or build steps addded in Xcode. You could simply add a new Build Phase (named "Copy Library" or similar) - and then add a Copy Files step, where you copy your .dylib (or .so or whatever) to the intended destination.


Gray toothed wheel on Mac Finder What is the meaning of the gray toothed wheel on Mac Finder located right bottom?

What is its name?

It’s called an asynchronous progress indicator and serves to tell you that Finder is still loading the contents of the window, enumerating files and folders (and calculating sizes if you have that option turned on). This would suggest that the external drive you have opened is still being read from and not all the files/folders are shown yet in the window.


How do you add a "click effect" to a video using video editing software? I have a screen recording from my iPhone, where I show a comprehensive preview of an iOS application I created. But later I found that it's hard for a watcher to find out which button I pressed to navigate to another view.
It would be better if I added some click effect to every button click/tap event. How can I achieve this? Solution which include free software are preferred. I usually use iMovie for video editing.

Use AssistiveTouch
This isn't a perfect answer to the question because this doesn't help you after you've already recorded a video, but you can use the AssistiveTouch feature built into the accessibility settings in iOS to display your touches while recording.
AssistiveTouch wasn't made for this purpose, so this isn't the "best" solution, but it's probably the easiest and least intrusive to implement as it only uses features already built into iOS.

The biggest issue with this approach
This is an important caveat of using this approach: you can't show touches while dragging/scrolling.
You have to manually exit the "touch recording" (if we may call it so), do the scroll/drag actions you want to do, then re-enable the "touch recording" (see the GIF above for an example). You can always edit out the manual switching in post. ♂

How to enable AssistiveTouch and show touches
In short:

Settings
Accessibility
Touch
AssistiveTouch
turn on toggle for AssistiveTouch
Create New Gesture...
tap anywhere in the large blank box once
tap Save at the top right of the screen
Name the gesture whatever you would like (e.g. "touch")

You're done!
To enable showing touches:

tap the AssistiveTouch menu button (the button that floats around your screen when AssistiveTouch is on)
tap Custom
tap touch (or whatever name you chose in step 9)

To disable showing touches (and allow scrolling/dragging)

tap the AssistiveTouch menu button
tap anywhere outside the AssistiveTouch menu

With pictures
Here's a pictorial explanation of how to create the special "touch" gesture (iOS 13.5.1).

Go to the "Settings" app and find Accessibility.

Go to Touch.

Go to AssistiveTouch.

Turn on the toggle for AssistiveTouch.

Go to Create New Gesture....

Tap anywhere in the large blank box once, then tap Save at the top right of the screen.

Name the gesture whatever you would like (e.g. "touch") and tap Save.

Check out the GIF at the beginning of the answer for an example of using the gesture.


Play key opening iTunes even if Spotify is currently selected I normally use spotify for music, but I go from time to time to iTunes to listen to some Podcasts.

Sometimes I have both applications opened, and when I want to stop one, I select the application and (⌘ + tab until finding the app) and I hit space which stops playing it.

The thing is that I developed that habit because of the play/pause key wasn't working, and was only stopping iTunes if it was opened.

I would like the play/pause key (and all music related keys) to work on the app that I selected last, is that possible or configurable?

I am using a Macbook Pro with Touch Bar (Mojave 10.14.1)

I found this for you.

  Mac Media Key Forwarder

  Forwards media keys to iTunes or Spotify directly.

  You can prioritize which app you would like to control or you can go
  with the default behavior which controls the running app. The app
  runs in the menu bar.

It has some limitations.

It might not work on Mojave till (if) the developer fixes it.


IKEv2 VPN El Capitan 10.11 When I setup an IKEv2 VPN, which I use from Windows without issues, on OSX 10.11.1 it refuses to connect.  I looked at /var/log/system.log and it seems like it's saying one of the IKEv2 components is missing.  Has anyone gotten a certificate authenticated IKEv2 connection working in OSX?  The VPN server is StrongSwan.

/var/log/system.log:Nov 27 09:16:09 Jeremiahs-MacBook-Pro nesessionmanager[608]: NESMIKEv2VPNSession[VPN (IKEv2):0EE0F0F7-F55C-4657-ABCB-9B51583F1D22]: Received a start command from com.apple.preference.network.re[868]
/var/log/system.log:Nov 27 09:16:09 Jeremiahs-MacBook-Pro nesessionmanager[608]: NESMIKEv2VPNSession[VPN (IKEv2):0EE0F0F7-F55C-4657-ABCB-9B51583F1D22]: status changed to connecting
/var/log/system.log:Nov 27 09:16:09 Jeremiahs-MacBook-Pro nesessionmanager[608]: Failed to find the VPN app for plugin type com.apple.neplugin.IKEv2
/var/log/system.log:Nov 27 09:16:09 Jeremiahs-MacBook-Pro neagent[2019]: Failed to process IKE SA Init packet
/var/log/system.log:Nov 27 09:16:09 Jeremiahs-MacBook-Pro nesessionmanager[608]: NESMIKEv2VPNSession[VPN (IKEv2):0EE0F0F7-F55C-4657-ABCB-9B51583F1D22]: status changed to disconnecting
/var/log/system.log:Nov 27 09:16:09 Jeremiahs-MacBook-Pro nesessionmanager[608]: NESMIKEv2VPNSession[VPN (IKEv2):0EE0F0F7-F55C-4657-ABCB-9B51583F1D22]: status changed to disconnected, last stop reason Stop command received

A little late , but I did get this working.

In ipsec.conf, I had to update the ciphers and the rightauth. I'd prefer to use something better, but at the time it connects.

rightauth=eap-tls
ike=3des-sha1-modp1024
esp=3des-sha1-modp1024

BTW: even with connecting, I still get the above errors/warnings.

Update: I found that the mobileconfig profile needed for iOS can be used for OS X also, which will allow you to define and  update the encryption algorithm, integrity algorithm and diffiehellman group. You can read about all the config settings on Apple's Developer site. It looks like you can max everything out at at AES-256/SHA2-512/18 (modp_8192)


iPad not reacting to screen orientation - screen lock How do I correct the "screen lock" on my iPad?

I used to be able to turn the unit a quarter turn and the screen would adjust to my movement. Now it is somehow "Locked".

How can this be fixed?

Understanding The Screen Rotation Lock
Apple has a support document that explains this called "iPad: Understanding the side switch".
Here's a quick explanation:
If your iPad has version 4.2.1 or later of iOS installed (Settings > General > About > Version) there are two possible ways your screen can be locked.
The default is the software lock. To adjust this rapidly click the home button twice. This will reveal a bar below your dock. Swipe the icons that are revealed once to the left to reveal some additional controls. Your screen should look like this:

You can also enable a hardware lock. This will cause the small switch on the side of your iPad to lock and unlock screen rotation. The setting for this is found in the settings apps here:

If this setting is set to "Lock Rotation" instead of "Mute" the software lock will be replaced with a mute button like this: