Will iOS app accepted on App Store if 80% of UI is rendered on UIWebView and 20% being native OCR I have a mobile website which at high level provides these functionalities:

Sign-in
Sign-up
Few forms where user can fill his additional details
Providing some capabilities to user based on information provided by him

Now I want to integrate OCR capabilities such as:

ID card scan
Debit card scan
Void check scan

So that some of the forms can be automatically filled by information extracted from these.

I am planning to make a native app in iOS consuming most of the forms, flow from my mobile website by rendering respective weburls on webview, and integrating vendor SDKs to provide OCR capabilities.

Will Apple accept my iOS app in App Store if I have 80% of flow, UI rendered on UIWebView and remaining 20% being integration and use of native vendor SDKs for OCR capabilities?

This is walking into a grey area I don't know about. According to the Apple App guidelines, an app cannot just be a mobile version of a website. Since it seems as if you are just adding device capabilities, it will probably be rejected. Think of the Stack Overflow app. If it was just converting a website to an app without a address bar, it would not exist. They had to app-ify most(if not all) of the UI elements. You might be able to get away with leaving some things like a login form in the website form, but it has to look seamless.


Changing my primary email and thus Apple ID Fails. Can anyone help? My email provider and thus also email address are changing.  Thus I carefully followed the procedure Apple provide to change the primary email used for Apple ID.  I used the "Managing Apple ID" Web pages.  I had already, as instructed, signed out of and closed all services and devices using the existing Apple ID.

However when I click "edit" and enter the replacement email and click "continue" but nothing happens.  The progress circle continues turning and eventually the page times out.  I have tried many things over 2 days!

It appears to be stuck but why?  There is no verification code email delivered (even in "junk" etc) and no popup to receive a verification code anyway.

Have others encountered this frustration and if so how did you overcome it?

The answer to my questions is that there appears to be an incompatibility between the Apple "update ID" process and at least Internet Explorer - so a work round is to use Safari or another PC browser for the update.

I have not explored further and thus have no further suggestions - others may know the detail but I regret I am unable to suggest more.


Firefox doesn't respond to a shortcut for window zooming, because it has another "zoom" menu item, how can I avoid this? Firefox has a problem by which you can't assign it a shortcut to zoom the window.
As it has another menu item named "Zoom" which actually has subitems for zoom in, etc. you can't map the shortcut by menu item name, because that item takes the stroke instead of the window zoom.
I tried to edit Firefox's resources, to see if there was a .nib where I could rename the menu item to another thing so the shortcut would find the correct "zoom" item, but failed.
Does someone have a solution for this?

edit: I'm talking about MacOS's Zoom Window action equivalent to Windows' Maximize, and not about zooming the contents in or out.

Firefox uses XUL files to define its user interface on all platforms. I just did a little poking in my Firefox.app 4.0.1 bundle:

The XUL files are stored in Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/omni.jar. (jar files can be unpacked with any Zip  archive tool, or the jar command-line tool which takes options like tar.)
The relevant XUL file may be chrome/browser/content/browser/baseMenuOverlay.xul. See also the referenced DTD files for the definitions of the entities like &zoomWindow.label;.

Since you're editing the files anyway, you might as well add a shortcut there rather than changing the name to use the system shortcut customizer.


To have RAM-based filesystem in OSX? I would like do real-time monitoring, discussing one part of it here about counting quickly.
No packages about it in homebrew.

How can you have RAM-based filesystem in OSX?

Mac OS includes support for RAM-based filesystems via ramfs. Everything is RAM backed so it's incredibly fast with near zero latency, but the contents are lost upon reboot.

To create one and mount it under /tmp/mymount, create a script with the following contents and run it:

#!/bin/sh
NUMSECTORS=128000       # a sector is 512 bytes
mydev=`hdiutil attach -nomount ram://$NUMSECTORS`
newfs_hfs $mydev
mkdir /tmp/mymount
mount -t hfs $mydev /tmp/mymount

The above was adapted from the hdiutil manual page

You can also do it in a one-liner (adapted from here):

diskutil erasevolume HFS+ 'RAM Disk' $(hdiutil attach -nomount ram://XXXXX)

Where XXXXX is the size in 2048 byte blocks. There is also a useful script in this post on Superuser.


Turn off autocomplete event name internal to Apple's Calendar app on Mac OS? This is not about system autocomplete, it's about an autocomplete internal to Calendar (autocompletion of the name of the event when you create one) - and is there any way to turn it off.

I have many hundreds of events in ical as I've been using it for about the past five years.

Problem is whenever I create a new event, then start typing in the event name field, as I work out what I want to call the event (or reminder), a giant list of similar past events that I've entered pops up and is annoyingly distracting. I'm simply not interested in those past events anymore and I don't want to know about them. I use ical as a reminders system for tasks, i.e. as a todo list as well as calendar. I find that better than using a separate task app in addition.

I'd love to find a way to turn these suggestions off, without having to delete all past events from my calendar history (which it looks like I might have to resort to).

Haven't found a way to do this but would be very grateful if someone knows how.

I've just done a clean install to Catalina and signed in to iCloud. Without any action on my part, I no longer get the autocomplete suggestions when making new events. But I did not intend to disable them. Maybe that's helpful to someone.


How dangerous is it to hot-plug FireWire 400 devices? I've had my MacBook since 2006 and, on the odd occasion, I've used the FireWire 400 port for connecting an HDD caddy or for networking between two Macs. I've always hot-swapped devices without a worry. I've always assumed that's what FireWire was designed to do.

However, recently I purchased an M-Audio ProFire 610 - it's a multi-channel digital audio interface - and plastered all over its documentation (and the website) are warnings that you MUST turn the device off before plugging or unplugging. I was quite surprised by this, and wondered if it had anything to do with the device being dodgy.

http://forums.m-audio.com/showthread.php?17235

Apparently then, this is not an issue with M-Audio devices, but with ALL FW400 devices... Although it's the first I've ever heard about it, which I find a bit odd... If there really is such a fundamental flaw in FW400, why wouldn't I have heard people complaining on Mac forums about fried FireWire controller chips?

Is it dangerous in general, or do you think that perhaps M-Audio are trying to cover-up for shoddy manufacturing? Like I said I've never had any problems hot-plugging FW devices before and now I'm really paranoid, turning the computer off every time, which is really frustrating.

Not only that, but supposedly the issue is power arcing onto the data pin... But if you power down any Mac device (MacBooks included), they still deliver power to the FW device. So how safe does powering it down really make it anyway?

The issue is not with M-Audio or with the firewire standard, but with a oxford bridge controller design flaw which makes the controller susceptible to power spikes.

The flawed chip was in a lot of computers in the late 2000s, which means that it was a good call for m-audio to issue the warning.  It wasn't their own butts they were covering, but it did mean a lot of down time and troubleshooting for their customers.

I learned this the hard way, as the firewire 400 port on my old macbook was fried by hot-swapping the pro-fire 2626.


How to clean iMac screen? I've messed up and used a generic LCD cleaning product on a glass iMac screen. According to the label it consists of distilled water and surfactants (or surface-active components, don't know how to translate it correctly). As a result there are smudges on the screen. Any way to remove them?

I have done this safely before with windex.  Just spray a little on a microfiber or even a soft towel and wipe down the screen.  As long as you do not drown it you will be fine.

I have taken the glass off the iMac before to work inside it and they do a good job sealing the insides from the out.

In general, when cleaning a computer, distilled water is fine as it is non-conductive.


Set Default Finder View and Arrange By Options My goal is to set system-wide default Finder view options. In List view, I want Arrange By Kind and Sort By Name.

I set these options in View Options and click Use as Default for new windows. I have tried to clear the .DS_Store hidden files through the following terminal commands:

sudo find / -name .DS_Store -delete; killall Finder

and

sudo find / -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm {} \;

All the view settings seemed to be updated in the Finder windows except for Arrange By Kind.

How do I set system-wide default Finder view options in List view to Arrange By Kind and Sort By Name?

I can submit to you this partial answer, which achieves some of what you want, but not all.  No matter what combinations I attempted, Arrange By refuses to take on any initial default value other than None.  I tried for a couple of hours to solve this one, but gave up.  However, I thought you might still benefit from what I did manage to achieve.

The following steps set all folders to list view, and sort by Kind.  Although you wanted to have them sorted by Name and arranged by Kind, in the absence of being able to set a default value for Arranged By, what I found was that sorting them by Kind will do just that, whilst using the filename for secondary sorting.  That is, the files will be listed by file type, such as JPEGs, TIFFs, MP4s, etc., but within each group of, say, JPEGs, the files will be sorted by name.

1. Backup com.apple.finder.plist

cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist ~/Desktop

2. Set top-level defaults using the defaults command

Default to list view:

defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle Nlsv

Default Arrange By flags that don't seem to be effective:

defaults write com.apple.finder FXArrangeGroupViewBy kind
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredGroupBy kind
defaults write com.apple.finder "FK_ArrangeBy" kind

3. Use PListBuddy to set nested defaults

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_StandardViewSettings\":ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_DefaultListViewSettingsV2\":sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :\"FK_StandardViewSettings\":ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :\"FK_DefaultListViewSettingsV2\":arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_StandardViewSettings\":ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_DefaultListViewSettingsV2\":arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

I initially had the first four set to name in an attempt to achieve the original objective.  Upon failure, I set them to all to kind to achieve the result I described.

Ignore any Entry Already Exists reports when running these commands.

4. Clear the .DS_Store files

sudo rm /.DS_Store
find ~ -name .DS_Store -type f -delete

5. Restart cfprefsd and Finder

killall cfprefsd
killall Finder

That's the best I can achieve for now.  Hopefully, someone else can build on my answer and give us the missing piece.


iMac - Install XP Can't Set Primary Display on the Second Monitor I installed XP SP3 in iMac 17 inch (Late 2006), also installed all drivers from BootCamp 2.0 drivers bundle, all works fine. The question is, I have two displays, and the video card of this iMAc is ATI X1600 mobile, it's able to set the external display to be the primary one (I did it on OS X), I checked the display setting in XP, for the second display, the checkbox is gray so it's unable to set to primary one.

I googled a lot also, seems all solution mentioned it should install the full-ATI drivers (includes control panel), but I didn't find any place to download this driver for iMac, I did download some drivers for XP, but it's not working.

I am thinking if there are some ways to set the external display to be primary, by using software or some tools else? Thanks.

Finally I got solution, go to AMD boot camp driver page, and download the panel, install it with .NET 2.0 (I forgot this, so always wrong), then set primary display in panel.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/bootcamp-xp.aspx


How to play sounds through AirPlay I have a 2018 iPad Pro. It plays music through AirPlay to an external speaker if I choose it. However games seem to play sound only through the built-in speakers. I can have music and the game at the same time but game sounds on the iPad and music on the speaker

How do I make game sounds and music play through an AirPlay device?

Sorry but what you want to do is not possible.

iTunes can use AirPlay for music because it has been created to support AirPlay.  Game developers are unlikely to add support for AirPlay just for audio.  If they do support AirPlay, it would probably be to do screen mirroring or dual screen to an AppleTV.

Also, only one app at a time can use the AirPlay stream.  So even if there was a game that supported just audio to AirPlay speakers, you would not be able to have iTunes streaming to the AirPlay speakers at the same time.

This is documented by Apple for developers: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/airplay/overview/media-playback/

  Stream only expected content. Disable streaming of content like background loops and short video experiences that only make sense within the context of your app itself.

The breakdown between game sounds that play locally and soundtracks that are presented through AirPlay is here: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/AirPlayGuide/EnrichYourAppforAirPlay/EnrichYourAppforAirPlay.html

  Send Audio Where It Belongs

  Apps typically use two types of sound—app audio (such as ambient sounds, background music, and incidental noises) and system sounds (such as key clicks and alert sounds). AirPlay attempts to deliver the app audio to a remote sound system while keeping system sounds on the host, so that feedback sounds remain local to the input device.

  If your app uses system sound APIs for app audio, AirPlay does not redirect them to the AirPlay-enabled sound system. The result is a less-than-optimum user experience. It is important to use system sound APIs only for system sounds. For app audio, use APIs such as AVAudioPlayer.


What is the best way to convert MPEG-2 videos to MP4 H.264? I've been playing around, trying to find the best settings for converting DVD files (MPEG-2) to H.264 so that I can store everything in iTunes and watch it on the TV. Most of the stuff I have has been ripped using a DVD Recorder. I am in the UK and am using the PAL format. I want to keep it as true to the original as possible, including all interlacing.

If I use Handbrake, it tries to crop bits off and resizes to a weird dimension, so I have to work to switch all of that off. Also, even if I try to turn off all the decombing and deinterlacing options, including putting the :interlaced flag in the advanced options, when I play it back on the TV it has somehow destroyed the interlacing and no longer appears smooth.

I've also tried VisualHub, which is much more simple to set up and keeps the interlacing in fine by default. I find that also converting to H.264 using MPEG StreamClip works just as well. However, one thing I have noticed while converting a TV programme about Pink Floyd is that the conversion to H.264 is making some of the colours washed out. On the computer, the green seems a bit lighter, and on the TV the red looks more like pink. Here's a screen grab from QuickTime Player (left one is MPEG-2 and the other two are MP4 H.264):

Also, ripping from TV keeps some lines at the top of the screen which contain white dots (some kind of syncing data?)... If I crop the video so it removes them then obviously that makes the aspect ratio wrong... Does that affect how it will play back on a TV?

If anyone has some good tips on how best to rip stuff, please let me know!

The solution I use for converting MPEG2 from DVD image or EyeTV recording to iPod-friendly MP4 H264 is based on HandBrakeCLI, the command line interface of HandBrake. It is also possible to use FFMpeg.

The settings are much more complex but offer much more freedom.

I spent some time figuring out what are the best options for me, then I put it in a bash script, so that I just have to give the pathname of the DVD image or the EyeTV recording as an argument to my script.


How to Connect a Macbook Pro A1501 to an HP Z24i Monitor? I was wondering if there was any software to make my Macbook compatible with my external monitor. I've got a HDMI to DisplayPort adaptor connected to an HMDI cable coming from my mac, but the mac is not detecting the monitor.

The other issue: I am in South America, so other types of connectors would be difficult to come by.

Any thoughts? I really appreciate your help. Here are my specs:

Macbook Pro A1502 with:
2 Thunderbolt ports
1 HDMI port
3 USB 3.0 ports

My monitor is the HP Z24i. It has:
1 USB 2.0 port (lame; won't work with my Mac USB 3.0)
1 DVI Port
1 DisplayPort 1.2 port

I have this same setup, but with an older Macbook Pro (A1278).

Simply get a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter, and use DisplayPort only. The Thunderbolt port on your Macbook Pro is ALSO a mini-display port and it is compatible with a mini-DisplayPort connector.

Here is an example from monoprice.com http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=6006


How do I know when an iPhone was switched off? Sometimes I go to sleep and wake to find that my battery died, and the iPhone is off. Is there any way to know when the battery died? Is there any way (or App) to know when was it switched off?

I'm using iPhone 4s with iOS 7.0.3.

There is no way to easily find out when the phone powered off due to the battery dying. You can, however, get your battery life by charging it completely (till 100%), let it die, then charge to power it up and then going to Settings > General > Usage > Time since last full charge and adding up the times for Usage and Standby.


Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices (virtualbox fix please) I'm on a MacBookPro8,1, Late 2011 and I'm running latest version of El Capitan with SIP disabled (if that matters at all)

@DavidAnderson I've been following the tutorial steps from @DavidAnderson posted here Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices but I can't get the damn thing to work and as a new user here I'm not allowed to post in that thread :(

The only difference I have compared to the tutorial above is that my Disk Number is 2 instead of 1 in tutorial step 9.

After inputting the code from tutorial step 12 which is:

INPUT=$(printf  "f  $PARTITION\nw\ny\nq")
sudo  fdisk  -e  $DISK0  <<<"$INPUT"

I get an error:

Artists-MacBook-Pro:~ Artist$ INPUT=$(printf  "f  $PARTITION\nw\ny\nq")
Artists-MacBook-Pro:~ Artist$ sudo  fdisk  -e  $DISK0  <<<"$INPUT"
fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> Partition 4 marked active.
fdisk:*1> Device could not be accessed exclusively.
A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? [n] Writing MBR at offset 0.

I'm assuming that's not supposed to happen? How do I proceed from here? I have kept going with the tutorial despite this error several times without success. The next error I get is at step 18.

The full error is as follows:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine BootCamp.

VD: error VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED opening image file '/Users/Artist/Documents/VirtualBox/bootcamp.vmdk' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

VD: error VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED opening image file '/Users/Artist/Documents/VirtualBox/bootcamp.vmdk' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Failed to open image '/Users/Artist/Documents/VirtualBox/bootcamp.vmdk' in read-write mode (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Failed to attach driver below us! Not supported. (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

AHCI: Failed to attach drive to Port0 (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: ConsoleWrap
Interface: IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}

Can anyone please help me? I've spent the last 3 days trying to install windows on this mac as I desperately need them and I've spent the last 5 hours on this tutorial alone without luck :( what am I doing wrong? I followed tutorial to the T but I must have missed something somewhere.

I believe you did not receive error executing Step 12. The output you posted is the expected result.

Four days after you posted your question, Tim Harper posted a comment where he had problems similar to yours at Step 18. He overcame this obstacle and succeeded installing Windows. His input led me to update Step 16. I hope this fixes your problem


Access Windows Virtual Machine Localhost from Host Mac I have a Windows 8.1 virtual machine (VMWare Fusion 6) running on my Mac (OSX 10.9.4). In windows, I am running a site using IIS Express on a specific port. On the windows vm, I can write localhost:XXXXX as my address and get the page.
However, the localhost is different on my Mac than it is on Windows, and thus I can't simply write localhost:XXXXX on the mac. I currently have the network to "Share with my Mac" on the virtual machine settings.
What do I need to do to access the windows server from the mac?

Update

For those finding this page using Visual Studio 2015 and Windows 10, there appears to be a difference in how IIS Express works, and this solution no longer appears to solve the issue.

Update 2

I have this working now with Visual Studio 2015. The config files for the web application are now stored with the project/solution itself instead of old location in your documents folder. In the solution folder, there is a folder called .vs, and inside that, you need to navigate to the config folder. That's where the applicationhost.config is.
After that, I had to update my firewall to let IIS through (something changed where the old permission no longer worked, not sure if it's a quirk on my machine or not). Then, every thing else is as it has been described in the answer below.

There is a major difference in using IIS Express and the 'regular' IIS. The latter as installed by default in Windows.

In short, IIS Express runs sandboxed on its host environment. This means by default it cannot be accessed outside. Luckily, you're not the only one asking this as it has been adressed on StackOverflow several times. In my opinion, with this post having one of the better answers.

For future reference, this means:

Edit the applicationhost.config file (which holds info and bindings to all your IIS Express projects ever ran locally)
Execute the netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:8080/ command (possibly some other)
Open up the Windows Firewall to allow IIS Express and the desired ports to be accessed 'externally' (yes, your Mac = external, as far as Windows is concerned)

As a final tip I'd like to suggest to also add your Windows' system name to the Mac host file. This can easily be done running the following command in the OSX Terminal:

  sudo nano /etc/hosts

By adding the Windows system name you can now use it to navigate to http://your-win-name instead of having to point to an IP Address.

Good luck!


Unable to use finder My Finder on MBP has been giving me problems for a quite a few days and has become completely unusable. Once I start it, it opens fine but then I can't do anything. And it shows a scrambled view with images from background sometime (see below screenshot). Cliking on links on the side bar like Documents, Airdrop, etc has no effect. I have tried doing relaunch several times as well as restart. But no resolution.

Has anyone faced such an issue before? I am afraid this might be a virus but I am not sure.

This looks like a graphics card issue. I would recommend reseting your computer's PRAM. To do this follow the following steps.

Power off your computer
Locate the command ⌘, P, and R keys.
Hold the power button until you hear the startup sound.
Immediately after you hear the startup sound, hold down the three keys from step 2 until your computer boots a second time.

This should resolve your problem. If your problem still persists you can download a 3rd party software such as https://gfx.io, which will force your mac to use it's alternate graphics card. Just install it and on your toolbar at the top of your screen click the "i" and change the setting from
"Dynamic Switching" to "Discrete Only." This will force your mac to use the NVIDIA card, and resolve your issue. I would recommend to try and reset your PRAM (Which has been changed to NVRAM, but is essentially the same thing), and only use my second solution if your graphics card rendering is still corrupted.

EDIT - To stop finder from being unresponsive you can follow these steps:

power off your computer
hold shift immediately after you hear the startup sound. This will boot your computer into safe mode.
Open finder. The buttons should now work. Navigate through a few different directories.
Click the apple in the top left. Click restart and you should be able to use finder again.

The reason this may fix your problem is because when you boot into safe mode, it cleans and resets some things, which can fix your unresponsive finder issues.
If that doesn't work my last fix that I can think of without more information would be to open up the terminal application and type in this:
sudo find / -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm {} \;
make sure that you typed the capitalization right and it looks exactly like that, and press enter.
Type in your password. the letters won't show up when you type but don't worry the computer knows what you are typing. When you are done press enter. Reboot and it should be working again. If you want an explanation here it is. In every directory your Mac automatically creates a hidden file called .DS_Store. This file has information on it and after an update, or if something else happens, it can become corrupt or invalid. Executing the above command will remove these files so your Mac will create updated ones that work.
While some of these solutions edit invisible files on your computer, it will not affect your computer in any way that you can see other than (Hopefully) fixing your problem.


With multiple displays: how best to keep the Dock to one side, and on the same display as the menu bar? I currently have the Dock to the left.  In the Displays pane of System Preferences, I have the external display (if present) configured to be on the left side of the main built-in display; and the menu bar on the built-in display.

Problem:

when I connect an external display, the Dock jumps to it, separating it from the menu bar.

How can I configure the Dock to stay on the main display with the menu bar?

Some things to keep in mind:

I prefer the Dock to the left.
I don't want it on the right, since that would interfere with the disk icons on the desktop.
I don't want it on the bottom, since I have widescreen displays and that would be wasteful of vertical screen real-estate.
I can't unusably configure the external display to be on the right side, since it's actually to the left, given the way my desk is setup.

I'm using Mac OS X Lion on a Macbook Pro.

As far as I can find, putting the Dock on the left side of the right monitor or the right side of the left monitor can't be done.

But let's look at other possible solutions to your problem. Point #1 notes that you don't want the dock on the right because it would interfere with disk icons on the desktop. And when you first drag the Dock to the right side, it does indeed cover the disk icons on the right side. But if you select "clean up" on the Desktop once the Dock is positioned on the right, it will move those icons over to make room for the Dock. This is a temporary solution, however, because newly mounted drives will still be buried by the dock. If you select "clean up by name", however, then newly mounted drives will fit into the grid created and not be covered by the Dock.

Not the solution you were looking for, I know, but it might be a workaround.


How can I launch .sh scripts from the finder in iTerm2 instead of Terminal? I have set 'always open with' to : 'Iterm2', for .sh files in osX.
Although a double click on a shell script now opens a new Iterm window, the script does not actually run, I just the get the empty prompt.
There might be an applescript solution, but I would prefer a more direct way.

It works for me but only if the file is executable. For example this runs a.sh in a new window:

echo say a>a.sh;chmod +x a.sh;open a.sh -a iTerm

If you want it to work with non-executable files, set an application like this as the default application for .sh files:


Goodreads data protection clarification I'm using the Goodreads iPad app. I have data protection set in the iPads general settings and passcode required to unlock. I also have a passcode to open Goodreads.

My understanding is that when the iPad is locked, files are encrypted (at least the ones in the Goodreads folder, but not other files?) I'm wondering if even when the iPad is unlocked if the files in the Goodreads folder are protected if Goodreads is not loaded and asking for the passphrase.

I'm guessing based on my understanding of the manual, but hopefully I'm wrong.

My earlier answer was incorrect. iOS 4 does incorporate file system level encryption - impressive!

The answer to your question is here:

  It is important to understand that GoodReader itself doesn't encrypt
  or decrypt your files. It does two things - restricts the access to
  protected files via GoodReader's own user interface, and asks iOS to
  encrypt certain files (or all of them, if you're using app startup
  password). iOS, in its turn, locks these files within a few seconds
  after you lock your device with a passcode, and instantly unlocks them
  when you unlock your device with a passcode. It means that when you
  unlock your device with a passcode, all your files become decrypted
  and fully accessible, even if GoodReader app is not being run at the
  moment, and you haven't entered any of GoodReader's passwords yet. So,
  if your device is unlocked, GoodReader will prevent the access to
  protected files via its own user interface, but nothing prevents from
  copying these files via, for example, File Sharing section of iTunes
  (USB transfer), without knowing GoodReader's passwords. So please be
  sure to ALWAYS lock your device with a passcode, even if you leave it
  just for a minute. This will turn the physical hardware-based
  protection on. And while Auto-Lock option in main device Settings may
  be of great help with this, it never hurts to manually lock your
  device every time you leave it.

From:

http://www.goodiware.com/gr-man-general.html#dataprot

Put concisely, while the iPad is unlocked all data is unencrypted, so in principle, hackers could access your files during this time.


Apple Books on Mojave stuck I launched Apple Books on my 2016 MacBook Pro (10.14.5) to continue reading some book I had started on my iPad Pro (where it was purchased).
As expected the book was in the cloud so I double clicked its cover to download it. It prompted me for my Apple ID and password, as expected and then it started to download 16 other titles before this one, completely freezing the app.

The download is not progressing, nor I can stop it. Relaunching the app, or even after a reboot, gives me a Library full of greyed out items without any chance to force a download...

What can I do to make it unstuck?
I even went in Preferences and unchecked automatic downloads of purchases.

Dr Google says...

Download Titles Again
If you are still having issues with the downloaded titles, be it blank pages or wrong book, delete the downloaded book.

Next, go to your account’s purchased section under Reading Now or for iBooks, visit your account settings in the iBooks Store and re-download the title.

This likely solves your issues even when you have partially downloaded Books.

Also see:  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4421355 for a similar fix.


How to understand macOS wireless diagnostics? I run wireless diagnostics:

to see which channels are best for my WiFi. In log I see:

# --- Wireless Environment
    2.4 GHz Networks            : 4
    5 GHz Networks              : 3
    Current Channel Networks    : 1
    Recommended 2.4GHz Channels : [ 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 ] 11 1 4
    Recommended 5GHz Channels   : [ 40 44 48 ] 36

How can I interpret values in brackets and outside brackets? Which channel should I choose from recommended ones?

I advise you to use this diagnostic tool twice:

in the exact position where you intend to place your Wi-Fi router,
in the exact position where you want to get the best access for your Wi-Fi client.

The number inside brackets are channels to avoid, the others the ones to use.

From your diagnostic results it would be a bad idea to use the “automatic” channel selection on your router because this is conceptually a total error as soon as you have neighbours networks. The router cannot diagnose the wireless environment where you will seat with your iPhone.

From the partial results you got, I advise you to configure your router to work on channel 36 (5 GHz) which won’t be subject to interferences (as it will be the case with channels 1, 4 and 11 even if they are actually free.

If you want to further improve your skill in the wireless world, I suggest you to try iStumbler. It is now a commercial product but it worths much more. I use it since many years in private and professionnal environments


cannot install iOS 7.1 simulator for Xcode 6 (weird file mounting error) I have XCode 5.1 working without problems with iOS 7.1 simulators until yesterday when I upgraded to Xcode 6, the installation was completed successfully, but whenever I try to download and install iOS 7.1 simulator from Preferences -> Downloads, it gives me this weird message:

Could not download and install iOS 7.1 Simulator. Failed to mount  file:///Users/myusername/Library/Caches/com.apple.dt.Xcode/Downloads/Xcode.SDK.iPhoneSimulator.7.1-7.1.dmg at file:///var/folders/f8/4wmmmwj17_96v9jp7h1f4gqc0000gn/T/attached-image-85355a6e6ed97fd1899b8ef3a6052181e745b5fb/: image not recognized

I searched for such error but couldn't find any clue to solve it.
I completely removed XCode using CleanMyMac 2 app, restarted the machine, re-installed Xcode from MAC App Store, the installation was successful, restarted the machine again, and then tried to install iOS 7.1 simulator but to no avail.

Quit Xcode (Command ⌘+Q).
Delete the ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.dt.Xcode folder.
Reopen Xcode.


Remote app on iPad regularly loses connection to Mac I'm using a Mac mini with an external 3TB hard drive to run my audio system.
I'm controlling iTunes on the Mac mini using Apple's Remote app on my iPad.

My problem is that Remote seems to lose the connection with the Mac repeatedly,
so in turn I lose the ability to control my music. Sometimes it's just slow and the message reads it's connecting with the shared file, then it finds it, other time it tells me it can't find it at all. The Mac is set to not sleep. What can I do to keep the connection between my Mac and the Remote app on my iPad?

Try the usual 'turn it off and on again' things first.
Turn on "Stay Connected" in the Remote app's setting

Try switching your wireless channel, frequency, or both.


Which app will help me remove limitations on DVDs? I purchased an exercise DVD that was created by a local health practitioner. Whoever created the DVD for her used some wonky settings that prevent me from being able to go into fast-forward mode on my DVD player. The DVD is not copy-protected.

Is there a Mac program that I can get that will let me make a copy of the DVD but without silly settings such as "no fast forwarding"?

I have found MacDVDRipperPro to work very well for me. It also removes the protection on dvd's.


Is it possible to get Keynote/Pages/Numbers for El Capitan? I received an older MacBook Pro 5,1 (MacBook Pro 15” Unibody, Late 2008 / Early 2009), but it came without a hard drive. I installed Mountain Lion from DVD, then updated to El Capitan, which is the latest version of macOS supported by this laptop.

I am now unable to install Keynote—or any iWork app—because they all require macOS Sierra. What can I do?

Here’s the deal:

iWork requires macOS Sierra (or whatever the latest OS version is at the time) to “purchase.”
You can install the latest compatible version onto your computer, but only if you already have that iWork app associated with your Apple ID.

So the solution is to:

Get access to a Mac with macOS 10.12 Sierra installed.
Create a guest account with your Apple ID and use it to login to the Mac App Store.
“Purchase” Keynote, Pages and Numbers.
Now if you go back to your older Mac, these products will be associated with your Apple ID, and the Mac App Store will offer to install the latest compatible version.


Outlook 2011 won't open, fails with exit code 255 Outlook 2011 keeps closing about 2 seconds after launch. There is brief flashing in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen but then nothing. I have checked the console and I am seeing error 255. I have pasted the error below.

Does anybody know how I can correct this error or at least get Outlook working again?

15/08/2011 14:46:48 com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[105]
([0x0-0x2a02a].com.microsoft.Outlook[303])
Exited with exit code: 255

Hold down the option key (aka alt) when you start outlook.  it will prompt you to restore your main identity.


Disk Utility not letting me partition my SSD or modify the current ones Just yesterday I finally got my hands on a MacBook Pro in which I was planning to install Ubuntu and Windows aside from OS X for studying purposes.
I was barely beginning by partitioning the disk, or at least attempting to do so and found myself not being able to take advantage of most functions of Disk Utility like in the picture below:

I've already tried a couple of tutorials and even tried to apply some solutions to problems that seemed similar, but nothing worked.

You have several possibilities to repartition your CoreStoraged drive:

You may resize the Logical Volume Group non-destructively with diskutil
diskutil cs resizeStack LVUUID size. You get the LVUUID with diskutil cs list
You may revert the Logical Volume Group to a native volume
diskutil coreStorage revert LVUUID and check and resize the volume afterwards with diskutil resizeVolume DiskIdentifier limits and diskutil resizeVolume DiskIdentifier size. You get the DiskIdentifier with diskutil list.
Create new partitions with gpt

After repartitioning your SSD like that you won't be able to set-up Windows 7/8 with the default Boot Camp Assistant MBR-based method.

Most of the methods to efi-dual-boot/triple-boot/quadriple-boot require to completely erase of your SSD.

As already mentioned in the comments consider using Parallels/VMware Fusion and setting up virtual machines.


Help with changing user home folder file name My computer was restored from my ex-wife's laptop 3 years ago. Her maiden name pops up as the user-folder name on all my files, and it's been wearing on me for a long time.

I used this Q&A to try to change it, but when i get to tubedogg's 5th step, I can't figure out a way to change the folder name, even after double-clicking/going to the file on the root-user account.

Please helllp!!

"
Change Users Home Directory
Q:
I have created a new user but the new user's home directory has the old users path. How can I update my new user's home directory so that the terminal opens to this directory and all software considers this new directory my home directory? I'm using OS x 10.8.4.

A:

Apple's support site provides steps to change the "account name" (that is, the name of the home folder for a particular user).

1-    Enable the root user (using these steps).
2-     Log in as root.
3-    Navigate to the /Users folder.
4-    Select the Home folder with the short name you want to change, and rename it just like you would rename any folder. Keep in mind that the shortname must be all lowercase, with no spaces, and only contain letters.
    Use the Users & Groups pane (Accounts pane in Mac OS X v10.6.8 or earlier) in System Preferences to create a new user with the Account name or Short Name that you used in the previous step.
    Click OK when "A folder in the Users folder already has the name 'account name'. Would you like to use that folder as the Home folder for this user account?" appears. Note: This will correct the ownership of all files in the Home folder, and avoid permissions issues with the contents.
    Choose Log Out from the Apple menu. Log in as the newly created user. You should be able to access all of your original files (on the desktop, in Documents, and in the other folders of this Home).
    After verifying that your data is as expected, you can delete the original user account via the Users & Groups pane (Accounts pane in Mac OS X v10.6.8 or earlier).
    Disable the root user (using these steps)."

Don't try to swap the short name out. Do make a back up before you attempt any user folder rename. Consider restoring a file or two from the backup if you've never done that.

Instead, make a new user that's a temporary admin.

Use that user to delete the old account, keep the home directory.
Then rename the old /Users/whatever folder to be what you want for the short name.
Then make a new user account with that exact same short name.

You'll have the correct permissions and user at that point and can delete the temporary admin or keep it around if you don't mind.


Open a new Chrome window in Incognito mode from terminal I can open a url specifying 'chrome browser' from terminal

open -a 'Google chrome' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

How to open it in an incognito mode?

Use something like:

open -a "Google Chrome" --args --incognito "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page"

Google Chrome accepts --incognito as a command-line option.  To pass that option to the application via open, specify it after the --args flag.

If Chrome isn't already open (since this was not specified whether the original questioner needed to launch it fresh or if it was already running), -n is also needed to start a fresh instance.

In general, man open is your friend.


Before Catalina, do live photos count as both photo and video in the "Photos" app tally? I'm just wondering whether live photos were counted twice because they were photos but also videos. Thanks in advance.

No, they weren't counted twice in Mojave for example.


High Sierra how to move menu bar to external monitor [MBP 2014, Mac OS High Sierra]

I managed to crack the lower left corner of my screen last night, the power cable flicked into the space as I was closing the lid.  As a result, I'm missing a couple inches of screen space on the left side.  This, of course, means that I cannot see the "Apple Icon" (not too big a deal) nor the first, usually "File", menu item.

Since I usually have an external screen plugged in, I would like to move the menu bar to the other screen.  However, I don't want to use the Mission Control function to create another space (Desktop).

Can this be done, and if so, how?

When you have the external screen connected, in system preferences : Display you can move that menu bar to the other screen - I usually get the displays icon in the menu bar as well.


Performance hit to gaming using Parallels Desktop for Mac I have a Mid 2014 MacBook Pro Retina 15" (16 GB, Iris pro, 750M Nvidia, 512 GB SSD). I don't like to use Boot Camp, it's not productive and I don't like to use Windows unless its super necessary.

I saw a YouTube video of someone playing BattleField 4 with Parallels Desktop on the same model MacBook Pro I have, and the game seems to play fine.

I wish to play DayZ and Overwatch, my question is: Will Parallels Desktop gaming effect my laptop's performance or lifespan (heat, etc.)?

No, your computer will be fine, and performance will be fine, but there's a little fun involved.

Parallels uses a technology called virtualization to run another OS–in this case, Windows–using a combination of hardware and software to create a "virtual machine" that acts like a computer. Due to a variety of technologies that exist, virtual machines offer quite good performance when compared to their actual physical counterparts, and can be used for gaming with relatively hit to performance. And no, your computer won't explode, heat management and all that is the same.

Unfortunately, there's a catch with Parallels: GPUs. Modern games (such as those you want to play) rely heavily on GPUs to provide good performance. Games such as these rely on APIs to handle many functions related to GPUs. Currently there are two primary APIs used for games: Microsoft's DirectX and OpenGL. Unfortunately, DirectX is exclusive to Windows–thus, games utilizing DirectX are generally Windows exclusive (ignoring consoles.) The games you described use DirectX: thus, they are Windows exclusive. This presents a problem when using Parallels: because it runs a virtual machine, it can't normally perform the low-level calls needed by APIs like DirectX to the GPU. To get around this, Parallels translates DirectX calls to OpenGL calls (which do work on Mac) before they are executed. This can result in a somewhat significant decrease in performance, though it may be tolerable.

However, recent Intel processors have started shipping with a technology called Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) that allows these low-level calls to be passed through a virtual machine, eliminated the performance hit described earlier. Your Haswell processor is just new enough that it does ship with this technology onboard! Following these instructions for Parallels, you can leverage VT-d within Parallels to run Windows games with very little performance hit. It's quite lengthy, references a few other pages, and generally wouldn't work well if I posted it here like I normally would, so I recommend you read it there.

In conclusion, you'll be able to play your games using Parallels just fine with a little bit of work.


iTunes Purchase Without Download Is there a way to purchase an app from the App Store using iTunes without having to download it?  I'm thinking like a hidden preference/mouse/modifier key during click, etc.

I know the download can be canceled, but what I'm asking is if there is a way to prevent the download all together...

No. You need to manually cancel the download upon purchase.


AirPlay video, but play audio on device Is it possible to AirPlay video from my iPad 2 on an Apple TV, but play the audio on my iPad?

As far as I know, it's not possible without jailbreak.but if your iPhone is jailbroken, you can at least redirect the sound to your headphones : http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20130312010845251

I didn't try it since my phone is not jailbroken.

Hope that helps !


How do I set an animated GIF as my desktop wallpaper? How can I make my desktop wallpaper image an animated GIF?

You can use Mojave's dynamic wallpaper. macOS doesn't natively support animated GIFs as wallpapers.

However you can use this https://lifehacker.com/set-an-animated-gif-as-your-macs-wallpaper-1756859302
but at the cost of a shorter battery life for a wallpaper that you probably wouldn't see in action because you got windows all over.

Your case is more like needing a really thin phone(GIF) which you are gonna cover with a case(windows) anyways.


How do iOS apps from the same developer retain and access login information after being uninstalled without the use of iCloud? The following is a real-world example - I'm not an iOS developer, so I am trying to understand how this can be possible:

Create a new, test Google account and when done, create a test Apple ID.
Set up an iOS device, and at the stage where you are asked to enter the details to log into an Apple ID, choose to skip this for now.
When taken to Springboard, launch the App Store, and search for "Assistant". Tap the "Get" button, at which time you will be asked to log into the iTunes Store. Do this by entering the details for the just-created Apple ID, at which point the app will begin to download. Note that we have in no way logged into iCloud, and that we have just logged into the iTunes store for the purpose of downloading the app.
When the app has finished downloading, launch it and when asked to sign in, enter the details for the new Google account (created in step 1). You should now be signed into the Assistant app.
Go back to the Home screen, and remove the Assistant app; confirm when prompted so that it will be removed from the device.
Now, go back to the App Store, and search for "Gmail". Choose to download this - you shouldn't be prompted to log into an Apple ID, because iOS has saved the details when Assistant was downloaded.
Launch the app, and tap the "Sign In" button. Notice that the previously-entered Google account is listed - this will match the one used to sign into Assistant. Tapping on this account will allow you to access Gmail with those details, without being prompted to enter a password of any kind whatsoever.

For me, the most interesting aspect of this is that even after the Assistant app is removed, the details for the Google account entered into the app before being uninstalled are still remembered. I haven't been able to figure out how this is done; it can't be iCloud (because it wasn't enabled at the time of the initial installation of Assistant). Does anybody know how it's possible that even after an app is uninstalled, another app is able to read data previously written to memory by a separate app?

The login information is securely store in the iOS keychain subsystem. Unlike macOS, keychain in iOS is not user accessible. However, apps can programmatically store and query for data in keychain.

Google developed apps look for pre-existing user information in the iOS keychain when installed. The login information is not removed from the device unless you choose to remove the account from your device from within one of the installed app.

iOS keychain provides a secure cryptographic disk store which is locked when the device is locked and unlocked when the device is unlocked. An app can access only its own keychain items, or those shared with a group to which the app belongs. Apps from the same developer, such as Google in this case, fall under same group (via common Bundle Identifier component) and this lets them share a secret via keychain.


What are the differences between Applescripts saved as *.scpt and *.applescript? It seems to me that those scripts that are saved as *.applescript are always meant to be the raw, uncompiled text while those that are saved as *.scpt can be either the raw text or the compiled program.

What advantages/disadvantages are there to using each extension?

An ancillary question: is there an analogous extension to *.applescript for the new JavaScript for Automation (JXA) language? Perhaps *.jxa?

.scpt is in binary. .applescript is in text.

You can use Spotlight/Finder's find function to search for words in .applescript. You cannot do this with .scpt.

Since .scpt is already compiled, it's quicker to launch.

My favorite thing about .applescript is that I can write that a script that read/write onto itself, so that variables are saved for next run without creating a separate file to house the variables.


iOS - how to get mail app to recognize and trust custom or self-signed SSL certificates from a profile? Running iOS 10.2
I added the root certificates of CAcert to my iPhone profile using various ways:

directly from their website in mobile Safari
sent by email to mail app
by adding a profile with the Apple Configurator 2 software

each time the certs show in the profile, but they are marked as "not checked / validated" in red.

Everytime mail app tries to connect to the mail server a warning dialog pops up that it cannot validate the mail server. Consequently it does not connect. Plus the popups are very annoying.

On MacOS the CAcert certificates are added to the Keychain and MacOS Mail works just fine. Same with all browsers and Apache running on the same box. It's a wildcard certificate (*.example.com) that I se for all services. All fine except mail.app on iOS - this also used to work fine with mail app in the past as well, by the way (older version of iOS).

An ideas?

In addition to the root certificate you will in some instances also need to add the intermediate certificate in case the mail server you're connecting to does not present the full certificate chain.

You can download the intermediate certificate here:

http://www.cacert.org/?id=3


Why might Finder appear broken with question marks in the toolbar? Recently I noticed some question marks appear in my finder windows. If I click one of them, my finder freezes and has to be relaunched. I can't for the life of me remember what was there that is now missing that the Finder might be looking for. Is there any way to fix this short of reinstalling Mountain Lion? Here is what my Finder looks like:

Those seem to be missing apps.

You can "fix" it by removing them:

Press the command key and click the item, move it out of the toolbar until it vanishes.

If you need to find out what those items may be, take a look at the system log:

open /Applications/Utilities/Console.app

Check the System Messages (all) and try to click one of those question marks, because you have a hang, the system will log it.


Is it possible to lock the memory tray on an iMac 27" (late 2012)? After countless searches, I haven't managed to find any clear answer on the subject.

The iMac 27" (late 2012) features a tray on the back of the computer, which you can open after pushing a button located behind the power cable, in order to add or remove memory modules.

We are intending to house a large number of iMac available to a large number of people, we'd rather not get the RAM stolen in the process.

I have an untested theory that the Kensington slot featured on the iMac might lock the button if there is a Kensington lock in place.

Any truth to it or should I be looking into something else?

I just saw this yesterday on cultofmac.com which basically answered all my problems "Maclocks.com comes up with the only solution to fully protect your new iMac" http://www.cultofmac.com/235129/maclocks-lock-for-imac-prevents-your-ram-from-being-stolen-for-just-50/

Here is the link to the product page itself http://www.maclocks.com/imac-locks/imac-security-cable-lock.html

Thanks for bringing awareness to this issue and thanks to maclocks for solving it!


How did I make this screen appear? This is a pretty general question, and I'm sorry I don't have a screenshot for you.

First, some specs: I am running OSX Lion on a MacMini with a Magic Mouse.

I had a screen appear and I'm not sure what it was or how it appeared. All my windows faded out and there was a list of files (and folders perhaps) listed above the dock station. This was not mission control or launchpad, I know that much. It also wasn't whatever the screen is that I get when I two-finger swipe to the right (with the calculator, clock, weather and other widgets).

If it helps at all, when it happend I was attempting to open my DropBox folder. I am often switching between a Windows PC and my Mac. I've been on my Windows computer lately and am used to opening DropBox by double-clicking the icon in the task bar. It was somewhere around that time this screen appeared. It disappeared when I clicked anywhere outside the file icons - which I unfortunately did pretty quickly.

If there is any other information I can give to possibly identify this screen, just let me know.

It sounds like you probably activated the "Application Windows" feature of Mission Control (previously Exposé) in an app that didn't have any windows open.

It looks like this if you have no windows in that app open:

The list of files are recently opened files in that application (in this case, TextEdit).

How you opened it depends on your particular setup. You can set a keyboard shortcut for it in System Preferences under Mission Control, but I think there are also gestures. I don't have a Magic Mouse or Trackpad with gesture support handy, so I can't confirm exactly what may have activated it for you. Look through the Mouse panel in System Preferences for any reference to Exposé or "Show Application Windows" or similar for an idea of what exactly activated it.


Safari - How to retain downloaded zip files? I know I can get (Desktop) Safari to stop unarchiving downloads. I don't mind the files being unarchived. I just don't want the zip archives deleted. Is there a way to do this? (10.8.x).

Safari doesn't handle the unzipping itself, it simply opens the zip with the default program, which is the OS X Archive Utility, unless you've changed it.

By default, Archive Utility shouldn't delete zip files, but it's possible the preferences got changed. To stop the archives from being deleted, open Archive Utility, located in /System/Library/CoreServices/, then open its preferences.

Change the After expanding: setting to leave archive alone.


Check if an app can read certain folders AFAIK MacOS restricts newly installed apps from reading many folders without user permission. I know these permission are listed under System Preferences->Privacy->Files and Folders
But, is there a way I can verify these permissions are actually enforced? Like can I open a shell with the same permissions as a specific app? Kind of like su - nameofapp?
I ask because I just installed the Amazon Kindle App from the MacOS App Store. I looked in ~/Library/Containers/com.amazon.Kindle/Data and see this
❯ pwd
/Users/gregg/Library/Containers/com.amazon.Kindle/Data
❯ ls -l
total 0
lrwxr-xr-x   1 gregg  staff    19 Jan  7 21:01 Desktop -> ../../../../Desktop
drwx------   2 gregg  staff    64 Jan  7 21:01 Documents
lrwxr-xr-x   1 gregg  staff    21 Jan  7 21:01 Downloads -> ../../../../Downloads
drwx------  33 gregg  staff  1056 Jan  7 21:19 Library
lrwxr-xr-x   1 gregg  staff    18 Jan  7 21:01 Movies -> ../../../../Movies
lrwxr-xr-x   1 gregg  staff    17 Jan  7 21:01 Music -> ../../../../Music
lrwxr-xr-x   1 gregg  staff    20 Jan  7 21:01 Pictures -> ../../../../Pictures
drwx------   2 gregg  staff    64 Jan  7 21:01 SystemData
drwx------   2 gregg  staff    64 Jan  7 21:01 tmp

Apparently the app has made links to a bunch of folders. How can I know if the app is actually prevented from accessing those folders via the links? I have not given the app any permissions and would just like to verify that these links are not away around the permissions.

macOS App Sandbox
~/Library/Containers is created by macOS and not the application. Sandboxed applications are effectively chroot'd into their container. You can learn more in Apple's App Sandbox Design Guide documentation.
Sandboxed applications have a com.apple.security.app-sandbox entitlement set to true.
You can view the entitlements of an application using the command line tool codesign:
codesign --display --entitlements=- /Applications/Safari.app

There is no way to run a shell script using the rights of another application.
macOS's sandboxing approach requires that you trust Apple's implementation.


What may have caused losing 5-30 of our two iPhone4's contacts without using iCloud or any other sync? My wife and I both recently discovered there was a select few of our contacts missing on our iPhone4. I think 5 or 6 from mine and over 30 from hers. This happened a day or so apart. Neither of us have done iCloud or synced with contacts or any of that. The contacts just went away. Starting a text and typing in the first few letters does not work for this. The contacts are gone.

What may have caused losing 5-30 of our two iPhone4's contacts without using iCloud or any other sync?

If you go into your Contacts app, select Groups in the top left corner and click on All Contacts -- do they show there? The phone only caches a certain amount of addresses and you may need to manually select lesser known Contacts if they get purged from the cache.


How to get Mac OS 10.8 to see Canon MF4370dn Printer drivers I just got a MacBook Air and wanted it to use my Canon ImageClass MF4370dn printer. The printer is on my network with a static IP. I've no problem getting MacBook to find the printer either via Bonjour or TCP/IP, but I can't get it to give the duplexing options that are built-in.

My guess is that the drivers I installed are not being picked up by the OS and instead it's using some generic driver. Any suggestions on how to diagnose and fix?

To be clear I'm using the latest Canon Drivers Version 2.4.1 for Mac OS 10.8. The only option that matters at all is having the silly thing duplex. I print up to 1000 pages a month, I need duplexing.

Cheers

Mark Levison

Have you installed the latest Mountain Lion ready drivers for the unit?

When you are adding the printer, what options are you using to choose the drivers?

If you choose "Auto Select" from the "Use" drop down that may be your issue.

If you choose "Select Printer Software" does the Canon software show?


OS X native share menu in Firefox I’d want to know if it is possible (by extensions, hack, context menu...) to have the mac native share menu in firefox?

Thanks

More about share menu extension:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac

https://developer.apple.com/app-extensions/


Hide the Finder sidebar permanently I've Googled for this a little bit, and I wasn't able to find an obvious answer, so is it possible to hide the Finder sidebar completely? So that it never comes back until I tell it to? The same goes for the toolbar.

Thanks for any help you can provide. :)

Extra info:

I am using OS X Mountain Lion on this Mac.

defaults write com.apple.finder ShowSidebar -bool false; killall Finder

ShowToolbar -bool false didn't seem to work.


How to change kernel security level? My Mac had a kernel security level of 0. Then, I changed the kernel security level to 1.

Here's how I changed it to 1: sysctl kern.securelevel=1

I'd like to change it back to 0 becuase my hosts file has a system immutable flag on it.

This is the code for that- sudo chflags schg /etc/hosts

I'd like to take away the system immutable flag, and that starts with changing the secure level back to 0.

I've tried to boot into single user mode. I shut down my computer and then held down cmd+S when I rebooted. It shows a black screen and white code scrolling across the screen and then went into the regular user selection field. Then, I put in my password to log in and it showed more white code scrolling across the screen and then it logged me in and everything appears normal.

This is related to this

Protect hosts file

If you have just run sysctl kern.securelevel=1 to change the securelevel, as you have indicated, then you just need to reboot your computer. This way of changing the securelevel is not persistent, so you will be back at securelevel 0 after rebooting, so that you can remove the system immutable flag from the file.

If you have changed for example /etc/sysctl.conf or used some method of ensuring that securelevel is set to 1 at every boot, you could edit that file and then reboot to get back to securelevel 0.

If you just want to temporarily get to securelevel=0 in order to remove the flag from the file, I would suggest booting into Recovery mode by holding down the Command and R keys while booting the Mac. While in Recovery mode, open Terminal and run chflags to remove the flag from the file.


When does the keychain unlock itself? I am using the "lock when sleeping" preference of the login keychain. When I use my computer after wake up, as expected i have to enter my password when an application (such as the webbrowser or instant messenger) try to access a keychain entry. However, sometimes the login keychain is unlocked after entering the password, sometimes it remains locked and the application gets single-time access. What rule does that follow? System is up to date 10.6.

There is a setting that can lock the Keychain after a period of inactivity.  So if you have unlocked it after sleep and then find after a few minutes that it is locked, it probably means that this option is turned on.

It's also possible that on some items you haven't checked 'always remember' and so it is popping up the request for credentials via keychain.

You can also repair your keychain using this guide.


Switching back to iOS12.3 from iOS 13 beta 3 I want to switch back to iOS12.3 from iOS 13.

For this apple support says that It can be done by restoring backup from iTunes:

But iTunes is not installed on my Ubuntu computer. so How to switch back to original iOS from iCloud backup?

One crude way I understand, is to format iPhone and this will turn phone into new one, then I can restore the backup from iCloud. Will formatting the iPhone restore the iOS 12.3 ?

Edit: I erased everything, and restarted as new iphone/also restored from very old icloud backup. But phone didn't switch back to iOS12.3.

If you have ran a backup using iCloud while on iOS 13, and you don't have iTunes, there is unfortunately nothing you can do. If you have iTunes, you could restore from an old backup if you have one, or you can set up as a brand new phone on iOS 12.3 if you download the .ipsw file for your phone model and correct iOS.


What's the best way to prolong the lifespan of a Macbook Pro battery? I have two Mac book Pros:

A 2013 Unibody retina that I use every day
An older 2006 model with removable battery that I use a couple of times a month (when not in use, it's not connected to the AC. I
recently replaced the battery, as the old one swelled apart).

I use them as desktop replacements, so I don't use the battery that often.

What's the best way to prolong battery lifespan? - If keeping the machines hooked up to the AC is a bad idea, then for how many hours each day should I use the battery?

Here is my research: There's a lot of conflicting advice.

Calibration

A lot of sources, say you should calibrate the battery by letting it run down to 0% each month. For example, this Ask Different question, this Gigaohm article. All these articles were written in 2013/12 and cite Apple.com as the source for this advice.

However, the Apple.com page makes no reference to calibration. Is this because calibration is a bad idea, or is it because Apple no longer sells devices with removable batteries and so the advice is different?

Deep discharge

Other sources, such as this AskDifferent question, imply that letting the battery drain is a bad idea, so using the AC whenever possible is actually a good thing.

Please note I am talking about the overall battery life span (e.g. the time the battery has before it needs to be replaced) and not increasing the day-to-day hours of the battery.

What's the best way?

Don't worry about it and just use your MacBook Pros for what you bought them for.

Why?

Physics.  No matter what you do, you can't change the laws of physics and lithium batteries are governed by the number of cycles.  A complete discharge and recharge is one cycle.  A 20% discharge 5 times is one cycle, a 5% discharge 20 types is one cycle.

Whether that cycle takes a half day, a full day or a week all depends on how you use it; but I am guessing you didn't buy a MBP to sit on a shelf all day long doing nothing.

Even when you keep your MBP plugged in, you are reducing the per day cycle count; however you are not eliminating it.  But the bigger question is, did you buy a MBP to sit at a desk all day?  If so, you should have bought an iMac instead - there's no battery so you eliminate this problem altogether.

That said, there are things you can avoid that will shorten the life of your battery and those things include:

Extreme temperatures - high heat and freezing temps can kill a battery prematurely.
Drops and physical stress can damage the battery shortening its life
Not using the right charger can harm your battery.  Always use a GENUINE power adapter, not some discount charger you find on eBay.

When they do die, it's always best to get a good quality replacement battery from a reputable manufacturer.  The 2006 MBP uses an external battery so it's fairly easy to find replacements - and some even come with generous warranties.

The 2013 MBP Retina batteries require the back cover to be removed, but are actually pretty easy to replace.  You can find many good replacements now on the aftermarket, with generous warranties as well.

When you get down to it, the battery prices are not that all off putting.

The bottom line is that you batteries have a life span that's governed by use and there is nothing you can do short of not using your MacBook to change that.  But...that kind of defeats the purpose of having the MacBook in the first place.


How do I prevent false iTunes ratings? I listen to a lot of smart playlists based on ratings, and I use the grouping field for tags.  For example: Grouping Contains "Mellow", Rating is greater than **.  That playlist has thousands of songs.

Since upgrading to iTunes 12.2, I'm seeing some ratings with black stars, and others with gray stars.  Apparently, the gray star ratings are automatically generated by iTunes.  I've never seen this before.  To make matters worse, songs with zero ratings are showing up in my smart playlists because iTunes assigned them a gray rating.

How do I get rid of the automatically generated gray ratings?  How do I prevent iTunes from ever automatically generating false ratings again?

I've got over 30,000 songs.  I don't want iTunes destroying my ratings system with false ratings!  Just because I like one song on an album doesn't mean the whole album is great.

Additional info: I'm not using iTunes Match (my library exceeds the 25,000 songs limit).  I did check "iCloud Music Library" yesterday while signing up for Apple Music, but I've also tried turning that off and it doesn't get rid of the gray/guess/false ratings.

This is a bug introduced in iTunes 12.2 at the end of June.  It appears that iTunes has done some sort of averaging of track ratings and written them as album ratings overwriting the original per-track ratings.

I've seen this issue with my library of approximately 100,000 tracks and have filed a bug report with Apple in Radar. Removing the album rating data is difficult as iTunes won't reliably show this data in smart playlists and many of the utilities that try to do mass change operations fail when setting this attribute.

The tool I've been using to slowly clean it up is Doug Adam's "Album Rating Reset."  This only works on one album at a time, but if you really care about your ratings, you're going to want to clean this up very carefully to avoid damaging any of your remaining per-track ratings.

I should add that I was also able to restore a number of the lost per-track items by restoring a pre-iTunes 12.2 library to a separate user account , confirmed that the ratings will still present and then used the commercial SuperSync utility to transfer the ratings from the old library to my latest 12.2.2 library using the metadata transfer tool.

What a hassel!  I hope sharing some of my tools helps you with your carefully crafted library.


How to remove old bootcamp partition in terminal I needed to remove my old windows bootcamp partition, which took up 50GB. Bootcamp itself would not let me do this, as it kept requiring me to have 40GB of storage, which I could not make (my mac is at full capacity, due to the 50GB empty windows partition). I do not understand why i need 40gb of space in order to free up space, but regardless, I ended up doing the (risky?) brute force removal of the partition through disk utility. (I erased the partition contents, and then converted it to an APFS container, since i thought that would let me merge them together, but it did not. Right now, im not really sure whats going on, as disk utility shows i have a "APFS container" with 50GB?

Here is the print out when running diskutil list in terminal:

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         49.9 GB    disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +200.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            192.0 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 20.4 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +49.9 GB    disk2
                                 Physical Store disk0s3

How can I merge disk0s3 with disk0s2 so I can have only 1 disk partition with the full 250GB storage capacity of my SSD?

To convert a container to free space requires two commands. For example, disk0s3 is a APFS container. To convert to free space, you would need to enter the following commands.

sudo diskutil apfs deleteContainer disk0s3
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s3

Free space can be added to a container, if the free space reside immediately after the container. In your case, if you converted disk0s3 to free space, then you probably would be able add this free space to disk0s2, by entering the command given below.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


Note Timing Dropdown Menu on Garageband 10.0.3? I recently updated to Garageband 10.0.3 from 6.0.5 on my Macbook Pro. I used to be able to record a live drum set, and then adjust any issues with note timing by using a drop down menu. The options on the menu were "1/4", "1/8", "1/16", and "1/32". This would adjust the track so it would snap to the beat and be in time. This was incredibly useful, and I cannot find it anymore. Is using Flex Time editing and manually fixing each tiny mistake the only option in 10.0.3, or am I not seeing the menu?

If the audio editor is too short it will hide some of the options.  Resize the audio editor to be taller to show the Time Quantize options which has the menu you're looking for.  Here's a screen shot:


Do packets routed to another interface using `pf`'s `route-to` option on macOS actually pass the given interface? Do packets routed to another interface using pf's route-to option on macOS actually pass the given interface?

I've read that pf's firewall rules only applies to packets that (physically) pass the given interface. Thus, rules for a gateway's external interface will not apply to packets entering on the local interface and destined for the external interface, since the TCP/IP stack handles such packets internally.

Thus, do packets that are route-to (filter rule) another interface on the gateway pass that interface, so that the interface's rules will apply to the packet?

Here is the documentation from the OSX man page:

 route-to
       The route-to option routes the packet to the specified interface with an optional address for the next hop.  When a route-to rule creates state, only packets that pass in the same direction as the filter
       rule specifies will be routed in this way.  Packets passing in the opposite direction (replies) are not affected and are routed normally.

I've read that pf's firewall rules only applies to packets that (physically) pass the given interface.

I remember answering to your similar question on unix.stackexchange.com

  Thus, rules for a gateway's external interface will not apply to packets entering on the local interface and destined for the external interface, since the TCP/IP stack handles such packets internally.

Pf's rules do apply to traffic over loopback too unless you're specifically exclude it with smth like set skip on lo0.

You also better keep in mind that Pf's version shipped with MacOS is severely outdated and some documented features of Pf don't work at all or work incorrectly. route-to is somewhat "hacky" feature and I won't be any surprised if it'd fail in similar ways.


How I retrive a lost password without changing or resetting it I have Facebook on my iPhone and it works well because it has the password stored on it so I don't have to put it in every time I log in. Now I want to use Facebook on my new computer, but I forgot the password since I don't have to enter it each time I log in.

I really don't want to change the password because I have done that before and keep mixing them up.

Some one help me please.

Passwords on iOS are stored in a keychain, like in your MacBook. Here are sevaral possibilies, but honestly, I've never tried any.

Retrieve the keychain from the iPhone backup - when you backing up your iPhone, the keychain is backed up too. This backup is encrypted, so you will need unlock it. Instructions on how to do this can be found elsewhere on the Internet.
Both phones are already jailbroken - the easier way, if you know unix, ssh and command line, but probably this is not your case, and you would void the phone's warranty.

So, it is not an easy task to get access to your girlfriend's Facebook account. ;) /joke/


SIMPLE -- I'm talking WAAAAY Simple 3D program for Mac without being an engineer I do "barn hunt" --- a fun dog sport.  What isn't fun about it is creating courses.  I need something really, really, really, really simple... think playing with LEGOS simple.  I need something that I can set the scale for a 37' x 24' space and add hay bale dimensions and stack them.  We have multiple levels of hay bales to stack- up to 4 in some places.

All I need is to take my bales (rectangles) and have 4 separate colors and stack them as needed.  I don't need to build the Mayan ruins.  I don't need to model characters and add animation.... I just freakin' need something easy that doesn't require me to have a degree in engineering and architecture.  Is there ANYTHING that can do that??????

123D is a free super simplified version of a software I used called Autodesk Inventor it is a basic 3d design program that can get sort of complex the farther you dig but the interface is simplistic and you should be able to find tutorials on sites like Youtube. As Jamie said Lego Digital Designer might also be a good match.


How to remove non-essential files from Leopard I am cleaning up a really old mac to bring it back to use. It has an 80 gig hard drive and after wiping out downloads, documents, pictures, music, videos and unneccesary applications I am now stranded at about 48 gigs. I read that Leopard needs about 9 gigs, how do I get rid of the remaining 20 gb without reinstalling. Its been three and half years since I bought it and I could only find Part 2 of the recovery disk. (I have already gotten rid of iLife, iTunes, iWorks, Web Browsers, Printer Drivers etc as I need only terminal based facilities such as lynx and vi.) If anyone could point me to solutions for freeing up as much space as I can it'd be very helpful.

You can use Monolingual to trim the locales you don't require. This should trim at least a couple of GB.

The printer drivers are located in /Library/Printers. You can delete everything within the Printers directory (note, do not touch the /System/Library/Printers/ directory).

Additionally, if it's a default install, it may have come with iLife. GarageBand loops also take up a few GB and are located in /Library/Application Support/Garageband/Apple Loops/.

There are other areas you can trim space, but those will net the biggest gains. You can also give programs like DaisyDisk a shot (or free equivalent). They'll show you how data is distributed on your hard drive, and allow you to further pinpoint cruft that can be removed.


Can a shortcut be created to toggle menubar visibility (that would persist, as the dock's does)? I can choose in Syst Prefs to have the menubar show always or hide with auto-show (auto-show being show on hover or show on focus-by-keyboard-shortcut).

But when I'm working, I want the menubar always visible. And when I'm recreating, I want it usually hidden.

I like that with the dock I can hit commandoptiond to show or hide the dock, and it stays shown or hidden until I press the same shortcut again.

I wish the menubar worked this way too. Can such a shortcut be created somehow?

You asked, "Can a shortcut be created to toggle menubar visibility (that would persist, as the dock's does)?" and the short answer is, yes.

However, the longer answer is, while it's technically and natively possible to create an Automator Service workflow that gets assigned a keyboard shortcut to hide/unhide the Menu bar in OS X 10.11 and later, including the current macOS, it's not without its issues.

You'd have to assign the Automator Service a keyboard shortcut that does not interfere with an existing shortcut in every app that might have focus when you triggered the service's keyboard shortcut.
Every app that has focus when the service's keyboard shortcut is triggered would have to be added to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility, in order for the service's keyboard shortcut to work.

A possible workaround to the second point above would be if there's a third-party app that can be globally set to trigger the Automator Service work flow (or the AppleScript code as an AppleScript script or app not using an Automator Service). This might include apps like Alfred, FastScripts, Karabiner, Karabiner-Elements, Keyboard Maestro, etc., and having not tested these third party apps under this particular scenario I can only offer that as something to look into.

So, how about an AppleScript app you could place in the Dock, so it's readily available to click on, that will toggle the state of the Menu bar? You'd only have to add that AppleScript app to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility, in order for it to work.

In lieu of a third-party app or as an Automator Service and just as a plain AppleScript app, you do have a keyboard shortcut built in by way of Spotlight, in that you press ⌘space and the first character or two of the name you gave to the AppleScript app and then press enter. As an example, name it tmb.app for toggle menu bar, the you'd press ⌘spacetmenter to trigger the AppleScript App. After all, I double you already have an app named tm installed.

However, that said, it too is not without possible issues in that it relies on UI Scripting, meaning, it has to open System Preferences to the General settings and click the "Automatically hide and show the menu bar" checkbox and close System Preferences. This means once you triggered the app, you have to let it run and not manually steal focus from System Preferences while the UI Scripting events take place. In other words, you have to stop multitasking for a couple of seconds.

In part, one of the issues using AppleScript and or UI Scripting to hide/unhide the Menu bar is it's just not as graceful as hiding the Dock with its built-in keyboard shortcut, but it's at least doable.

That all said, here's the AppleScript code, that can be used in either an AppleScript script/app, Automator Service, or possibly a third party app, that will toggle the state of the Menu bar in OS X 10.11 and later via UI Scripting.

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal pane id "com.apple.preference.general"
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        click checkbox "Automatically hide and show the menu bar" of window "General" of process "System Preferences"
    end tell
    quit
end tell

Note there is no error checking to ensure this code in run under OS X 10.11 and later so don't try using it in versions of OS X prior to 10.11. Also note that the value of the delay command may need to be adjusted as necessary under the working conditions of your system.


Apple Watch is not updating to WatchOS 2 beta with public profile I have the profile installed and have done many restarts on my iPhone and my Watch.

Both devices have the public beta profile

iPhone running iOS 9 beta 4 (after upgrading from public beta 1)
Watch running 1.0.1 atm

There is no public beta for WatchOS 2.0. Developers can get WatchOS 2.0 by downloading an additional provisioning profile for the watch.


What more could I have done to secure my iPhone and iPad? I recently travelled to China for work. To my surprise our IT department confiscated my iPhone and iPad saying they could not secure the data or communications on my devices against prying eyes.

When I complained saying I would leave them in Airplane mode and remove the SIM cards they said that wouldn't be enough to secure my data on these devices. Instead they gave me a mobile phone for the duration of the trip that was not a smartphone. It had no data connection per se, a physical numeric keypad, no touch screen or apps.

I want to know why putting my devices in Airplane mode and removing the SIM cards is not enough to secure my data from prying eyes? The IT department wouldn't answer that question!

I also want to know what else I could have done to secure the data on my iPhone and iPad, or is there no way to properly secure data on these devices?

I go through phases of being rather paranoid, so that's the reason for wanting clarity on this. It's also one of the reasons I use Apple products, but this experience has got me spooked.

Both devices are running iOS 10.3.3.

It really depends on what you're protecting, and what you're protecting it against. If you're worried about some phone thief grabbing your family photos, securing the devices is really easy. If you're worried about protecting classified info from the Chinese government, securing them adequately is really really hard.
Turning on airplane mode and removing the SIMs will do a good job of securing them against network attack and/or snooping, but there's still the issue of someone getting physical and/or visual access to the device(s). There are some things you can do to harden them, mostly having to do with passcode security:

Set a secure (complex) passcode. Without a passcode, your devices are open to anyone with physical access to them. With a basic (4-digit) passcode, you have reasonable protection. A 6-digit passcode is better, and a custom (longer) passcode (numeric or alpha) is even better.

Set the devices up to require that passcode. In Settings > Touch ID & Passcode, set it to require passcode immediately, erase data after 10 failed attempts (you should make a backup, but leave it at home), then switch off Voice Dial and all of the Allow Access When Locked options.
I'd also turn off Touch ID. It avoids the possibility of someone spying on you entering your passcode, but if you're serious about security there's too many ways for someone to get & fake your fingerprint. Troy Hunt discusses some of the tradeoffs here.

Also, in Settings > Display & Brightness, turn on Auto-Lock after 1 minute.

Oh, and don't jailbreak your devices. If you've broken the iOS security model, don't expect it to remain intact against others.

So with the above (and turning off all network connections), your devices are pretty well locked down. But are they secure enough? As I said at the beginning, it really depends on the value of what you're protecting, the capabilities of whoever you're protecting it against, and how much they're willing to do to get your data. Can they compel to you to unlock the devices? Can they spy on you as you enter your passcode? Can they swap your devices for fakes that just capture the passcode you enter, and then use that to unlock the real devices? Can they confiscate the devices and then wait to see if a vulnerability is eventually discovered that'll let them unlock the devices? Is it possible they know of a non-public vulnerability? If the answer to any of those questions was "yes" (or even "maybe"), your devices aren't secure enough.
But there's another aspect to consider: from the point of view of your IT department, it may simply not be worth the trouble to work out the detailed risk & threat assessment, make sure they haven't forgotten any necessary steps to secure the devices (did I forget anything above? Maybe, maybe not), etc. From their point of view it's much easier and much safer to just say "no, don't take them".


Full Screen with Microsoft's Mac OS X RDP client? I have a MacBook Air and I'm using Microsoft's RDP client (Remote Cesktop client) for OS X to remote in to Windows machines.  Is there any way to get the client to use the full screen?  There seem to be no options for this in the menu bar on on the dock icon.

If not, are there any alternative RDP clients for Mac OSX that will allow me to go full screen? (I'm not really a VNC fan, in any of its forms)  It seems a shame to waste my screen real estate, especially since I am on only a 13" screen.

Click View menu > Full Screen at the very top of the screen. Or press Command-2.


Where do I go to download the correct software to do an untethered jailbreak on 4.2.6? I have already jailbroken my iPhone 4 with redsn0w using iPhone3,3_4.2.6_8E200_Restore.ipsw but my mom is making me sell my laptop and I need to find a way to make my jailbreak untethered.

Is this possible?

Better option if your iPhone 4 is not unlocked would be to update to 5.0.1 and then jailbreak it.  There are untethered jailbreaks available for this firmware. This would give you the benefits and new features of ios5.


remove highlighting from Stickies? Text that is copied from a web browser and pasted into the native Stickies app often brings text highlighting along with it and I haven't been able to find a way to remove the highlighting within Stickies. My current workaround is to paste the text into MacVim and then re-copy and paste it into Stickies.

Is there a way to remove highlighting within Stickies? Even better would be a way to remove all text formatting within Stickies.

I suggest that you try the “Paste and match style” menu command, right below “Paste” - the corresponding shortcut is ⇧–⌥–⌘-V. It will paste the content, but strip all the associated formatting.


Error while Compressing the Mail DB: file is encrypted or is not a database I am trying to compress the Mail database by running the sqlite3 vacuum command. But I get the following error:

SQL Error: file is encrypted or is not a database

I was running Mac OS 10.6 and I upgraded to 10.7. Now, it's running 10.7.4. I found that the Mail data folder is placed under the folder ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
instead of ~/Library/Mail/MailData on my machine.

So I use the following command:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope\ Index vacuum

You should just move that file to trash and re-start Mail.

There is a 'PRAGMA integrity_check' option, but why risk a bad index, the file will be rebuilt when Mail senses it's missing.


Wi-Fi indicator disappearing when iPad connects to Macbook over usb When I connect my iPad Pro to my Macbook Pro using a usb cable, for some reason the iPad loses its wifi connection.
Why does this happen and how do I fix it?

I tried to setup shared internet to fix this issue, but it does not help.

The settings you show will indeed shut off networking on the iPad when you connect it since the Mac is telling the iPad to get network over the USB cable.

You would disable the iPad USB check box or disable internet sharing altogether so that the iPad doesn’t change network settings next time you plug it in to that specific mac.


Adding shell script to $PATH is still not executing properly I have a directory called projects and inside that directory are subdirectories called project1, project2, project3, and so forth.
My professor hands out a .sh file located in these numbered subdirectories to test our program, but it doesn't work unless I export the path of these subdirectories to my $PATH.
It seems I have to add export PATH="$PATH:/Users/My_Name/desktop/projects/project1" to get the shell script to work, but that seems to defeat the purpose of $PATH to streamline work on the terminal because I would have to manually go in and add a new path every time I work on a new project.
For example when I work on project 2, I would have to manually go into $PATH and add export PATH="$PATH:/Users/My_Name/desktop/projects/project2" which is tedious because I would have to do this for all future projects.
I have tried to add PATH="$PATH:/Users/My_Name/desktop/projects" to $PATH, but that is not executing the script in the subdirectories of my directory called projects.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

The best way in your case is to cd to the projects directory that you are looking at and run the shell command from there.
executables can be run from the PATH as you have tried but also it you give the path to them.
So for project1
cd /Users/My_Name/desktop/projects/project1

then run the script using a path
./scriptname.sh

or use the shell directly
sh scriptname.sh

If you are being taught the teacher should have good reasons to believe you already know this or they should have provide a book or other notes to describe how unix shells work.


Is it possible to to type 16 bit unicodes with Unicode Hex Input? I want to be able to type Unicodes that have more than 4 digits, such as  (1D11E) or  (1D122), but macOS only registers the first 4 digits and types the wrong character.
I know on windows this can be achieved by modifying a registry entry or something, and I was wondering if there was a way to do the same on macOS.
I don't want to rely on the character viewer to type those characters.

Yes, activate the Unicode Hex input source and hold down the option key while you type the 8 characters of the UTF-16 version of your 5 digit codepoint.  You may have to look that up on Google.  1d11e is d834dd1e


AppleTV: can I watch movies from third parties? Is there a way to watch Divx movies I usually watch with QuickTime or VLC player on my mac, on Apple TV ?

If I buy Apple TV I would like to watch movies I downloaded from third parties, and not only I bought through iTunes.

Does it work ?

thanks

As seen on Apple website, the supported video formats are:

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

So in order to play your DivX movies you have either to transcode them into a supported format using tools like Handbreak, or to jailbreak it so it will support more video formats.

In my humble opinion, Apple TV is the best device for streaming music, listening/watching podcasts, streaming your photo libraries from your mac to your TV, and if you are an iTunes store fanatic then buying/renting movies from the iTunes store.

If your main interest is watching divx/mkv's, then I would suggest you to look for something else.


How to put an Apple Watch on a wifi network that its iPhone doesn't know? My college has two wifi networks: eduroam, which uses WPA2 Enterprise authentication and is meant for all of our computers/phones/tablets/etc., and open, which has no authentication and is meant for devices that can't handle WPA2 Enterprise, such as smart TVs and Amazon Echoes. WPA2 Enterprise-capable devices literally aren't allowed to use open, they won't be allowed to connect to the Internet from that network.

My question is, how can I teach my Apple Watch that open is a usable network, given that I can't put my iPhone on open?

I am assuming your iPhone can connect to the open network (but can't get to the internet).

Your iPhone needs to be paired with Apple Watch when it connects to the network — it doesn't work over iCloud Keychain.

Once your iPhone is on open your Apple Watch should follow. You can then Forget the network on your iPhone and it will remain on Apple Watch.