Is it possible to install Windows 8.1 on a disk with two other OS X versions? I have one partition with Yosemite and another partition with Mountain Lion for some legacy software. But I want to also install Windows 8.1 and use it in dual boot.

Bootcamp is asking me to have only one partition, before installing Windows. Is there any workaround to make Bootcamp think the partition it runs on is the whole disk, or something like that. I don't want to erase my Mt Lion partition then install Windows then, if possible, re-create a new OS X partition for Mt Lion, etc. I actually need the Mt Lion partition to still work. It's weird Apple didn't think you'd ever need more than one partition if you want to install Windows too.

WARNING:

If you create another partition in OS X after installing Windows with Bootcamp, it is very likely your Windows partition will become unbootable. Apparently Bootcamp cannot handle more than 4 partitions: EFI, OS X, Recovery, and Bootcamp/Windows.

Be sure to make backups and be aware of the risk of losing your Windows partition if you create an extra partition in OS X after installing Windows with Bootcamp.


Macbook Pro A1706, Glass Screen Repair (not the LCD) So recently I broke the display of my Macbook by closing the lid with an item inside. I have repaired the LCD myself, however, when I was making the repair I cracked the glass screen cover.

Just wondering if anyone knows where I could buy a new glass screen cover (13", touchbar model). I've had a look around but I can only seem to find listings for both the LCD and the glass...

Thanks!

You have to replace the whole assembly.

The LCD and the glass are glued together so it's next to impossible for the average repair person to separate the two. (Technically, they can be unglued, but it requires specialized equipment).

These are tough to source and expensive (PN# 661-05095).  You may have to get it from a Apple repair shop or surf eBay for a "parts" MBP and salvage the screen.


How to make Mojave's quick actions for movies show up in finder? I've two quick actions for movie files in Automator, one of them was a service before the upgrade, the other one is new. Neither of them shows up as quick actions in Finder, and only the older one shows up as a Service in the context menu. What gives?

Make sure your desired quick actions are enabled in System Preferences → Extensions → Finder.


hdiutil not finishing (UDRW) I'm trying to convert a .iso to a .img using

server:~ user$ hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/Downloads/ubuntu-12.04-alternate-powerpc.dmg ~/Downloads/ubuntu-12.04-alternate-powerpc.iso

Usage:  hdiutil convert -format <format> -o <outfile> [options] <image>
        hdiutil convert -help

Every time I run the command it creates the file on the desktop, then when it finishes running the file's gone. It's clear that there is an error somewhere, but I get no information.

Whats going wrong?

I think you just need to juggle the order of things:

hdiutil convert ~/whatever.img -format UDRW -o ~/destination.iso

I may be wrong, but top of my head I see that...


What's the App Store refund policy? The Apple FAQ has this same question, but doesn't really have an answer. To quote:

What is the Mac App Store refund policy?
If you experience a technical issue with an app, first contact the developer of the app for assistance. Their support contact information can be found on the app's page in the Mac App Store. If that does not resolve the issue, contact Mac App Store Customer Support.

So the policy is that I contact someone for help... but can I actually get a refund? Suppose I buy an app that claims to play avi files, but it only works with three out of four files I throw at it. Would that kind of problem typically result in a refund?

Well, in my point of view, if the app works 75% of the time playing AVI files, I would try to contact the developer directly, there might be something required (like a plug-in) or a bug that needs fixing. Like it says in the FAQ, if contacting the developer produces no result, then I guess you could ask for a refund.

I have heard that they gave refunds to people who were unhappy before, but it was a last-resort solution if I remember correctly. Also, I presume the App store staff will fight for you more if you paid 100$ for your app, and a little less if you only paid a buck... :-)


What could cause a cumulative slowness that manifests itself as high WindowServer CPU usage in High Sierra? My system is a MBPro with the GT750M graphics card, mainly using Chrome/Opera

After a day or two of regular usage, it's clear something is accumulating and eventually causing a slowness that shows itself as high WindowServer CPU usage

It's only high CPU usage on WindowServer, no high ram usages etc. - however, since we can't see the GPU Ram stats, I suspect it could be a persistent GPU memory leak (Closing everything doesn't solve the issue, only a reboot does)

I'm out of ideas myself

(This happened right away after installing High Sierra, a reboot delayed the issue for 1-2 days, it seems to happen again and again, so my theories might be wrong too)

Edit: Seems to be a common issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8122451?start=0&tstart=0

I resolved this on the same system by installing the 10.13.2 supplemental update, and then the .104 version of the NVIDIA Driver Manager. (the installers are very picky about versions, so pick whichever matches your OS version here; nothing before .104 installed right for me https://www.tonymacx86.com/nvidia-drivers/ )

Restart, and then switch to the NVIDIA Web Driver from the manager:

(edit: driver helped for a while but the memory leak came back. sigh. back to not having scaled mode available on external screens...)


Changed user password by providing new password as hash not syncing to filevault 2 I have been using

defaults write "path/to/username.plist" shadowhashdata '(really long hash info)'

to administer a local support account on our Mac's but I have found, and it may be since updating to 10.10.1, that the file vault password is not getting updated when this is run.

Updating an account's password for the FileVault 2 pre-boot login screen needs to involve the opendirectoryd process when changing the account's password. Writing the new password hash directly to the plist file bypasses opendirectoryd, so the password sync process never kicks in.
If you need to change the password this way, you may need to remove and re-add the user account with fdesetup. This will flush the old password's derived key for FileVault 2 and set up a derived key for the new password.
Remove:
fdesetup remove -user username_goes_here

Re-add:
fdesetup add -usertoadd username_goes_here

Note: As part of doing the remove and re-add, you will need to provide either the password of a FileVault 2-enabled account or a personal recovery key associated with the machine in order to authorize the changes. One thing that's important to keep in mind is that once you run fdesetup remove for your local administrator account, the account will no longer be enabled for FileVault 2 and will not be able to authorize the running of fdesetup add. Make sure you have a personal recovery key available or enable another user account for FileVault 2, then use the recovery key or that second account's password to authorize the re-adding of your local administrator account.
Commentary: I asked about the practice of writing password hashes to plist files in order to change passwords while I was at this year's WWDC. I received the following feedback from Apple engineers:
"That's horrifying. Don't do that."
https://forums.developer.apple.com/message/8028


How come I have 52GB of swap files? Possible Duplicate:
  Why does Finder use 59GB of swap space?

So I have a regular (fresh) install of OSX Lion on my 2009 MBP, and I installed an SSD as the primary HDD prior to installing Lion. It's a 128GB SSD drive, but the system is using 52.6GB of this for it's swap files, which regularly results in zero space remaining on the drive and the system locking up.

Any idea why it would be using so much space for this (please see the visualisation screenshot, above)?

The Original Poster explained that the answer was as follows:

I killed Sequel Pro that was using 2GB of RAM, and then ran:

$ sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

This had the effect (correct if wrong) of running some tasks which cleaned up the swap files. I now have between 30GB and 50GB space remaining (it's fluctuating..)


Automatically convert video podcasts to "ipod or iphone version" I'm downloading a regular video podcast for use on my ipod.

I like that the podcasts download automatically, but the problem is that I have to manually select all the videos I want to sync and then select "Create an iPod or iPhone version" from the advanced menu in iTunes.

This is a real pain, and if I forget even one video then iTunes comes up with a message saying that 100+ videos aren't in the right format for the sync to work (if they were converted they sync fine though).

Is there any way to get iTunes to do this conversion automatically once the download is finished, so then whenever I sync my iPod the videos will be synced automatically?

Unfortunately, iTunes just won't do this.  :(


WD external hard drive got disconnected without eject So my WD External Hard Drive wasn't ejected properly. It shows up in Terminal and Disk Utility, however it is unable to mount. When trying First Aid, I always get these results:

Repairing file system.
File system check exit code is 8.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
An internal error has occurred.
Operation failed…

When using diskutil list , these are my results

Cristians-MacBook-Pro:~ cristianmanuel$
 diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:      TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:   GUID_partition_scheme    *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:     EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:    Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD        20.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:    Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #: TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD   +120.1 GB   disk1
  Logical Volume on disk0s2
    A58A8705-F3C3-4ED1-AF90-18B03FE6F6C3
                                 Unlocked Encrypted
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:  TYPE NAME       SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:  GUID_partition_scheme    *4.0 TB     disk2
   1:  EFI EFI              209.7 MB        disk2s1
   2:  Apple_HFS Self Work    4.0 TB     disk2s2

What should I try next?

What should I try next?

Remove the drive from the WD enclosure and use a different enclosure/cable to test the drive.
Basically, you have to go through the process of elimination to figure out what your next steps are, if any.  There are two possibilities here:

The drive has failed
The enclosure (USB to SATA controller) has failed.

(I detail this more in this post)
If it's the drive that failed, your only option is to send it in for recovery.  If the USB enclosure has failed, you can salvage the situation by removing the drive and putting it into a different enclosure or connecting it with a USB to SATA cable (see the linked post for details).
How will you know which is the problem?  You won't until you remove the drive and connect it to a known working USB to SATA enclosure/cable.
Backing up your data
You're using a 4TB external drive with a 128GB internal drive meaning that 4TB drive is your "main drive" for at least your Lightroom work.
You need to back this drive up
How?  Get a second drive of equal or greater capacity.  Then there are two ways to backup your files:

Use normal backup techniques like Time Machine or even the included WD Utilities.

Use Lightroom's built in functionality

Lightroom allows you to instantly make a backup copy of your file during import:

All you have to do now is backup your catalog.  If one drive fails, you simply apply the catalog to the backup files and all your changes will be saved.


Why am I getting a "dubious ownership of file" error when Launch Agent runs my .plist file? I have a Launch Agent configured to run a .plist file for example: /Library/LaunchAgent/foo.plist. Inside this .plist, it is set to run during LoginWindow and Aqua.

When I attempt to launch my computer and get to the login screen, this plist should run but instead gives the following error (in the console):

  launchctl: Dubious ownership on file (skipping): /Library/LaunchAgents/foo.plist

When I attempt to login in to a non-admin account, it gives the exact same error message. When I attempt to login with an admin account, it works fine.

I'll be honest, I don't know much about Mac OS X privileges and permissions.

To create the file, I opened it up in emacs, with sudo on the admin account (e.g. by using the su command since the other account doesn't have sudo privileges) and then saved it.

Which account do I need to use to create the file so that it works for all users?
Do I need to use the sudo command?
Do I need to change the file permissions (e.g. use chmod)?
Is there an easy way to take an existing file and change its ownership instead of having to recreate the file?
Could someone please explain why this error happens?

If a plist is owned by root and writable by a user other than root, that's a security issue.

You can change the owner to root with sudo chown root <filename>, and change the permissions with sudo chmod 644 <filename> (4 for read access, 2 for write access, 1 for execute access, added up. The first number is for the owner, the second for the group, the third for everyone.)


Downloading Notes app notes without iCloud? Is there any way to get notes from the iOS 6 Notes app off of an iPhone without requiring an internet connection (or thus iCloud)?

iTunes Sync, which did Sync Notes on iOS 5 to Mail app on OS X Snow Leopard, no longer works for notes on iOS 6 and Mountain Lion.

Added: I found some commercial solutions as answered below.  Are there any free (built-in, open source or non-expiring) solutions?

I am not so sure that it's possible without an internet connection, but since notes are just a subset of IMAP, you should be able to use any IMAP e-mail account (e.g. Gmail) for that purpose after you add the account in Settings.app and enable Note Syncing. However, I can't think of a way to do it without any internet connection.


Installing a HP Color LaserJet 1600 on MacOS 10.6.4 I'm trying to install a HP Color LaserJet 1600 on MacOS 10.6.4 with little luck. The printer works fine from my Windows machines. HP doesn't support the MacOS for this printer by default so I followed the instructions from this forum post: http://macosx.com/forums/hardware-peripherals/302806-hp-lazer-1600-printer-driver-mac.html.

The post offers several solutions but I followed the instructions from whiskynwhisky and downloaded a Unix driver from here: http://www.mediafire.com/?nocydet5wml. The instructions included with the download were straightforward and I now have the driver installed and the printer in System Preferences. Unfortunately while jobs queue and dequeue they do not actually print. Are there other options to get this printer to work on my MacBook Air? Do I need to do something differently with the driver I already have installed?

HP has published a list of printers not supported on OS X Mountain Lion on their web site:

Products not supported
The following products are not supported in Mac OS X including the Mountain Lion operating system
...

HP Color LaserJet 1500 and 1600 Printer series


Does "Messages in iCloud" include SMS? The page on Messages in iCloud mentions keeping "all your messages" on iCloud. It then goes on to activate the functionality on the iMessage settings tab in macOS.

Does it apply to SMS messages?

Does it only apply to SMS messages under certain conditions, e.g. only after enabling receiving SMS on another device?

Messages in iCloud applies to all SMS. The service can both be used to backup messages in iCloud and sync them across all your devices.
While it may be confusing to manage a SMS service setting under iMessage settings, it still applies to all your SMS if they have been synced from your iPhone. Mac cannot send or receive regular SMS themselves because they don't have the hardware required.


Three-finger trackpad gesture on Mission Control and Expose not working in my Mac Pro The trackpad gesture to call Mission Control or Expose with three-fingers does sometimes not work for some reasons. It works when I use four-fingers, and it functions as usual whenever I open my System Preferences and reset the Mission Control and Expose section to use three-fingers gesture (instead of four-fingers). However, it's set to three-fingers at first, and it's just that I first disable it and then enable it again...

The symptom occurs whenever I restart my Mac, so it's nothing but tedious to bother to open my System Preferences to check off and then on to the Mission Control and Expose checkboxes. As I said, when I reset the setting, it works as usual.

My trackpad is Apple's Bluetooth trackpad, and my Mac Pro is late-2013 machine. I also use mid-2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display, and while it might occur on the machine at times (maybe only a couple of times per 1,000 sessions), I have not had such issues almost usually.

Is there anything that I should investigate further? PRAM and SMC didn't resolve the issue... I'm curious to know why it occurs whenever I restart my Mac, and how to solve the issue.

I use the latest version of Mavericks.

This sometimes happens to me, where the 3-finger macro stops working. Seems like OSX just bugs out. My hotfix right now is to open the command line and run killall Dock. Seems to work fine for resetting it and getting it working again.


Utility to save current selection or clipboard to a file Is there a utility that saves current selection (from terminal, web browser, ...) to a text/html file in a specific location?

I want to use it as a quick note taking tool so I do not have to "create new file, paste, save file" each time I want to take some note.

Open Automator and create a service "text2file" with the following steps:

After saving the service, you may choose any text (you don't have to copy it!) and in the context menu -> Services choose "text2file" to save the content to clip.txt on your desktop.

After saving the file you can add a shortcut for "text2file" in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services -> Text -> text2file

The screenshot above is taken in Automator 2.2.4/10.7 (Lion). If another system is used the steps might be slightly different.


How to tell the keyboard layout from the box? I have a brand new Apple wired keyboard (someone gave it to me for free). I want to sell it on eBay. How can I tell the layout just by looking at the box?

I tried to Google every number on the picture, without definitive results. The model numbers A1243 and MB110B/A can belong any layout. This is true for the barcode as well. The number starting with 4R produces no results.

Edit: two more pictures

[

It is a British layout. I found this out by googling 'MB110' while restricting the results to different countries and looking for model numbers that pop up.

Examples:

MB110B/A and MB110B/B are British layouts

MB110D/B is German

MB110RS/B is Russian

etc.


TextEdit keeps duplicating my text file and adding a strange extension A lot of the time, when I open a file in TextEdit, such as test.txt, it will create another file test.txt.sb-d7bff531-E4qLT8 in the same directory.

Why does it do this?

If you also get errors like this, it's probably the same issue I had.

The document “temp.txt” could not be opened. You don’t have permission.
To view or change permissions, select the item in the Finder and choose File > Get Info.

There were messages like this in system.log, so it could be related to Versions or sandboxing:
9/13/12 10:41:55.118 PM TextEdit[357]: NSFileVersion tried to tried to add a new generation and failed. Versioned file URL: file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/temp.txt, contents URL: file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/temp.txt.sb-de6477ff-BhVNrq, error: Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)"
9/13/12 10:41:55.118 PM TextEdit[357]: NSDocument failed to preserve the old version of a document. Here's the error:
Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)"
9/13/12 10:41:55.119 PM TextEdit[357]: <Document: 0x7f971d00a510>: An error occurred while attempting to preserve the backup file at file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/temp.txt.sb-de6477ff-BhVNrq: Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)"

I ended up replacing TextEdit with TextEditPlus, and I haven't gotten those errors or extra temp files after that. It's based on a version of TextEdit that came with Lion, but it's still mostly identical to the current version.


Folder navigation using keyboard in Coda I'm trying to navigate on Coda using only the keyboard, but I can't seem to find the shortcuts. You can expand a folder by pressing the right arrow key, but I can't seem to mimic double clicking using the keyboard.

When you double click, you actually enter the context of that particular folder. It would also be good to know how to navigate to the parent folder.

Found it!

Cmd+Up and Cmd+Down to navigate between folders.


How do I prevent my Mac from resetting the software update download every time i resume it? I've  had this problem before too but I couldn't find a concrete resolution. I'm running Yosemite 10.10.2 with the latest version being 10.10.5. Since I've had some wireless connectivity issues with the present version, I thought it would be wise enough to install the latest version and see if the issue has been totally dealt with. But every time I resume the download (since the whole package is some 2.36 GB), the Appstore resets it to around 50 MB and all that was downloaded goes to waste. Now I want some advice on how to stop this annoyance.

Download the OS X 10.10.5 combo update. Combo updates contain all previous updates.


Is it possible to disable spell check systemwide? I've just done a clean install of Yosemite, and in practically all of my apps I'm noticing those red underlines whenever I've "misspelled" something (or, more accurately, used an unrecognized name, technical term, piece of code, etc.). I have been disabling it app by app, although even then it doesn't always work - for example, when doing Google searches in Chrome it still shows up, even though I've disabled "check spelling while typing."

I've also gone to System Preferences/Keyboard/Text and unchecked "Correct spelling automatically," but this still doesn't seem to do anything.

Has something gone wrong on my system? And is there any more reliable way to completely disable this unwanted "feature?"

Renaming '/System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/Resources' did not work for me since that file doesn't seem to exist on this install (10.11). What did work was disabling it for the languages I usually write in, under System Preferences->Keyboard->Text->Spelling select menu. It's set to 'Automatic by Language' by default, choose 'Set up…' at the bottom and deselect your languages. Restart the applications that use the Spelling service.


I want to update to the most recent firmware while jailbroken OK so I have the iPhone 3GS (old bootrom) and am currently on iOS 5.1.1. I'd like to update to the most recent firmware WHILE retaining my untethered jailbroken status, Cydia, and the unlocked feature of the phone which allows me to use it without a data plan.

I've been told to simply update the phone in iTunes - will this retain all the things I mentioned above?

When I click on update iPhone, it says iTunes will "Verify this update with Apple" (or something along those lines) - what does this mean? Does this mean that Apple will know I'm using an iPhone w/o a data plan and will they then notify AT&T?

Lastly, the "backup" that you can create in iTunes is only information - Like, if I tried to back up from a 6.1.3 to a "backup" that was created with a phone on 5.1.1 firmware it would NOT restore the phone to firmware 5.1.1, correct?

Thank you so very much for your time, whoever is able to answer these questions. It means a lot to me. Thank you again, Sebastian

OK, I'll try to answer one-by-one.
Updating without loosing jailbreak
I'm afraid that it's no longer possible. The most recent iOS version - 6.1.3 - does not currently have a jailbreak available. You would keep all you info, but wouldn't keep your jailbreak - nor be able to get it back soon.
Verify this update with Apple
It just means that Apple will sign your update and get stats on what kind of devices are updating, etc. Ever wondered where those percentages they get for the Keynote graphs are coming from? Now you know.
They won't tell AT&T. Even if they did, there is nothing wrong with using a phone without a data plan. Who cares, anyway?
The Backup
Yes, it's only information - apps, app data, settings, pictures, etc.
Restoring to that backup would keep your data and put you on iOS 6.1.3.


Cannot install Adobe CS5 - install hangs at calculating time I am not able to install any of the Adobe CS5 software. The installer hangs when calculating time.

Here's what I found in the installer log:

[       0] Mon Oct  3 21:22:13 2011  INFO
::START TIMER:: [Total Timer]
CHECK: Single instance running
CHECK : Credentials
Load Deployment File
Create Required Folders
Assuming install mode
::START TIMER:: [Bootstrap]
Perform Bootstrapping ...
[       0] Mon Oct  3 21:36:16 2011  INFO
::START TIMER:: [Total Timer]
CHECK: Single instance running
CHECK : Credentials
Load Deployment File
Create Required Folders
Assuming install mode
::START TIMER:: [Bootstrap]
Perform Bootstrapping ...
[       0] Tue Oct  4 00:14:07 2011  INFO
::START TIMER:: [Total Timer]
CHECK: Single instance running
CHECK : Credentials
Load Deployment File
Create Required Folders
Assuming install mode
::START TIMER:: [Bootstrap]
Perform Bootstrapping ...

Every time it tries to perform Bootstrapping, it hangs right there.

I've also tried to download a trial version of Photoshop only and install it through Adobe Download Assistant, but still the same results (see the last entry in the log).

I'd really appreciate it if someone could help.

Had the same hanging problem when I tried to install InDesign and Photoshop CS5 5 on two iMacs (both 24-inch, early 2009 models with 4GB RAM) that I have formatted to install El Capitan.
From a tip I read somewhere, I installed Java that I downloaded from this link: https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1572?locale=en_US
You have to restart the computer after installing Java. InDesign installed without a hitch after that. Photoshop hanged twice on one iMac but on the third try, after another restart, Photoshop successfully installed.
If this remedy failed, I would have tried the solutions mentioned here: Installation of Adobe Creative Suite 6 hangs at AdobeHelp on Mac OS X El Capitan


How to remove word suggestion bar in text messages in ios10? How do you remove the word suggestion grey bar that is above the keyboard? On the previous ios you were able to pull it down. That option is no longer avaliable in ios10.

Turn off "Predictive" in Settings --> General --> Keyboard.


Is there any way to see what OS X is doing when it's booting up when no chime is played? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I see the system status during boot?

I have had the hard drive in my iMac replaced and now I'm trying to restore it from my TimeMachine back up. I thought the TimeMachine back up was corrupt but maybe I'm just not patient enough, or I'm misunderstanding the restore process.

I'm able to restore successfully, but on reboot the machine shows me the white screen with the Apple logo and the spinner. I can hear some occasional sounds from the hard drive in the machine. It's been at this screen for a good hour now. The occasional hard drive sounds make me wonder if it's doing and fsck or similar operation on the drive before the system boots.

No chime has been played yet by the system. So the usual Cmd-V and Cmd-S solutions to see what it's doing or to boot to single user mode aren't working for me.

Is there any way to see what OS X is doing at boot time? I'm thinking something akin to the terminal window that modern Linux distros like CentOS can show you at boot time. The ones that let you see the step-by-step boot messages as they happen.

See Apple support document Mac OS X: How to start up in single-user or verbose mode


Possible to chain mac minis together? Is there a guide to extending a mac mini by adding several mac minis together to add cpu and memory capacity?

What exactly is your use case? There is not any way to connect two Mac Minis together and have them function as a single machine. But there are ways to split the workload between two different Macs.

Some programs may let you designate master and slave computers, which would allow you to have one computer control the actions of another. Isadora, a video/performance application, is one example.

If you're looking for a more general use case, there are multiple options for automating actions on a Mac. For example, if you wanted to offload converting video files via handbrake, you could have Hazel watching a folder on the second Mini. When you put a video file there, Hazel could automatically run handbrakecli with predefined settings.

Here's an example rule:

Here Hazel is watching the folder "pinboard-backups"1. When it sees a file that is a movie it runs a script executing handblakecli (I've set it up so that the converted file ends up back on the first Mini. You could have Hazel running there as well set up to rename the file).

After it runs the script, it moves the file to the trash.

This is just one option; there's plenty of other methods out there. I'd be happy to help point you in a more specific direction if you let me know what you'd like to do.

1: Probably not where you'd be keeping them, but the folder I was editing at the moment.


Skype integration in OSX Messages Just curious to see if there is any possible way to do this but is it possible to get Skype chats to work in OSX Messages?

Since I already use 3 other chat methods in Messages (iMessage, Facebook and Google Talk) running a separate program that chews out so much valuable system resources seems a silly way just to stay in contact with a couple more people.

No. Skype is developed by Microsoft and Apple wants to promote Facetime. I really wish there was way though because I hate the Skype interface but have to use it frequently for my job.


Is it safe to wash your iPhone with soap and water? My iPhone XS is water resistant. I just got some burrito juice on it so I went ahead and washed it with soap and water.

It's never felt cleaner, and it feels brand new.

Is this safe?

No, water isn’t safe for any electronics. Neither are cleaning products, including soap.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207123

Avoid moisture and clean as lightly and dryly as possible is best for the hardware - especially hardware that’s been used and bumped and dropped. Small cracks will grab water and soap, a surfactant, causes capillary action to be amplified.

Even a new phone or waterproof one shouldn’t just be washed with excess water for no good reason. It really depends on the contaminant and ability to clean without a lot of water in the end. It also doesn’t mean a drop in a pool or sink will cause a phone to fail, especially the newer ones.

Now, when choosing between your health and the phone health, most people will occasionally use something other than water, but only knowing it damages the device in excess or in concentration based on the cleaning product you choose.


Calling 9-1-1 with Siri If I try to call 9-1-1 using Siri, she says "Calling 9-1-1. I'm sorry, I can't call 9-1-1."

Is there really no way to call 9-1-1 from a hands-free position? This is such a strange issue; I can't imagine a single advantage to intentionally disabling this functionality.

Calling emergency numbers is prohibited in Siri to prevent accidental calls being made. You need to use the Phone app manually or the Emergency dialer on the lock screen to make calls to emergency numbers.

However, in some locations, you can say something similar to 'call the police' and this will succeed as I believe Siri is more accurately able to understand what you are saying.


No method to install OS X system on to Mid 2011 imac 27" Mid 2011 imac 27", which had a new hard drive installed afew months back.
Since having a bad crash, the system had corrupt but seem get stuck in boot cycle
on startup. I ran fsck on the hard drive but no problems were found and the drive was caught in some sort of boot cycle on startup.

I was able to boot from external drive with system and format the hard drive on the imac after I had backed it up. Only problem now is no method install a new system be it 10.8 or 10.9 seems to work.

I've created a USB 10.9 installer and I get the following error:

I also get a similar error when booting from a external drive with a bootable 10.9 system installed on it.

I am unsure the new hard drive installed in the imac is causing the problems or something else on the imac. Any help would be greatful as I think the only option
I have left is take out the hard drive in the imac and replace with another new drive I have.

This question is a year old but I am going to answer it incase someone else runs into this same issue.

I just bought a mid 2011 27" refurb iMac from IBM and they scrubbed the HD completely.  This eliminated pretty much every option there was for installing an OS on the Mac.

The problem is that when these models shipped they had either Lion (10.7) or at the earliest Snow Leopard 10.6.6.  They are not backwards compatible with the Snow Leopard retail DVDs Apple offers, which is OS X 10.6.3.  These iMacs originally shipped with installion DVDs but Apple would not send them to me.

Here's what I had to do:

Download/or otherwise obtain an OS X 10.6.7.iso file from wherever you might find something like that.  It will be an disk image for a DVD not intended for this model of iMac, and it will not work.

I bought the retail DVDs (10.6.3) from Apple, and they did not work.  I got a RAM Error message (three tones) at boot.

If you have both you can splice the installer package files from the retail DVDs (which work with any Mac) with the installer package files from the 10.6.7 disk image and create a "universal" OS X 10.6.7 installer disk image.  This is not fancy it's a simple matter of copy and paste.  Detailed instructions for this process can be found here.

After I had the modified .iso file I converted it into a .dmg using this terminal code.  Again, very simple.  Nothing to be afraid of.

From there I used "Carbon Copy Cloner" and Cloned the .dmg file I created through this process unto a thumb drive (needs to be at least 8gb).  Worked like a charm.  Just pup it in a usb port and turn on the iMac.

You can also (possibly) use Disk Utility which is a built in utility and "restore" the image to your thumb drive, but I wasn't having any luck with my Disk Utility boot disks and so I decided to try another utility.  My feeling is that it likely would have worked this way if i had used DU.

Make sure your thumb is formatted for GUID.  Just a word of caution. I intend to upgrade to Yosemite.  The install of Snow Leopard works, but I don't fully trust it and my Airport card is non functional.  Certain things went wrong in the installation process obviously, but it's good enough to boot, and then upgrade, or maybe try to install a fresh unaltered version of Snow Leopard if that's your desire.

I hope this helps someone out.  I've tried dozens of different ways to just get this iMac to boot an OS and this is finally the one that worked.  Apple Support was zero help. Good luck!

I've since updated Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and airport is now working. Everything is very smooth and functional.  No problems.


How to create an email group easily in Mac OS X? I have a list of email addresses to which I frequently send emails. How can I create an email group in my address book easily? Is there any method other than add one email address at a time? I'm using Mail.app to send/receive emails.

When I used Gmail, it was easy to add many email addresses at one time. I just needed to create a list of email addresses separated by commas. Is a similar action possible in Contacts.app?

I'm on Mountain Lion.

ADD. My situation is that I want to create a contact group for 100+ students who will take my course in the next semester. They are not in my current contact book and I just have their email addresses. Any easy way to do it?

Typically, if you had many people from your Contacts you would simply create a group by following:

Open Contacts.app and select "File" -> "New Group"
Enter the name of the group you are creating.

This is what you will type into mail, and will effectively be the name of your "distribution list".

Go back to "All Contacts" and drag the contacts in that you would like to be in your group.
Now, when you want to sent to that group, just type in the group's name and Mail.app will automatically populate the sending information.

However, for your situation, that won't work very well as you need to create a distribution list for many people who aren't in your Address book (per your edit). With a tip borrowed from iOS, and a hack, you should be set.

Your list of email addresses must be comma-delimited. If it is separated by line breaks, then this likely won't work. So first we need them comma delimited.
Now we will create a contact, and name it "2013 4Q Students" or something.
Next, we will put our comma-delimited list of email addresses into one email field.

I assume there is an arbitrary limit on how many email addresses you can put into one field, but I don't know from experience what that might be.

Type the new "contact" name into a Mail.app compose "To" field. It will come up with the standard blue bubble and all those email addresses will be packed inside.
Now we proceed with a small hack: click the down-arrow next to the contact name in the blue bubble.
Click "Edit Contact".
Remove the contact name ("2013 4Q Students") from the beginning and the "<".
Type Command + right arrow to reach end of email address line, and remove the ">".

Just a little cumbersome, but this should work for you.


iPad keeps disconnecting from ad-hoc networks I have a computer with Internet connection via Ethernet, it is Wi-fi capable so in order to share the Internet connection I had set up an ad-hoc network.

It works fine with other computers, but if only my iPad is connected, the link breaks whenever mi iPad is sleeping.

When turning on my iPad, I have to reset the ad-hoc network in the computer in order to have Internet available in my iPad again.

I wonder why it happens. Thanks.

i'm having the same problem, i use my laptop as internet server, all other computer is connected to the network and have internet access, when i use my tablet and after a while it losses the internet access even though it's still connected to the network (only skype keeps working, no browsing and no facebook).

to fix it you need to do the following:

right click on Computer >> Properties >> Device Manager >> network adapters >> right click on Ethernet Controller >> Properties >> Power Management >> uncheck the box "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

it should work fine now


On Macbook Pro with 2 HDMI monitors, is it possible to associate the USB-C/HDMI with a desktop/monitor? On Macbook Pro with 2 HDMI monitors via 2 USB-C/HDMI adapters. I have multiple desktop's on each display. The macbook itself always has the same desktops on, but my two HDMI monitors periodically/randomly switch their collective desktops.

So all of the desktops on the right monitor will be displayed on the left, and vice versa.

This happens at times like, disconnecting and reconnecting to the monitors, not just randomly as you're typing. But it doesn't happen every time you disconnect.

Q: Is it possible to associate the USB-C/HDMI with a desktop, so that monitor 1 will always have the same content?

Note: Rearranging the order of displays in "Built-in Retina Display" is not a solution. As the adjoining monitor edges then change from 1L/2R to 2L/1R so mouse overs are the opposite side of monitors.

Unfortunately it is not possible. It is a bit of "hit and miss" when you have these situations. You can sometimes replug the cables and get the desired order, but it is not foolproof.


Merging Two Folders Into One in OS X? When trying to drag various items into a folder in Finder in OS X and some of the items have the same name, OS X will ask if you wish to replace the items in the folder you are dragging to.

However if you wish to merge the files from the first folder to the second folder:

How do you accomplish this ?

If the folders are the same name, drag one to the location of the other, and BEFORE releasing the mouse or trackpad, hold down the Option key. You will be presented with three options, one of which is to Merge.


Export iPad home screen bookmarks/Safari bookmarks to PC/Mac How do you copy or export bookmarks and home screen web apps/bookmarks from iPad to PC/Mac?

Bookmark syncing between Mobile Safari and Safari running on OS X or Windows is part of iCloud (included in OS X and available for Windows via iCloud Control Panel for Windows v1.1).


Internet Sharing is grey out My system is Lion 10.7.x

My Internet Sharing is greyed out with:

  Internet Sharing: Off

  You cannot start Internet Sharing because you have not selected a port to share your connection.

How can I enable internet sharing?

The internet sharing panel is totally disabled, I can see the drop down but unable to select, I'm using a customized version from corp, they may disabled this function, since I have root permission, I might be able to restore it, do you know where to enable the panel?

I just find my screen shot is exactly the same as this question, not sure if its exactly the same case. Internet Sharing on Mac via LAN

I tried to add a com.apple.nat.plist to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
and tried sudo /usr/libexec/InternetSharing -dDV, I got below in my /var/log/system.log
There seems to be no error, but still unable to get it work.

Dec 10 04:24:37  com.apple.InternetSharing[3406]: port forwarding is allowed
Dec 10 04:24:37  com.apple.InternetSharing[3406]: published changes: success
Dec 10 04:24:38  com.apple.InternetSharing[3406]: store_changedDec 10 04:24:38  com.apple.InternetSharing[3406]: set state: silent, state RESET(1020)->ON(1023), reason NO_ERROR(0), errnum 45
Dec 10 04:24:38  com.apple.InternetSharing[3406]: prefs_changed
Dec 10 04:24:38  com.apple.InternetSharing[3406]: published changes: success

You need to select which networking the connection is to e share on. This is selecting at least one from the list in the bottom right hand of the preference pane.

e.g. to share your ethernet connection over wifi and firewore


Is there any reason why Time Machine only finds my NAS over wifi? I've got a 2009 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.7 and a Synology Diskstation ds215j.  I've successfully set up a user for Time Machine on the NAS and have successfully performed backups.

However, this only works over wifi!  When I connect [my Mac] to my router via Ethernet cable, Time Machine fails to find the disk.  Both DHCP addresses (wired and wireless) are on the same subnet, which is the same subnet as the NAS.

Can anybody tell me why?!

I believe the issue you are referring to is the fact that the only drives that you are allowed to use as a time machine are ones that are internal to a Apple router, the only way for this to work is if you had an Airport Time Capsule which has a built in hard-drive. That is the only drive Time Machine supports connected to your router.

Basically you CANNOT use a drive hooked-up via ethernet to your router for Time Machine. You have to have a Airport Time Capsule and use the internal hard drive. That is why when you connect your NAS Time Machine does not recognize the drive.


how to check for iPhone battery replacement eligibility under warranty? In the Apple Store they have a special software program that will check the remaining strength of your battery, and replace it under AppleCare warranty if it goes beneath 80%. Is there any way to check that on my own short of calling them and having them rerun the tests over the phone? It's not totally clear how the figures are actually calculated.

Call Apple or request an evaluation from their support web site. They are the final judge of warranty status and can run a check on your device remotely - generally while you wait.

The API to get that data is private and generally doesn't work on iOS - Is there an iPhone app (as opposed to desktop software) that shows actual battery cycles - cycles number

You can use computers to get FCC and cycle counts - How to figure out iOS device battery health?

Whether you can get the 80% value like apple isn't guaranteed with that data since I believe they read far more internal counters and often offer a replacement even when you aren't at 80% in many cases.


Permissions For Mounted Backup Disk I just dropped a new SSD into where the optical drive was on my macbook pro.

I did a clean install of 10.9, and i left the old drive as is without running migration assistance.

My Old HD is now mounted and visible on my desktop.

When i try and goto /Volumes/OldDrive/Users/Foo or /Volumes/OldDrive/Users/Bar i now get a permission denied error.

How do i grant myself super user powers to navigate through my old files in Finder?

One option is:

select the folder
press Command-i,
expand Sharing & Permissions
click the lock to authenticate
then click the plus button
add your active user account to the list
Optional: then click the gear menu and choose "apply to enclosed items". (this action is recursive and could take a while as it touches every file...)


iTunes keeps crashing - malloc_history possible for iTunes? So I have a problem with iTunes crashing every time I try to activate iTunes Match.

After talking about 3 Hours with Apple they said I should just reinstall OSX.
Great. So I went looking into the problem on my own.

It seems that iTunes is trying to free an allocated object that couldn't been allocated before so iTunes crashed.

iTunes(2407,0x10e2f5000) malloc: * error for object 0x7fd20ab694c0: pointer being freed was not allocated

Is it possible to activate malloc logging for iTunes?

I want to use malloc_history to search for the problem..

Whether it's possible to use malloc or not, this is definitely not a normal thing, so the problem is elsewhere. It certainly doesn't happen to millions of customers out there. The OS Reinstall will probably fix it, but before going that crazy, I'd try to do the usual Mac maintenance stuff.

One trick that usually helps me a lot is to create a blank new user and try from there. If it works, then you can start digging "what is in my account that breaks this?"

Starting in Single-User also helps to diagnose stuff.

TL;DR: something is broken, malloc won't help you much. Start with the basic.

On the other hand, you might have a RAM problem.


Calendar will not display When I view calendars on iOS, all can see is an "i" with a circle around it.  If I click the i, it just brings up the calendar color.

I can not view any of the calendar items.

The same calendar on my mac is working.

NEVER MIND!  I realized that it was simply updating the new data I added to the calendar.  It took 1 day to do that for some reason.  I reconnected to the mac and synced it again, and it is finally working.


Mac Powerpoint 2011 "play" presentation w/out full screen? I'm trying to play a presentation with Powerpoint without seeing it in full screen.  (my goal is to take notes on the presentation in a separate window/app).

Any ideas how to do this?  I want to be able to view the animations/transitions, which I don't get when viewing the powerpoint in edit mode

Just figured it out: use "Set Up Show" on the ribbon (or in the Slide Show menu), which has an option for "Browse by an individual (window)"

Hope that helps someone else :)


How to restore recent files back to their folders? I have recently tried to iCloud backup and I restored local files. But in doing this, accidently I pressed cancelled and local files were not backed up fully.

Luckily, I found my local files in iCloud (archives) which is in recents files. But they are located in files not by folders. I can copy and paste, and bring back to the mac, but need to create every folder. Is there any way to bring recents files back to mac with folders?

The image below shows the recents file which was backed up by iCloud archives. I want them back to be relocated in folders which I created before iCloud backup. I really cannot create every folder and bring each file back in..

From what I understand, "Recents" are recently accessed files. I have disabled this function on my system. If you have backed up you drive or some folder(s) to iCloud in some way then I would suspect the using "iCloud Drive" instead of "Recents" could give you the folder structure containing you backed up.

At this point these are just semi-educational guesses as I neither use iCloud for file backup or have "Recents" active.


Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable vs HDMI to HDMI I have MacBook Pro with Retina, and Iiyama Monitor that has HDMI input. Is there a difference (in performance or anything) between connecting MDP-HDMI cable into Mac's Thunderbolt and between using HDMI cable into Mac's HDMI output? I have both cables, but so far I am unable to tell what's the difference. I think that both options are actually HDMI's in the end, but I am not sure yet.

Using your Thunderbolt/MDP connector just to convert HDMI will work, but will consume your Thunderbolt port. As DisplayPort is not compatible with HDMI, the cable will actually contain electronics to convert the DP signal to HDMI. While this does not downgrade the quality, it is another thing that can break, consumes power and costs more than a HDMI cable.

You should use the HDMI port to connect your display.


D-Link DIR-880L + Mac => monthly data usage stats possible? Any idea how to track network data usage (how many GB in/out total per month) from a D-Link DIR-880L router?
I tried PeakHour (https://peakhourapp.com/) but it looks like this router doesn't support SNMP and using UPnP straight up didn't work (and their support is non existent…).
Xfinity is not unlimited anymore where I live and they're saying I used 65GB just yesterday, and  1.1TB total this month which is not even remotely possible from how I use the web, so I need to figure out what's going on… (assuming they're not just inflating the numbers like crazy )
I'm pretty frustrated with the "crappy software with no update ever" business model of D-Link so I'm thinking about maybe buying a Synology router instead (already have a NAS from them and I like their OS) but I'd rather spend $0 with some Terminal Voodoo or something like that
Any pointer in the right direction MUCH appreciated!
Thanks!

I'm pretty frustrated with the "crappy software with no update ever" business model of D-Link so I'm thinking about maybe buying a Synology router instead (already have a NAS from them and I like their OS) but I'd rather spend $0 with some Terminal Voodoo or something like that

Ahhh yes... You've seen the light!  Consumer grade routers are just too limited for what they do.  You need a proper router that has the ability to measure your bandwidth.
As for Terminal "voodoo," no.  There's no magic command that allows you to simply measure the amount of data that has gone out to the internet.  75% of it is how you architect the hardware setup.  If not your router, you need to somehow put your computer (it's network interface) between your router and your network so it can "count" all of the network packets going in and out.  It's like having a bouncer at a bar with one of those click counters but instead of putting him at the door, he sits at the bar - there's no way he can accurately count the patrons coming and going; you need him at the door.

but I'd rather spend $0

Then you want pfSense.  I'm a huge fan of Synology and make heavy use of the NAS gear.  As for networking, I swear by pfSense for my routing.  First off, it's free.  Their model is either to purchase their appliance or purchase managed support.  You can install pfSense on a cheap Core 2 Duo.  Your biggest expense will be a quad Ethernet port if you want to have a DMZ or handle multiple LANs.  I put one because I put my guest WiFi network on it's own network and kept them separate from everything else.
Here's just one of the sample Stats reports (Traffic Graph) that comes out of the box.

However, based on your premise for starting this project, no more unlimited bandwidth, you can set up traffic limiters to prevent going over.


How can I prevent my Mac from selecting my Apple TV as an audio source by default I own an Apple TV at home and have an Apple TV at work. I play audio through my home's stereo system fairly often. Whenever I get into the office while being previously connected to the Apple TV at home, my Mac connects to one of the Apple TVs at my office. How can I prevent my Mac from doing that?

If you use airplay then this might work for you.

Change your Apple TV Name (Apple TV software version 6.1 and later)

Go to Settings > AirPlay > Apple TV Name > Custom.

Use this setting to change the name of the Apple TV to distinguish it from other Apple TVs on the same network.

Or in iTunes select the output


Fastest and safest way to copy massive data from one external drive to another I need to be able to copy about 2TB of data from an external drive (single USB external disk) to a another external drive (Drobo attached via Firewire).

Finder is not an option. If it hits any problem, it stops the process and I have to figure it out why it failed and start over. It could take me months to get through it.

I've read about CP and RSYNC but I'm not too familiar and I'm afraid I might get some of the switches wrong and miss files, or screw up the file dates, or worst...

Can anyone suggest how I might pull this off with minimum risk and cost?

remote sync, rsync, is a reliable choice for copying large amounts of data. You can prepare the command and perform a dry-run before committing to the copy; add --dry-run to simulate the copy.

Your final command will be fairly simple:

sudo rsync -vaE --progress /Volumes/SourceName /Volumes/DestinationName

The flags are:

v increases verbosity.
a applies archive settings to mirror the source files exactly, including symbolic links and permissions.
E copies extended attributes and resource forks (OS X only).
--progress shows progress during the copy.

sudo, is used to ensure rsync has appropriate rights to access and read all files on your drive regardless of owner. This also allows rsync to write the files to the new drive recreating the original owner information.

rsync is likely the best choice because it can be rerun in case of problems, offers detailed logging, and is as fast as can be while remaining safe.

There are numerous guides for getting the most from rsync, rsync command examples provides relevant examples. Take care with the trailing slashes; these can make a world of difference if your copy starts with a folder.

Alternative tools include ditto and cp. Both are reasonable choices but offer differing syntax.


Code Runner does not run C# code While using the application CodeRunner with C#, whenever I try to "run" the program it gives me this error:

bash: Run Command: No such file or directory.

How can I resolve this?

Have you installed Mono and added the configuration to CodeRunner to enable C# support?

I found a solution if you have installed Mono over at MacRumors forums posted by user David Sheeks outlined below:

Configure CodeRunner

Open the CodeRunner Preferences dialog, go to the "Languages" tab, click the "+" icon and and specify "C#" as the Language name.

On the right you have fields where you can populate the language settings. Check the "Language uses compilation script" check box, enter /usr/bin/mono $compiler for the Run Command and set the File Extension to cs

Click the "Edit Script..." button and append the following to the compile.sh script (this will open in the CodeRunner editor):

file=$1
/usr/bin/mcs "$file"
status=$?
if [ $status -ne 0 ]
then
exit $status
fi
echo $file | sed -e "s/\.cs/.exe/"
exit 0

Mono installs it's compiler and runtime executable in /usr/bin and this is verified with the current version of the Mono SDK.

If you have done part of the above, and not setup the path's correctly, I would assume that the missing path it's complaining about is the fact that you either a) haven't installed Mono and the config can't find the compiler or b) youve installed Mono and the config in CodeRunner is invalid.


Cannot ping localhost after migrating to new Mac After migrating to a new MacBook Pro I can no longer ping localhost.

I already tried to change my /etc/hosts file although it was already right before.

$ host localhost
localhost has address 127.0.0.1
localhost has IPv6 address ::1

$ ping localhost.
PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.098 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.081 ms

Pinging localhost. works somehow, can't understand why.

If I restart the system it wont resolve localhost again, but if I ping localhost. then ping localhost starts working. Dunno if this can help anyone with the same problem

What could be wrong?

$ ping localhost
ping: cannot resolve localhost: Unknown host
$ ping localhost.
PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.072 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.084 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.077 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.073 ms
^C
--- localhost ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.072/0.076/0.084/0.005 ms
$ ping localhost
PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.070 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.072 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.088 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.082 ms
^C
--- localhost ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

more results

MBPdeFrancisco:~ francisco$ dscacheutil -q host -a name localhost
name: localhost
ipv6_address: fe80:1::1
MBPdeFrancisco:~ francisco$ LC_ALL=C cat -vet /etc/hosts
##$
##$
# Host Database$
#$
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface$
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.$
##$
127.0.0.1 localhostM-bM-^@M-($
255.255.255.255 broadcasthostM-bM-^@M-($
::1 localhostM-bM-^@M-($
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

MBPdeFrancisco:~ francisco$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
#
# macOS Notice
#
# This file is not consulted for DNS hostname resolution, address
# resolution, or the DNS query routing mechanism used by most
# processes on this system.
#
# To view the DNS configuration used by this system, use:
#   scutil --dns
#
# SEE ALSO
#   dns-sd(1), scutil(8)
#
# This file is automatically generated.
#
domain lan
nameserver 2001:8a0:ddce:7401:9e97:26ff:fedb:6214
nameserver 192.168.1.254

Your /etc/hosts file is corrupt; for some reason it has unicode LINE SEPARATOR characters added to several lines (the "M-bM-^@M-(" thing in LC_ALL=C cat -vet's output), including one of those for localhost. macOS's resolver will treat that weird character as part of the hostname, and so if you somehow manage to ping localhost<LINE SEPARATOR>, it'll resolve to 127.0.0.1 just fine. Plain localhost? Not so much.

I don't know how those weird characters would've gotten added; did you try to edit the file with some sophisticated editor that thought it would be a good idea to use the very latest trendy formatting characters, rather than just sticking with what'll work? If so, don't use that editor for unix-style config files (or scripts, or...). I recommend BBEdit instead; even if you don't buy it, it'll let you do the basic stuff in its free demo mode.

As for how to fix it... Well, first make a backup copy in case this goes sideways and messes things up even more than they are now. Then run the command:

sudo perl -pi -e 's/[^[:ascii:]]//g' /etc/hosts

That should purge all the weird unicode characters out of the file. Then try the dscacheutil command again; you should get something like this:

$ dscacheutil -q host -a name localhost
name: localhost
ipv6_address: ::1
ipv6_address: fe80:1::1

name: localhost
ip_address: 127.0.0.1

P.s. for a explanation why someone thought LINE SEPARATOR was a good idea, see the ever-relevant XKCD and Jeff Atwood's rant about "The Great Newline Schism".


Can't update application in another country apple store I moved to Japan, and I have both the Indonesian and the Japanese application store.

But in Japan, when I tried to update my application, it said "verify your billing information", when I tried to verify and add payment information by adding my VISA credit card (Indonesian card) it said this payment method is not valid in this store, it seems like Japan only accepts the Japanese credit card, it won't accept another visa or master card from another country which seems so weird. I tried all methods, I changed to the Indonesian store, but it keeps detecting that my country/region is Japan, so it keeps rejecting although I changed the store, I think this is because some app that I downloaded is from Japanese store.

If I add a payment method in the Indonesian store, I can add billing information using the visa credit card.

When I update some application that I downloaded from Indonesian store, it working well, but when I tried to update apps that I downloaded from the Japanese store, it got stuck and required me to update the billing information.

So I cannot update any apps that I download from the Japanese app store. And this really sucks, because a lot of applications such as Google Maps not working well, because I can't update them.

And to get a credit card in Japan is so hard, because I need to have long term visa, good history of transactions, etc.

Is the only way to fix this to get a Japanese credit card or to buy another iPhone?

This should be very straight forward, I had this issue when I moved from the US to the UK, you need to change the Apple ID country/region, the email with which u used to sign into iTunes should be changed by following these instructions

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201389

You can also delete the Apps purchased from the Indonesian App Store and re-download them when signed in with your Apple ID after changing the region.


Half of my iMovie videos disappeared, can I retrieve them? I have filmed myself doing a painting, it is a lot of film (20 hours). I was planning to massively cut it and speed it up to make a sort of time lapse.

The problem is the first half of the project has disappeared. It was all filmed in the same project but the first half has just gone. I'm quite gutted as I really wanted to do a film of me painting to put on my website. The thumbnails are still on my machine but I can't find the actual clips. Has my mac dumped them or are they hidden somewhere? Can I retrieve them?

I'm not sure how you filmed yourself doing the painting, maybe with an iPhone?  If so that's where I'd look.  Maybe you mean a digital painting and you were doing a screencast?  It's important to describe which hardware/software you used as it will determine the location of the files.  iMovie, I believe, you could have only used for editing.

As an aside, I can recommend using the Procreate iPad app for recording artwork, the feature is built in, you don't have to do anything to record as it happens automatically, and the resulting screencasts are very high quality and with good timing.


How to copy a transparent PNG file to iPad from a Mac When copying a PNG file with transparent background to an iPad or an iPhone using an application like iTunes, the image is copied to the device but the transparent background turns white.

I have tried emailing the PNG file as an attachment. While it retains its transparency, I'm looking for faster ways of transferring such a file?

I'd welcome all types of answers, such as if anyone has tried using a file sharing software like Dropbox. I'm looking for a solution where the image with its transparency will be available on the device as fast as possible.

Any file transfer option that simply copies the file directly will suffice. This includes AirDrop and file syncing options such as Dropbox and Google Drive. I would personally recommend using AirDrop, as since it is transferred with a local ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection, it never needs to leave your local network and allows for fast transfer speeds of even very large files. Note that this will only work if your iOS and Mac devices meet these requirements.

The Apple support website offers these instructions for using AirDrop to send files to an iOS device:

  Choose Go > AirDrop from the menu bar in the Finder. Or select
  AirDrop in the sidebar of a Finder window.
  The AirDrop window shows
  nearby AirDrop users. Drag one or more items to the recipient's
  image in the window, then click Send.

  Or use the Share feature:

  Click the Share button, if available in your app. Or Control-click an item in the Finder, then choose Share from the shortcut menu.
  The Share menu lists several sharing options. Choose AirDrop.
  Select a recipient from the AirDrop sheet, then click Done.


Continuing a "stopped" iCloud restore on iOS I was restoring my iPhone 5 to the latest iOS and chose restore via iCloud. The restore process - especially for apps - was frustratingly slow and actually stopped frozen after a while.

After trying several other options, I finally "Cancelled" the iCloud Restore operation and then manually installed the apps via iTunes, as well as synced songs, etc.

Now for some of the apps, data is missing and my Photos also appear to be incomplete. Since I "cancelled" the iCloud Restore (and was warned about not being able to do this again), is there any way at all I can coax iCloud into streaming the app data back into the installed app folders, as well as getting my photos? Would there perhaps be two separate ways of doing that?

Or is the only other option to "Erase Content and Settings" and do the restore process all over again, allowing Photos to restore gradually via iCloud, while installing apps via iTunes parallely (without "Cancelling" the iCloud restore)?

If the answer to the last question is "Sadly, yes", then can it be assumed that if the app is installed via iTunes anyway, iOS will proceed to restore the app's data from iCloud? Or does the app HAVE to be installed OTA for the data to also be restored from iCloud?

iCloud could be slow in restoring especially if you have lots of app data and your WiFi is not Speedy Gonzalez. I have some bad experience restoring with iCloud as my Photos app and Spotify app are both more than 5 GB each.

There is absolutely no way to let iCloud take over from where it left. You need to do the restore anew.

I'd suggest, the next time backing up via iTunes or an alternative such as Copytrans Shelbee. The restore will go rather quicker as it is done over USB. The backup in iTunes is exactly the same as with iCloud (including app data).


Safari redirect to App not working I have an app on my iPhone , that i am trying to open . Lynda.com.
I Tap the Lynda.com app on your device to launch it.
Ignore the user name and password fields on the login screen and instead tap on the button labeled web portal log in
On the web portal access screen, enter < company name >in the URL box.
I am  directed to Usher ( my company's internal authentication )

After successful authentication , i had to be redirected back to Lynda.com App ..

This works on several of my coworkers phone , but on my phone after the authentication is successful I am still on Lynda.com safari browser .

Things i tried:

Updating my IOS on phone to the same version that a current working phone is on ( latest update 9.3.3)
deleting safari cache
deleted and reinstalled Lynda.com app and retried ..

Any suggestion?

Indu

I have found the solution. Private mode was turned on in Safari. When I turn it off, the browser redirect works and opens the page in the target app. When it private mode there is no pop for "Open in app".


Warning: "CSUserAgent wants to access data stored in your keychain." For my backups I use an encrypted external hard disk. This hard disk has two partitions (names are: Backup, Private).
Today, when connecting the backup I was prompted with the following message:

What does this mean?
Why am I prompted by this after connecting the external disk?

About the hard disk

The hard disk is encrypted using Disk Utility.app.
Both volumes are Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
In Disk Utility I can see that the volume Private has no owners enabled while Backup has owners enabled.

Background
Maybe the following info helps in answering the question of why I'm prompted with this now. The last time, that I've connected the hard disk, I've done the following:

erase the Backup partition (which required a new password)

In a nutshell, CSUserAgent is part of the core Mac OS X system where the security is handled. In this case, it seems like an innocent warning and intended ask to make sure you are intending the encrypted backup to be used now.

You can verify this by opening up Keychain Access and looking at the item in your keychain. Here is a view of one of my portable hard drives that is encrypted with FileVault.

The Access Control tab will show you if any apps have been signed and trusted to access this item without further prompting - so unless you have some odd problem, your system is prompting you for the normal and usual tool that reads items from the keychain since you haven't white listed the task that normally does that job.

You can learn a little about the infrastructure from Apple at the Core Services Layer documentation as well as by using mdfind CSUserAgent from the terminal to locate where this program really lives on your mac. The keychain help and support articles are nice as well for reference.


Terminal hangs on startup I am on OSX Lion. After I Control C the building of Atlas under MacPorts Clang I can no longer get it to run. It start taking around 2GB on startup and even does this after a reboot. After killing the terminal the first time an error report was sent to Apple. The second time killing it did not trigger such a request.
What do I need to do to get the terminal to run again in a normal fashion?

You can try deleting Terminal's saved application state. It's in ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Terminal.savedState. You can also try deleting Terminal's preferences. Those are in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist.

If you don't want to potentially lose the saved state or preferences, you can move them to the desktop before starting Terminal.

In Lion, you can get to ~/Library by holding the Option key while selecting the Go menu in Finder.


MacBook goes to sleep when I keep a bluetooth speaker on top of it This is kind of a weird question. Since the last year, I have observed multiple times that when I keep my bluetooth speaker on top of my mac, near the trackpad, it suddenly turns off and goes to sleep.
This happens quite frequently but not always.
I am using MacBook Pro 2012 mid and my bluetooth speaker is beetel s2. Also I connect my speaker to mac with aux cable and not bluetooth (sound flickers in case of bluetooth connection).

The MacBook detects your lid being closed with a magnet. Speakers also have a magnet, thats how they work.
When you put your speaker on your Mac, it "thinks" the lid was being closed and goes to sleep.


Scrolling with MacBook trackpad: Is it possible to do with only one finger while a key pressed? The normal way to scroll on a MacBook trackpad is to use two-finger scrolling.

Is it possible to scroll with one finger as follows:

Press and hold a key-modifier (e.g. ctrl/alt etc).
Scroll using one finger like it is two fingers, while key pressed.

What works for me is Scroll tool that allows you to enable single finger scrolling on the trackpad side. I got the idea from this superuser thread


Is there an extension for macOS Photos for perspective correction? I was wondering whether anyone knows of, or can recommend, an extension for Photos on macOS that allows correcting perspective?

The app “Perspective Photos Extension” would seem to be the answer to my question. But neither its screenshots nor its reviews convinced me it would be worth the purchase. I haven’t come across any similar app that provides a Photos extension. Instead, I decided to try “DxO Perspective” in combination with “External Editors For Photos”.


Is it possible to type in macron (e.g. "ā") without using U.S. Extended Keyboard? I want to type in macron (e.g. ā) in my OS X, but after I searched for how to type in it, I got that I first must use U.S. Extended Keyboard as suggested in this article.

However, once I switch to U.S. Extended Keyboard, I cannot type in å any more with ⇧+a and a, because on U.S. Extended Keyboard, it provides you with the aforementioned macron letter.

So is it possible to type in macron with normal English keyboard on OS X?

This is just a option without changing the default Keyboard.

In OS X, this can be accomplished by holding down the A briefly and a pop-up will appear.

Just select by clicking or typing the corresponding number.  In this case 8

ā ← Like that

The repeat delay can be set to prevent eeeeeeeeee from happening too quickly.


Running bash script without asking for password I wrote a little shell script that switches some settings that I have to switch a lot. I saved it as a .command file, so double-clicking will run it. Now everytime I run it, it's asking for my password (although just changing those settings doesn't require any password when I do it by hand).
Is it possible to make the bash script run, without it asking for a password everytime? All it does is switches my proxy settings off...

The script:

#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'quit app "MyAppsAnywhere"'
networksetup -setautoproxystate Wi-Fi off
exit 0

You could use

sudo networksetup -setautoproxystate Wi-Fi off

and then configure sudoers(5) to allow that exact command (or any networksetup invocation (or any command whatsoever)) without a password, though this generally requires fiddling around with visudo(8) and if you get things wrong may lock you out of future use of sudo(1). Open a root shell, make a backup of /etc/sudoers, edit the file by running visudo, test it, and use root shell to restore the backup of the config if things go awry. Relevant sudoers(5) config lines would be along the lines of

# only with these args
yourloginnamehere ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/networksetup-setautoproxystate Wi-Fi off, /usr/sbin/networksetup-setautoproxystate Wi-Fi on

# any arguments to the command
yourloginnamehere ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/networksetup

# no password prompts at all from sudo ever
yourloginnamehere  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Also visudo may run a strange editor by default, so you might want to read up on the EDITOR and DISPLAY environment variables and related sudo questions and documentation before you get stuck in vi...


Is there any way to run a PowerPC video game (Call Of Duty United Offensive) on Mavericks? My MacBook is running Mavericks (10.9.5).

I dug out my old "Call Of Duty United Offensive" video game and thought I'd give it a whirl.

Turns out it's PowerPC based and Mavericks does not have Rosetta and will not run it.

Is there any easy and safe way to run this game on Mavericks?  Can Rosetta be installed from my old Snow Leopard disks?

No,there really is not an easy way to run PPC apps on Mac anymore. Your OS X Rosetta disk will definitely  fail to install on Mavericks. Apple stripped support for Rosetta following the release of OS X Lion (10.7) and have never put it back.

However, you still have a few (harder) options.

Install Snow Leopard in a virtual machine. Here's a guide.
Pull out your old PowerPC Mac, if you still have it.
Install Snow Leopard in a external hard drive or internal partition and use Rosetta.

When Apple first published Rosetta, they said it was best for low computational apps like Word. In addition, Apple stated that games and high computational apps like CAD software or video editors/compositors would have issues running through Rosetta. COD will probably not run well through Rosetta.

If all else fails, people still sell their old PPC's on eBay.


Limechat hotkey for switching between servers? I know that you can do ⌘+1, ⌘+2, etc to switch between channel 1, channel 2, etc of a particular server that you are currently on. If you have multiple servers that you are connected to, is there any shortcut to switch between the servers?

You can use the keyboard shortcut Command+Control+1...0 to switch between servers while using Limechat.

Example: Use Command+Control+5 to switch to server 5.

Source: Limechat's homepage.


Share photos from iPhoto to iOS devices on LAN without iCloud I have an iMac running OSX 10.10 and iPhoto v9.6. I have multiple iOS devices, mostly running iOS 8. How can I let the iOS devices browse the photos on the iMac without physically storing the files on iCloud or some other cloud service? Is there a way to just serve my photos from iPhoto to other devices on the local area network?

Ideally, I'd like to achieve this without the use of third party apps. If this is not possible I'm more partial to installing thrid party apps on the iOS devices than on the iMac.

PhotoScope is a paid app available for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch that allows you to browse an iPhoto library on the local network without using iCloud or other services. It does, however, require a free helper app be installed on the Mac to enable this.

(Note that I have not used PhotoScope and therefore, YMMV.)


Not able to clear History in Safari using AppleScript in OS X El Capitan I have been using below script to clear the Safari history from selenium test in OS X Yosemite . I have upgraded to OS X El Capitan and now the script won't work.

Error returned : Can't get "Clear History" button

tell application "Safari" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Safari"
        tell menu bar 1
            tell menu bar item "History"
                tell menu 1
                    click menu item "Clear History…"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
        delay 1 -- optional
        click button "Clear History"
    end tell
end tell

In OS X El Capitan, when clicking Clear History… on the History menu, it causes Clear History to appear either as a modal Dialog Box or as a focused Sheet on a window, as illustrated in the images at the bottom of this answer, and the AppleScript code below handles it in either case scenario.

The code is written with the assumption it appears as a Dialog Box and if it fails to process as a Dialog Box, then the on error handler processes it as a Sheet.

This code, directly below, essentially replicates what your code did in OS X Yosemite, although adjusted for use in OS X El Capitan, sans the delay command which you can add if you want.

tell application "Safari" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    click menu item "Clear History…" of menu 1 of menu bar item "History" of menu bar 1 of process "Safari"
    try
        click button "Clear History" of front window of process "Safari"
    on error
        try
            click button "Clear History" of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
        end try
    end try
end tell

To interact with the list on the Clear pop up button, for how much of the History to clear, the following code example address it.

Because it can appear two different ways, it unfortunately requires two separate sets of similar code and both sections of code surrounding the "Clear ..." list must be manually maintained and in sync if/when using that code segment.

Note: There are 10 lines of code commented out, preceded by --, pertaining to the "Clear ..." list, 5 lines in each grouping of code. You can change the current value for one of 4 choices by uncommenting the click pop up button 1 of window 1 of process "Safari" and click pop up button 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari" lines of code, the one in each section, and then only 1 of the other 4 at a time, the similar one in each section. This means only 4 lines total are to be uncommented, 2 in each section, 1 to click the popup button and the other for how much of the History you want cleared. The comments I've added, preceded by -- #, within the code should be self-explanatory.

tell application "Safari"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"

    click menu item "Clear History…" of menu 1 of menu bar item "History" of menu bar 1 of process "Safari"

    try
        -- #
        -- # NOTE: Keep this block of commented out code in sync with the similar block below!
        -- #
        -- # If you want to change the value of the "Clear ..." list, then uncomment the line of code directly below this comment.
        -- #
        -- click pop up button 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
        -- #
        -- # If you've uncommented the line of code directly above this comment, then uncomment only 1 of the 4 lines of code below.
        -- #
        -- click menu item "the last hour" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
        -- click menu item "today" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
        -- click menu item "today and yesterday" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
        -- click menu item "all history" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
        -- #

        click button "Clear History" of front window of process "Safari"

    on error
        try
            -- #
            -- # NOTE: Keep this block of commented out code in sync with the similar block above!
            -- #
            -- # If you want to change the value of the "Clear ..." list, then uncomment the line of code directly below this comment.
            -- #
            -- click pop up button 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
            -- #
            -- # If you've uncommented the line of code directly above this comment, then uncomment only 1 of the 4 lines of code below.
            -- #
            -- click menu item "the last hour" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
            -- click menu item "today" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
            -- click menu item "today and yesterday" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
            -- click menu item "all history" of menu 1 of pop up button 1 of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"
            -- #

            click button "Clear History" of sheet 1 of window 1 of process "Safari"

        end try
    end try
end tell

This as coded runs very fast, however, you can insert some delay commands, where appropriate, if you want to see better what's happening as the History is being cleared.

In the images below, one with the red arrow is pointing at what the 10 lines of code commented out, preceded by --, pertaining to the "Clear ..." list is about. To change e.g., "the last hour" to one of the other values, this is where you uncomment the appropriate commented lines of code.

As a Sheet:

As a Dialog Box:


Is there a lexicon for the icons on a Mac? I want to know about the "lightning bolt" symbol and wondering if there is a lexicon or summary of the meanings of all these icons.

Apple Publishes a style guide that covers official naming:

https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=1161855204

Older versions were PDF so you can find them online, but it’s now an electronic publication.


Postfix SSL/TLS certificates issue I'm trying to set up postfix to send mail through Gmail's SMTP server on port 587. Here's what I've put in my /etc/postfix/main.cf:

relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_mechanism_filter = plain
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/cacert.pem
smtp_use_tls = yes

However, I'm running into TLS problem since /etc/postfix/cacert.pem, which seems to be suggested everywhere online, doesn't really exist on my system (OS X 10.9.3).

Therefore, what is the right CAfile to use? Any help is greatly appreciated.

On a side note, for now I'm using the workaround

smtp_tls_security_level = may

which works. However, I suppose this is a cheap fix, and I'm worried about the security.

The option specifies where the root certificates of the trusted issuers are located.

On OS X they are stored in the Keychain.

You can extract them with

$ sudo security find-certificate -a -p /System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain > /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt

And then

smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt

Edit Keep in mind that when Apple updates the root certificates in the Keychain you will have to export them again.


Can the fan in an iMac (model 5,1 "Late 2006") be replaced? I have a 21" iMac model identifier imac5,1 (Late 2006). (It's the one with a 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo and a max of 4 GB RAM, 3 GB addressable. You know, the white LCD ones)

Starting this weekend after I cleaned it... probably too aggressively... by vacuuming the exhaust slits and air intakes, it is now making a grinding / whirring noise. I suspect is is the case exhaust fan.

The temperature in the iMac seems okay, but I don't push it very hard so I am not sure if it will eventually fail due to heat. I do know that the noise is very annoying. Either way I would like to solve the problem.

Can the fan in an iMac (Late 2006) be replaced? I'm fairly certain it's not user servicable, however I could try it if it's possible without requiring special tools / training. I'd also be happy to pay to have it replaced but I don't even know if this is a service that's available for a 5 year old machine...

I don't know about replacing the fan, but with XRG you can monitor your system's temperatures on screen.  smcFanControl lets you tweak your fan speeds; maybe you can use it to dislodge whatever's in there, before you try opening the box.


iPhone's space problem Looking at my iPhone via iTunes, i see a very questionable amount of "Other".

What is it? How can i delete it?

In my experience, iTunes' space meter is fairly unreliable (by which I mean that I've seen it jump by gigabytes with no apparent cause, and occasionally say that my space was over the limit when that's obviously impossible).

On your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage to see exactly what's taking up all that space.


How to set caps lock to work like shift on OSX (work only when down)? How do I set Caps Lock to behave like shift, working only when down, without memory?

PCKeyboardHack allows changing caps lock to shift:

Yould could also change it to a key like F13 and then use KeyRemap4MacBook to change F13 by adding this to private.xml:

<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F13, Option::KEYTOKEY_BEFORE_KEYDOWN, KeyCode::CAPSLOCK, Option::KEYTOKEY_AFTER_KEYUP, KeyCode::CAPSLOCK</autogen>

There's also a setting for disabling the LED:


Converting spoken word audio files into text I've been working on transcribing a lecture series from audio to text files.  There are just over 20 lectures, and each one is about an hour long.  Using VLC Player, I'm able to slow down the speaker's words to a rate that I can keep up with.

However, it's extremely slow going, and it takes so much concentration that I can barely get through a third of a lecture before I have to take an extended break.

The thought had occurred to me that I would be better served by using some kind of speech recognition software, and then proofreading the computer-generated result.

This is likely to be a one-time thing, so while I don't mind using commercial software to get the job done, it would be preferable if it wasn't too expensive (or free; free is always good).

Command-line solutions are fine, too (:

Any suggestions?

My experience is that unless you get a very good speech to text solution, you are simply letting yourself in for a lot of frustration. You'll be spending more time making corrections to garbled transcriptions than you would have spent typing from the start.

There's a reason there are not many effective solutions on the market: this stuff is HARD!

The Dragon engine from Nuance is the best I've tried.


iMessage Security / Video Conferencing Remember how on iChat you could block certain people or just allow certain people? Is there a way to do that on iMessage?

Why not try CUMeeting video conferencing software which allows multiple people in the same conference.


Mac Book Pro 2012 Terminal Pass Recovery Recently bought this computer and am not an administrator just trying to log previous owner out to log in via the use of the Terminal through accessing the physical written form of the password and using it to log prior owner out. Very basic understanding of coding and relatively new to the extensive study of it so details details details!

This can be done by removing the .AppleSetupDone file, forcing the Mac to go back through the initial setup, part of which includes creating an admin account.  The following steps should walk you through that process:

Shutdown as normal
Power on your Mac while holding command+S to enter Single User mode
Type rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone and press return
Type reboot and press return
The Mac should now reboot and go through the setup assistant, allowing you to create a new admin account.

Once you have an admin account you should be able to use sudo elevation in Terminal and remove any other user accounts on the system.


How to convert a DVD to ISO? On Mac OSX 10.9, how do you convert a DVD into an ISO that I can use with players such as VLC.  I wish to achieve this without buying a program.

Steps I have tried:

Downloading Mac app Burn. It lets you select a source and save it as a DVD.
However, when I do this, the DVD seems to be corrupt: DVDplayer can't load it properly. VLC can load it, but I only if I select the option to bypass the menus (otherwise it can't load it).
Using the command line

sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk1
dd if=/dev/disk1 of=~/myCD.iso bs=2048 conv=sync,notrunc

This makes the ISO, but it's the same problem as (1) above
Using the Command Line

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o Image.iso /input_path

This gives the error message: makehybrid failed - No such file or directory
Using Disk Utility.

You can use Disk utility to create an image, but it only seems to be a .dmg file.

Ideally, I'd like a solution that does it in one go (i.e. so I don't have to convert the .dmg to .iso) as I have 90+ discs I want to convert.

I use MacTheRipper to copy DVD and Handbrake convert to suitable formats for viewing on iPad etc. I do not know how it would handle copy protection.


Cannot add any apps to Security & Privacy preferences on Mojave I recently updated my Mac to Mojave.

I have several apps (e.g. Dropbox, Backblaze, Stay) that require specific permissions that can be granted via System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy.

Since the update to Mojave, I can no longer add any apps to the mentioned Preferences pane. For example, when going to the "Accessibility pane ("Allow the apps below to control your computer") and adding an app via the + button or by drag & drop from the Finder, the action is simply ignored and the list stays empty.

Any idea to work around it?

I ended up uninstalling Backblaze completely (even though it was the up-to-date version 5.4.0 that supports Mojave) and then reinstalled the same version from scratch.

This took care of the issue.


Is there a decent application for personal finances that support multiple currencies on OSX? I'd like to keep track of my finances better and wondering what good options there are out there. Preferably something that isn't geared towards Americans as my dollars tend to be Singapore ones and it'd be nice if also could track my finances in other countries in their native currency. :)

iBank sure does:

  Go global. Just like your Mac, iBank works worldwide. With multi-currency support, you can set a default currency for any account, download exchange rates and calculate transfers between accounts automatically. iBank supports localization for British English, and now includes full French language support as well.

MoneyWell does as well:

  Transaction-Level Exchange Rates
  Do you bank in multiple currencies? MoneyWell has you covered. You can track your spending in your primary currency while having accounts in several other currencies and store both amounts in each transaction.


To install Haskell in OSX >= 10.8.5? GCC was apparently removed from the current Xcode, here.
I would like to find a standard way to install Haskell to OSX.
Not a custom way.

Brew's packages

haskell-stack
homebrew/emacs/haskell-mode       Caskroom/cask/haskell-platform

Cabal may be one solution.

How can you install Haskell in OSX?

Haskell Stack is a good option as well. For marketing purposes: Features include automatic installation of packages and separately installed and isolated GHC. Installable from Homebrew with brew install haskell-stack.


How can I remove GPG-AGENT setting from Enigmail? In the Enigmail preferences, I checked the option of using GPG-AGENT and afterwards that option disappeared completely from the preferences pane. I am now unable to use the encryption since there is never any prompt for a passphrase.

However I now wish to revert to using the old style with Enigmail/Thunderbird asking me the passphrase but I am now neither able to change it through Enigmail nor able to find the correct place to change the agent to be used.

Is there a way to get around this? I do not wish to use GPG-AGENT/Pinentry, so I really need this to work.

I don't use macs, nor do I know if this will work for you, but I came across this question when searching for why I don't get a passphrase prompt.

Take a look at Thunderbird Preferences -> Advanced page -> General tab -> Bottom-right 'Config Editor...' button to get to the usual Mozilla about:config dialog, then search on extensions.enigmail.useGpgAgent.


Sudo command takes time to run after Sierra A few days back I updated my iMac from El Capitan to Sierra. I have then noticed that the sudo command is not working properly. When I use something like sudo -v or sudo npm install grunt -g it becomes stuck and doesn't ask for the password immediately, as it takes like 20–30 mins and then shows the password prompt.

I am not sure is it because of the Sierra update or something else, but this is really annoying me, as I can't install npm packages and other things.

After lot of reading and all, I found that AMPPS entry in sudoers file is culprit.

open sudoers file using sudo visudo command OR use some editor (take backup of sudoers file before making changes and also read guide to use "visodo" )

I commented 2 lines in my sudoers file and everything is fine now.

#%amit ALL= NOPASSWD: /Applications/AMPPS/Ampps.app
#%amit ALL= NOPASSWD: /Applications/AMPPS/ampps

Similar experience/solution has been shared by this blogger here,

You might not be having AMPPS on your machine so what worked for me, might not work for you.

Point to highlight is "There is something in there in your sudoers file which is causing issue, just find that line"


With iLife 11, considerations of slide shows I have to turn a big stack of images into one of those somewhat sappy slide shows with music.

Google shows various advice from various points in time. The last advice I found was iDVD. Is that the right path to launch off on?

Nope, not at all. iPhoto has great slideshow capabilities.
Lots of examples on YouTube.

No need to involve DVDs; or slow, aging software like iDVD.