How to enable Antialiasing in Finder's preview column and QuickLook? The title pretty much says it all, plain text files are a bit annoying to read on QuickLook (and to preview on finder's preview column) due to a lack of antialiasing.

On the General preference panel I've checked that my text smoothing is set to ~“Turn off for sizes 4 and smaller”.

I've also checked with TextEdit that the font size in QuickLook is quite on the bigger-than-4 side, and that I can see the text antialiased in TextEdit.

Doing some googling I only found people with the same need but 0 solutions.

For the record: this is a brand new mac with OS X Lion 10.7.2 as fully updated as I can, that arrived home last week and I haven't (yet) installed any plugin at all for QuickLook.

My solution is to just use a different QuickLook generator. My generator of choice is qlcolorcode. Antialiasing works perfectly well with it and it'll even highlight source code files—which is its main purpose.

There is one bug, however, that if you are dealing with any directories or files containing a ' (single quote), there will be no QuickLook available for it due to the way the generator sends the path to the highlighter program.

Another downside is that the filename will not show in the QuickLook window. Instead, it will just say "Source file". It also will not work on textClipping files.


Offline installation of El Capitan from a Windows machine? My macbook pro OS X is broken behind repair and I need to re-install the OS X. Unfortunately it seems the online installation is not working, because it stops downloading about half way through and never completes.

In any case, I only have access to Windows machines. Is there any way to create a USB bootable drive to install El Capitan on my macbook pro 13' (late 2014)?

Any other way to do an offline installation?

If there is an Apple Store near you, you can go in and they will allow you to download the installer.

You may also be able to find someone who can create the installer for you.


Where does the Mac store account pictures? I took a picture to add to my account on Mac.

Now I want to use it on messenger, but I can't find it. On the account config, it's too small. I need to find the original.

Where are the accout pictures stored on a Mac?

Mac OS X 10.5+ stores user's account pictures within the Directory Service with the exception of an account that has not modified their user picture from when first created. When first created an account contains a 'Picture' attribute in their user record that is a path to the image in question. This can be read using the dscl command (dscl . -read /Users/${USER} Picture).

If a user has modified their user picture at any time the account picture (aka cropped version if appropriate), it is stored in the 'JPEGPhoto' attribute of their user record.

Original files can be found at /Library/User Pictures if you're looking for an Apple provided picture, while your personal original files should be found at ~/Library/Images/iChat Recent Pictures/. If the files are ever removed from the iChat Recent Pictures folder, it will not affect your user account's image whatsoever.

If you wish to extract a version of your account picture you can do so by running the following command

dscl . -read /Users/${USER} JPEGPhoto | tail -1 | xxd -r -p > ${HOME}/Desktop/accountImage.jpg

The resolution can vary, depending on the original size of the photo and what version of the operating system you're using when it is saved.

If you are running Mac OS X 10.4, my memory is failing me as I don't recall if the user picture was stored in NetInfo or not.


encrypted time machine backups to a single external hdd from more than one mbp I am planning to get a external HDD for time machine backups for 2 macbook pros.

Can both of them backup to the same HDD
Can the disk be time machine encrypted and still be accessible to both?

Yes you can do that. Just divide the disk into two partitions and you are done.


Resized/Rotated PNG image using ImageMagic is blury. How to sharpen? When I try to resize (shrink, in this case) and/or rotate a PNG file, it becomes very blurry.  Besides (obviously) not wanting a blurry image, it's actually critical because these are shipping labels with bar codes and the image is so bad, bar code readers actually have trouble with them.
The command that I am using is
% convert input_file.png -resize 288 -rotate -90 output_file.png

-resize 288 → resize to a width of 288 pixels (4 inches) keeping the aspect ratio.  288 is the number of pixels for a 72DPI (printing) resolution
-rotate -90 → rotates the whole image anti-clockwise 90°

The file that you get from eBay, USPS Click-n-Ship, or PayPal is a 4x6 inch label either in PNG or PDF.  I choose PNG since I need to rotate it as I'm using my laser printer with letter sized labels (Avery 8127).  I have to resize it because the PNG they provide is huge! Looking at the size in Preview, it's 17x25 inches.
I have researched this extensively, but the solutions I've found only marginally improve the sharpness of image.  The end result is that depending on the bar code reader it may or may not read it.  For example, I have two readers - a simple 2D Symbol bar code reader that more often than not will fail.  However, my more expensive Focus 3D reader will read it more often, but still sometimes fail.

Imagemagick converted image is blurry

ImageMagick v6 Examples -- Blurring and Sharpening Images

Blurry resized PNG. How do I keep the quality the image?

ImageMagick v6 Examples -- Resize or Scaling (General Techniques)
From this page

However, many filters (even the default filters) can blur images slightly. It is part of their nature. So normally this 'short-circuit' for a no-op resize a good thing.

None of these worked.
I was under the impression that if I make an image smaller, I wouldn't lose quality however, this doesn't seem to be the case. So, my question is, how can I resize this image so that I can retain the quality?

The trick here is to increase the density(resolution) of the original image before doing any other processing like resizing or rotating.
% convert -density 300 inputfile.png inputfile.png

Normally, it would be necessary to specify the units (-units PixelsPerInch or -units PixelsPerCentimeter) along with density, but since PNG files only use the pixels /cm unit, it's not necessary here.
The reason we have to do this is because to resize an image, it must pass through one (or more) of several filters (algorithms).  With a low resolution (like 72 dpi for printing) there simply isn't enough data for the algorithms to use for their calculations.  ImageMagick has a lenghthy section on resizing and the different filters you can use and how they work:  https://legacy.imagemagick.org/Usage/resize/#other.  Unfortunately, none worked well enough until I realized that the data in the image was just too "thin."
By doing nothing other than increasing the density we're essentially giving the same element (a single bar code line for example) more data points to work with when we do manipulate the image later on.  The more it has, the more accurate it can be though the trade off is speed.  It will take longer to process.
By doing this first and then manipulating the image, I was able to achieve a crisp and clear image at the size I needed for printing on my laser printer.  The other option I had was to purchase a dedicated label printer (like the Zebra or Brother printers) so I could use the high quality PDF they supplied.
Below is a more step-by-step process of how to manipulate the image to get the desired result

If we look at the resolution of the original image file (identify -ping -verbose image.png | head) we see that it's set for a resolution of 28.35x28.35 ppcm and a print size of 42.328cm x 63.4921cm (16.66" x 25").
  Filename: sample_label_orig.png
  Format: PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
  Mime type: image/png
  Class: PseudoClass
  Geometry: 1200x1800+0+0
  Resolution: 28.35x28.35
  Print size: 42.328x63.4921
  Units: PixelsPerCentimeter
  Colorspace: Gray

Since everything is metric, to convert to inches, multiply by 2.54.  28 ppcm translates to 72 ppi (or 72 DPI).  This is supposedly the correct DPI for printing.
 You can use the same filename for both input and output so it makes the changes "in place." I'm using a separate file for this example.
% convert -density 300 sample_label_orig.png sample_label.png

When the density/resolution is increased to 300 ppcm, everything falls into place. However, don't be fooled by the new print size though; it's 4cm x 6cm not 4" x 6"!
  Filename: sample_label.png
  Format: PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
  Mime type: image/png
  Class: PseudoClass
  Geometry: 1200x1800+0+0
  Resolution: 300x300
  Print size: 4x6
  Units: PixelsPerCentimeter
  Colorspace: Gray

Now, instead of resizing the label, we simply specify the new label geometry.  Note that geometry not the print size of the label.  It's the dimensions of the label multiplied by the density.  So, a 4x6 inch label would be 10.16x15.24 cm meaning the final geometry would be 300*(10.15x15.24) = 3048x4572.
% convert sample_label.png -geometry 3048x4572 label_out.png

Now, when we look at the details of the label (identify -ping -verbose label_out.png | head), everything is as it should be.  It's a 4x6 inch label (converted from cm) with a 300 ppcm resolution
  Filename: label_out.png
  Format: PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
  Mime type: image/png
  Class: PseudoClass
  Geometry: 3048x4572+0+0
  Resolution: 300x300
  Print size: 10.16x15.24
  Units: PixelsPerCentimeter
  Colorspace: Gray

We can even rotate the label at the same time we change the geometry to make the process more efficient.
% convert sample_label.png -geometry 3048x4572 -rotate -90 label_out.png

This will create a crisp and clear label in the correct orientation to be printed on the laser printer.


Change the default zoom level for new documents in Excel 2016 for Mac How do I change the default zoom level for new documents in Excel 2016 for Mac? I looked online but found a lot of conflicting information. Also, most tutorials online seem to be for the 2011 version rather than the 2016 version.

The default zoom is 100% but I'd like to change it to 150%.

There is a lot of confusion around how to do this, not just because it's changed from Excel 2011 to Excel 2016, but also because the process has even changed during Excel 2016's lifecycle.

I've also seen a number of different ways people have used to achieve a totally customised default workbook.

In the interests of providing alternatives, I thought I'd share my preferred method as well:

On your Mac create a new folder called "xlstart". You can create this folder anywhere, but I prefer doing it within the Documents folder.
Launch Excel
Go to Preferences > General > At startup
For open all files in set the xlstart folder you created at Step 1 as the path
Exit preferences
Open a new workbook and customise your Zoom setting to 150%.
While you're at it, you can also customise a whole heap of other attributes if you like
Save the workbook as an Excel template, making sure you use the name "workbook", and make sure it's saved in the xlstart folder you created at Step 1. (Note: when saving the file, if Excel has placed the .xltx extension at the end of the file name, then manually remove the .xltx extension before saving)
Quit Excel
Launch Excel

You should now find the default workbook has all the customisations you made at Steps 6 & 7.


How can I optimize use of Civilization III in VirtualBox? I am using VirtualBox to play Civilization III (from Steam) in Windows 7 on my 13" Retina Macbook Pro. The only problem is it's horrendously slow. It seems like this only impacts screens with animation (which is basically everything). Because other programs work fine, I believe a change of VirtualBox settings might provide a fix. What configurations/fixes should I try?

This is unfamiliar territory for me - thanks for any tips you can offer.

Tuning performance on one system stacked that deeply with layers of software is tricky - you will need to observe and measure:

The game performing against Windows 7 so that you could see if Windows needs settings changes to run the game more effectively.
The Windows OS running against the VirtualBox environment and seeing if VB settings can make windows run better.
The Virtual Box runs on OS X and you'll need to see what OS settings might influence how well that runs.

Since we're an Apple centric site, I'll get you started on item 3 on how to measure things on the OS level open activity monitor when you are running things and get a sense whether memory, disk or CPU is being stressed. Hopefully it's just one of the three items and you can then see if tuning and optimizing for that one area helps your gameplay more satisfying.


Finder Advanced Search - Only within directory I have an advanced Finder search criteria to show everything modified within the last X days. I'm not seeing an option that would let me restrict this search to only files within a specific directory (and sub-directories).
The Finder preference that controls where to search does not apply to advanced searches.

It seems once you've saved a search, you can't change what folder(s) it scopes. I recreated the search from the directory I wanted to include, and that worked.


How to customize .inputrc to make Command-Delete and Option-Delete delete lines and words in iTerm 2? I'd like to add a little bit of consistency between editing text in the terminal and editing text in normal OS X programs. I use iTerm2, but I imagine any solution would involve using readline and .inputrc which probably would work in most terminals.

Specifically, I was thinking of adding:

Command-Delete: Delete to start of line before cursor
Option-Delete: Delete word before cursor
Option-Left/Right Arrow: Move cursor between words
Command-Left/Right Arrow: Move cursor to start/end of line

Questions

How could .inputrc be configured to support these keyboard shortcuts?
Would any of these shortcuts generate conflicts with existing terminal or command-line shortcuts?
Are there any other shortcuts that would be useful to create consistency with standard OS X text editing keys?

As a side note, I am aware that there are Vi and Emacs style shortcuts for performing these operations. In fact I use Vi-style shortcuts quite a lot on the command-line. However, sometimes when my mind hasn't shifted modes, it’s disruptive. Thus, it would be nice if the terminal could support both OS X and Vim style shortcuts.

⌘← can be assigned to \eOH and ⌘→ to \eOF. You could assign ⌥← to \eb like in Terminal, but it doesn't work in vi mode or nano.

In emacs mode you could also add this to .inputrc:

"\e[1;9D": backward-word
"\e[1;9C": forward-word
"\e[3~": kill-word

C-v shows the escape sequence for the next key combination. ^[ is ESC in caret notation. bind -p prints currently bound commands.


How I put OSX on a disk with badblocks, while avoiding them? My MacMini hdd, some months ago, stopped booting.

Upon inspection, seemly a tiny amount of sectors got corrupted, but in system-related areas, and OSX went bonkers and destroyed half of my data while trying to fix itself, and made the disk entirely unusable.

While the HDD has only 13 sectors "pending", and 0 permanent bad blocks, and 0 reallocated, I couldn't figure how to use it.

I ended grabbing another HDD I had, that has 300+ actually broken blocks, and used that one as my new boot HDD...

And it worked! Except it is obviously in a much worse shape than the original, I've been using it for months, but I am started to get worried it might die suddenly (although so far I don't got even a corrupted data issue!)

I learned that on Linux you can use a command caled "badblocks" to find all... badblocks. And then use mkfs to create the file systems avoiding such bad blocks.

But "badblocks" is slow, and destructive, so before attempting using a Linux tool on OSX HDD, I wanted to know if there is a OSX tool for that: write data on the entire HDD (triggering SMART to reallocate, or decide that some sector was okay after all, for the entire HDD), and then put it back to be used as my main OSX disk (And use the worringly bad one as backup).

And please, don't tell me to buy an HDD, I just can't afford one, if I could, I would not be "wasting" time doing HDD gymnastics like this.

don't tell me to buy an HDD

Buy a new HDD.

Here's why.

First, a bit of history.

ALL disk drives have bad sectors. Way back in the 1980s drives were simple mechanical devices that came with a bad sector list. Today, the bad sectors are mapped in the drive's firmware. The drive has slightly more storage than advertized and the controller just replaces a bad sector with a spare one. As more sectors read as bad they are also replaced. End result is a drive that appears perfect to the end user.

Your drive has exposed bad sectors, which means the controller has run out of spare sectors to use. This is a serious problem that will not get better. If the cause of the bad sectors was a head crash, the now-damaged head will be slowly scratching up the rest of the drive.

So, your choices are:

get a new drive now, enjoy years of trouble-free service.
don't get a new drive now, have several months of bad performance, data loss, and general unreliability. Get new drive when the current one fails completely.

Laptop-size drives that fit a Mac Mini are available on Amazon for $75 (1Tb Western Digital Black 7200rpm) down to $20 (120Gb chinese whitelabel). Or an SSD for about twice as much per gigabyte.

Depending on your Mini's series replacement difficulty ranges from "tedious" to "challenging". The original ones require 2 big putty knives in addition to the normal screwdrivers, the newer (short, wide, all-aluminium) need a special tool.


Can't re-order songs in iTunes 12 I'm almost embarrassed to post this: I can't re-order the songs in any playlists on my Mac. It's iTunes 12.1.0.50 on OSX Yosemite 10.10.2.

The playlists are all sorted in manual order. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with them. They all play; each playlist, each song. It is a mixture of playlists I've created on this computer and ones I've synced from another. They are not shuffled. iTunes Match is enabled and not currently syncing. I've quit and restarted iTunes.

Just in case I've missed something, here's a screenshot:

Help me Ask Different, you're my only hope.

posted as answer to add pic…

This tells me it's shuffled right now; click it to turn off again.

Re-ordering should be as simple as dragging to a new position, but whilst it's shuffled it will appear to ignore you, as it's unlikely to recalculate the shuffle at that point.


Mail application which allow to choose smtp server I am using Gmail and I have two SMTP settings on Accounts tab (Gmail - Settings - Accounts - Send mail as).  So I get mail on my gmail account, but can choose which SMTP server use to send mail - smtp.gmail.com or my own smtp server.

I am just wondering if there is a mail application which allow me to choose smtp server for each mail I send ?

I had a somewhat similar question about iOS a few months ago and got an excellent recommendation for postfix -- for osx. Unfortunately that answer did not apply to iOS but it may be a useful answer for your purpose!

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/102708/52358

You want to take a look at the answer by buscar


Iphone 5c Activation Lock Will the person that pays my Iphone contract need to be with me when i have my Activation Lock removed from my phone? I'm confused as they asked for a proof of purchase letter and ID and when my mum went they said that they needed the 'Original Owner'to be there and i don't know if they meant me or the contract payer - (My Grandad)
I have also tried taking it to other shops but nobody knows what to do
 If anyone could help that would be great, Thanks :)

Original owner refers to the first person that payed for the phone, and in this case —although not very clear from your explanation— the person whose Apple ID is tied to the Activation Lock. If on contract, and not unlocked, usually the contract subscriber.


On iPhone X can you see the most recent running apps? On iPhone 7 it is possible to double tap the Home button to see them. On iPhone X is there an equivalent?

If you swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold for a moment, you will see the most recent applications. You can then swipe left and right to select.


Moving server Share Points to a new drive in Mac OS X Server 10.8 How do I move a Share Point under Mac OS X 10.8 so that it points to a folder on a different volume?

I have currently have 8 Share Points located on an old external RAID. I am upgrading to a new RAID. I have copied my files over to the new RAID. Now I need to tell Mac OS X Server that the Share Points should use folders found on the new RAID. I don't see any way of re-targeting the Share Points.

I seem to remember that older versions of OS X Server, allowed you to so re-target the Share Point to a different folder. Clients would be disconnected and have to reconnect to the server, but would not notice any change.

Its still possible, see OS X Server: Changing the service data storage location
:

In OS X Server (Mountain Lion) and Lion Server v10.7.2 or later, you can store service data in a location other than your startup volume.
To change the service data storage volume:

Open Server app, and connect to the desired server.
Select the name of the server in the column on the left under the heading Server (on OS X Mountain Lion) or Hardware (on OS X Lion).
Click the Settings tab.
Click the Edit… button on the "Service Data" line.
Select a volume.


How do I install ios10 without a developer account? Apple announced iOS 10 during WWDC 2016. It looks amazing so I wanna install iOS 10 on my iPhone 6s. But I don't have a developer account of Apple.

Without any research on the matter I would say: you can't.

That's exactly what developer account are for: so a new software / a new system can be released to a small group of expert users. While the software / system may already look ok in a presentation, it probably still is way too buggy for the average user. So  either be patient, or become a developer.

Also, Apple has released the last few major OS upgrades (for both Macs and iPhones/iPads) as Public Beta some months before the official release. This will allow you do get your hands on these new versions some time between now and whenever-the-release-date-will-be.


Shortcut for Boot Camp When you are in macOS and you want to restart in Windows, you have to launch Startup Disk Utility, unlock the edits with the system password and then select the Boot Camp partition.

Is there a way to add a quick shortcut to macOS Menu bar?

I see in the past there was BootChamp, but it has been discontinued.

This can be done by installing the rEFInd boot manager. This is a free product. In order to bypass the increased security of the newer macOS operating systems, you have to implement a rather complex installation procedure. The steps are outlined below. These steps are just a outline and are not indented to be a detailed installation procedure.

Download rEFInd.
Use the Disk Utility, diskutil command or other method to create a new small (~200 MB) "MS-DOS (FAT)" formatted partition.
Install rEFInd in to this partition.
Configure rEFInd to it will appear in the Mac Startup Manager.
Configure rEFInd to be silent when it boots.
Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Mac Startup Manager icons appear. Select rEFInd as the default operating system to boot to.
Install the Startup application which can select which operating system rEFInd should silently select for the firmware to boot.

I have found most users will read the above steps and decide to pass on using this method to boot the installed operating systems.

On my Mac, the Startup application appears on the dock as shown below.

When open, the Startup application appears as shown below.

The current version of the Startup application still requires you to manually restart to boot to the selected operating system.

The Startup application is written in Apple Script so you can view the source and easily make any desired modifications.

I suppose the Script Editor preferences could be set to allow opening the Startup application from the menu bar, as shown below.

Or, the Automator application could be used to create a service to open the Startup application. In this case, the Startup application would appear under Services in the menu bar, as shown below.


How do I restore a Time Machine backup after repartitioning the original drive? My goal is to backup my data by Time Machine, perform a clean install of Yosemite, partition the disk and restore some of the data.

Right now my setup is only one partition. After a new setup I want to have two partitions.

Does Time Machine deal with that smoothly though the new partitions have new UUIDs then?

If you restore via time machine (using Migration Assistant or Setup), then it will start backing up to the TM drive like before you restored. Not sure what you mean by if there should be a partitioned disk, as all disks have to be partitioned before you can use it.


installing older version of wine on Mavericks from tar.bz2 file I remember that a program I desperately need to use stopped working after I updated wine. The last version I remember it worked perfectly on is the very version 1.5.8, which I have downloaded from here: http://www.winehq.org/announce/1.5.8 as a tar.bz2 file.

After all the struggles I have gone through trying to successfully install this specific release of wine (1.5.8) I have given up and decided to turn to this site for help.

I always installed and managed wine via MacPorts but this time it will not be possible since MacPorts doesn't allow me to install older versions of wine. I would like to ask you please if anyone could help me and tell me (explain) how to install this particular version of wine from that tar.bz2 file.

I'm using OS X 10.9, Mavericks. The program I'm trying to run is Lingea Lexicon 5 but it's not really important, I remember it worked perfectly on 1.5.8 but it doesn't on the current release 1.6.2, it crashes at start.

Please bear in mind that I'm not an experienced user of Terminal, I can do some basic things but my knowledge of commands is limited. Thank you again.

MacPorts

It is possible to install older editions of software using MacPorts. The following article explains how, How to install an older version of a port.

The example given by the article using this notation for the tcl package:

sudo port activate tcl @8.4.16_0

Try this for the wine package:

sudo port activate wine @1.5.8

HomeBrew

Alternatively, consider installing using the HomeBrew project. This article by David Baumgold walks through the steps required, Installing Wine on Mac OS X.

brew is also able to install a specific version of a package, see Homebrew install specific version of formula?

tar.bz2

If you want to manually install wine from the downloaded tar.bz2 source, follow the steps in Wine User Guide: 2.3. Installing Wine from source.

This approach will require installing the Xcode command line tools and dealing with dependencies. Because of this, I highly recommend using brew or another pre-built package approach.

osxwinebuilder

An open source project called osxwinebuilder attempts to ease the process of building wine from source. This project may be helpful as it claims:

  The goal of this project is to provide easy-to-use scripts for cleanly
  building and installing Wine and its prerequisite software into a
  self-contained directory hierarchy on Mac OS X.

Emulators

If you encounter problems compiling from source, consider using a PC emulator such as VMware Fusion, Parallels, or Virtual Box. All these can run Windows on your Mac and thus run Lingea Lexicon 5 for you. In addition, VMware Fusion and Parallels both offer commercial support should you encounter problems.


Why might more memory be wired in safe mode than in normal mode? Maybe more noticeable in Lion and Mountain Lion, than in Snow Leopard and earlier versions of the operating system:

in safe mode, an unexpectedly large amount of wired memory.

Question

Why might more memory be wired in safe mode?

Example

Screenshots of Mountain Lion in safe and normal modes on a MacBookPro5,2 with 8 GB memory:

with a safe boot, more than 5 GB is wired after login
with a normal boot, less than 2 GB.

Links

Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?

What is wired memory?

Mac virtual memory: how to make OS X create swap (page) files as freely with a normal boot as it does with a safe boot (swapfile1 etc)

XNU questions in Stack Overflow

SafeBoot disables various kernel extensions including the GPU. The extra memory is likely being used for the display where it would normally be allocated to share with integrated graphics or be handled by a discreet graphics card.


Is there perf profiler tool for Mac to trace all page faults? I'm looking to install perf which is a kernel profiling tool for Linux.

Basically I'm trying to trace all page faults, so I run equivalent of:

sudo perf record -e page-faults -ag

Is it possible to install/use above tool on Mac? If not, what's the equivalent tool to achieve similar results (tracing all page faults with stack traces).

No - there is no linux kernel to profile on OS X - so that tool is a fish out of water. OS X probably ships with everything you need though.

On macOS / OS X - there is a mach_kernel in use. It's exhaustively documented at: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/About/About.html

Additionally, you might be fine profiling the BSD based unix layer with the supplied command line tools. It really depends on which operations or aspect of system performance you wish to measure or debug.

To the specific topic of page faults, you can get cumulative statistics from top and vm_stat and then dig into specific processes using either dtrace or Instruments - which is a free tool part of Xcode on the app store and has a graphical interface for profiling the system calls per process or as a system.


Macbook Air 2017 won't charge I have the MacBook Air 2017 and until today it was working fine. Now, when I plug in the Mag Safe connector the light doesn't turn on nor does the computer detect that I've plugged the cable in.

I've tried resetting the SMC using different sockets and cleaning out the ports. I've also noticed that when plugged into certain outlets I can feel an electric "charge" on the cable and MacBook body.

Any ideas on what might be wrong?

If this happened just recently as you describe, you may have an electrical issue; especially if it's happening only on certain electrical outlets.

What this sounds like is that something on your DC-in board has been shorted to ground (the whole case is grounded). The fix would be to simply replace this board.

iFixit.com has a guide on how to replace it.  It's rated as difficult because you have to remove the battery, so if this is not your cup of tea, it's best that you take it in for service.

However, before doing so, I would get the electrical system in your home/office (where ever you're having the problem) checked out because if that's the problem, you'll be doing this fix all over again.  If that's not an option, plug into a high quality surge protector or UPS (APC and CyberPower are two brands I recommend)


iPhone app that allows simultaneous playing of music to multiple devices The idea is to use each iPhone as a speaker for one track of music.

Picture it: you are in the park, having a picnic and you would like your music to be played louder. Why not sync all the iPhones to play the same song at the same time?

Does such an app exist?

Yes. You can use Airfoil, to stream music from your Mac using Airfoil for Mac to any iOS device with the Airfoil Speakers Touch app (free). It is as simple as turning on a speaker system, one button and you have the streaming audio from your Mac on your iOS device. I would highly recommend this!


mvim (MacVim 7.4) opening new windows rather than tabs (Mac OS X 10.8.5) I am using the above and editing new files using mvim <filename>. The first time after I installed mvim in the /usr/local/bin directory it seemed to open files in new tabs by default, this behaviour has now stopped.

I would like to know the .vimrc setting to turn it back on or mvim switch that I should use to open files so that they are tabbed instead of opened as new windows.

The .vimrc I am using currently is:

set number
set ruler
"folding settings
set foldmethod=indent   "fold based on indent
set foldnestmax=20      "deepest fold is 10 levels
set nofoldenable        "dont fold by default
set foldlevel=31        "this is just what i use
set ignorecase

I don't think any of the above should change the behaviour of mvim and the way it opens new files.

I've already read:
MacVim -- switch to tab where file is opened if trying to open an already-opened file; and
Use MacVim as standard Terminal?; and I am also in the middle of reading :help mvim

I am sure I have read the answer somewhere, however I cannot remember where and now cannot find it.

use the --remote-tab command line switch, as in:

mvim --remote-tab foobar.txt

The answer was obtained by reading help:mvim it is located in section 14 of the help file titled macvim-hints.

Extracted here is the relevant section of the MacVim 7.4 help file:

  Scenario:

  ~ You want to open a file in a tab in an already opened
   window, but typing "mvim filename" in Terminal opens it up in a
   separate window.

  Solution:

  ~ Use the |--remote-tab| switch.  If you
   have several windows open you might have to specify which window you
   want the file to open in by using the |--servername| switch.  The
   title of a window usually ends in something like "VIM" or "VIM3" ---
   this is the server name of that window.  So to open a file named
   "foobar.txt" in a window whose title ends in "VIM3" you would type
   (the order of the arguments matters):

  mvim --servername VIM3 --remote-tab foobar.txt

  For more information, consult the |client-server| manual page.


AppleScript get value of a button I want to get the value of a button from an internal tool.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "App"
    set myNumberIs to get value of radio group 1 of group 1 of splitter ¬
       group 1 of window "my app" of application process "my app process"
end tell

return:

radio button " (1)" of radio group 1 of group 1 of splitter group 1 of ¬
   window "my app"

How can I save the 1 as a value?

I tried text trimming but that didn't work. Also tried to do something like this:

if myNumberIs contains " (1)" then set myNumberIsAsInteger to 1

but then I get an error:

System Events got an error: Can’t get result of radio button \...

I tested your code with "Notifications" and found that "get value" actually returns the "AXTitle" of button "Notifications" – NOT its "AXValue".

Therefore you must code:

if title of myNumberIs contains " (1)" then set myNumberIsAsInteger to 1

This works fine with me …


Anyone know of a single-pane Markdown editor for MacOS Just looking for an markdown editor that is one pane, and will let me toggle back-and-forth between "edit mode" and "display mode" with a keyboard shortcut.

I really how the cells in python's Jupyter notebooks can be toggled back and forth between markdown content, and want to duplicate that behavior.

Check out MacDown, it is free and although it has possibility to show edit both panes, you can close one pane using Shift + Cmd + H and then you can switch between edit and display mode using Shift + Cmd + E.

Hope it helps!


Increasing USB port Power Output I have a new (2013) 15" Macbook Pro.

The USB port provides 500mA which is not good enough for many devices I use (Hard Drive, 3G Dongle...)

Reading this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4049 it seems that these ports are capable of delivering more power, but it's limited to Apple products.

Is it possible to hack the mac, and change this default value (to something like 900mA?)

Apple USB 3.0 ports will output up to 1100mA if requested, USB 2.0 is limited to 500mA
You can check the current requirements for any attached device in Apple Menu > About this Mac > More Info (later macOS versions now labelled 'System Report…')... USB
I only have USB 2.0 ports on this machine, but see pic...


Connect MacBook to External Monitor Using USB to HDMI I have a MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018)  and an HP EliteDisplay E243 23.8-inch monitor with a HDMI port.
I have a USB to HDMI cable but when I connect my MacBook Air to my monitor using the USB to HDMI it does not work. Can you please help me?

A 1080 x 1920 display is easily within the capabilities of your MacBook Air. So, there are really only three possible reasons why this isn't working:
1. The monitor itself doesn't work.
Is this a brand new display, out of the box? Does it display a 'not connected' or 'no input' symbol on the screen, so that you can see that the screen itself works? Can you test it with another computer?
2. The MacBook Air doesn't work
Can you test the MBA with another display? Does the internal display work fine? Have you any reason to suspect that it might not work? Does the port work with other USB devices?
3. The cable/adaptor doesn't work
This is by far the most likely explanation, and the cheapest to test. If you have a USB to HDMI adaptor, followed by an HDMI to HDMI cable, try changing the cable first. Then try changing the adaptor.


MacBook not turning on after replacing trackpad cable I have a MacBook Pro (early 2015, 13"). About a year ago, the keyboard and trackpad quit working. I took it to the Apple Store and they said it could be that the cable went bad. They also said they may have to replace the whole bottom casing. I figured if it was just the cable, it would be worth me fixing it by myself. I'm not the most experienced MacBook mechanic, but I generally know what I'm doing.

Anyway, I've been using the MacBook with an external mouse and keyboard for a year. I bought a new cable for the trackpad, but after the replacement the MacBook won't even turn on. I switched back to the old one and it still won't turn on. What could have gone wrong? I've unplugged and replugged the battery, used two different power cords, etc..

Listen buddy i have a similar problem. When you changed the ribbon cable you have probably forgot to remove the cable for the battery. This is why probably your battery went wrong. I also changed the ribbon cable myself and managed to unplugged my battery. This however did not fixed my keyboard and mouse issue (wish it did but it did not) but when i tried to turn it on it was just fine. I would suggest you unplug your battery leave it for few minutes check any cables around take off the ribbon cable put it back on. Then plug the battery properly put the protector on and try to start your mac. If that does not solve your second problem then you better start browsing for a new laptop.


Any way to manage options in Open With dialog? Basically, my problem is that my Open With list looks like this for .html files

I want to be able to manage it somehow. For example, I often open those files with PHPStorm but that list is obviously full and I have to click Other... every time for eg. PHPStorm.

I'd like to be able to remove virtualized Internet Explorers, Word and simply to be able to manage it somehow. Any way to do that?

You can get rid of the Windows apps by unchecking the Share options in Parallels
[needs to be done for each VM]

To lose some of the others, I'd use RCDefaultApp - freeware - old but still working in Yosemite.

Might need to rebuild the Launch Services afterwards -
 as I did after taking the above picture ;-)

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user


Apple TV: Connect to multiple Home Sharings Is it possible to connect one Apple TV to multiple iTunes Home Sharings?

I have two Macs that are connected to different Apple IDs, and I want to access both of them via the Apple TVs Computers section. The problem is that I can enter only one Apple ID for Home Sharing on the Apple TV.

How do I connect to the second iTunes library without losing the connection to the first one?

It is not currently possible to set up Home Sharing with multiple Apple IDs on an Apple TV. As far as I can tell there is no way to share an iTunes library with Apple TV without setting up Home Sharing.


T2 chip encryption benefits: "Your encrypted SSDs automatically mount and decrypt when connected to you mac." I just read the mac page about SSD encryption by the T2 chip here

Always back up your content to a secure external drive or other secure backup location so that you can restore it, if necessary. You should also turn on FileVault for additional security, because without FileVault enabled, your encrypted SSDs automatically mount and decrypt when connected to your Mac.

I am confused. Isn't encryption only useful when it does not automatically decrypt? This seems rather useless. I guess it prevents certain kinds of attacks: someone steals the SSD from the device using advanced techniques without stealing the whole laptop. In this case, doesn't it just make sense to take the whole laptop?
What is the purpose of the encryption provided by the T2 chip? I know the benefits of FileVault 2 though, which also makes use of the T2 chip. However, to decrypt this FileVault you need your user password. To decrypt the initial T2 encryption, you need nothing?

If you examine it at a glance it definitely looks useless - but if you look closer at the details, there are actually benefits to be had here:
First the case of the SSD being separated from the laptop is not as far fetched as you seem to indicate. I wouldn't be thinking of a scenario of a foreign intelligence breaking in and removing the SSD from your laptop without a trace of anything happening. Rather think of some day in the future where you hand in your laptop for repairs to have a bigger disk installed, or to have it replaced due to bad blocks [1].
You get your laptop back with a shiny new disk, but you have some certainty that the old disk isn't readable anymore as you've still got your T2 with the key. Similarly if you scrap your laptop, you can scrap the disk and the T2 separately and be reasonable sure that the disk cannot be read [2].
However, the main practical benefits comes by providing quicker responses to the average user. When you buy a new laptop and want to encrypt your drive, that can be done in the blink of the eye with this system, as the drive is already encrypted - you just need to protect the key with the user passphrase. This I assume would make more users encrypt their drives, as some could be put off by having to wait hours or days for the drive to encrypt (even though they can keep using the computer while it does so).
Similarly you can safely erase the drive in the blink of an eye. Just ask the T2 to erase the key, and you (and others) no longer have access to the contents on the drive. If the drive hadn't been encrypted in the first place - it is actually very difficult, if not almost impossible, to securely erase it. This can now be done even when the user has never activated FileVault.

[1]As far as I know it is not possible to upgrade your disk currently, but it might be made possibly by third-parties in the future.
[2]I.e. breaking the main-board PCB into two pieces. It is relatively easy as the SSD and the T2 are separated by a narrow piece of PCB.


When resuming from hibernate, weird garbage on screen For some reason, when returning from an hibernate after i.e. battery drops to 0%, I get this:

Mind that this only happens with a few programs, and reopening them works most of the time, and a full reboot fully solves the issue.

It's a Early 2011 Macbook Pro 13'' (Base model), with RAM upgraded to 8GB 1867mhz and 128GB SSD, running Lion 10.7.3.

Edit:

~ ‹›  $ pmset -g
Active Profiles:
Battery Power       -1*
AC Power        -1
Currently in use:
 standbydelay   4200
 standby    0
 halfdim    1
 sms        0
 panicrestart   157680000
 hibernatefile  /var/vm/sleepimage
 disksleep  0
 sleep      10
 hibernatemode  0
 ttyskeepawake  1
 displaysleep   2
 acwake     0
 lidwake    0
~ ‹›  $

By default, the MacBook actually copies its RAM to disk any time it enters sleep mode (called Safe Sleep).  You'll notice this because when you close the lid on your MacBook, there will be a few seconds before the light on the front starts flashing.  When the battery gets to 0%, all the computer needs to do is power-off, since the RAM state has already been saved.

This makes me wonder if the problem is happening anytime you return from sleep, or only when the battery hits 0%.

I had similar issues on my MacBook, where the laptop wouldn't return properly from sleep mode.  These have gone away for me since disabling hibernate and disabling lid wake.

Many people with SSD disks choose to disable hibernate as the process of Safe Sleep causes a lot of extra writing to the disk (and SSDs have a limited writable lifespan).  Since you've upgraded to 8 GB, the laptop is writing 8 GB to disk each time you close the lid.

Note that disabling hibernate will also let your laptop enter sleep mode instantly when you close the lid (something I really like).  You'll also recover 8 GB from the sleepimage file, which is pretty valuable on a 128 GB drive.

The only concern is that disabling hibernate will be a problem for you if you actually do hit 0% battery frequently.  In this case, it will be as if the laptop had been powered off (crashed).  That's not the end of the world, but you will lose any unsaved documents you may have been working on.  The solution:  don't let your laptop get to 0% battery and shutdown the MacBook when you know it will be off for an extended period of time.

Disabling lid wake prevents the laptop from returning from sleep until you hit any key.  I believe this is what actually solved my display issues, but I'm not sure since I did both.

In any case, here's what I suggest for people with an SSD:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo pmset -a disksleep 0
sudo pmset -a lidwake 0
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

Confirm the settings with sudo pmset -g.

You can find more tips to optimize your MacBook for your SSD here:  http://sysadmin.flakshack.com/post/9253439680/ssd-tweaks-for-mac-os-x


MacBook Pro shuts down while in "Login Window" I have run into this issue a couple of days ago and it keeps happening. MacBookPro in question is a 13" 2016 model with Touch Bar running macOS Mojave 10.14.1 (18B75).

If I lock my MacBook with Login window and leave it for some time (it looks like it has to be more than 1 hour but I am not certain) then it shuts down. It doesn't wake up and I have to either reconnect power cable or press power button to turn it on. MacBook is constantly connected to power supply. Energy Saver parameters (for Power Adapter) set do not allow MacBook to sleep:

Prevent computer from sleeping... - checked
Turn display off after - Never

I have checked logs and unfortunately I cannot make anything certain out of them. What looks suspicious is this:

Dec  5 09:47:43 mac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd.swd): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 30 seconds.
Dec  5 09:48:13 mac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd.swd): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 30 seconds.
Dec  5 09:48:43 mac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd.swd): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 30 seconds.
Dec  5 09:49:14 mac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd.swd): Service only ran for 1 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 29 seconds.
Dec  5 09:49:45 mac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd.swd): Service only ran for 2 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 28 seconds.
Dec  5 09:50:14 mac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd.swd): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 30 seconds.
Dec  5 09:50:45 mac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.powerd.swd): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 30 seconds.

Which usually occurs around the time the MacBook "starts sleeping" that leads to shutdown (but also scattered in smaller quantities in logs.)

I have already tried resetting the SMC but to no avail.

Does anyone have any ideas?

I would probably start with testing to see if this behaviour is replicated when booted into Safe Mode and if the issue persists then running Apple Diagnostics.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your MBP
Restart your MBP
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. does your MBP still end up going to sleep, etc)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your MBP as normal
Test again when booted normally

If the problem doesn't occur while booted into Safe Mode, let me know and we'll go from there.

If the problem persists, proceed with running Apple Diagnostics.

Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your MBP
Restart your MBP
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.

[UPDATE]

Since we've established the problem is not occurring when booted into Safe Mode then it's time to investigate login items, fonts, and kernel extensions.

Investigating login items, fonts, and kernel extensions

Let's start with Login Items:

Startup normally
Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups
Select the Login Items tab
Take a note of your Login Items
Now remove all of them by highlighting them and clicking on the - button below
Restart your computer

Now your Mac will boot up without those login items loading. Test to see if you can use your Mac without it going to sleep, etc:

If you can, you know one (or more) of the Login items were causing the problem. You can then add them back in one by one until you've identified the culprit. Problem solved.
If the problem does persist, it's either a problem with fonts you've installed yourself or with a 3rd party kernel extension. A little more info below:

Fonts:- You can remove any of the fonts you've installed yourself to see if this makes a difference. For more info, read the following Apple resources:

How to install and remove fonts on your Mac
Mac OS X: Font locations and their purposes

Kernel Extensions:- You can open Terminal (found within your Utilites folder) and enter the following command:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

The above command will list 3rd party kernel extensions (you may need to stretch the Terminal window so it's easier to read). Look for anything you don't remember installing, or something that belongs to software you've removed, or just anything that looks out of place. Remember though, this is a list of 3rd party kernel extensions and therefore any of them could be causing the problem.


My iPod has fallen out with iTunes. What's the safest way to get them back on speaking terms? My girlfriend moved her iTunes library into Dropbox and now her iPod Touch doesn't recognise it. I moved it back to where it had been before, but this wasn't enough to get it to sync without threatening to erase everything.

I'm planning on using iTunes to back up the iPod, copying the back-up file to somewhere safe, then syncing. I hope that I can then restore any lost notes etc.

Firstly, will this work? Secondly, I think that the music she's bought recently through the device won't be backed up. How can I retrieve that?

The OS is Windows XP.

Yes, it should work.
All music she has bought is under Purchased in Quick Links menu in iTunes Store in latest iTunes. It can be redownloaded from there.


I deleted my OSX partition, and have no patitions formatted to bootcamp, so I can only access BIOS I recently created a windows 7 partition on my mid-2009 mac-book pro. It then corrupted, so I was forced to delete the partition and attempt to reinstall windows 7, but in the process  I also deleted my OS X partition. Now after spending hours and countless DVD+Rs on creating OS X and Linux boot discs (all of which fail to open anything but BIOS), I am still left with a shell of a computer with no OS.
How can I reinstall OS X/Ubuntu.

Start Recovery Mode (CMD+R) at boot.

Even if your OS X partition is gone, you should have options to recover/reinstall OS X.

Have a look at: OS X: About OS X Recovery


Rename file to match containing folder's name I have a collection of image files grouped into folders named Project_01, Project_02, etc. Using Automator, I have composed a workflow that asks the user for a folder, and combines the images in that folder into a single PDF document. The destination folder for the output PDF file can be determined with a variable; however, the file name field of the action expects a constant string.

Is there any way, maybe through renaming, that I can Automator have the output file give the name of the containing folder, e.g. Project_01.pdf?

If you already have a variable with the name you want, the easiest way would be to add a Rename Finder Items action after the PDF is created. Set it to Name Single Item, and you can just drag in the variable as the new name.


Don't wake up external hard disk when saving to internal one My problem is that I have an external hard drive connected to my Mac. Since it is only used for backup purposes, it is sleeping most of the time.

However if I now want to save something (e.g. a picture from a website) to my internal hard disk, I have to wait for the external one to wake up before the "save as..." dialogue appears.

I know about the question How to save a file quickly and no need to wait for the external hard drives to "wake up"?, but it sounds like it intends a solution about not letting the hard disks go to sleep whereas I would like to let the external hard drive have its well-deserved rest.

EDIT:

I do not want to unplug it, because I know that I will forget to reconnect it before the automatic backup
various other operating systems deal very well with situations like that

EDIT2:

Using Sherwood Botsford's answer I put together the following AppleScript which mounts the hard drive, executes for example an rsync and unmounts it again.

do shell script "diskutil mount 'Name of your Volumn'"

do shell script "rsync -av --delete ~/ '/Volumes/Name of your Volume/.'"

do shell script "diskutil unmountDisk 'Name of your Volume'"

possibilities.

A: Unmount the disk from the command line.

diskutil unmountDisk Lacie

would be the command to unmount a disk that has a file system named Lacie on it.
You can also refer to the device itself, but devices can vary from one mount to another.  unmountDisk will take any file system name as the object but will unmount all other file systems if the drive has more than one.

Then, when you want to do a backup,

 diskutil mount Lacie

You also need to disable spotlight from indexing this drive.


Why can't I resize a window's height to make it smaller when it is at full height? I have two 21" monitors at work which I attach to my early 2011 MBP (running 10.8.1) and I move various windows between the monitors. Sometimes the windows coming down to my laptop's screen are larger than it so they fit the maximum height (but are over the maximum width) of my built-in LCD.

I can resize the width of a window by clicking its left or right edge and dragging, but when I try to resize the height, and it shows the up-arrow (or even in the corner where it shows the diagonal arrow), I can click and drag as much as I want but it doesn't resize the height, it only moves the window left and right if I move my pointer either direction.

In other words, the height is stuck when the window is the height of the screen. This only happens when the bottom of the window is at the top of the dock. When windows are smaller than the screen, resizing is fine.

Is there any way to resize a full-height window on my LCD without moving it around then dragging from another corner or something?

Are you running any sort of third-party window management software? That's the only reason I can think of that this wouldn't work for you.

I can resize the height of my windows using the arrows on any visible edge, including the top and bottom of a max heigh window, and the diagonals. I tested this with the Dock hidden and visible, on the side and bottom, and with a window with a size exceeding that of the screen. Worked every time.

If you're not running any third-party software that might be interfering with window resizing for some reason, the only thing that comes to mind is that your mouse is very sensitive and you're moving it slightly before the click to resize actually registers.

You might also be interested in Moom. It's a pretty handy window manager that can do things like save preset window configurations for different display set ups, or do one-click window resizing to match a specific size in pixels (which you can bind to a hotkey). It's not a solution to not being able to manually resize, but if you're moving windows around different displays often, you may find it handy. Divvy is another popular app that does some of the same tasks, but I haven't tried it myself.


Change the mouse wheel scrolling acceleration I am new Mac user and I don't really like the Magic Mouse so I reverted to a good old 3 button mouse with a scroll wheel.

When I turn the wheel slowly, it only scrolls pixel per pixel (or per two pixels)
If I turn the wheel more quickly, it scrolls nearly line by line. There is a kind of scroll wheel acceleration where the amount scrolled for each wheel step depends on the rotation speed of the wheel.

This behavior is not present in Windows where you always scroll a few lines per wheel step.

Is there a way to disable this behaviour or to tweak it in Mac OS X Lion?

Hope you're still reading - I highly recommend one of the third party mouse managers like SteerMouse or USB Overdrive or ControllerMate.

I found the arch of the Magic Mouse just too low and went back to the old reliable Logitech MX Revolution, but I will never install Logitech software again without an excellent reason. These packages will let you configure all of the buttons and SteerMouse (haven't verified for the other two) will definitely let you specify linear or accelerated wheel scrolling with variable degree of acceleration.


Skype for business's share my screen shows only skype screen and desktop background Whenever I share my screen using Skype for business(SFB), only SFB's window and mac background image is visible nothing else.

Is it a bug from SFB or Catalina ?

Anyways to resolve this bug ?

P.S

I recently upgraded my mac os to Catalina beta.
I downloaded and installed the latest SFB too.

We have to explicitly add permission to share the screen in System preferences then SFB shows everything in the screen.

Ideally SFB should prompt to get some kind of permission to do this or let the user know about this through some message or notification so that it'll be obvious for user.Catlaina is released to public as well so I hope Microsoft address this issue soon

Please make the below manual choices to get rid of this problem

System Preferences
Security and Privacy
Screen Recording
Check the Skype for Business option.


Does Touch ID erase the device after failed tries? I don't have an iPhone 5S, but I know that I can set my iOS devices to automatically erase themselves, when the wrong passcode has been entered too many times. Does Touch ID on the 5S do the same?

I imagine this to be rather inconvenient, since accidentally touching the ID sensor is very likely.

Quoting from About Touch ID Security, from Apple’s website:

  Touch ID only allows five unsuccessful fingerprint match attempts before you must enter your passcode, and you can’t proceed until doing so.

You then get ten attempts at your passcode before the device erases, but these are counted separately from attempts to authenticate with Touch ID.

This is slightly different from the other answer:

After three attempts, the iPhone will present the passcode screen, but you can still have two more tries at authenticating with Touch ID.
After five attempts, Touch ID is disabled until you successfully enter your passcode.

Apple’s security documents don’t mention a setting to erase the device after failed Touch ID attempts, and I’m not aware of one. I don’t believe that iOS devices would erase themselves after five unsuccessful attempts, at least not with the current version of iOS.


A single keyboard shortcut to toggle between different shortcuts I'll start from my end goal so it will be clearer - I have a mouse with buttons that can be assigned to output keyboard shortcuts. I'm using Divvy and I want to use it so that whenever I click that button a different Divvy shortcut will be used. So for example:

1st click - Center window
2nd click - Align to the left
3rd click - Align to the right
4th click - Center
5th click - left .... and so on

What piece of software am I missing to map between what I'll use with the mouse and the cyclic shortcuts to be used with Divvy?

You could use Karabiner to achieve this. Although you might have to write a small script to achieve this kind of functionality. There are a lot of great guides on how to use Karabiner and the doc section on the website is also a pretty good place to start.


Self-made app will not open I have created a Java application and wanted to run it as a standard application bundle. Here is the directory tree:

Snake.app
  Contents
    MacOS
      Snake
      Snake.jar
    Resources
      AppIcon.icns
    Info.plist

The Snake file just says cd $(dirname $0) then java -jar Snake.jar. Here is the Info.plist file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
    <string>Snake</string>
    <key>CFBundleIconFile</key>
    <string>AppIcon</string>
    <key>CFBundleIconName</key>
    <string>AppIcon</string>
    <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
    <string>com.mosu.SnakeGame</string>
    <key>CFBundleName</key>
    <string>Snake</string>
    <key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
    <string>APPL</string>
    <key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
    <string>1.2.2</string>
    <key>LSApplicationCategoryType</key>
    <string>public.app-category.games</string>
    <key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key>
    <string>10.6</string>
    <key>NSHumanReadableCopyright</key>
    <string>Copyright © 2020 Sebastian Swistak &quot;mOSU_&quot;</string>
</plist>

What am I doing wrong?

You should run the Snake.app/Contents/MacOS/Snake executable in Terminal to see if there's an error launching.
Just Drag and drop it in Terminal and hit enter. If it launches, it's probably gatekeeper.

You can also check its permissions by running spctl -vv -a /path/to/app. If it is rejected, run

spctl --add --label "LabelForMySnakeApp" /path/to/app
spctl --enable --label "LabelForMySnakeApp"

Block Specific Apps on macOS

Also see this question for some troubleshoot about codesign:

Gatekeeper refuses validly signed application


Test MagSafe charger without computer? I have a MacBook Air, 2013-era, that will not charge. Plugging it into the charger briefly causes the "battery is dead, plug in" graphic to show up on the screen. The connection seems pretty solid and I can't see any objects in the port or plug.

The light on the charger never lights up. Is there any way to eliminate the charger as the cause of the problem? I have no other machine to test it with.

Do you have an Apple store in the area where you can take both the charger and Mac and have them test each?

Best Buy (especially, including Geek Squad) or office supply stores can probably also test both parts, and often the local schools (especially high school art dept.) will have Apple devices and maybe your library too - anywhere someone might have similar devices and parts to help check your pieces out.


Re-start an app game from zero I bought a new iPad and my wife is taking my old Mini. She really likes "Word Collect", but wants to start at the beginning, not at my level. I deleted the app, deleted the backup, but when I reload the game from iCloud it comes in at my old level, not zero.

She probably needs to use her own iCloud account, not yours, to download the game.

You probably should also completely execute the Erase All Content and Settings command in Settings > General > Reset and start her off with a completely 'new' iPad and configure it for her use.

If you don't, she'll be using all your settings and data, which is why the game reverts to your level in the game.


Can’t get my MBP running since macOS Mojave Since I updated my MBP, it doesn’t work anymore. Had trouble installing, then it was slow, and now I can’t do anything anymore other then going into Recovery mode. When running Disk Ultility, it always tell me while running First Aid, that there is an error: cib: o_oid(0x0)
File system check exit code is 0.
I don’t know what to do anymore.

Lets try to repair your disk in Single User mode.

Hold Shift key during start up.

Let it finish ..

then enter

/sbin/fsck -fy

When it’s done, you’ll see a message saying “** The volume [name] appears to be OK” if everything is fine.

If it found problems, you’ll see a “***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****” message. This indicates the fsck command found and fixed problems. The fsck command may find additional errors after repairing the first batch of errors, so Apple recommends you run the fsck command again if it found and fixed problems. Run the above fsck command over and over until you see a “** The volume [name] appears to be OK” message.

When the fsck command says your disk is okay, type the following command at the terminal and press Enter:

reboot


tmutil setdestination permission denied I'm trying to force TimeMachine to point to an smb location. The smb share is on a Ubuntu server and I followed this guide (mostly - it's a little outdated) to setup the smb.
However, I do not see my smb in TimeMachine, so I'm running:
sudo tmutil setdestination 'smb://myusername:mypassw0rd@myserver/timemachine'
and I'm getting back:
The operation couldn’t be completed. Permission denied (error 13)
The backup destination could not be set.

How do I go about troubleshooting this?

It was a permissions issue. I realized I couldn't even run touch somefile as my user while logged in directly on the remote machine.
Running sudo chmod -R 777 /media/timemachine and sudo chown youruser /media/timemachine may fix the issue for you.
Worth noting, I formatted /media/timemachine as ext4


laucnhd and kernel task writing excessively to disk. Clean my mac suggests cleaning apple system logs launchd and kernel task are writing excessively to disk (and constantly running) on my mac. I'm running macOS Sierra version 10.12.15. Below are screenshots showing excessively logging.

I used clean my mac 3 to clean out like 30 gigs of systems logs, but they keep coming back. Here's a screenshot showing that a few hours after cleaning out the 30 gig system logs they are back at 6 gigs. Any idea of what's going on? Should I not have cleaned out system logs?

Woah - your launchd is quite busy. Before you run any clean, I would save your work and do a shut down and then safe boot. The safe boot is when you hold the shift key after the startup chime sounds (or would sound if silenced).

This startup will take quite some time and it sets aside things link font cashes, all non critical kernel extensions / drivers / program start up.

Once the Mac is running - check on the activity monitor and grab screen shots to compare to yours above. After 5 minutes, you should have a very idle system. If not, disconnect from all networks and repeat the safe boot one time.

At that point, you’ll know if the core OS needs to be reinstalled if it’s not behaving in safe boot mode. If it does behave in safe boot, try a normal boot.

Next up if the normal boot fails - try making a new user and setting that user to log in at boot and restart.

Sorry this isn’t a “do this to fix” sort of answer, but you’ll need to triage a bit to get a feeling if this is software related and user/OS software related.

The log files themselves don’t cause issues - it’s the configuration or changes you brought to the standard install that’s logging all the messages. Imagine a leak in the basement - clearing the logs is hiring a contractor to come pump it out, rather than figuring out what’s leaking in the first place.


Can I use the free space on an NTFS Hard Drive to make a "Mac OS Journaled" partition to use as a backup space? I have a 1 TB NTFS HDD which has 350GB free space, how would I format that 350GB to use it as a backup space for my MacBook?

diskutil list output:

/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:               Windows_NTFS ADATA HD710             1.0 TB     disk1s1

If you've already got GParted, use ´GParted /dev/disk1´ to resize your NTFS partition.  It has a nice Graphical front-end, and just in case you need it, here is the manual.
As David Anderson said a couple times, above, then you can open the OSX application Disk Utility, which is under /Applications/Utilities, and then you will see empty space on that disk:
Create a partition of the type HFS+ (journaled), and you'll be ready to use it as your Time Machine disk.

I think you'll be finished in no time, since you personally already found Gparted, and sound like you have good information about this.  You would also be able to do this all on the command-line is OSX with diskutil.


How would enabling FileVault alter my system and TM performance? What are the pros and cons, performance-wise, of enabling and using FileVault? Is there any at all, or does it slow a computer down significantly or on the contrary speed it up? Also, what effect will it have on Time Machine-backups (performance-wise)?

CPU load
Filevault 2 supports Intel® Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). It's important to know if your Mac has an Intel processor which supports this, as it significantly reduces the CPU overhead. Search for you CPU here an look if is supports the New AES instructions.
My Macbook Pro 2011 got this feature enabled via a firmware update (Apple did not enable this with the newly shipped MBP). With AES encryption acceleration, the performance drop with Filevault 2 enabled is almost unnoticeable during normal usage. The maximum read speeds of my SSD only dropped from 510MB/s to 490MB/s.
Ars Technica, published an extended review on Filvault 2 in Lion. They say:

Apple also leverages the special-purpose AES instructions and hardware on Intel's newest CPUs, further reducing the CPU overhead. The end result is that regular users will be hard-pressed to notice any reduction in performance with encryption enabled.

As the overall CPU load is nearly unchanged, the battery life is not affected significantly.
Time Machine Backups
If you backup up wirelessly (unencrypted) or locally (encrypted, USB) the performance of Time Machine will not be affected significantly.

First, because the of the AES acceleration mentioned earlier.
Secondly because Time Machine creates local backups (snapshots). OS X Lion compensates for the potentially unavailable external disk by keeping an additional backup locally on the primary hard drive. This has its obvious advantages, since you can restore to past Time Machine backups right away from anywhere.

I've been using Filevault 2 encryption on a MBP 8,2 for three months.


FoxToPhone or Chrome2Phone for iPhone Is there a FoxToPhone or Chrome2Phone app for the iPhone?

Chrome2Phone is an app for Android OS, and goes hand in hand with a Chrome or Firefox extension.

Basically lets you send the url of the web page you are surfing to your phone, or some text on the web page. Very useful. Easier than emailing it to yourself.

But I haven't found equivalent for the iPhone.

I took a look at the app store and I found a few apps that can sync with Firefox and some other browsers.  Below are some details.

i-Pusher ($2.99, no ratings): Submit various content from your favorite desktop browser into your i-Device in one click...you will instantly receive a link, text, image or youtube video link on your mobile device. Personal Note: You do have to install the appropriate extension in your desktop browser.

Firefox Home (Free, 3/5 stars) Firefox Home Provides access to your desktop history, bookmarks and open tabs on your iPhone.  Personal Note: Not a web browser itself.  I think this is close to home of what you need.  I played with this before and I was able to continue browsing my opened tabs on my desktop Firefox using its Firefox Sync feature. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/firefox-home/id380366933?mt=8

360 Web Browser | Download Manager and Firefox Sync (99¢, 4/5 stars) Personal Note: This is actually a third party browser with many desktop like functionality like add ons and download managers with many configuration settings. It uses Firefox Sync, found in Settings in the app.  I just reread its description and apparently it can also do Flash Videos using a CC Plugin. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/360-web-browser-download-manager/id387737097?mt=8


How to completely disable Airplay in Mac OS X I'd like to cut out AirPlay entirely.

Looking for an answer, I read
Disable AirPlay on a Mac

But it didn't really offer a direct solution.

Here is my problem:

I have the household media room connected to an Airplay capable receiver.  Our media server is a secondary Mac that runs 24/7 for the express purpose of serving media throughout the house.  This is a headless machine that does not ever output any audio of its own, and in fact could have all audio drivers disabled and it would be perfectly fine with me.

What happens is, this machine appears to spontaneously decide that it wants to connect to the Airplay receiver, which causes my Media room to suddenly switch input sources and is seriously irritating and confusing to other members of the household.

If I could simply disable Airplay completely on this machine, then all would be well.  But I don't want to impact any other internet connectivity as I have multiple apps that need to communicate at all times in both directions to the outside internet.

Is there in fact a direct way to simply disable Airplay entirely in Mac OS X?

I have just found some help here: Disable AirPlay Mirroring. It will let you disable Airplay Mirroring (I assume that includes just the sound) by using a terminal command. It will deny the computer access to the AirPlay.app that allows Airplay mirroring.

sudo chmod 000 /System/Library/CoreServices/AirPlayUIAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/AirPlayUIAgent

Some problems are associated with this though. I've copied the article's "drawbacks" below.

  The only drawback to this method is that it locks up the menubar, which means your users won't be able to use any of the menu bar items. They're still able to adjust the volume using the keyboard, though. Logging out and back in will restore the functionality of the menubar until the user tries to use AirPlay mirroring again. I guess if your users complain about the menubar crashing, you know what they've been trying to do! To remove your users temptation of crashing the menu bar all the time, you can hide the AirPlay icon by opening System Preferences > Displays and unchecking the "Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available" checkbox.

if you don't enjoy it afterwards and you want to fix it back to defaults without reinstalling OS X you want to do the same steps above like you did when disabling AirPlay. But instead of the 000 after sumo chmod you want to use the numbers 755

You would follow the steps, restart your iMac like before and you should have re-enabled it back


My iPhone will not turn on. Please give me advice I bought and iphone 6 in December 2014. Recently it's stopped working. I put it on charge every night before bed, well last night I put it on charge and woke up and my iPhone will not turn on. I have pressed the lock and home button for atleast 30+ seconds and nothing is happening. I've tried leaving it on charge Abit more, and still nothing. It's just a black screen. I've only had my phone for nearly 8 months and I was wondering would Apple fix or replace it? I have a 12 month warranty. I am very curious and I would like some further advice.

take it to the Apple Store, they'll be able to fully diagnose the issue, perhaps its a battery not holding a charge properly. If you're still under warranty(which you mentioned you are) then they will furnish you a replacement in the mean time while yours is being serviced.


Apple developer company account with offshore company So I am an individual developer and have an app on the app store. A week ago I tried to submit another one but it was rejected because this kind of app requires a company account they said.

My plan is to open an offshore company in the Seychelles, Belize or Panama because it is just too complicated and expensive to do it where I live.
Will Apple accept this kind of scheme? Better can I have a company account without being a company? The app is for free and I will probably not make any money with it anyway.

My plan is to open an offshore company in the Seychelles, Belize or Panama because it is just too complicated and expensive to do it where I live. Will Apple accept this kind of scheme?

You can always apply for an organization Apple Developer License as long as you have a legally incorporated company, and the territory of incorporation is one among the countries where Apple Developer Program is available for purchase.

It may be good for you to know that Apple queries the D-U-N-S number database to verify the identity of your company. So it may be a good step to check if your company can get a D-U-N-S number assigned (you can learn more about D-U-N-S by searching the Web).

It goes without saying that you should be legally able to incorporate and run the business of your company from the said territory, and from the business point of view, all Apple would see is the territory where the company is incorporate and operated from.

So, while I am not a lawyer, but if things can be taken care of within regulations, and Apple does business in the territory, you'd be fine.

  Better can I have a company account without being a company?

This is neither possible nor an advisable thing to think towards. Apple has a strict verification process in place, and using any loopholes may lead to Apple revoking the developer program membership.

  The app is for free and I probably will not make any money with it anyway.

Apparently it's the kind of app which requires a company to be incorporated and can't be "sold" on the App Store by an individual. You need to pay the program membership fee even if you "sell" the app for free. The fee is charged towards the cost incurred by Apple for maintaining the entire App Store infrastructure.


Unable to ping hostname.local As seen below the given hostname is not pingable presently.

19:42:43/lib $hostname
mellyrn.local
19:42:55/lib $ping mellyrn.local
ping: cannot resolve mellyrn.local: Unknown host

Note that the internet IS reachable:

19:43:02/lib $ping www.oracle.com
PING e7075.x.akamaiedge.net (23.59.198.140): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 23.59.198.140: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=5.872 ms
64 bytes from 23.59.198.140: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=5.735 ms
64 bytes from 23.59.198.140: icmp_seq=2 ttl=57 time=5.824 ms
^C
--- e7075.x.akamaiedge.net ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 5.735/5.810/5.872/0.057 ms

Let us take a look at the net config:

19:44:54/lib $ifconfig -a
    ..
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether b8:f6:b1:15:dd:bf
    inet 192.168.255.170 netmask 0xfffffc00 broadcast 192.168.255.255
    media: autoselect
    status: active

I do not have an answer of why this situation occurred.  However,  the problem was corrected by restarting networking:

 $sudo ifconfig en0 down
 $sudo ifconfig en0 up


Which font is used when I export formulas from Grapher? You can export formulas from Grapher with drag&drop. Which font is used for this? I want to write some stuff in the same font in Keynote, but I cannot find the correct font...

I think the default font is Times.

If you want, you can also change the equation font in Grapher's preferences. Click on the example equation in the white box under 'Default Font & Size':


Enable internet only for specific apps I will need to spend few weeks with no internet, but I will still have my mobile hot spot. So I wonder if I can prohibit all apps including OS (which I know will try silently to update something) from using internet except terminal, as I still want to be able to connect to my remote server and code.

A free (and/or native) solution would be preferred but I would settle with something I have to pay for if necessary.

I think the app called Little Snitch is right for the job.

In it you can set up who has access to Internet resources, including all not so obvious background "blood suckers", like the one checking for software updates and so on.


Apple TV A1469 Wi-Fi Direct not available Everything I read (specifically: http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/23/peer-to-peer-airplay-apple-tv-ios-8/) states that the Apple TV A1469 running Apple TV Software version 7 and newer offers Wi-Fi Direct (aka peer-to-peer Wi-Fi) connectivity for Apple devices running iOS version 8 and newer so that AirPlay can be used without either device being connected to an access point.

This is almost exactly the setup that my family has - an Apple TV A1469 running the newest Apple TV Software version 7.0.3 (6917) and an assortment of iDevices (iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6, iPad Air, iPhone 5, etc) which all run iOS version 8.1 and newer.

However, none of these iDevices are able to utilise Wi-Fi Direct - AirPlay will only display if the Apple TV and iDevice are both connected to the same Wi-Fi network. See below for evidence of this.

Apple TV connected to the "Wiffy [2.4GHz]" Wi-Fi network:

iPhone 6 connected to the "Wiffy [2.4GHz]" Wi-Fi network:

AirPlay available on the iPhone 6 to the Apple TV, both connected to the "Wiffy [2.4GHz]" Wi-Fi network:

Apple TV disconnected from all Wi-Fi networks:

AirPlay not available on the iPhone 6:

Apple TV current software version:

Apple TV software up-to-date:

iPhone 6 current software version:

You have Bluetooth turned off on your iPhone according to one of your (many) screenshots. Bluetooth must be turned on for Peer-to-peer Airplay to function. See e.g. this Apple support article (scroll down to Peer-to-peer Airplay).


MacBook Pro Fan Screw Replacement Long story short: a year of computing in the dusty environment of Queensland, Australia has lead to a buildup of a dust "carpet" inside the fan assemblies on my late 2011 MacBook Pro. I ended up successfully removing the right fan assembly and removing the carpet obstructing the airflow. However, the left fan assembly (the exhaust fan) I was unable to remove, due to the screws being stripped. My laptop is running on the hot side, as airflow is not optimal (I can barely feel any air when the fan's RPM is at maximum).

So, I'm looking for options to deal with this problem. I already tried the "rubber band technique" with no success. So my thoughts are to try, in order:

Using a piece of cloth under the screwdriver instead of a rubber band.
The "super glue technique," gluing a screwdriver to the screw and then using acetone to remove the glue.
Looking into screw extractors.

(Alternatives are greatly welcomed.)

However, this is contingent on finding a place to procure new screws. The iFixit guide reads:

  Remove the three 3.4 mm (3.1 mm) T6 Torx screws securing the left fan
  to the logic board.

Is there a place where I can cheaply buy the necessary screws? I haven't had much luck with searching online, with Google favoring results for screw drivers and the few options I've found being expensive 100-count boxes.

If you end up with option 3. Screw extractors, then your 'cheap choice' to put it back together is just make a saw cut in the top of the screw [remains] & treat it as a standard flat-blade screw-head from then on in.

I presume you have one of those, but didn't procure the necessary Torx before starting out ;-)

Don't try saw-cutting it first... you really don't want metal filings in your puter.
That also precludes trying to drill the screw-head off.

Try 1 & 2 first, you might get lucky.


Text encoding problem with old files not newly created ones MBA running 10.13.6
I keep a lot of plaintext Notes in a shared DropBox folder, synced between an iMac (also 10.13.6) and my MBA.
The programs I use to access those notes (The Archive and nvALT) suddenly stopped displaying the notes. nvALT gave a Stopped Responding message in Force Quit. The Archive did not.
I tried opening the notes using other tools, including BBEdit and TextEdit. BBEdit showed a row of upside down question marks. TextEdit showed nothing. But I was still able to open and read those notes on the iMac.
On the MBA, I created a new note in BBEdit and saved it to the shared folder.
Now both The Archive and nvALT were able to display the note content.
So, newly created notes display fine, but old ones do not, on the MBA.
I have no idea how to proceed on the MBA, and would be willing to try anything. I am asking here, rather than from the various app developers, because this seems to be a system-wide problem on my MBA.

If the data is still correct on other computers, your local Dropbox copy might have gotten corrupt for whatever reason.

Ensure that all newly created files are synced back (make a local backup if necessary)
Log out of Dropbox on the MBA
Delete the local Dropbox folder
Log into Dropbox again and let it sync the uncorrupted files onto your Mac


How does it affect the performance if an iMac 1TB internal hard drive is mirrored on an external drive? I am getting an iMac 27 inch, and it will have a 1 TB internal hard drive, and I know we can set up the Mac so that this hard drive is mirrored on an external 1 TB hard drive using the built in tools of Mac OS X (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility).

But the OS's system files, the swap file, etc, are all on the internal drive as well.  Will those be mirrored as well?  If so, won't that slow the system down a lot, since the external drive is usually slower than the internal drive.

Also, even if the OS's files are not mirrored but just the user's own files, will copying or file saving be slower, since instead of copying to the faster internal drive, the OS will report done only after the external drive is done as well?

A mirrored RAID would operate only as fast as the slowest drive in the setup.  In this case, unless you are using thunderbolt I imagine the performance would be awful.  Another reason not to do a mirror with an external drive (if Disk Utility would even let you) is it'd be too easy have the mirror fail for a number of reasons.

I would use Time Machine to the external drive rather than mirroring.  Remember that RAID is NOT backup!  If you mess something up then you will lose data, a mirrored RAID is not going to save you at all.  Only Time Machine or a similar backup strategy will help prevent data loss.


Yosemite swoosh missing fix required Have recently upgraded from Mavericks to Yosemite 10.10.4, and found that Mail's swoosh sound when sending mail is no longer evident. Anyone know how to get it back?

Make sure that the option "Play sounds for other mail actions" is checked in Mail preferences under the General tab. When activated, you should hear the "swoosh" sound when sending an email.


macOS Mojave default login screen cannot be changed After following the instructions in this post (How do I change the login screen background in macOS Mojave?), I still could not change the login screen on start up. It works when I log out, but not when the computer restarts.

Any other solutions?

This solution can be found on this page on the link bellow at Apple:

Type Command + Space
Then type /Library/Desktop Pictures/
Press the enter key
Grab any picture you like and add the extension .heic (this will change the file format, that's what you want)
I did not bother with resizing and changing the DPI (maybe it could be a necessary step for you depending on your machine
Navigate to System Preferences > Users & Group
Unlock the pane
Enable or disable the Guest user account (in fact changing any setting in Users & Groups worked for me. This resets something for some reason)

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8556569

If you wanted to change the lockscreen (which is different the the login screen), you'll see one or more folders inside this directory:

/Library/Caches/Desktop Pictures/

From there you simply need to rename your image to:

lockscreen.png

If there are multiple folders, you'll have to figure out which one your account is using. Ironically, you'll see the lock screen when you logout, but not when you click on Lock Screen.


Photos back to iPhoto? Is there a way to get iPhoto back after installing Photos? When I upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.3, it installed Photos. I am not really liking the format or the design.

iPhoto is a separate application from Photos (though if you had iPhoto on your dock, the 10.10.3 upgrade replaced its icon with Photos). You can still run it by using Spotlight or going to your Applications folder.

When you do run it, it may ask if you actually meant to open it, or if you meant to open Photos - choose the option to continue opening iPhoto. Your iPhoto library is still there and has not been removed. Keep in mind any changes made to your iPhoto library will not be reflected in Photos, so if you decide later that you do want to use Photos, you will need to create a new library in Photos to convert your iPhoto library at that time.


Does Lightning to 3.5 mm support High-Res headphones? Since iPhone 7, Apple has switched to Lightning port and provides a dongle for 3.5 mm jack. Does this dongle support High-Res (16/24 bit) headphones/earphones?

High resolution headphones work with the same analog signal as ordinary head phones. High resolution headphones “just” have to be compliant with some quality requirements for the head phones themselves. There’s no guarantee that a pair of high resolution headphones are better than a given pair of non-high resolution headphones.

Therefore yes, you can use them with the Apple Lighting dongle.


Many Compile Warnings while Installing MacPorts I recently upgraded to Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2.  I also installed the latest version of Xcode (version 4.2) in order to build MacPorts.  After doing this, I had no problems executing sudo port selfupdate, which downloaded the latest version of MacPorts (version 2.0.3). However, I saw a LOT of compile warnings, especially for packages/ports like Python, when executing sudo port upgrade outdated.  For other packages/ports I noticed that a couple of compiler options were obsolete and/or ignored.  Otherwise, I had no problem rebuilding MacPorts.

Are the compile warnings generated during the build a result of poor programming, or are they a product of the (possible) changes to the gcc compiler?  If the compile warnings are a result of poor programming and, as I didn't notice such warnings when initially installing MacPorts under Snow Leopard, have the compiler options to suppress such warnings changed?

As for those compiler options that were obsolete and/or ignored, is this also a result to (possible) changes to the gcc compiler, or is this a feature of the script used for rebuilding major releases of MacPorts?

I encounter this most when I see compile flags including -Wall (warn all) which a great deal of open source devs tend to use.  Warnings are not always bad or even worrisome.

If you're paranoid, take the time to go through and investigate each of the warnings but before you do that try compiling some code of your own with the warn all flag set for gcc and see how many warnings you get.  They are quite common.


The video app on iPhone does not remember last watched position Is there any way to make the video on iPhone remember the last watched position of a movie?

If I stop watching at like 59:03, I expect the app to open the movie at 59:03 the next time I open the movie in the app. Apple TV does it, or really asks if you want to pick up where you left, or start from the beginning.

Go to Settings → Videos and choose where to resume playback.


Mojave App Store Only Shows "Updates" Tab I'm having trouble with the App Store since installing Mojave. The issue seems to have been addressed here, but since I'm new to this site, it won't allow to post there with follow-up questions. I'm not sure how to find/fix the "CFBundleVersion" issue described in that article. Furthermore, when I click Apple > App Store, it opens the current (broken) version, not an older version of the App Store. Any advice for someone who's a novice? Thank you!

Never mind, just figured out an easier way to resolve this:

Spotlight > System Information.
In the lefthand column, locate Software > Applications.
Find "App Store" in the list. If there are two versions, click the older one and identify its location.
Navigate to that location in Finder and confirm (via right click > Get Info) that it's the older version. Delete it.

Voila!


Install and run Linux on partition of external HD? Is it possible to install and run Linux on a partition an external HD in OS X?

Almost all the instructions I've found are about installing to the entire external HD, not to a partition.

I've install rEFInd on a Core2 Duo late 2007 iMac and dd'd a Linux .iso to a FAT-formatted partition on an external FW 800-connected drive, but the drive disappears from Finder and does not appear as an option in rEFInd when the iMac is rebooted.

I have to change the partition format back to OSX Extended (journaled) via selecting Disk -> Partition -> click on the particular partition in OS X 10.11.6 Disk Utility, and rename it to see it again, which of course wipes out the dd'd .iso. Duh!

Any ideas or is running Linux from an external HD partition impossible?

I think it is possible but you must partition/erase that partition as bootable.


How to empty MobileBackups.trash content I noticed that OSX reports a wrong disk space amount, reporting that "Other" space is near to 170Gb.

Digging into the issue here "Huge inconsistency in disk space measurement, missing 50% of the disk"
I discovered that the root cause of the issue is the MobileBackups.trash folder that contains some files, really old, and a backup of a VM created more than one year ago.

I tried some suggestions that says to disable local backup with no luck (running sudo tmutil disable local had no effects on disk space).

I can manually delete the above files using for example GrandPerspective, but I suspect that manually is not the way to go.

What is the correct way to purge that folder?

Update: seems to be somewhat related to CrashPlan, that I used to have installed at that time and that seems to not really like to coexist with Time Machine

Fixed following @bruno-buccolo suggestion to run sudo rm -rf /.MobileBackups.trash