Can iPhone X be set to show battery percentage on the status notch? Is there a way?

In Settings, I can't find such an option and it won't show the percentage there too. Can it be done besides using 3rd party app such as System Status Lite?

Currently, as of iOS 11.1, there's no way of showing the battery percentage by default.

One way to see the battery percentage is to pull-down slightly on the right 'wing' (with the battery icon).  Once the screen changes to the Control Center, you'll be able to see the battery percentage.

Another way to find this out is to just ask Siri.  You can say "What's my battery life" and the response will include the percentage of power remaining.

The remaining way is to charge your iPhone.  When you charge it, the battery percentage is briefly displayed on the lock screen.


How to prevent MacBook Pro from powering up by pressing any key? When MacBook Pro 2018 is completely shut down, it will power up by simply opening the lid, pressing any key, or tapping the trackpad, which is very annoying. I managed to make it not power up when the lid is lifted, but I couldn't figure out how to prevent the key presses or trackpad tap from doing so.

Short answer: you can't
MacBook Pro 2018 with Catalina 10.15.7
My experience is similar to Billie Hawkin's excellent answer above: setting AutoBoot to %00 prevents boot on lid open
However, sudo shutdown -h now did not, in my experience, prevent the behavior. When any key is pressed, the laptop still booted up.
What do service shops do? crack open the case and pull the battery!?
And Apple Support was no help :P


Strokes is getting deleted while writing When I’m writting with a stylus while keeping my hand on my iPad 6th gen ios 12.1.4, some of the strokes keeps dissapearing

My attempt to resolve

I found solution online suggesting me to turn off magnification feature . But this dint work the issue still persists.

Also this issue happens with Apple Pencil,and many users have complained about this

I tied reaching Apple care people they were of no help.

So how do I resolve this issue?

I've run into this problem and it was caused by part of my hand hitting on the area where I am trying to write. If a finger or side of my hand accidentally comes in touch with screen the corresponding keystroke will not appear.


Pip cannot install packages after upgrading to Catalina I haven't used pipenv since upgrading, but today I needed to work on an old project and I'm getting problems with pipenv and other python utilities. I did a xcode-select --install and brew update && brew upgrade and that didn't help. I ever tried brew bundle dump --describe --global && brew bundle install --global. Even a simple commmand like pip3 install sorteddict fails with

  Using cached sorteddict-1.2.1.tar.gz (5.2 kB)
    ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
     command: /usr/local/opt/python/bin/python3.7 -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/private/var/folders/_2/qxtp7dds6r5df9q369cxlswm0000gn/T/pip-install-00izrc3z/sorteddict/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/private/var/folders/_2/qxtp7dds6r5df9q369cxlswm0000gn/T/pip-install-00izrc3z/sorteddict/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' egg_info --egg-base /private/var/folders/_2/qxtp7dds6r5df9q369cxlswm0000gn/T/pip-install-00izrc3z/sorteddict/pip-egg-info
         cwd: /private/var/folders/_2/qxtp7dds6r5df9q369cxlswm0000gn/T/pip-install-00izrc3z/sorteddict/
    Complete output (5 lines):
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
      File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.7.7/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/tokenize.py", line 447, in open
        buffer = _builtin_open(filename, 'rb')
    FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/private/var/folders/_2/qxtp7dds6r5df9q369cxlswm0000gn/T/pip-install-00izrc3z/sorteddict/setup.py'
    ----------------------------------------
ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1: python setup.py egg_info Check the logs for full command output.

Looks like it's a problem with SortedDict. I can pip install other packages. I commented sorteddict and sortedcollection out of my Pipfile and I can start up my pipenv. (I was only manually installing sorteddict because pipenv wasn't working.)


Where are my own contact details In the contact list there is no entry for my own contact details. All there is is my mobile number at the top of the list.

But I have a home landline number, desk phone at work and some email addresses, how do I view/use these?

Tap your entry at the top of the list, it's really a full contact and can be edited as such.


How do I automatically reconnect to wifi when the connection is lost? I'm on OS X 10.6. When I'm downloading a torrent, the connection is sometimes lost.

And because of this, the download stops too, and the only solution I found to reconnect is to manually turn off the WiFi and turn it back on.

Is there a program or trick to restore the network connection automatically?

While this doesn't solve your problem immediately, I can say that I had the exact same issue with my iMac and OS X 10.6. My solution? Get a new router. From that point on, the wireless connection was far more stable, and while the issue itself exists (say I make a lot of changes in the router that requires the connection to drop -- my iMac won't always reconnect), the router itself seems to make a big deal in the connectivity. (I went after one of the newer N routers; my previous router was a G router.)

Other things to try (before shelling out $$$):

Make sure your router's firmware is up-to-date (Mine was, unfortunately)
See if you can install a custom firmware (like DD-WRT) that might solve the problem (this is really dependent upon router type, so not all routers are supported)


Use Caps lock key to click without 3rd-party software Clicking became very difficult on my early 2009, 17" MacBook Pro with Mavericks (10.9.1).
I thought about using the Caps Lock key to send a mouse click.

I saw this question with an answer involving a third-party tool, but I wish to find a more low-level solution.

I don't know any way to do it without third party software, but it is possible with KeyRemap4MacBook and PCKeyboardHack.

First use PCKeyboardHack to change caps lock to F19. Then save this file as ~/Library/Application Support/KeyRemap4MacBook/private.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>f19toclick</name>
    <identifier>f19toclick</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F19, PointingButton::LEFT</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Then open the KeyRemap4MacBook application, press the ReloadXML button, and enable the setting.


VirtualBox.app would no longer run Results in About This Mac:

macOS Mojave
Version 10.14.1
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

This hardware shipped the OS version 10.10 Yosemite, if I remember correctly.

In either the Mojave update or the High Sierra update (I think it wasn't as early as by the Sierra update), VirtualBox.app stopped being runnable. I'm pretty sure this was still functioning by the time El Capitan was running.

The VirtualBox.app appears grayed out when finding it on Spotlight. When hitting it, it won't start normally as it did once upon a time, and the message is:

You can't use this version of the application "VirtualBox
.app" with this version of macOS.

You have "VirtualBox.app" 5.0.0.

[?] [OK]

I guess I'll install an up to date build of the same major version 5. It's going to be a bit painful because I should back up the virtual machine before the update, and it's big. But...

Before I do that, can I get any better reporting message of the problem? Or do you know what is happening?

The binaries in /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/ seem to be all 64 bit.

This was fixed in VirtualBox v5.2.14 (bug #17805)

Download the latest version of VirtualBox for Mojave compatability


macOS (Catalina) Disabled Input Monitoring I have an application that I need to add to the input monitoring section of Security/Privacy.  For some reason when I click on it and then unlock I don't even get an empty list, I get nothing and there's no more "+" to add to the list....

Can't speak specifically for that list as I'm still on Mojave, but there are several like that [Microphone & Camera on Mojave]. The app must ask, there is no user 'add' function at all.

That is the empty list, it won't become a true list until it is populated.


Thumbnails not displaying in new Photos app included in 10.10.3 I recently upgraded our family iMac to 10.10.3 from 10.9.  I migrated the iPhoto library to a Photo library almost immediately after upgrade.  I am seeing the following behaviors occur 6 or more hours after the migration completed:

Thumbnails display as blank white rectangles for some photos in the library, including some taken last year.
Double-clicking on those thumbnails to open the photo will open the photo for viewing with some of them, for others, it will display a only the blank white background of the interface.

Do I need to be patient and allow Photo to index all the photos, thereby rebuilding the thumbnails, again?  Can I instruct Photos to regenerate thumbnails again?  I tried Command+Option and opening Photos, but that just repairs the library.  I have read that does not regenerate the thumbnails.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

In this case, the issue turned out to be caused by missing photos.  I discovered this when rebuilding the thumbnails on the unmigrated library using iPhoto.

This does not appear to be caused by any issue with iPhoto or Photos.  It may have been caused by other software or file system corruption.


I no longer have iLife.app in my Applications folder I no longer have iLife.app in my application's folder. The latest version of iLife I have is iLife 11 from Snow Leopard: OS X 10.8.6, which resides on my MacPro 1,1.

I purchased my new iMac (2013 27″) new from B&H, in SEPT 2014, Serial Number: D25N116JF8JC; it came with the Mavericks operating system. However, in late 2014 I upgraded it to Yosemite online. I didn't like it because Yosemite no longer had colored folders and text instead it only had colored dots, so I took my iMac to an Apple Store in King-of-Prussia, Pennsylvania had them return my operating system back to Mavericks.

I must have lost iLife at this time.

I have now upgraded my operating system back to Yosemite. But, I have lost my iLife app altogether. So I cannot upgrade iDVD which is now 7.0.3, and now I get an error message saying I cannot upgrade iDVD to the next level. Also my iMovie HD.app is 6.0.3. Can you help me?

iLife 11 was sold on physical media, find the iLife box or the restore media that contained it, and you should be able to reinstall from that.

Or a trip to the Genius Bar should get that resolved too.


iMac g4 OS X installation issue I was formatting my iMac g4 for installing OS 10.4. When half of the installation was completed, power failure occur which caused interrupt in installation.

Now when i had restarted my iMac PPC it shows flashing folder icon. I had tried googling but didn't find any working solution. I am unable to find hard drive when installing os as when system boots up no hard drive is shown and when i try to boot from DVD it constantly ejects up the DVD and refuse to boot from DVD and sometimes system hangs on boot also. I had tried restarting like around 15 times but nothing is works out. Does my Hard Drive gone as after seeing some videos and post it seems to me that my hard disk is probably dead.

Please help me out.

That flashing icon appears because of 2 cause/reasons

If there is some loose connection between physical drive and motherboard
If file system of OS is damaged

And according to your question i think your problem is of second type. I think you can probably try to zappram(reset RAM) when your system boots press Command+Option+P+R keys, you will then hear the Mac reboot sound(chime) again.

Now press option key wait for some time till system reads DVD contents. Now click on reload or refresh icon if you are lucky than you'll be able to see boot from DVD option


Terminal: List only and specifically, the 5th file in a directory I am wondering if there is a Terminal command which will specifically list the 5th file in a directory. I was initially using the ls | head -5 command to complete this, however it listed all other files as well as the fifth, an action which is undesirable for the purpose i have in mind for the proposed command.

Thanks in advance.

In addition to head, use the tail command:

ls | head -5 | tail -n 1

where the -n 1 argument displays the last line of the input.

For more info on the command, type man tail in Terminal.


homebrew gcc-5 fails to find any standard library I am running os x version el capitan and have installed gcc5 via homebrew. However, compiling simple programs such as:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("Hello world\n");
    return 0;
}

leads to following error:

hello.c:1:19: fatal error: stdio.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.

This is the case for any other standard c library, such as time.h.

I've been reading around concerning where gcc looks to link against library, and according to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17939930/finding-out-what-the-gcc-include-path-is I can get the list in the following manner:

echo | gcc-5 -Wp, -v

Which results in following paths:

Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=gcc-5
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/5.2.0/libexec/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin14.4.0/5.2.0/lto-wrapper
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.4.0

Configured with: ../configure
--build=x86_64-apple-darwin14.4.0 --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/5.2.0
--libdir=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/5.2.0/lib/gcc/5
--enable-languages=c,c++,objc,obj-c++,fortran --program-suffix=-5
--with-gmp=/usr/local/opt/gmp --with-mpfr=/usr/local/opt/mpfr
--with-mpc=/usr/local/opt/libmpc --with-isl=/usr/local/opt/isl
--with-system-zlib --enable-libstdcxx-time=yes
--enable-stage1-checking --enable-checking=release --enable-lto
--with-build-config=bootstrap-debug --disable-werror
--with-pkgversion='Homebrew gcc 5.2.0'
--with-bugurl=https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues
--enable-plugin --disable-nls --enable-multilib

Thread model: posix

gcc version 5.2.0 (Homebrew gcc 5.2.0)

Doing it for the os x gcc compiler, I get the following:

clang -cc1 version 7.0.0 based upon LLVM 3.7.0svn default target
x86_64-apple-darwin15.0.0
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/include"

ignoring nonexistent directory "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk/usr/local/include"

ignoring nonexistent directory
 "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk/Library/Frameworks"

include "..." search starts here:

include <...> search starts here:  /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/clang/7.0.0/include

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/include
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk/usr/include
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks
(framework directory)
End of search list.

I do not know what these outputs mean, nor where my standard libraries are located. Could anybody help me configure gcc5 correctly?

Something is wrong with installation. Try updating Homebrew and reinstalling gcc-5. On El Capitan

Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.4.0

should be

Target: x86_64-apple-darwin15.0.0

Works fine for me.


Why one can Control+Option+U to edit a cell on Numbers? It has been noted there are two ways to edit a cell on Numbers, Option+Enter seems to do the job.
But still there is Ctrl+Option+U, why?

They behave differently. If the cell has a formula inside, ⌃ Ctrl  + ⌥ Option  + U  erases the formula and makes the user type over it while ⌥ Option  + ↵ Return  allows the user to edit the formula as well.


Does "Not Connected" state of Bluetooth/Wi-Fi drain my iPhone battery? As we all know in iOS 11 there are three states for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi buttons in Control Centre: Off, Not Connected, and On.

I'd like to know whether Not Connected state drains my iPhone battery or not?
And how to turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi completely via Control Centre?

Short answer: Yes it does!

It would be wrong to say that Not Connected status does not drain the battery at all. However, the drain rate is significantly less as the device is not connected to any access point (for Wi-Fi) and Bluetooth radio doesn't consume much battery anyways.
In iOS 11, it is not possible to completely turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth from the Control Centre. It could only be done from within the Settings app.

Quoting from the Apple Support document, Use Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in Control Center with iOS 11

  About Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

  In iOS 11 and later, when you toggle the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth buttons in Control Center, your device will immediately disconnect from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth accessories. Both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will continue to be available, so you can use these important features:

  AirDrop
  AirPlay
  Apple Pencil
  Apple Watch
  Continuity features, like Handoff and Instant Hotspot
  Instant Hotspot
  Location Services

Thus, it is apparent that battery draining will still happen. However, the device disconnects from Wi-Fi access point and Bluetooth accessory.


iMac doesn't wake from sleep via USB devices I have an iMac here which does not wake from sleep when I press keyboard buttons or click the mouse button. Also while in sleep the iMac is not charging my iPhone via USB. So it seems that the USB ports are completely disabled.

Strange thing is, that this "deep" sleep mode is active after a few hours "going to sleep". Within this time waking via USB works.

I booted this system (on SSD) a while ago on a MacBook Pro – it took a while to initialize and boot – maybe there are some power management tools get activated from a MacBook system?

Any idea of internal settings that turn completely off the USB ports after a time?

Can someone please check these settings on his iMac?

pmset -g

# typing "pmset -g" in Terminal gives me this result:

System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standby                1
Sleep On Power Button  1
womp                   0
halfdim                1
hibernatefile          /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap               0
autorestart            0
networkoversleep       0
disksleep              0
sleep                  10 (sleep prevented by useractivityd)
autopoweroffdelay      28800 <- maybe this setting?
hibernatemode          0
autopoweroff           1
ttyskeepawake          1
displaysleep           10
standbydelay           10800 <- maybe this setting?

Maybe autopoweroffdelay or standbydelay parameter is responsible for this "deep" sleep?

I'm using Mac Mini with Apple Thunderbolt display. I'm currently in OS X El Capitan 10.11.6. My parameters are the following:

Active Profiles:
AC Power               -1*

Currently in use:
standby                 0
Sleep On Power Button   1
womp                    0
autorestart             0
hibernatefile           /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap                0
networkoversleep        0
disksleep               0
sleep                   0 (sleep prevented by iTunes, coreaudiod)
autopoweroffdelay       14400
hibernatemode           0
autopoweroff            1
ttyskeepawake           1
displaysleep            0
standbydelay            4200

I recommend you to set up all you Energy Saver parameters like this:

And you can put your display to sleep via Mission Control–Hot Corners:


Windows 10 Under Bootcamp + TRIM I’m trying to understand how I can avoid wear on my expensive 2TB SSD   I use Windows 10 under bootcamp for games on my 2019 MBP 16inch.

Can I enable trim as supported by macOS, on Windows?

Will macOS also trim the windows partition?

If no to both, what’s the impact?

Do I need to destroy the windows partition semi regularly to avoid the disk being over worn?

macOS will not trim Windows partition and similarly Windows will not trim the macOS partition.

Both however will automatically trim their own partitions (and any other mounted file systems they understand).

You don't need to destroy either partition "semi-regularly" - just use them both as normal.

As a bit of background, Windows under Boot Camp will enable trim automatically if it identifies your disk as a SSD.  You can check this by the running the command fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify.

If it shows NTFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0 then trim is enabled. See How to Check if TRIM Is Enabled for Your SSD (and Enable It if It Isn’t)

The actual trim is run automatically on a schedule (weekly by default) or you can search for Defragment and Optimize Drives from the Start Menu and click on the "Optimize" button to run it immediately.

This is from my Boot Camp partition:


Why does touch -t replace the modification time with the year when I ls? When I use touch with the -t option to change the modification time of a file, for example:

> touch -t 201702160701 ABC.script

Then the file that appeared as such before:

-rwxrwxrwx  1 timruss  staff    0 Oct 21 23:12 ABC.script

Will now appear as:

-rwxrwxrwx  1 timruss  staff    0 Feb 16  2017 ABC.script

Why is that?

What you are seeing is the normal and expected behavior.

From the manual page for ls:

  If the modification time of the file is more than 6 months in the past or future, then the year of the last modification is displayed in place of the hour and minute fields.

To see output including month, day, hour, minute, second, and year on files that fall into the category above, use the -T option.

  -T When used with the -l (lowercase letter “ell”) option, display complete time information for the file, including month, day, hour, minute, second, and year.

Example:

ls -lT ABC.script
-rwxrwxrwx  1 timruss  staff    0 Feb 16 07:01:00 2017 ABC.script


All calls from Viber and Skype are appearing as normal calls after updating to iOS 10. How do I disable this? After updating my iPhone 6 to iOS 10, all calls coming from Viber and Skype are appearing in the calls list as normal phone calls. Also, when I'm on a Viber call and a real phone call comes, I don't get notified. Before iOS 10 it used to mute Viber and give me a notification than someone is calling.  How do I return back to these settings?

I don't think it is possible to revert back to old settings now. I have opened a ticket with apple to get the users freedom to either use or not use. The setting like Setting -> Phone -> Service provider makes perfect sense. Lets see if apple provides this capabilities or not.


15 inch MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave woke up with blue screen from sleep So recently I came home after a few hours to my MacBook Pro (which was plugged in the whole day) and saw this:

What exactly would cause this?

More information on my system:

Hardware: 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB, Radeon Pro 555X
Software: I have Xcode installed, and the apps running in the background were Settings, Spotify, Atom (the text editor, with a fair number of plugins), and Chrome.

Update: Under Wilfred's suggestion, I ran a diagnostic. Nothing was picked up; it appears there are no issues according to it.

I suggest booting into diagnostic mode (search here or Google for instructions based on your particular Mac). Either it’s a fluke or your GPU is soon to die.


Undo an autocorrected word on the iPhone keyboard The iPhone's keyboard seems extremely diligent with its autocorrection.

Problem is, I very frequently type words that aren't in the dictionary (proper names, foreign words, etc...).

In some Android keyboards, there is a function to undo a word that was autocorrected to the original spelling—is such a functionality available in iPhone's default keyboard?

There's a pretty simple way to undo any auto-correct on the iPhone's keyboard: if you type a word that autocorrects, just hit the delete key, and a popup of suggestions for that word will pop up. The first suggestion is the word you had before it was autocorrected.

So say you type thid, which autocorrects to this, but you really meant to type thid.
Just type thid, then hit space, then backspace, then a popup with the word thid will appear. Tap it to undo the autocorrection.

Here's a video.


Can the Macbook's webcam be ON without LED indication? Was reading some topics online about hackers accessing user's webcams (on Windows) to spy on them etc, and I am now interested to know if I'm at any risk.

To make it simple, these are my questions :

Can Safari allow websites to activate the webcam without my permission ?
Can the webcam be activated without the LED being lit ?
Are there any known trojans that affect macs and leave them vulnerable for such hacks ?

Thanks

This research paper reported by the Washington Post and Ars Technica says yes.

Though it was only tested on "old" Macs (Late PPC, early Intel)


iPhone 6 battery drain fast My mom's iPhone battery is suddenly draining very fast (its losing 1% in a 10 second time period when the screen is on), so I checked the battery health in the Settings app, and it says it has 51% maximum capacity. We are going to replace he battery regardless! But even if the battery is very bad i don’t think it’s supposed to drain this fast. My question: what can I do right now to stop it from draining so quick while I look for replacement options?

Once they start to go, they go fast.
Mine went from 'perfectly fine all day' to 'need to carry a charger with you' in about a month.

Switch it into Low Power mode for now, ring Apple & arrange to take it to an Apple Store or for them to collect it.
Battery change takes 2 hours if you take it in or 3 days by post. [They say it can take longer but that's direct experience.]

Do it soon because the low price battery replacement offer ends in September, so I've heard.

You must release it from Find my iPhone before they will accept it.
Safest is to fully back it up & erase it before handing it over.
If you have a spare iPhone, restore it from that backup & drop the SIM into it for the duration.


Pulling files off of Time Machine Back Up After Full Reinstall I have a MacBookPro, purchased October 2012.  I use Time Machine to back up files.  I was having slow computing issues, so the Genius Bar folks recommended a wipe out and reinstall from scratch, but we decided not to back up the entire disk off of Time Machine for fear that it would only put back onto my computer that which made it run slowly.  I did full reinstall, reuploaded all software, a bunch of files I kept on an additional external drive, and now need to go retrieve a few files (not a full restore) from the Time Machine back up.  I see the purple tag mark for the precise date before I took the computer in, but the machine will not let me click on it to "reveal" that date's back up.
Any ideas how I can get back to those files?
Thanks

I would try Back-In-Time.

Yes it cost $30 but there is a demo and the couple of times I have needed to dig stubborn files out of a Time Machine backup it worked.


How can I use an Applescript from within a program? This question Is there a way to add all of the recipients of an email to a group/folder in contacts from Mail? seems to have an answer that would be useful for me, but I don't actually know how to use the script from within Mail.

Alternatively, it seems that Automator could be used too, but I'm also very unfamiliar with Automator. I'm looking to extend the tools and link them to solve general problems, with the maintenance of group membership being my current challenge.

How can I run an AppleScript from within a program?

To use this (or any) script in a program like Apple Mail, you could create a service in Automator.

Launch the Automator program.

When it says Choose a type for your document, select Service and click Choose

In the top dialog, select Service receives no input in Mail.app (or, the name of your program, or any application if that's what you want).

You will insert one action: From the Utilities group, double-click Run AppleScript.

Select the text that says

  (* Your script goes here *)

and paste in the script you want to run. In your case, the script you want to paste is

  tell application "Mail"
    set theSelection to selection
    set theMessage to item 1 of theSelection
    set theSubject to subject of theMessage
    tell application "Address Book"
        set theGroup to make new group with properties {name:theSubject}
    end tell
    set theRecipients to to recipients of item 1 of theMessage
    repeat with a from 1 to count theRecipients
        set theRecipient to item a of theRecipients
        tell application "Address Book"
            set theName to name of theRecipient
            tell application "Mail" to set theAddress to address of theRecipient
            set thePerson to make new person with properties {first name:name of theRecipient}
            make new email at end of emails of thePerson with properties {value:theAddress}
            add thePerson to theGroup
        end tell
    end repeat
    set theRecipients to cc recipients of item 1 of theMessage
    repeat with a from 1 to count theRecipients
        set theRecipient to item a of theRecipients
        tell application "Address Book"
            set theName to name of theRecipient
            tell application "Mail" to set theAddress to address of theRecipient
            set thePerson to make new person with properties {first name:name of theRecipient}
            make new email at end of emails of thePerson with properties {value:theAddress}
            add thePerson to theGroup
        end tell
    end repeat
    tell application "Address Book" to save
  end tell

Once you have done that, go to the File menu and click Save.

Give the service a name you will remember, like "Add Recipients to Group".

Then when you are in Mail, you can select a message or messages and go to the Mail menu in the menu bar, then the Services menu in the Mail menu, and select the service Add Recipients to Group.


Can I select music from my iPhone/iPad and it plays on my Samsung Smart TV The title says it all, but to give a little more detail.

What I want to be able to do is to sit on my sofa, and select music via my iPhone or iPad and then that music is played on my TV (which is connected to my Hi-Fi).

Is this possible? I really want to use the native music selection from the phone.

I don't really want to buy AppleTV, as I already have enough computers in the house in theory to make this kind of system possible.

Does anyone know how I can make this work?

Yes, you can. I use ArkMC to stream all my music to Samsung Smart TV. I even can browse artists, playlists, albums from Samsung TV.  For me,  it's more convenient.


Mac version of man doesn't have the -u option. How could I rebuild man's database of commands? In Linux, the following rebuilds, or updates, man's database of commands:

> man -u

But that option does not exist in Mac OS X's BSD version. How could I update man's database of commands on the Mac?

The man command actually doesn't have a database of commands except when mimicking apropos with the -k command. The -u option in Gnu man just checks the cache used by man to speed up some lookups.

The only database is the whatis database. It is used by  the whatis and apropos commands. It can be created or recreated by the makewhatis command - sudo /usr/libexec/makewhatis.


Does iMessage work on both Wi-Fi and 3G? Will iMessage work on 3G if the sender or receiver isn't connected to a wi-fi network?

According to Apple, yes, iMessage works over either WiFi or 3G.


How is iCloud Photo Library service in China? A friend of mine is traveling to China and he was asking if iCloud Photo Library is reliable enough in China so he can take pictures past the 16GB limit on his iPhone? I know Google is delayed or blocked in China, so Google Photos is out. What about iCloud?

iCloud and Apple services are not blocked in China, the iPhone will be able to access iCloud Photo Library and www.icloud.com

Keep in mind that maybe the user will be prompted to enter additional information in order to login if Two-step Verification is enabled. This can include verification code sent to the device or SMS messages to the number associated with the Apple ID.

As alternative to iCloud Photo Library, OneDrive from Microsoft can be used for the same purpose that offers 15GB of space (I don't know if the Upload Camera bonus for additional 15GB is still active). The service has a dedicated app for iPhone (link).

UPDATE: On November 2015 Microsoft announced that will reduce the free space of OneDrive to 5GB and the Upload Camera bonus will also be removed.

SECOND UPDATE: On 11 December 2015 Microsoft announced that the users can keep their 15GB storage plus the 15GB Camera bonus if they confirm using this page: https://preview.onedrive.com/bonus/

Dropbox is blocked in China and can't be used to backup your mobile phone photos.


"Re"-download 10.8 After Purchase of a New Mac I recently purchased a new Macbook Air which obviously came with Mountain Lion. I am wondering if there is a way to download the installer for free onto another computer I have to create a re-install disk from, without having to pay the $20 to download from the Mac App Store.

You can download Apple's official OSX Recovery Disk assistant to create a flash drive with the capability to re-install OSX on an eligible Apple computer. A flash drive (it must be larger then 1GB) also enables you to easily re-install OSX on products such as the MacBook Air which don't have optical drives.

There is also a support document about the Recovery Disk Assistant.


Using FaceTime and Skype (both open at the same time) I would like to use both Skype and FaceTime at the same time (not while calling just having them both open).

When I start FaceTime it switches on the camera and keeps it on. If I hide the application the camera seems off (green LED is not on).

But if I use Skype the camera is not available since (even if the LED is off) the camera is still in use by FaceTime.

Is it possible to have FaceTime on waiting for calls without blocking or using the camera? In theory the camera is only needed during calls.

There is an app for that :)

ManyCam will allow you to use the iSight camera over multiple applications. I haven't had the chance to test it myself, but according to the app description, it should work just fine.

Some customers complain about a slow Mac, some don't. So please give feedback about this app.

EDIT:
CamTwist should do the same.


Deleting iCloud account with no password entered on the iCloud page The password for my iCloud account has not been entered on the iCloud page under settings and I don't know what it is and therefore because it's not already entered on the iCloud page I am not able to follow the instructions to turn off

Find my iPhone without the password. I need to turn off Find my iPhone in order to delete my iCloud account.

iPhone 5 and iOS is 8.0.2.

Any suggestions what I should do?

You could reset your apple id password at appleid.apple.com. After you did this you should be able to turn off "find my iPhone" in icloud's settings


How to turn on my iPad Air 2 Last night I left my iPad close to my bed, placed above my Windows phone 8. When I woke up in the morning I was first surprised that the alarm didn't work, but when I checked, the iPad was off and very hot the side of the battery, the Microsoft phone was also very hot on its screen but the phone was on and is working properly but my iPad took some minutes to cool down and up to now it doesn't switch on.

What is the step to power on or reset the power button on an iPad when one press doesn't work?

Did you try connecting it to the charger? The battery may have run out of charge. Leave it plugged in to the charger for half an hour and then try turning it on again.

It's recommended to follow the steps outlined in this Apple support document, If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch won‘t turn on or is frozen.

The last resort would be to get in touch with Apple Support or get it inspected by an authorised Apple technician.


How to recover files from a Macbook that won't boot which has an SSD My Macbook pro 2011 won't boot completely anymore (can't open it). In the recovery mode, I can see my disk (SSD) but when I want to download the last IOS on my mac, it seems my computer can't find my SSD.
Can anyone help me found out if my computer is retrievable and if not, is there a way I can recover my files from my SSD?
Thank you very much,
Chloe

There are two possibilities:
1. The SATA cable connecting your SSD to the Mac is intermittently failing. This is a common problem in MBPs of that vintage.
The good news is that this means the data itself on the drive is ok, and the internal cable just needs replacing. Alternatively, you could get an external USB enclosure (a box with a USB cable), and put the SSD in there. You may want to get a repair shop to do this.
2. The drive itself has failed in some way.
If this is case, then it is very unlikely that your data can be recovered.
Backups of data are essential to prevent data loss from drive failure. This is why macOS has Time Machine.


Applescript : Lock & UnLock MacOS based on device stats I'm trying to do a script to lock my computer when a USB key is not connected and the other way , unlock my computer when the USB is connected.

I'm not quite sure how to do the second part, should I just remove Password requirement for unlocking when the USB is connected?

property Disconnected : true
property MyShellScript : missing value

on YubiKeyConnected()

    try
        set MyShellScript to do shell script "ioreg -c IOUSBDevice | grep Yubikey"
    on error
        set MyShellScript to "Not Connected"
        set Disconnected to true
    end try

    if MyShellScript contains "Yubikey NEO OTP+U2F+CCID@10" then

        set Disconnected to false
    end if
end YubiKeyConnected

on idle
    set currentState to YubiKeyConnected()
    if MyShellScript contains "Yubikey NEO OTP+U2F+CCID@ 10" then

    else if Disconnected is true then
        activate application "ScreenSaverEngine"
    end if
    return 1
end idle

Update : I found this but keep having the error "error "security: SecKeychainSearchCopyNext: The specified item could not be found in the keychain." number 44"

tell application "System Events"
    if ((get name of every process) contains "ScreenSaverEngine") then
        set pw to (do shell script "security find-generic-password -l \"[MyLocalPassword]\" -w")
        tell application "ScreenSaverEngine" to quit
        delay 0.5
        keystroke pw
        keystroke return
        -- set require password to wake of security preferences to false
    end if
end tell

delay 5

Can use this but not really secure :

tell application "System Events"
    if ((get name of every process) contains "ScreenSaverEngine") then
        set pw to "Password Here"
        tell application "ScreenSaverEngine" to quit
        delay 0.5
        keystroke pw
        keystroke return
        -- set require password to wake of security preferences to false
    end if
end tell


Gray exclamation mark in Photos (Sierra) after importing raw pictures from my camera Yesterday I had my first photo session with my new Fujifilm X-T2. Today, I inserted the SD card on my mac, opened Photos (Sierra) and saw all the pictures I took (raw). I proceeded with the import, and all seemed ok.

But even If I can see the thumbnails for all the pictures imported, when I open some of the photos I just get an exclamation mark.

I've tried importing/deleting multiple times, I've tried rotating,unrotating. Nothing. Apparently Photos doesn't like some of the pictures I took :(

Any suggestion?

The problem is your camera is too new! Apple Photos does not yet support RAW files from the  Fujifilm X-T2. Apple should release an update that will add this support, but I could not tell you when that might happen. For the full list of supported camera RAW formats, see this site.


How do I easily convert an audiobook (.m4b) to a standard audio file? I have several audio dramas that are in the audiobook (.m4b) format in iTunes. My problem is that when I sync my 5th gen iPod to iTunes, they don't show up in Music>Playlists, they show up under Music>Audiobooks. This is really driving me crazy, because I want the audiobooks in Music>Playlists, but the only workaround is to convert them to a different format. How do I easily convert the audiobooks to a standard audio file format that will show up in Music>Playlists on my iPod?

I dug around for quite a long time to find this answer and finally found out that under the info box, there is a drop-down menu in the Info box under Info>Options:

And the drop-down menu allows you to choose where it will show up:

All that converting was done for nothing...


How to view local user password in Terminal? I have the administrators password and account but I am interested in finding the password of a local user. I am not trying to reset the password but find out the exact password that was already set. I also encounter problems with finding the password in the terminal because if I ever do find a password,It is usually encrypted and does not work when copy-pasted onto the password box.

The passwords are stored in a salted hash, so there is no way to just read them.
If you want to crack the password, here is a guide from a few years ago, it still works.

If you need access to the files in the User profile and you have admin access, you can just change the permissions in finder or using chmod in the terminal. Here is a guide on how to achieve that.


Advice on upgrading to iOS 6 from iOS 5 only I'm in need of updating the iOS on my device from 5 to 6 only (for test purposes). I already have iOS 7 on another device.

Does anyone know how this can be done?

The only option I can currently see is going to iOS 7 and then back down to 6. The problem I have is I don't want to find out it's not possible once iOS 7 is running.

Nope, once you update to iOS 7, you can't go back to iOS 6, since Apple stop signing the old software when the new software is released.

You can only install versions of iOS that are currently being signed by Apple for that device.

If your device can't update to iOS 7, then it is still possible to update to iOS 6 since the latest viable version of iOS continues to be signed for those devices.


Does Network Link Conditioner Work Well on El Capitan I had Network Link Conditioner as part of Xcode 6.1 package & was working fine. I just upgraded my to OS X El Capitan. Should I replace my NLC to the one found in Xcode 7.3 or my existing NLC of Xcode 6.1 should still be performing fine?

Yes, It will perform as expected.

Bear in mind that the Network Link Conditioner has noting to do with Xcode itself, but with the OS.

When downloading theses Hardware tools Apple points out that these graphics tools support running on [OS] which might lead you to think that and update is necessary, but the protocols and / or the way the NLC interacts with the System's connectivity, doesn't seem to have changed, as it does, indeed, work.


dd to ISO from disc drive makes unmountable / unburnable image? I'm trying to dd from a disc in my DVD drive on my MacBook to an ISO, but the image always ends up as unmountable and unburnable. The disc is unmounted when I start the process.

I've used dd many times before - in OSX and in various Linux distros - without any problems. Am I doing something wrong?

The syntax I'm using is dd if=/dev/disk1 of=~/Desktop/image.iso

With CDs and DVDs on Mac OS X, the /dev/diskN entry seems to be the raw disc contents (i.e. it includes things like media error correction data).  For imaging, you want /dev/diskNs0 (or sometimes /dev/diskNs1 etc, especially on a multisession disc).  If the disc has a partition table, the mountable volumes will actually be e.g. /dev/diskNs1s2.

BTW, you can also create iso-style images from the GUI with Disk Utility: select the session from Disk Utility's sidebar (note: the session will be the item directly under the disc drive in the sidebar; if the disc has a partition table, there volume will be listed separately under that, and it's not what you want), then go to the menu and select File > New > Image from .  Then, select CD/DVD Master for the image format.  It'l name the image with a .cdr extension, but the format is the same as a typical .iso image.


Installing (any) App asks for my password again and security question's answers Possible Duplicate:
  Is this “Security Info Required” prompt legitimate?

I am trying to install Wunderlist (pick any other App), the App Store asks for my password which is fine. But once I key in my password, I get this prompt.

Security Info Required

To help ensure the security of your Apple ID, you must choose and answer security questions. (Cancel / Continue).

If I click on Continue, I am asked to enter my Apple ID password?

Is there a virus or a malware on my iPhone 4S?

This was a recent change to increase security for the many iTunes/App Store accounts. This is not malware or anything you have to be concerned with, just Apple increasing security.


Chrome Helper process...without Chrome running Recently I've noticed instances of Google Chrome Helper remaining running in my activity monitor long after I've shut Chrome down completely. Are these just hung processes because Chrome Helper is buggy like that, or should I be worried? They don't show as non-responsive, just... running all by themselves without Chrome itself.

It is safe to stop any process named "Google Chrome Helper" as it is only associated with Google Chrome. Since Google Chrome is not open, it is safe to stop them. This answer may help.


Stored password in Safari Versus Firefox Is there a way to retrieve password stored in Safari as it is possible to do it in Firefox ?

Safari stores its passwords in the OSX Keychain.  Open /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app, select the "Login" keychain (this should be default) and select "Passwords" under "Category".  Doubleclick an entry and check "Show password"; you'll be asked for your login keychain password (this is usually the same as your account password).

(For a while I was using an add-on for Firefox that used the Keychain, but it was highly broken.)


Grey Volume bar - coreaudiod - Job failed to exec(3) for weird reason: 2 I've just installed the Mavericks 10.9.1 update and my audio is not working. The volume bar is obscurely grey, and the mac is becoming slightly slow.

I checked the console to see anything related to this issue and I found this message every ten seconds.

Dec 22 08:07:33 hko com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.audio.coreaudiod[989]): Job failed to exec(3) for weird reason: 2
Dec 22 08:07:33 hko com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.audio.coreaudiod): Job should be able to exec(3) now.
Dec 22 08:07:33 hko com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.audio.coreaudiod): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

I've searched on google for this issue and no luck.

I'm not sure if this has got to do with my mac's permissions but I'm not sure what to do next.

"Weird reason 2" is ENOENT: No such file or directory. The file the job is referring to (/usr/bin/sandbox-exec on my installation) no longer exists.


Safari File Dialog Fails to Show Safari's Open / Choose File Dialog Window fails to show for any upload or select file option. This appears to be universal and the dialog window fails to show regardless of which web app, or site is being used.
A new clean account and Safe Boot exhibit the same behaviour.

Safari: Version 14.0.2 (14610.3.7.1.10)
macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (18G7016)

This is now fixed in the latest Safari update, 14.0.3.
More information here https://macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/problems-with-safari-14-0-2.2926/
And here: https://mrmacintosh.com/security-updates-2020-001-for-catalina-2020-007-mojave-safari-14-0-2/


External hard drive not indexed by Spolight on Mac OS X Mountain Lion I recently bought a new hard drive and it is not indexed by Finder. I tried to get it re-indexed by following this tutorial: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330114-263.html and I even tried something with commands in the terminal, no luck to get it indexed.

My previous external hard drives (Western Digital SE Elements) that crashed were indexed, but I was using Leopard and Snow Leopard back then.

I am using a Macbook pro 13" mid-2009 edition and my external drive is a 500Gb Toshiba Stor.E Canvio.

Does it have to do that I uninstalled software I used back then on Leopard to be able to read NTFS drives?

From the Terminal application type the following:

mdutil -s /Volumes/<your_disk_name>/

If indexing is disabled you will get something like that:

/Volumes/<your_disk_name>:
Indexing disabled.

You can turn it on by typing (it will request your password):

sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/<your_disk_name>/

Now erase all the existing entries in the index for that drive (if any):

mdutil -E /Volumes/<your_disk_name>/

Check that indexing has been enabled:

mdutil -s /Volumes/<your_disk_name>/

If indexing is enabled you will get something like that:

/Volumes/<your_disk_name>:
Indexing enabled.

Now just reboot your system or wait some minutes until Finder begins the indexing.


How can I mount partition disk0s4 that became inaccessible after a clean installation of Mountain Lion? The hard drive on my MacBook Pro has two partitions. One with the OS and the other with data.

Yesterday, from a USB boot drive, I performed a clean installation of Mountain Lion to the OS drive. I created the USB boot installer from InstallESD.dmg that I received from purchasing the OS from the Mac App Store.

Now I can't see or mount my data partition.  I'm wondering if there's a problem with the MBR. In Disk Utility it shows up as "disk0s4", but it's greyed out.

Any ideas on how I can mount the data partition so I can get my data off it?

For diskutil list disk0 the result is:

/dev/disk0
   #:                                 TYPE NAME         SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                GUID_partition_scheme             *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                                  EFI              209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                            Apple_HFS MacBook OS    99.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                           Apple_Boot Recovery HD  650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4: 46860E2C-2310-4F96-99F6-616D0B4CB55D              399.6 GB   disk0s4

Here's the result of diskutil info /dev/disk0s4

Device Identifier:        disk0s4
Device Node:              /dev/disk0s4
Part of Whole:            disk0
Device / Media Name:      MacBook Data

Volume Name:              Not applicable (no file system)

Mounted:                  Not applicable (no file system)

File System:              None

Partition Type:           46860E2C-2310-4F96-99F6-616D0B4CB55D
OS Can Be Installed:      No
Media Type:               Generic
Protocol:                 SATA
SMART Status:             Verified

Total Size:               399.6 GB (399629668352 Bytes) (exactly 780526696 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space:        Not applicable (no file system)
Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

Read-Only Media:          No
Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (no file system)
Ejectable:                No

Whole:                    No
Internal:                 Yes
Solid State:              No

Mounting the volume

Disk Utility verification and possible repair of the partition map

If you have not already done so, use Disk Utility 13 (426) in OS X 10.8 to select then verify:

not the greyed-out partition
instead, the physical disk that contains the partition.

If verification reveals a problem with the partition map, then consider allowing Disk Utility to attempt a repair.

Proceeding without Disk Utility

Credit to Caesium's answer for finding the asr suggestion.

Here with a disposable JHFS+ volume, an example of adjustments working as expected. Note the file system checks:

macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ diskutil unmount /dev/disk12s1
Volume sandpit on disk12s1 unmounted
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk12s1 --settype "Apple_UFS"
Fsck /dev/disk12s1 ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Adjust completed successfully
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ diskutil list disk12
/dev/disk12
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.9 MB   disk12
   1:                  Apple_UFS sandpit                 256.9 MB   disk12s1
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ diskutil mount readOnly /dev/disk12s1
Volume on disk12s1 failed to mount
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk12s1 --settype "Apple_HFS"
Fsck /dev/disk12s1 ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Adjust completed successfully
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ diskutil mount readOnly /dev/disk12s1
Volume sandpit on /dev/disk12s1 mounted
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$

If the type of your own /dev/disk0s4 can not be safely adjusted or (re)set to Apple_HFS then:

the operating system may no longer work with the HFS Plus file system (or remnants thereof) that occupies, or occupied, the affected area of the physical disk; and
you might doubt the integrity of the partition (start and end blocks, and so on).

Relevant lines from /private/var/log/install.log should reveal what, if anything, happened to disk0s4 before, during or after installation of the OS to disk0s2. This logged information may become critical to regaining easy access to the data.

Getting the data without mounting the volume

Good luck with your use of Data Rescue 3 – I have the app, but have never attempted to recover from any area of a disk where the partition type has been affected in this way.

Observations

Device/media name

This is sometimes, not always, a match for the volume name. Here for example:

macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ diskutil info disk0s2 | grep Name:
   Device / Media Name:      swap
   Volume Name:              swap
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ diskutil info disk0s4 | grep Name:
   Device / Media Name:      Untitled
   Volume Name:              spare

For Todd K., presence of the device/media name –

  MacBook Data

– raises hope that start and end blocks etc. are good, that only the type of the partition is wrong.

No Recovery System 10.8 for OS X 10.8

Recovery HD implies Recovery OS 10.7.x.

In any case such as this, an installation that is incomplete (that is without the expected upgrade to the Apple_Boot slice) signals that a nonstandard method of installation – with only part of Apple's installer app – may have been used.

Side note

GUID Partition Table, as it's described in Disk Utility, is the norm for this type of modern installation of OS X – not Master Boot Record.


How to see page breaks in Numbers version 3.x In my old version of Numbers, I could see the page break (both at the bottom of the page, and on the side) so I would know when I needed to add a row or column. I can't seem to be able to see the page break anymore: I need to go to print preview in order to get a sense of where rows and columns are on the page.
Is there a way to see the page break in the new version?

Unfortunately, Apple's Numbers has never had page breaks.  Here is a solution created from Yellowbox on the Apple's Community forum: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7101.

Here is also a answer from Ian, also on Apple's forums--

"Numbers has never had Page Breaks.

If you are using Numbers '09 it has Show Print View which is useful for arranging (and resizing) objects on pages before you print to paper.

If you are using Numbers 3, there is only Menu > Print > Print Preview (Print Setup) which shows the pages, but is not editable."


How to check if internal HDD spindle is off after unmount I use SSD instead of optical drive in my Macbook MC516LL, so I have bunch of reasons why I wants to keep HDD's spindle off:

Preserve HDD from shock
Reduce energy consuming
Reduce overall system temperature

I use diskutil umount HD250 and it disappears from OSx.
So how can I  check if spindle turned off?

Thanks!

diskutil umount HD250 - doesn't turn off spindle

diskutil eject HD250 - turn off spindle

confirmd by sound and mA usage


Where do I go for help when purchasing an iOS developer program and the payment is refused? I am trying to buy paid membership for one year to the iOS developer program, but I could not complete the activation step.

I have a gold visa credit card and I tried to use it to buy the program.

Well, I put my credit card number in the purchase form. But there is only a credit card number field. There is not any security code field in the form.

My credit card number has 16 digit and the security code has 3 digit.

I have received an email from Apple asking me to send a fax because my credit card number is not complete.

Well, Is it necessary to inform the security code? How can I inform my credit card information in the purchase form?

This is a little confusing since you start with Apple's developer page to create a free developer account, which then places the appropriate item in the normal Apple online store. I'm also a bit confused, since you don't get to the activation step until you've paid for your program - so no money changes hands during the activation (or even renewal) on the developer site.

For billing and/or payment support, you should call the phone number for the Apple Store you are using (in the US, it's 1-800-MY-APPLE) to work out whatever payment issues you have. I wouldn'tbother calling Developer Support at this point, since you need to buy the item just as if you were buying an iPod or a Mac from the online store where you live. If you have a web order number, I still would call the main store and have them check the status of the order and refer you to developer only once they've made sure the payment is OK. They are best suited to assist you with the purchase / credit card / security code issues and the developer side only needs to see that you have paid and doesn't care if you paid with Credit Card, a loan, an Apple Store Gift Card or any other means of payment that Apple accepts.

Once you "buy" the program from the normal store, a second redemption code is emailed to you whereby you then have to log back in to developer.apple.com to complete the enrollment process by agreeing again to any documentation requirements they may have once they have reviewed the documents you submitted.

If you applied as a business, there will be a several day delay while you collect the documents you need and submit them. Normally they get sorted within a working day or two. Again, if you need to get a hold of the development team, the main Apple sales contact can know what phone number you should call based on which storefront you are using to purchase your paid developer program.


OSX memory inconsistency (shared + private) In the picture below the shouldn't the (shared memory + private memory) equal the real memory? Am I reading this wrong? What else constitutes the real memory size? I assumed that shared memory was real memory and private memory was real memory.

Thanks in advance :-)

The accepted answer to this question (and the associated links) defines the terms and also offers some explanation which may help.


Is there a more-accurate indicator of an app download's progress than what appears in Launchpad? While downloading an application from the Mac App Store, you are presented with a progress indicator in Launchpad, like so:

For a large install (like Xcode, as shown) this doesn't provide a terribly useful picture of the download's performance (how fast it's going / how much longer it's likely to take).

Is there any way (perhaps via a command-line tool) to get a more-accurate look at the progress of an App Store download? Something more along the lines of, say, 585,789 Kb / 1,768,231 Kb Downloaded?

When you are in the App store, click on the "Purchases" button on the top bar. This will give you the total size of the app as well as how much has been downloaded. I think it even gives you an estimated time frame until completion.


I have an mp3 audiobook on my Mac, and want to listen to it on my iPhone I have an mp3 audiobook on my Mac, and I wanted to listen to it on my iPhone .

I plugged my iPhone in, and synced "Audiobooks" and selected the audiobook in the list, via iTunes on my Mac.

So, I presume it's now on my iPhone.
How do I listen to it?

There seem to be solutions, but either:

they aren't vanilla (I don't want to download anything non-native), or
they are for older OS versions (I'm on iOS 9 and El Capitan)

When you set the series of .mp3 files as audiobooks (as I had), it will show up in iBooks.

I didn't expect to find it there!


How to make Macintosh HD size the same as SSD So today, I tried dual-booting my late 2013 rMBP on El Capitan with Windows 10. I got to the step within Bootcamp where it was partitioning my SSD, and I went ahead and played a game of Super Smash. After the round was over, I found that my Macbook had restarted because of an issue. I don't know what the issue was, and I don't know why the computer restarted, but I think it messed with my drive sizes. When I open Disk Utility, I see that the computer recognizes that I have a 250 GB SSD, but the Macintosh HD area seems to be "partitioned" for 204 GB. I have included pictures for clarification.

This is what the mac says about my SSD.

Here is what the Macintosh HD looks like.
If I'm not mistaken, shouldn't the Macintosh HD size be the same as my SSD? How can I fix this, as I'm unable to find any tutorials to help me. I have tried to partition the SSD to try to be able to merge them, but I get an error saying: "The provided Core Storage logical volume has an incorrect size. You should run whole-disk repair."
I have run diskutil in terminal to find no information that is useful to me, but I have included it here in case it helps someone help me.
diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            250.1 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +204.0 GB   disk1
                              Logical Volume on disk0s2
                             FEB0DA59-F214-4841-A491-59BFE7F9DEE4
                             Unlocked Encrypted

diskutil cs list:

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group A7C277C4-D35C-48A1-AD85-135FC3FBBAAE
=========================================================
Name:         Macintosh HD
Status:       Online
Size:         250140319744 B (250.1 GB)
Free Space:   45788061696 B (45.8 GB)
|
+-< Physical Volume 3A4B651C-DA22-4F22-96F3-A1C3D22BCE45
|   ----------------------------------------------------
|   Index:    0
|   Disk:     disk0s2
|   Status:   Online
|   Size:     250140319744 B (250.1 GB)
|
+-> Logical Volume Family DBA55F9D-7D02-4191-B9C2-1CC1CB429E3C
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
    Encryption Status:       Unlocked
    Conversion Status:       Complete
    High Level Queries:      Fully Secure
    |                        Passphrase Required
    |                        Accepts New Users
    |                        Has Visible Users
    |                        Has Volume Key
    |
    +-> Logical Volume FEB0DA59-F214-4841-A491-59BFE7F9DEE4
        ---------------------------------------------------
        Disk:                  disk1
        Status:                Online
        Size (Total):          203999936512 B (204.0 GB)
        Revertible:            Yes (unlock and decryption required)
        LV Name:               Macintosh HD
        Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
        Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Is there a way I can get back the usable space onto Macintosh HD? Is there a method if I were to wipe the hard drive (and how) and start from scratch? Thanks in advance for any help.

Your main CoreStorage container has a size of 250.1 GB with 45.8 GB of unallocated container disk space.

Usually you can expand the size of a Logical Volume to the full size of the Logical Volume Group if no other blocking Logical Volumes exist in the same group.

This is done with the command:

diskutil cs resizeVolume lvUUID size

In you case that's:

diskutil cs resizeVolume FEB0DA59-F214-4841-A491-59BFE7F9DEE4 250g

If the Logical Volume is encrypted it has to be unlocked.

Failing to change the disk layout with Boot Camp Assistant often corrupts internals of the Logical Volume Group and the above command fails. Then you have to remove the Logical Volume Group and restore a Time Machine backup to an erased and JHFS+ formatted disk0s2 partition


Thunderbird and other apps in Maverics' notice panel Is there a way to tell which app is using my notices panel from Maverics (opened by fingers slide from right side to left)?

I am particularly intrested in displaying Thunderbird's new message indicators there, but it boils down to actually setting notices for anything I want there.

Any manual or sources would be helpful.

Go to System Preferences > Notifications.

All apps which have the ability to display notifications will be listed here.

If it is not listed here, then it won't work with the notifications sidebar.


How do I backup 2 external hard disks to 1 external hard disk? I currently own two 2 TB external hard disk and one 5 TB external hard disk. Is it possible to backup the two 2 TB external HDDs to the 5 TB external HDD using my Mac?

This can even be done in Time Machine:

Choose the 5 TB HDD as only Time Machine backup drive (OK, my disks are smaller  ):

Then exclude your internal drive by adding it to the excluded items - the backup drive is excluded automatically:

The final result:

You get a folder Backups.backupdb with one folder vm (the name of my Mac) containing folders (with date names representing the backup date) and each with two folders representing the two drives (Data1 and Encrypted). I added and modified files successively on both volumes and initiated a backup after each step.

Needless to say: it's recommended to backup your main drive/system drive also!


Is there a free and downloadable single-file version of the iPhone XR or iOS 12 guide? Is there a free and downloadable single-file version of the manual for the iPhone XR or for the iOS 12 that it comes installed with? I mean downloadable (for example as a .pdf) without using Apple's iOS or having logged in to an Apple server from an actual iPhone XR.

You can use the Books app on macOS or Apple Books app on iOS to download single file user iPhone user guide for iOS 12 for free. Use the following link to obtain the guide:

iPhone User Guide for iOS 12.3


How can I get the Terminal to keep a separate history per tab/window? When I restart my Mac it quits and saves the buffers for each tab properly, since it's there again when the computer starts back up. But the command history is not buffered properly per window/tab. They're all the same buffer.

I'm assuming it's because bash uses the same ~/.bash_history for all terminals but is there a way to avoid improve this? To make bash, or maybe Terminal, store them separately?

You could do something like this in your .bashrc:

MYTTY=`tty`
HISTFILE=$HOME/.bash_history_`basename $MYTTY`

This will create separate history files in your home directory such as .bash_history_ttys002.  When you create a new terminal window, it will use the history file corresponding to the tty name, which will usually be determined simply by the order in which you create the terminal windows.


Can I buy and use a New iPhone 6 as an iPod Touch? In a related question I asked about the functionality of an iPhone 6 as compared to iPod touch 5, The answer indicates there could be a significant difference.

The person I am asking on behalf of is currently using a tracfone for cell service and paying $80 per YEAR for more service than she uses.  It seems possible to purchase a iPhone and not get a data plan and to use old phone as an development device Apple even posts some about using a iPhone 3 without a plan.  I found an older post about switching SIM cards but I am not seeing anything about purchasing a brand new iPhone 6 to use as an iPod without a contract.  There are some options to use an iPhone on tradfone but again only with old phones that have expired contracts.

Yes that works fine, just know that you need to pay full retail for it so you are not beholden to any carrier to pay for the rest of it. So basically you are talking about an unlocked phone.

The Apple salesperson should be able to help you get what you want along with advice on how to set it up.


Make and create Live USB Linux for Mac? How? I'm wanting to create a live usb linux so I can easily access it everytime when I need it without taking up any space.
But with other sources, they say to rEFInd and I did so, however when restarting and accessing the boot menu, nothing happens.

I am running Yosemite 10.10 on a Macbook Pro - I still have rEFInd on my mac.

I already have .iso version of the linux and UnetBootin

Any way how to make a live usb linux on a Yosemite Macbook Pro?

Download the desired .img file
Open a Terminal (under Utilities)

If you have and .iso file, you could convert to .img with the command hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/source.iso.

Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices
Insert your flash media
Run diskutil list again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)
Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/diskN bs=1m
Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes

Restart your Mac and press ⌥/⌘ key while the Mac is restarting to choose the USB stick.


Is it possible to share reminders? I really like the reminders feature in iOS 5, especially the geo-tripping reminders that will alert you when you are at, or leave, specific locations.

I was disappointed, however, that you could not have 'shared reminders list'. For instance a shopping list that my wife and I could both use and contribute to that would alert us whenever we are at the grocery store.

Is there any method or workaround to accomplish this? OR is there an application that does this geo-tripping + the ability to share across multiple users?

Actually, you can share a reminders list, as long as the person you want to share with has their own iCloud account. You can share one of your reminders lists either from iCloud.com or from the Reminders app in Mountain Lion.

Either way, the process is the same: Hover over the name of a list for a second, and a small icon will appear. Click on it, then type in the name or e-mail address of the person you want to share the list with.


My macbook battery is fully charged on menu bar but on Coconut Battery says charging Here is my screenshot when my fully charged but still charging:

After a few minutes not charging again:

I'm just wondering, will my MacBook overcharge or over discharge or this is normal behavior?
Why design capacity is not consistent, sometimes 74%, 75%, 80%, etc.

Everything seems normal to me.
Batteries are much more complex than most people think. There are many factors such as heat/temperature, actual charge, power draw, lifecycle/age,... that contribute into "inconsistent" measurements.

Why design capacity is not consistent, sometimes 74%, 75%, 80%?

This is completely normal and every battery experiences this, especially as they get older. This again depends on many factors and the number will decrease over time/cycles.

I'm just wondering, will my MacBook overcharge or over discharge or this is normal behavior?

When at 100% your battery will stop charging. It will start charging again, usually a couple percent below 100% if continually connected to power. macOS tries to smoothen the curve, i.e. it makes you think its constantly at 100%, which it isn't. This behaviour is normal.
There are many excellent articles that can explain the physical details much better than I can, but there isn't really anything you should/shouldn't do with your MacBook in terms of battery, except trying to not (over)heat it. So just use your MacBook, but don't put it in bright sunlight for example.


How to activate DND automatically? I use a MacBook Pro at work which is most of the time connected to a docking station via a lightning cable at my desk.
There I usually turn off do not disturb (DND) mode and activate screensaver/screenlock after 2 minutes.
When I am at meetings it happens regularly that I want to present something but then it is annoying if notifications are displayed or the screensaver turns on after 2 minutes.
How can I automatically turn on DND mode and turn off screensaver automatically whenever my MacBook is not connected to power (docking station)?

The only way I could get this to work is by building a small Swift command-line application. It works pretty well, with two major caveats:

You cannot have Do Not Disturb scheduled to turn on and off at certain times (check System Preferences)
The menu bar item always looks as though Do Not Disturb is enabled, even though it is not

However, if these caveats aren't a huge deal, the app does everything else you need: it prevents the display from sleeping and enables Do Not Disturb when on battery, and reverses those settings when you connect to AC power. Here is the (slightly involved) process for creating this app:

Install Xcode from the Mac App Store if you have not already done so
Open Xcode and install any necessary components as prompted
From the "Welcome to Xcode" window, select Create a New Xcode Project

Select macOS at the top of the dropdown that appears, then select Command Line Tool under the Application header and click Next

Enter something for your product name—which is the name that will appear on your app (I'm going to be using BatteryDetector)—and fill in the other fields (they don't really matter); make sure the language is set to Swift!

Select somewhere on your computer to save the project (wherever you want), uncheck the box for creating a Git repository, and click Create

Once your project is created (a new window will open), select File > New > File… or press ⌘N to open the New File dialog
Select Header File as the file type and click Next

Name your file [your project name]-Bridging-Header.h, substituting your actual project name for [your-project-name]. In my example, the name would be BatteryDetector-Bridging-Header.h.
Make sure that the Group at the bottom of the dialog has a yellow folder icon next to it and says the name of your project. If it has a blue icon or something else, change it to the option that has a yellow folder icon and the name of your project. See the screenshot below for the correct configuration. When everything is correct, click Create.

Once the file is created, it should automatically be opened. Once it is, erase all of the auto-generated contents and paste in the following code. The code below should be the only code in the file:

#import <IOKit/ps/IOPowerSources.h>

Next, select the project at the top of the hierarchy in the top left of the window, then select the target under the Targets list, select Build Settings at the top of the main panel, and ensure All is selected beneath that (see screenshot below)

Use the search box in the top right of the Build Settings screen to search for objective-c bridging header. You should see a setting called Objective-C Bridging Header come to the top of the list.
Double-click to the right of the Objective-C Bridging Header label so that a text box appears, and enter [your-project-name]/[your-project-name]-Bridging-Header.h in that text box, replacing [your-project-name] with your project's actual name. In my example, I would enter BatteryDetector/BatteryDetector-Bridging-Header.h. Then press return.

Next, click on the main.swift file in the file tree on the left. Delete all of the code it contains, and paste in the code below. The following code should be the only code in main.swift:

import Cocoa

var context = 0
var proc: Process!

func enableDND() {
        CFPreferencesSetValue("doNotDisturb" as CFString, true as CFPropertyList, "com.apple.notificationcenterui" as CFString, kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost)
        CFPreferencesSetValue("doNotDisturbDate" as CFString, Date() as CFPropertyList, "com.apple.notificationcenterui" as CFString, kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost)
        commitDNDChanges()
}

func disableDND() {
        CFPreferencesSetValue("doNotDisturb" as CFString, false as CFPropertyList, "com.apple.notificationcenterui" as CFString, kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost)
        CFPreferencesSetValue("doNotDisturbDate" as CFString, nil, "com.apple.notificationcenterui" as CFString, kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost)
        commitDNDChanges()
}

func commitDNDChanges() {
        CFPreferencesSynchronize("com.apple.notificationcenterui" as CFString, kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost)
        DistributedNotificationCenter.default().postNotificationName(NSNotification.Name(rawValue: "com.apple.notificationcenterui.dndprefs_changed"), object: nil, userInfo: nil, deliverImmediately: true)
        NSRunningApplication.runningApplications(withBundleIdentifier: "com.apple.notificationcenterui").first?.terminate()
}

func startCaffeinate() {
        proc = Process()
        proc.launchPath = "/usr/bin/caffeinate"
        proc.arguments = ["-d", "-i"]
        proc.launch()
}

func stopCaffeinate() {
        proc.terminate()
}

let loop = IOPSNotificationCreateRunLoopSource({(context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) in
        let snap = IOPSCopyPowerSourcesInfo().takeRetainedValue() as CFTypeRef
        let source = IOPSGetProvidingPowerSourceType(snap).takeRetainedValue() as String
        if source == "Battery Power" {
                enableDND()
                startCaffeinate()
        } else {
                disableDND()
                stopCaffeinate()
        }
}, &context).takeRetainedValue() as CFRunLoopSource

CFRunLoopAddSource(CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), loop, .defaultMode)

RunLoop.main.run()

Next, export the application by selecting Product > Archive in the menu bar. Once the archive finishes, a window will appear with an Export button. Click Export, select Built Products, and click Next.

Select a location where you will save the exported executable on your disk, then click Export.
Now, navigate to the folder you just saved to your disk (called [your-project-name] [today's-date]) and navigate through all of the subfolders (probably usr, local, bin) until you find the executable called BatteryDetector (or whatever you named your project). You can store this executable anywhere on disk, but it should be at a stable location (i.e., a location from which you don't plan on moving it) or your computer won't be able to locate it.
Next, copy the following text and paste it into a text-editing program like TextEdit or a code editor (make sure that it won't convert quotes to "smart quotes"). Replace the text [your-executable-location] with the full path to where your executable is stored on disk (e.g., /Applications/BatteryDetector).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.launchagent.batterydetector</string>
        <key>Program</key>
        <string>[your-executable-location]</string>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Once you have entered the correct path, copy the newly-modified text (i.e., with your corrected path) to your clipboard.
Next, open Terminal (located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app).
Type the following into Terminal, exactly as it is written here, and then press return. Do not copy and paste it—the command will only work if the text you just modified is currently on your clipboard: test -e ~/Library/LaunchAgents || mkdir ~/Library/LaunchAgents; pbpaste > ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.launchagent.batterydetector
Finally, log out and then back in to start the app running. It will continue to run in the background, and will automatically start each time you log in. If you need to quit it for some reason, use Activity Monitor and search for the name of your executable (e.g., BatteryDetector).

Here are some sources with more information about some of the code I'm using:

Create a CFRunLoopSourceRef using IOPSNotificationCreateRunLoopSource in Swift
sindresorhus' do-not-disturb on GitHub


Automatic mounting of encrypted partitions on OS X There is a well-documented method of getting Unix to automatically mount a partition on Mac OS X, namely adding something like this to /etc/fstab:

UUID=C92FFDDD-5E09-34ED-A10D-914EA92EA888 /MountPoint hfs auto

However if the partition is encrypted, this won't work.  Does anyone know is there a way to get Unix to mount encrypted partitions?

I'm using Unlock by Justin Ridgewell to mount my FileVault2 (CoreStorage) encrypted HDD that I have replaced my SuperDrive with.

Unlock will loop through your CoreStorage encrypted volumes (sans boot) and ask if you want them unlocked upon booting.  The passphrase for unlocking them will then be stored in the System Keychain so that another user could login and have them automatically mounted even if they don't know the passphrase for the volume.

So it's a boot time unlocking vs a user login unlocking.


How can I salvage macos resource forks when copying from a non hybrid ISO 9660 Rockridge CD I have a set of ten years old archive CD-ROMs burnt on a OS9 Mac system by (potentially) choosing wrong options by a colleague. If mounted on the desktop of a recent MacOSX System (eg. 10.5.8 to 10.7) typically files with data in the resource fork (font files, aliases, text clippings, icon files) are displayed as empty files in the finder. Fortunately the data seems not to be lost finally (see the results below). I could retrieve the resource forks separated as files with the prefix "._".

Is there any known method to recombine/restore those separated hidden resource forks automatically with the main data to regular old style" macintosh files for a whole disk?

My results:

Copying the files back to disk with the finder via drag & drop does not solve the problem.

Copying the files via terminal with the "cp -r [source] [destination]" option has neither a success.

Using the alternative "cpmac" command instead of "cp2 has also no positive result.

Now if I use the "cp -r -p [source] [destination]" option, I get errors with some permission issues, but I find files with the same basenames but a prefix of "._" on the destination disk. These files seem to contain regular font file resource fork data.

The logged errors were for each file:
cp [sourcefilepathwithprefix] : could not copy extended attributes to [destinationfilepathwithprefix]
where prefix is "._"&[filename]

Annother minor issue is that the filenames contain "German umlauts" that were replaced with underscores. I cannot figure out if there is any retrievable information there to restore the original encoding.

I seems that the originally intended session containing the relevant hybrid mapping (HFS filesystem) for Apple Extensions was either lost or is now unreadable.

If the resource forks are available under the names you're describing, here's a way to recombine them:

cp -a /source/filename /destination/filename
dd if=/source/._filename of=/destination/filename/..namedfork/rsrc

This will still not copy over the type/creator and other Finder metadata, but it will copy over the resource fork.


Show my most recently sent message on top in Mac Mail In Mac Mail I'd like to see the most recently sent message - whether it is my reply or the senders email - on top in list preview and also in the detailed view window. This doesn't seem to be possible. In list view even if I were the last person to write, my message is only visible if I expand all messages. In detail view the top message which automatically loads is the last message by the sender and I have to scroll up to see my sent message even if it is newer.

I wonder how I can fix this. Thanks.

Using Mac Mail 9.3, OSX El Cap.

As far as I'm aware, the closest you'll get to this is to ensure you expand all conversations. However, there are preferences that may impact on the expansion.

So, let's try the following:

In Mail, go to Mail > Preferences
Click on the Viewing tab
Ensure the Include related messages checkbox is ticked
Ensure the Show most recent messages at the top checkbox is ticked
Exit Preferences
Now within Mail go to your Inbox
Ensure the filter at top left is sorted by date and that Newest Message on Top is ticked
Go to the View menu and ensure that Organise by Conversation is ticked
Go to the View menu and select Expand All Conversations (Note: This won't place a tick there, it just expands them)

After doing the above you should get something close to what you want.


Which iOS app tracks jogging distance accurately? Does anyone know of any iPhone app that tracks distance accurately ? I tried a couple and I'm amazed how lousy they are (some are reporting distances over twice as much etc)

Basically I would be using it when I'm jogging around the neighbourhood (non-linear distance of course). I want to measure the distance I have jogged.

The Nike+ GPS with a foot sensor has two sorts of input and can be more reliable than apps that only rely on GPS.

The main sources of foot sensor measurement error are:

an odd gait (which will throw off the foot accelerometer - even when calibrated)
incorrectly calibrated foot sensor
your run routine typically covers several uneven stride lengths

You might be better with a foot sensor over a pure GPS application, but it's hard to tell in general.

I find the hassle of a foot pod not worth the extra accuracy and use GPS only apps. The best for me is made by Abvio. Their GPS apps are superb and allow detailed control. The only downside is this adds complexity to the UI and you need to know a little to operate the tuning controls properly. (I chose the Runmeter over Cyclemeter or Walkmeter since I like a red color and the shoe icon's looks - they are all exactly the same engine and you can use all of the settings on any app - you don't need more than one to get all the route types.)

The developer is very responsive to email support - I was getting errors on my motorcycle settings and they guided me to get the accuracy I wanted since each activity type has some assumptions that can cause errors for some users.

Depending on where and how you jog - this app allows you to tune and filter the raw GPS data to your liking. Since you can recreate this one path again and again, you should be able to get things dialed assuming it's not a problem with jogging in a canyon or under heavy tree / large buildings where interference and multipath effects will render all GPS faulty.


How can I reset $PATH in OSX? When I run:

echo $PATH

I get this:

/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/git/bin

This is obviously completely messed up. So, how can I fix this or reset $PATH?

I'm running on El Capitan.

The default shell on OSX is bash. So you can set your path in .bash_profile or .bashrc file in your home directory.


Western Digital external hard drive is constantly ejected I have a 1TB Western Digital external hard drive that I use for Time Machine backups, and recently my iMac has started to randomly eject the hard drive, preventing backups. It tends to happen while the display goes to sleep, but I have my Energy Saver settings set to not put the hard drives to sleep, and the computer is set to never go to sleep.

To correct the issue, I pull the USB cable on the drive and then re-attach it. I'm wondering if this is just a bad drive that I need to return or if this is some kind of larger issue.

Someone reported a similar issue on an Apple discussion forum:

I tried that but the drive will still eject itself randomly at times.
I contacted Western Digital about this and they say it might be a
problem with my USB cord. So they're going to send me a new one.
Has
anyone else had this problem and found that it was due to a faulty USB
3.0 (compatible with USB 2.0) cord?

Another poster in the same thread commented:

Sounds like disk is on the way out. I would move or backup all data on
it.

You should first back up that drive before anything else. Contact WD to see if they can send you a new USB cord. It's a good idea to run some diagnostics on the drive to confirm that there are no disk errors. Testing on another computer would also be a good idea to narrow down to see if the issue is isolated to your machine or the drive.
If the drive is failing, you'll need to return/exchange it.


Orange smudge/splotch near edge of screen on MacBook Pro I have a Macbook Pro w/ Touch Bar, and on the corner of my screen there is a dark orange discoloration. It appears every now and then in different locations of the screen and then dissipates with time.

I want to know if this is normal or something that I need to fix.

That is not normal in that it wouldn’t be made that way, but it’s normal since it’s understandable how it could happen. That is a cosmetic issue with the LCD panel. Without a physical inspection or examining the panel, my best guess is the layers are compressed physically. No need to repair it until you can’t or won’t abide by the color shift or the area just stops working.

Get a quote for how much it would cost to fix it, then consider:

putting that cash in a jar and deciding if you’d rather save it for your next computer or an iPad or a brand new external display.

That way the money is there to unlock something you want in the future as a post to a nagging doubt that your current machine has a flaw in it. If Apple wants to cover it under warranty, r dilemma is solved so definitely get a quote for repair.

As to the coming and going, If you carry your Mac in the book bag or it could be getting otherwise squeezed, that would explain why the color moves around in the dissipates as the glass and plastic layers reset themselves.  Like a thin film of oil or soap on water, you are seeing a rainbow of diffraction and refraction as the light and LCD interact with each other.


Syncing many Google Calendars under same account with iOS Calendar? iPad CalenMob -calendar is able to sync many Google calendars of the same user such as Facebook-imported-calendar etc-etc. The iPad calendar for some reason only gets the default calendar, not other calendars in the same Google Account. So how can I get CalenMob -style features such as importing many calendars to iPad?

This is the important site here. Below some misc instructions but you need the site if you use Google calendar with some iOS devices such as iPhone or iPad.

Basic Default-calendar -setup

  You can decide the default calendar in Settings more here, useful if you need to change it with different works, schools or universities for instance.

Setting up many Google Calendars to iPad under your account

  Please, preview this thread here. You need nothing like CalenMob, use the default iOS -calendar and then decide which calendars to share with Apple products such as iPhone and iPad here. For some reason, Google calls it iPhone sync but in reality it handles also the iPad -calendar, perhaps also other Apple products?

Why is it enough to set up just Google -calendars?

  Because you can import other calendars such as Facebook-event-calendar, more here, to Google Calendars which you can later show with your Apple products such as iPad by the above instructions. Have Fun!


How to remove Apple System Apps How can I delete Apple OS X application such as Photos, iPhoto, and others that I never use?

@grgarside: El Capitan and later won't let you just rm the default apps, they're protected. – grgarside 11 mins ago

That's because of El Capitan's System Integrity Protection System (SIPS), which prevents even Root from making (potentially harmful) changes to the system. A fine idea in principle, apart from the fact that it stops you doing a lot of things whose "integrity" to the system is spurious –such as changing the speech bubble colour in Messages, or deleting pointless Apple apps you never use.

You can disable SIPS by booting into Recovery (Hold down Command+R at startup) and then using Utilities > Terminal issue the following command:

csrutil disable

and then rebooting.

Normal God-like power will now be restored to root and you're free to delete Apple bloatware.  To re-enable SIPS, the corresponding command from recovery is:

csrutil enable

However - and it's a big "However!" - with SIPS re-enabled again, OSX will silently restore any system apps you deleted. I found this out when I disabled SIPS, removed iTunes, re-enabled SIPS and found iTunes back in my Applications folder a few days later.


How can I hide my top menu bar on Mac OS X? I need to temporarily (5 min) hide my top menu bar. Is there a glitch, or something that will let me do that?

You have a few choices.

MenuFela, site down, claims to do this.
MegaZoomer claims to zoom an app and hide the menu bar. Not sure if this will work, for example, with the Finder.
MenuShade does a so-so job. Hidden menu, but the shadow is there and the space is not usable
According to this hint you can edit the plist of the app and have the menu bar become hidden. Add the following to the Info.plist in the app bundle:

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>4</integer>


OSX: Spotlight shows the content of locked notes When I search in the spotlight for a locked note, I can see the content of that looked note. I went ahead and rebuilt the spotlight index, but still showing the content. Am I missing something here or is it a bug? OSX-ELCapitan 10.11.5

You need to close your notes

I justed tested this in OS 10.11.5 and the contents of the note don't show, just the title.

I created a note and titled it for which it would be easy for Spotlight to find:  "Smattering test note"  (I have no other instance of "Smattering" on my system).  Here is what it looks like after I have locked and closed the note.

Doing a Spotlight search for "Smattering" yields this result:

It autocompletes the note title (ligher grey text) and clicking on it opens the Notes App.  Until I unlock the note with my password, the contents are not visible.

If I don't lock and close my notes, if I do a Spotlight search, the contents will be visible


Eject Virtual Devices permanently I installed some programs (e.g. Sequel Pro), when I eject the virtual device from the Finder it seems ok but after some time it is re-added.

Is there a way to remove them permanently?
What is the reason of this behaviour?

Edit:
My machine is a MBP 15" 2016 with macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

The problem does't give any error. Simply if I remove the devices they reappear after a while. The devices now are Sequel Pro 1.1.2 and fastnosql-1.5.1. I don't know if this is OS related or single programs related.

There is a simple general explanation for why this happens: macOS will make shortcuts (aliases / sym links) to files that exist on a mounted disk Image or remote volume.

When you open that shortcut, the images get re-mounted assuming there are no password is needed or the credentials are cached in an unlocked keychain.

Now - you might need to do some work sleuthing why you are running files from those specific images, but the general idea is you can look around and worst case copy the DMG files to an external drive and delete them locally to see what things complain about a missing link / missing file when they run or open.

The most common case is you didn’t copy apps from the DMG to /Applications or a local folder and apps in the dock or elsewhere point at the DMG and not a local copy.


How to reformat hdd only viewable under (About Mac) -> (System Report) -> (USB 3.0 Bus)? After changing to a new external USB hdd for Time Machine my previous external USB drive used for Time Machine (almost) disappeared. My old drive is a Western Digital, My Passport 25E3 for Mac (1-tb). It is not recognized in:

Disk Utility
(About This Mac) --> (Storage)
**/Volumes$**ls -l

However, I can see the old Time Machine drive here: (About This Mac) --> (System Report) --> (USB) --> (USB 3.0 Bus) -> My Passport 25E3

What can I do to reformat that old Time Machine drive and mount it as just a normal external drive? I've rebooted several times and used different cables.

I got it.

The problem was that disk had an EFI System Partition. All the work to make the disk readable for MacOS El Capitan was done on Windows 10.
C:\Temp> diskpart
DISKPART>  select disk 1
---> clean
DISKPART>  exit

note:
(I just noticed that Mac has /usr/sbin/diskutil that I'm sure would have allowed me to deal with the EFI Partition.)

So, I used the Windows Disk Utility to create a 1-tb xFAT partition. MacOS recognized that. Then, I reformatted that to MacOS file format, 1-tb partition. perfect.

As can be seen in the question, MacOS only recognized that disk in 1 place, in the USB device tree. Only Windows seems to have allowed me to see that EFI System Partition and then allowed me to manipulate the disk.


Make Wine app the default opener I have Notepad which I open with "Wine".
I want to do that when I want to open file .txt, it will be opened by Wine Notepad.

How can I do that?

You will need:

make a custom launcher/wrapper for the notepad, e.g. WineNotepad.app
and in CMD-I you must change the default application for .txt files to the new launcher - and "change all"

how to create the custom launcher is here


Moving apps in app library I have several star-finding apps on my phone.   The App library has some of them in the "Education" folder, and some in the "Information & Reading" folder.
How can I get them all in the same folder?   They do the same thing.

The App Library cannot be edited, it is a comprehensive sorted-by-your phone list. You can create your own App Library (in a sense) by creating a set of folders on your regular home screen.