Time Machine - multiple backup destinations for a "separate weekly" I have a client that I'm setting up Time Machine to backup his Macbook Pro.  He's running OSX Mountain Lion, but soon to upgrade to Mavericks.

It has been backing up using Time Machine and an external USB drive.

He wants to add a 2nd USB drive to get a weekly backup that he'll store offsite.

We've setup the 2nd drive and had Time Machine point to that 2nd drive and it is creating an initial backup now to it.

My questions:

If he unplugs the 2nd drive after the initial backup and then takes it home, when he plugs it back in next week does it backup what has been changed since today's initial backup to it?  Meaning, does Time Machine base the backup off of the destination media in conjunction with the source?  Or will it only backup what hasn't been backed up in the last hour (assuming the 1st external drive is plugged in this whole week and Time Machine has been backing up as normal to it)?
Will Time Machine treat each external backup drive as 2 independent backups, each with their own "sync" with the source hard disk?

Basically, what I want to make sure happens is:

EXTERNAL DRIVE #1 = NORMAL backups....daily/hourly/weekly/etc. always plugged in.
EXTERNAL DRIVE #2 = WEEKLY/DR backups....only plugged in once a week (or less) and backs up everything since the last time it was plugged in...regardless of what the backups for EXTERNAL DRIVE #1 have been doing.

Thank you.

Basically, I would recommend not trying to constrain time machine to only a weekly interval on the offsite drive.

That being said, you can have both drives work totally independently as that is how the software is engineered. If you really only want a weekly snapshot, only connect the weekly drive once a week and force a rotation of the destination:

 tmutil startbackup --rotation

Once you have a backup to the weekly drive, eject it and send it away. As long as all dives get reattached every 14 days or so, you won't get a warning dialog that any are out of date.

Again, you can certainly enforce a single weekly backup by the procedure you follow but two things make that practice less needed than you might expect:

The backup intervals are very low space overhead compared to the size of cheap backup disks.

On my worst Mac, the system averages 5 MB of overhead for system log files so in absence of user files changing, you have 24 daily and 31 monthly snapshots you would avoid storing 275 MB (or 0.0003 of a one TB drive) if you were on a strict one per week schedule.

Since the cleanup of old backups is so fast and the storage impact so low, most clients with offsite rotation end up just swapping disks each week and let the software cull the extra snapshots per the normal schedule, leaving weekly snapshots more than a month old.


Is there any security risk if a malicious Microsoft Word (.doc) file is opened with the Apple Pages app? An infected .doc file (VirusTotal report) was sent to a Mac via email and was opened with the Apple Pages app.
I did some research on my own and the only information I got is that a .doc file can cause damage by using macros when it is opened with the Microsoft Word app and macros are allowed. But the Apple Pages app doesn't support macros, so there shouldn't be a risk when it converts the .doc file to be able to open and display it.
Is there any other risk of a .doc file being harmful when it is opened with the Apple Pages app?

Theoretically any file can be a security risk if opened in an application, be it via malicious macros, be it via being tampered with to cause buffer overflows, be it somehow else.
Practically Pages can't run Word macros so opening Word documents in Pages should be safe.


Is there any keyboard shortcut to Force Quit all applications? Is there any apple Keyboard Shortcut to force quitting all of my applications?

I really need this sometimes because i have a old MacBook Air and it freezes if I put more than 14 applications. I just want to ask if there are any KeyBoard shortcuts to force quitting all of the applications using the Apple KeyBoard?

You could do it with a script... or you could hit CMD+Tab and while holding CMD hit "q" over and over. It will cycle through your apps and quit them one by one pretty quickly.


Is it possible to convert a MacBook Pro from the glossy to the matte option? I have foolishly managed to crack the glass on the glossy screen of my 15 inch Mid 2010 MacBook Pro.

While considering the option to replace the glass, I then remembered I'd always wanted to have the matte (anti-glare) option.

Is it possible to convert from the glossy to the matte option? Is it as simple as removing the glass and installing a bezel?
Or are there more parts to the matte screen than this?
Or is it a completely different LCD panel?
Are there any other caveats, particularly with respect to the bezels that seem to be available on eBay and the like?

Edit: Should have mentioned that I already have the high-resolution glossy display.

Unfortunately, it is completely different type of display. The antiglare is a higher resolution and has different bezel, so it's not possible to upgrade an existing display, short of using a screen film with it.

You would have to get this done through either an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) or an Apple Store. The Apple Store almost definitely will not put something on the MacBook Pro that it didn't come with, but an AASP might. The only way to find out is to ask!


How do I use the eGPU to power MacBook's internal screen I have a late 2016 15” MacBook Pro with a Radeon Pro 455 with 2GB VRAM.

I have upgrade to macOS High Sierra because its support external GPUs.

I have purchased Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box with 550W Power Supply and installed NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080.

I cannot get this setup to use the eGPU to power the internal screen.

How can I do this? Is this possible?

I'm pretty sure they're not designed to accelerate your internal screen, only external, plugged into the eGPU itself.

From the Sonnet eGPU Manual

  Set up your monitor(s);
  To obtain the best graphics acceleration for applications like games, set a display connected to the eGPU as
  the main monitor. Open System Preferences:Displays, select Arrangement
  and drag the white menu bar to the external monitor. Drag the monitors
  to mimic the physical arrangement. If you want to tile your displays
  into one large space, Open System Preferences: Mission Control.
  Uncheck Displays have separate Spaces.
  Note that if you mirror an internal and external display together, internal graphics will be used.


How to save/export as a MIDI file in GarageBand Opening a midi file (.mid) in GarageBand is the easiest thing ever, but how do I go the other direction? I want to take a piece I recorded as a midi performance in GarageBand and turn it into a midi file. How can this be done?

Background:

I have GarageBand 10.1.6
I record midi performances all the time in GarageBand and can easily export them as an MP3
I want to save/export them as midi files so that I can open them in Synthesia (Synthesia only opens midi files)

You can get MIDI from GarageBand using these free application or browser conversion methods

  One of the biggest drawbacks [of GarageBand] is the lack of built-in support for exporting MIDI data. (...) However, a nice guy named Lars Kobbe has put together a workaround/hack that extracts MIDI data from the reluctant clutches of GarageBand.

  You can download his GB2MIDI Apple droplet script from his site: MIDI-Export in Apples Garageband. Here’s the direct download: GB2MIDI.ZIP

  source: Scott Troyer: Export MIDI from GarageBand

Kobbe also created an experimental JavaScript-based version of the GB2MIDI app which works directly in your browser. This is great because, if the application ever stops working (e.g. after updating your operating system), the browser version still works wonderfully!

Conversion Process

Once you have your MIDI performance in GarageBand, you may create a MIDI file (.mid) using the following steps:

Join the regions of the track you want as a MIDI file (command + J)
Convert that region to a loop (File > Add Region to Loop Library or drag-and-drop into loops area)
Find that loop (.aif) file you just created in your hard drive

/Users/User'sName/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/User Loops/SingleFiles

Put the loop through the conversion process below

Application method:

simply drag-and-drop it onto the GB2MIDI converter icon
Click "Run" when the GB2MIDI prompt pops up
Grab the freshly extracted .mid file (now found in the same folder where the .aif loop was)

Browser method:

Go to the browser version of GB2MIDI
Select "Choose Files" (or just drag-n-drop onto "Choose Files" button)
Click "Convert"
Grab the freshly extracted .mid file (now found in the download folder)

Now you can use the MIDI file for whatever you wanted. In my case, I'd open the MIDI file in Synthesia. Thanks to this process, I can make videos like this one.


Convert USB drive from MBR to GPT I have 16 GB SanDisk USB-C drive and want to convert it to GPT on MB Pro 2017. I haven't found any default tools to do this on High Sierra so I downloaded gdisk. So here is what I type in the terminal:

sudo gdisk /dev/disk2s1/Volumes/BOOTABLE

and the output is:

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.3
Problem opening /dev/disk2s1/Volumes/BOOTABLE for reading! Error is 20.

How can I convert it to GPT?

EDIT:
I converted drive to GPT using sudo gdisk /dev/disk2 but the following issue appeared:

  Caution! After loading partitions, the CRC doesn't check out! Warning!
  Main partition table CRC mismatch! Loaded backup partition table
  instead of main partition table!

  Warning! One or more CRCs don't match. You should repair the disk!

  Partition table scan:   MBR: protective   BSD: not present   APM: not
  present   GPT: damaged

I verified it and got the message:

  Problem: The CRC for the main partition table is invalid. This table
  may be
      corrupt. Consider loading the backup partition table ('c' on the recovery &
      transformation menu). This report may be a false alarm if you've already
      corrected other problems.
       Identified 1 problems!

So I tried to do as advised and got this:

  Recovery/transformation command (? for help): c
  Warning! This will probably do weird things if you've converted an MBR to GPT form and
  haven't yet saved the GPT! Proceed? (Y/N):

Should I load backup partition table from disk (rebuilding main) or load MBR and build fresh GPT from it?

Ok, I entered Recovery/transformation commands and selected load MBR and build fresh GPT from it. After that I chose write table to disk and exit.
Operation completed successfully.


How to Disable iMessage on iPad and MacBook? I need to disable iMessage from my MacBook and iPad.  No matter how many times I utilize the Apple ID and password request in iMessage on my MacBook and iPad, I find it open and running almost everytime I log on.  I share these devices with someone and have told him I only want messages on my iphone. How can I take care of this once and for all? please and thank you?

To disable Messages on iPad:

Open Settings.
Tap on Messages.
Tap and turn off iMessage to disable it.

Next, let us disable iMessage syncing your messages on your iPhone to your iPad. Again in Settings:

Tap your Name / Apple ID.
In Apple ID, tap on iCloud.
In iCloud, under 'Apps using iCloud', tap and turn off Messages.

Next, let us make sure nobody else but you can enable iMessage on iPad again. So, again in Settings:

Tap Screen Time.
In Screen Time, tap Turn On Screen Time.
Tap Continue.
Select This is My [device].
Tap Use Screen Time Passcode to create a passcode, then re-enter the passcode to confirm. (Note: This should be different from the passcode you use to unlock your iPad, and don't tell it to anyone you are sharing your iPad with. You maybe asked to enter your Apple ID and password. This can be used to reset your Screen Time passcode if you forget it.)
Now tap on Content & Privacy Restrictions. (If asked, enter your passcode).
In Content & Privacy Restrictions, scroll down to the section Allow Changes and tap on Account Changes.
Tap on Don't Allow.

That's it - now,

You have disabled iMessage on iPad.
Made sure that the messages you send and receive on your iPhone is not synced and available on Messages on iPad.
With Screen Time you have made sure nobody can enable iMessage again on your iPad (as long as they do not know your Screen Time passcode).

To disable Messages on your macOS:

Open Messages.
From the menu bar on top, Click on Messages > Preferences...
In the Preferences window, click on iMessage.
Then click and uncheck Enable this account and Enable Messages in iCloud.
Then click on Sign Out.

On macOS Mojave:

On macOS Big Sur:

(Screenshot from Apple support docs - the id and phone number are fake).
Now Messages should be disabled on your macOS too, and unless someone knows your Apple ID and password, they won't be able to enable and access it.
(If you want to share your macbook with someone else regularly, create another user account for them. Learn how to do this here - Set up users, guests and groups on Mac).


All Inboxes in Mail app showing only five messages Despite the fact that I have tons of mail, the All Inboxes page today displays five messages only. Whereas when looking into the individual mailboxes the problem is eliminated.

I've tried restarting and quitting the mail app but nothing worked out.

Reset the email account within the Mail App

Go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Accounts

Or Settings > Mail ( or Mail, Contacts, Calendars) > Accounts

Select the mail account that shows the incorrect unread mail notifications

If you have more than one, perform these steps for each account

Toggle OFF “Mail” to disable it. This action does not delete your account

Exit Settings by returning to your Home Screen
Close the Mail app by swiping up your Gesture Bar or by pressing the Home button twice. Locate the Mail app preview and swipe up to close it
Now once again go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Accounts

For older iOS, go to Settings >Mail (Mail, Contacts, Calendars) and select the mail account

Toggle ON Mail to enable it.
Check to see if your mail app is now showing the correct unread email counts.


Where do files go when you AirDrop them on iOS? Where do AirDrop files go when I transfer them between an iPad, iPhone and iPod? I AirDropped some Google Docs from my iPad to my iPhone but nothing happened; where did my files go? The file was a list of tools.

On iOS, AirDropped files open immediately and automatically in the app registered to handle them via AirDrop. If no such app exists, those files simply disappear.

Typically, if you AirDrop a document using one app, you’ll want to have the same app installed on the receiving iOS device.


How can I check the health of my SSD disk I replaced my disk with an SSD. Smooth transition, everythng fine. Now, I want to keep the disk health checked, since I know that SSD tend to degrade over time. Which utilities can I use for this task ?

DiskTester from diglloydTools and its "Recondition" seems like one of the only options.


Yosemite volume up and down doesn't make a feedback sound Instead of playing a sound when volume up/down is pressed on the keyboard it now plays a sound when you hold down SHIFT + Vol Up / Vol Down.  How does one configure it to work like it did before?

This is an intentional change of the preferences.

You can turn the audio feedback back on in System Preferences -> Sound and checking Play feedback when volume is changed


Mac OS Big Sur | kernal_task usage is 500% when connected to external monitor I'm facing a system lag issue whenever I connect to my external monitor, even though there is no user process.
I have already gone through some of the answers in the stack exchange and did two things as of now.

I have disabled the automatic graphics switching.
I have disabled "Display have separate space"
There is no software update pending

as mentioned in this link CPU usage is too high with Yosemite and an external monitor
But the problem, even after those two changes I can see kernal_task is more than 500% and I'm not able to use Macbook pro at all.
Previously it was once or twice an occurrence, now it is happening every time I connect to an external monitor.

Activity Monitor

I have also taken a spin-dump ( 5MB ) and system diagnostics ( 200+ MB ). So I dunno how to share this here. Let me know if any of you need it for analysis.

This may officially seem like the strangest answer ever, but have you tried using the ThunderBolt ports on the right hand side of the MacBook Pro?
As per this blog post, the thermal sensor in the MacBook Pro is located unhealthily close to the left hand side ThunderBolt ports, which will heat up and trip thermal throttling (the kernel_task spike you see), thus seriously hurting your user experience.


How to block an email thread from notifications in Yosemite Is there a way to block a specific email thread from notifications in Yosemite without turning notifications off for email? I am using mail.app.

You could use a Mail Rule to redirect them to a specific folder, that will stop the notification, if your prefs are set accordingly.
This is an example from my gateway notifications, which I don't need dinging & notifying every hour...

Stop evaluating as the last step if you want no further action, otherwise the next rules will be applied, down the list.

To stop them also making the new mail sound, I switch that off in prefs, then add this last Rule, right at the end, for any mail that wasn't redirected by a Rule on the way through...

To complete the setup, set these 2 prefs...


MBP retina + Dell u3011 via HDMI: intermittent screen message about audio I have a new Mac Book Pro (MBP) retina connected via HDMI to a Dell U3011 display.  Every few seconds, but irregularly, the display pops up "MESSAGE Unsupported audio format. Please set the audio output on your audio player to Pulse-code Modulation (PCM) if available"

The message is dead center on the screen and lasts much too long.  This is highly disruptive and makes it almost not worth it to use the screen.

I would like to find any way at all to turn off the message, either on the Mac side, the Dell side, or both.  I do not need to pipe audio from the Mac to the Dell or vice versa.  I'd be happy with a way to turn off ALL messages if it will get rid of this one.

Here is what I have tried.  In the Mac's System Settings, I found Sound, the Dell shows up as one of the audio devices, but all settings are grayed out on it.

I have muted the sound on the mac via the function key F10.

I've been to the Apple support forums and not found a solution.  I also left a message there.

I've been through the Dell manuals online for the U3011 and not found any way to configure the HDMI in port to turn off audio, and not found any way to turn off the messages.

I've been through all the on-board menus of the Dell, including the sound menu.  The only option in that menu seems to be 2.0 versus 5.1.  I didn't see a way to turn off sound input, and I didn't see a way to turn off messages.

It could be I've just missed the appropriate documentation or menu item, but I spent considerable time looking without success and thought I'd consult the sages at "AskDifferent."

EDIT: I'm pretty sure the message comes from the Dell firmware and not from the mac because it looks just like all the other messages from the Dell: it's in a non-Mac font, it's at a different resolution, there's no anti-aliasing of the font, etc.

Verified that this device http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042802&p_id=8119&seq=1&format=2 fixes the problem EDIT: using displayPort between the adapter and the screen)!


Is it safe to lock my startup disk? A mysterious file keeps appearing on my startup disk. It's most likely a typo in a script or something, but even though it's being created with my user account as the owner, that hasn't helped me narrow it down.

Would it be safe for me to lock my system's startup disk to prevent writing to the root folder? As far as I know nothing needs to be written there, as all the various directories used by the system are already present such as /Library, /tmp, /Applications, /System and so on. But even so, I'm wondering if this is safe to do, or will it ruin my system?

I'm hoping that by locking the volume I can force whatever is creating the file to report an error in a log file, and also to prevent similar clutter in future (some badly written programs have a nasty tendency to put log files there), but obviously it's no good if it'll break something!

You could use dtrace to determine what is creating the file, say using iosnoop.d which runs under dtrace will reveal which applications are using the disk and what files they are reading or writing. This would imply catching its creation or write access, "live".

If that doesn't reveal who's created the file it could be because the process is communicating more tightly with the filessytem and hfsslower.d may be required to locating the IO to this file.

You could also see if the file is open currently, and if so by whom, using lsof.

The above suggestions should reveal what's writing this file, which I believe is the root of your question.

But to specifically answer your question, no you should not "lock" the root directory of your startup disk as this is not an advisable safe practice and may prevent the OS from booting or functioning as expected. I presume here that by locking you mean the Finder concept of locking a file, or the POSIX concepts of restricting permissions and using the uchg/schg file flags via chflags. While Mac OS X doesn't normally create new files in this location arbitrarily, changes in permissions and ownership could effect filesystem traversal by users and processes and in general *nix systems expect the root volume directory to be mutable. Many processes and commands in *nix use this as a fallback default, and it's often seen used in certain cases where a login occurs and there's no HOME, for instance. While it may ave no immediate short term negative effects, it's not a wise practice nor is it the best method to determine what's causing your mysterious file creation.

Knowing more about the file might also help answer your underlying question.


Activity Monitor on Mac OS doesn't show port 8080 I'm trying to verify that a specified process (server) listens on port 8080 using Activity Monitor. But, for some strange reason, Activity Monitor doesn't show information about port numbers greater than 25XX. I do know that the server works fine and listens on this port.

How can I see the process which listens on port 8080 in Activity Monitor?

You can't do it easily in Activity Monitor but it is easy at the command line. lsof -i :8080 in the Terminal will display the command and process ID of the process listening on port 8080.


Do notifications show over a FaceTime call? When on a FaceTime call and a notification pops up on my screen, can my FaceTime recipient see it on their screen too?


Apple AirPods pair and connect but no sound Background
I was on a call at work today and was switching back and forth from my iPhone 10 to my laptop.  After switching from laptop to iPhone my 2nd Generation AirPods stopped playing sound.  They could connect but would not play any sound.  I purchased these 3 weeks ago and they are not physically damaged.
Trouble Shooting Steps
Here are the steps I went through to troubleshoot

I attempted to pair and connect with a 3rd device.  I was able to pair and connect but no sound.
I did a hard reset by holding the button on the back of the AirPod case for 15 seconds with the AirPods in the case.  I saw the light indicates and my iPhone had me pair the device again, still nothing
I disabled automatic ear detection, no change
I reset network services on my device.  No change

Does anyone have any idea where to go from here?

If you did a hard reset and they don't work with either your iPhone or your laptop (multiple devices) it's safe to say that they died.
They're under a month old so I would return them for refund/replacement immediately.  Products fail - it happens.  You're just lucky enough that it happened during the "return to retailer" period (usually 30 days) and not when the warranty runs out 48 weeks from now.


Tethering app code for iOS Many of you know there was a Flashlight app with a hidden feature that enabled tethering, that snuck into the App Store this week. It was removed very quickly, about 10 minutes before I found out so I wasn't able to snag it up. I have a developer account so I was thinking if I could get the code to a tethering app I could install it on my phone myself.

Are there any open source tethering apps out there?

Found the answer myself.

http://wiki.github.com/tcurdt/iProxy/

w00t!


How can I download a video from the web to my iPad? There's an m4v video for download on the web that I'd like to watch offline on my iPad. This is the process I know will work:

Open link in web browser on my laptop
Download video to my laptop
Stick video in iTunes
Connect my iPad to my laptop
Sync
Disconnect iPad from laptop
Watch offline

This is what I want to do:

Open link in web browser on my iPad
Download video to my iPad
Watch offline

Is there currently a way to do this?

This is not possible in MobileSafari on the iPad.  There may be an app for it somewhere on the App Store, though.


the `Flash Player` occupy CPU is very high after I open a Flash page In Safari I open a page that contains Flash, after I close the page. in the Activity Monitor, the Flash Player occupy CPU is very high, and whats the meaning of the red color?

My model is Macbook Pro 2015.

The red color means that the program is no longer responding to the operating system. This is often because the program has crashed, but it might also be that it is because the program is slowed down by waiting for the disk, memory allocation or similar. If that is the case, the program will be listed in black again, when it does respond.

In your case it seems reasonable to think that the Flash Player has indeed crashed, as it is not supposed to be doing a lot, if you haven't got any Flash pages open in your browser.

You can click on the Flash Player item in Activity Monitor and press the circled-cross icon in the toolbar, which will force kill the program - releasing the resources for other programs to use.

If you haven't updated Flash Player and/or your browser recently, I would suggest updating to the latest version which could potentially fix the problem.


"Suspicious Activity Might Have been Detected" malware in Safari or other browsers Did you navigate to a page that produced a popup that says (among other things)...

Suspicious Activity Might Have been Detected

...and then asks you to call a toll free number? As you might have guessed, this is a scam, and seems to be going around for a while now. It happens on iOS and MacOS, and in different browsers.

How do I fix it?

Here's the solution on iOS/Safari:

Close Safari
Open Settings
Look for the Safari settings, click it
Click Advanced (at the bottom)
There is a setting for JavaScript, turn it off
Close Settings
Open Safari
Close the message box if it is still open
Click on the "show me all the web pages" icon in the lower right (whatever it's called)
Close the page in question
Go back to Settings and turn JavaScript back on

All done!


Embedded vimeo videos can't be run in fullscreen mode in Firefox Once when I opened a Vimeo video in a fullscreen mode, I was prompted whether I want to allow Vimeo to use fullscreen mode. I checked "do not ask again" and clicked "No" by accident. It was embedded on a website and now I can't view embedded vimeo videos fullscreen in Firefox. However, when I go directly to a vimeo.com website, fullscreen works.

How do I remove Vimeo from the Firefox's blacklist?

In the menu :

Tools > Page info > Permissions > Check Fullscreen mode.


How do you compare the system resources used by two programs? How do you compare the system resources used by two programs (e.g., Chrome & Chrome Canary)?

I think the new 64-bit Chrome Canary is causing my computer to heat up a bit more but I'd like to compare it's system resource usage to the regular version before adopting an opinion.

You can compare CPU utilisation and memory usage in Activity Monitor, in /Applications/Utilities. This lets you compare the statistics in real-time.

For a more averaged comparison, you can check the Average Energy Impact of an app in the Energy tab of the aforementioned app (requires ≥10.9).


Internet recovery of 2015 MacBook Pro fails due to unavailability of Yosemite I recently purchased a second-hand 2015 13" MacBook Pro.  It came with High Sierra installed, but I wanted to make sure the system was completely clean (in case it had been compromised), so I:

Booted into internet recovery mode by restarting and pressing ⌘⌥R.
Used Disk Utility to erase the entire internal drive.  Unlike the internal recovery partition, internet recovery did not allow me to format it as APFS, so I chose HFS+ Journaled instead.
Attempted to use the "Reinstall OS X" option to do just that.

The installer was for Yosemite; that would be just fine with me (I can upgrade later).  After clicking through the licence agreement, selecting the target drive, and clicking "Install" I was prompted for my Apple ID and password to log into the app store, after which I received the following error message:

  This item is temporarily unavailable.  Please try again later.

(Needless to say, trying again later has not helped.)

I am pretty sure the problem is that I never "purchased" Yosemite; by the time I went to install it on a previous machine only El Capitan was available in the app store, and unfortunately there seems to be no way to retroactively "purchase" Yosemite, which is a bit of a problem in this case.

How can get macOS installed on this machine again—ideally without needing another machine (both because it is inconvenient, and because of the risk that the other machine might be compromised)?

(I am not too fussy about which version I get, since I probably want High Sierra in the end and can upgrade easily enough.)

You are correct - the issue you have is that Yosemite is not in your Purchased history.

With your MBP and its history, you should have three options open to you:

commandR to reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version
optioncommandR to upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac
shiftoptioncommandR to reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available1

1 That third option is a new option only available when macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or above has been installed.

Obviously we can't be 100% sure what version of macOS was pre-installed when new, but it most likely would have been Yosemite 10.10.2.

I would try rebooting your MBP again using each of the above combinations one by one to test what happens, as it may be you can successfully reinstall macOS with one of them.

Let me know how you go.


Where can I find the autocorrect / user dictionary on the iPhone and how can I have a look into it? I would like to have a look into my personal user dictionary built on typed words on my iPhone. From eHow's article How to Edit Auto-Correct on the iPhone I found the following location where it should be located:

/private/var/mobile/Library/Keyboard/dynamic-text.dat

But my iPhone is not jailbroken so I think I don't have a chance to open this file, right? (And if I jailbreak my phone the dictionary will be deleted…)

I also have the backup of my phone on my Computer. Is it possible to find the dictionary there?
What are other ways to have a look into your personal autocorrect dictionary?

You can view the files in iTunes backups of your iPhone using iBackupBot. Open the software, choose your Backup, then sorted by Path find Library/Keyboard/dynamic-text.dat.

It's not possible to view the user dictionary directly from the device without jailbreaking. Jailbreaking does not delete the dictionary.


If I get a game from the Apple store, can I play it on other computers? Let's say I buy a game from the app store from this computer.
Then I copy the game files to a external drive and go to a friend and copy them on his computer. Will my friend's computer play the game?

If you purchased the game from the Mac App Store or iOS App Store, you can download it on other computers signed into your Apple ID.

On the Mac App store, click on the "Purchased" tab. If you need to sign in, sign in with your Apple ID. Then if you purchase an app, it will be attached to your Apple ID.

Then you will be able to redownload apps or games you have purchased with your Apple ID.


Can I use iPhone earbuds as a microphone on my MacBook? The only microphone I have is the one built-in to my iPhone earbuds. I want to try some line-in stuff, so I plugged the headphones into the microphone port. I then went to System Preferences/Sound/Input and selected Line In. It doesn't appear that this is working as a microphone. Should it?

In short, the microphone won't work as a microphone the way you're trying it, but the earbuds will.

Longer answer...

In order to use the microphone from your iPhone headphones, they must be plugged into the headphones socket. You can see in the images below that the MacBook Pro "Sound" preference pane recognises that they have a microphone and switches the "Built-in Microphone" to the headphones one when they're in the headphones socket.

If you plug the iPhone headphones into the Mic/Line-in socket, it seems to be only set up for a standard stereo 3.5mm jack, and so will use the earbuds (both of them) as microphones — a stereo microphone effectively (though they're not great at picking up sound or well matched to the hardware as microphones, so will require lots of amplification).

Sound preference pane without the headphones plugged in the headphones socket:

Sound preference pane with the headphones plugged in the headphones socket:

Plugging the iPhone headphones into the Mic/Line-in socket shows no change (i.e. looks like the top image) and having tested it, only the earbuds seem to produce any response in the computer (i.e. they're connected but the microphone isn't).


Unable to install Xcode using dmg file downloaded from Apple.com I am trying to install Xcode 7.1 on OS X 10.10.5 using the dmg file downloaded from Apple. However, I have tried several times and the install always stopped at "Calculating size" when I dragged the icon to the Application folder. I waited for 2 hours and nothing happened. How can I install Xcode using the the dmg file?

My MacBook Air wireless adapter is damaged so I am unable to update Xcode from Mac App Store — the only way I can get Xcode is to download that dmg file.

Before doing this you need to delete the unfinished downloads and run this link in browser , which i mentioned below.
You can find the DMGs for Xcode and other development tools on https://developer.apple.com/download/more/ (requires Apple ID to login).
Link for Xcode 7.0.1 you can try this link.
Hope this will help.


Best way to merge mp4 files Got a bunch of .mp4 videos (info shows H.264 Video + AAC Audio) that are chapters of a larger video.

I'd like to merge them, but not sure which is the best way.  I don't have Quicktime Pro, but I'll get it if that's the best way to do this.

Edit: Just to clariify this is Mac OSX 10.6 I'm on.

You don’t specify your OS but if you have OS/X, then you probably have iLife, then you have iMovie. Merging all that with iMovie is extremely trivial. Just import the videos to iMovie and compose the final movie using all the parts you want to use.

Effects, Transitions and Captions are a bonus ;)


The caret is moved in an expected place when I add/remove a space in text I before entered in a textarea field I notice this behavior all times I move a sentence on a separate line: I delete a space character between two words with the backspace key, and the text cursor is moved to the next space; when I press Enter, the first word is left on the old line.

Is this a bug, a feature of Safari, or neither of them? (Therefore, it is a bug in third-party software)?

I noticed that something similar is still happening with OS X 10.8.3 and Safari 6.0.4: When I edit something I have written before, adding a space moves the caret to the end of the sentence I am editing. It doesn't happen all times, and I am not able to understand when it happens.
I don't have any utility that intercepts the pressed keys or the mouse clicks; the settings for symbol and text substitution and automatically correcting the spelling are disabled.

I wasn't able to reproduce this on a MacBook Air running Mac OS X 10.6.6 and Safari 5.0.3. When I press backspace (it's called delete on my keyboard), it doesn't cause the carat to jump to the next word.

Perhaps it's some 3rd party software interfering with your keyboard?


Lightroom catalog on external hard drive not readable Using Lightroom 4, when opening a catalog file on an external hard drive, I get error

  Lightroom cannot launch with this catalog. It is either on a network volume or on a volume on which Lightroom cannot save changes.

As is suggested on the Adobe forums, the external hard drive is NTFS which is not compatible with my MacBook Pro.

Is there anything I could install on my computer so that the catalog is usable?

You could download a NTFS driver to read the catalog.

Saw this driver on a first search.

If you want an alternative is to have a friend who has a windows box copy the contents out and then copy it to a drive with the correct format that you can read. I would believe this to be FAT32.


Tropic Escape lost game My son and I both play Tropic Escape. He connected to Game Center on iPod Touch and it replaced my game on my iPad with his iPod Touch account. Is there a way I can get my account back?

Unfortunately, with games like this, the answer is typically no - at least not by yourself.

The best course of action would be to contact the developers of the game (Zynga). In games like this, it is very server-heavy, so they may be able to restore your progress from your profile that they have saved somewhere.


Using Terminal to order SSID preference in System Preferences I'd like to find a way to add a specific SSID to the top of the preferred WiFi networks in System Preferences > Network > WiFi > Advanced. (10.9 Mavericks and beyond)

According to the man page, this should do it:

  -addpreferredwirelessnetworkatindex hardwareport network index securitytype [password]

However, it doesn't appear the 'index' aspect actually sets one network name above the other. Is there a way to set this via terminal and/or run via bash?

A couple of things to consider:

Supposedly, specifying 0 for the index puts it at the front of the list.
You need at least admin privilege and may need root privilege. Have you tried it with:
sudo networksetup -addpreferredwirelessnetworkatindex ...?
If the wireless network is already a preferred network, you may need to remove it first before adding it again. That is, it may be ignoring the index if the network already has an index. Assuming your wireless port is en1, you can get the list of preferred networks with:
networksetup -listpreferredwirelessnetworks en1. I admit that I'm just guessing here.
If you have multiple wireless ports, it will of course make a difference which one you add this service to. You can list all your hardwareports, wireless and otherwise, with:
networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder


Video Output as iSight Input I'd like to be able to display videos and pictures through my MacBook Pro's webcam on Skype and other online chat sites. I previously used programs such as ManyCam to emulate a webcam, however, many online sites no longer accept external video inputs - only iSight (built-in or external).

Is there any way to be able to send the output from ManyCam to the input of iSight? This way, I can still display videos on sites which only allow iSight, as the video will technically be coming from an iSight cam.

Camtwist works for such things
(haven't yet personally tested it in mavericks)


OSX: how to add a right click option to a folder which opens the folder with an app like VS Code? Is it possible to add a service to a folder so as to open it with a specific application?
As shown in the screenshot below, an application named Evernote has done this. I want to do it manually for VS Code and Brackets.

Let's take VS Code for an example. It is a text editor that opens a folder in it and allows a user to edit the text files in the folder and its subfolders. There are so many other applications in the market like Sublime, Adobe Brackets and so on.
The folder hierarchy looks like this:

In order to open the folder in the app, I have to open the app, then go to the open folder option, then find the folder, then select and click on the open button.
Instead of this, I want an option in the right click menu of the folder to open the folder directly with the text editor. Just like you can open a folder in Terminal by adding a service.

You can do this with an Automator Service.

Create the Service:

Open Automator and select Service or File > New > Service If Automator is already open.
Set Service receives selected to files or folders and in to Finder.
Add a Run Shell Script Action, setting Shell: to /bin/bash and Pass input: to as arguments and add the following code:

for f in "$@"; do
    open -a 'Visual Studio Code' "$f"
done

Save the Service as Open in Visual Studio Code.

Close Automator.

You can now select Files and or Folders in Finder and then control-click (right-click) on them and select Open in Visual Studio Code from the Services Context Menu.

Note: I tested this with Visual Studio Code but not with Brackets as I don't have it installed. However you should be able to create one for it too in the same manner while substituting the application's name in the open command.


Save a file with the extension I want In Chrome, when I download a file with an extension that the OS doesn't recognize (in this case, .erb, the dialog defaults to appending .txt to the end of it. I highlight the .txt and delete it before hitting save, but then I open the directory and find foo.erb.txt where I should find foo.erb.

How do I get the system to save the file with the extension I told it to?

Apparently this is a chrome bug that's been around for some time and never seems to have been fixed.

Several bug reports are available but I haven't ever seen a fix or even a chrome extension that fixes it.  I think if the web server identifies the content or mime type correctly it might work, but looks like there's nothing you can do about that from the browser-side of things.

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=38213
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=39708&q=download%20filename%20extensions&colspec=ID%20Pri%20M%20Iteration%20ReleaseBlock%20Cr%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20OS%20Modified


How force launchd not to look into subfolders with QueueDirectories parameter in launchd.plist I'm processing images put into specific folder.

For that I run script with launchd.plist put into ~/Library/LaunchAgents
Everything work smoothly. But I want put resulting files into subfolder of that folder.
Folder is not empty, it has subfolder, so my script is run over and over again every 10 seconds.
There is nothing to process. But launchd runs script ten times a minute wasting resources.
How can I hide from launchd subfolders in folders from QueueDirectories parameter?
Filenames are arbitrary so I can't use WatchPaths parameter.
I believe parameter like maxdepth should exist.

Any solution?

QueueDirectories won't work anyway, because it'd trigger on the subdirectories themselves whether or not they had any files in them. The mere existence of subdirectories in the watched directories will trigger the script.

Instead, you should use WatchPaths on the main directory itself -- whenever a new image file is added to the directory, the directory is modified, so WatchPaths will trigger your script to process the file. Moving the image file will modify the directory again, but since it happens while your script is running it won't trigger a rerun.


Copy and Paste files into the same directory using Terminal I am currently trying to figure out how to Copy and Paste files (more than one file) into the same directory using Terminal.

I am trying to create a script to create the same file. If there is a better way to do this, please let me know.

What I need to do with this script is to be able to create certain file types with specific sizes. Example: a image file (let's say a PNG file) that is 10MB in size and I need 4 of them. When running a command to create this file in Terminal it looks like:

mkfile 10m image.png

I created a script to repeat the command but it fails as it creates the same file and overwrites it.

Thank you,

K

So, does it matter if the file is the same file?

ie: Let say there is a picture google.png

and you want it to copied into the same dir 4 times.

as an in that directory you would have
google.png google 2.png google 3.png google 4.png?

If thats what you want:

for i in {1..4}
  do
     cp google.png "google$i.png"
  done

But if you want the "images" files to be different, and they are going to be gibrish files, but 10m in size exactly

you wanna do something like

for i in {1..5}
   do
      dd if=/dev/random of="yourfilename$i.test" bs=12428800 count=1
   done

This will make four files that are 10m in size filled with bunch of random characters.

Comment and let me know what you really want and I can go back and redo this.

It would help if you posted your script that fails so I can see what youre trying to do.

EDIT:

Changed the in device from /dev/zero to /dev/random to generate random file content.


How to import certificates in Cisco AnyConnect iPhone app? In order to connect to a private network the connection should have IKE RSA - IPSEC. The default VPN connection settings that is in the settings of iPhone does not have this. The Cisco AnyConnect app have this option but the digital certificates that are visible in the default VPN are not visible in the AnyConnect app. Also the certificate import in the AnyConnect app asks for a URL instead of opening the file browser.

How to install a certificate so that it is detected by the AnyConnect app

Edit: After a lot of digging I found out that the certificates detected by Cisco AnyConnect should be in SSL template and not in other template. So, how do I convert a p12 certificate that I have into a SSL templated certificate.

The easiest way to would be to email the certificates to your iphone and install from there.

1. Tap attached certificate in the email sent to your iphone
2. Tap install

Next, you'll associate the certificate in Cisco AnyConnect:

3. Choose desired conection > then select detail disclosure button
4. Tap Advanced > Certificate
5. Tap the name of the certificate you just imported


How does Spotlight determine which category a file belongs to? In Spotlight you can enable and disable file categories that will appear in search results.
How does Spotlight determine that a certain file belongs to a certain category?
The following specific event triggered this curiosity:

For some time .tex files would come up under the Documents category. Spotlight would handle the search filename.tex just fine. Then suddenly I could not find .tex files anymore in Spotlight. Finder searches were OK though.
Turns out that I had the Developer category disabled in the Spotlight preferences, and Spotlight now thought that .tex files belonged in that category. After enabling the Developer category everything went back to normal.

What made Spotlight decide to switch categories for the .tex files?

I think it depends on the parent UTIs defined in an application's Info.plist or in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Info.plist. .tex is not included in the CoreTypes Info.plist, so the UTI depends on which application's UTI declaration was registered first. For example on my installation the UTI was com.barebones.bbedit.tex-source and the first parent UTI was public.source-code:

$ touch a.tex; mdls -n kMDItemContentTypeTree a.tex
kMDItemContentTypeTree = (
    "com.barebones.bbedit.tex-source",
    "public.source-code",
    "public.plain-text",
    "public.text",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.content"
)

When I deleted BBEdit and rebuilt the Launch Services database, the UTI became org.tug.tex and the first parent UTI became public.text:

$ touch b.tex; mdls -n kMDItemContentTypeTree b.tex
kMDItemContentTypeTree = (
    "org.tug.tex",
    "public.text",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.content",
    "public.plain-text"
)


Emptying the trash doesn't move emails out of a smart folder I came across a weird issue in Mail.
I have a smart folder for emails matching a number of specific senders.
I assumed that smart folders work like smart folder in the Finder that emails are not actually moved there but simply link to the original location.
The smart folder worked fine.

Now I moved a message to the trash (from its original location in the Inbox, not from the Smart Folder).
The message still shows in the Smart Folder, although now instead of "Inbox (Accountname)" it says "Trash" for the location of the message in the top right corner of the message.  OK, fine, not quite intuitive, but understandable.

However, now I empty the Trash.

The message still remains in the Smart Folder. It still says "Trash" as location, yet the entire trash is empty (the IMAP trash folder as well as On My Mac trash folder).

Now I click to "delete" it (from within the Smart Folder by right clicking and choosing "Delete" from the context menu) and it disappears (it doesn't show up in the Trash either, thankfully, that would have been even more bizarre).

Anyways.  Am I just not understanding how Smart Folders are work?  Or is there something wrong.
And after emptying the trash, where exactly is the actual (physical) location of my message (for purposes of troubleshooting)?

Your understanding is very correct and one of two things is the root of your confusion and the software not working dependably.

Spotlight is the database where all files get indexed. That indexing then shows which files are mail messages and which are responsive to an ad-hoc search within the mail app or a programmed search which is called a “smart mailbox”
Spotlight can’t work if the disk underneath has errors in the filesystem.

To triage or troubleshoot this, I would log out and then power off the Mac. If you have fast internet and a modern Mac, boot to internet recovery and run Disk Utility to repair the boot drive. This is best since you don’t want to trust your copy of Disk Utility to do a live check since you can’t fix all the things if you have corruption.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

Next, consider rebuilding the spotlight database for your user account by placing your home folder into spotlight preferences as a private location not to be indexed.

Then do a second restart to let spotlight see your files freshly when you remove the privacy setting. If you have an SSD and less than 100 GB of data in your home folder, the search will need an hour or three to rebuild. Don’t worry if smart folders are not correct while spotlight shows a reindex in process.

Only after you’re sure things are good on the foundation, perhaps look at rebuilding the mailbox envelopes or vacuuming the index.

Mail search not finding messages but Spotlight does

Lastly, I should have put a first warning in - are your backups complete for this mac? Consider getting a good backup before you try to fix anything if you can’t afford to lose any files you have now on this mac.


Export reminders from osx Reminders app programmatically I need to get reminders list in any form (could parse it later) from Reminders app in osx (10.9.1)

I know that i could do it from menu, but i need it programmatically.

Perfectly it would be some console command or script. Maybe there is a common way to interact with osx apps visual interface (not so good, but ok). It is needed for personal use.

You can do this with Automator. Open Automator and:

Create a workflow
Add a “Find Calendar Items” action and add it
Change the first line from “Find events where:” to “Find reminders where:”
To grab all the reminders change the “Any Content contains ______” to “Title is not ______“ and leave the text field empty. You may need to change to fit your needs better.
Then add an “Event Summary” action underneath it.
From here you can use Automator to do whatever you like with the reminders.

To help you test it out, use a “View Results” action. You can insert it anywhere and it will show you what the output of the prior action was.

For doing this from Terminal:

Find the .workflow file you saved and copy the path to it.
Run automator and pass in the path.
Now you should see the results or errors of running the actions.

You will need to run this manually once to enable Terminal to prompt for access to your Reminders.

See also: Automator: Find Reminders by list?


How to quit iPhoto in the middle of importing photos I plugged my iPhone into my Mac and it started importing photos from iPhone. It's been two days and I need to shut down my Mac. How do I stop importing the photos?

On Spotlight search start typing "Activity Monitor", click on it. The on activity monitor find Photos, click on it once, then at the top left you will see an X icon, click on it and choose force quit..


What does "Effective UID is not root" mean for VirtualBox? I'm looking to test VirtualBox 5.0 release or 5.0.x latest development stable build and get this error:

The Please try reinstalling VirtualBox. advice doesn't help.

I am guessing this is what happens when software designed to write files to the new protected system area on El Capitan (SIP/System Integrity Protection) is run, but I don't see any Apple Documentation explaining how to interact with apps or disable that new feature.

Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.11
BuildVersion:   15A244d

VirtualBox - both production 5.0 and stable test build 5.0.x/5.0.x revision 101955 crash as follows:

Process:               VirtualBox [3459]
Path:                  /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VirtualBox
Identifier:            org.virtualbox.app.VirtualBox
Version:               5.0.1 (5.0.1)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ??? [1]
Responsible:           VirtualBox [3459]
User ID:               501

Date/Time:             2015-08-10 09:09:41.134 -0400
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.11 (15A244d)
Report Version:        11
Anonymous UUID:        EE01F573-7E91-04EB-9C15-BC7F65B04F93

Sleep/Wake UUID:       99D3F30E-0E72-4E05-9E59-8D29819BB8D8

Time Awake Since Boot: 19000 seconds
Time Since Wake:       1100 seconds

Crashed Thread:        0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:
crashed on child side of fork pre-exec

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib          0x00007fff8a8dc0ae __pthread_kill + 10
1   libsystem_pthread.dylib         0x00007fff89031665 pthread_kill + 90
2   libsystem_c.dylib               0x00007fff943273fb abort + 129
3   QtCoreVBox                      0x000000010dcaddf5 qt_message_output(QtMsgType, char const*) + 117
4   QtCoreVBox                      0x000000010dcadfd7 qt_message_output(QtMsgType, char const*) + 599
5   QtCoreVBox                      0x000000010dcae19a qFatal(char const*, ...) + 170
6   VirtualBox.dylib                0x000000010d323daf TrustedError + 831
7   org.virtualbox.app.VirtualBox   0x000000010d2de643 0x10d2db000 + 13891
8   org.virtualbox.app.VirtualBox   0x000000010d2de6df 0x10d2db000 + 14047
9   org.virtualbox.app.VirtualBox   0x000000010d2ded08 0x10d2db000 + 15624
10  org.virtualbox.app.VirtualBox   0x000000010d2dcfa4 start + 52

To resolve this on El Capitan when using Virtualbox versions lower than 6.x run the following from terminal:

for bin in VirtualBox VirtualBoxVM VBoxNetAdpCtl VBoxNetDHCP VBoxNetNAT VBoxHeadless; do
    sudo chmod u+s "/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/${bin}"
done

Source: VirtualBox does not start on Mac OS X - Super User


How can I call/message on iPad air with SIM? I have purchased an iPad Air with cellular but I cannot send and receive messages.

The name of the SIM company has appeared and I have connected it with my router. There is no icon for calling either, just an icon for messages.

You can't without jailbreaking. The SIM for the iPad air is for the data network only. You can't make or receive phone calls, nor send or receive SMS/MMS messages.


Automator list of urls - no results I have a list of URLs as input, and I'm trying to get image on the pages in order to download them. I'm filtering the text and passing it to the 'Get Image URLs from Webpage' action, but it's not receiving anything. Am I missing a step, or have something set wrong. Every reference I've found indicates that this should work.

Instead of using "Get Specified Text" then filtering paragraphs, you can use "Get Specified URLs" and direct this straight to Get Image URLs from Webpage:

Alternatively, if you want to parse text, you can use Extract URLs from Text:

Download Workflow


How can I see the list of recent opened files in Numbers? How can I see the list of recent opened files in Numbers? Is this supported at all?

Many native macOS apps do support "Open Recent". It is under Files menu, often clubbed with "Open" item.

You can also use Help menu to search items in other menus.


Completely reset Mojave disk I’ve got a Mojave installation with an APFS drive. I’ve installed and uninstalled Boot Camp partitions several times over the years, and somehow things have gotten out of sync. I can now see the 500GB drive in Disk Utility, but there is only a single 300GB APFS container, and Boot Camp Assistant is giving me some errors when I try to repartition the drive.

I’m due to reinstall macOS from scratch anyway for some other reasons, so I’d like to completely destroy the disk (including all of the APFS containers and volumes) and have it reinitialized back as if it was a freshly out—of-the-box machine.

If I reboot into Recovery Mode and use Disk Utility, is there a way I can delete and then recreate all of the disk configuration?

Doing a clean install over the Internet

Hold down the Option+⌘+R keys at startup to boot to internet recovery. After booting to recovery mode, use the Disk Utility to erase the drive. Choose the APFS format.

Doing a clean install using a flash drive

You can also choose to download Mojave from the App Store. You can then transfer the installer to a flash drive. Afterwards, restart the Mac and hold down the Option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Choose to boot from the flash drive. Use the Disk Utility to erase the drive. Choose the APFS format.


Can I get a 4G data plan for my unlocked iPhone 5 in the US? I have a factory unlocked iPhone 5 bought from my home country. I'll be travelling to the US, and I was wondering if I can get a short 4G data plan (six months) from any carrier in the US?

Last year, I went to the US and T-Mobile specifically couldn't offer me a 1-month 3G for my iPhone 4, only edge speeds, but I read rumors about recent support of these features... Hence my question.

T-Mobile's 3G/4G coverage for an iPhone 5 is better than a year ago but still limited so you are rolling the dice. They just released a carrier update for the iPhone that will give an iPhone 5 access to some of their 4G network. But it's still early days and the usefulness will greatly depend on your location.

T-Mobile also offers a pay-as-you go plan where talk and text are charged as used and data can be activated on a day-to-day basis.

StraightTalk is another option for an unlocked iPhone but is only 3G. $45/month for unlimited talk, text, and data.  As usual, "unlimited" means "secret limits" that we can arbitrarily use to kick heavy users off.

The big advantage of T-Mobile is that you can walk into a T-Mobile store and get it set-up. AT&T is still officially restricting the use of non-contract iPhones on their network and walking into a store will be a bust, but they don't actively hunt them down so GoPhone is an unofficial option.  You have to buy a GoPhone SIM and cut it down to size but it will work.  Unofficial and a bit of a PITA but the option exists. You can buy pre-cut cards on Amazon but getting one in a store is a bit trickier.

http://www.dargadgetz.com/how-to-use-iphone-5-on-att-gophoneprepaid-with-4g-data-speeds-payasyougo/

I suspect this gives 4G/HSPA+ and not 4G/LTE.


iPhone blocked network problem I recently brought a iPhone 5 from a seller and did the iOS9 update. Everything appeared fine at first, but now the phone won't make phone calls. It keeps saying: "This handset has been blocked on this network."
What does that mean and how do I fix it?
I can send and receive SMS messages as normal.

This message has nothing to do with the iOS version of your phone, The message : This handset has been blocked on this network means that the handset has been reported as lost or stolen, probably by the previous owner. You need to contact the seller and ask him if the phone he sold to you was not stolen or found.

If you have access to your IMEI (that you can find in Settings --> General --> Information) use this website to check the status of your handset http://www.amta.org.au/pages/amta/Check.the.Status.of.your.Handset


WhatsApp web interface in Safari reloads because it is using "significant energy" how to fix? I'm using Safari on a MacBook Air M1.
When I use web.whatsapp.com, it often reloads page with this error:

Is there an easy way to fix this?  Is Facebook running necessary processes that I can block somehow?

I believe the easiest way to fix this is to use a different browser. Both Firefox and Chrome shouldn't reload web.whatsapp.com or any other website without asking.
I do not have the latest Safari, but I dug through the latest Safari user guide and it seems there are no options in Safari's preferences to disable reloads due to significant energy consumption.
If you still really want to use Safari you might be able to find an extension that will stop these reload events, or you might be able to file a bug with WhatsApp and hopefully they will fix it soon. I do not recommend manually finding and blocking the guilty scripts from web.whatsapp.com. From my web development experience I can assure you that this will not be an easy task.


Receiving notification from Mail and Messages, but no snippets When I first got my iPhone, I disabled receiving notifications from Mail and Messages apps on the lock screen and the notification center, because these apps display snippets of received messages in those locations and anyone could see them without a password. (Since most people send short emails and messages these days, the snippets are practically the whole messages.) I left the sound notification and the banner enabled.

Yesterday, I saw someone else's iPhone: He still received notifications from Messages but the notification read: "You have a new message!"

That's perfect! I want that too. But no matter how much I searched, I didn't find any setting that enables me to do this. Web search was a complete waste of time.

Does anyone know how to conceive such a thing?

There is a setting in Settings, Notifications, Messages at the very bottom: "Show Previews".

Toggling it would disable previews for Messages. Such a setting, however, is not available for Mail.


Uninstall "Logitech app for bluetooth keyboard" completely on Macbook I installed logitch app for bluetooth keyboard months ago.

After I uninstalled it from 'Application', it remind me to update every time I power on.

How to remove it?

There are a few things you can try:

Open Finder > Applications > Double check that the app is not on the list, if it is, delete it.
Press Cmd + Alt + Esc > Check if you find any suspect Logitech process running and kill it, then restart the computer
Reinstall the software and uninstall it again
Reinstall the software and uninstall it with AppZapper (appzapper.com)

Let me know if any of these works.


On iOS how to view the tweets of a particular user in Twifferific and Tweetbot Let's say I found in a bio the twitter handle @BarackObama (or even a less popular one) and I want to quickly look at the tweets of this user.

I'm having a hard time finding an easy way to do this in Twitterrific. Is it possible? How do I do it?

Plus I'm thinking of switching to Tweetbot - how do i do it in this app?

In Tweetbot you can easily do it the following way:

Go to the search tab and use the “Users with“ option. Than type type (or paste) the twitter handle (e.g. @BarackObama). At the top of te search results you find the profiel of that person. Tap on it and go to tweets.

This works quite similarly in the official Twitter app.


May use the San Francisco font for my web apps? I've found that new SF UI font for download (http://nomail.com.ua/font/SF%20UI%20Display). I wonder if it's legal to use it in the web app I am building now, i.e. for commercial use? I haven't found any licence info on the official page (https://developer.apple.com/fonts/).

This question generally answers the question of legality.

Including these font files in your app and using them with @font-face or @import is unquestionably not permitted.

However, for a web app you can non-explicitly use it by specifying special keywords in your CSS:

body {
  font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Helvetica Neue",
      "Lucida Grande", "Segoe UI";
}

This will, of course, result in slightly different appearances per platform and version (namely non-Apple platforms and Apple systems before iOS 9/OS X 10.11).


Calling Screencapture of a Web Page in AppleScript As a newcomer to AppleScript, it is quite possible that I am missing something obvious, but I would appreciate feedback!  My intention is to use Safari to load a series of images from an issue of The New Yorker and save as a sequence of png files.

Here's my attempt (sorry for the strange look to this but I had problems with copy/paste into the 'body' of this message due to the comments in my code) :

set i to 1
repeat 10 times
(*
format pagenumber to 11 characters
format outfile    to  7 characters *)
if i is less than 10 then
    set pagenumber to "page000000" & i & ".jpg"
    set outfile to "page00" & i & ".png"
else
    if i is less than 100 then
        set pagenumber to "page00000" & i & ".jpg"
        set outfile to "page0" & i & ".png"
    else
        set pagenumber to "page0000" & i & ".jpg"
        set outfile to "page" & i & ".png"

    end if
end if
(* generate URL *)
set html to "https://archives.newyorker.com/rvimageserver/Conde%20Nast/New%20Yorker/1967_09_02/" & pagenumber
tell application "Safari"
    if not (exists document 1) then reopen
    (* load URL *)
    tell current tab of window 1 to set URL to html
    (* get the id of that window        *)
    set window_id to id of window 1
    (* when web page has finally loaded, the resultant document will consist of the page number plus 2,048×2,797 pixels, or 2,048×2,881 pixels ie   "page0000002.jpg 2,048×2,797 pixels" or "page0000010.jpg 2,048×2,881 pixels"    *)
    set thename to pagenumber & " 2,048×2,797 pixels"
    set othename to pagenumber & " 2,048×2,881 pixels"
    (*   wait for page to load see  https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/319986/applescript-help-wait-for-safari-page-to-load *)
    set myexit to "false"
    repeat while myexit = "false"
        if the document named (thename) exists then
            set myexit to "true"
        end if
        if the document named (othename) exists then
            set myexit to "true"
        end if
    end repeat
    delay 2
end tell
(* caputure the image element of window and save to outfile *)
do shell script ("screencapture -R 518,111,640,877 -l " & window_id & " " & outfile)
delay 2
(*  increment count *)
set i to i + 1
end repeat

Everything seems to work as expected until I attempt to capture the screen to an output file when I encounter two problems:

~ no output files are created (the same command in terminal works)

~ the -R option to "screencapture" to select part of the window isn't working

Thank you, for any advice!

Whenever I can I usually try to only use AppleScript and shell script but every now and then I find a hidden gem in Automator. I simply created a new Automator workflow and added three actions to it... "Get Current Webpage From Safari","Get Contents Of Webpages", and "Save Images From Web Content".

This works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave.

Just save the Automator workflow as an application or as a service or dictation command...etc.

For this project, my choice would be to simply save the Automator workflow in folder... /Users/YOUR SHORT NAME/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari (if the Safari folder does not exist, you can simply create the Safari folder during the process of saving your Automator workflow) Saving the file to that location, will make it so that anytime you are using Safari, you can run the workflow from your Scripts menu bar.

If the Scripts menu is not already in your menu bar, you can enable that in the General Preferences menu of Script Editor.app


Is it possible that Lost mode for my phone was deactivated by a thief? Why my iPhone cannot detect the location? I enable the lost mode and its confirmed by email but the device did not show any location. But when I first set my lost mode they asked me a pass code, but now if I turn on my lost mode the phone never ask me a pass code. It only appears on the screen that it is done. What is the problem with that? It's possible that my lost mode and Apple ID are hacked by the thief or they deactivated it.

They could just have to phone turned off. Although if your phone is logged into itunes, it's POSSIBLE (with forensic software or more knowledge than most iphone thieves) to get your itunes user and password and then of course they could turn it off. However, I think it is an easy thing to determine if someone else is logging in with your credentials, so I'd be willing to bet that they just have the phone turned off.


Apple Directory / Profile Manager  - Restricting simultaneous same user logins on multiple  machines? We are using Apple Directory for internal user authentication. We want to restrict a user to login from a single machine at any one time. I have been trying to find a way to do this in Apple Directory without any luck.

Is there a way to do something similar in Snow Leopard or Lion server?

I assume you mean Open Directory, not Apple Directory.

There is a check box in Workgroup Manager in the user's account.  Set it to not allow simultaneous logins.  This box is present in WGM on 10.3 - 10.6  I know that Lion deals with workgroups a little differently.


iPhone will not connect to corporate WPA2/Enterprise network Starting today all iPhones on our corporate network are unable to connect to any of the 4 WiFi access points.  I had no issues as of yesterday.

Android devices and laptops have no issues.  IOS versions tested are 8.2 and 8.4.

I have rebooted the authentication/NPS server.  "Forgot the network" on the phone and also went to General, Reset, Reset Network Settings.

Forgetting the network, then reconnecting does not prompt to accept the certificate any longer also.

I have changed the "Dial-in" settings on the user's Active Directory account to Allow Access and the error is still generated below.  I have since switched them back to "Control access through NPS Network Policy" and the settings on the Network Policies has a checkmark for "Ignore user account dial-in properties"

Here are the settings:

This is the error the server.

Network Policy Server denied access to a user.

Contact the Network Policy Server administrator for more information.

User:

    Security ID:            MYDOMAIN\user1

    Account Name:            user1

    Account Domain:            MYDOMAIN

    Fully Qualified Account Name:    MYDOMAIN\user1

Client Machine:

    Security ID:            NULL SID

    Account Name:            -

    Fully Qualified Account Name:    -

    OS-Version:            -

    Called Station Identifier:        48f8b3a10979

    Calling Station Identifier:        285aeb54d31e

NAS:

    NAS IPv4 Address:        192.168.x.23

    NAS IPv6 Address:        -

    NAS Identifier:            48f8b3a10979

    NAS Port-Type:            Wireless - IEEE 802.11

    NAS Port:            25

RADIUS Client:

    Client Friendly Name:        Cisco EA6300 Wireless AP2 (Back Plant)

    Client IP Address:            192.168.x.23

Authentication Details:

    Connection Request Policy Name:    Secure Wireless Connections

    Network Policy Name:        Connections to other access servers

    Authentication Provider:        Windows

    Authentication Server:        AUTHSERVER.MYDOMAIN.com

    Authentication Type:        EAP

    EAP Type:            -

    Account Session Identifier:        -

    Logging Results:            Accounting information was written to the local log file.

    Reason Code:            65

    Reason:                The Network Access Permission setting in the dial-in properties of the user account in Active Directory is set to Deny access to the user. To change the Network Access Permission setting to either Allow access or Control access through NPS Network Policy, obtain the properties of the user account in Active Directory Users and Computers, click the Dial-in tab, and change Network Access Permission.

Solution:

Create a new RADIUS server for 802.1X wireless of wired connection standard configuration.

Used the same exact settings as the previous connection request policies and network policies.  Deleted the old ones.


Early 2008 Macbook Pro won't eject Windows 7 Professional disc when prompted Im using an Early 2008 Macbook Pro and I am having a problem completing my BootCamp installation due to the fact that when I am prompted to eject the windows disc, I have no clue how to. I've tried plenty times pressing the eject disc button but no luck, and I'm guessing it's because the laptop is trying to run as a Microsoft product and won't respond to the Macintosh buttons. Please help, I really want to install some other disc but they're only for Windows and I'm tired of dealing with Windows computers. Thank you for your time. : )

You can force eject the disc by restating. When you hear the chime Press COMMAND-E or hold down the trackpad/mouse button.


How to disable CMD+Q combination? I am using WinOS at the office and MacOS at home. But I am more experienced on WinOS. While i am browsing (via Firefox), I use ⌘ CMD+Q accidentally to write "@" mark because of WinOS and keyboard habits. So, the browser quits and I lose all what I've written.

Is there a way to constrain this key combination on MacOS or do I have to look for it on Firefox? (I know, the best way is adapting MacOS but mostly I am working on WinOS.)

Unfortunately, Firefox (at least the 3.6 version I experimented with) does not disable the command shortcut for Quit when you change it in System Preferences.

I think the quick and easy fix for this is to add ⌘Q as a global shortcut to something else innocuous. In my experiments, I found this to work:

Open System Preferences.
Click on the Keyboard pane.
Click Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
Click Exposé & Spaces shortcuts in the left side list.
Under "Exposé" change the shortcut for "Desktop" to ⌘Q

Now when you accidentally hit ⌘Q, your desktop will magically and amusingly appear reminding you of your folly. Hit ⌘Q again and you're back exactly where you were.

As a sidenote, after a while you may want to change this back after you "unlearn" your behaviour. ⌘Q, the Mac equivalent to "ALT-F4" has been the standard shortcut since the introduction of the Macintosh, and like the other "standard" shortcuts ⌘W,⌘Z,⌘C,⌘V and so on, it's best to learn them to ease use of other Mac computers or when you upgrade.


Does the 2017 iPad Pro 12.9 have better speakers than the 2015 iPad Pro 12.9 I recently had the opportunity to try playing music on the internal speakers with both models, although in different stores, and I've noticed that the older iPad's internal speakers are either quieter, have less bass response, or are otherwise less clear than the ones in the 2017 model.

I'm wondering if this is just an artifact of the different environments I listened to them in or if there are actually significant differences in audio quality.

I have all versions including 2018 one, all of them have 4 speakers but the 2015 has the best sound quality between all models from 2015 to 2018.
It has the most balanced sound, the best high and mid ranges, the low register is also sounds better even if it has less low frequencies.

As for 2017 version. It's 5-7% louder than the 2015 version but its mid and high ranges are less detailed (not pleasant to hear comparing to the 2015, even w/o comparing it's obvious that something is missing, the low end on the contrary is too loud and bulky that ruins the whole balance. Also it tends to overload the sound volume so it can give you a harsh/cracking sound, so I'm disappointed in this regard.

As for the 2018 version (12.9), again it sounds like from the closed barrel, does  not have enough mid and high range, the low range became even more punchier than the 2017 one, not pleasant. It's very loud but not balanced at all. the 11 inch version has a better balanced sound than the 12.9 version although it's not that loud.

For example if you record a voice (thru ext Cardioid Condenser Mic and listen it on 2015 version it sounds almost identical to the original) but both latter versions lack of high and upper mid ranges, so your voice sounds like it was recorded with some foam rubber placed between your mouth and the mic.

Another example in Garage Band you need to add about 15% to treble in order to get similar sound in upper range.


Can I configure terminal to show stderr output in different colour Is it possible to configure the terminal in OS X to show stderr output automatically in a different colour than stdout output from a process?

Or is this only possible if the process is outputting coloured output?

There is no straightforward solution, but there are at least a few workarounds available to do this.

You can install hilite by building the single C file (hilite.c in this case) or by using brew install hilite (with homebrew installed on the system). Use it as hilite <command>.
You can use the command from this answer on serverfault (substitute command with the name of your script/command) to make stderr appear in red (for other colors, refer the ANSI escape sequences list and change the 31m in the below command accordingly):

command 2> >(while read line; do echo -e "\e[01;31m$line\e[0m" >&2; done)

You can use stderred to color stderr in red.


Why does Citrix CAG (RDP across monitors) take up multiple Spaces? I used to have just my iMac and I used Spaces to have different apps on different desktops (i.e. Mail on desktop1, iTunes on desktop2, Chrome on desktop3).
I've recently attached another monitor to my iMac and I use Citrix CAG to remote to a Windows PC for work. I share my remote desktop connection across both monitors. To do this, I had to disable the 'Displays have separate Spaces' setting under Mission Control.
Now when I switch between Spaces, the remote desktop connection stays on display on each Space.
Is there any way to avoid this but to keep the Space functionality and to be able to have the remote desktop connection across both monitors?

It sounds like you have it set to All Spaces [Desktops].
With the app running & in the correct Space, right click it in the dock & select Options > This Desktop.

For a fuller answer on setting up & using Spaces, see my other related answers at  https://superuser.com/a/1187552/347380 or https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/179403/85275


Why Mac Terminal remembers two consecutive commands when they are same? I started using Mac recently and before I used to work on Ubuntu.

Suppose I run these commands one by one on my terminal:

python3 main.py
python3 main2.py
python3 main2.py
python3 main2.py
python3 main2.py
python3 main2.py
python3 main2.py

Now suppose I want to run python main.py again, so I will click the up key. I will need to click up key only twice on Ubuntu but 7 times on Mac.

If two consecutive commands are same, then terminal should remember only one command instead of remembering two different commands.

How can I make this happen on macOS?

You need to add the HISTCONTROL environment variable to your .bash_profile.  In your .bash_profile add the following line:

export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups

Close and restart your bash session and the dupes should be gone.  Alternatively, you could just execute that same line and it will take effect for that session (use it to test it out).

From the manual page for bash(in Terminal):

  HISTCONTROL
  A colon-separated list of values controlling how commands are saved on the history list. If the list of values includes ignorespace, lines which begin with a space character are not saved in the history list. A value of ignoredups causes lines matching the previous history entry to not be saved. A value of ignoreboth is shorthand for ignorespace and ignoredups. A value of erasedups causes all previous lines matching the current line to be removed from the history list before that line is saved. Any value not in the above list is ignored. If HISTCONTROL is unset, or does not include a valid value, all lines read by the shell parser are saved on the history list, subject to the value of HISTIGNORE. The second and subsequent lines of a multi-line compound command are not tested, and are added to the history regardless of the value of HISTCONTROL.


Is my iPhone 4 dock connector broken because it says accessory not supported My iPhone 4 keeps coming up with the message accessory not supported and stops charging. When I connect it to my dock it happens all the time but when I connect it to the charger it rarely says it. Is something broken

Your cable isn't registering as a certified Apple cable.

Time to replace it - or perhaps just clean the contacts.

Edit:
ohhh... dock, not cable. Then more chance it's dirty contacts; but the dock may be failing.


Finder tag search exclusive I am using tags to label all my documents in Finder, and Smart Folders to organise them, but I'm running into a roadblock.

Lets say I have a bunch of documents with the tag "fruits", and some -- but not all -- documents also have additional tags like "apples", "oranges" etc. There is an unknown number of additional tags.  I want to create a Smart Folder containing file that have only the fruits tag, and nothing else.  How do you do such an exclusive search?

Open a Finder window at the folder in which you wish to search.  Press ⌘F to open a Spotlight search window, which will target that folder.  There is a drop-down list that will have "Kind" selected:

You will want to change this to "Raw Query", which, if it isn't available in the drop-down list, you can add by selecting "Other..." at the bottom of the list, then selecting it in the panel of search attributes that is presented:

As your raw query, enter the following noting the triple equality:

kMDItemUserTags==='fruits'

Then click "Save" to create your Smart Folder.

Here's a demonstration using the coloured tags in Finder on the contents of the following folder:

This finds files tagged only Green (triple equality):

This finds files tagged Green ± other tags (double equality):


how to find out the start time of last sleep Is there a command to find the date and time at which a Macintosh computer last entered the sleep mode?

Actually, something like
pmset -g log|grep -e " Sleep  " -e " Wake  "

is what really gives me a clean timeline of sleep/wake events on 10.8.2. powerd does not log anything about it, at least on my system (10.8.2, MacBook Pro Retina 15).
02/03/13 19:48:37 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs
02/03/13 19:49:03 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              27 secs
02/03/13 19:49:30 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs
02/03/13 19:49:56 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs
02/03/13 19:50:22 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs
02/03/13 19:50:48 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:99%)                              26 secs
02/03/13 19:51:14 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:100%)                             1802 secs
02/03/13 20:39:17 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using BATT (Charge:100%)                           244 secs
02/03/13 20:43:21 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:100%)                             51 secs
02/03/13 21:07:17 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using BATT (Charge:100%)                           242 secs
02/03/13 21:11:19 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:100%)                             1103 secs
02/03/13 21:29:42 GMT-03 Wake       Wake due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using AC (Charge:100%)
03/03/13 00:00:26 GMT-03 Sleep      Idle Sleep Sleep: Using BATT (Charge:85%)                                   96 secs
03/03/13 00:02:02 GMT-03 Sleep      Maintenance Sleep Sleep: Using AC (Charge:85%)                              38 secs
03/03/13 00:02:40 GMT-03 Wake       Wake due to EHC1/HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:85%)                        4338 secs
03/03/13 01:14:58 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         48382 secs
03/03/13 14:41:20 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)            728 secs
03/03/13 14:53:28 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         415 secs
03/03/13 15:00:23 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)            718 secs
03/03/13 15:12:21 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         156 secs
03/03/13 15:14:57 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)            834 secs
03/03/13 15:28:51 GMT-03 Sleep      Clamshell Sleep to DarkWake: Using AC (Charge:100%)                         378 secs
03/03/13 15:35:09 GMT-03 Wake       DarkWake to FullWake due to HID Activity: Using AC (Charge:100%)


Shortcuts to switch with effects between angles in Final Cut Pro 7 I know that, in multiclip mode, I can switch among between different angles by setting the playhead in open mode and by clicking on a different angle. What I would like is to switch between angles using a shortcut (i.e.: "1", "2"). This would seem to be the default behaviour, except when I press "1" or "2" it just stops playing and focus goes to the "jump to" textbox.

Also, would it be possible to automatically set a fading effect for the switch?

Right. The shortcuts were set to "1" and "2" on the numpad, which doesn't exist on my laptop. Adjusting the shortcuts seems to work. Still, it would be nice to associate effects to switches.


date command gives no output I made an alias earlier today that I saved in my .bash_profile. The alias was called date. I had momentarily forgotten that date is already a native command on OS X (and Linux) in /bin. I removed the alias that I had saved, but now, to use the date command, I have to type /bin/date instead of just date. How can I fix this?

Firstly, check your $PATH (run echo $PATH)
If /bin isn't there, then run export PATH=/bin:$PATH

After that run which date and you should see /bin/date

If you still don't have any output, check if date isn't alias (run alias date)
It should say bash: alias: date: not found.

But in your case it may be alias date='some-command'
If it is, run unalias date and it should fix the problem.

Thanks Allan for the comments with answer.


MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) won't go to sleep, nor will it wake up from sleep Occasionally, my MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) won't go to sleep when I close it. When I close the lid, the fans keep going and the computer slowly becomes warmer and warmer, louder and louder. Also, when the lid is closed, the little white "sleep light" on the front of the computer ignites solid (does not pulsate, as it normally should do when asleep).

Then, when I open it back up, the screen will not turn on (it remains black), the white "sleep light" turns off (still no pulsating) and the computer becomes completely unresponsive to any kind of keyboard, mouse or trackpad input. It simply won't respond to anything.

When this happens, the only "fix" I've found so far is to hold down the power button until the machine turns off completely, and reboot. At which point it seems to be working fine again for a while. This doesn't happen every time I close it; only occasionally.

It almost seems like sleep mode has been "inverted" in a way. I'm not even sure if this is likely to be software or hardware related issue, but it started happening after having used OS X Mavericks for a while, and has persisted after upgrading to OS X Yosemite.

I saw a couple of other similar questions and answers, but nothing that quite seemed to match the description above, and I haven't been able to find a solution for my problem in the other questions. Has anyone seen something like this before?

Any help or pointers greatly appreciated.

Try to reset the SMC as well as the PRAM.


Code sign on Ubuntu Server I have a service, where an app is generated from a jar file, using Jar2App, on the fly. I use an Ubuntu Linux server as host for the service and I need to sign the app, after it is generated.

How can I do this on the server, automatically?

I know I need a developer id, but how can I make the codesign application work on my server or is there any working alternative to Ubuntu?

This question would get three different answers based on if you ask on Ask Different, Ask Ubuntu and Stack Overflow.

The stack overflow answer is basically that open-source style reverse engineering the codesign was far more engineering effort than just renting a Mac Mini and using Apple’s tools and not necessarily Apple’s certificates.

The answer here is that Apple doesn’t provide that framework on OS other than macOS today and that any Mac can download for free the command line version of developer tools and you can set up ssh trivially on macOS so you can automate build and signing steps remotely from ubuntu, windows and all manner of other OS so that you can deploy from the platform of your choice on demand.

I can’t speak for Ask Ubuntu or Linux in general, but one person stated that Apple has open sourced the tools and that wouldn’t surprise me that the signing framework is based on standard cryptographic protocols and certificate structure and only peripherally has hooks into the macOS keychain for eliminating the need to store keys on the filesystem directly.


FaceTime/FaceTime Audio calls to ipad and iphone simultaniously from overseas (15 calls) Yesterday I received a call from a strange number: +7 (987) 753-20-26 via FaceTime and FaceTime Audio to my ipad and iphone simultaneously.  I did  not answer because I didn't recognize the number, but each time my face was visible (as though I was on a call).  I had a repairman at the house and as soon as his face was the one that was visible the calls stopped.  There were 15 calls, rapid fire, one after the other often at the same time on each device.  It sort of creeped me out, but then I wondered if our system could have been hacked.  Again, it is an unknown number.

Is there something I need to do to be sure I wasn't hacked?  Could it be a stalker?  Thank you for any suggestions/comments.

…to my iPad and iPhone simultaneously […] at the same time on each device

You will receive simultaneous calls on all devices with the same Apple ID. This is how FaceTime works and is not due to any action on the part of the caller.

  but each time my face was visible

The background to a FaceTime call that has not been answered will be the camera feed from the front camera on the device. This is not transmitted anywhere as the call has not been answered. Any correlation between who is shown on this preliminary screen and the caller is pure coincidence.


Notes gone after upgrade to iOS 10.0.2 I have just updated my iPad Air to 10.0.2 and now cannot find any Notes. I have checked iCloud and there is nothing there. Irrespective of whether a backup was made, upgrading should not remove user entered data, so why has this version upgrade removed all my notes?

I also lost various notes. I went to settings, iCloud and my notes were not turned on for iCloud backup storage. I turned it on, and voila, my notes were back on "my iPad"


Apple TV mirroring performance I have a MacBook Air (April 2013) and a new Apple TV.
Mirroring of the desktop is alright if I disable my TV's post-processing of the image.
But If I start a video (VLC or Netflix for example), the quality is not very good. The framerate is too low and the sound is out of synch.

If I use the App Beamer, the image quality is great. Running Netflix natively on Apple TV works also great. My guess is, that Beamer streams the video file directly to Apple TV and that mirroring is slower, because the MacBook has to encode the image on the fly. Hence the low frame rate and delay (the video is also much smoother if I change the resolution down to 720p, but still not watchable for a movie).

Right now the situation is ok, because I can watch Netflix natively and stream files via Beamer. But this is not what I expected from Apple TV.

I didn't expect to play the newest action games like this, but stream videos to it in decent quality (YouTube, IMDb etc.) without using some native App on Apple TV.

Can I somehow improve this? Am I right that the bottleneck is the encoding of the MacBook? Can I improve this by disabling the MacBooks monitor or something?

EDIT:
An employee at an Apple certified store told me this is definitely my router. My housemate bought a TimeCapsule. This did not help a bit. I already guessed that the employee just didn't want to admit he sold me something I didn't want. I'll probably sell AppleTV now, but I'd still be interested in answers though.

I'm having quite the same issue not with an apple tv but with another stuff provided by my Internet broadband which is doing air mirroring.
I have a mid 2013 macbook air and mirroring my screen is lagy.

So I thought the issue was from the router too, but my brother with his latest MacBook Pro doesn't have any lag, it's really fluid.

So I thought the MBA wasn't power enough too handle the real time encoding, but one day while I was mirroring my screen I launched a slide show in iphoto and it was really fluid. Then I noticed when I turn air mirroring on it's always lagy until I launch a video from QuickTime.

So, to sum up - this likely is a software issue since under iPhoto and Quicktime, the MBA is fast enough to handle high performance mirroring of some content. (Or that it lags when it has to both assemble the image to draw on the screen and then mirror it - but when QuickTime or iPhoto take over the entire screen - mirroring can be quite snappy).


How do I display a hyperlink with an AppleScript? I am trying to get a URL via AppleScript, then displaying it as a clickable link via a window. How do I do this? (if I need to use Xcode for this, please add the answer, but provide detailed instructions, please)

AppleScript itself cannot display rich text (HTML) in a popup dialog. So your options are:

Display a normal text dialog with AppleScript, showing the URL and asking the user if she wants to go there. If user clicks "OK", open that URL (that's exactly 1 click, so pretty much equivalent to a clickable link).

-- tested with Safari 5.1.7 on Mac OS X 10.6.8
set theUrl to "http://j.mp/LgHoEB"
try
    display dialog theUrl & "\nClick OK to open this URL in Safari." with title "Open URL?" with icon caution
    if button returned of result is "OK" then
        tell application "Safari" to make new document with properties {URL:theUrl}
    end if
on error number -128 -- user cancelled
    -- do something else
end try

Use the Safari AppleScript command do JavaScript to make a JavaScript popup with the desired URL as a clickable link (and possibly some more custom HTML):

-- tested with Safari 5.1.7 on Mac OS X 10.6.8
set theUrl to "http://j.mp/LgHoEB"
set JSPopup to "(function() {" & ¬
    "var w = window.open('', 'Clickable link');" & ¬
    "w.document.write(" & ¬
    "'
" & ¬
    "" & theUrl & "" & ¬
    "
'" & ¬
    ");})()"
tell application "Safari"
    do JavaScript JSPopup in current tab of window 1
end tell

Of course, this will only work if your Safari allows popup windows (with my settings, for instance, a new tab is opened instead).