OS X remote sharing without needing to install an app on the client My clients have OS X (as I do) but have trouble installing the GoToMyPC app, and indeed, any apps — TeamViewer requires that the client install their app, too.

Is there a remote management/screen sharing program that does not require the computer being helped to install anything at all?

In Yosemite (not sure about other versions) there is a Screen Sharing function built into Messages, if you get the iMessage addresses of your team you'll be able to screen share with them. This can be done manually with the built-in Screen Share app, but isn't nearly as easy and convenient as just clicking on them then hitting Share Screen in a Messages conversation.


Writing Causes Page to Jump I have trouble writing on my Mac.

It happens on pages on Safari like writing an e-mail or in Facebook and even in this question box. The problem is that the page starts jumping up and down as I'm writing and if I use the backspace key the page I'm on jumps back to the last page I was on, removing all my text.

How can I fix this?

most likely, one of two things is happening:

when you are typing you are accidentally touching the trackpad and moving or scrolling or clicking outside the text box you are typing in.

or when you are typing the case is flexing causing accidental clicks (heavy keyboard typists beware)

The clue here is the backspace functionality of the browser, as when inside a text entry field, the backspace works as a backspace delete, but when outside of a text entry, pressing backspace works the same as pressing the back button in the browser (i.e. go back to the previous page)


Touch bar volume controls don't work I have the MBP 15" model 2017 (macOS High Sierra 10.13.3) with touch bar. What I realized is that the touch bar volume element (mute / unmute / volume up / down) does not work. I press them but nothing happens.

On my apple external keyboard these shortcuts work fine. Also when I try to adjust the volume with the touch bar slider it works like it should.

I tried different things, resetting nvram, removing / adding the controls, killing the control strip, killing the coreaudiod, resetted SMC. but nothing seems to fix it. The only thing that worked is opening a new user account. In the new user account everything seems to be working fine.

Any ideas of what the problem might be or how it can be fixed?

Seems to be a bug that shows if you plug an external display, etc.

Open Terminal.app and type:

killall ControlStrip


Retrieve older call history on iPhone When I look at the "Recents"-tab on my iPhone, I can see about 100 call entries. But when I delete a call an older call moves up. So, older calls must be stored somewhere. Is there a way to recover the call history without deleting calls?

There are softwares such as iMazing and iMyPhone D.
I can confirm you that with the first one I managed to get 204 contacts until around 5 month earlier, so I bet that there is still a max number in the OS, I'm sure I'd have more calls, but at least it's something.


Cooling pad for 2015 Macbook Pro 15"? There's a thread about the 2011 model, but it doesn't have an answer and that was a lot of technology ago.

A lot of people have said that the macbook will handle it's own cooling process, but mine is new and will get pretty hot within half an hour of watching movies or mid-level processing.  I think I'd like something if only to provide a layer of ventilation and buffer between myself and the computer.

Does anyone have any experience actually getting a cooling pad for their mac?
Is it really not worth it to spend twenty bucks to provide better ventilation?
If you think it's worth it, any specific recommendations on products?

Make One

See my answer on a similar Question.

Boost your laptop with a Roost, and add a 4" fan from BestBuy.


How do I stop Apple from offering me iTunes 11 as a software download in OS X I don't want to disable Apple software update, I just want to prevent myself from accidentally overwriting my iTunes 10 with a working Party Shuffle/iTunes DJ with the new iTunes 11. I have iTunes 11 at work, where it doesn't really matter what I've got installed because I can't play music during the day, and I've tried to come up with some combination of smart playlists that effectively duplicates iTunes DJ... but it doesn't work. The tools aren't there.

So, how do I do it, how do I selectively block updates for iTunes 11?

Edit/Update: All the helpful answers here are no longer useful.

Don't do it. Later versions of OSX ship with a newer iTunes and rolling back to iTunes 10 breaks some aspects of Software Update. I ended up having to reinstall and use Migration Assistant to restore from Time Machine to get a fully working system again.

Update: With Catalina they replaced iTunes with Music which is a whole new ball of problems. This question does not apply to Music.

The methods differ based on whether you are using OS X Mountain Lion, or an earlier edition.

For OS X Mountain Lion (where updates are now merged with the Mac App Store):

Refer to HT2357 How can you ignore a software update in Mountain Lion? – Apple Support Communities. Quoting the accepted solution from DickVH:

  For the software update you would like to hide - make sure the full
  description of the update is shown - click "More..." if needed to show
  the full description

  Right click on the update window.  Select "Hide update"

  This will hide the update and it will not show in the App Store
  Updates Window or counted on the dock icon. [...]

  [emphasis above is mine]

For OS X Lion and earlier:

Refer to OS X: How to ignore a Software Update – Apple Support. Quote:

  How to ignore an update
    [Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5, Mac OS X 10.6, OS X Lion]

  Choose Software Update from the Apple menu.
  Click Show Details when prompted.
  Click to select the name of the update you wish to ignore.
  Choose Ignore Update… from the Update menu. A confirmation dialog appears that states, "Are you sure you want to
  remove the update (name of update) from the list? You will no longer
  be notified of new versions of this update. To see this update again,
  choose Software Update > Reset Ignored Updates."
  Click OK.


How to resolve weird auto-logout issue? Synopsis

Since upgrading to Yosemite, when my MacBook automatically turns it's screen off to conserve energy it also logs out which bugs me because all of my processes are killed off; this never occurred on Mavericks.

Also, since upgrading to Yosemite why is there now two log-in screens?

When the machine is booted there is one login screen;
When the machine is powered on from sleep mode you instantly need to login, then once the mac has booted and all devices are loaded (after ages) you need to login a second time;

Isn't it the advanced log out feature found under Advanced in Security & Privacy?

I've disabled "Log out after # minutes of activity" on El Capitan (see screenshot) to keep my desktop session open regardless of time.

I did check the "Require an administrator password" to prevent normal users to change a locked system.

You might also want to check your Energy Saver settings; particularly under the Schedule... button that could cause your system going to sleep.


Cannot drag an app from Launchpad to trash I recently had an app called ZipCloud appear in my Launchpad applications - overtime I drag it to trash, it simply goes back. How do I delete it?

The page http://support.zipcloud.com/question/110/how-do-i-uninstall-zip-cloud says to drag to trash

Why do some things not go into trash?

Managed to delete it by opening the Applications folder in Finder and right clicking and selecting 'Move to trash'

The dragging operation is obviously different to the 'Move to trash' option in some way


Does Sophos Antivirus work correctly on Lion with (legacy) FileVault enabled? Some time ago, I installed Sophos Antivirus on my Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard and came up against the "computer stops responding after reboot, with Sophos Antivirus installed and FileVault enabled" issues. This required me to forcibly power-off the computer by holding down the power button on every restart and having to boot into single user mode to manually remove the application files before I could use the computer again.

Has the situation changed with the latest version of Sophos Antivirus (version 8 at time of writing). Is anyone successfully using it on Lion with (legacy) FileVault enabled? I'd like to try again, but would obviously prefer not to encounter the above problems.

You need to increase the number of on-demand scanner threads, to prevent a deadlock when you log in if you have a number of things all trying to start at once.

Run the following, from Terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.sophos.sav WorkerThreads -int 20

(20 works for me, with the number of applications that I have set to launch at login time)


Force restart iPhone using a software (without iPhone's permission) My iPhone's power button is not working. I've been using assistive touch option for a long time.

However yesterday my iPhone was acting up and couldn't turn it off by long pressing assistive touch's "power button" option. So I decided to restart it by resetting network settings. But it didn't restart it so I repeatedly pressed "reset network settings" option for like 3-4 times. After that iPhone entered to lock screen and now there's an overlay text with the message "Resetting iPhone". It's been that way for like 12 hours already. But apparently nothing happens. I can use assistive touch, above this overlay but it doesn't do anything. Behind this transparent overlay, iPhone's clock works fine. I receive calls but can't answer them, even using headset.  It's very strange I've never seen anything like this before.

I want to restart the phone but I'm out of options. Data and Wifi was turned off so can't use even iCloud to reset. iTunes picks up phone but asks for iPhone permission to access it. By pressing "trust this computer" option.
Last resort is waiting for battery is fully drained. But If I can use some kind of a tool to force restart I think this issue will be resolved.

I used a iPhone rebooting tool, but it still requires iPhone's permission ("trust this computer" option) which I can not access.

Anything else I can do here?

There's no way that I can think of to do it via software, but I do have a crude workaround idea.

You can let the battery die (you can accelerate this process by turning up the screen brightness), then plug in the phone. Crude, but the phone will turn itself off when the battery dies and turn itself on when you plug it in. It's effectively a restart.


Alternative to AlwaysAppendSearchDomains on Yosemite? Since Lion, I have used the AlwaysAppendSearchDomains trick on mDNSresponder to resolve names with dots in search domains.

In yosemite this doesn't work any more. In fact, mDNSresponder doesn't seem to be running:

$ ps ax | grep -i dns | grep -v grep
$

I found the answer as I posted this:

To enable mDNSResponder, edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist and remove the lines

<key>Disabled</key>
<true/>

Then add -AlwaysAppendSearchDomains to the arguments list further down in the same file:

<string>_mdnsresponder</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder</string>
    <string>-AlwaysAppendSearchDomains</string>
</array>

Finally run

$ sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist
$ sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

You can then verify mDNSResponder is running:

$ ps ax | grep -i dns | grep -v grep
10456   ??  Ss     0:00.44 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder -AlwaysAppendSearchDomains

Subdomains of search domains can then be resolved.


alias can't be opened This is about a MacBook running on 10.10.5 whose disk has recently been repaired (to try to solve the present issue) using Disk Utility. I created an alias as follows:

$ cd ~/Desktop
$ ls -ld
drwx------+ 13 erwann  staff  442 Jul 14 12:41 .
$ touch foo.bar
$ mkdir baz
$ ln -s foo.bar baz
$ ls -l baz
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x  1 erwann  staff  7 Jul 15 11:02 foo.bar -> foo.bar

Next, I use Finder to 'Show [the] original' associated with the alias created in 'baz'. I get:

  The alias “foo.bar” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found.

Any suggestion to fix this?

The link needs an absolute path.

ln -s foo.bar baz

will create an alias in baz pointing to the file foo.bar. But the file baz/foo.bar does not exist, hence the error you received.

You want:

ln -s ~/Desktop/foo.bar baz

which will create an alias in the baz directory pointing to ~/Desktop/foo.bar.


OS X Mavericks system restore from external drive using Time Machine I have a 3TB Seagate USB external drive (MBR scheme), divided in 2 primary partitions: one of ~500 GB has been created and formatted on Windows using Paragon Partition Manager with HSF+.

I did a full system backup using Time Machine to this partition (apparently, successfully - or so I thought). (Directly, not as an image.)

When I try to follow this tutorial: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14185 , as soon as I press Command R, I get thrown into an Internet Recovery, which takes about an hour to complete. I might be wrong, but, according to some research I've done, this should be the behavior when I don't have a dedicated recovery partition? If so - I don't see the point in creating the full system backup if I cannot readily make use of it.

After said hour passes, I am presented with the options that should have readily been available to begin with, and I am able to do a system restore from the Time Machine.

Said restore, though, ends after a while in (what should have been?) a boot screen: I get the spinning wheel but the Apple logo is switched for a "crossed O" as in, the "Access denined" symbol.

How could I prevent the Internet Recovery to take place, go directly to perform a Time Machine recovery? Any suggestions about the second issue, might they be connected somehow?

Your problem is almost certainly related to partitioning on a Windows machine.
You can verify this by using Disk Utility to look at the Drive, in particular the Partition Map Scheme. This needs to be GUID Partition Table but is probably MBR.

You would need to repartition on OS X, but this will need you to erase all data.


JPG photo filenames after an iPhone to "Photos app" import Since years, we centralize all our family photos on a (local) disk readable from Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The filenames are usually something like D:\Photos\2020-05\IMG_76843.jpg or D:\Photos\2020-05\20200502_1256_2.jpg, when coming from various digital cameras or Android smartphones.

Now I have an iPhone, and I imported nearly 10 GB of photos with the Macbook "Photos" app. I don't want to keep them inside this app, my final goal is to manage the JPG files myself, and move them on the external disk (mentioned above). So I took all files from ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/ and moved them to the external disk.
(or ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/originals/ with Catalina). This worked.
After that I deleted Photos Library.photoslibrary (no longer needed, I will recreate a new photo library when importing next time; again, I don't want to use Photos app except for importing from the iPhone).

Question: I now have files like:

DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg
DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7_1_105_c.jpeg
DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7_4_5005_c.jpeg

and there are two problems:

they are duplicates of different sizes (this is probably simple, I can do a script to remove the smaller files *_1_105_c.jpgand keep the original big file only)
the files are in  a totally random order!

Before I roll my own Python script (examining EXIF and recreate "new filenames" according to the datetime of the photo), are there tricks/things to know/techniques to recover better photo filenames from these random-looking filenames: DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg?

More generally, is it possible to have less a mess with JPG filenames when importing photos from an iPhone?

Sidenotes:

I do automated backups, both locally and distant
we don't want to use a cloud solution to manage photos, and also not a cataloguing software (like Lightroom or similar)
Reason for this "I want to handle photo files myself": with this "plain JPG files in folders" method, photos can be read on every device (Win, Linux, Mac, etc.) without requiring a specific software that would probably be unmaintained/unavailable in year 2079, when my children will want to open them ;)
"Just JPG files in a folder" is probably the method that maximizes the chance of being opened in 50 or 100 years.
for my next import from iPhone, is there another software than "Photos" app that directly sets better filenames when importing? This seems to show that "Image Capture" would work better in my case: How do I import photos in OS X without using Photos.app?

For future iPhone -> computer imports

Using "Image Capture" app instead of "Photos" app solves most of the problems indeed (as explained here: How do I import photos in OS X without using Photos.app?).  Notes:

Set "Keep originals" to disabled in order to have HEIC files automatically converted to JPG during import (I'm not sure if my children's computers will be able to understand HEIC files easily in 70 years, but surely JPG will be supported!)
"Delete after import" is important.
At the end of the import, I had "Error 9937" for a few MOV files. Then redo the export for these files with "Keep originals" enabled.

For an export already done with random filenames

1) First run a script that groups variations of the same photo, such as:

DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg
DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7_1_105_c.jpeg
DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7_4_5005_c.jpeg

This can be done easily with Python with:

import glob, os
H = dict()
for f in glob.glob('*.jpeg'):
    h = f[:36]
    H.setdefault(h, []).append(f)

Then for each group, you can keep the file with the shortest filename (e.g. DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg) and delete the others (with os.remove(...)).

2) Run a Python script that transforms a random filename DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg to 20200502_120003.jpg based on the datetime stored in the EXIF metadadata

import glob, os, PIL.Image, datetime

for f in glob.glob('*.jpeg'):
    with PIL.Image.open(f) as img:
        exif_data = img._getexif()
    if exif_data == None:
        # do something here
        continue
    model, software, dt = exif_data.get(272, ''), exif_data.get(305, ''), exif_data.get(306, '')
    newfname = datetime.datetime.strptime(dt, '%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S').strftime('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S') + '.jpg' if dt != '' else f
    # rename the file with the new filename
    # and also move it in a specific folder according to model/software
    # special case to handle: filename collisions


USB type-C ports max power supply from MacBook Pro? What are the max power supplied by Apple's touch bar MacBook Pro from its USB type-C ports?

USB-C alone allows 4.5 Watts ( 900 mA @ 5 V ) and thunderbolt 3 improves on that greatly.

According to Apple:

  MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016) and MacBook (13-inch, Late 2016, Four
  Thunderbolt 3 Ports) can power two devices that use up to 15 watts,
  and two more devices that use up to 7.5 watts. It doesn't matter which
  side of your MacBook Pro that they're connected to—power is delivered
  on a first-come, first-served basis.

  MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports) can power one
  device that uses up to 15 watts and one device that uses up to 7.5
  watts.

Thunderbolt Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256
USB Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201163

The above specs are the same for the 2017 MacBook Pro models. The MacBook models only have USB levels of power and data available.


How can I run a current browser on older MacBook? I have an older macbook that tops out at Snow Leopard. That is, this is the limit of OS X that it will run.

Current versions of Chrome and Firefox are not supported for Snow Leopard (10.6) Lion (10.7) or Mountain Lion (10.8)

This machine is mostly used for surfing the web while semi-watching TV.

I am concerned about maintaining reasonable security while surfing.

Options:

Run another OS: FreeBSD 8 is supposed to run on MacBook Pro, but that puts me 3 major releases behind current.  Mint Linux is another fairly lightweight version.  I'm quite content to run a simple window manager (In my Linux days, I used fvwm by preference)
Strip Snow Leopard down as much as possible, run VirtualBox in it, and run an OS in that. Set up the mac OS to be in bridge mode, and be unaware of the internet.
Set up MacBook Pro as a VNC/Teamviewer and use one of my screens from my Mac Pro upstairs.

Option 1 is apparently difficult to get a usable workstation on it.

Option 2 is not clear what can be stripped, shut off, etc.

Option 3 needs directions on how to safeguard the MacBook Pro to allow only local networking, with no or very limited access to the world.  It has the advantage that I am still working in a Mac user space.

It's not clear to me what the relative merits of each of these approaches is.

What are the tradeoffs of these approaches.

Is there a 4th approach I'm missing?

I have multiple computers and the original machine I was asking about indeed will run a newer version of the OS.  Curiously, if you click 'software update' it does not report this as a potential update. It's installing as I write.

I have accordingly rephrased the question in light of the next older laptop, as the repurposing of older macbooks is a field of significant interest to many long time mac users.  At this point I'm leaning toward the TeamViewer approach.

All MacBook Pros produced mid/late 2007 and later (MacBookPro3,1...) can be upgraded to at least OS X 10.11.

So install OS X 10.9 or later on your (mid/late 2007-...) MacBook Pro (3,1-...) and enjoy the latest Google Chrome and/or Firefox browser.

The system requirements for Firefox 49 are 10.9-10.11 and for Google Chrome 54 10.9 and later


security: SecKeychainSearchCopyNext: (Wi-Fi password via Terminal) im trying to view (as root) wifi passwords in plaintext via Terminal[1] but get the following error:
sh-3.2# security find-generic-password -ga "ROUTER-NAME-HERE"
security: SecKeychainSearchCopyNext: The specified item could not be found in the keychain.

sh-3.2# security find-generic-password -a lily -s "ROUTER-NAME-HERE" -g
security: SecKeychainSearchCopyNext: The specified item could not be found in the keychain.

so i googled the error[2] but i didnt find the answer helpful.

[1] How to access the Wi-Fi password through Terminal?
[2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8303755/keychain-security-command-line-tool-works-with-find-internet-passwords-but-not-f

sh-3.2# system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: OS X 10.8.5 (12F45)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 12.5.0
      Boot Volume: lily
      Boot Mode: Normal
      Computer Name: lily’s MacBook Air
      User Name: System Administrator (root)
      Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
      Time since boot: 12:37

sh-3.2# uname -a
Darwin lily-MacBook-Air.local 12.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 12.5.0: Sun Sep 29 13:33:47 PDT 2013; root:xnu-2050.48.12~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

Display the WiFi password of a named wireless network exactly like this, replacing "wifinetworkname" with your wireless network name in quotes:

security find-generic-password -D "AirPort network password" -l "wifinetworkname" -w


How to remove Windows partitions on external HDD? Hi! I wonder what is the correct procedure to remove all partitions from an external HDD (500GB) that was previously a Windows boot HDD (Extracted from my old PC).
Before the erase, there were 3 partitions:

Win7
System Reserve
Data

After backing up and erasing the drives, they're now empty.
I'd like to remove all the partitions but it doesn't seem to allow me to delete by clicking "-" from the Volume on the 2nd top left on the Toolbars.
Any idea how do I do it?

The key to do this is to click on the view icon and select show all devices.
Right now you can only see volumes. When you enable show all devices you will see the actual physical drive. Select it and erase the drive.


Icon for iWeb published site? How can I use a favicon for my website that is published using iWeb?

Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to create a favicon via the gui elements of iWeb. However, you are able to pretty simply add the html to the published version of your site.

I recommend following this guide from All About iWeb. It walks you through how to first create the favicon using one of a variety of free online tools and then informs you where it needs be stored in your site's structure as well as the necessary html you need to add to your pages.


Texting from my old 3GS iphone without a Sim still shows my old phone number I've upgraded my iPhone 3GS to the new iPhone 4S. I want to give my old 3GS to my daughter to use as an "iPod touch". We've upgraded the 3GS to iOS 5 and attached it to iCloud with her own separate account.

I'd like for the 3GS to be able to text me on my 4S - yet it is the same phone number the 3GS used to be, it doesn't seem to work.

I've also tried to text from the 3GS to another iPod touch we have (new, 4th gen). Yet it just texts to an email address. It doesn't appear as a text/iMessage/SMS.

Is there a setting I'm missing? I'd really like it to show as a text and not an email.

Cellular SMS requires an activated SIM card.

When you upgraded to a 4s, the phone company probably deactivated the SIM in your 3GS, so it can't be used for SMS without another valid SIM card.


Set the date and time in menubar to be in a specific format I want the menubar to display the date and time in the menubar as follows:

2012-10-03 09.12.14

which translates into Year-Month-Day 24hr.min.second

What I've tried:

Gone into System Preferences > Date & Time > Clock

Selected: Digital; Display time with seconds; use 24-hour clock

This gets me close to having the time right.

Gone into System Preferences > Date & Time > Date & Time > Open Language & Text > Formats > Dates > Customize

Changed every date format (short, medium, long, full) to have yyyy-MM-dd

Gone into System Preferences > Date & Time > Date & Time > Open Language & Text > Formats > Times > Customize

Change every time format to kk.mm.ss

The problem:

It still shows the date like:

3 Oct 13:19:12

in the menubar.

Details:

I am running Mac OS X 10.7.5

Any help or suggestions you can give, much appreciated!

There is a free app called Day-O that is flexible and can do what is being asked:  https://shauninman.com/archive/2016/10/20/day_o_2_mac_menu_bar_clock


How to change the keymap of a Bluetooth keyboard of iPad? I have a Logitech K480 Bluetooth keyboard. I want to map the caps lock key to ctrl. What should I do?


Change iCloud Backup from new version of iOS to older version I have iPhone 5s with iOS 11.1.
Few weeks ago had to change back my iOS version from a new version because my iPhone did not work well with the new one.

Since then I can not backup to iCloud. When I try it says:

  The last backup could not be completed because it was iCloud backed up by a newer version of iOS.

How can I change iCloud to get my older version back?

Go to Settings → your Apple ID → iCloud → Manage Storage → Backup and delete the existing backup. Choose to delete and disable backups. Once the backup is removed, try to back up again from scratch.


Macbook Air's keyboard malfunction after spill. How to work around it? I spilled coffee over my mac's air keyboard yesterday. The computer seems to work but the keyboard doesn't. The symptoms:

The laptop boots into the drive selection screen every time (alt key constantly pressed?)
The caps lock, arrow, enter, esc keys all seem to work
I can't enter my password at the boot screen. Some key-presses seem to be registered but obviously not the correct ones. For example, pressing the N key once doesn't show a keystroke, but pressing it twice does. It feels like there's some function/alt/ctrl/shift key that might be constantly pressed, but I can't tell which one, or make it behave differently by pressing those.
An external keyboard (either bluetooth or usb) doesn't behave differently
If I choose the guest mode, the computer will boot into the Safari only mode. The same thing will happen there - some keys will show wrong signs when typed in the address bar, and at some points the keyboard stops responding.
The external keyboard however seems to work in that guest mode.

Questions:

Can you help me understand what exactly is the problem with the keyboard?
Can anyone think of a way to log in to the regular mode?
Assuming the keyboard is the only thing broken, can it normally be serviced on a Macbook Air?

Thanks!

keyboards are 2 layers of plastic film with tiny electric contact, separated by a third layer of plastic film with holes on the spot of every single key.
when you press a key, the top and bottom plastic are pressed against one another inside the hole of the middle layer, and the electronic signal going from the top to the bottom layer tells your computer that the key is pressed.

problem is: separation is the same as an average good quality book paper sheet, or maybe the same as the aluminum sheet that makes a soda or beer can. also, the electricity that goes trough your keyboard is extremely tiny, and sensors are VERRY sensible, so your air battery can lasts longer.
So even if you have a single hair touching those circuits, your keyboard would "break" the same way it breaks when you spill coffee or whatever liquid; even after the liquid dries, the coffee and the sugar are probably still there "pressing" your alt key.

solution: (this will probably void any warranty) open your computer carefully, remove the keyboard, dismantle all keys one by one, separate the plastic layers with surgical precision so you don't cause any ruptures to the electric "wires", then wash everything with a lot of water and very little mild soap, take extra care to remove ALL the soap, leave everything to dry in the sun (you know electronic components don't like humidity, right?) assemble everything together with "just-washed" oil free hands (don't touch the inner part of the sensors now).
Doing all this, if you have any luck your keyboard might work 100% again... or maybe you might make it stop working entirely, who knows? =)

if you have some money, then backup you computer, go to the applestore and tell them you want to buy a new keyboard, because you broke the current one.
they shall give you a brand new (refurbished?) one, and charge you only the new keyboard. or they might give the same one back to you, who knows? haha.


Is there more efficient way to use the usb c ports for external display on macbookpro? Currently I am using two usb-c ports to connect to two Dell U2713HM monitors, as seen in the picture

Is it possible to reduce to one port? Is there a smarter way to connect to external monitor (by using some hub for example)? I don't need extremely high resolution, just good enough for programming work.

Your monitor supports daisy chaining over displayport 1.2
According to the manual you can connect the two displays together and then use only one cable to your device. (page 26/71)
Note that your graphics card must support it as stated on the page:

  NOTE: U2413/U2713H support the DP MST feature. To make use of this feature, your PC Graphics Card must be certified to DP1.2 with MST option.

I dont believe apple enables these options though, I found this answer on this site which also states that it does not work in osx Sierra.
You could always try and see if high Sierra makes a difference.


Show original shortcut in MacOS 10.14 I often make symbolic links of folders. I recently had to change my laptop and move from Sierra to Mojave.
In the old OS I used to type Cmd + R to go to the original folder. This seems to no longer work. The official apple website still has Cmd + R as the shortcut (https://support.apple.com/el-gr/HT201236).

You can change it to Cmd+R. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts (tab) > App Shortcuts (left sidebar) click the plus and in the window: Application: Finder, Menu title: Show Original Just the menu item written exactly as it is in the menu, Shortcut: Cmd+R.

  When you change the shortcut, it'll show up in the menu item.


Recommendations on launching applications and setting up workspace based on location? When moving between locations (work, home, coffeeshops...) I find that I have to manually set up things how I like them over an over. Is there an application that will automatically launch and position my applications when I am at a specific location, or select a preset "workspace"?

Stay, and ControlPlane seem to scratch the surface of what I want but are BOTH out of date. Launching apps and positioning windows on particular desktops in a specific monitor configuration is priority.

For this problem, I use https://github.com/jigish/slate, as this allows to position windows based on the current monitor configuration which is currently attached. The monitor configuration can be recognised by the resolutions of the the screens. A simple example with configurations for "laptop+external monitor" and "laptop only":

# Configs
config defaultToCurrentScreen true
config menuBarIconHidden true
config checkDefaultsOnLoad true

# Monitor Aliases
alias mon-extern 1920x1080
alias mon-laptop 1280x800

# Concrete positions
alias 0-mail        move screenOriginX;screenOriginY       screenSizeX;screenSizeY          ${mon-extern}
alias 1-mail        move screenOriginX+0.17*screenSizeX;screenOriginY       0.83*screenSizeX;screenSizeY         ${mon-laptop}

# layouts
layout 2monitor 'Calendar':REPEAT              ${1-mail}
layout 1monitor 'Calendar':REPEAT               ${0-mail}

# Default Layouts
default 2monitor resolutions:${mon-laptop};${mon-extern};
default 1monitor  resolutions:${mon-laptop}

This will move the window of mail from full screen to part of the screen. But see the documentation of the program for more features and examples.


How can I tell what "Audio" and "Other" contains in iTunes's iOS device capacity meter? In iTunes, when selecting an iOS device from the left pane, the user is presented with a bar graph along the bottom of the primary pane showing the used space and available space of the given device.

In this example, the iPad in question contains no songs. My music is all synced through iTunes Match and I have not downloaded any songs (because of my lack of available space). How can I know what that 8.3 GB of audio is? On my iPhone I had assumed it was things like downloaded Audible books, but that can't be the case as Audible's app is not universal, and I haven't installed it on my iPad so there are no Audible books on my device. I do have podcasts synced to my device through iTunes ("Automatically include all unplayed episodes of all podcasts"), but the total size of all synced episodes (~2 GB) is far less than the stated use of 8.3 GB.

And what is included in "Other"? Is that data that apps use for offline storage (such as Instapaper articles and offline Evernote notebooks)? Or would those items be counted under Apps as they are stored in apps' respective folders on the device?

How can I nail down exactly what is using the space on my iOS devices with such ambiguous category names? Secondarily, how are apps' internal storage counted in this graph? For example, the previously stated Instapaper articles, Evernote's offline notebooks: "Apps" or "Other"? Audible's downloaded audiobooks: "Apps", "Audio", "Books", or "Other"? Camera+'s internal photo "Lightbox" feature: "Apps", "Photos", or "Other"?

The other part of the graph, as far as I know, consists of caches, cookies, history, logs, ... (mostly from safari). Also, things like contacts, calender events, ... are in this part, too. I don't think any app document (like Evernote's or Instapaper's) goes to this part. It's all in the app part.

So, for example, it can be cleared up a good amount by going to safari settings and clearing all caches, history, ... You'll be amazed at how much space they've claimed!

About the audio, it is really strange that with no music and some audiobooks, it have taken up so much space. I don't know any other stuff other than that to be included in that part.

As a side note, sometimes doing a resync in iTunes will change the graph. Sometimes even the other part shrinks and goes to apps. So maybe you can try and see what happens.

Hope it helps.


What terminal commands are new or updated in Mountain Lion? Where can I find a list of new or updated terminal commands or features for Mountain Lion?

Lacking any list, does anyone have a sugguestion on how to generate that list?  (some combination of ls & diff)

AD user @patrix did a great AD blog post on new terminal commands in Mountain Lion. You can find it here: http://apple.blogoverflow.com/2012/07/interesting-new-unix-commandsbinaries-in-os-x-mountain-lion/


Apple iPod earphone problem My iPod shuffle Is just 7 months old and the earphones has a problem. The output sound is very low. I just now got my friends earphones and checked, the sound was loud and clear. What could be the problem. How can I rectify it?

Sounds like to me that your earphones have started to prematurely break down.  How does the cable look?  Is there bends or twists near the ends?  If there is then perhaps a wire is broken inside the cable.  Normally this would mean no sound rather than a decrease in volume.  Either way it seems that the earphones will need to be replaced completely.

Are you using the apple in ear earphones?  If so then simply replace the steel mesh inside the earphones by simply unscrewing them.  If you lost your extras you can find them on Amazon through a third party source.


using "old" non-retina screen resolution chooser I have a 4k display, but my laptop seems unable to performantly use it (videos jitter, etc) is there a way to treat the display as 1080p display and let the display upscale it? Of course, Preferences lets me change the "resolution", but it's not actually changing the resolution, and more just changing the size of the UI.

It's actually sort of the opposite of this question:

MacBook Pro Retina and 4k monitor (Samsung U28D590D) now showing "scaling options" in display

I found the screen resolution options in OS X very poor.  I use a third party tool called SwitchResX.  This is a pay app, however I believe that there are free third party apps which allow similar kinds of control... but I haven't used them.

How are you connecting to the display?  Only DisplayPort can drive a 4k screen, so you would probably need a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.  Amazon have several.  The current HDMI standard does not have the bandwidth to transfer enough data fast enough to support 60Hz, which would be a smoother experience.  It only allows for 30Hz.

The display has a native resolution (3840x2160).  Every resolution that is not the native is scaled (due to the display having fixed pixels).  Only resolutions that divide exactly into the native resolution would be sharp.

TL;DR you can't change the resolution of a monitor, only how the display is drawn on it.  Get a miniDP to DP cable.


macbook air early 2008 (original) 13inch: 45 W magsafe charger here
Apple has two slightly different adapters called magsafe L 45W: the first one is recommended for my model, but then on the store they only sell the 2nd one: will this be fully compatible with my laptop?

where (besides amazon) will it be possible to buy just the cord that goes from charger to laptop?

Technically, any Magsafe 1 charger will work. With that said, due to the unique shape of the original MacBook Air, it won't rest flat unless you use the charger that can with it. So you actually don't want any of the chargers shown on that page, you want one like this. Notice the different angle on the charger head. With that said, since Apple doesn't sell official ones any more, be very careful to make sure that you get an authentic one: knock-offs can actually destroy your computer.

To my knowledge, there's no Magsafe 2 to Magsafe 1 adapter (someone else showed a Magsafe 1 to Magsafe 2 adapter which will do nothing for you.) Even if there was, there's no good reason to get one unless you already have Magsafe 1 chargers and then buy a new MacBook with Magsafe 2.


iMessage shows error message: "Not Delivered" I updated to Yosemite a while back, but yesterday iMessage started sending the error message "Not Delivered". I can send messages to non-Apple devices (SMS?) just fine, but not to Apple clients (Apple server?). No problem at all with iPad Air or iPhone 5S, both iOS 8.1.3.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

-Macbook Pro Retina (late 2013)
-iPhone 5S
-iPad Air

You probably somehow got disconnected from iCloud. First, you should probably log in at icloud.com with the Apple ID that you normally use for the Messages app to ensure you're not having a general account issue. If that's successful, while using the Messages app, select Preferences from the Messages menu. Click Accounts and select the iCloud user that appears for you. Be sure Enabled has a check mark next to it. If it does, remove the check mark and use the provided fields in the window to log back in. If you don't see Enabled, use the provided fields to log into your iCloud account. Once successfully logged in be sure to put a check mark in all the boxes that apply.


Disable Autocorrect with External Keyboard on iOS Are there any smart workarounds to disable autocorrect automatically -- or near automatic -- while using an external keyboard on iOS?

By default iOS provides no way to do this as seen here on the Apple forums.

Now in iOS 10 (or perhaps iOS 9) you can set this specifically for your Hardware Keyboard. This setting is ONLY available if you have the keyboard plugged in! Anyway, it's under Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Hardware Keyboards


Newest version of HomeBrew, versions no longer supported I am having problems installing the old version of grails on my mac, with homebrew.

The spot where I get stuck is at the brew versions grails as it will say that versions is no longer used.
I have executed brew tap homebrew/versions but the versions command do still not work.
How in the newest version of brew can I install Grails 2.3.5?

Error: The `versions` command is no longer supported.
You can use the homebrew-versions tap instead:
  https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-versions
Or use `brew log` to browse the git history.

brew tap homebrew/versions

then:

brew install homebrew/versions/grails23

brew search grails will show you all the available ones to install.


Discoveryd & LaunchServicesd Huge Memory Consumption I have been troubleshooting why my Mac Mini is running slow and stumbled upon this:

The memory usage is in the GB!

On my MacBook the two processes take under 10 MB together.

Why are these procs taking up so much memory, and how can I fix it to resemble usage on my MacBook?

Mac Mini Server (Late 2012)

Mem 4GB
OS X Yosemite 10.10.2

This is a known issue in Yosemite, although it doesn't affect everyone - I have 5 Macs running Yosemite and one suffers badly, but the others not at all.

Temporary relief comes from rebooting or stopping and restarting the affected services. For discoveryd, in Terminal, do:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist

Launchervicesd may respond to the same commands - I don't have any experience of that


For the purposes of archival uploading to Google Drive/Dropbox/Etc, what are the differences between DMG and SparseImages? I recently have a large amount of data I needed to upload into Google Drive. I decided to use Disk Utility to create a container for it (otherwise Google Drive would have to create many files and directories taking up a huge amount of the time).

I noticed that Disk Utility creates a read-only DMG file by first creating a sparseimage, then converting it to a DMG file.

As a result, to cut down on time, I am wondering if creating sparseimages of my files, then uploading to Google Drive is better than putting it into a DMG file. My two main concerns are:

1) I read somewhere that sparseimages seem to have a greater than of being corrupt on Google Drive or cloud services?

2) Is there any real difference between the two beyond write/read-only capabilities?

From Wikipedia:

  A sparse image is a type of disk image file used on macOS that grows in size as the user adds data to the image, taking up only as much disk space as stored in it. Encrypted sparse image files are used to secure a user's home directory by the FileVault feature in Mac OS X Snow Leopard and earlier. Sparse images can be created using Disk Utility.

  Unlike a full image file (.dmg), which takes up as much actual space as the real disk it represents (regardless of the amount of unused space), a sparse image file (.sparseimage) takes up only as much actual disk space as the data contained within, up to a maximum of the capacity assigned during creating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_image

In your case, because you don't indicate you plan to use the utility of the sparseimage mechanism in any way to create an expansible, or 'live' storage container, creating .dmg files would be called for because they are monolithic files best use for archiving.

If the data is already indexed or organized in some way, then creating separate .dmg files make a logical container to extend and reinforce that organization. Ex: TaxDocuments2010.dmg, TaxDocuments2011.dmg,  etc.

Google has a max size of 5TB per single non-Google document file, BTW.

Lastly, you may wish to package this data in a non-Apple proprietary format such as tar or GZIP so it can be opened on other platforms.


64 bit chrome beta OS X 10.9.5 Apparently Chrome Beta for OS X is supposed to be 64 bit.
(e.g. http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/08/29/chrome-38-beta-arrives-new-user-switching-profiles-guest-mode-64-bit-default-mac/

I have the latest Chrome beta Version 38.0.2125.77 beta but it is still 32 bit. I have reinstalled.

The dev channel is 64 bit on my Macbook Air (2013).

Downloading this Google Chrome 64-bit version 39.0.2171.2 - you get the correct one.


bypass activation lock on i pod touch 5th generation how do I bypass a activation lock for a I pod touch 5th generation if I can't get a hold of previous users apple id and password

You can't, you have to contact the previous owner to remove the activation lock.


Is it possible to activate an iPhone 4 without a SIM? So we bought an iPhone 4 from the Apple store. But we didn't get a micro-SIM as there are no PAYG tariffs on micro-SIM available.

Is there anyway to activate the device without getting hold of a SIM? I don't want to sign up to a contract just to develop with.

Maybe you know somenone who owns an iPhone 4 already. Ask her/him for the micro SIM, put it into your device, activate your iPhone and give the micro SIM back to the other person.


Mac only able to connect to one AirPod? Currently only my left AirPod is connected to my Mac and I can't figure out a way to have it recognize my right AirPod! My research suggests I need to completely reset my AirPods but I don't want to do that...

No need to reset. Just connect your AirPods to another device such as your iPhone and then connect back to Mac.


Is there a free app like Sublime Text 2 on iPad? Is there a free app like Sublime Text 2 on iPad that can read code and have Syntax Highlighting?

Take a look at Textastic.

I've tried many others Code, Diet Coda, etc. While they all have some decent features, nothing is quite up to par yet all around in comparison to Textastic in my opinion (especially if you like Sublime Text).


What is Department of Defense Root CA 2 doing on my Mac? I accidentally came across the keychain certificate part of my Mac and saw Department of Defense certificate. What is this certificate doing on my laptop. I am not a military member and never had any email account with them. I am not comfortable with this certificate on my laptop and for now I turned it off.

It's one of the trusted certificate authorities for at least OS X Mavericks (10.9) through OS X El Capitan (10.11), so under those OS versions it'll be in the System Roots keychain. It was apparently removed in macOS Sierra (10.12); I don't know why. Apple publishes the lists of trusted CAs; see Support Document HT202858: "Lists of available trusted root certificates in macOS" for links to the full lists.


How can I get an NTFS partition to mount in macOS Mojave? I have a external HDD with four different partitions on it. 3 out of 4 of them work flawlessly. Two partitions are running the macOS Extended filesystem, one is running good old fat32, with the last one being NTFS. I don't particularly need it mounted in macOS as it contains a bootable copy of Windows 10, or at least it used to.
I figure if I can mount the partition again and repair it or at least make a backup of it, I can get it working as a bootable partition once more. Here's the kicker, I can pull the partition up if I mount the drive in Windows 10 using a virtual machine. So why won't macOS recognize it?

If you're using a third party software to mount NTFS portions on a mac like Paragon you need to go to system preferences - security & privacy - allow. Then choose your software to allow it access.


How long does a clean install of Lion take? How long should I expect it to take to do a clean install of Lion on an already-formatted disk? I'm using a mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro with an i7 and a 5,400RPM 500GB hard drive.

(I ask because I think my hard drive is in bad condition, and the installation seems like it's taking too long.)

About 40 minutes or so. I'm assuming a 5400RPM drive, 7200RPM or an SSD would be faster, obviously.


How can I get rid of multiple “purchased on ” playlists? When I got my first iPhone and bought something via the iTunes app, I got a playlist in the iTunes source list underneath the “Store” heading for all the songs I purchased on the iPhone.

I’ve had a few more iPhones since then, and each phone has also been given its own “Purchased on” playlist in iTunes. They’re now taking up quite a lot of space in the iTunes menu.

Is there any way I can consolidate, or just get rid of, these playlists?

You can't consolidate them, but you can delete them. Just right click and click "Delete".


How to enable Force Click on Catalina I like the force click feature to look up the definition of a word but I can't enable it on my system. Apple documentation and the Force Click Not Working on Macbook post say the Force Click feature should be enabled through the dropdown menu from:
System Preferences > Trackpad > Look up data & detectors > Force Click with one finger dropdown menu
On my macOS Catalina system the force click drop down menu isn't there. How do I add it back?

Like @Redarm mentions in the comments use the Force Click and haptic feedback setting and then the Force Click with one finger setting becomes available as shown in the following screenshot:


mavericks appstore download starts installing unintentionally I have been running Mavericks 10.9.4 on my system. with the release of 10.9.5 I preferred to re-download whole mavericks instead of just the combo update. This will be helpful if I clean install mavericks in that I would not have to install 10.9.4 and then run combo. Also it will take less storage in one pack. more manageable for me.

I started to re-download the mavericks from app store. It was a bit slower than last time. taking several hours. time to time I was checking progress in launch pad. After several hours when I checked back, system was in sleep mode. I logged and in AppStore, progress was 'Installing ... 9 minutes left' and stuck there for hours. several restarts I did but no avail.

It is amazing why the install process started automatically without user interaction after the download completes?

Secondly, I lost the purpose of downloading i-e the installer. My purpose was to save mavericks installer 10.9.5 for later use. But in app folder, the x icon is showing only a few KB. That is definitely unpleasing after approx 8 hrs of download.

Where is the installer now which was downloaded ?

Another attempt: I tried to download under a MAC-Mavericks(guest VMware on windows 7 Host). This machine's HDD is about 26GB. with plenty of space free. But after 3GB download, AppStore started giving error

Error: 'We could not complete your purchase... you need 4.97GB of free space to download os x...'

That is pinching. At this moment free space is 4.54GB. I am unable to delete anything from MAC components like iTunes etc to make little more space to complete the download. Also unable to expand this machines HDD from VMWARE. Perhaps there also space issue. The windows partition where this machine resides is 25GB with 10GB free. When I try to expand it says there is no free space on the file system for this  operation. Perhaps VMware expands in this way: first creates a duplicate of the main vmdk then do something to increase its space and delete the original vmdk. Or for other reasons it IS asking more space to increase the vmdk of mac vm.

**Please suggest something to get the purpose: obtain mavericks 10.9.5 fro App store for  later use. can something be done to preserve those above one complete and one half way (under vmware) download attempts **

Just upgrade as normal. Then if you need to do a clean install, use the recovery partition. Or is there something else you are after?


Is Homebrew safe for Mac? I wonder if Homebrew is safe for Mac users...

Do you have any bad experience with this software (like malware for example)?

Homebrew on its own acts like a command-line App Store.

It's safe, if you know what you're downloading.
It uses SHA256 to fingerprint the downloaded instructions as a validity / tamper detection verification check.
It’s open, so you could validate what it’s downloading and how it
works.
It refuses to use sudo to intentionally be safer.

If you are concerned about downloading hijacked binaries, verify the SHA/SHA1 sum of the binary you've downloaded against the SHA/SHA1 sum published by the developer, usually on their webpage.

Despite a long track record of people not pushing malware or bad code to the system, it would be good hygiene to start validating downloads.


Caps lock remap release delay I'm trying to remap the caps lock key of a wireless aluminum Apple keyboard and am having a delay on release (not activation). That is to say, if I hold down the caps lock key after remapping, it will act like the key is pressed for a short period even after I release it. The longer the key is held, the longer this behavior happens.

I'm trying to remap it to ctrl but have the same problem with cmd.

I've found a lot of posts talking about an activation delay, but this is different than my problem.

I've tried the built in remapping as well as Seil, and both have the same problem.

You can achieve this with Keyboard Maestro, or probably an alternative.

Disable Caps Lock in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard > Modifier Keys

Create a Keyboard Maestro macro that is triggered by "This device key:" and set it to trigger when the Caps Lock key is released.
Add whatever action you want to remap it to—if I understand your question correctly, you'd want to add "Type Modifiers" and set it to Control.


Keyboard backlight not working for some keys Many similar questions I've read here have to do with backlights not working at all or when dimmed.

My problem is that the number 6 key is not illuminating. All other keys are working as they should.

Any ideas how to diagnose and fix this?

Unfortunately, unless a SMC reset doesn't work (Shut down -> Press Shift-Control-Option and Power Button at the same time for 10sec -> release keys -> Press power button), it is a hardware problem. If it's under warranty, Apple should fix it, if not, a 3rd party repair shop should be able to fix it for a reasonable price.


Identity not found when trying to code-sign an application with a certificate After properly creating a valid certificate for code signing, when running the command:

$ codesign -s CertificateName AppPathName

I always get a:

CertificateName: no identity found

Anyways, When I open the Keychain Access I see that certificate created in the System folder (with a + circle over it).

Also, when I run:

$ security find-identity -p codesigning ~/Library/Keychains/System.keychain

The result is:

Policy: Code Signing
  Matching identities
     0 identities found

  Valid identities only
     0 valid identities found

What does this mean?

My console does not have access to the keychain?
I also tried everything with sudo.

(I use zsh Terminal if that is important)

EDIT:

I've also found out that the System Keychain is locked, but unlocking it won't work and after performing a codesign action it goes back to "locked" again.

This is not the explanation of the problem but the way I worked around to solve it:

Deleted the previously created certificates.
Unlocked the System keychain with the keychain Access tool (locker on the left).
Recreated the certificates filling most of the fields of information even if not totally required.
Switched to a simple and clean terminal (just in case a modified terminal lacked some kind of access to the keychain)
Executed the codesigning commands with sudo

This worked for me, but I don't really understand what was causing the problem previously.


How to remove "Google Search" icon in Launchpad permanently? Recently, I find this icon "Google Search" appears in my launchpad, I searched online and located this app in this "Chrome Apps" folder, deleted it. However, it appeared again the second day. This is really annoying. How can I delete it PERMANENTLY?

I don't even know how it happened, I've been using Chrome for a really long time, but this happened only a couple of days ago, didn't install any google related apps recently.

Manual Deletion Required.

Go to your user (home) folder.
Click on Applications.
Right-click on the Chrome Apps folder and send it to the trash.
Empty your trash.

If above doesn't help:
From terminal try removing the following directory and empty trash:
rm -rf ~/Applications/Chrome Apps.localized


How to disable text drag delay Is there any way to disable the delay for text dragging in OS X?

There is a small delay between selecting and dragging text, if you start dragging the text right after you selected it - it will instead re-select the text which can be annoying. Some apps don't have this delay (for example Sublime Text 2/3 where you can drag the text immediately after selecting it) but in most apps you would have to click the left mouse button and hold it for a bit before you can drag the selected text.

I think the default is 1 second, which is far too long for me. I find 100ms better.

defaults write -g NSDragAndDropTextDelay -int 100

should work just fine.

Apps need to be relaunched after changing that value.

Setting a negative number will disable drag altogether; zero sets it to immediate.


What is the best way to validate every single file on an external drive? My mac is having a kernel panic every time I try to time machine this external drive.
I've tried disk utility but I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually check for much, except maybe for some directory structure. The scan is maybe only a few minutes long and it reports everything has fine.
Is there a command or app that will actually read every single file in the disk and report any corruption or IO error?

According to Apple, if you run First Aid on a volume, Disk Utility verifies all the contents of that volume only. This is from this site. First thing I'd do if run first aid on your drive. It takes about 30 minutes to verify my drive.


Use Web browser and Latex using iPad, Monitor, Apple Mouse and keyboard I own a ASUS monitor (VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort ports), and am about to buy a computer to use it with.

I usually use Apple devices, so I am oriented towards getting a Mac mini. However, I suspect that this could be an overkill, since the only two things I would be using on the computer would be browsing the Internet (PDFs, quick information, so no videos or detailed graphics involved) and use Latex (a lot).

So my question is, can an iPad or similar be more appropriate for this use case? Is it possible and realistic/convenient to connect it with monitor, mouse and keyboard and use it as a computer? I repeat: I just need something that makes Latex and Google Chrome work well, without delays or silly incompatibilities. So for example, the signal should arrive decently to the monitor, which is a 27''.

For your use case, I'd advise to take a systematic approach starting with researching if the desired workflow is possible to be performed on an iPad end-to-end.

By end-to-end I mean getting data onto iPad, checking on the availability and maturity of the tools/apps which will satisfactorily get the work done and getting data off the device to desired output (digital such as sharing it with other computer/people or physical such as hard copy).

I'd try to address your concerns one-by-one as asked for in the question.

First of all, unlike a desktop computer or a laptop, an external monitor cannot be simply used as an extended display for an iOS device (iPad/iPhone). You can however connect your iOS device to an external display using an adapter to mirror your device. For more details, you can get started with the following Apple Support document:

About Apple Digital AV Adapters for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

If you would not like to involve dangling and always connected cable, a slightly expensive solution could be to connect an Apple TV to your display and mirror your iOS device using Apple TV onto the display.

While extended display is not natively supported by iOS, certain apps are programmed to take advantage of an external display and show extended content.

Coming to keyboard, it's possible to use external keyboards with iOS devices. However, your typical wired/IrDA wireless keyboard won't work. Bluetooth keyboards can be paired and work fine. Apple Magic keyboard can be paired to work with an iOS device. Various 1st party and 3rd party keyboards are available for iPad with iPad Pro supporting Apple Smart keyboard.

Using a keyboard frees up screen real estate. Using Apple Magic keyboard would be recommended in your case as you are planning to use an external monitor to mirror content. This way you can use the keyboard detached from the device.

iOS user experience is based on touch, not click and is not designed/programmed keeping a pointing device in mind. Hence it's not possible to use a mouse with iPad.

Google Chrome is available on the App Store and can be installed on iPad alongside Safari which comes pre-installed. You'll need to research on the availability of Latex apps on the App Store.


Does Adobe Photoshop CS (version 8) run on Snow Leopard? A friend has a Mac that’s still running Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4). She has Photoshop CS (version 8.0) on it. She needs to upgrade the Mac to Leopard or Snow Leopard to allow installation of iTunes 10, because she has an iPhone 3GS now.

Does Adobe Photoshop CS (version 8) run on Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6)? I.e. if I upgrade the Mac to Snow Leopard, will Photoshop CS still run okay?

It does run, but Snow Leopard does not install Rosetta by default. Rosetta is needed to run PowerPC applications on Intel Macs.

You can install Rosetta from the Snow Leopard disk. I believe you will be prompted to do this when you try to run Photoshop.


Monitor disk activity per volume without third-party software I have many disks/volumes connected to my OS X system.  I want to monitor, in real-time, read/write speed for each volume.

OS 10.9 activity monitor shows only the cumulative numbers for all volumes, and it's not always accurate.

The commercial software iStatMenus will do this with one caveat:  RAID volumes show each disk separately, which is annoying.  Anyway I want to do this without third-party software, possibly in the command-line or a GUI.

Try using iotop in Terminal:

iotop -C 5 12

This would output 12 samples, each 5 seconds long. See this answer for more information.


Screenshot to clipboard by default My muscle memory is very ingrained with Cmd + Shift + 4 to take screen snips, and this has been fine for a while.

However, from now on, I don't need to save my screen snips as files. I need to paste them directly to various places (e.g. online, or in documents).

How do I make Cmd + Shift + 4 save to clipboard instead of files (like Windows with Win + Shift + S)? My fingers are unable to grasp the concept of Cmd + Ctrl + Shift + 4 (that's just too many keys).

Ideally, and tl;dr, I'd like to swap the functionality of Cmd + Shift + 4 and Cmd + Ctrl + Shift + 4.

System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screenshots

You can set them to anything you like, so long as it doesn't conflict with any existing command.


Find files modified today, using command line (bash) As we all know, despite being named "Finder", the Finder is virtually useless at finding files.

In Mac OS X 10.6 (or any version), how can I use the command line (bash in Terminal) to find files modified today?

There are several ways to do this in bash from the terminal - depending on exactly what you want to find:

Find files modified in the last 24 hours

find / -mtime -1 -print

Find files modified today (likely what you want)

find / -newerct 'yesterday' -print

or, using Spotlight

mdfind date:today

This can also be done from the GUI with Spotlight.

Open Spotlight (option-command space by default).
Add a criteria to search for, by hitting the Plus sign near the top
right of the Spotlight window.
Change the criteria to "Last modified date" is "today."


Problems with faulty update installer boot I'm having a problem with a macOS update. In short, I downloaded the update that requires a system reboot. But this happens: at boot time the machine starts the update installation disk, the installation starts but a moment later a warning appears telling me that there are problems and the installation of the update then fails. Restarting the machine I find the machine re-doing the same update again (which will fail).

So the only way I can start the machine and use it is to hold down the ALT button at boot time and then select the usual boot disk.

I had a similar problem a few years ago, but I can not remember the procedure that allows me to remove the faulty installer from the list of boot devices.

Can anyone suggest something useful? I also remember that by removing the faulty installer and re-downloading the update then I was able to correctly update the operating system.

From AppleToolBox.com:

  Fixing macOS Install Problems in Recovery Mode

  To get to recovery mode on your Mac or MacBook, you will need to press and hold Command+R keys together when booting up your computer.

  Once you are in the Recovery mode, click on the Apple logo on the top left corner of the screen and make sure that your startup disk is pointing to the Mac Boot disk.

  Now find the macOS update program and run the update. Sometimes, when you are facing install/upgrade issues, a workaround that works for many users is to create an external bootable installer and try to run the install program using it. Apple provides a detailed white paper on this process. You can create the bootable installer on a USB and then try it to update the macOS.


How do I let preinstalled python 2.7 access pip installed modules? I installed python3 using brew, all the modules installed thru pip are located at /usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages

How do I let the macOS preinstalled python 2.7 access those modules (b/c I know the module I want to import work for pyhton2.7 too) ?

If I just set PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages, I got this error message:

~ ➤ echo $PYTHONPATH
/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages
~ ➤ python
Your PYTHONPATH points to a site-packages dir for Python 3.x but you are running Python 2.x!
     PYTHONPATH is currently: "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages"
     You should `unset PYTHONPATH` to fix this.

I know I can install an individual module by running sudo python -m pip install module xxx (using sudo to install it in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages)

But is there any easy way to just let pyhton access my python3 modules? If someone has experienced this before and tell me there is none I will also appreciate!

Given the differences in the codebase, not every library will work for both python3 and python2, unless they've gone to the trouble of ensuring compatibility.

You should just be able to run pip install name from the command line to install correctly on the system python.


What are the differences between Apple Thunderbolt Displays during their production years from 2011 to 2016? I need to buy a refurbished Thunderbolt Display to use with my (late 2015) MBP. I would like to know what are the differences between Thunderbolt Displays that were produced during 2011-2016?

Only two "models" have been produced:

MC914LL/A (July 2011 - ~July 2012)
MC914LL/B (July 2012 - June 2016)

The only difference between the two models is an additional MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converter which was shipped with the latter model. It allows to charge MagSafe 2-equipped Mac computer. The actual displays are the same.


Can't resize APFS container On a 120GB SSD hard drive in a MacBook only 68.68GB are available. The missing 51.32GB are not even shown as a free space.

Here is what the output of Disk Utility looks like:

As you can see on the first screenshot the disk has 120GB. However, the partition chart on the same screenshot only shows 68.7GB. Also the other two screenshots show that only 68.7GB out of 120GB seem to be available.

The command diskutil list shows that the physical disk0 is 120GB big, but the synthesized disk1 only 68.7GB:

Just for the record. I've managed to increase the size of my APFS volume using GParted and Disk Utility (from macOS Catalina).

Create a GParted USB drive and boot from it
Use GParted to move the APFS partition/container around so that the free space appears directly AFTER the APFS partition.
Boot into Mac Recovery mode and open Disk Utility
Click the drop-down in the top left and enable "Show All Devices"
Select your SSD (top entry)
Click "Partition"
Somewhat unintuitive, but now select the "Free Space" area and click the "-" button below. This will "remove" the free space and enlarge the APFS container to fill it.
Confirm the dialog and the resizing should start.
Done.


Opening .msg file in Outlook for Mac 2011 Most of my colleagues use Outlook on Windows and I need to access emails stored in .msg format (don't ask, it's complicated).

My understanding is that .msg is an Outlook file format, but Outlook 2011 on Mac can't open them.  When I right-click on the file and ask to open with Outlook, it creates an email with the .msg file as an attachment.  Using various dragging and trying to open with the file menu also don't help.

Any ideas on how to open these on Mac?  Preferably without having to install additional software.

For everyone in 2016 who is also looking for a free software without IAPs and similiar "problems" (MailRaider for example was free years ago):

MSGViewer is a free software, which can be downloaded via sourceforge. It does, what the name stands for: viewing / showing the content of the msg files! I just tried it after browsing for a good software that does not cost 10 Dollars or more and I can recommend it.

MSGViewer SourceForge link.

Edit:
Just had an .msg file with images inside: msgviewer is also capable of showing them.


How do I fsck_apfs an encrypted volume? I'm playing with macOS 10.13 beta but a volume seems to have been corrupted during migration to APFS. I can boot and log in but soon get a "static screen". I launched recovery mode and launched disk utility. When trying to run First Aid I get exit code 65. So I started the terminal:

If I run diskutil apfs list I see the volume encrypted and locked.

I then tried diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk1s1 which unlocks AND mounts the volume.

Now fsck_apfs /dev/rdisk1s1 and fsck_apfs /dev/disk1s1 give error: container /dev/rdisk1 is mounted with write access.

How can I try and repair this volume? I suspect that something happened during the initial migrate and the volume is stuck in half APFS, half HFS+ somehow.

Update:

If I go back to "Disk Utility" and unmount the volume there and return to Terminal, then fsck_apfs /dev/disk1s1 gives error: container /dev/rdisk1 is mounted. I try and unmount the "Image Volume", but diskutil umount /Volumes/Image\ Volume/ gives Volume Recovery on disk1s3 failed to unmount: dissented by PID 0 (kernel)

I had to change the format of the command given in the other answer. The correct command is:

diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk1 -nomount


Defined Key Commands are Stuck At one point, in my misguided youth, I set my left "fn" key to do something silly. "No worries, surely this can be quickly undone", I thought. But now I can't get it undone. I've gone to system preferences -> keyboard -> shortcuts (which is where (I think) I made the changes in the first place) and asked for a restore to defaults. But, alas, the binding remains, surprisingly and frustratingly. I'm looking for (preferably non-drastic) further things to try.

EDIT: Silly me.

(1) There's only the one "Fn" key.

(2) My current machine is an early 2015 MacBook Air. Oddly this error has persisted as I've changed machines over the last several years. Every time I get a new machine I have them sync up the two (or whatever you call it) at the Mac store, and every time this error comes along for the ride.

FURTHER EDIT:

Apparently it matters to some people what the particular silly thing is that I once set my "fn" key to do. I'm not sure why, but if it helps, here it is: when I hit "fn" I go to the "mission control" screen.

So.. yup, that's what happens. I want it to unhappen. But "restore to defaults" isn't doing the trick...

If you prefer the top row of keys to always behave as standard function keys without holding the Fn key:

Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
From the View menu, choose Keyboard.
Click the Keyboard tab if it is not already selected.
Enable "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys."


Restoring icons in finder toolbar Yesterday, for no reason I can think of, the toolbar icons in osx finder disappeared (1st image).  Icons for files are unaffected (2nd image).

How can the finder toolbar icons be restored?

I tried commands in terminal for clearing icon services cache (source), but that did not affect anything.  I also read several articles on apple.stackexchange and others found via web search, but found nothing that quite hit this problem.

Right click the Toolbar.

Select Icon Only or Icon & Text.


How can I request a status update on an apple bug report? So I was reading the FAQ for Apple's bug reporter site and I came across this:

To request a status on an existing issue, please update your report directly via the
Apple Bug Reporter requesting a status update and we will provide you with any
available information.

I got curious about this, and I went back to bugreport.apple.com to look at one of my pending bug reports and I didn't see any way of explicitly asking for a status update. I feel that I'm missing something obvious, because I expect the FAQ to be correct, but so far I haven't got the faintest. Any help?

It's as simple as posting new details on your bug with a sentence requesting a status update. There is no dedicated button to do this. From personal experience I doubt you'll get any helpful information though. Many things in Radar live there for years…


Can't install Mountain Lion on a machine that has Mavericks installed, even on a separate disk/partition I have upgraded my Mac mini 2012 to Mavericks, and everything is running quite well.  However, it turns out that I need to also run Mountain Lion sometimes (a piece of hardware I need to use is not Mavericks compatible.)

I am attempting to install Mountain Lion on a 2nd partition on my Mini's internal hard drive by following the following steps:

used Disk Utility to repartition my mini's internal drive, creating a 100 GB partition to install Mountain Lion on
used DiskMakerX to create a Mountain Lion bootable USB key
rebooted machine while holding down Option

At this point the boot menu appears and I see icons for both my Mavericks partition, as well as the Mountain Lion installer USB key.  However when I select the USB key and try to boot from it, it does not boot; instead I get a gray screen with the universal "no" symbol (circle with a slash through it) on it.

I tested the USB key on another Mac and it booted fine, so there is nothing wrong with the USB key I made.  So it would seem that the Mountain Lion installer will refuse to run on a computer if it has a newer OS on it, even if the computer has a free partition (or drive) to install on to.

Is there any way around this restriction?

The only thing you can do is install ML on an external drive on another mac running 10.8.x then copy the partition using SuperDuper on your 10.9 mac

Let's say your mac is A, 10.8 mac is B and usb HDD is C :

Install Mac Os 10.8 on C using B computer
Create a partition on A (with ± 50GB)
Duplicate C on the A new partition using SuperDuper

And voilà !


How big is this app update? Is it possible to see the size of the download from the App store when updating an iOS device?

As some users have a limited amount of online data they can use in contracts, It would be useful to know the size of the download. Currently the only way I can find out is if the update is larger than 20mb. This then tells me I have to update over a WiFi network.

The size is normally the size of the full application. What I do is I open the application info screen and look at the file size. Remember, App Store updates are full versions of the file being downloaded, and the existing one replaced.

There is unfortunately no way to do this quickly, you have to check each application individually from the update screen by tapping on its icon.

As pointed out by @cksum, when finding the app on the iPhone, scroll to the bottom and it will show the size.


Replaced hard drive - trying to do a clean install of OS-X on 2011 Macbook Pro I've seen plenty of how to's on how to upgrade if you have a working installation of OS-X, however I purchased this macbook used, it needed a hard drive and a keyboard.

So I put a new hard drive in it and installed Ubuntu temporarily.

How do I get the image of the newest OS-X onto a USB thumb drive? I can't access the mac store since I don't own any other Apple products.

Keep in mind I'm using a regular, non-mac external keyboard until my new one shows up.

Well if you have no other Mac, nor access to another Mac that you can download Mavericks with then you'll have to use internet recovery.

Boot the Mac holding down COMMAND-R (on a PC keyboard that would be WINDOWS-R) And if there is no recovery partition you go into internet recovery and get the OS your Mac shipped with (Possibly Mountain Lion).

Probably best to use a wired connection otherwise it will take hours.

I gather it's not difficult to do, but Apple has a knowledge base article here with the details.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Once you get Mountain Lion installed you can use the App Store to download Mavericks.

And if you just have to start with Mavericks, you'll have to find a friend with a Mac that can download that installer for you...


How can you forward delete all in macOS? If you type a sentence and hold command then press delete then it'll delete the whole line. What if I want to insert the cursor in the middle of a sentence and forward delete the right of the sentence?

Within default macOS apps (e.g. TextEdit) as well as other Apple apps (e.g. Pages) you can use the controlK keyboard shortcut to delete the text between the cursor and the end of the line (or paragraph). However, this isn't supported by default in many 3rd party apps (e.g. MS Word).

However, you can use the optionfndelete keyboard shortcut (in standard keyboards) to delete everything to the right of the cursor up to the next space. This works in many 3rd party apps.

If you have an extended keyboard, then you don't need to use the fn as you have a dedicated forward delete key.


Need to move child onto their own Apple ID My child has been sharing my Apple ID for years in order to buy music for her iPod (now iPhone and iPad). For years, we had our separate devices and PCs where our music libraries resided. However, recently, I activated iCloud for my new iPhone and iPad and now all of our data has meshed. I have her contacts, she has my contacts, music, etc. My question is how can I set up a distinct Apple ID for her but not have her lose her contacts, music, settings, etc.?

If you set up a new AppleID account you will not have access to items bought from the iTunes store. But iCloud accounts are separate from AppleID accounts; she can have a unique iCloud account with her own contacts, email, and other settings, but will need to use the shared AppleID to have access to the apps, music, books, movies, etc... bought from iTunes.

There are some ugly hackish ways to get around this, but they sound like a waste of time and very sketchy to me.


How do I make the Console app reappear after deleting Everything? OS X Yosemite I deleted every file that was contained in the console's logs listing of my Macbook Pro 15, including the "All messages,".
 Now when I click to open the app, the program opens but no GUI will load. The only way I can get the GUI to load is to manually open a log file, and the tab under "System Log Queries" is empty.

Any clue how I can fix this to where the console GUI will load when I open the app? If I gesture down on the trackpad and it shows a blurry screen (as there is no open window). Can I just use the touch command to make a blank file for it to load to, and if so, where should I put it and under what name?

I moved my newly created All\ Messages.aslquery to /Applications/Utilities/Console.app/Contents/Resources/ASLQueries, closed and reopened console, and bam the GUI comes up. Thank you Buscar with providing me with the necessary file location to solve this problem.


What's the point of the 60W Apple MagSafe replacement charger? One of the cable tabs on my MagSafe charger for my MacBook came undone, so I took this as a sign to retire the charger to home use and to purchase another for travel. When I went to my local Best Buy, they had two chargers for sale, 60W and 85W, that looked the same size, sold for the same price, etc. The only difference was that the 85W supported the MacBook Pro, while the 60W only supported the MacBook.

Even though I am a MacBook owner, I figured I might, sometime in the future, purchase a MacBook Pro and I went with the 85W charger. When I opened it up I found it was slightly larger than the 60W charger it was replacing, but for all intents and purposes there's no real difference between the two. So why does Apple sell a 60W replacement (or even manufacture the 60W at all)? Are there enough people that want to save 25W?

Most switching power supplies are most efficient when operating at 50% capacity. And they're definitely pretty inefficient at less than 20% capacity.

Since the MacBook draws less power than a MacBook Pro, I would suspect that an 85w power supply would work just fine, but the larger power supply for the MBP probably would draw more power from the wall socket than is necessary when connected to a MB because it is operating in a suboptimal capacity range.

Here's an example: Take for example the 45w power supply for the MacBook Air. Sure you could hook up the 85w power supply, but since the MBA might only draw 20 watts, the power supply is operating at less than 25% capacity. At this capacity, the power supply may only be 60% efficient (an educated guess), that means the power supply has to draw 33 watts of AC power just to supply the laptop with 20 watts of DC power.

Long story, short: It's a power conversion efficiency thing. I'd say buy the one that is designed for your laptop so that you save energy.


Crucial M500 480gb SSD Replacement for stock HDD on Late 2011 MacBook Pro keeps freezing First, I apologize for the length of this.  I want to make sure I get all the facts out so that hopefully I can get some help.  There is s TL;DR version below if you don't want the blow-by-blow edition.

My wife has been complaining about the speed of her Late 2011 MacBook Pro for the last year.  I finally broke down and decided to give it a boost by upping the memory to 16gb (from the stock 4gb) and replacing the 500gb HDD with a 480gb Crucial M500 SSD.

My plan was to simply swap the drives, replace the memory, then boot to System Recovery Mode (Cmd - R at boot) and do a fresh install.  I started the Disk Utility and created a new partition on the SSD no problems.  I think picked the option for "Fresh Install".  The first thing I noted was that it wanted to install Lion instead of Mavericks, which was on it, but figured whatever...it would update as soon as I get things rebuilt.  I would then use a Roswell SATA-to-USB cable to mount the old drive and do a "recovery" of all her old date.  The system did the initial download as part of the System Recovery Mode, then said it was rebooting to complete the install.  At this point, I got the white Apple screen with the spinner...but it kept spinning, and spinning, and spinning.  No indication it was actually doing anything, just spinning.

I let it run for another hour or so, then finally killed it by holding the power for 10sec.  I tried the install again, but again I get the white screen with the spinner.  This happens at least one more time.

Finally I try a different approach.  Once again, I boot to System Recovery Mode.  I again erase the drive, but this time in Disk Utility I try to do a "Recovery" from the old drive to the new drive.  I hit the 'Go' button, it says "Setting up..." for about 10min (I believe it was trying to calculate the time), then pops up with an estimated time to restore the new SSD from the old as 7hrs.  I checked it a few times before bed to make sure the progress was moving, then went to bed at about 10% or so.

This morning, however, when I checked the status I find that it's still stuck at like 15%.  The system is not locked up: I can move the mouse, drag the window, etc.  I hit Cancel on the restoration, and it says it's cancelling, but nothing.

Another 20-30min later it still says "Cancelling...".  So, once again I force-cycle the power, and once again I hit Disk Utility.  This time, however, when I try to erase the disk, it gets to EXACTLY the same spot the restoration got stuck at, then pauses.  I left it there when I left for work, but I have a feeling something is fishy that is causing it to do this.

TD;DR

I am trying to replace my wife's HDD with an SSD.  I performed the following attempts using System Recovery to no avail:

Fresh install of Lion...seemed to get stuck after reboot
Restore using Disk Utility from the old HDD to the new SSD...stuck at 15%-ish, and now the drive will not erase (gets stuck at 15%-ish)

Question

Is the drive just bad or is there some other technique/process I need to use in order to change the drive out other than what I have tried?

I ran into somewhat similar troubles, and discovered that there were many bad blocks on the drive (also from Crucial). Using Disk Utility to do a 1-pass security wipe (choose "Security Options" from the Erase tab in Disk Utility while the drive is selected and ) solved the problem entirely. Do this while started up from another disk (or the Recovery partition if you don't have another disk, like a OS X Install Flash drive).

Also consider installing Trim after you get everything installed, though be aware that there are some issues with Yosemite.


Macbook Air strange boot-up I've searched before asking but couldn't find any related question with the problem that I'm facing.

I have a new Macbook Air (1 month) with Yosemite 10.10.1 that from the beginning is having some strange behavior on boot-up.

Specs:

1,7 GHz Intel Core i7
128 GB SSD
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB

When I press the power button the screen remains black (I notice a different black when the room is dark) for more than 1 minute before the apple logo appears and then it's seconds to go to the login screen.

However, when I boot-up with the Alt key, the screen to select the startup disk is very fast to appear and when I select the "Macintosh HD" disk, the Apple logo appears right away and then again it's seconds to go to the login screen.

So basically if I boot with Alt key and force the disk, it is very fast to boot. When I do a "normal" boot, I have to wait at least 1 minute before the Apple logo appears.

It seems to me like an hardware problem, but before I take the computer back to the store, I wanted to make sure if there is something else I should try.

Any help would be appreciated.

It seems to me that you have an issue with settings stored in NVRAM. To reset your NVRAM to default settings (it's safe to do this), power on the system and simultaneously hold down the Cmd-P-Opt-R keys until you've heard not one, but TWO boot chimes. The second is usually louder. Then let them go.

If that doesn't fix things, then you should get test the hardware. That said, this tends to fix a lot of the slow-boot issues.


Can the iPad 2 be used for everyday telephony? Is it possible to use the iPad 2 as a kind of oversized mobile phone for everyday use?

Using the 3G functionality available in some models?
Using VoIP through WLAN?
Using other means?
With or without additional gadgets like headsets

and I mean not just theoretically possible, but really feasible with decent audio quality and a pleasant experience even for long calls.

Does anybody have experience with this?

There are numerous possibilities outside Skype.

First; the iPad fully supports the three ring headset that Apple sells. Both the stock Apple Earphones that ship with every iPhone, and even the Apple In-Ear Headphones. Meaning that you can use third ring microphone for any/all input methods. And, of course, all iPads have built-in speakers and microphones, so you can even use it in a "Speaker Phone" style of use.

If you have access to a Asterisk or similar SIP PBX server, then you have access to a myriad of Softphone applications, many of which are very capable and support all the latest features (namely backgrounding) including 3G calling where applicable. Take a gander at AppShopper.com's list of results when searching for "softphone".

While not an official recommendation because I haven't used it personally, I do give a nod to Counterpath's Bria app, because I've used Counterpath's SIP clients on the desktop for years.


Mac OS X 10.6.3 installation media I bought the following DVD from Apple: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

The box that was delivered is as pictured in the link above (inserted here for convenience).

The sealed package contains one DVD pictured below:

The directory listing is as follows:

$ ls -l
total 830
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown 197121     27 Mar 31  2010 autorun.inf
drwxr-xr-x 1 unknown 197121      0 Mar 31  2010 'Boot Camp'/
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown 197121 296497 Feb 26  2010 'Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide.pdf'
drwxr-xr-x 1 unknown 197121      0 Mar 31  2010 DVDCDSharing/
-r--r--r-- 1 unknown 197121   1786 Feb 26  2010 'Read Me.rtf'
-r-xr-xr-x 1 unknown 197121 548664 Mar 31  2010 setup.exe*

This is not what I expected. I expected installation media - but what I got is something called Boot Camp. Should I return this to Apple? Anyone know how I use this Boot Camp to install Snow Leopard?

It shows up as BootCamp because it assumes you are in a Windows environment on a Mac (for installing the drivers for your hardware after a BootCamp install); the OSX DVD's OSX Install portion/partition isn't meant to be read on Windows.

If you want to check the installer stuff, please run it on a Mac with OSX.


Separate mouse and trackpad settings with Karabiner This post (which is upvoted 26 times as of this writing) suggests using Karabiner to set separate scroll settings for a USB mouse and the laptop trackpad.

Karabiner seems to be a nice application, and I understand the suggested solution (don't remap trackpad settings, then reverse scroll settings on all pointing devices except previously excluded ones) but it doesn't work in my case because the USB mouse IS an Apple pointing device (it's an apple USB mouse).

There is an option "Don't remap an internal keyboard" but nothing about "internal trackpad". So really the question still stands; how to set different scrolling settings for the internal trackpad, and an external apple mouse?

It seems that this answer along with its comments solves the problem using Karabiner. It's a bit complicated, so I'll post a full description here:

Open Karabiner > Preferences
Go to the tab "Misc & Uninstall"
Click "Launch EventViewer"
In the viewer, go to the tab "Devices"

You should see a table with several columns including "Vendor ID", "Product ID" and "Device Name".

Identify your USB mouse in the "Device Name" column, and write down the corresponding "Vendor ID" and "Product ID"
Go back to the Karabiner > Preference > Misc & Uninstall and now click the button "Open private.xml"
This will open Finder where the file private.xml is, open it with your favourite text editor

Edit that file to look like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <devicevendordef>
        <vendorname>Apple</vendorname>
        <vendorid>0x05ac</vendorid>
    </devicevendordef>
    <deviceproductdef>
        <productname>USBMouse</productname>
        <productid>0x0304</productid>
    </deviceproductdef>
    <item>
        <name>USB Mouse Scroll Reverse</name>
        <identifier>myUsbMouseScrollReverse</identifier>
        <device_only>DeviceVendor::Apple, DeviceProduct::USBMouse</device_only>
        <autogen>__FlipScrollWheel__ Option::FLIPSCROLLWHEEL_VERTICAL, Option::FLIPSCROLLWHEEL_HORIZONTAL</autogen>
    </item>
</root>

Note that you should replace the fields vendorid and productid to the values you previously wrote down (from the EventViewer device list).

Save the file private.xml
Go back to the window Karabiner > Preferences and now select the tab "Change Keys"
Click the button on the top-right "Reload XML"
You should see a new entry in the table below with the name "USB Mouse Scroll Reverse" (or whatever name you set in the XML file)
Tick that box

That should be all!


What's the trivial difference between the 15" and 17" versions of the MacBook Pro? What can I ask on the phone to a Mac user who has a MacBook Pro (Alu), but doesn't know if it's a 15 or a 17 one (and don't have a tool to measure the screen)

What can I ask him to look at to tell me what version it is?

In the left corner of the top menu, pick the apple menu and select About This Mac.

In the About This Mac panel, click the More Info  button. if you hover your mouse on Hardware you can see the general info about your macbook pro such 15" or 17".

As Dori said in comment above solution for before 2007 now choose Graphics/Displays from the left column, it does display the screen resolution.


Pairing a bluetooth Magic trackpad I am attempting to pair the magic trackpad with a macbook.  The MB has bluetooth enabled and the "Setup bluetooth trackpad" is invoked:

As can be seen here the pairing is not successful.

On the trackpad side: I have tried pressing the power button a number of times. The behavior is the trackpad light goes green for about two to three seconds then turns off.

Is that the normal behavior for the trackpad? Or is there something else missing in the process?

Simple: the batteries were weak .. but not dead. Thus the intermittent green light (but non functionality).


New SATA cable, same hard drive problem I was having hard drive problems with my mid-2010 unibody Macbook Pro. I bought a new hard drive and set up it using a SATA to USB cable before installing. Everything worked great so long as I had the drive hooked up via USB, but when I installed it in the machine, the machine would not boot from it. If I held down option+R during startup, it would not find the new disk.

So I ordered a new SATA cable for the Macbook Pro and installed it. Still nothing. Am I missing a step or should I assume the problem is somewhere else in the computer? Would love your thoughts/wisdom.

I would take the MacBook into Apple or an authorised repairer to have them examine it. Possible damaged mobo or connectors inside the MacBook that are causing you the grief.


Repeated crashes of Photos app due to signal: Bus error: 10 I'm not sure if I'm the only one but every time I click 'Edit' on a photo that has already been edited by the previous version of Photos, it just crashes. This is frustrating because I did a lot of retouch edits in my library and now I can't edit any of those photos.

I'm using referenced-based library (do not make copy of imported photos) so maybe it happens only on those kind of libraries.

The only sign I see for the crash are two lines in the system.log:

com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.Photos.1028[1637]): Service exited due to signal: Bus error: 10 sent by exc handler[0]
com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: Host-level exception raised: pid = 1637, thread = 0x8d043, exception type = 0xd, codes = { 8589934602 }, states = { 0 }
No reports are being generated

Does anyone knows how to fix it?

In general Bus error 10 means that the program has died due to an unhandled SIGBUS signal.

The fault can related to some sort of hardware error (possibly a USB device as per this thread) as it is raised by hardware notifying an operating system about the memory access that the CPU cannot physically address (an invalid address for the address bus).

So if you're using any external device (such as smart phone) to import your photos, try to replace the cable or reboot the device it-self and re-try again. Otherwise please check your SSD/HDD for any hardware faults.

Also to make sure your Mac is healthy, perform the following tests:

Use coconutBattery app to check your current battery health.
Run Apple Hardware Test.