How to determine the cause of MacBook battery not charging? I see that the question "why is my MacBook not charging?" gets asked a lot. The problem is, there are multiple reasons. Possible points of failure are: charger, cable, magsafe connector, DC input board, logic board, battery. (Have I missed any?).
What is the best sequence for a user to follow, to diagnose the problem?
By way of example, here are the first steps that I usually try:

Make sure the charger is working. Either use your charger on a different Mac, or test a spare charger with your Mac.

Check the connection. There might be gunk in your port that's stopping the connector from lying flat.

Try resetting the SMC and PRAM.

If the computer boots, run Coconut Battery to determine battery status.

This is where I get a bit stuck. For example, I have a machine here that boots fine when plugged in, but not from battery. Disconnecting the MagSafe causes the machine to switch off. Sounds like it's a dead battery, except that Coconut reports the battery as detected, in good condition, but not charging.
What steps should I take next? Specifically, I'm asking for a generic algorithm to help determine the source of the fault (preferably without swapping out lots of components one by one)?

What steps should I take next?

There's only one step to take next:  replace the battery.

  Disconnecting the MagSafe causes the machine to switch off. Sounds
  like it's a dead battery, except that Coconut reports the battery as
  detected, in good condition, but not charging.

It's a dead battery.  Coconut battery can only give you a calculation based on the voltage it's measuring at the time you run it.  It cannot tell you how much charge is actually left in the battery.  There's no "electronic dipstick" to measure the capacity.

Fully charged MacBook Air turns off when power cord removed
Why does a 12 inch Macbook refuse to turn on with a lot of battery remaining unless it is plugged in?

Coconut battery (not a fan and I don't use it) doesn't provide you anything but "a moment in time snapshot" of your battery health.  Thing is, you can get this info right from the command line:

system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep -i "charge information" -A 10

The problem is, it can't "see" dead cells.

Algorithm to check batteries

Reset SMC
Verify that your charger is being detected (green/amber light)
If charger not detected, verify charger/dc in board.  Do this by

checking for "gunk" then plugging in a known working charger.
If it works - it's your charger
If it doesn't work, it's your system (chances are, DC-In board)


iPhone 5s camera takes random size photos My iPhone 5s camera takes random size photos. Sometimes they are large and at other times they are postage size images.  Any answers ?

Here is a logical explanation for the problem and although, I can't guarantee, in this case it is the problem, I think there is a high probability.

When you select to email a photo, after you tap send, you are prompted with sizing (compression) options like this:

You can choose one of the options and as most things in life, everything has a trade off. If you select anything but "Actual Size", it will compress your photo, and the size it then comes in at will be smaller than what you would have expected. "Actual Size" is massive on all but the older iPhones. Full size it big, but likely will fit on a monitor, and the "Medium" and "Small" sizes are just like you described.

This is not "lossless" compression like you see sometimes and does what it needs to with the image to reduce the actual file size.

For transferring images to your computer, AirDrop is the easiest way but only works if you have a Mac. If you use a PC, you could consider using iCloud for Windows to download Photostream images (which should be quite high resolution, if not natural size), or there is always the old faithful Image Capture


Move mail boxes data to external drive on Mac Mail on Mavericks I have read, and search one blog to another, one question that seamed what I wanted. I do not want to move the whole Mailbox or configuration to another drive but want to free up some disk space by moving some mail boxes/folders to another drive without losing the mails. The closest to what I want are these steps:

Close Mac Mail
Move the .mbox folders that one wants on ~/Library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes to external drive
Do a Symlink on ~/Library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes pointing to /Volumes/<drive name>/<location of .mbox folder> (doing on a Terminal Window or by right-clicking on the folders on Finder)
Open Mail and the Boxes should be using the ones on the HD

I've done this on Mail on OS X Mavericks. The Boxes are there but no mails can be read. Can someone help me if I'm missing steps or have to do it differently on Mavericks?

I believe Mail updates the .mbox file each time it closes which basically overwrites the symlink.

You could consider trying to symlink in the other direction as spelled out here on Mac OSX Hints or alternatively symlink a parent directory of the .mbox instead since it does not get rewritten.


What happens if you are being tracked using an AirTag but you don't own an apple device? While Apple positions AirTags as a tool to find things you lost, it can also be used to (most probably illegally) track other people. Assuming I don't own an iPhone/iPad, how can I figure out that this is the case and what can I do in such cases?

It makes a sound.

An AirTag that isn’t with the person who registered it for an extended period of time will also play a sound when moved so you can find it, even if you don’t use an iOS device.

What to do if you find an AirTag or get an alert that an AirTag is with you - Apple Support, emphasis mine

after an AirTag has been away from its paired device for a certain amount of time, the item will automatically emit a sound notifying those around it of its presence.

An Apple executive, quoted by 9to5Mac in Apple execs explain how AirTag is ‘stalker-proof’ and whether you should use it to track pets


Is there an iPhone timer app that works with EarPods remote controls? I'm looking for a looping timer (e.g., 30 seconds - beep - 30 seconds - beep - ...) that can be stopped/resumed by pressing a remote control button on the EarPods.

I'd like to use this app during weightlifting, where lifting time is variable and resting time should be uniform 30 seconds. After each beep, I would stop the timer using the remote control button, do weightlifting, then start the timer using the remote control button, and rest until the next beep.

I had such an app on Android, but can't seem to find a similar one on iOS.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fi.ohra.impetus

No, applications are not allowed to catch presses on the headphones remote control and use it for something different than the designed feature - play/pause the playing song.


Keyboard shortcut stopped working in Safari 6.0 I've created a custom keyboard shortcut for entering and exiting fullscreen in the keyboard preferences menu.

This stopped working for Safari 6.0 after I upgraded to Mountain Lion. I had the beta version of Safari which I got from the developers' site before I upgraded and the keyboard shortcut worked on that one.

So, how do I get this keyboard shortcut to work with Safari again? (Hopefully there's a simple explanation instead of some Automator workaround)

Go to System Preferences.
Click on “Keyboard.” Navigate to Keyboard Shortcuts.
Select Application Shortcuts in the left pane and remove existing shortcuts for Safari, if any.
Add a shortcut by clicking the “+” button. In the Menu Title field, type “Enter Full Screen.” Remember, you have to type the exact title as it appears in Safari.
Add another shortcut and in the menu title field and type “Exit Full Screen” in the Menu Title field.
Make sure there are no conflicts with the shortcut combination that you choose to use.

Hope this helps.

PS: Be careful of the space between “Full” and “Screen” in the menu title.


Can a ML USB stick created with Lion Diskmaker be shared with others (who have their own ML license)? I purchased and downloaded Mountain Lion from the App Store for my own personal use. I created a bootable USB stick using the Lion Diskmaker utility to make it easier to install and for any future reinstalls.

My boss has also purchased a copy of Mountain Lion from the App Store for her own Macs, but the download is taking forever.

Is there any difference between the USB stick created using my ML download, versus a USB stick created using someone else's ML download? Is it okay to use my USB stick in lieu of someone else's download to upgrade other Macs for people (assuming they already have a license for Mountain Lion)?

Update: I ran a diff --recursive on the two downloads, and the only difference between them was Install OS X Mountain Lion.app/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt. So technically they are slightly different, but functionally they're identical.

No, there are no technical differences. And, yes, its ok to use someone else's Mountain Lion image, if you've purchased your own copy.


How to delete U2 album from iPod Touch The free U2 album was downloaded to my iPod Touch. It does not show up in my iTunes library on the computer. I do not want this album. How do I now delete the songs from my iPod Touch?

You just have to go to the following link, and press the "Delete album" button:

https://buy.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/offerOptOut

Edit: More info can be found on this official link from Apple.


iPhone 4 - photos are chopped off on the side I have been using my iPhone 4 to take photos on my holiday, and have been noticing that approximately 10% of the photos I have taken are chopped a bit shorter. I have only noticed it happening on landscape shots, and I have HDR enabled without the option to keep the original. Is this a known issue?

I don't think this is an issue at all. In the Photos app, all pictures are slightly zoomed in on by default to fill the entire screen. If you zoom out on each picture using your fingers, you will notice that they are all the same size.


Can you use the iTunes gift card to buy the cards on the new iOS5 cards app? Can you use the iTunes gift card to buy the cards on the new iOS5 cards app?

Cards uses your Apple ID to make purchases rather than your iTunes account, when I ordered a card it asked for my CCV, the security number on the back of my card registered with my Apple ID. You will find the order history in your Apple account and not in your iTunes account.

This is the same service as the one found in iPhoto, which uses the same procedure.


tput: unknown terminal "term-256color" When I open a new terminal I keep having following warning message:
tput: unknown terminal "term-256color"
tput: unknown terminal "term-256color"
tput: unknown terminal "term-256color"
tput: unknown terminal "term-256color"
$

How can I fix this? What may be the main cause of it?

Unix uses the TERM environment variable to look up various escape sequences in the termcap database to allow programs to do more than just output characters to the terminal (which in these days typically are emulated in CMD.EXE, Putty or similar).  Examples are "clear the screen", "move cursor to a specific spot on the screen".
Your terminal emulator is configured to tell Unix that it emulates "term-256color" but Unix does not have that terminal in its termcap database.
Reconfigure your terminal emulator to tell that it is one that it knows.  Typical examples are "vt100" and "xterm".  Which one exactly may require some experimentation after close reading of the documentation.


Can't copy to FAT32 MBR file size more than 2 GB For some reason I can't copy file more than 2 GB size on a FAT32 MBR USB.
I thought the maximum file size limit is 4 GiB (exactly 4 GiB-1 Byte)  on a FAT32.
I've reformatted the USB again with Disk Utility, FAT32 MBR.
Same result.

can’t be copied because it is too large for the volume’s format.

Please help. This is urgent. I'm using High Sierra.

The issue here is actually OSX Finder for High Sierra.
It's a bug that they limit file size to 2GB.
I've managed to transfer the file using Commander One third party app.
I hope they fix this soon.


What could be causing several apps to have excessive wakeups? I am not sure what caused it but several apps are currently dying on startup every time I launch them. When I check Console.app I see they are all having Excessive Wakeups.

Any ideas on what to check or how to debug this would be much appreciated!

The concept of excessive wakeups is just a checkpoint to start data collection for programs that cause a large energy usage.

It's not necessarily a bad thing if the program is expected to do significant work, but without this monitoring, system admins and Apple don't have actionable data to find misbehaving or misconfigured programs.

The wakeups may or may not be related to the crashing - so I would focus on identifying candidate programs and then see if the crashing itself is related to the code or the data.

Make a new user account and then when you log out of the affected user and  in to the new user without any saved settings - you can launch the same program that was crashing.

If the program still crashes - you can conclude that the OS and/or specific build of that program have issues to investigate. If not, then you can conclude that the history of opened documents or the specific document is causing the program to abort or otherwise behave poorly.

So, I would gather a little more data in the following categories if I were to tackle a problem like yours:

What is the list of all programs on the watch list for a 24 hour period?
What count of errors for each?
For each program, is the error reproducible on a new user account?
For each program, is the error reproducible on the main account (launch three times, all three abort)?

You might find that there are different causes for different apps and need to be methodical to isolate and then use different approaches to remedy each instance. Or they might all trace back to a bad system that needs to be backed up and installed cleanly. Hard to tell in general without some effort to pin down the details.


How to use a software installed by "cargo install" (Rust) I installed with brew install rust, which also installed cargo command. On the Rust homepage they offer a different installation method, but I like to keep everything managed by Homebrew.
I then installed cargo install tickrs, but could not start the software tickrs. Even in new Terminal window, it seems some path issue.
tickrs -s BTC-EUR
zsh: command not found: tickrs

echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/Apple/usr/bin

It is really best to stick with one package manager then your setup will work.
Homebrew if it build tickes would put that in a directory which is on your path.
You are using cargo now so you need another directory on your path. That is ~/.cargo/bin if Homebrew has installed the standard cargo.
I just had to go through this for Apple Silicon on Big Sur as there isn't a release build of rust yet. The cargo documents make this hard to find. Possibly becaus of another comment that cargo builds will not update when upstream changes are made as would happen with a package manager (e.g. HomeBrew) So I suspect cargo is not meant for your use just for those developing in rust.


Screen dark except when brightness is stepped off of zero As shown in this video, the screen is dark, except at the few first steps when the brightness is moved just out of zero.

The notebook works otherwise perfectly fine. The image on the external monitor is fine.

Have you seen this before or can guess what the culprit is?

Yes. A loose cable, loose cable to LCD panel connection, bad inverter, failing backlight, power supply/voltage regulation issues inside the Mac all can cause what you observe as a symptom for brightness jumping and not working.

If you gently and slowly open and close the lid, most loose connections can be made better or worse. The powering it off and then seeing a little moment of light when you initially turn on the backlight circuit seems to indicate a power / inverter issue, but that could still be the bulb or bad luck/timing with a cable jostling, too.


macOS Server App no longer saves Websites settings I have configured about a dozen virtual sites in the Server app under Websites. It suddenly occurred that when I edit one of these websites (no matter what I edit), I click on Save and nothing happens. In the end, I have to click Cancel, and when I check back, indeed my changes have not been saved.

Any idea why this is so and how to fix this?

I've checked the access rights in /Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/sites, but they seem okay. Restarts didn't cure it either.

I'm running Server app 5.3.1 under macOS Sierra 10.12.6. The sites run fine.

First you should enable debug mode in Server.app by running the following command:

defaults write com.apple.ServerFoundation DebugModeEnabled YES

and restarting Server.app. This should enable the debug menu. Then make sure the "Log Actions To Server Log" item is checked. Rerun your test, and then look at the log file in ~/Library/Logs/Server.log. The file shows the request/response communications between the Server.app and the backend admin tools. Look for commands to servermgr_web, most commands are in plist format, though the web commands may be in a JSON format.

Look for writeSettings commands specifically.


Start applications via remote control I am searching for a way to start multiple, pre-defined applications via apple's remote control. Is this at all possible with Mavericks?

I have a special user account on my iMac that is used for watching films via Plex and DVB-T via EyeTv. While I can close all these applications via remote-control as soon as they are running, I have not found a way to start them.

Is there a third-party app that allows such a functionality? I already tried RemoteBuddy but it was much too complex for my needs.

BetterTouchTool supports remapping Apple's remote controllers and you can run a shell script (like open -a Preview;open -a TextEdit) to open multiple applications.


running a command stored in a bash variable So I'm trying to capture the IP address of a Parallels VM guest (Win8) from the host (OS X).  I thought a bash script would be good for this.  The ultimate goal is to have a single command that will fetch the IP address and then initiate an ssh port redirect.

I am aware of the prlctl enter command, and I do not believe it supports port redirection.

My script thus far:

#!/bin/bash

VM="Win8 Dev"
CMD="prlctl exec \"$VM\" ipconfig | grep "IPv4" | grep -m1 -o '\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}'"
echo $CMD
IP=$($CMD)
echo $IP

output:

prlctl exec "Win8 Dev" ipconfig | grep IPv4 | grep -m1 -o
'\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}' Failed to get VM config:
The virtual machine could not be found. The virtual machine is not
registered in the virtual machine directory on your Mac. Contact the
Parallels support team for assistance.

So it appears that the CMD variable is being populated correctly, but something is getting lost when trying to assign the output of the command to the IP variable.

Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong?

If anyone else needs to do this, here is the solution I came up with:

#!/bin/bash

VM="name of my VM"
CMD="prlctl exec \"$VM\" ipconfig | grep "IPv4" | grep -m1 -o '\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}\.\d\{1,3\}'"
IP=$(eval $CMD)

#once you have the correct data in the $IP variable you can do something with it.. I initiate an ssh session, but you can do whatever you like.

I have no idea why eval is needed here.  Someone more familiar with bash will be needed to answer that mystery.


Is there a mail merge solution on OS X besides Microsoft Office? I've been using Microsoft Office for mail merge and it is fraught with character encoding issues. I'm curious if there is another solution for mail merge besides Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. I've got a homegrown solution I use too, but looking for something more robust. It would be nice if it supported HTML formatted messages.

1-use Mailchimp (mailchimp.com) it has all the bells and whistles: address list management, import lists from a variety of formats, reports, subscribe/unsubscribe, drag & drop html layouts, etc. etc. All of this in their free product.

2-Go LibreOffice (https://help.libreoffice.org/Writer/Mail_Merge_Wizard). It compares nicely with what Office can do and it is a lot more flexible in the char encoding area. It looks clunkier than Office, but it is free.

Hope it helps


How to rotate pictures in iOS 8? Updated to iOS 8 some time ago, now I have to rotate a picture and the "rotate" option is gone. Where is the functionality located?

Go to the photo in Photos, tap Edit, then tap the Crop button to show the Rotate button.

Tapping the Crop button is what's new here as in iOS 7 this wasn't required.


iOS & iCloud File Aliases? Anyone have any luck using iCloud file aliases with iOS Files?? Seems the aliases created on the Mac are nothing more than nearly empty text files that are useless in iOS?

An alias is merely a shortcut to another file or folder, so it doesn't have any "file size" other than what is sufficient to create the alias.


Can an MDM system (e.g. GOOD) report on iOS app usage? If a company uses an MDM system (like GOOD or MobileIron) to deploy apps to their iPads and iPhones does iOS provide the MDM system data about when the app is used, so it will show up in their usage reports?

Yes, Airwatch, Good, and MobileIron all utilize some form of app usage monitoring. For a taxonomy of enterprise MDM systems, and their features, reference this link, specifically under the Application Management subheading.


iPhone 5 locked to Japanese network KDDI Hope someone can help me with my locked iPhone 5.
I was given it second hand in Japan and want to use it in New Zealand.
It used to be on KDDI.

When a Sim from NZ is inserted it shows invalid Sim.

I tried an R-Sim 9+ but no success.

How can I unlock this phone?

Also is there a difference between network and carrier?
Thanks

You need to contact your new carrier & see if they will unlock it. If the phone is legitimate, not stolen, doesn't have a blocked IMEI etc...

I can't say for NZ & it appears every carrier treats it differently, but here's a guide on UK networks & how they deal with it - might at least prepare you for the long conversation you might need with your own carrier.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/how-unlock-your-iphone-3501427/

There is an alternative of getting some backstreet phone shop to do it for you - but they tend to make you think it's illegal & you pay accordingly for their 'expert' advice & 'confidential service'.


What is "bank account UNN"? This question is about iTunes Connect, particularly Agreements, Tax, and Banking section. When I open this section I see the red message:

  Our records indicate that your banking information is incomplete. Please access your banking information and update as necessary.

Screen:

So, following this recommendation I go to Bank Info > Edit > View/Edit Existing Bank Account > Edit Bank Account Info

There I see a new field which wasn't there when I first entered the banking information. It's named UNN. Quick help:

  Enter the nine-digit UNN for your account.

Screen:

So the question is, what is the UNN associated with a bank account?

I've called to my bank and they didn't know anything. Also, I've already asked this question on Apple forums, but there was no response for a week.

The UNN code is a Taxpayer’s code (INN, UNN or UNP code (natural persons don't have codes UNN or INN) needed for payment transactions in/to Belarus. (Source)


MacBook Air: Close lid and lock features I wonder if there is some way to customize the lock screen feature of my MacBook Air (running Mountain Lion) in such a way that:

1: When I close the lid, and then open it, the screen is not locked (that is, I do not have to type my password).

2: When I explicitly put the MacBook Air to sleep (with Power Button + Sleep option), and then wake it from sleep, the screen is locked (that is, I do have to write my password).

@bmike Thanks for for your response, but I think I did not explain clearly what I wanted. I wanted an easy way to put the computer to sleep and either not been asked for a password when it wakes (if I close the lid) or been asked for a password (when I explicitly put the computer to sleep).

@George Oross: Thanks for your response. I tried to find in the apple developers website some info on how to detect those signals, but made no advance.

I think that the best way to do that is to enable the "lock screen" menu item (via Keychain Access). If I want a "secure sleep" I first lock the screen through the menu and then close the lid to put it to sleep. If I want a "non-secure sleep" I simply close the lid.

No. What you want is not possible.

When the screen is closed the behavior is the same to the user as if it went into sleep from another reason such as pressing the power button. There isn't any way to have closing screen sleep (called clamshell sleep) set to have a different effect than any other kind of sleep through user-accessible preferences. If you have your mac set to require a password after waking in the security preferences then the mac will ask in both cases upon waking.

However, the mac internally codes the reasons for sleep differently. So the computer can tell clamshell from idle sleep, and also can tell if the mac went to sleep for another reason such as power button press, low power or high temperature. Therefore it is possible that a third party hack can use these codes to enable different behavior. I could not find one, though.

When the mac wakes up there are similar codes generated by the OS so that it knows if the computer was woken by opening the clamshell, wiggling the mouse, pressing the power button, waking for network access and so on. This seems to create another opening for a third party solution.


Can't route specified site traffic to direct WiFi connection, to avoid VPN macOS Catalina 10.15.2

WiFi on en0 (MAC xx:xx:xx:xx:85:80)

VPN — Wireguard CLI (utun2)

I have a permanent VPN connection and all traffic is going through it. But I need to route traffic for music.yandex.ru (213.180.204.186) to the Wi-Fi connection.

I used the command route add -host music.yandex.ru -interface en0 to do it. The resulting routing table (netstat -nr) is below:

Destination        Gateway            Flags        Netif Expire
0/1                utun2              USc          utun2
default            192.168.43.63      UGSc           en0
10.217.47.164      10.217.47.164      UH           utun2
127                127.0.0.1          UCS            lo0
127.0.0.1          127.0.0.1          UH             lo0
128.0/1            utun2              USc          utun2
169.254            link#5             UCS            en0      !
190.2.141.162      192.168.43.63      UGHS           en0
192.168.43         link#5             UCS            en0      !
192.168.43.42/32   link#5             UCS            en0      !
192.168.43.63/32   link#5             UCS            en0      !
192.168.43.63      0:a:f5:12:f9:98    UHLWIir        en0   1197
213.180.204.186    xx:xx:xx:xx:85:80  UHLS           en0
224.0.0/4          link#5             UmCS           en0      !
224.0.0.251        1:0:5e:0:0:fb      UHmLWI         en0
255.255.255.255/32 link#5             UCS            en0      !

But after adding the route for music.yandex.ru it becomes unreacheable. I don't get any ping returns.

Then, I used direct forward to my gateway IP by route add -host music.yandex.ru 192.168.43.63

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Netif Expire
0/1                utun2              USc          utun2
default            192.168.43.63      UGSc           en0
10.217.47.164      10.217.47.164      UH           utun2
127                127.0.0.1          UCS            lo0
127.0.0.1          127.0.0.1          UH             lo0
128.0/1            utun2              USc          utun2
169.254            link#5             UCS            en0      !
190.2.141.162      192.168.43.63      UGHS           en0
192.168.43         link#5             UCS            en0      !
192.168.43.42/32   link#5             UCS            en0      !
192.168.43.63/32   link#5             UCS            en0      !
192.168.43.63      0:a:f5:12:f9:98    UHLWIir        en0   1200
213.180.204.186    192.168.43.63      UGHS           en0
224.0.0/4          link#5             UmCS           en0      !
224.0.0.251        1:0:5e:0:0:fb      UHmLWI         en0
255.255.255.255/32 link#5             UCS            en0      !

And everything works as I want. But I need to use the network interface instead of the gateway IP, because it usually changes from time to time.

How can I set proper redirection?

Your usage of the -interface option is faulty. As the router's man page man routerdescribes:

  If the destination is directly reachable via an interface requiring no
  intermediary system to act as a gateway, the -interface modifier should
  be specified; the gateway given is the address of this host on the common
  network, indicating the interface to be used for transmission.

The host music.yandex.ru (213.180.204.186) is no destination directly reachable via en0. It requires at least one intermediary system (your Wi-Fi router) to reach this host.

Compare this with your router:

192.168.43.63      0:a:f5:12:f9:98    UHLWIir        en0   1200

The router's Wi-Fi interface is "directly connected" to your Mac's Wi-Fi interface. 0:a:f5:12:f9:98 is your router's MAC-address (some Airgo/Qualcomm device).

Additional background: The MAC address is an address of a node on the data link layer (layer 2). Layer 2 has no routing capability. Routing is done on the network layer (layer 3) - nodes of the network layer have IP addresses!

If your VPN app doesn't provide the feature to route single IP-addresses to the system's default gateway (the IP address of your Wi-Fi router), you indeed have to create static routes.

To deal with changing networks (and thus changing default gateways) simply create different locations in System Preferences > Network > Location.


Where in Mac OS are Shockwave plugins stored? I don't think I even have a Shockwave plugin, unless it came with the browser.  But if I do, I want to remove it and/or check the version number.  IDS detected a CVE-2010-3655 attack aimed at me.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-view-and-remove-safari-plug-ins-2260895

Safari-->Help-->Installed Plugins


Add appointment to a specific calendar with Siri My default calendar is 'Home'. I want Siri to add appointments to my 'Work' calendar. I've tried telling Siri to "Move my appointment to the work calendar" but she merely changes the appointment location to "the work calendar". Is there a specific phrase that I can use to get her to understand what I want?

At this time Siri will only add events to your default calendar. You can make your work calendar the default calendar if you want to. You do this in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars on your iPhone.


Unwanted hollow star / album ratings foul up a Smart Playlist of zero-star songs The SXSW Showcasing Artist compilations typically include more than one thousand songs. When I add them to iTunes initially, the songs display a blank rating, which is what I want.

The songs are each tagged with the album SXSW YYYY Showcasing Artists (where YYYY is the year of the festival). They appear in coverflow view as more than one thousand distinct one-song albums, which is unwieldy. So, I gather them with a Smart Playlist, select all, open Get Info, set the album, year, sort album, and mark them "Part of a compilation."

Then I start listening to them, and rating them one to five stars. In some cases, I do not need to listen all the way to the end in order to determine a rating, so the "Played" count does not increment. Sometimes the song plays all the way to the end and I can't rate it because I'm too busy. Sometimes a whole bunch of songs play to the end and I never hear them because the headphones were plugged in to the player but not to my ears. The only way I know I have actually heard enough of a song to be able to rate it is that it has a rating.

Then, something happens. I don't know what.

Some of the songs to which I have never listened show a two hollow star rating. I guess that's the Album Rating. What the heck?

I want a Smart Playlist of the songs I have not rated yet, whether or not they have been played, and I do not want to count "Album Rating" as a rating. I want the zero-star songs, and the Album Rating makes the Smart Playlist think there are no zero-star songs.

I would be delighted to remove the Album Rating, but there appears to be no way to do so within the iTunes GUI.

I do not mind writing a program to remove Album Rating from wherever iTunes stores it, and based on Google searches such a tool would be popular. Is iTunes library format documented? Does iTunes generate Album Rating dynamically, so even if I were able to erase it from the disk, it would come back?

Note: the technique "View in Album List, click to the left of the leftmost star" does not always work. See here and here.

You can get rid of album ratings. Select "as album list" from the view menu, then click just to the left of the leftmost star. This will clear the rating, although you may have to try a couple times to hit the right spot, especially if you have 1/2 stars enabled.

Source:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1786573?threadID=1786573


How to save passwords for ssh in iterm2? I am using iTerm2. Can someone let me know how can I save the password (may be via Password manager) so that I don't have to type it every time.

Please don't suggest me about saving the SSH keys. I am looking for iTerm2 specific solution.

iTerm2 has an excellent password manager.

Go to the Help Menu and start typing "password manager"

It will bring up an an animation showing you where the menu item is located. iTerm2 has one of the best help menus/system in the business.


My fonts are sometimes displaying as Chinese/Japanese? I am getting a problem with fonts on my machine sometimes showing as Chinese/Japanese characters (I'm not sure which).

This happens in many apps, although the ones where it is easily reproducable include Pages '09 (Mac App Store version):

And in the "Type your password to confirm" dialogue box when installing applications:

I am running OS X 10.7.2 on a 27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac. I do not use any "Font management" apps although I've installed a few fonts from Font Squirrel in the past.

(I could not embed the images because I have no reputation on this site).

Sometimes this kind of problem can be solved by going to system preferences/language & text/language and using the Edit button to uncheck the box for Japanese,  and then restarting.


How to find itunes cover flow view option I'm a new mac user. i want to show my itunes songs view as a coverflow view. but i didn't find any options. i'm using Sierra 10.12.4.

Please don't give a down vote for this.

CoverFlow is long-gone, from iTunes & the Finder too.

It was killed in iTunes 11 & also in El Capitan, OS 10.11

Ref: CNet - 7 features Apple killed off in iTunes 11


Why My Apple iPhone 5s Rebooted automatically? I was just using my iPhone 5s and it was in charging mode, but suddenly it re-boot without any specific reason, I am lil worried about it, I am still in warranty period and will you expect me to go to help center, or its just normal, Help center is really far from my home.

Without jailbreaking / being a developer with Xcode / etc, it's not easy to find what caused a reboot. If it only occurred once, I'm more inclined to say that there's nothing wrong, but regular reboots can indicate either a software or hardware fault. If the device reboots repeatedly, try restoring the device's OS in iTunes. If the problem persists then that may indicate hardware failure.


Connect to Mac remotely using iOS, BTMM address and a VNC client Which iOS app is able to connect to a Mac using its BTMM (Back to my Mac) address?

The address looks like this:

  your-imac.12345678.members.btmm.icloud.com

On a Mac using Screen Sharing.app, Apple Remote Desktop and Screens for Mac I can easily establish a connection.

With iOS using apps like iTeleport and Screens for iOS, however, I wasn't. All I get are connection errors.

Any helpful comment is appreciated.

Not everyone can use the URL to connect. The connection is only successful when both parties in the connection are logged in to the same iCloud account. When you're accessing the URL on your Mac, you're logged in to iCloud so it works.

With iOS, I don't have experience trying to use a BTMM address there but I presume it is due to this. Try logging in to the same iCloud account on your iOS device, but if it doesn't work then it'll be because Apple don't expect you to be connecting over the BTMM address manually on iOS.


Can I use Messages on OS X for two different iPhones with two different Apple IDs? I have two iPhones (one personal and one business), each with a separate Apple ID, so I can keep these logically separated. Ideally, I'd like to use Messages on OS X to be able to send and receive iMessages and/or text messages via both phones. As far as I can see, I can only configure one Apple ID against Messages (in Messages preferences, I cannot add another Apple ID). Is there perhaps a way to run another instance of Messages and/or add my other Apple ID?

I'm on OS X 10.11 and iOS 11, if it matters.

Depending on how committed you are, you could install a virtual machine on OSX and from there login to your business iTunes account. Furthermore, it's possible to drag just the iMessages application (from the virtualized OSX instance) to your Dock giving the impression of running two different iMessages accounts simultaneously.

I've accomplished similar tasks using VMware for Mac, but Virtual Box may be a good free alternative.


Dual monitors and OS X Lion : get menubar and app switcher on both displays I've just plugged in another monitor into my 13 inch MBP running OS X Lion.

It works fine, except for three little annoyances:

Whenever I use the application switcher (or whatever it's called, I mean the thing that appears when you use command-tab), it appears only on the MBP screen. I also want it on the external screen I attached.
same problem with the top menu bar. It only appears on the MBP screen, but I also want to see it on the external screen.
and again, same problem for the dock.

Is there a way to fix these three things?

They can't appear on both screens. You can, however, have it swap to being on the external screen when the external screen is attached, by selecting "Arrangement" and just dragging the 'little grey bar' (not sure how else to describe it) onto the external screen. This also moves the quick switcher onto the big screen.

I have exactly the same setup as you - and the same annoyances - to solve mine I elevated my screen put the MBP underneath it - then I can have my menubar and switcher on the MBP and the apps themselves on the big screen.


How to convert .VOC to MP3 or other audio format? I am looking for a (free) way to transform .VOC files to, lets say, MP3?

I just found Vidego, but I am not happy with the price of the software.

I have .VOC files and want to transform them to a more "standard" format. Which ways are there to convert those files?

ffmpeg is a free command line tool that can convert a huge number of audio and video formats including VOC files.

You can install it through Homebrew using the following command.

brew install ffmpeg

And then you can convert VOC files to MP3 like so.

ffmpeg -i sample.voc sample.mp3


Finder won't remember window size in Yosemite In previous versions there was a way to set the window configuration as default. But now in Yosemite they seem to have got rid of this option.

There is however a way to make it remember for a while with option + drag a new (untouched) finder window. But this won't last long. After a while or a restart the window is back to stock settings.

Is this a bug? Because I can't recall experiencing this in previous versions of OS X. If not, is there a way to set a default window configuration?

I don't know any way to change the default window size, but you can use a script like this to reset the properties of windows manually:

tell application "Finder"
    if number of Finder windows is 0 then return
    tell Finder window 1
        set toolbar visible to false
        set sidebar width to 0
        set statusbar visible to false
        set current view to column view
        set bounds to {960, 22, 1920, 1076}
        tell its column view options
            set shows icon to false
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


How can I invert spelling proposals on iOS? Is there a way to invert the behavior of the spelling proposal ?

By "invert" I mean :

Don't change what I have typed if I don't do anything special

AND

Select the proposal if I tap on it

You can disable "Auto-Correction" under Settings > General > Keyboard.

The check spelling will still be on and taping on the word detected as wrong will prompt you the corrections.


Enable packet filter firewall (pfctl -Ef) temporarily stops all network connection I've noticed that when re-setting my firewall with a new set of rules, all network communication completely stops for a short time, until it regains with the new set of rules.

In fact, it also occurs when I start firewall after it was previously closed or when it switch from enable to disable state.

Why does PacketFiler temporarily halt connection every time it changes state (using pfctl -Ef or pfctl -d) ?

Pf is a stateful firewall. It means it strictly accounts current state of connections and if you temporarily turn it off and then on again its internal view could become outdated so that some affected connections would stall and never recover.

There's a workaround that man pf.conf describes "…

  If stateless filtering of individual packets is desired, the no state keyword can be used to specify that state will not be created if this is the last matching rule.  A number of parameters can also be set to affect how packet filter handles state tracking.  See STATEFUL TRACKING OPTIONS below for further details.

…"

But new ruleset loading with pfctl -f should not cause any troubles unless you're flushing states specifically, for e. g..


Huge file when exporting iPhoto slideshow I am creating a slideshow in iPhoto, my slideshow contains about 70 images, each image is about 10MB. When selecting Export to 1080p, it says that it needs more than 20GB of disk space to export. This is insane. My slideshow is using Vintage Prints theme and a 7-minute music file.

Is there something wrong here? I searched on the internet for the solution but it just mentioned the issue, no solution for this at all. Or maybe this is normal? (which I don't really think so)

Update:

I took the warning seriously and tried to export the slideshow to an external 1TB hard disk (my Mac disk only had 10GB or less). The export was extremely slow, I let it run overnight and guess what I saw in the final result? The exported video was just only 308MB. Hell, I guess there is a bug in the iPhoto and they are doing crazy buffering while exporting. So, the "final exported file" is not as big as its warning, but you still need to have enough space to run the export function.

Your best option I think is to reduce the size of your images. This can be done with Preview but is doesn't run in batch mode. There are third party apps like Pixillion that will change your image to a different format or just reduce the quality slightly resulting in a much smaller image. Pixillion has a trail period so you can play with it and see if it works for you. It also appears to have a batch mode option. I saw a 50% reduction by degrading quality by a slight amount. You should play with this to see when you start noticing degradation in the image. See Pixillion panes below.

After pressing the "Compression Settings" button you get the pane shown below.

Another option is the App Squash. I don't know how this pwrforms but it sounds like it may do what you want. Developers do not offer a free trail period so its $15 and cross your fingers it helps you.

The last option is the one I mentioned earlier. In preview you can go to the  tools menu and click on Adjust size as shown below.

When you click on adjust size you get a pane that looks like the image shown below. As you can see you can adjust the image size or the resolution. You can play with these parameters to find the best values.


Fading of the URL in Safari 6's Unified Search and URL Field With Safari 6, the omnibar fades the non-server part of the URL, so that the actual server name is more visible. Presumably, this is to reduce phishing attacks.

However, I find that the remainder of the url is hard to read, and to be honest, when developing websites, that is the part I care much more about.

Is there any way to have it so that the whole url is the same?

As mentioned above by dan8394, you can click the omnibar, reactivating the full URI. Unfortunately, there is not an option for changing this in Safari, nor does a hook exist in AppleScript. To the best of my knowledge, the only way this can be changed would be through a Safari extension. However, from what I have found, this is hard-coded into Safari itself and there isn't an option or a flag to change that will affect it. Sorry.

Good luck and happy browsing!


Does the iPad Air automatically switch to 4G if Wi-Fi is down? My mom has an iPad Air with a T-Mobile data plan.  The iPad Air is configured to use the Wi-Fi in her home.

She recently noticed some pop-up messages on the iPad Air saying that there's no data left on the cellular plan.  She gets 200 MB of data every month from T-Mobile, so I guess she used up all 200 MB this month.  But she never takes the iPad outside the house, so she doesn't know how she ran out of cellular data.  The only thing I can think of is that maybe the Wi-Fi was down and the iPad Air automatically switched to the T-Mobile cellular signal.  She watches movies a lot, so that would certainly use up 200 MB of data pretty quickly.

So does the iPad Air automatically switch to the cellular plan if the Wi-Fi is down?  What if the Wi-Fi router is up but the Comcast internet is down?

It works the other way around but the result is the same.

By default it uses the cellular network unless there is a Wifi network. If there is a Wifi  network I will use it to send and receive data.


How do I disable secondary display connective via HDMI on Lion/Mini? I have a late 2011 mini and the HDMI out is set up to go to my receiver and thence to my TV. When the TV is off, I would like it not to extend my desktop to it, but it is. How can I prevent that other than plugging and unplugging the HDMI cable?

Update: covers similar ground to Best practices for 2011 Mac mini connected to monitor + HDTV?

I had the same problem, this happens because the TV is still sending a signal to the HDMI port even when powered off so the Mac still thinks that it's active. To solve this you need a HDMI switcher that will fully kill the HDMI signal when it's not used. Here is the one I use:

http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-High-Performance-Switcher-Switch/dp/B0015YWKYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328391227&sr=8-1


speed up launchctl execution I've set up a bunch of scripts that need to happen when I connect my thunderbolt dock at home (disable wifi, enable bluetooth, ...).

To detect the thunderbolt dock I make use of the following launchctl service:

<?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>romeovs.dock.agent</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/romeovs/.bin/dock/run.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>LaunchEvents</key>
    <dict>
        <key>com.apple.notifyd.matching</key>
        <dict>
            <key>com.apple.system.config.network_change</key>
            <dict>
                <key>Notification</key>
                <string>com.apple.system.config.network_change</string>
            </dict>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

This service listens to launchd for a network change to happen (detecting the wired network that is connected to the dock). This setup seems to work but it is really slow to detect and act when the dock is connected.

It already takes a long time for the dock network to be set up, but after that it also takes another 5 seconds before the script actually gets called.

Is there a way to make the service detect the network changes any faster (without setting up a polling service)?

The delay is most likely to be within the notification centre; the notifyd service is not time critical.

Consider using a process observing IOKit level notifications. At the IOKit layer notifications are immediately dispatched and designed for processes reacting to hardware changes.

Trying using Growl and the HardwareGrowler addition to trigger your script.


Homebrew errors; update fails Homebrew has been working fine for years...until today. Anyone know what's going on and/or how to fix it?

$ brew --config
HOMEBREW_VERSION: 0.9.4
ORIGIN: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew.git
HEAD: cce7d7a441a7b699d4c1cc6d9726e325d09e0e12
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /usr/local/Cellar
CPU: quad-core 64-bit ivybridge
OS X: 10.8.3-x86_64
Xcode: 4.6.2
CLT: 4.6.0.0.1.1365549073
GCC-4.2: build 5666
LLVM-GCC: build 2336
Clang: 4.2 build 425
X11: N/A
System Ruby: 1.8.7-358
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Python: /usr/bin/python
Ruby: /Users/meltemi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p195/bin/ruby

$ brew update
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
    Library/Aliases/fishfish
    Library/Formula/aamath.rb
    Library/Formula/abcmidi.rb
    Library/Formula/agedu.rb
    ...
    Library/brew.rb
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.
error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge:
    Library/ENV/pkgconfig/10.9
    Library/Formula/cctools-headers.rb
    Library/Formula/dyld-headers.rb
    Library/Formula/ld64.rb
    Library/Formula/libunwind-headers.rb
    Library/Formula/osm2pgsql.rb
    Library/Formula/proxychains-ng.rb
    Library/Formula/rbenv-aliases.rb
Please move or remove them before you can merge.
Aborting
Error: Failure while executing: git pull -q origin refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master

The brew doctor should be helpful about this, next best thing to try is repairing formulae from taps with brew tap --repair. If that still does not help, try the following steps:

brew untap <X> where  is from brew tap.

cd $(brew --prefix)

git clean -fd

git reset origin/master --force

brew update

brew tap <X> to have your taps again.


How do I stop FirefoxCP process preventing sleep? If I open my activity monitor and show the 'preventing sleep' column I notice that I have five process called FirefoxCP Web Content and one of those has the preventing sleep set to true.
How can I make my computer sleep when I ask it to?
Things I've tried

disabled all add ons

To manually initiate a sleep on the mac and override 'Preventing Sleep' applications run
pmset sleepnow
in the terminal
(you may find something in man pmset that can alter the settings, I performed a quick look but couldn't find anything)


Where can I find the phone numbers of my contacts on an iPhone 5C? I just bought an iPhone 5C. I can't figure out how to make a call. My contact list was uploaded to the new phone but there are no phone numbers listed. Email addresses are listed for some of my contacts.

Do I need to go to a different screen or do I need to manually add phone numbers?

When you select a contact, their phone number should show up towards the top.

If it doesn't show a phone number, it's possible that the phone numbers didn't import. It's also possible that there could be multiple contacts for a single person. You can also try and dial a phone number of a contact in your list and see if the name shows up below it.


Office 2011 - option + left / right keyboard shortcut not working When using Microsoft Office 2011 (Word, Powerpoint and Excel) on my Macbook Pro (running OS X 10.9.5) the option + left arrow, option + shift + left arrow, option + right arrow and option + shift + right arrow keyboard shortcuts don't work as they should e.g. skip (select) forward or back a word. This functionality works in non-Microsoft programs such as at the command line. All other keyboard shortcuts are working as they should.

I have checked under Tools > Customise Keyboard and they are assigned correctly. I have tried resetting shortcuts both within Office and in System Preferences without success. This has been going on a while - through successive Office updates. As a work-around I have reassigned this functionality to another shortcut but would like to know what the problem is.

Anyone experiencing similar or knows a solution?

I had my keyboard set to Unicode Hex Input. Setting this to Australian or English resolved the problem.


App Store asks me for a password, but won't let me change the Apple ID I'm taking over someone elses job and am using the computer he was using. In the App Store there are some apps that ask me to enter a password and have an Apple Id already filled in but won't let me change it.

For example there's an update to Evernote. In the Apple App store when I click on "update" it prompts me for the password and has the e-mail address of the previous employee automatically filled in (and I can't change it). What can I do? Evernote itself is signed out, so there definitely wouldn't be a loss if I reinstall it.

It won't let you change it because the apps are tied to the account that purchased them.  See here for the legal details.

Basically, only the original purchaser can update.  If you'd like to be able to keep up-to-date with an application, you must have it tied to your account...by buying/downloading it yourself. If that's the case...

Delete the application

open Finder
select Applications folder in left pane
drag apps tied to the old account to trash

Ensure that the old user is signed out of the Mac App Store
Sign in under an account you control
Purchase/download to your heart's content


How do I Convert FLAC files to ALAC for iTunes? I have a pretty large music library in FLAC, and I need to import it to my iTunes library somehow. I want to use the ALAC format to keep everything lossless so I can transcode to different lossy formats later if I need to.

Have a look at Max. Freeware and Open source. Has a GUI.


How can I make sure my iPhone uses UK spelling and keyboard? I use an iPhone 4s, with iOS 7.1.2

I have two keyboards installed.  The first is British and the second is Emoji.

When I tap the globe button it switches to emoji. When I tap it again it switches back to qwerty but the space bar will flash the text "English (US)" which then fades to the word "space". Tapping the 123 button in qwerty mode shows a £ sign; I have to tap the #+= button to show the € and $ signs.

The phone highlights colour as wrong, but not color.  I want to force British English spelling.

How can force the phone to use a UK keyboard?  How can I force the phone to only use British English spellings?

You need to set your device language to English (U.K.), not just the keyboard. To do this:

Open Settings
Tap "General"
Tap "Language & Region"
Tap "iPhone Language"
Select "English (U.K.)"

Your iPhone should reboot and your dictionary should be set to British English. If it doesn't, you may need to reset your dictionary by:

Open Settings
Tap "General"
Scroll to the bottom and tap "Reset"
Tap "Reset Keyboard Dictionary"

You can verify that you are running your iPhone with British English as your preferred language as in the main Settings menu you will see an option labelled "Mobile" (it is labelled "Cellular" in US English).


iphone 5, ios 9.0.2 stuck on lock screen Anyone have solution for my issue? My iphone 5, ios 9.0.2 stuck on lock screen.

Sleep / wake button is not working for years (https://www.apple.com/support/iphone5-sleepwakebutton/). I live in Indonesia, bought that iphone in Singapore. All I can say is, I can't ask for replacement

What works for me:

assisitive touch
home button
mute / unmute switch
volume up / down while accessing "Voice Control"

Other than that nothing's working

Touch screen on OTHER than assisitive touch is not working. So I can't do any slide, etc.

I tried to use assisitive touch to turn off my iphone but I can't swipe the "slide to power off". I can show control center via assisitive touch but I can't touch anything. Hard reset (holding sleep/wake + home button) is not working because my sleep/wake button is not working.

I think it might be related with "notification center" because I can't open notification center via assisitive touch.

All I can do right now is waiting till my battery runs out (hope this issue will be gone after it restarts)

In web programming terms, it seems that there are some kind of z-index difference blocking the layer other than "Assisitive Touch layer"

What was happening (in case any of you can replicate it):

my wife was borrowing my iphone (LCD still off)
WhatsApp chat notification came
she clicked home button (while the LCD still glowing)
boom! that's all

PS:
I don't want to wipe my iphone, I have a lot of important data in my iphone

The solution should be to wait until the battery is drain out and the plug it to the power source to turn it on. Everything should be back to normal.

BUT in my case, I can't wait until the battery is drain out so I open the iphone by myself then unplug the battery (~4 hours ago). Everything should be back to normal BUT in my case, it made my iphone "broken". I did a mistake (I was separating the display from the front panel!!) when I tried to "suck" the front panel. Sometimes there are some weird mark on the top of my display and touch on that area is not working :(

Though I'm not sure, is that happened because of my mistake during opening the front panel OR because I forcibly unplug the battery when the iphone is still ON.

So, it is not advisable to open the iphone by yourself. I did that because I really need it at that moment and I can't wait until the battery is drain out (even until now it still 64%).


Macbook and 4K monitor Please, does anyone know whether Macbook (2015) with MacOS Sierra (10.12) is able to drive Dell P2415Q 4K (3840x2160) monitor at 60Hz? What dongles do I need?

I have USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter which is said to support "UHD (3840 by 2160) at 30Hz". But Apple's Using 4K displays, 5K displays, and Ultra HD TVs with your Mac states:

  With macOS 10.12 or later, MacBook (2015 and later) and MacBook Pro (2016 and later) support these resolutions and refresh rates over HDMI 1.4b using the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter:

  4096x2304 at 48Hz refresh rate
  3840x2160 at 60Hz refresh rate (mirroring is not supported at this resolution)

  MacBook (2016 and later) and MacBook Pro (2016 and later) support 60Hz refresh rates over HDMI when used with a supported HDMI 2.0 display, an HDMI Premium Certified cable, and a supported USB-C to HDMI 2.0 adapter.

So I'm confused now: would it work somehow? Would it work over HDMI? Would it work over DisplayPort? Is the adapter I have suitable?

Answer is yes with the right USB C to DP adapter. I have a 2015 MacBook and I have tried it with two very different 4K displays - one Philips, one LG - and both worked correctly at 4K 60Hz. If fact, they work in Bootcamp, too at 4K 60hz. Impressive.

FYI, I understand this capability arrived with the Sierra MacOS update. Earlier MacOS versions limit you to 30Hz on this MacBook.

I use a Club3D branded adapter.


Read/write raw NFC data on a mac I'm looking for a solution to read/write raw data from and to mifare classic tags. On Android, there is NFC Taginfo, NXP TagInfo and MIFARE Classic Tool.
Alternatively, I would be willing to program my own macos application if somebody could point me to some good resources on how the pc/sc and nfc communications are supposed to work.
PLEASE NOTE: NDEF is NOT raw data! NDEF Apps like e.g. NFC Tools for Desktop are no use to me, because they only support reading/writing NDEF records but not raw data.

For programming your own macOS application, you have multiple options. As you mention Android, you might want to go the Catalyst way in order to create an app for both iOS and macOS at the same time. In that case, you want to use the Core NFC framework from Apple to access the NFC reader.
If you want really raw access without a framework, you'll want to start from a specific set of hardware. For example a popular choice is the ACR122U NFC reader/writer, which is connected through USB. It comes with Mac software, which might be enough for your needs - and if not, it can be programmed at the lowest level if need be. You can read the details in the API documentation.
Another option is to install pcsc-lite from HomeBrew and use their implementation as a stepping stone in creating your own implementation.


Why does my iPhone keep prompting me for my Apple ID? For approximately the last week or so, my iPhone 4S seems to have developed a behavior whereby it keeps prompting me for my Apple ID password on roughly 50% of the occassions when I turn it on, and sometimes at other times too. There doesn't seem to be any consistent pattern. Whether I enter my password, or hit cancel, doesn't seem to make a difference.

What might cause this? What are good ways to diagnose or figure out what might be going on, ideally without too much disruption? (e.g. wiping the phone).

I am using iOS 6.1.3.

It seems this was a Skype issue due to "half-purchased" credit. Uninstalling and reinstalling Skype fixed it.


Change Default Artwork in iTunes 11 How do I change the default artwork for an artist in iTunes 11?

They seem to have found a fix, but for Windows. I haven't found a similar one for Mac, I'll update this answer if I find it.

Note: The above only applies to changing the default artwork for viewing by genre, not by artist, which is still the unanswered question.

While it is possible to change this by playing with ratings, there doesn't seem to be a manual workaround, as existed in 10.7.


Faulty graphics card or maverick's issue? I've started to get strange artifacts on my 2010 MacBook Pro after updating to Maverick's. I'm not sure if they occur systematically -- I am running a CPU intensive script this time, but have run the same script before without issue. Restarting seems to fix it.

From other posts, it sounds like it most likely is a graphics card issue, but I was wondering if it is potentially an issue relating to the Maverick's update, rather than a graphics card problem.

I am having precisely the same issues with the same MacBook Pro, a 2010 15" 2.4GHz i5. When I uncheck the 'Automatic graphic switching' box in Energy Saving in System Preferences, the artefacts immediately disappear. My guess? A Mavericks driver issue with Intel HD graphics in this laptop.


How to configure browser used by web page Reminders? How can I change which browser the Mac Reminders.app uses to open "this webpage" associations for a Reminder, so I can change the "Open Google Chrome Canary" notification button to an "Open Mozilla Firefox" button?

Given I've created a Reminder for a Webpage on my phone by asking Siri to "remind me about this tomorrow", when the Reminder appears on my laptop running the latest public build of OS X, then I expect the Open button to offer to open it in my default browser, or just not mention the browser and behave as open(1) does.

Instead, what I see is "Open in Google Chrome Canary":

This has me flummoxed: I open that browser like once a year, and my default browser is Mozilla Firefox. I've no clue why Reminders has latched onto it as The Chosen Browser for webpage reminders.

ETA: I have deleted Google Chrome Canary. After relaunching Reminders.app, webpage reminders show, instead of its icon, the "invalid app" default icon with slashed-circle. Clicking that button does nothing. No console logs appear.

My results from user edgarator’s solution: Successful for macOS Safari users

Summary

Chrome icon changed to Safari after CleanMyMac Chrome Uninstall
Chrome icon appears again after Chrome is reinstalled
Removing files individually still had the Chrome icon, resulting in “no effect”
Firefox will open Reminders URL’s if it is set as the default web browser.
Firefox can’t share websites to Reminders.
Firefox can’t use Siri to send websites to Reminders.

Software Versions

macOS Sierra:         10.12.6
Apple Reminders:      4.0 (441.11)
CleanMyMac:           1.10.4
Google Chrome:        61.0.3163.79 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Safari:               10.1.2 (12603.3.8)
Firefox:              55.0.3 (64-bit)

My Process

Safari’s has a share website to Reminders feature (Share-to-Reminders).  Details can be added to a website reminder that is being sent to Reminders without leaving the browser.

Now the problem: The shared links in Reminders uses Chrome icons which open Reminders items in Chrome, instead of Safari—or a designated browser.

I used CleanMyMac to uninstall Google Chrome, it's folders, and files.

After uninstalling Chrome, it's icon was replaced by Safari’s icon, pressing on the icon opened the link in Safari.

I then changed the default web browser to Firefox.

Clicking on the URL’s directly, or Control-clicking the URL’s in the Info Pane, opens the link in Firefox (default browser).

However, Firefox does not support Share-to-Reminders, so websites can’t be shared to Reminders from Firefox.  This also means that Siri does not execute the Share-to-Reminders command while using Firefox.


How can I get access to menu bar item in Bartender 3 using AppleScript? For the software on the top-right menu bar, I can use the following AppleScript to access the menu bar items like this

activate application "SystemUIServer"
set deviceName to "Somebody’s AirPods"

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "SystemUIServer"
        set bluetoothMenu to (menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 whose description contains "bluetooth")
        tell bluetoothMenu
            click

            set deviceMenuItem to (menu item deviceName of menu 1)
            tell deviceMenuItem
                click

                if exists menu item "Connect" of menu 1 then
                    click menu item "Connect" of menu 1
                    return "Connecting..."
                else
                    set batteryLevelMenuItem to (menu item 3 of menu 1)
                    tell batteryLevelMenuItem
                        set batteryLevelText to title of batteryLevelMenuItem
                    end tell

                    key code 53 -- esc key

                    return batteryLevelText
                end if
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

This AppleScript helps me connect to my AirPods. But if I put the bluetooth item into Bartender 3, it doesn't work. What should I add into the codes to get access to item in Bartender?

I'm gathering from your wording that you want to access a menu item of Bartender 3 that sits in the menu bar in much the same way as my Dropbox app does:

Hopefully I've this you correctly, not having Bartender myself.  However, figuring out how to access the menu item using AppleScript is not too difficult.  As you've been doing already, we'll use GUI scripting to do this, so make sure Script Editor has permission to control your computer under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility (MacOS High Sierra).
Because I don't have Bartender myself, I need you do do some detective work in AppleScript for me (but it's good practice, as it shows you how to solve problems like this in the future):
Part 1: Accessing the Menu Icon
Run this command:
tell application "System Events" to get every process whose name contains "bartender"

I ran a similar command for "dropbox" and it returned this:
    --> {application process "Dropbox",
         application process "DropboxActivityProvider"}

I imagine Bartender will have one or two processes at most as well.  One of them is probably called "Bartender".  Choose that one, unless the other one has an obviously helpful name, such as "BartenderMenu" (I doubt it).
Now run this, substituting in the appropriate process name (which is case-sensitive):
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Bartender" to get every menu bar

Hopefully, it returns this:
    --> {menu bar 1 of application process "Bartender" of application "System Events",
         menu bar 2 of application process "Bartender" of application "System Events"}

menu bar 1 is the menu bar containing the Apple Menu () in the top-left.  menu bar 2 (if it exists) will be the menu bar containing the application icon.
Now you should be able to target that menu icon with this command:
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Bartender" to ¬
    click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2

Hopefully that should sort you out.  For completeness, here's a one line job that gets all the menu bar apps in one go:
tell application "System Events" to get menu bar 2 of every process

It will return an arrange, most of whose items will be missing value (representing processes that don't have a second menu bar—the only ones that do are menu bar apps).  In amongst those missing values will be the names of apps that sit up top, and you can probably just pick out "Bartender" (or whatever it'll be called) straight away using this method.
Part 2: Accessing the Menu and its Menu Items
If, when you normally click the menu app icon for Bartender, it displays a menu, then you'll want to know how to access those menu items from AppleScript as well.
The menu itself doesn't come into existence until the icon has been clicked and the menu appears.  The menu itself is (or will be) called menu 1.  Its individual menu items are called menu items and referenced by their name (which is the text of the menu item itself, e.g. "Quit Bartender 3").
Here's the command that will access the menu:
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Bartender" to ¬
    get menu items of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2

However, you need to bring the menu into existence first, otherwise it will just throw an error or return missing value.  Therefore, run the command to click the menu app icon first, then run that one:
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Bartender" to ¬
    tell menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
        click
        get menu items of menu 1
    end tell

And, similarly, you can issue a click command to a menu item of your choice by referencing its name:
click menu item "Quit Bartender 3" of menu 1

(suitably enclosed in the relevant tell statements/blocks).
Finally: That Annoying Delay
Annoyingly, there'll be a 5-second delay between issuing a click command and retrieving the list of menu items.  I don't know why, but I do know it's a standard issue that other users report.  Here's the issue raised over on Stack Overflow together with someone's alleged fix for the problem (I haven't tested this myself).
Any questions or problems, leave a comment and I'll do my best to help.


Save as in original folder How do you "save as" in the same folder as the original document.
When I open any file on my hard drive, and make some changes, but want to keep the original, when I try to "save as" a different name, the original folder where original document came from, is not the default, or even a choice on the "save as" screen

There should be a small disclosure triangle next to where you input the document file name.

If you click on it, it will expand the Save As box and allow you to select a different folder to save the document to.


What happens when I've closed all of an application's windows on OSX? I'm used to Windows, where applications disappear from my task tray, Alt+Tab menu, etc. when I close their last window; so it's a little unexpected to me that an application's icon still sits in my Dock and in my Command+Tab windows.

Does the computer's memory, CPU usage, etc. change between that state and when I fully close (e.g. Command+Q) an application? (I have OS X 10.8 if that matters.)

There is no consensus on whether the app must quit when you close the last window or if the app continues to run, so the decision is left to each developer to decide on an app by app basis. What is true is that quitting an app does release the resources it took - even if some files and code are still stored in RAM or cache until those stores get flushed or used for caching other apps and files at a later time.

Furthermore, there is no restriction prohibiting bad coding, hogging memory, using CPU when no real tasks should be executing, so that as well varies on a case by case basis.

Both Windows and OS X have very good scheduling smarts, paging systems, thread control, etc... and the CPU are all the same in terms of shutting down cores and lowering/raising the frequency based on load to save power and give a "turbo boost" when only one core is executing a single thread.

OS X is starting to let apps signal that they support sudden termination - so that the OS can handle automatic termination, sudden termination and automatic document saving (plus versions) for an app developer. So even if you have told the OS to run a program it can and will decide to "quit" the process so that it won't consume resources while you are doing other things with the computer.

Lastly, with PowerNap on OS X hardware, the line between alseep and awake begins to blur with the system waking partially to perform periodic network tasks which make OS X a bit different than traditional UNIX and Windows in terms of thinking about apps and resource usage.

More reading:

The Core App Design - covers both apps that quit when its window closes and those that do not. Further down, the discussion of termination is fairly readable but also technically detailed
Mountain Lion: About Power Nap - HT5394


Facebook app on IOS won't update some threads Many threads that I visit frequently at some point stop updating. I get the notifications that someone has commented on the subject but when I click the link I can't see the latest changes. Even if I go back to the thread several weeks later I can't see anything after the point where the thread stopped from updating. As far as I know there is no app cache that can be cleaned or similar. How can I achieve to start updating those threads again? This doesn't happen with all threads just some. If I go into Safari I can see the changes after where the app stopped updating the thread.

My info: iPhone 5s, iOS 7.1
Facebook version 9.0.0.25.31

Thanks for suggestions!

Sadly it's delete and reinstall.

I recommend Facebook's Paper app which behaves itself and provides a better interface IMHO https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-stories-from-facebook/id794163692?mt=8


Calendar App with CSV import At the moment i'm trying to switch from Outlook to Apple Mail / Cal.app and
would like to know if anyone here has found a way to batch import Calendar events
consistently from CSV files.

The usual CSV -> Google -> iCal route is not what i'm looking for.

Maybe an alternative (calendar) app for the Mac?

If you want an app/program I would recommend that you search the Mac App Store and try googling for one.
I've heard that Sunrise Calendar is good but I think you need to find one that works good for you.

Personally, I would pin the Google Calendar website in Safari "Top Sites".


How does AirDrop retain "Developer Verification" information? And, can this be done with other methods? I am trying to share an app. AirDrop successfully completed this task. However, when e-mail is used, the error regarding an unknown developer prevents the app from running. Why is AirDrop successful and e-mail not?

Is there something I can do to share the app and retain the developer information?

Apps are actually containers, if the container doesn't contain a verified developer certificate then you will see that message pop-up when you try to open the app.

If you right click and select open it will still let you open the app, irregardless if it is from a verified developer or not.


Stop MS Word opening files automatically on launch Continual opening of files from history. I clear history, but they appear on startup the next time. If I use option (alt) button on 'Word' dropdown, I get Quit and keep files rather than Quit and close files?

Clear the saved state, rather than the history.
Quit Word.

From Finder
 Cmd ⌘   N
 Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧     G
Copy/paste ~/Library/Saved Application State

Delete the folder com.microsoft.Word.savedState

Relaunch Word.

For future reference, whatever is open when you quit will reopen when you launch. The trick is to close documents before quitting.

You can stop all applications from remembering their state using System Prefs > General > Close Windows when quitting an app.

Alternatively, there's a $0.99 app called RestoreMeNot which can switch on a per-app basis.


Setting arrangement of new Finder Window via AppleScript I want to create a new Finder Window, and change the default arrangement from "None" to "arrange by name". Here is my code that does everything except the arrange by name part:

tell application "Finder"
    set theWindow to make new Finder window
    tell theWindow
        set current view to icon view
    end tell
    tell its Finder window theWindow
        set arrangement of icon view options of theWindow to arranged by name
    end tell
end tell

I have tried the code without using the "tell its Finder Window" and using just the "tell theWindow" block, but that does nothing as well.

What is weird is, in the Finder AppleScript dictionary the "Icon View Options" property says its read only. But the "Icon View Options" class says that it is read/write, and it even has an arrangement property that also says that it is read/write.

So has anyone been able to successfully change the "arrangement" property and has the change been reflected in the Finder window?

For reasons of which I cannot explain, this following code was unreliable and only worked about 50% of the time.

tell application "Finder"
        set finderWindowID to (make new Finder window)
        set current view of finderWindowID to icon view
        set arrangement of icon view options of finderWindowID to arranged by name
end tell

After trying several different things, I realized if I ran the code once, then closed that Finder window that was created, and ran the code again...  I got the desired results every time.

I know it's ugly and not very efficient but this produced the proper results.

setIconView()
tell application "Finder" to close finderWindowID
setIconView()

to setIconView()
    global finderWindowID
    tell application "Finder"
        set finderWindowID to (make new Finder window)
        set current view of finderWindowID to icon view
        set arrangement of icon view options of finderWindowID to arranged by name
    end tell
end setIconView


Terminal (bash) - copy files from Windows (SMB) shares without mounting In past OSX versions, one could copy files from SMB shares like so:

smbclient //my-server/foo -U USER%PASS -I 127.0.0.1 -c "get my.file"

However, in recent versions, sbmclient has been replaced with smbutil which does not have copying capabilities. As far as I can tell, the only replacement is mount -t smbfs. I am not aware of any way to install smbclient on OSX (Print file from terminal via smb).

Mounting is pretty annoying though:

You have to create a folder for the mount point (what if it already exists?)
If the same folder has already been mounted on a different folder, mount will fail (with a pretty misleading error)
There's no "structured" way to tell which shares are mounted where (that I know of), meaning you'll have to grep/sed the output of df to try and work around the issues above

Basically I just want to reliably copy a file from an SMB share in a bash script, and the issues above make it more complicated than it should be (and already was before smbclient was dropped).

You cannot do that without first mounting the share.
For mounting it from the command-line, whether through Terminal or from an SSH session, there are several methods with different advantages and disadvantages.
A few variables, to make it easier to copy/paste the rest :
user=my_username; pass=my_password; server=my_server; share=my_share

Method 1
Create a temporary folder, mount into that, then unmount and remove the temporary folder.
This is the only method that also works without a user being logged in, like through a SSH session opened right after boot. But if a user is actually logged in there is still an icon on the desktop to access the share through the Finder.
dir=$(mktemp -d)
mount -t smbfs //$user:$pass@$server/$share $dir

# ls -l $dir
# ...

umount $dir && rmdir $dir

Method 2
This one only works if a user is logged in. But it has the advantage to mount into the standard /Volumes/$share folder.
open "smb://$user:$pass@$server/$share"

# ls -l /Volumes/$share
# ...

diskutil unmount /Volumes/$share

This method opens a Finder Window in the GUI, showing the mounted share.
Method 3
Like method 2, this only works if a user is logged in, and also mounts into the standard /Volumes/$share folder.
However, unlike method 2, it does not open a Finder window to the mounted share. (But it does also create the icon on the Desktop).
It needs cumbersome quoting if using variables, because one cannot use single quotes.
osascript -e "mount volume \"smb://$user:$pass@$server/$share\""

# ls -l  /Volumes/$share
# ...

diskutil unmount /Volumes/$share


iMac stuck on 100 % progress bar I have a serious problem with my 2017 iMac running macOS Catalina BETA.  After a normal reboot the iMac loaded until the bar reached 100%. Then for hours nothing happens, it just stays at 100%.

The things I tried:

Boot in Safemode - still hangs on 100%, can’t access Safemode
Reset NVRAM/PRAM - nothing happened
Reset SMC - nothing happened
Run First Aid on all disks - helped and discovered nothing
Uninstalled Google Chrome update in terminal - nothing happened
Tried to reinstall MacOS Catalina - not enough space on my disk
Tried these commands: cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/caches/opendirectory and mv ./mbr_cache ./mbr_cache-old - “no such file or directory”
Tried to boot in startup manager - still hung on 100%
Tried to run the Apple diagnostics - it said everything is fine
Single user mode with commands like mount-uw / - command not found
Let the iMac sit for a couple days - still hangs on 100%

And so on…
So, as you can see, I tried many things and nothing helped. Do you have a good solution or a advice/suggestion without erasing the disk?

Apple has a very good triage step that I follow even after doing a very good job like you in trying to eliminate things (or hope for a quick fix)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204267 (always start with the basics)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156 (Which leads to general OS startup)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207019 (which is the detailed - just updated and boot fails process)

Why not start down that path and this evening make a good last backup so you can proceed where it says erase and start over?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904 (The erase and start over process)


iPhone application for TOTP that uses Secure Enclave to store secrets? Is there an iPhone application for TOTP that uses the Secure Enclave to store the keys?

Some popular TOTP applications for iPhone are FreeOTP, Authy and Google Authenticator, but it is not clear if any of them stores the secret keys in the Secure Enclave.

You can use 1Password with a local vault. 1Password protects its data decryption secret with a private key stored only in the Secure Enclave, which in turn protects the TOTP shared secrets.


Why doesn't (can't?) terminal support the x11 protocol? It would be great to be able to x tunnel over ssh; why does one have to use XQuartz (etc) instead?

The simple answer is: Terminal is a terminal emulator -- it's not an X11 server. It exists to provide a text-based communication end point between your Mac and other machines.

Terminal is no more an X11 server than gnome-terminal on Linux is or cmd on Windows is. Which is to say: it isn't an X11 server at all. You need to be running an X11 server on your local machine to be able to have tunneled, graphical, X11 applications draw their UIs on your Mac. This isn't actually different for Mac from something like Linux, it's just that Linux, by default, is always running an X11 server for drawing your desktop so it's handled a little more gracefully than it is on the Mac. You just have to open up your X11 server's permissions and ssh tunneling and X11 forwarding on a Linux desktop seem to work.

The XQuartz server you run on OS X simply gets you the missing X11 server you need on your OS X session to enable drawing the forwarded UI commands on your OS X desktop. This isn't something an Terminal application ever would, or ever should really, implement. It's not part of being a Terminal. It's a wholly separate thing.

I also want to address something you said in your question:

  It would be great to be able to x tunnel over ssh

I'm assuming you mean "it would be great to do X11 forwarding from an ssh session started in Terminal.app to my running XQuartz server". You can do this!

When you use ssh in Terminal.app simply include the -X option to enable X forwarding and your Mac will start XQuartz automatically. No need to use the terminal app in XQuartz, which pretty much sucks.

You can also edit ~/.ssh/config and add:

ForwardX11 yes

to that file to enable X forwarding by default for all ssh sessions. You can even launch X programs on the remote machine in to the background like so:

ssh username@remoteserver -f -X xeyes

That works from Terminal.


Text Message Forwarding - Option missing from iPhone I wish to enable Text Message Forwarding to send and receive SMS from my MacBook Pro (running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4). I remember having used this feature for a while with both iOS 10 and iOS 11 on my iPhone. However, when I try to enable it now, I can no longer see the option available under Settings app → Messages (I'm running iOS 11.3). It used to be available previously. I have only one Apple ID which I use for everything. I am logged in with it on both my MacBook Pro and my iPhone.

Is this feature removed in iOS 11.3? I remember using it after upgrading to iOS 11. I don't recall this option requiring some other setting to be enabled in iPhone. Here's the screenshot from the Messages setting. The Text Message Forwarding option is clearly missing:

How do I resolve this issue? As I compare the screenshot from my iPhone with the one provided in the Apple knowledge base article, it appears that Show Contact Photos toggle is missing too. Are these official/documented changes in the Messages app?

Turn off iMessage on your Mac by going to Messages → Preferences → Accounts → Enable this account and turn it on again.

Now restart your iPhone and the option will show up.


Finder resets preferences on restart Im on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. I have customized a few things (finder window's toolbar, how to keep directories ordered by name etc) but sometimes (I think on restart, not sure) all this goes back to factory settings and I have to do it all over again. It is really annoying.

It seems people had this problem on older versions too but I prefer to ask again since it was like 4 years ago.

What can I do to prevent this? Thanks

It’s possible your Finder preference file is corrupted.

Open Finder, then press ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd G. In the popup textbox, type in ~/Library/Preferences.

Locate com.apple.finder.plist and delete it. Restart your system and see if the issue persists. If it does, you can pull the file back out of the Trash and restart one more time.


How do I download latest compatible version of an app? So, I was trying to download PicsArt and it says that I need a 10.0 IOS version. And that's happenning to almost every awesome app and games in the App Store. And that's the problem, I almost can't download anymore because of that. Now, let's go to the question, How do I download the latest compatible version of an app that I haven't purchased before?

Please answer because I'm trying to download not just PicsArt but many more...

You need to update your iOS version, if possible, or live without those apps.

As of iOS 11, Apple has told developers they must update their apps to 64-bit.  Older, 32-bit, apps can't be on the App Store anymore.

If you're on any version older than iOS 11 and the developer hasn't updated their app (it's the developer's responsibility to do this, not Apple's), you will not be able to download or run the app.


After system wake, Thunderbolt monitor underscans Starting recently (but not aligned in my memory to any particular Software Update), when my MacBook Pro 13" Retina (late 2015) wakes from sleep with the external monitor connected (whether sleep was initiated by idle timeout or manually by pressing ⇧⌃⏻ (shift-control-power)), my Thunderbolt-connected display (an LG 34UC97-S 34” Curved Ultrawide 21:9 WQHD monitor, maximum resolution 3440x1440) comes up underscanned—fuzzy pixels with wide black bars on all sides, as so:

As you see, the Displays control panel shows it as "Default for display":

And, in fact, if I take a screen shot, the resolution of the image is the full 3440x1440.

If I switch the Resolution radio button to "Scaled", I see this, supporting that full resolution:

Holding down ⌥ (option) so that I get the "Detect displays" button and clicking it does not change anything. However, if I change the Scaled resolution to anything else (say, 2560x1080) and back to 3440x1440 or "Default for display", then the underscan goes away:

(I've included both photographs because from my web searching, people with similar issues are often told they're mistaking the monitor bezel for underscan bars. That's clearly not the case here.)

Again, this is a fairly new (perhaps a couple weeks old) issue—the monitor used to wake up with the correct resolution. When I disconnect and reconnect the monitor, sometimes it takes several tries to detect the display ("Detect displays" with ⌥ in the Displays panel doesn't work), and I believe that issue may have first cropped up around the same time.

I use the Thunderbolt port because I use peripherals connected to the display.

Try resetting your VRAM by restarting your macbook and pressing CMD+ALT+P+R when you hear the starting sound and hold until you hear the sound again. If you have a firmware password enabled you will have to turn this off in order to reset your VRAM.


iPhone: is it possible to route calls to speaker only if answering via smartwatch? Usually I answer calls with the standard iPhone receiver. Sometimes, while the phone is charging and I'm in the other room, I have to answer the call with a bluetooth-connected smartwatch (otherwise I wouldn't make it in time,) then I have to run to the other room and press the speaker button to start the conversation.
Note: on the smartwatch I just press "answer call" but it has no speaker, so the call is completely handled by the phone itself.
I know it is possible to route audio to the speaker by default, but is there a way to do that only if I'm triggering the "answer call" from the smartwatch?

No, that's unfortunately not currently possible.
As you indicate, you can use the Call Audio Routing functionality in Accessibility to always route any call to speaker. However, you cannot do that just for calls answered through a Bluetooth-enabled smart watch.


Bootcamp "No Bootable device" but windows already installed I had an issue in OSX which meant that I had to erase the OSX partition, and after reinstalling OSX, my bootcamp partition won't load. It's not in the option menu on start up, but is still recognised in start up disk and disk utility. I selected it in startup disk but I got there error mentioned in the title. I can see all my files in finder, but just can't boot into windows. Anyone know what's going on?

Thanks,
Mike

Turns out the partition MBR was wiped on the erase and the entire disk became a single GPT with a single hybrid MBR. I had for recreate the Hybrid MBR using FDISK.


Apple mail matching signatures with account aliases possible? I use a gmail account with apple mail. It's very annoying that I have to pick a matching signature everytime I decided to change the from email alias.

Is there anything I can do that will allow me to match up a signature with each alias email address?

For this kind of professionnal use of E-mail, I abandonned Gmail and Mail many years ago.

I use Thunderbird ( Thunderbird home page ) which is much more secure, lets you configure it exactly the way you are looking for through the concept of "identities". You can define many "identities" per account, each one being defined by:

a name
a "From:" field
a "Reply-To:" field
an "Organization:" field
a signature (in HTML or text)

I use this E-mail client as a much faster interface to Gmail letting me answer with the identity required and permitting my correspondant to answer me with my appropriate reply address.

As a collateral advantage, you will most probably discover many other advanced function to use in Thunderbird.


OS X automatically deleting files Before I made multiple cloud accounts available to backup my Mac, running OS X El Capitan, I saved every file in All My Files onto a 16 GB external SD card.

I noticed that every few days everything on the SD card would seem to disappear.  Is there any explanation that could be had for this?

Backing up specific folders instead of copying the disk images (I realized that's what 'All My Files' consists of) has allowed me to make permanent backups with different services and devices, including my SD card.


Anonymous iOS App star rating Will any identifiable information about my account be displayed to the developer or owner of the App I rate with a star rating (not a written review)?

No.

In case of star rating, no personally identifiable information is shared with the developer.

In fact the developer is not even able to see the individual star rating, only an aggregated rating after a minimum number of reviews are made.


USB drive stuck on read only So my usb drive is stuck on read only and I have tried many different options which I have gotten from different websites.

I have tried to restore/erase in disk utility but the options are greyed out. I have also tried entering recovery mode and erasing the USB drive from there but with no luck. I have also tried using macfuse (with NTFS-3g installed)however without any success, but I am happy to try this option again if anyone has some ideas on how to do it as I wasn't to sure what I was doing  and I was really just copy and pasting codes.

The USB is formatted as a MS-DOS (FAT32) if that helps.

Its really annoying because I cannot erase or edit or delete or do anything with any of the files. I do not mind if fixing it means I lose all the data.

Sorry if this is on the wrong stack exchange website, i'm pretty new to it all.

I have also tried turning my computer on and off again if that helps.

Thank you very much guys.

Plug the USB drive into any Windows computer.

Navigate to "My Computer" in Windows Explorer (click Start->My Computer[near the top right of the window]).

Right-click on the USB drive:

Windows 7:

Should be listed under "Devices with Removable Storage"

Windows XP and older:

Should just be listed in a list of all drives installed on the computer

Click "Format".

Choose options you want to format as, make sure the "Read Only" button is deselected, and make sure the "Hidden" button is also deselected, and click "OK".

Congratulations! Your USB drive has now been re-formatted. You (should) now be able to format it using Mac OSX.


Removing a given email synced to my iPad? I set my work gmail account to my personal iPad and now I don't have that job.  Since email is not coming in I can assume that either my PW changed or my account was closed from the business or IT.

But now ... can I remove it from iPad or am I stuck with this archived onto my iPad?

ALSO ... If I remove it from the iPad does the business retain access elsewhere?

I saw this and found it similar but not as specific: How to remove Gmail from iPad mail?

Any takers?  Mine is similar but connected to a business.  Any info or links would be GREATLY appreciated.

If you just want to be done with all trace of the mail, simply fire up your iPad and go to the settings app.

From there, tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars and select the mail account in question.

The Delete Account control will remove that account and all messages, contacts, calendars and notes that were synced to your work gmail account.

This does nothing to the actual google account and deletes no messages or contacts from the server. That would need a working connection and/or you to log in to the account at http://gmail.com or the URL they set up for your business log in.


how do I disable preview autosave? Today I was scrolling through my photography gallery with Preview app. I was playing around with files rotating them etc, only to discover that it was actually saving those files (overwriting originals) without giving me a notice!

Is there any way to make it ask me for changes everytime? not only when file is locked...

Are you using Lion?  If you are, you can check your versions by clicking the file title on the top of the window, then select Browser all Versions to revert back to the previous save.