Windows authentication to sql server I need to connect to sql server using Windows authentication on a mac.

I want to use kinit but I have problem with generate DC name.
On windows I ran command:

nltest /dsgetdc:xx.xx.com

And output is:

GETTING DS NAME FAILED: STATUS = 1355 0X54B ERROR_NO_SUCH_DOMAIN.

I can log into this server on windows using SQL Server Management Studio so I know the account I want to use is working for the level of access I want to grant.

How can I connect with this server to get kerberos tickets / use an AD account in general with Finder to mount shares?

We use Apple Enterprise connect to get kerberos tickets

$ klist
Credentials cache: API:0E08F2A4-F095-4D1D-82A5-69113AF983D0
        Principal: bmike@AD.CONTOSO.INT

  Issued                Expires               Principal
Sep 20 11:20:42 2018  Sep 20 21:20:42 2018  krbtgt/AD.CONTOSO.INT@AD.CONTOSO.INT
Sep 20 11:20:42 2018  Sep 20 21:20:42 2018  ldap/xyz-addc01.ad.contoso.int@AD.CONTOSO.INT

You could use macOS to bind directly, but there's pain there unless you are just binding your personal workstation and not deploying that across an enterprise. A solution that isn't Apple is NoMad (which was recently acquired by JAMF software)

https://nomad.menu/

As long as they are still allowing downloads of that tool, I would start there and then work up to something larger / different if you have a reason to do so.

I would repeat, don't bind until you have exhausted all other options.


Reset iPad mini forgotten Apple ID I wanted to know if there is a way to reset my son's iPad mini, because he forgot the Apple ID password. He accidentally reformat, and now, he doesn't know the password.

Try resetting on iOS then create new apple I.D. Use an email address and use a different password.


How to install and use The open source Darwin OS Is it possible to install and use the Darwin OS from Apples open source download area, and if so on what hardware would I need?

I'm not even sure if the OS is complete, all I can tell is there are a load of individual installer packages for different applications and subsystems, but no overall OS installer.

At one point, I was able to download and install Darwin OS from the Apple open-source website. I was able to download Darwin 8.0.1, which is the base for 10.4 (Mac OS X Tiger). If I remember correctly, it was around the time of Leopard (10.5). I cannot find the download link now, but it ran in single user mode, and I didn't continue on to installing an actual GUI.

Found the link from here:
Darwin 8.0.1 (direct download).
And the other (older) ISOs.

You can also take a look at the PureDarwin project:

  One current goal of this project is to provide a useful bootable ISO of Darwin 10.x and Darwin 9.x.

The "current" versions of Darwin are 12.4.0 (OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4), 13.0.0 (iOS 6, and OS X Mavericks), and 14.0.0 (iOS 7), so these are definitely older versions. Darwin 10.0 is Mac OS X Snow Leopard/iOS 4, 9.0 is Mac OS X Leopard/iPhone OS 1, and 8.0 is Mac OS X Tiger/Mac OS X for Apple TV.

Source


Have iPad with iOS 7 ask for network password I'd like to have my iPad prompt me for my WiFi password when it's turned on.  Is there a way to set that up?  The Google results are for people who see this as a problem, but for me, it would be a feature!

This is currently not possible without manually forgetting the network each time from Settings → Wi-Fi. The password is stored on the device and isn't lost automatically.


How do I kill "SQL Developer" that seem to be in deadlock using ps aux and kill -9? I have SQL Developer from Oracle installed. It seems to be frozen at the moment and I can't force quit it.

I can't open it because of this and hence can't use it too

I don't want to shut down my Mac every time so I want to kill it using kill -9 but I don't know its name nor pid so I'm clueless.

How do I kill it?

If you can't find it by running ps aux or pgrep -i developer you can run Activity Monitor to get the PID of the process (and also to kill it directly).


iPhone - cancel 'swipe to upgrade'? I recently had to restore a backup of my iPhone and when I booted it up it the only screen I can get is 'swipe to upgrade'.

I'd really love to avoid upgrading past my current software version at the moment, does anyone know if there's a way to cancel the upgrade?

Thanks in advance for your advice :)

You simply can't. Sorry this is kinda too short to be an answer, but it is.
Apple stops signing older software short after the release of a new version.

  As of Wednesday Apple is no longer signing iOS 9.3.5, effectively
  preventing anyone already on iOS 10 from downgrading to iOS 9.

Source: Apple Insider


No user to login in MacOS High Sierra I installed macOS High Sierra updating to APFS and everything was working correctly. After a couple of days I shut down and went off. I just came back and when I boot there are no users to login as usual, I get a Name and Password fields.

Of course my user is not working and it is not the usual login where your user is the one you see and just type your password.

So I have a Name and Password fields that I can’t fill with anything, so I can’t login to my user.

In recovery mode I ran First Aid and I get:

The volume /dev/rdisk3s1 could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 8.
Restoring the original state found as mounted.
File system verify or repair failed.
Operation failed...

Anyone with the same problem? Any advice or solution for this?

Had the same problem and it is a simple fix.

restart your computer
when it "chimes" hold down "command" and "R" until a menu pops up.
Go to "Utilities" at the top of the page menu bar
Go to "terminal"
In the terminal type "resetpassword"
Follow the instructions. You may need you Apple ID. My Administrator account does not have an Apple ID, so I just reset the Administrator password without needing an Apple ID.

If you are not able to sign in with other accounts on your computer, go to your administrator account and make sure to uncheck Enable parental controls for those accounts in under System Preferences - Users and Groups. Then the other accounts should work fine.


Is there any free way to have a Mac function as an AirPlay speaker? I have a stereo system hooked up to my Mac mini, but sometimes I'll play music from my laptop. Is there any way for the Mac mini to be recognized as a speaker and allow me to output sound to it (and the speakers connected to it) from my laptop without paid solutions like Airfoil?

This isn't free, but it's only $2.99 AirServer


Turn off USB power on OS X/Mac Mini I have a need to turn USB power off (and on) using a script or a piece of software. Ideally it should be possible to turn each port off/on separately, but also turning power off/on from all ports at once is sufficient. The machine I am using is Mac Mini. Anyone has a solution for this?

By USB power I mean Vbus, the 5V/500mA connection. I understand that the data connection is also turned down and it is fine, but it is not enough for me that the data connection is down and Vbus remains powered. This need comes from the need to keep mobile phones constantly connected for automatic testing. Some device/battery combinations do not like to be constantly connected and batteries start swelling in less than a year.

I recognize that multiple variations of this question are around. So far no solution that I could use. I'll list here my findings so far:

it is possible to accomplish this by using external self powered USB HUB and controlling it's power. However, this is not an option for me (even quality hubs have caused other problems in my use).
it is possible to disable USB by removing .kext files. Among other sources it is explained in OS X Security configuration document. However this requires reboot and I am not sure if it really disables USB power or just data.
there are many claims that it just is not possible. However, OS X itself does it when it detects a device that consumes too much power, so there is at least hardware support. This error message is copied from /System/Library/Extension/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Localizable.strings: "Unplug the device using too much power to re-enable USB devices." (of course I don't know if the disabling is done by turning off USB power, but I would assume it is natural action for the device that consumes too much of it).
it seems that on macbook the USB ports are normally powered even when the laptop is sleeping. While this is not solving my issue, it is kind of related.

The reason why I need this is that I have a test system where multiple devices are plugged in to a mac mini. The devices also charge over USB. It has turned out that if the device is connected all the time to a charger, it's battery is swollen in about a year, which makes the device unusable, insecure and potentially dangerous. Turning the power off when not needed, would significantly extend devices life.

I spent a lot of time researching this problem some years ago - my conclusion is that it is simply not possible with the information available to us. The control of the power happens at a much lower level than the macOS kernel itself, so it is not just a question of configuring macOS or poking at the right kernel data structure. You have to modify firmware which is not possible for ordinary users.

The only working solution I found is to use a hub. This worked very well for me. If you have a hub that supports ganged power switching, you can easily turn off/on the power for each gang (set of ports). Similarly if you have a hub that supports per-port power switching, you can turn off/on each port on the hub individually.

You can download software for macOS to control the hub from here:

https://github.com/mvp/uhubctl

Note that this utility only supports controlling hubs that allow per-port power switching. The web site has a list of supported USB hubs.

Once I went with the hub solution, the hardest part really was finding a USB hub that supports ganged or per-port power switching. The actual software part is very easy.


Error popups from Apple Calendar application I am using Macbook running Mavericks OS.

Recently I hace synced my Google calendar with Apple calendar in my Mac, but then I regularly get this error message:

The server responded with an error.

The request for “International Observe the Moon Night” in “kixxxxxxx@gmail.com” in account “Google” failed.

The server responded with
“400”
to operation CalDAVWriteEntityQueueableOperation.

I believe many others have got this error message.

Can someone tell me how to resolve this?

Close the Calendar Program
Remove the two caches (Or squirrel them away someplace, just in case.)

~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCal

Open Calendar and wait for it to synchronize.

This takes care of most problems that are do to some sort of caching issue.

[For Advanced users]
If that doesn't work, you can disconnect from the networked accounts, export backups of you local calendars (make sure you have good solid backups of everything!), then move ~/Library/Calendars out of the way. Start Calendar, restore your local calendars, and re-connect your network calendars. Once everything synchronizes, your calendars should be clean.

If you continue to have issues, you may have to be patient and wait for Google to fix an issue with their servers.


In Activity Monitor, is the percentage out of each core or out of each virtual core? I have my new MacBook Pro with 2 cores.

However, the Activity Monitor shows me 4 “virtual” cores. (I don’t really know what a “virtual core” is.)

If the processor is running at maximum, what percentages for processes would I have in Activity Monitor ?

A total of 200 % ?
A total of 400 % ?

The CPU percentages shown in Activity Monitor are 100% for each virtual core.

Therefore, for your hyper-threaded dual-core processor, 400% is 100%.

In my case, the hyper-threaded quad-core in my Mac means that 800% is 100%.


Loss in navigability of one's collection with update to iTunes 1.0.0.426 I recently updated my OS, which included an update from what had been "iTunes" to Apple Music, version 1.0.0.426. Among other changes, I notice that I can no longer navigate my collection by song via 3 lists on the top half of my screen, listed from left to right, that subdivide one's search from genre to artist to song, or the like. Anyone who has been using substantially iTunes in the past would know what I mean. (I also notice a lack of alternative navigational options, as "searching" for a song yields links to the store, even to options to purchase albums one already has in one's collection, as opposed to links to one's local library.)

Is there a way to recover this navigability in this new interface?

FYI, the feature I described was called the 3 column browser in iTunes.

According to other users, it has been removed in transitioning to Apple Music. Best we can do to get it back is submit feedback requesting that, here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

As for searching your library, you can recover that by enabling the "Filter" field under View.


How to fix persistent crashes in Google backup and sync? I have set up Google Backup and Sync to automatically synchronise certain folders on my iMac to Google Cloud both for backup and enabling sharing with other computers.
The process works well.
But one of the components, FinderSyncAPIExtension.appex, crashes regularly with a report containing the following:
Path:                  /Applications/Backup and Sync.app/Contents/PlugIns/FinderSyncAPIExtension.appex/Contents/MacOS/FinderSyncAPIExtension
Identifier:            com.google.GoogleDrive.FinderSyncAPIExtension
Version:               1.0 (1)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ??? [1]
Responsible:           FinderSyncAPIExtension [58644]

...

System Integrity Protection: enabled

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

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x000007fb606d1640
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal:    Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason:    Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process:   exc handler [58644]

As far as I can tell the crash is triggered every time I save a new file to a folder that is synchronised. Also, the process seems to restart as synchronisation still seems to happen but getting a crash every time I save a file is annoying.
This has persisted across multiple MacOS versions (currently on 11.1).
I doubt this is a widespread problem and might result from a clash with some other add-in or system process but I have so far found no obvious culprit.
Any suggestions as to the cause? Or how to narrow down the likely cause?

I solved this problem by turning off the option "Show file sync status icons and right click menu", in Google Backup and Sync -> Preferences -> Settings.


Mac Terminal read each .txt file in folder and write (add) as text to specific file I have folder with 600+ .txt files. Each file has couple lines of short text. I want to create another file and write text from all those files to new one. Are there some Terminal commands or tools to do this?

This command will take all .txt files combine to a single file.

cat ~/name_of_folder/*.txt > ~/combined.txt


Applescript: save all open tabs in Chrome to PDF I would like to make an AppleScript that saves all of the open tabs in the front window in Google Chrome to a PDF.

Here is my working MWE so far:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set allTabs to tabs in front window
    repeat with myTab in allTabs
        tell myTab to print
    end repeat
end tell

Of course, this simply opens the print window repeatedly for each open tab.

Ideally, I could save each one to a distinct PDF, something like this (using some made-up commands here):

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set myFolder to "/Users/nnn/Desktop/PDF/"
    set myCount to 0
    repeat with myTab in allTabs
        set myCount to myCount + 1
        set fileName to "pdf" & myCount & ".pdf"
        set outputPath to myFolder & fileName
        export myTab to outputPath as PDF  -- obviously, this does not work.
    end repeat
end tell

How would I get this to work?

I found a work-around, using UI scripting, that does what I need:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set myWindow to front window
    set myTabs to tabs in myWindow

    set outputFolder to "/Users/nnn/Desktop/PDF/"
    set myCount to 0

    activate

    repeat with myTab in myTabs
        set myCount to myCount + 1
        set fileName to "pdf" & myCount & ".pdf"
        set outputPath to outputFolder & fileName

        --N.B.: the following opens the system print window, not Google Chrome’s
        tell myTab to print

        tell application "System Events"
            tell process "Google Chrome"
                repeat until window "Print" exists
                    delay 0.02
                end repeat

                set printWindow to window "Print"

                tell printWindow
                    set myButton to menu button "PDF"
                    click myButton

                    repeat until exists menu 1 of myButton
                        delay 0.02
                    end repeat

                    set myMenu to menu 1 of myButton
                    set myMenuItem to menu item "Save as PDF" of myMenu
                    click myMenuItem

                    repeat until exists sheet 1
                        delay 0.02
                    end repeat

                    set saveSheet to sheet 1
                    tell saveSheet
                        set value of first text field to fileName
                        keystroke "g" using {command down, shift down}

                        repeat until exists sheet 1 of saveSheet
                            delay 0.02
                        end repeat

                        set goDialogue to sheet 1 of saveSheet

                        tell goDialogue
                            set value of first combo box to outputFolder
                            click button "Go"
                        end tell

                        click button "Save"
                    end tell
                end tell

                repeat while printWindow exists
                    delay 0.02
                end repeat
            end tell
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell


Where can I access official AppleScript documentation? Is there any official AppleScript documentation? If so, where can I find it?

Almost all of the Mac developer documentation from Apple exists in several places. That being said, you want the unofficial Mac OS X Automation guide put together by Sal Soghoian. He also has a fabulous book on the iBook store titled AppleScript 1-2-3.

Xcode is the tool that links into these libraries and allows you to search across the various user guides, developer guides, language specifications, code examples and such.

Here is Xcode (with 10.6 and 10.7 documentation sets) and a quick AppleScript search.

Xcode makes it easier to bookmark, search and use the documentation rather than just browsing in Safari since it will download the whole

Of the 232 matches in the System Guides - about 10 cover AppleScript in depth - the rest refer to how programs make themselves available to be scripted by AppleScript.


Need app to read Eudora mail (that mailbox file format) I was unable to successfully copy my 20 years of Eudora emails to Thunderbird.  The process is difficult to follow & just seems to hang.

There must be a simple app that will allow me to open a Eudora mailbox folder, and select an email from an index list, and read the contents.  Its just a "flat file" with a marker to separate each email.  And maybe a separate toc (table of contents) file with the header data and a pointer to the location in the flat file.

And somebody please create the tag "Eudora"

Please download Eudora Mailbox Cleaner, and install it. The app may export mailboxes from Eudora to Thunderbird or Apple Mail with less restrictions or drawbacks than directly importing them in Thunderbird. Additionally you may export them from Thunderbird to Apple Mail.

System requirement: Mac OS X 10.2 - Mac OS X 10.6.8 (with Rosetta installed)

Please check the limitation mentioned on the page thoroughly (especially the 2 GB mailbox limit - and how to circumvent it).


Possible to transfer an active, Verizon sim card to an unlocked iPhone 8 purchased from the Apple store? I would like to purchase an iPhone 8 as a gift for a current Verizon customer who is still using an old iPhone 5c. I plan to purchase the phone outright and since the cost at the Verizon store is the same as with Apple, I would prefer to get it directly from Apple. My question is, can I buy her a SIM free phone from Apple or must I buy a Verizon activated phone from Apple instead? This person has a current, activated Verizon account with a Verizon iPhone 5c phone (which was paid off in monthly installments a long time ago). My guess is that since she already has a Verizon account with the 5c and an active SIM card, I could just go with the SIM free option and then all she would need to do is transfer her Verizon SIM card to the new phone and it will work fine. Is this a correct assumption?

Thank you!

In theory, that would be fine.

When you buy a phone from Apple it will be unlocked for use with any network so they can just put their network sim into it and be good to go.

They both use nano sims so the sim will be good to swap straight away.

The only issue is that Verizon have been using(and AFAIK are still using) a different model of iPhone to the rest of the US networks.

If you're buying it from an actual Apple Store you could ask them just to make sure 100%. As I'm not from the US, I'm not 100% sure what the deal is with CDMA/GSM models as they are all GSM in Europe.

Assuming Verizon still uses CDMA, you would need to make sure that the iPhone is a CDMA version.

More info


Missing Calendar inbox on desktop I receive notification (in both the notification center dock) of changes to our (family) shared calendar, though unlike my iPhone and Macbook Pro, the inbox is nowhere to be found on my iMac (Late 2013). The notification icon remains in my dock and I can't clear it. Any idea where or how I can get my inbox button back?

OSX El Capitan (v 10.11.6), Calendar v 8.0

What I see;

[notification in dock. Had to pull the image as my reputation doesn't allow more than 2 links. Urg]

[missing inbox in calendar application]

What I'd like to see (as available on my Macbook (2009. El Capitan) and iphone (4S) but missing on my desktop);

[screencap lifted from another post with inbox button. Also available on my macbook, running same OS]

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Has been driving me nuts for quite a while now.

Cheers!

RESOLVED On my iMac, my notifications settings were "Settings > Notifications > Calendar > Calendar alert style > Alerts" which remained until I clicked on the alert (launching Calendar on the related date) or dismissed clicking "ok". Doing so removed the notification from the Calendar app, along with the inbox button. I took note with the Calendar application and notifications open (they typically greeted me on startup). Cheers!


Why can't I log in to Messages using my preferred Apple ID After updating to iOS 7 I discovered that the Messages app on my iPad was reset to use my iCloud AppleID. My iPhone, which was updated at the same time, retained my preferred AppleID which is tied to my primary and secondary email addresses—allowing friends to contact me using the addresses they know.

I was able to log out of my iCloud ID without difficulty but am unable to get the device (or service) to accept the password for AppleID I want to use. Again, this ID is up and running fine on my iPhone.

My preferred ID is also tied to my iTunes Store account and purchases from my iPad are working fine—seemingly eliminating "password" issues as the source of my difficulty.

Has anyone experienced this and found a solution?

Trying to use an Apple ID with an expired password will result in the inability to authenticate an Apple ID for the messages app and will prevent you from logging into other iCloud services. Unfortunately, the iOS device doesn't notify one that the password has expired. Trying to login into iCloud.com using that ID will also fail without any explanation—it just fails.

The iTunes Store seemingly continues to accept the expired password for some period of time after iCloud ceases to do so. (I imagine this is for a limited time only and that the iTunes ID database syncs with the main database regularly.)

If you're having problems you can check the status of your Apple ID and change your password by going to Apple's My Apple ID page and logging in. You will be notified if your password has expired and be given the opportunity to change it.

An AppleID with a time-expiring password is an outlier situation. I assume this is the reason that iOS/iCloud return incorrect/forgotten password errors instead of notifying the user that the password needs to be changed.


How to install Visual Studio Code's `code` command permanently? I just followed the top-voted answer here and successfully installed Visual Studio Code's code command in my terminal.

However, the code command fails to launch Visual Studio Code every time after I restart my MacBook Pro.

~ code
zsh: command not found: code

Is it possible to install code permanently so that I don't have to install it every time I turn on my MacBook Pro?

~ where code
/usr/local/bin/code

~ ls -l /usr/local/bin/code
lrwxr-xr-x  1 myName  admin  167 Aug  5 13:41 /usr/local/bin/code -> /private/var/folders/bh/525lnbns1213cx2651s97my00000gp/T/AppTranslocation/EA379FC4-05D2-4739-BE49-1D8870E47B8A/d/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code

I also find out that the folder EA379FC4-05D2-4739-BE49-1D8870E47B8A get deleted after I restart my laptop.

This is the reason that I cannot run code after the laptop is restarted.

Why is code installed in a temporary folder?

My MacBook Pro's version is macOS Sierra version 10.12.6

Looks like your whole Visual Studio got installed in a temporary folder.

Remove the current link with sudo rm /usr/local/bin/code

Start Visual Studio from within /Applications

Reinstall code as described in https://stackoverflow.com/a/29971430:

Now open the Command Palette (F1 or ⇧⌘P on Mac) and type shell command to find the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.

If it still doesn't work you can also link manually by running
sudo ln -fs "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code" /usr/local/bin/


Macbook pro13 (2015) Battery dropping significantly during sleep I went through articles, but I'm requesting an answer for my instance. The relevant details are shown below,

Health Information:
Cycle Count:  336
Condition:    Normal
Health: 90%

According to the console, it seems like something is happening.

The Mac, was put to sleep at 23:08, and according to the console it seems like it has been doing something.. so please give me expert advice, for that period about 8hours,  20% of the battery has drained :/
There are more stuff in the console, but I can post only 2 links here

Check with pmset -g log what is causing your Macbook to wake up.
Most likely it's due to network activity.

Install PleaseSleep from https://github.com/xinstein/PleaseSleep to workaround the problem.


Permission to buy notifications no longer received I used to receive the permission notifications when my son tried to buy something from the App Store, but a few weeks ago this just stopped.

I've tried everything: buying from 2 different iPads signed in as him, also signed out and in again. I even checked on my old MacBook to see if the notification were received there, and also on an iPad logged as a me. Nothing seems to receive the notification.

I don't have an iPhone, but I'm pretty sure this doesn't matter. I used to receive the notifications on my MacBook.

I've also checked my notifications settings. They aren't disabled for the Family app, and I get notifications for other things regularly.

The only way he can buy anything is if I disable the "ask to buy" requirement briefly, then re-enable it.

I can't remove and re-add him to the family because he's under 13.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

You need to be logged in on your Mac to the Apple Store to receive Ask to Buy notifications.


Add the bookmarks bar to internal browsers of iPad apps Apps like Twitterific and Flipboard are great but I want to be able to use the "Offline Pages" app to save the text of a link so I can read it later. In Twitterific, when I touch a link it opens in an internal web app that doesn't have the bookmarks bar and therefor doesn't have my "Offline Pages" bookmarklet.

I read somewhere that Instapaper has better integration with apps like Twitterific but I haven't seen anywhere how it works and I really do like offline pages . . . it does exactly what I want! Any ideas?

I know I can simply "open in Safari" but that's another page load and I loose my place in Flipboard or Twitterific and have to re-open the app.

Unfortunately, there is no way for developers to integrate your bookmarks into our apps. We create a browser using WebKit, but the bookmarks are stored in Safari, not WebKit. Instapaper is likely your best choice, and is available in most RSS apps and many Twitter apps do (including Echofon). You then can view these saved pages from the Instapaper app anytime you want.


Can Spaces be configured by project, rather than by application? Spaces seems to give you a choice of having a given software application open in a single space or in all spaces. Is there a way to configure Spaces to so that each space is devoted to a particular project, regardless of what applications you happen to be using for that project?

For example, in Space 1 I might have Word files, Excel spreadsheets and a browser window devoted Project A. In Space 2 I might have a separate set of Word files, Excel spreadsheets, and a browser window devoted to Project B, etc. That way I can switch between projects by simply switching spaces, rather than having my screen cluttered with all of my projects at the same time.

If Spaces can't do this, does anyone know of other ways to create this type of functionality in Snow Leopard (or Lion)?

What I've done to achieve this is to simply not assign any applications to any special space at all. That way, when opening an application, it opens on the space I'm curently on, letting me organize my work into different projects as I want.

On Lion, the organization is kept through reboots, at least for some applications.

There is also the utility Moom, which lets you save configurations of different application windows to easily recreate spaces you use often.


How to add photos for contacts in iPhone 6s? I want to add photos for every contact in my phone; I tried to for some time but I haven't found any way to set it up.

Can someone suggest me the better ways to do it?

Unless I'm missing something from your question, all you need to do is:

Launch the Contacts app
Select a contact
Tap on Edit (at top right)
Now the circle at top left will show the add photo text
Tap on add photo
A prompt will appear with three options:

Take Photo
Choose Photo
Cancel

Select Take Photo if you want to take a photo to use, or select Choose Photo if you want to pick one from your Photos app.
The rest should be self-explanatory

If I've misunderstood your question, let me know.


Cancel accidental Siri activation How do I tell Siri to go away when I activate it by accident?

The best I can come up with is "Cancel", which works but replies that "there's nothing to cancel". Functional, but irritating.

Searching on Google has thus far just turned up a whole lot of stuff about how to turn Siri off altogether, which isn't what I'm after.

Other than pressing the home button or sleep button, you can say a list of words:

Goodbye
Bye
See you
So long
See you soon/later


What speed is the SATA controller in a medio 2010 Macbook Pro I've got a Macbook Pro 15" 2,4GHz i5, medio 2010. I would like to upgrade to a solid state disk. But will I benefit from a disk with read/write speeds of 500 mb/s? Or what is the max speed that is supported by my SATA controller?

Thank you in advance

You can find the speed of your SATA controller with the System Information application, by clicking system report > hardware > Serial ATA. Which in my case (a 15" 2.53GHz 2010 MBP) shows the following:

Intel 5 Series Chipset:

  Vendor:                   Intel
  Product:                  5 Series Chipset
  Link Speed:               3 Gigabit
  Negotiated Link Speed:    3 Gigabit
  Description:              AHCI Version 1.30 Supported

3 Gigabit means the maximum uncoded transfer rate is 2.4 Gbit/s or about 300MB/s (286MiB/s).

In conclusion: a 500MB/s disk is probably overkill.


Cannot upgrade to High Sierra: Unable to unmount volume for repair? I'm stuck in an upgrade loop for High Sierra. I have:

2017 iMac
3.11 TB fusion drive for main drive labeled Macintosh HD in my system

I've downloaded the High Sierra installer from the App Store and can confirm it's good and works. I did an install to an empty FW drive I have on hand and was able to complete the clean install and boot from that drive just fine.

Every time I try to upgrade the 10.12.6 install on my Macintosh HD drive I get:

Things I've tried:

I've tried a plain old upgrade. Running the installer Macintosh HD as you normally would. This results in the above error message.
I've booted the FW drive, force-unmounted the internal Macintosh HD volume and successfully run an First Aid scan on the drive from Disk Utility. No problems were found; green health check.
I've tried making an external upgrade drive. Following the instructions here. This drive successfully boots to the recovery screen and from there I can select an upgrade option. However, once the installation reboots the computer I get the same warning.

I'm kind of at a loss for how to continue here. Is it the Fusion drive that's causing the problem? My understanding is you can install High Sierra on a Fusion drive just fine and the installer will leave HFS+ alone on the drive and not force an upgrade to APFS. Why would the installer think there's a disk issue when Disk Utility says there is not? How can I get more information about the problem? How can I get the system upgraded to High Sierra?

Unfortunately, the solution to my problem was to wipe and do a fresh install of High Sierra and then restore from my Time Machine backup on first boot. Here are the steps I took. You'll need the following to do this:

An external USB thumb drive with at least 8 GB of free space
An external hard drive with at least 50 GB of free space

Make sure you have a functional, up-to-date Time Machine backup

To do this I did a manual Time Machine backup than deleted and restored a file I care about.

Download High Sierra and make and an installation drive

Download the High Sierra installer from the App Store. Attach the USB thumb drive to your Mac and then make a bootable, High Sierra installation disk out of thumb drive by running the following in Terminal:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app

Where /Volumes/Untitled should be replaced with the name of your USB thumb drive.

Format an external drive and install High Sierra on that drive

I used an older 500GB LaCie I keep kicking around for just these cases. It's fast and built well so I can trust it. Use the attached thumb drive to run the High Sierra installer. When asked which drive to install the operating system on to, click the Show More Devices button and select that USB hard drive. The installation should proceed without a problem and when the computer reboots you'll be booted from the remote drive and dropped into High Sierra. You can skip the first boot setup. You won't be using this for very long. Just make a temp account and get to logging in.

Force unmount the internal fusion drive and format it

Here is where the scary bit begins. You're going to force unmount the fusion drive because it'll still be mounted (and stuck) when you boot the external High Sierra image. To do this I opened up Terminal and ran:

sudo diskutil unmount force /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

You should replace /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD with the name of your fusion drive before you run that command. Once the drive is unmounted you can format it like so:

sudo diskutil reformat /dev/disk2

You should replace /dev/disk2 in the above command with whatever your disk number is for your fusion drive.

Install High Sierra to your fusion drive using the installer

With the drive wiped you can proceed to install High Sierra on it using the USB thumb drive you turned into a bootable, High Sierra installation drive. Same as before, run the High Sierra installer from the thumb drive and when it asks you which disk to target select Show More Devices and find your fusion drive in the list.

The installation should proceed without a problem now and when your machine reboots you'll be booted from the internal drive.

Follow the first boot prompts and restore from your Time Machine backup

You'll have to pick your region, connect your keyboard and mouse, and then setup WiFi. Once that is done the first boot process will give you the option to restore the computer from a Time Machine backup. Select this option. Select everything on the backup that you want restored and follow the prompts.

Once the restore is complete you should have a functioning High Sierra installation with all your data and user accounts on it.


Route specific IP through OpenVPN I have an .ovpn configuration file which allows me to reach endpoints on the VPN if I uncomment redirect-gateway def1, but I do not want all network traffic going through the VPN. Only certain endpoints.

If I try and visit an internal website, let's say 42.123.123.10 with redirect-gateway def1 present it works. If I comment redirect-gateway def1 and use any of the following it does not work.

Additionally, I cannot see the interface named ovpn-tun when running ifconfig so I am not sure what to set network rules on if I configured a script to add routes or what have you.

Attempted

route-nopull
route 42.123.123.10 255.255.255.255 ;OR the following line
route 42.123.123.10 255.255.255.0   ;OR the following line
route 42.123.123.10

Base Config

route-nopull
client
dev ovpn-tun
remote {REDACTED} 1194 udp
cipher AES-256-CBC
auth SHA512
resolv-retry infinite
;redirect-gateway def1
route 42.123.123.10
nobind
persist-key
persist-tun
user nobody
group nogroup
verb 10

I forgot the interface must be an existing one, so I used utun which is on macOS by default.

I removed all entries for route in the OpenVPN config file and instead installed iproute2mac via homebrew, brew install iproute2mac so I have access to the ip command which I am used to the syntax of.

I then ran ip route add 42.123.123.10 dev utun2 (I know my interface will be utun2 as without OpenVPN running there are two utun interfaces for me, utun0, and utun1 checked with ifconfig or ip r.

Now it works.

OpenVPN allows you to run scripts via the configuration files so I will dump these route add and route delete rules in some files.


How can I get back the old split screen behavior from Mojave in Catalina? Back in macOS 10.14 Mojave, clicking down and then dragging on the zoom button would allow you to drag the window to one half of the display, and the window would become full-screen on that half, allowing you to then choose another window for the other side (similar to Windows 10).

Unfortunately, that's been replaced with a rather clunky and unintuitive drop down menu which you have to stop on top of the button, wait for it, and then choose an option. I know this is for sidecar to work, but I don't have a Mac or iPad with sidecar capabilities and I value my gesture-based UI more than capabilities for an option I can't use. (Even if one does have it, why not just "drag up" instead of to a side or something, to send to SideCar?)

I'm wondering if there is a Terminal command or something which I can do to revert this to its old behavior. It would be one thing if you could still drag, but get this menu by pausing over it... but they just seemingly disabled (or ripped out entirely) this functionality in favor of a far worse one. I don't usually get bothered by little waits for animations or something, but this does feel like I'm stopping for a sizable amount of time, even for someone who values animations (probably because there is a literal pause in this process).

There might be a better solution to enable the old functionality through the OS, but I would be surprised if so. But I've found the free, open-source application Amethyst has been great for my usage.
To make sure you're getting the exact functionality you want, I suggest going into Amethyst's Mouse Preferences and ensuring "resize windows using mouse" is enabled.


Copy directory from "Get Info" in Yosemite? I am a programmer who used to constantly copy directory of a file from its "Get Info" menu. Since Yosemite, the original pure path is replaced with a "user-friendly" kid-version directory, which cannot be copied. Like this.

Is there a workaround for this?

Take a look here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6610989

One of the suggested answers - drag file into Terminal window or Safari address bar.


Adaptor/convertor parts for HDDs? I decided to swap my early 2011 MacBook Pro's HDD for a SSD and put that HDD in my G4 iBook. However, all of the guides I found used iBooks with an orange, cord-like HDD port (I don't know if port is the right word) like the one in my MBP. My iBook doesn't have such an port.

The part I am holding was connected to the iBook's HDD, allowing it connect the port.

My MBP HDD does not fit the adapter(?) piece or the HDD port:

My question(s): what these parts are actually called? Without the right vocabulary I'm having a hard time answering other questions like: Where can I get one? Do they make ones that would allow me to put the MBP HDD into the iBook?

The difference is the HDD connectors. The iBook G4 uses an IDE (aka PATA) connector, whereas the MBP uses SATA. Unfortunately during a quick google search I wasn't able to find a SATA to IDE adapter that would fit inside the laptop case. It's probably worth looking for second-hand IDE hard drives or contacting someone at Apple to see if they have a better idea. If you want to buy a drive, try starting here: Ebay IDE laptop drives. Let me know if you have any questions or if I got any of my information wrong.


How can Siri recognize a contact's name, but be unable to call that person? My wife and I have the same problem with Siri.  In our contacts database, each person has at least one associated phone number (usually associated with 'home', 'mobile' or 'iPhone').  However, even though these numbers are the typical 10 digits used in N. America, Siri frequently will be unable to dial the number despite finding the contact and the number in the database.
Question: can this be fixed without re-entering the numbers to the contacts database? What causes some 10 digit numbers (and numbers with the +1 in front of them) to be unrecognizable for purposes of making Siri-initiated phone calls?

Believe it or not, this is often a minor activation issue–assuming the iPhone is on Sprint or Verizon. On Verizon, Dial *228 from the Phone app.  On Sprint, dial ##UPDATE# (##873283#). Follow the voice prompts, if any.  The process takes a minute or two.  After you get a pop-up message indicating the update was successful, wait another minute.  You should see your service indicator go away for a moment then come back.

Afterward, try Siri again. This will likely resolve your text message issues too, though a restart of the iPhone (hold sleep/wake button, swipe to shut off, wait, start back up) may be necessary there.


Easiest way to migrate aliases from bash to zsh I want to start using zsh as recommended by Apple for Mac OS Catalina. How do I migrate my aliases that I have defined in the ~/.bash_profile to the new shell?

If until now you've been using ~/.bash_profile for the loading the aliases, here are some of the ways you can migrate your aliases:

 1. Copy the contents:

The most assiduous and obvious way is to copy the contents of your ~/.bash_profile  to ~/.zshrc. It works particularly when you are moving on from bash to zsh for good.

 2. Pull out aliases and then source them:

Another *way is:

Create a new file that will contain the aliases (let's call it ~/.aliases);
Copy the contents of ~/.bash_profile to the new aliases file;
Modify the ~/.bash_profile and ~/.zshrc to source the new file.

Put the following in ~/.bash_profile:

if [ -f ~/.aliases ]; then
   . ~/.aliases
fi

and put the following in ~/.zshrc:

source $HOME/.aliases

This way the aliases will be available for both shells. More importantly, if you make changes to the aliases, the changes will cascade to both shells automatically.

* Taken from here


Is there a way to sync OS X Photos app with Android Phone? I have an Android phone and a MacBook, and what I am trying to figure out is a way to do bi-directional sync between the OS X Yosemite's new Photos app and my device's internal storage. So far, I am using DropSync to do a two-way sync between my device photos and storage in Dropbox, and that works fine. The next step that I thought I could do was use Automator to force sync that particular folder with Photos app, but I cannot seem to find any option in Automator that works with Photos - all I have is iPhoto. Is there any way to achieve this?

P.S. I even tried the new Google Photos, but that doesn't do two-way sync with my device's internal memory if I delete something from the Photos library.

Here is how you can sync from Dropbox (or a directory of your choosing) into Photos, when new photos are added:

Open Automator, and create a "Folder Action"

On the top where it says "Folder Action receives files and folders added to" select "Choose folder", then "Other", and select your Dropbox folder (or whichever directory contains your photos)
Add a single Run AppleScript action with the following code:

on run {input, parameters}
    set file_strings to {}
    repeat with current_file in input
        set file_as_string to (current_file as string)
        if words -2 through -1 of (do shell script "file --mime-type " & quoted form of (POSIX path of file file_as_string as string)) contains "image" then
            set file_strings to file_strings & {(file_as_string) as alias}
        end if
    end repeat

    tell application "Photos" to import file_strings
end run

Your Folder Action should look like this:

Now save it with a name of your choosing, and from now on, photos added to the folder you chose will be imported to Photos.

Let me know if anything goes wrong!


iMac Speakers don't work Looking for a little bit help here. I've searched everywhere and couldn't find an answer. My 2013 27" iMac doesn't play sound with the speakers (movies, youtube, itunes, etc..) but when I go to "Preferences" and "audio" and click on any of the sound effects there, the effects are played trough the speakers. I can't turn off the "mute" option on that preference panel. Any idea how to solve this problem?

In Finder Go to /Library/Preferences/Audio

and delete those files from there (2 or 3 files)

Do not worry OS will recreate them.

Empty your trash

Restart


Is there any need to update again on ios 7 when i have updated it one month ago using ios 7 beta version? I update my iphone 4 on ios 7 beta version one month ago. Is there any need to download ios 7 full version and update again? However in settings (software update tab) it is showed that your software is up to date.

You should update your phone to the Gold Master (GM) or restore your phone back to iOS 6 and then update to iOS7 using the public version.

If you continue to use the beta, you will not have all the latest updates/fixes from GM and may also run into issues later.


Use iMac 27" in Target Display Mode with Raspberry Pi I have this little box called the Kanex XD HDMI to Mini-Displayport converter. It works perfectly with a lot of machines (tried it with a Macbook, PS4 and Xbox 360), but some devices don't seem to be supported and I'm wondering why.

One of the devices is the Playstation 3. I know the PS3 has trouble with its resolution, which means you have to reset holding some buttons etc. etc., but even that doesn't get it to work on my iMac in Target Display Mode.

The most recent problem I've run into is with the Raspberry Pi. Yesterday, I installed Raspbian on it while it was connected to my tv. This worked perfectly, if we ignore the weird resolution of 18##x9##.

Which made me wonder: Does the iMac only work as an external display in TDM if the device changes its own output video to 1280*720? Does anyone know a bit more about this function of the 27" iMacs 2010 (and any iMac after 2011 if I remember) who can explain how exactly TDM works or is supposed to work?

What I have found out is that TDM (Target Display Mode) on my mid 2010 27" iMac only works with the following resolutions:

720p (1280*720) or lower
Native (2560*1440)

Any device that tries to output something in between, gets a signal it has to change it's resolution to 1280*720. Many devices can automatically do this (Xbox 360, PS4), but some can not (PS3, Raspberry Pi). This means that, if you want to use a device that can't automatically change resolution, you have to set the right resolution BEFORE you connect it to the iMac with TDM.

For the Raspberry pi, this means you have to use the following two lines in your config.txt:

hdmi_group=1 // VGA 60Hz
hdmi_mode=4 // 720p

Read more about the config-file here.

Since the Raspberry Pi doesn't support 2560*1440 (it does support 2560*1600 though), you won't be able to use the iMacs beautiful 1440p-screen to its full potential, but at least it works!

If I ever find a solution to add a custom resolution, I'll update my answer.


OpenSSL installation in macOS Mojave 10.14.6? I am getting odd errors that OpenSSL package has some problems. Earlier I insntalled PyCharm IDE that is built on pyenv environment, it may have somehow broken my OpenSSL. I have tried to install OpenSSL again with brew install openssl but errors such as the below persist.

How to install OpenSSL in Mac OSX Mojave 10.14.6?

pip3 install numpy
pip is configured with locations that require TLS/SSL, however the ssl module in Python is not available.
Requirement already satisfied: numpy in /usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages (1.16.2)
pip is configured with locations that require TLS/SSL, however the ssl module in Python is not available.
Could not fetch URL https://pypi.org/simple/pip/: There was a problem confirming the ssl certificate: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='pypi.org', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /simple/pip/ (Caused by SSLError("Can't connect to HTTPS URL because the SSL module is not available.")) - skipping

The SSL module is ordinarily a part of the python installation itself. The fact that you haven't got it doesn't mean that anything is wrong with your OpenSSL package or anything like that - rather it is python's own SSL module that is missing.

You can usually fix this by reinstalling python with this command from the Terminal:

brew reinstall python

The fact that you mention OpenSSL seems to indicate that you have received some messages about OpenSSL or in other ways that you haven't really told the full story in the few lines of output in your question. If this is the case, it could be that you're trying to recompile something that needs OpenSSL. In that case, you'll need to install the development files (headers) for OpenSSL using this command:

brew install openssl

Afterwards you can use stuff like the python installation manager to upgrade python like this:

pythonz install 3.8.2 --configure="--with-openssl=$(brew --prefix openssl)"


Why don't Apple want a download all music in their Apple Music App? I'm very curious as to why Apple doesn't want to implement a download all music feature like Spotify. It's very inconvenient and I hate having to download each music respectively.

There is option in iTunes -> Preferences ->  Downloads -> Automatic Downloads but it's for purchased music or Apple Music. In iTunes Tab you can download each Playlist with the ... Tab Download all. Till yet Apple don't allow it because of iTunes Match and Apple Music. Where with a simple MacBook with 250GB SSD it's not a good idea.


Stuck during clean install on a new SSD on a late 2009 iMac I hope you might be able to help me out since I am completely stuck in my attempt to perform a clean install of High Sierra on a late 2009 iMac (model number A1311 – does not have Internet recovery) in which I have just inserted a brand new SSD right out of the box using the thermal HDD sensor from OWC. The old HDD got corrupted (or at least, that’s what I think happened), so I swapped it with a 500 GB SSD.

For obvious reasons, I did not clone the old drive. Instead I have prepared a 16 GB USB 2.0 with what should be a bootable version of High Sierra 10.13.6. I made this on a Windows 7 PC using TransMac and a High Sierra .dmg file. I haven’t been able to test if this has worked as intended as I do not have another Mac around.

Anyway, when I switch on the iMac, I hear the familiar chime (so far so good – pre-testing passed) and then I get the expected blinking folder with a question mark on it. Now, I thought that I would be able to boot from the USB by holding the option key on startup to get to the Startup Manager, but the only thing that happens is that I get a mouse pointer (arrow), then nothing.  I haven’t had any success on any other startup key combinations – can’t activate verbose mode, either. I don’t know if verbose mode depends on a bootable drive, but with the old drive – after it failed – I could still get into verbose mode and was able to see part of the startup process until it got stuck.

I have also tried installing from DVD by holding down C on startup, but it spits out the DVD after what appears to be a few attempts to read it (it does not have any scratches). I have tried the original install DVD (Snow Leopard) and a home-burned version of Yosemity. No success.
The keyboard I am using is an original USB-wired Mac keyboard and I have tested on another computer that the keys are working.
Any ideas?  I’d be very helpful if someone with expertise in the quirks of late 2009 iMacs could suggest some other things to try. Thanks.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention that I have also tried resetting the NVRAM using the keys: Option-Command-P-R, but it didn't make any difference either.

I would say you need to take your machine in for repair. You have detached all external devices that you can: with possible exception of mouse&keyboard?

Reset machine
Sometimes if volumes don't appear in Startup Manager (what you get when you hold down the Option key at startup), you need to reset the Mac's PRAM, NVRAM. Shut down the Mac, then power it up, and before the screen lights up, quickly hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys,( I hold down the keys before pressing the power on button, but requires some contortion. )  until the Mac has chimed twice more after the powerup chime.

Andy Betts  lists machine specific variants for this procedure in this article:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/reset-macs-smc-pram/


Google Chrome Helper Using Up Too Much Memory Google Chrome Helper is appearing in Activity Monitor a dozen times and overall using a ton of memory.  How do I curtail this?  Most advice columns say to go to my plugins and check "Play on click", but Google updated the browser and this option is no longer available.  What can I do?

Every "Helper" is either a tab, a subframe, a core Chrome process or an extension.
You could reduce RAM usage by uninstalling extensions, or just using less tabs.


Unable to add more than 1 static route I'm trying to add multiple persistent static routes using the networksetup command. I've used this method in the past and am now running into a strange issue, where I only seem to be able to add 1 route. For instance, if I go to add another route the previous route will be overwritten with the new.

I've only recently started using this method of adding routes to OSX.
Is this normal behaviour?

Here are the commands I'm using:

# networksetup -setadditionalroutes "Ethernet 1" 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.69

Then when I run getadditionalroutes, it will only display the last entered route.
For example…

# networksetup -getadditionalroutes "Ethernet 1"
10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.69
# networksetup -setadditionalroutes "Ethernet 1" 20.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.69
# networksetup -getadditionalroutes "Ethernet 1"
20.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.69

What is the best way for me to achieve my goal?

If you want to set additional routes either add all routes:

networksetup -setadditionalroutes "Ethernet 1" 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.69 20.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.70

or set a variable with the existing additional routes:

ADDITIONALROUTES=$(networksetup -getadditionalroutes "Ethernet 1")

which yields e.g.

echo $ADDITIONALROUTES
10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.69

and then use

networksetup -setadditionalroutes "Ethernet 1" $ADDITIONALROUTES 20.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 69.69.69.70

to add other routes without loosing the old routes.


Websharing and Remote Login not working over local network Someone gave me their old mac mini which is running OSX 10.6.  I decided to use it a home.

I went to network preferences, then clicked on Sharing.

I checked Web Sharing and Remote Login.

Under Web Sharing, it says the mac mini personal website is available at the address

http://192.168.0.110/~johncomputer/

So I opened up Safari on the mac mini and typed in that address, and I see a simple webpage that I created just minutes ago.  So that's fine.

I then went to my android phone which is on the same network.  I opened up chrome browser and typed in the http://192.168.0.110/~johncomputer/ and the web page showed up which is great.

So then I turned off the monitor connected to my mac mini, WITHOUT turning off the mac mini (so i left the mac mini as is).   Then i went back to my android phone and pressed refresh on the chrome browser.  Now Chrome browser says it could not connect to 192.168.0.110.

I turned on the mac mini monitor again and took a look at the Sharing settings, and it shows everything up and running.  In the Mac Mini safari, i typed in the http://192.168.0.110/~johncomputer/ and the web page still showed up.  I edited the web page, then refreshed the browser again, and i see the changes.  So clearly the webserver is up and running.

But my android phone sitll can't connect to 192.168.0.110.  I went to other cmputers in my house, and none of them can connect to 192.168.0.110.

All my devices/computers are able to connect with each other and with the internet.  They just can't seem to see the webpage at 192.168.0.110.

I also can't seem to use ssh to login to 192.168.0.110, even though the mac mini says it's on.

How do i correct this problem?

OK i figured out the problem.  It seems my mac mini is losing internet connection/network every so often.  I don't know why it is, so going to post a separate question about this.


How to use keyboard shortcut to copy formatting in Mac Word According to this microsoft support page (shown in the animated gif at right below)

  To use keyboards shortcuts to copy formatting, press COMMAND + SHIFT + C to copy the formatting, select the text that you want to apply the formatting to, and then press COMMAND + SHIFT + V to paste the formatting

However, as shown in the animated gif below (click for better detail), it does not work for me. I describe what I'm doing with the keyboard with the text in black, blue, and red.

Notice at the end that I am able to paste format using the format painter tool, but my goal is to use keyboard shortcuts to do this. To demonstrate that this is not due additional custom shortcuts on my system, I have the shortcuts portion of the System Preferences open and you can also see the normal paste shortcuts in the Edit menu during the animated gif.

I'm using an updated Microsoft Word for Mac version 16.29.1 on an Office 365 subscription with macOS 10.14.6.

If a shortcut doesn't work as expected (i.e. as mentioned in the help text/manual) check whether you configured the same shortcut as global shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts. If you set up a "concurrent" shortcut it may also occur in Services, Screenshot etc.

Also check the app's preferences whether you set up custom shortcuts which override the app's default shortcuts.

It's not necessary to set up a custom shortcut for Word's Paint Format tool double click.

The logic behind the Paint Format tool button compared to the default shortcuts works like this:

Choosing some formatted text and clicking Paint Format tool (1st click) equals cmdshiftC (copy format)
Choosing another part of the text ("2nd click") equals choosing some text and cmdshiftV (paste format) - the Paint Format tool button is resetted afterwards!
Choosing some formatted text and double-clicking Paint Format tool and formatting several other text parts afterwards equals cmdshiftC and several cmdshiftV.

If you copy a text format/style with cmdshiftC (or with the 1st click on Paint Format tool!) it will remain in the "format/style pasteboard" until you copy another text format/style or quit Word.

You can apply it with Paint Format tool only once (2nd click) but with the shortcut as often as required.


Is it possible to scan an image from the command line? Is there a tool that scans images from the command line? I am looking like scanimage on linux that works like this:

scanimage > image.pnm

I've tried googling and checked if ImageCapture is scriptable via applescript but no results.

I don't know of a way to do it with built in tools, but there is an OS X version of SANE that should be able to do exactly what you request (scanimage > image.pnm).

SANE

  This is a TWAIN datasource for MacOS X that aquires images using the SANE backend libraries. The SANE backend libraries provide access to a large range of scanners connected through SCSI or USB. For a complete list see the documentation on the SANE project homepage.

It's available at http://www.ellert.se/twain-sane/


Connect through Finder with server, save permissions? I'm trying to access my FTP server through Finder, I can open the server and access the files. But when I try to change a .css file or something and save I then get an error stating that I don't have permission.

I tried this but this didn't work https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538. On my server the permissions are correct.

I edit with brackets.

Someone know what I'm doing wrong?

If you open up the "Connect to Server" dialog from Finder's "Go" menu and add your FTP server's URI, the resulting dialog presented when you connect includes a checkbox to save the credentials used in Keychain.

Example

Open up the Connect to Server dialog

Add URI to FTP user

Add user credentials and tick keychain checkbox

Connect and confirm

Confirm entry was added to Keychain

References

Is there a Public FTP server to test upload and download? [closed]


How do I backup an external HDD using TimeMachine? I have used Time Machine for years to backup my main HDD, but I would like to back up an external drive at the same time. Normally you would remove an external drive from the Exclude list in Time Machine Options to have it backed up, I have done so but Time Machine still ignores this drive.

How do I get Time Machine to include this external drive in its backup?

Make sure the external drive is some flavor of Mac OS X Extended format.

If it's not, wipe it and reformat it or use another tool to back up those files.

Once that's done, make a couple of sample files on the drive.

touch /Volumes/whatever/test1
touch /Volumes/whatever/test2
tmutil isexcluded /Volumes/whatever/*

You can see what exclusion rules might be causing the test files to be backed up or not backed up. The manual page for tmutil will show you how to add and remove exclusions that the UI won't show you.

On OS X, what files are excluded by rule from a Time Machine backup?


external hd mac ntfs 3g could not mount I got an external hd "clickfree hd" but when trying it with my Mac I get the following error:

  ntfs 3g could not mount, error

I have tried NTFS-3G, MacFuse and FuseOSX. I'm running Lion but this seems not to be working. So I'm missing something to mount the drive with read and write capabilities.

The second question is, is it better to format the HD, as I will only use it in my Macs and when using Linux? So if I format it, can I use it for time machine with the machine running Lion as well as backup for another Mac and a Linux machine?

Install NTFS-3g in here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g

Then install OSXFUSE: http://osxfuse.github.com/

MacFuse has been abandoned for a while now. Someone picked it up and rename it to OSXFUSE

If you want to use it for Mac and Linux, use FAT. If you want to use it for time machine, use HFS Journaled.


Hide all notifications when screen sharing I'd like to never show ANY notifications if I'm currently screen sharing to prevent those awkward moments where I forget to disable them manually and run the risk of someone IM'ing me something inappropriate. Notifications should be automatically disabled when I start screen sharing and automatically re-enabled when I stop.

Is this possible at all? Even if it requires some development?

You didn't mention the OS you're using so for this answer I'm using 10.12.5.
Source.

You can option+click on the 3 lines for Notification Center in the menu bar:

This will silence any notifications that use the Apple system for notifications.  To put notifications back to normal, option+click again.

This doesn't silence any notifications that don't use Apple's system.  To silence those, you'll need to turn them off at the application-level.


iCloud Music Library can't be enabled I downloaded iOS 8.4 this morning, and activated Apple Music. I started browsing, and found an album I wanted to add to my library. When I tried to add it, I was told that I needed to enable iCloud Music Library, and was directed to the settings.

However, when I try to enable it in the settings, I get an error saying that "iCloud Music Library can't be enabled". No further details are available. This error occurs whether I choose to "Merge" or "Replace" my device's current library.

What do I need to do to get past this error?

Keep trying. After toggling the setting to enable it a dozen times over twenty minutes, it finally worked. This appears to have been a temporary problem associated with the launch.


Access Airport signal data I want to be able to write the current list of Wifi networks in airport, and their respective strengths, to a file. I would like to use some sort of bash script to do this, but I am unsure how to access the data in Airport.

Open Terminal.app and enter:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I

You have to be connected to a wireless signal. The output will look similar to the following:

     agrCtlRSSI: -64
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -91
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 130
        maxRate: 144
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: wpa2-psk
          BSSID: 28:cf:da:b1:6:77
           SSID:
            MCS: 15
        channel: 6

Most of the data is self explanatory. agrCtlRSSI is the signal strength; the closer it is to 0, the stronger the signal. agrCtlNoise is the noise on your Wi-Fi signal; you want this as low as possible. Finally, maxRate is the maximum rate at which your Wi-Fi signal can run at, and lastTxRate is the last transmitted rate.

You can also use this Terminal command to scan the airwaves for other Wi-Fi signals to connect to (I believe this is what you were looking for):

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -s

This returns something like:

            SSID BSSID             RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)
             28:cf:da:b1:06:78 -73  100,+1  Y  GB WPA2(PSK/AES/AES)
           dlink 00:19:5b:de:4e:36 -90  6       N  -- WEP
    FON_BELGACOM 06:19:70:1e:c3:6e -77  1       N  BE NONE
      bbox2-f279 00:19:70:1e:c3:6e -77  1       N  BE WEP
   telenet-6F8E6 5c:35:3b:1e:88:20 -91  11      Y  -- WPA(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP)
             28:cf:da:b1:06:77 -65  6       Y  GB WPA2(PSK/AES/AES)

If you’ll be using these commands a lot, you might want to add /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources to your $PATH, like this:

# Place this in your `~/.bash_profile`
export PATH="/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources:$PATH"

That way, you can simply use the airport command without typing the full path to the binary every time:

airport -I
airport -s

Source


Using iPad2 Charger to Charge iPhone5S I just bought iPhone5S. While I need converter to use iPhone5S charger, instead I am using an iPad2 charger.

Is it OK if I do that? What's the different (in terms of voltage, ampere, and so on) of iPad2 and iPhone5S charger?

As you can see from Apple's product page for the 12W USB Power Adapter, it's compatible with iPhone 5S. The output voltage is the same in both, except the 12W adapter gives a higher amperage (2.4A instead of 1A), but your phone can regulate it's intake.

I use my iPad Air's charger occasionally with my iPhone 5S with no problems.


How do I add Chrome to my path I am trying to use Flammarion and its instructions state that I should ensure that chrome is on my path.  The Chrome app appears to be at /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app. How do I actually add this to my path.

You need to edit your .bash_profile which is located in your home directory.

I don't reccommend using TextEdit to modify this file, use vi or nano in Terminal instead

Open Terminal in home directory

You should be at your home directory but to be sure, just type:

$ cd ~

Edit .bash_profile

$ nano .bash_profile

Your's may not even exist so you may just start off with a blank screen.  Not to worry, each is totally customizable.

If you don't have a PATH statement in there already, just add the following to a new line:

export PATH="/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS:$PATH"

(BTW, I am assuming your software wants the path to the actual Google Chrome binary).

If you alredy have a paths statement, append the path to Chrome to the existing statement and separate it with a colon:

Before:

export PATH=/path/to/some/stuff

After:

export PATH=/path/to/some/stuff:/path/to/more/stuff

Hit Ctrl X to exit.  You will be asked if you want to save; say yes.

 Restart Terminal & Test

Quit that shell and start it again so your changes can take effect.

To ensure that your path now reflects your changes, type the following command:

echo $PATH

Your new path should now show the Google Chrome directory.  To further test it, in the Terminal window at in your home directory type "Google Chrome" and Chrome should launch.


How to make ⌘N open a new window in Safari? ⌘N currently opens a new tab in Safari, but I would like for that key command to open a new window (like in Chrome). Is there anyway to do that?

In System Preferences > Dock if Prefer tabs when opening documents: is set to Always that will cause a tab to open instead of a new window.
Changing it to Manually will allow ⌘N to open in a new window.
 There is also an In Full Screen Only option.


Are non-unibody MacBook Pros capable of Lion's 3 and 4 finger multi-touch gestures? Are non-unibody MacBook Pros (Late 2006 ~ Early 2008) capable of Lion's 3 and 4 finger multi-touch gestures?

No - that era of hardware is a solid-state trackpad, not a multitouch trackpad and can only track one motion. Although it can guess fairly well if it's one finger or two that is moving in two dimensions (left-right and up-down), but that's all the hardware can tell.

Put another way, yours tracks the center of all touch points combined, not several touches individually at the same time with their own motion.


How to write fstab rules for an NTFS volume if the volume has no LABEL or UUID? Basically, I was following this tutorial to enable writing to an NTFS Volume (which works when the Volume has a LABEL or UUID).

I have an external USB drive with an NTFS volume that doesn't seem to have a label or a "Volume UUID", therefore I can't use LABEL=foo or UUID=xxx in /etc/fstab. How can I target this volume in fstab so that I can do something like

LABEL=box none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse

or

UUID=56A9A02B-0590-458E-9493-1DECC2A8F109 none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse

The following is what diskutil info /Volumes/box shows. As you can see there's no VOlume Label or UUID:

 ❯ diskutil info /Volumes/box
   Device Identifier:        disk3s1
   Device Node:              /dev/disk3s1
   Part of Whole:            disk3
   Device / Media Name:      Untitled 1

   Volume Name:              box

   Mounted:                  Yes
   Mount Point:              /Volumes/box

   File System Personality:  NTFS
   Type (Bundle):            ntfs
   Name (User Visible):      Windows NT File System (NTFS)

   Partition Type:           Microsoft Basic Data
   OS Can Be Installed:      No
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 USB
   SMART Status:             Not Supported
   Disk / Partition UUID:    56A9A02B-0590-458E-9493-1DECC2A8F109

   Total Size:               1.0 TB (1000168488960 Bytes) (exactly 1953454080 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Free Space:        725.5 GB (725534765056 Bytes) (exactly 1417060088 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes
   Allocation Block Size:    4096 Bytes

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         Yes
   Ejectable:                Yes

   Whole:                    No
   Internal:                 No

NOTE: In the fstab example above, the UUID I tried is that of /dev/disk3s1, which seems to have no effect. I've been able to apply fstab rules on other NTFS volumes when diskutil showed volume labels and uuids, which are missing in this case.

How can I write fstab rules for this volume?

On my "MY Passport" Western Digital I needed to use \040 at the space
LABEL=My\040Passport none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse


How can I open a single app by an unidentified developer without allowing all I know to secure safety it is now not allowed anymore to open apps that were not downloaded from the mac app store.

But surely there is a workaround for this to open an app that you know is 'good' but just isn't in the app store.
Preferably allowing only that app and not allowing all downloaded apps to be opened.

How do I open an app that is not downloaded from the app store in mountain lion?

You can ignore the gatekeeper restrictions on a per-app basis by right/control-clicking and selecting "Open". And because the check is done only on the first open, you can run it normally afterwards.

More details in:

John Siracusa's review of Mountain Lion
Apple article HT5290, Mountain Lion: About Gatekeeper.


In MacBook Terminal login history, does console mean that someone physically logged into my MacBook? In terminal, I used the last command and got the following:
Paul  console                   Tue May 11 15:46 - 15:49  (00:03)
paul  console                   Tue May 11 09:17 - 09:18  (00:01)

I wasn’t at my computer at that time. Someone else was using my computer with a different username. Does this mean that someone physically logged into my computer under the username paul when I wasn’t there?

These login sessions can also appear during a short wakeup from sleep from certain programs that initiate a new session. Or was your computer supposed to be completely off?


What can I do when iTunes multiplies albums? For as long as I can remember, iTunes has had bugs that will split the songs of an album into multiple albums with the same name when one edits the album name. This happens infrequently and seemingly randomly, and could usually be mitigated by selecting the offending tracks, renaming the album and then renaming it back to the correct title. But now I have this:

And the trick does not work. Changing the album title actually renames it but does nothing to join the fragments. Oddly, renaming the artist does rename the artist, but the change does not show in the artist bar on the left. Does anyone have the same experience and suggestions as to what to do?

I could remove and re-add the songs, but I'd rather not have to re-add them to every playlist and lose play count and stuff
Is it possible to edit the itunes database directly somehow?

iTunes version 12

I often have this issue, and I can fix it by selecting all of the offending tracks (e.g. the entire album) using Option + click, right clicking and changing the "Album Artist" to something random (I usually use "asdf") and then doing to same thing to change it to the correct Album Artist. Doing this forces iTunes to re-index the album and put the parts together.

If this does not fix it, then look for any other data that should match between all the tracks but doesn't. iTunes is splitting the album because of one of the tags, and by setting the offending tag to the same on all of the songs it forces iTunes to put it together.


Remove entire time machine backup on external drive I recently acquired a macbook pro with Leopard installed. All other software had been removed before I purchased it. I wanted to install Snow Leopard. The advice I received was to be safe I should backup up the current system before installing. I did so and then installed snow leopard.

I am now going to migrate files from an older powermac G5 and any software that might be usable on Mavericks. The Time Machine back up is no longer needed. I would like to get rid of the entire backup on the external drive and start over.

Would simply reformatting the external drive partition solve the problem or is something else necessary.


Cut and delete a row in Apple Numbers in a single step In Apple Numbers, I think that I cut the content and deleted a row at the simultaneously in a single step. I did that by accident, but then I could not reproduce it. I have been searching but I cannot find any command.

I know I can:
- command ⌘+X (cut the content of a row)
- Table > Delete Row (or go to the arrow on the left and Delete Row)

Can I do those two things in one step using the keyboard?
This is something that I have to do many, many times and it would be very useful. Is it possible?

I have tried to duplicate your Cut/Delete Row with a single key combination but without creating an AppleScript I don't see a way.
However, as Delete Row is in the menu, one could make a custom keyboard shortcut to Delete the selected row after cutting the contents to the clipboard.

To create a shortcut specifically to delete a row in Numbers:

Open System Preferences either from LaunchPad, the Dock or using Spotlight to find it.
Select the Keyboard preferences
Select the Shortcuts tab
In the Left Pane select App Shortcuts
Beneath the Right Pane click the Plus icon to add a shortcut [+]
From the Application dropdown, select Numbers
In the Menu Tile Type the menu command exactly as it appears in Numbers: Delete Row
For the Keyboard Shortcut type the shortcut you wish to use taking care not to conflict with other shortcuts used in Numbers.  For example option ⌥+command ⌘+X

Once this has been added, select your row, type ⌘+X to Cut the contents to the clipboard, then option ⌥+command ⌘+X to delete the row.  It requires the addition of one extra key stroke but will become second nature with muscle memory.
The demo below shows this method.  The contents are then pasted back showing they were cut to the clipboard before deleting the row.


iPhone keyboard text replacements lost I recently upgraded an iPhone from iOS 9.3 to iOS 11.1.
Then I had to upgrade all the installed applications (about 60).
A few weeks later, when I needed to write m² I typed my old defined shortcut which is: m ^2. It failed i.e. I got exactly what I typed: m ^2.
I opened Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement and discovered it is completly empty. From memory I had defined about 50 of these practical shortcuts.
Other technical details in relation with long discussions on this topic:

this iPhone isn't jail broken,
this iPhone isn't saving anything on iCloud,
I only sync from my Mac toward my iPhone (Contacts, Calendars, Music).

Update 27/08/2018
The same problem detected without any upgrade (I am still on iOS 11.1)
but after an activation of iCloud.

Did anyone experience the same problem?
Does anyone have a hint of where might be the origin of this bug?

I might just guess why you have this problem. iCloud Core Data was used before CloudKit and it was absolutely unreliable for syncing among your devices. Shortcuts you created on iPad did not appear to be on you iPhone. From iOS 11 I suppose they started using CloudKit that is very efficient with syncing all your data. So you could just create all your shortcuts once again knowing it should be the last time you do so


Modify "open with" list for file type (not for duplicate removal) Is there a way to modify the "open with" list for a file type? I don't mean simply to remove duplicates - that's been answered; I'm not asking how to set the default program - I know how to do that. I'm using OS X Mavericks.

Example: I have .jpg set to default to open with Xee, but sometimes want to open it with an image editor, so I right-click in finder. I noticed I then get a very long list including lots of apps that cannot open .jpg files at all. (Some are Fluid Apps which may trigger because they're browser based.)

I will suggest an alternative way than modifying the system's "open with" list.

I use LaunchBar as my main tool to interact with apps, files and more. I have configured LaunchBar so that when I select a document (or some text) and double tap the command key, LauchBar will allow me to specify the Application to open the file.

I believe that Alfred and Quicksilver have similar abilities.


Irrelevant outdated update stuck in App Store I upgraded to OS 10.11 which gave me a new version of iPhoto. However, an older version of iPhoto v9.6.1 is stuck in the App Store and I get periodic alerts that it is available for upgrade. When I try to accept the upgrade to hopefully clear it out, I'm told "Update unavailable with this Apple ID".

How do I get rid of this outdated "update"?

The app store searches all available drives to update software. You would want to use spotlight to find and delete all copies of that software or set up a privacy to tell spotlight not to index the location where you store an old copy of an app.

Open Spotlight preferences and add an exclusion for the folder containing the app.

Another remote possibility is if spotlight itself is confused / in error - you might need to exclude the entire drive to wipe the bad search results and then remove the exclusion and let spotlight re-build the entire search index for your drive(s).


Sudden spike in CPU temperatures My Macbook Pro 13" early 2011 has been running fairly cool for the last 4 months, about an average of 32-40C. However, within the last few days, the average temp has gone to an average of 45 - 52C, with the highs being in the 90s! I have tried using SMC fan control, but even at max my temps don't go below 45. I don't run intensive applications. I have been watching my CPU load for weeks as a hobby, and I know that I'm not running anything to put this kind of load. What's going on?

Due to the thermal mass it is not possible to have temperature spikes.

If that is the case please verify the software you are using to get the temperature readings.

Also please consider that the conversion Algorithm from temperature diodes readout requires calibration, that in your case was probably not done.


How to install GIMP resynthesizer on Mac OS? I'm running El Capitain and have GIMP installed but can't figured out how to install the resynthesizer. I copied the files from the linux version of the plugin into the plugin folder of GIMP but GIMP does not seem to detect it.

There are currently two relatively easy ways to get to this plugin. "Easy" as in "still a pain", just like the other, third and fourth option.

The batteries included approach, as recommended b resynthesizer: download a build from GIMP on OS X. Sadly development seems to have stopped about a year ago. Currently the latest version is 2.8.12 built for Sierra. (Original website no longer active as of May 2019. On Sourceforge the version recommended by Resynthesizer Gimp on OSX Gimp-2.8.18p1-Sierra.dmg 2017-01-08)
The 'some plugins already included approach: download a binary from Partha, Photography and Related Musings. Does not include the resynthesizer plugin itself but has recent builds against which building the plugin itself is a bit easier. Latest builds available. Currently at McGimp 2.10.8 Standard Edition (2019).
Use the help of MacPorts to build everything GIMP from scratch/source including all build-dependencies and then  go to GIMP Resynthesizer Plugin Suite and build that as well from source.
Install the official or any other binary for GIMP as usual on macOS, then install a virtual machine and a Linux in that, with GIMP and the resynthesizer plugin ready-made to play well from a package repository. Use that for the Enhance filters (if you work exclusively in the Virtual Machine you might of yourse skip the macOS part of installing GIMP)

That said, its probably easiest (and a huge hassle) to just install two versions of GIMP, like in the 4th option. A recent one without the plugin but all the latest core features, and either an older GIMP with plugin, or the GIMP on VM route.


Photoshop shortcuts only work sporadically Using CMD+J on a layer to duplicate it works... sometimes. But not always.

Using CMD+Ctrl+D (my own binding) to delete a layer works... sometimes. But not always.

I'm unable to grasp why it only works sometimes. I noticed switching tools sometimes makes it work but that doesn't always help.

Anyone experience anything similar?

I'm using Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Photoshop CS5 12.0.2 (English), a few custom shortcut binding but not many.

One of my peeves about InDesign is that the document navigation shortcut keys (e.g. alt+spacebar) are tool/context dependent instead of globally available. Perhaps you are experiencing the same issue here. Also, some Photoshop activity requires you to commit or cancel the change (such as using the transform gadgets). While in this state, certain actions are not possible.


What characters/length are supported in Mail.app IMAP passwords? I use a password manager and created the password LX7mQW9Tw^V0$Ef2Ag#v*
    (* don't worry, that's not my password any more, keep reading)

My DNS / email provider accepted it and I could use it successfully to log in on their webmail app.
I followed their document on configuring (basic TLS-wrapped IMAP & SMTP) in Mail.app and kept running into trouble.   Eventually, while verifying my password I got the bright idea to change it to something shorter and with less-special special characters.   Finally, as the climax to about an hour of troubleshooting, it worked!
Now I want to add a note for account setup to help my people avoid this limitation in, apparently, Mail.app (or not, but that's all the evidence I have so far).
So back to the question in the topic:  Are there known limitations as to what characters or length Mail.app will support for IMAP accounts?
Thank you!

I have longer IMAP and SMTP email passwords than that, using all of those special characters (except maybe $) and have no problems using Mac OS X Mail.app
While it's possible that one of those characters caused the issue, I think that's more likely on the IMAP server side.
As far as I am aware there's nothing in OS X Mail.app which should have prevented that password from working. I know it handles passwords that are 50 characters long and contain a variety of special characters just fine.
If you're concerned, try changing the password again, and if you run into problems try adding length to the password and using letters instead of special characters. Length generally beats complexity for password entropy anyway.


Alternative to Personal Blocklist for Safari I’d want to filter a bunch of spammy sites from the search results on Google, just like the Personal Blocklist extension does on Chrome, is there an alternative to Google’s Personal Blocklist extension for Safari?

I’ve found this but seems outdated.

Kind of late, but I hope it will help some people. I use this script with Tampermonkey, it works great on 10.11.3 / Safari 9.0.3.


How do I conect a Thunderbolt Display and a HDMI display at the same time? I would like to connect a Thunderbolt Display and a Dell 24" display to my MackBook Pro (mid 2011 model) at the same time to use dual screens. Is this possible?

You can do this because your Thunderbolt Display has thunderbolt ports.
Connect your Thunderbold screen to your MacBook Pro and then connect your Dell 24" to the thunderbolt on your Thunderbold display. You will need a thunderbolt to DVI or VGA adaptor.


Internet stops working frequently on OS X Lion After upgrading to Lion, I started experiencing this issue:

Internet stops working frequently.
- I open Safari and browse for some time
- Suddenly I can't open any sites; Internet will stop working.
- So I check WiFi; it is online and showing correctly in my MacBook Pro.
- I check with my roommate and his Internet is working properly.
- I switch to Google Chrome and it still doesn't work.

The solution is to turn WiFi off and back on, then restart my browser.

Does anyone else have this problem? Is this a bug?

This is currently a known issue that lots of Lion users are reporting. The average seems to be 2 wifi dropouts per hour.

The current work around is (as you discovered) to toggle AirPort on/off.

This particular issue seems to be getting alot of attention so I'd expect a fix soon.

Apple support forum topic about this issue


iPhone X - Does wireless charging speed differ depending on the exact location of the iPhone on the charging mat? Does the wireless charging speed differ depending on the exact place we put the iPhone on the charging mat?

I mean, if I don't put the iPhone correctly on the charger, it won't start the charge. But as long as the charge is ok and starts, will the speed only depends on the power of the charger, or may it depend on the exact position of the iPhone? Charging faster if the phone is exactly on the good location and slower if it is a bit away from the center location of the wireless charger.

The Qi standard (that the iPhone uses for wireless charging) allows for multiple types of chargers regarding phone placement.

Some chargers require you to place the phone at a very specific place in order to charge. They will generally not be able to charge at all if you place the phone incorrectly.

Most chargers allows so-called free placement, where you can place the phone any place on the charger (within reason) and get full speed charging. This is done by actually having more coils than really necessary within the charging surface. Those directly underneath the phone are then used and activated, whereas the other are not. This allows the charger to work across the full surface independently of phone placement.

The standard also allows for chargers where the coils actually move to place them underneath the phone. I haven't seen such charger available for ordinary home users though.


Macbook 7.1 (mid-2010): upgrade from 10.8 to 10.12 I've tried several times to update my Macbook 7.1 (Macbook white mid-2010, 4GB ram)  from 10.8.5 to Sierra but the progress bar remains blocked after the first boot.

When booting into Verbose mode, here is what I obtain:

After a while, I have other messages like:

SmartBattery: finished polling type 1
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 2
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4
SmartBattery: finished polling type 4

Which seems to be the same issue than:
Mac Sierra won't boot - SmartBattery: finished polling type 4

Two solutions were kindly given by Allan, I chose the "easiest" one:

In recovery mode, access to Terminal
In /Volumes/"Macintosh HD"/System/Library/Extensions directory, remove Huawei .kext files (using rm -rf command) or other non-essential kext files. It appears that, for some reason, many users had issues with Huawei kext files...
After reboot, the installation was completed seamlessly, Sierra is finally installed.


Why does OS X use virtual memory when I still have free RAM? I have this awesome MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM. When I open up Activity Monitor it would seem that I have plenty of RAM available, but my computer seems to prefer to use virtual memory for many things. Why is this? Is there a way to change it? Would it be wise to?

Also,I seem to have 7 GB of pageins and no pageouts. Is that normal? That's a lot of data.

You seem to misunderstand virtual memory. Virtual memory is simply a mechanism that the OS uses to make it look like each program has its own, extremely large (4GB on 32-bit, 16 EB on 64-bit) address space. It also provides a way for the OS to use paging, all while making it look like (to applications) only real RAM is being used. In short, it's only an abstraction, and the "Virtual Memory" stats in Activity Monitor are meaningless (for 99% of use cases). You should not be worried at all about whatever number appears there, because it has nothing to do with whether "real" RAM is being used or not.

About your paging stats : you gave no details on how you use your system, so it's hard to know whether something's wrong or not, but I wouldn't be alarmed by a value of 7 GB. Also note that the reported values are Page ins/outs since boot, so if you keep your laptop on all the time like me, it's no wonder that the number accumulates after a while.


How to find and kill an installer that autostarts at boot time Asking on behalf of a child who doesn't remember if/when some application was updated and required a restart to complete the installation.

OSX 10.8.5 , MacBook Pro.   Here's what happens:  when rebooting, a dialog window comes up with the "package" icon and asks "Continue with Install?"  and one must select either 'yes' or 'abort'.

If 'yes' is selected, then a process owned by the user runs forever, incidentally consuming up a lot of RAM.  Whether 'yes' or 'abort' is selected, the same dialog comes up on the next reboot.

In Activity Monitor, the process is just called "Installer."

Things we know were not initiated: any system upgrade.

My offspring vaguely remembers starting to update "some app" which was later deleted from the machine.  Assuming that's the case, this installer appears to be hung trying to get to files that don't exist.

So, in any case, is there some file I can delete that will stop the installer from starting up on reboot?  If there is something I can do to provide more info on what/where this Installer app is, let me know and I"ll post it up.

Besides the Login Items (Open the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences),
try this.

In Terminal, type

ls ~/Library/LaunchAgents

You will see your "personal" launch agents.

To see all the currently loaded agents, type this:

launchctl list

If you can identify the one you don't want, use the unload option:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/whateverItIsYouWantToUnload


Focus floating system windows with keyboard The windows I'm talking about are the system administrator password request popups, the wireless network web sign-in popup, and other system request dialogs, such as "Application was downloaded from the Internet" confirmations. Often when these popups appear for me there is no focus on the input/buttons. I need to remove my hands from the keyboard and mouse over to them.

These popups do not appear in the application switcher, and seem to be immune to these focus-grabbing keyboard shortcuts:

Command ⌘+`
Command ⌘+Tab
Control ⌃+F1 through Control ⌃+F12

I have seen one solution that involved turning on OS X's VoiceOver utility with ⌃+Option ⌥+F2,F2. I'd prefer not to have this turned on, since in my regular work hours I use ⌃+⌥+F-keys in my IDE.

I would post pictures, but my reputation isn't high enough yet.

UPDATE: I do, in fact, already have the option set in System Preferences to allow keyboard  navigation in all control windows.

If you enable full keyboard access in System Preferences, you can press tab to select the buttons.

I don't know how to focus the windows though. They can't be selected with ⌃F4 or ^F6. I was going to suggest Witch, but it doesn't show them either.

This is a bit of a hack, but you could assign a shortcut to a script like this:

tell application "System Events"
    repeat with p in {"SecurityAgent", "CoreServicesUIAgent", "loginwindow"}
        if exists process p then
            tell process p
                if windows is not {} then
                    set frontmost to true
                    exit repeat
                end if
            end tell
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

Password dialogs are shown by SecurityAgent, Gatekeeper and quarantine dialogs by CoreServicesUIAgent, and the force quit window by loginwindow.