How do I tell iOS 7 which address is my “home” address? In iOS 7, if you bring up the Notification Center in some circumstances it will tell you, “Right now, it would take you 18 minutes to drive home.” I recently moved and the address that iOS 7 has set as “home” is now incorrect, but I still want to include the old address in my contact card. How do I inform Siri (and the rest of the system) that my “home” address has changed?

This should do the trick:

Edit your contact card on your phone (in the Contacts application);
Change the label of your old address to anything you want;
Set the label of your new address to "home"


Measure the frames per second on a mac Is there a tool for mac to measure the frames per second ?

Or Could I just know how many frames per second are displayed on a MacBookPro ?

It depends on what you're measuring.  The screen refreshes from video memory, and the video memory is modified by the OS or by OpenGL commands executing on the GPU.

If you run two quicktime movies side by side, the will separately update the video memory, and could have two different frame rates based on the system load and several other factors.

Any tools to measure framerate would need to measure just one applications framerate.  Many applications, such as video players and video games, can report their own framerate.

Further, any software tool will consume system resources that may affect framerate.

When I've had to objectively measure framerate for an app that didn't measure and report framerate itself I've used a high speed camera (for consumers the PS3 camera is considered high speed) and then examined the frames of video for display updates to determine the framerate.

The Macbook Pro display refreshes 60 frames per second, and no faster framerate can be displayed on it. These techniques would only measure framerates below 60.


Changing a Volume's "Device / Media Name" I know a Mac volume can be renamed... obviously.

But if you look at the output of diskutil you will see that a volume also has a "device name" that corresponds to the name it was given when it was formatted:

diskutil info /dev/disk0s1 | grep 'Media Name'

Running it on your root volume you will probably get "Macintosh HD" (or else something like "Untitled 1" if that's how you left it when formatting in Disk Utility). It seems this doesn't change when you rename the volume after the fact.

Why do these different names for the same volume exist?

Does anything even refer to this hidden name?

Can it be changed?

The "Device / Media Name" is the partition label from the disk's partition map (GPT - GUID Partition Table).

To change the label for a volume, you'll need to use the terminal.

Get the disk number of interest: diskutil list
Show the current partition labels (note the index of the entry you would like to change):

sudo gpt show -l /dev/disk0

(Note: replace disk0 with the disk number from step 1)
Eject the disk from the Finder (or use the unmount terminal command if you'd like). If you don't do this, you may get a Resource busy error message during the following step.
Change the partition label as desired:

sudo gpt label -i 2 -l "My New Partition Label" /dev/rdisk0

(Note: replace the "0" in rdisk0 with the disk number from step 1 and replace the "2" with the index number from step 2)
(optional) Verify the changes by either repeating step 2 or typing: diskutil info disk0s2

For more information see the manual page for the gpt command-line tool: man gpt


how do I know what files are installed by an installer program? How can I find out what files are installed by an installer program?  Is there a program that can trace that during an installation of a new app?

You can press command-I in an installer window to see a list of files that would be copied by the installer:

You can also use lsbom:

lsbom bundle.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom
lsbom $(pkgutil --bom nonbundle.pkg)

If you have already installed a package, you can use pkgutil --files or lsbom:

pkgutil --files com.tapbots.TweetbotMac
lsbom /var/db/receipts/com.tapbots.TweetbotMac.bom


How to Remote-Sync IPad Calendar with Outlook Without installing ITunes, and without attaching my IPad3 to my PC, I want to synchronize my IPad calendar with my Outlook calendar.

I thought I could make this work by creating the following Outlook rule:

"Send an alert to my mobile device when I get messages from someone"

With the option:

"Which is a meeting invitation or update"

I then specifiy that I want the invite forwarded to my gmail account, which my IPad is linked to.

I don't know if this would have worked, because this Outlook rule doesn't seem to execute when a meeting invite arrives.  However, when I attempt to manually forward a meeting invite I've received, I notice that an ical attachment is present.  I can then manually add it to my calendar.  Not so bad!

However, it would be even cooler if the IPad "auto-added" the ical notice to my calendar as the emails (with icals attached) arrive.  Is there a way to configure an auto-accept (particularly an auto-accept from a specific e-mail address)?

p.s. And while we're discussing this, does anyone know why Outlook would fail to execute the rule I defined?

You can configure Exchange on your iPad by:

Open Settings
Go to Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Tap on Add Account
Tap on Microsoft Exchange
Fill in the information for your company's Exchange account. You may need to get this from your IT department.
Check the Mail, Calendars or Contacts sliders as necessary.

Open the Calendars app and you're good to go.


iBooks iCloud Storage Limit? I have enabled iCloud storage in iBooks on my Mac(s), iPad and iPhone. I have been slowly importing PDF and ePub books into iBooks on my macbook again so that I have a central location to store them(and can access from iPad, etc).

Whenever I import though, iBooks gets about half way through processing the books I am importing and tells me that my iCloud storage is full. From that point on, it will tell me it is storing the books on the local device only.

The problem is, I have 200GB of iCloud space with only about 40GB used. 30GB or thereabouts would be books and the rest would be photos, backups, etc. i have checked from multiple devices and ensured my billing is ok(and it is, I definitely have 200GB space).

So my question is, does iBooks have a percentage limit of how much iCloud storage it can take up? Or maybe even a hard limit?

For context, I have tried system restarts, application restarts, different internet connections, etc. iBooks does not upload any additional books after the app is opened again unless I do another import, in which case it will get about 20-50% of the way through the files before it dies again.

I had this same problem - books added on my Macbook Pro stopped showing up on my iPad. I solved it by deselecting iBooks in iCloud on my Mac (System Preferences/iCloud/ ... click on Options tab beside iCloud Drive ... scroll down the list and deselect iBooks.app. If iBooks is open, a message should pop up that you can share books over the cloud, and it gives you the option to do that. Select that option. By deselecting and re-selecting in this way the books I was trying to share over the cloud immediately appeared on my iPad.


MacBook Pro wireless speed slow after OS update After the OS update, my wireless speeds have dropped to a crawl.  around 350 to 500 kps on my home wlan.    Every other device on my wlan runs between 6 and 10 mbs.  I've only found posts about deleting the wireless network, recycling the router and then creating a new connection.   Obviously I don't have access to every wireless router I connect to in able to do this and the connection is consistently slow no matter what network.  Any suggestions on how to fix this?

I would first try resetting your PRAM, then create a new network location.
From Apple:

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

Once you've done so, delete your network locations in System Preferences and create a new, fresh location.


Lion (10.7.2) -- CPU heats to 90-degrees and Java apps crash -- why? MacBook Pro 15" quad-i7.  Been running Lion since day one.

Just started this week, Eclipse and Oracle SQL Developer crash unexpectedly, then a moment later the MacBook cooling fans kick in and the machine is hot to the touch.

I installed iStat Pro and it looks like the CPU temperature approached 90-degrees at the time of the crash.

Any ideas why this would suddenly start happening?

Rob

For the CPU temperature to get those sorts of levels something needs to be hammering the processor pretty hard. I'd start by looking at Activity Monitor to spot which particular process has decided it wants a supercomputer cooling system.

If it turns out to be Java (which is likely), trash Java from your system and then reinstall it from there. It could be a damaged cache file, the application might have corrupt preferences, or some other combination.


macOS did not apply new time zone settings I live in Turkey and recently Turkish government has opted out of Daylight Saving system, locking the country's time zone into UTC+3 permanently. If there wasn't this change in action, time should have been adjusted -1 hour into UTC+2 today midnight. But since the new regulation, there shouldn't have been taken any action by the OS and it should have stayed at UTC+3 (time shouldn't have changed at all). But it did on my Mac.

My iPhone didn't change time time (correct behaviour) and now it is 12:26 as I'm writing here in UTC+3. My Mac adjusted itself to UTC+2 and now it's 11:26 on my Mac (incorrect behavior).

I've updated the time settings (sudo ntpdate -u time.apple.com), I'm sure that I'm in the right time zone:

Yet it's still at the incorrect time zone.

How can I fix this problem (without manually adjusting my Mac's timezone to some other country's with the UTC+3 timezone)?

Okay, there was an awaiting macOS update that I forgot about. I've applied the update, restarted, and the time zone corrected itself.


How do I update the primary email address used by my Apple ID when using Find My iDevice? I have an Apple ID that I use for both the App/iTunes Stores and for iCloud. Because I originally created it years ago, it's an email address I no longer use, let's call it dan@old.com. I would like to replace it with dan@new.com.

This is easy enough to do from the Manage My Apple ID web interface, however when I change the address and attempt to update my iPhone and iPad I hit a snag: in order to Sign Out of my Apple ID in iCloud Settings, I must first provide my Find My iDevice credentials, since that prevents a thief from simply punting me out of my device were they to steal it.

The problem is, it asks for the Apple ID password for dan@old.com, and when I enter that, it fails (with the incredibly helpful message "there was a server error"). I have to assume this failure is because that combination of email address and password is no longer part of my Apple ID.

Can someone provide me with a sane, step-by-step way to change my primary Apple ID email address from one email that I control to another, given the use of iCloud and Find My iDevice on multiple devices?

As Tyson says, this might help: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5223

If you can make your AppleID change back to dan@old.com you should then be able to sign out of it on the iDevices. After signing out the iDevices - change the AppleID again to dan@new.com and you're good to go.

The place to change your AppleID (which is used by iCloud and iTunes and the Mac App Store) information is at https://appleid.apple.com/


Removing packages previously installed by Homebrew So I uninstalled Homebrew, and didn't remove the packages previously installed by brew. Is there any way to remove these packages? Without brew list returning anything I don't know where to begin with removing them. I stored a list of the packages so I know which ones to look for but don't know where to find them.

Here's the list:

  autoconf
  freetype
  jasper
  libtasn1
  mpfr
  sane-backends
  automake
  gcc
  jpeg
  libtiff
  nettle
  sqlite
  boost
  gd
  kakoune
  libtool
  node
  tmux
  carthage
  gdbm
  libevent
  libusb
  openblas
  tree
  chromedriver
  git
  libgpg-error
  libusb-compat
  openssl
  unixodbc
  cscope
  gmp
  libgphoto2
  libyaml
  pkg-config
  wget
  elasticsearch
  gnutls
  libicns
  little-cms2
  pypy3
  wine
  elixir
  httpie
  libksba
  makedepend
  python
  wxmac
  erlang
  hub
  libmpc
  micro
  python3
  xz
  fontconfig
  isl
  libpng
  mongodb
  readline
  zeromq
  mercurial

All packages installed by homebrew should be located in /usr/local/Cellar/
I think you can simply remove them from there.


How to monitor logins to Screen Sharing and SSH? Not trusting anyone, not even my own firewalls and other measures against invasive hackers, I like to be able to monitor any successful login to my OS X systems (e.g. by instantly sending an email to my gmail account).

How do I accomplish this, including logins via Screen Sharing and SSH?

I can see that the secure.log file lists such logins, but how do I monitor them, and filter them for successful logins, in order to issue emails about these events?

User bmike suggested using the tail command on the secure.log file. I found that this command has an option "-F" that is well suited for this task: I keeps reporting added lines to the log file, and even handles log file rotations.

But this is not sufficient for my needs yet. I only want to send out the notifications if an external access (login) occured, not every time a local task is getting authorized.

Here's an excerpt from my secure.log file:

mymac login[26292]: in pam_sm_acct_mgmt(): OpenDirectory - Membership cache TTL set to 1800.
mymac login[26292]: in od_record_check_pwpolicy(): retval: 0
mymac login[26292]: in od_record_attribute_create_cfstring(): returned 3 attributes for dsAttrTypeStandard:AuthenticationAuthority
mymac sudo[26296]:    myname : 3 incorrect password attempts ; TTY=ttys005 ; PWD=/Users/myname ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/bash
mymac sudo[26301]:    myname : TTY=ttys005 ; PWD=/Users/myname ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/bash
mymac com.apple.SecurityServer[27]: Succeeded authorizing right 'system.hdd.smart' by client '/Library/Application Support/iStat local/iStatLocalDaemon' [133] for authorization created by '/Library/Application Support/iStat local/iStatLocalDaemon' [133]
mymac sshd[26308]: Accepted publickey for myname from x.x.x.x port 62433 ssh2
mymac screensharingd[26328]: Authentication: SUCCEEDED :: User Name: John Doe :: Viewer Address: x.x.x.x :: Type: DH

Only the "screensharingd" and "sshd" ones are relevant to me in this example. But there seems to be no clear distinction between these and the other local authorizations. The only common pattern I find is the IP address, but is that fail-safe? I guess to make my script generally useable (by anyone), I'd have to not only detect IPv4 addresses but also IPv6 addresses. And can I be sure that other external types of logins (e.g. file sharing) will also list a IP address in their raw format like this? Not ever using symbolic names that I wouldn't be able to detect with this pattern?

Actually, I also logged in via File Sharing (AFP) - that didn't even get listed in secure.log, oddly! Which means that secure.log is probably not the only or not the central point of learning about authorizations.

I had hoped that there's some central point in OSX that takes care of all username/password authorizations and that this point would also provide some hook for monitoring.

I am afraid my question can't be answered sufficiently in a generic way. I'll go now and ask on Apple's security mailing list. I'll report back.

Background:

My reasoning for this kind of question is that I think that no system is safe from break-in. Therefore, relying on measures to prevent a break-in are not a safe measure alone. Adding (external) notifications about when a login into a system happens is what makes it much better controllable: If someone manages to break in, he'll be detected by this method, and so the system is then known not to be trusted any more and will be dealt with. Without this kind of monitoring, someone might be able to break in and then modify the system to a point where someone looking later won't be able to tell what happened, assuming the system is still safe.

Yes - it would be more efficient to tail -f the log file so that your script only has to parse each line in the file once rather an once per interval.

Of course, you then still need to write and test the code to monitor for times when the logfile gets rotated and perhaps double check at you didn't miss an event by scanning the entire new file once when you first attach to that file.

What is best is a trade off between your comfort level and your skills. It MIT also make sense to sniff the network traffic since screen sharing listens on known ports, or you could monitor for new processes listening on new ports or you could turn on process auditing and monitor those logs or you could parse the process table. There are many ways to skin this cat.


Pasting images from clipboard in Safari On Windows (Chrome, Firefox) I was used to copying a picture to the clipboard and to paste it for example into the message composition section of facebook or vkontakte. On Mac OS X this does not seem to work, neither in Safari nor in Chrome. In order to send a screenshot as message, I now need to take the screenshot, save it and navigate to the corresponding location in the file open dialog.

Is there a workaround, third-party program or setting to manage this on a Mac?

I know you can copy images in Firefox, as far as Chrome goes I haven't used it in years. With Safari however if you are talking about still images you should be able to Command-C an image. If that doesn't work you could always "Copy Image Location"/"Copy Image Address" in either Firefox or Safari, then open Preview and choose to open the URL you just copied. From there you can use the normal Select/Command-C/Command-V to paste whatever section of the image you'd like into any other system app that displays images (i.e. iMessage via the attach feature). That would at least eliminate the need for using Grab, however if you are okay with it you could also simply save the image itself temporarily, click the Attachment button, drag and drop the image from your downloads fan/folder and delete it when you're done.


Faint clicking noise in trackpad in Macbook Pro I recently purchased a Macbook pro, and I have some issue with my Trackpad. I notice that if I lightly press on it, I can hear a click (sometimes faint, sometimes clearly audible) but no click action is performed. If I firmly press, then the click goes through as expected, but instead of one clear click noise, I hear a faint click followed by a louder click.

Has anyone heard of this before? Is it normal behavior? If not, how should I go about fixing the problem? The laptop is under warranty, so do I simply go to an Apple store and ask them to fix it for me? If so, how long does it take to replace a trackpad?

Thanks.

The Apple repair folks won't actually replace the trackpad  itself, but they will adjust the tensioner underneath the trackpad. I had the same issue in my brand new Macbook Pro, and they were able to solve the issue.


OSX Partition won't mount. Permissions seem wrong OS X was spinning and spinning when trying to shutdown so I held down the the ⌽ Power button to force shutdown.

Current Situation:

I cannot boot to OS X directly, I first have to boot to single user mode and manually mount the OS X partition (/sbin/mount -uw /) then reboot and it works.
Folder permissions on the Windows side are all screwy, even as admin can't save file to desktop etc.
I remote to desktop (XP) via Citrix and when I try to copy folder to OS X from the Citrix XP desktop (OS X drive appears in Windows) it will create the folder then say it cannot write to it. A check in OS X  shows the folder is created as read-only for everyone.

2(*) and 3 may be unrelated and require an alternate thread (happy to create such) but I have them here for completeness.

Possible Causes:

My computer was slow to sleep so I ran the following commands in Terminal based on an article about Mavericks issues and then I repaired permissions.

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.coreservices.appleevents ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.diskarbitrationd ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication ExitTimeOut -int 1

Recent upgrade to Windows 8.1

What I have tried:

Disk Utility from OS X, recovery partition and TechTool edrive (10.9 compatible version). Results:

  Incorrect number of threads but cannot fix.

Repairing permissions just has a problem with one printer.
Techtool Pro (refuses to do a volume rebuild)
fsck

*) Sometimes I can get the OS X to mount in these programs and sometimes not.

Is there a permissions or partition table issue or something else? Does anyone know how to reverse the command line settings back to their original values?

My setup:
MacBook Pro 2011 17" (GPU fail seems imminent)
Bootcamp with OS X 10.9 and Win 8.1
MacDrive (on Windows side)
Parallels 8

Ok, I managed to fix but I did have to pay some money.

I ran Disk Warrior from my TechTool Pro drive and it was fixed.
Below is the information that it returned.

• 1 file had a duplicate ID that was repaired.!
!
• 17 files had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.!
!
• 1 folder had a custom icon that was found to be damaged.!
!
• 2 folders had a directory entry with an incorrect custom icon flag that was repaired.!
!
• 3 folders had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.!   !
• Incorrect values in the Volume Information were repaired.!
!
• Critical values in the Volume Information were incorrect and were repaired.!


Copy text from mac to ipad I'm often reading stuff on my Mac but then I want to switch to my iPad to read it there. Is there a simple way to copy text or an URL from my Mac to my iPad?

Safari's reading list and iCloud works well to synchronize a list of URL between Macs and iOS devices. The Simplenote app and web app work well to let all your devices keep track of text documents. You only need to pay for the latter if you want enhanced features or avoid the advertisements that are minimal and generally very tasteful.


How can I assign hotkeys for pasting from the clipboard? I am looking for a way to have some text "permanently" copied to the clipboard and assigned to a hotkey?

Any software suggestions?

If I understand your request correctly, TextExpander might be right up your alley. It allows you to assign custom abbreviations to text snippets and graphics for insertion anywhere.


Why does the 13" MacBook Pro Retina (Late 2016) have a default resolution of 1440x900 instead of 1280x800? Apple shipped the original MacBook Pro Retina 13” with a default resolution of 1280 × 800 pixels (retina).

Why has Apple changed the default resolution to appear like 1440 × 900?

Scroll down to read the short answer.

Long answer

MBP 2nd generation

In 2008 Apple released the Unibody MacBook Pros with native display resolutions of  1280 × 800 and 1440 × 900 for the 13” and 15” inch models, respectively. The pixel density is about the same for both LCD panels. These resolutions and panel sizes were used in previous models as well.

MBP 3rd generation

In 2012 the MacBook Pro with Retina display was released. Apple continued to offer the 13” and 15” models (sans the 17” one). While the size of the LCD panels remained the same, the panel’s native resolution was increased four times (double the pixel density). This resulted in a resolution of 2560 × 1600 (13”) and 2880 × 1800 (15”).

To remain a the same size of display elements at these resolutions Apple introduced HiDPI to macOS. An app icon of 100 × 100 on an old panel now has the size of 200 × 200. With double the pixel density it has the same size, but it’s much sharper.

MBP 4th generation

Fast forward to 2016 Apple released the MacBook Pro with a new design. The LCD panel’s resolutions remained the same for both models. Apple, however, increased the default resolution for the 13” model from looking like 1280 × 800 to 1440 × 900 **.

This results in smaller text elements, icons and windows which seems counterintuitive. Although Apple has not released a statement why it did so, the reason seems to be this one: With the release of the 2016 MBP Apple stopped displaying and selling the MacBook Air 11” and the old MacBook Pro 13” (2nd gen.) in their retail stores. The remaining laptops are

the MacBook 12” (retina, 2304 × 1440)
the MacBook Pro 13” (retina, 2560 × 1600)
the MacBook Pro 15” (retina, 2880 × 1800) and
the good old MacBook Air 13” (non-retina, 1440 × 900)

Customers looking for a 13” machine will most probably compare the MBA 13” and the MBP 13”. Although the MBP’s screen is far superior (higher physical resolution, wider color gamut, better viewing angles), the MBP 13” looks to have a smaller working area at 1280 × 800 retina compared to the MBA 13” at 1440 × 900.

To prevent customers from getting the impression that the MBA 13” had “larger working area” Apple increased perceived resolution from 1280 × 800 to 1440 × 900 for the MBP 13.

TL;DR

Apple now only sells two 13" laptops, the new 2016 MacBook Pro (MBP) and the MacBook Air (MBA) with a design from 2010.

The MBA has a native display resolution of 1440 × 900.
The MBP has a better display with a resolution of 2560 × 1600. Until 2015 it was set to look like 1280 × 800.

In order to make it easier to compare the MBA and the MBP Apple increased the display setting for the MBP to look like 1440 × 900 by default.

**

  All the old Retina Pros used the 1280×800 mode as their default, but the new ones use 1440×900 mode by default; Apple does something similar with the Retina MacBook, which uses 1280×800 mode by default even though the 1152×720 mode actually reflects the panel’s native resolution. It’s a way to make the panels look higher-resolution than they are without increasing costs or wearing down the battery more quickly.

Source: ArsTechnica


Mongolian Cyrillic for iPhone How can I type Mongolian Cyrillic on an iPhone?

I'm currently on version 7.1.2, and if possible, I'd like to use an Apple-produced solution (eg downloading keyboard info from Apple if that's possible) rather than a third-party app.

Additionally, I'd be curious to know how Apple decides what languages and scripts are made available. As Mongolian Cyrillic is written left to right and has a small alphabet, I would have thought it'd be easy to implement even if the audience is fairly small.

There are no Apple solutions for adding keyboards or fonts, only third party. Search the app store for Mongolian and try the Keyman app.  Unfortunately you have to upgrade to iOS 8 to have a keyboard that operates for the entire OS and not just via copy/paste.

Nobody here can tell you why Apple hasn't included some feature you want, but you can ask for it via

http://www.apple.com/feedback


How do I access "hidden" .help files Some years ago I created a Project (using Xcode 3 under OS X 10.6) and created a Help File, naming this MyApp.help in accordance with the tutorial.

Under more recent OS Apple (in its infinite wisdom) decided to make all .help files packages and not display contents. You could still see the contents in Finder with Show Package Contents.

In El Capitan the contents of .help files seems to be hidden, but seemingly not in the fashion that was previously used to hide files such as ~/Library.
(It is still possible to display Package Contents in the finished .app to see these, so the intent does not seem to be to hide these from the end user.)

How do you get access to these files to modify contents and/or add new files? They are still there, and can be seen in the Terminal. cd PathToMyApp/MyApp.help/Contents/Resources

Edit
I was exploring the suggestions, without much success. After some trials I rebooted and could no longer see the files in Terminal.

I have a backup to an external HDD (using rsync) and could see all the files when mounted on Linux. (I can also load and edit in BBEdit through a Project).

I just tried again and they were all back in Terminal.

I think I have solved my problem.

In Terminal I used chflags nohidden on the .help file and all the files now appear in Finder


Ten years old nightmare to make facetime calls to South America I live in Europe. Here I have a 200/100 MBPS fiber connection that works like heaven. Never drops, almost zero issues, an an uptime rate of almost 100% through the year. They have installed a super router here, capable of 433 MBPS. Everything works very well.
Then I have a family member in South America. She is using a DOCSYS connection. They say her connection speed is 400/200 MBPS but you know how crappy docsys technology is compared to fiber, but anyway, this is the problem.
She had an iPhone and iPad there, both configured with messages and facetime.
She is 70% computer literate.
Situations:

I facetime her. I listen it ringing here. She did not hear it ringing there.
I send her a message. The message stays clogged here and is not delivered.

Both problems happen if their devices are sitting there, without being used, for a while.
If I call her using a regular telefone, she goes to the devices, put them on airplane mode and them back to normal mode and now the calls and the messages work.
It is a nightmare.
The only thing I can think that she does is that she turns off messages and facetime over cellular when she arrives home (wifi).
She tells me that her phone and iPad always engage in cellular mode because they "lose the wifi" and because internet over cellular is expansive there, she turns cellular data off.
The telecom replaced her router 3 times and the current one is brand new, high speed router (2.4/5GHz).
What can be wrong? This problem is a nightmare.
Any ideas? Something in the router I can change?

Usually telco supplied WiFi routers are not of high quality. They tend to be low cost varieties with lots of other features bundled in that are of higher priority to the telco.
The best way to proceed is to disable the WiFi functionality in the supplied router. If possible, also disable the routing and NAT functionality to get a bridged connection only.
Then purchase your own router and WiFi equipment of higher quality. This also allows you to place multiple WiFi acccess point different places in the building. For example you typical want to have an access point on each floor (if it's a 2-floor house for example).
You can buy higher quality equipment from lots of different manufacturers. A popular choice for WiFi access points would be Ubiquity. If you do not have experience with WiFi equipment, I would recommened getting a professional to install said equipment. Around here it is very common to get offers on WiFi equipment including installation - I don't know if the same goes in that specific location in South America.


Automatically open Finder when disk image is mounted I created a Disk Image (.dmg) with Disk Utility with the APFS filesystem. When i open the .dmg it gets mounted, and i can go to finder and manually open it.

How do i make Finder automatically open a new window with the .dmg contents when i open/mount the .dmg?

(macOS Catalina, 10.15)

As a test, I created a 100 MB APFS disk image and saved it to the default location, in my Documents folder. I then unmounted the disk image, as it needed to be unmounted to test what I did next.

Next, in Automator, I created a new Folder Action, while setting Folder Action receives files and folders to Volumes. I did this by clicking Choose folder > Other… and then pressed ⇧⌘G to bring up the Go to the folder: sheet. I then typed in /Volumes and clicked the Go button, followed by the Choose button.

Next I added an Open Finder Items action and saved the Folder Action as e.g. Open Mounted Disk

From Finder, I then doubled-clicked the APSF.dmg file and when it was mounted, it opened a new Finder window to the root of the mounted disk image.

Note that when the disk image opened, I was prompted with a message "FolderActionsDispatcher" would like to access files in your Documents folder, to which I clicked the OK button. This created an entry in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Files and Folders as FolderActionsDispatcher with a [√] Documents Folder checkbox.
The e.g. Open Mounted Disk.workflow was by default saved to:

/Users/$USER/Library/Workflows/Applications/Folder Actions/


How can I upload high-res photos to Facebook from my iPad I've bought the New iPad and have been using iPhoto to upload my pictures to Facebook. However, when I view them the quality doesn't look good. When browsed from the desktop Facebook site, the site does not provide a high quality version to download either.

How can I upload high quality images to Facebook from my iPad?

Probably the best way is to do it through Safari. As far as I know Safari doesn't change the size or quality of uploaded images.

Keep in mind that max size in pixels of an image on Facebook currently is limited to 2048x2048px. If you try to upload a bigger image Facebook will resize and reencode it automatically and the result will not be optimal.


Can I use a rotatable DVI monitor with a Thunderbolt port? We're looking at buying new MacBooks for our dev team, and I have a concern about the way Thunderbolt is used in a chain for multiple displays. We're even willing to purchase new, Thunderbolt-capable monitors, but one thing I regularly do is rotate one of my monitors 90°. My understanding is that OOTB Apple displays do not rotate on their stands. I already have a DVI capable ViewSonic monitor that rotates very well, so if I get a Thunderbolt-to-DVI adapter, can I use that as the last device in the Thunderbolt chain?

(Alternatively, if there is a reasonable approach to rotating an Apple display I would love to hear it.)

Yes to both questions: you can plug in a mini DisplayPort adapter at the end, and mini DisplayPort doesn't care about rotation: OS X handles that.


macOS Sierra Right Alt Key mapped to Ctrl Since installing macOS Sierra my right alt key is being mapped to ctrl. This behaviour is also visible on the keyboard viewer, where pressing the left alt key clearly activates the alt functionality, but pressing the right alt key activates the ctrl functionality.

How can i change this back?

I am using a Swiss German keyboard, but the problem is present in all keyboard settings. The problem must be computer-specific, since i do not have the issue when using the same keyboard on another computer with the same settings.

The device is an iMac 21.5-inch, late 2013 (i7)

Thanks for your help

Apparently an old Karabiner installation (that however has never been used and still had the default settings) interfered even after deleting it. It was only after clearing the Trash and rebooting a few times, that the issue resolved itself.


Can't log into my iCloud account from Windows 8 I have got Windows 8 and I have tried several times to log into iCloud account, but nothing is working. The only way I am able to access my photos is if I go online to the iCloud website and log on. There has got to be something that I am doing wrong.

Is this the first time you've tried to access your account through iCloud's App on windows? I also had a similar issue with Windows 8.1 a week ago.
The way I managed to solve this problem was uninstalling the iCloud from my computer, restarting, and reinstalling back the application.

Here is the Apple Support Guide for Setting up iCloud on Windows.


Bulk Download Pictures from Messages So unbelievably I have never cleared my history in SMS/iMessages/Messages. Ostensibly, I should be able to scroll up and eventually see my first text message from my first gen iPhone. This is, unsurprisingly, taking up a considerable amount of space on my phone, but a big part of why I've never cleaned it out is that it contains a tremendous number of pictures of my daughters my wife has sent me over the years. It doesn't seem like these get saved to my photo roll and there doesn't appear to be any way to bulk export them. It may be worth noting that I use desktop messages in Yosemite and it seems work well, so there may be an approach I can use from that angle.

What's the best way for me to archive all the photo attachments from almost seven years of text messages?

I had this same issue and was able to resolve it by extracting the data from a backup. I used the script (accessible via link) to accomplish this. Note that a Mac would be required - Also note, I am in no way affiliated with the source or content, just a user in the past.

Run a phone backup via iTunes while connected to your computer
In Finder, go to the Go menu -> Go to Folder, enter in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
Locate the most recently modified folder in the Backup folder
Create a folder named iOSBackup folder on the desktop
Copy the folder you found in Backup to iOSBackup
Download iOSMessageExport (zip) which includes a set of perl scripts. Unzip the files into the iOSBackup folder. (You should see similar to the screenshot below)

Open Terminal
Enter cd ~/Desktop/iOSBackup and press Return
Enter perl backup.pl --directory_path <folder>/ and press Return. Replace  with the name of the backup folder inside of iOSBackup (will vary from backup to backup)

Once the script has finished running, go back to the iOSBackup folder and look for a folder named _export

Inside of _export you should see folders for each date a message was sent/received, images/movies are located in here. HTML files of each conversation (by day) are also available

Source: WonderHowTo


Can't paste into Xcode In the past few months, I have been unable to paste text into XCode.

I can paste from xcode to xcode.

I cannot paste from anywhere else. The cursor moves the amount of characters that are supposed to be pasted, but nothing is actually pasted.

Sometimes, some of the text is pasted, but the formatting is all messed up.

Anyone have any ideas? Tried both Xcode 6.2 beta and Xcode 6.1.1

Thanks!

A few things to check:

1) That you're using the correct command-line developer tools. (newer versions of Xcode 6.2+ rely on these for things like SourceKit etc..)

You can check this by running xcode-select -p in terminal, and you should get back something to the tune of /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer or the path to whichever beta you're using i.e. /Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Developer

2) Don't rename the beta-s i.e. '/Applications/Xcode-beta.app' to '/Applications/Xcode-6.2-beta4.app'. Things go awry with this!

3) Is your pboard working in general?

Drop to terminal and:

ps -ef | grep pboard

should come back with something such as:

504   367     1   0  2:20pm ??         0:00.01 /usr/sbin/pboard

if it doesn't, double confirm that it's set up to be launched properly by:

launchctl list | grep pboard

this should come back with something like:

367    0   com.apple.pboard

Note the 367 shown in both for the PID. This basically indicates that my pboard is running fine...

If you get something else try:

cat /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.pboard.plist

and you should get something like:

...
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>POSIXSpawnType</key>
        <string>Interactive</string>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.apple.pboard</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/sbin/pboard</string>
        </array>
        <key>MachServices</key>
        <dict>
            <key>com.apple.pasteboard.1</key>
            <true/>
        </dict>
        <key>EnableTransactions</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</plist>

4) When you paste into Xcode, and you get the spaces (i.e. missing characters), when immediately save the document, is the text there after restarting Xcode and reloading the project?

5) If you open Console in (Applications/Utilities/) do you see anything specific flashing up when you paste? i.e. any Xcode, DVT, SourceKit, Pboard etc... assertion errors etc..
 - try pasting whilst console is open so you can see this.
 - (the above tags I listed should be good filter words for console)

Let us know if this helps :)


How to permanently delete text substitutions? How do I permanently delete text substitutions from System Preferences > Keyboard > Text.  I have deleted them several times using the (-) key, but they annoyingly reincarnate themselves after a restart.

I have experienced this myself since OS X 10.10.1 and since iOS 8.1.x. I think it is an iCloud syncing bug. Old deleted entries return. Duplicates get created. I haven't attempted to, but I believe the only solution is to contact Apple support. Or wait for it to hopefully resolve itself.


How can I merge two clips into one split view using iMovie? What I'd like to achieve is to merge two-screen recordings into one, each one takes half of the screen, using only one of the audio.

An example is this one:

Two recordings were joined into one on a split screen, and only one audio is played for the final video.

For iMovie 10 and above:

Drag and drop the clips that you want to show at the same time to the timeline and make sure one is above another in the timeline.

Click the Video Overlay Settings icon above the Viewer window and then select Split Screen option from the drop-down box.

https://filmora.wondershare.com/imovie/split-screen-in-imovie.html

Select a clip or range that you want to show at the same time as
another clip, and drag it above a clip in the timeline.
When you see the green Add icon (+), release the mouse button.
If the video overlay controls aren’t shown, click the Video Overlay
Settings button.
Click the pop-up menu on the left and choose Split Screen.
The split-screen controls appear above the viewer, and cropped
versions of both clips appear in the viewer.
To change when the split-screen effect appears, drag the split-screen
clip in the timeline so that it connects to a different spot in the
clip below, or drag it to a different clip. You can also drag the ends
to lengthen or shorten it.
To apply the change, click the Apply button  in the split-screen
controls.

https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/movb8c659f55
As for selecting the audio from the two clips, you need to detach the audio from the video and adjust their locations on timeline.

In the timeline, select a video of interest
Choose Modify > Detach Audio (or press Option+command+B).

Now it behaves just like any other block that you can move, overlap, trim etc.
https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov267936bb2


Is it safe to always leave a Macbook Pro on? I have an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected to my Macbook Pro.  I have the lid closed and have it running.  I run it as if it were a desktop PC, always on.  I only shut off the LCD attached to it.

Is it safe to always have the Macbook Pro on and running?

About every other week I let the battery drain almost completely.  I also have a Belkin laptop cooling stand running underneath it.  Is there anything else I can do to safely have my MBP running most of the time?

Update:
Just wanted to add that I have the newer 2010 Macbook Pro.

From a software standpoint, it's perfectly fine to leave your Mac on continuously. It can even be considered recommended, since Mac OS X has a number of optimization scripts that run on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, but can only do so if the computer is on.

From a hardware standpoint, it depends on your model. If you have an older (pre-2008) MacBook with a removable battery, leaving it on and plugged in continuously will kill the battery quick. In that case, you should remove the battery from the machine, only putting it back in occasionally, charging it to around 60%, to keep it in good working order.

The new MacBooks with non-removable batteries are designed to be able to be left plugged in constantly. The battery has circuitry to optimize the charge cycles so that the life of the battery is not adversely degraded over time (more than just normal use causes).


External hard drive problems I've two external hard drives attached to my MBP Retina OSX Mountain Lion.

Whenever I open the Finder or switch to a Finder window, if either of the hard drives are asleep, there's a several second delay before the Finder opens while the hard drives whizz up.
This happens even if I'm not opening the hard drive folders at all. This also happens when I try to Save a file even when the default location of the Save dialog box is nowhere near the hard drive folders.

In the past few months, something similar has also started happening with Chrome. Several times, when I'm browsing, at various random points, there's a several second delay while something on the hard drives is accessed. This happens even if the drives are not asleep. When this is happening, I'm unable to use Chrome at all.
Note that unlike this thread, mdworker is not running, and Time Machine is not doing its backup.

What's going on and how can I fix these problems?

Thanks

Sure this problem applies for both your drives? Could be that one drive affect the other thru your USB controller. Try to disconnect one of them and see it it gets better. If it doesent, swap them to see. If it gets better while one of them is disconnected I would limit the problem to be a faulty drive.

You could also try to check if some processes are accessing your drive. Have you checked torrent or so aren't loading to the drive(s)?

Alternatively you could turn off the option for spinning down your hard drives when possible in your settings panel for power.


iPad maps: hide location circle Is ther a way to hide the blue location circle on the iPad maps? I know I could disable wifi, but I still want to be able to access the maps. What I am trying to do is to zoom all the way out in satellite mode and see if I can find things without any labels.

(For iOS 6)

Open Settings.app
Tap "Privacy"
Tap "Location Services"
Scroll down until you see the "Maps" app
Turn the switch "Off"

This will effectively disable the the blue dot. If you have Google Maps or Google Earth installed, you can also disable the location services for those apps as well. You will find each app that uses location services listed under the main on/off switch.


How to initiate a specific keystroke using automator? I have the following code :

on run {input, parameters}
    if application "KeyboardViewer" is running then
        quit application "KeyboardViewer"
    else
        activate application "KeyboardViewer"

    end if
    return input
end run

I want to press ALT + TAB automatically after I activate application so that I can start typing right away ..
Reason to do this is because the keyboard becomes the foreground running application and the webpage or typing area the background.

You can use the keystroke scripting command available through the System Events application.

Add the following block to your script below (and at the same indent level as) the activate:

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke tab using {command down}
end tell

This will simulate cmd+tab and have the effect of switching applications.

To simulate the "ALT" modifier key, use option in place of command in the above.


Moving app icons on iPad home screen - dead area when dragging icons There seems to a be a dead area in the middle of my iPad 4's home screen that prevents me from moving app icons below it. Some more details:

I hold the iPad in landscape mode, with the button to the right.
Holding my finger on one of the icons makes them wiggle.
I can move all of the icons around
The one exception is that there seems to be a line in the middle of the screen where I can't move the icon below that line.

It seems to be isolated to the middle of the screen, the area around the middle icon in the third row from the top. I can move that icon up, and to the left and right from there, but I can't move that icon down. There seems to be an invisible line a couple of pixels below its original position that I can't cross, no matter how hard I try. Moving that icon down results in dragging it a couple of pixels, then it moves back to its original position, with my finger still on the screen. It's really weird.

In apps like Safari or Paper, I don't have that limitation, scrolling and drawing works fine in all areas of the screen. Anything that requires drag and drop in that area seems to be a problem, e.g. in NodeBeat HD, when I want to move a node, there's the same invisible line that I can't cross.

Anybody else have that issue or know what might be causing it?

OK, I'm somewhat embarrassed, but it looks like the problem fixed itself after a couple of days. After noticing the issue first, it was reproducible for a couple of days. I backed up the iPad to iTunes, did a factory reset as a new device, and the issue was still there.

After that, I called Apple Support and they suggested replacing the device, since it seemed to be a hardware issue. I couldn't replace the iPad at this time since I was travelling, so I told them I would wait another couple of days.

When I was back from traveling, I backed up the device again and called Apple Support to arrange the pickup of the iPad. While on the phone with them, I had to describe the issue again and while doing so, was trying to replicate the issue while talking on the phone. Guess what, it worked this time and has worked now for the last couple of days without any issues.

I'm not sure how the issue fixed itself, but there are several possible explanations - not sure how reasonable they are, though:

The iPad was with me on two atlantic flights (Europe - US and back), maybe the pressure change has fixed the issue, if it was a hardware issue. I remember that the issue was still there when I got to the US, but was gone after I got back.
Doing another backup/sync with iTunes fixed the issue, which would mean that it was a software issue.

There may be other explanations that I don't see at the moment. While it all is a bit mysterious, I'm glad that it's working now. Let's just hope that it doesn't return.

Update July 2013

The problem returned after a couple of weeks. I finally called Apple Support and they exchanged the device for a new one, since mine was still under warranty. The new one works perfectly fine. So it looks like it was a hardware problem after all.


Automator keeps using numbers in exponential form I created this code that should launch whatsapp with a specific number in clipboard:

on run {input, parameters}
    set text1 to the clipboard
        set text2 to 1 - text1 as real
        do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971" & 1 - text2
    return input
end run

*

  The subtractions are added to copy the correct number into the form

*

However, the phone number is stated in an exponential form which gives an error.

Example: 0501234567
Expected Output: 971501234567
Actual  Output : 9715.01234567E+8

How do I fix this?

A simple and fast way requires to install a scripting edition Satimage.osax (direct d/l) and works with regex. The certificate of the pkg sadly expired!

on run {input, parameters}
    set text1 to change "^0+" into "" in (the clipboard as string) with regexp
    do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971" & text1
    return input
end run

^0+ strips off leading zeros!

A second one with sed but no additional installs:

on run {input, parameters}
    set text1 to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of (the clipboard as string) & " | sed 's/^0*//'"
    do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971" & text1
    return input
end run

quoted form of (the clipboard as string): '0501234567'
do shell script "echo " & '0501234567' & " | sed 's/^0*//'": run shell command echo '0501234567' | sed 's/^0*//' in an Apple script
echo '0501234567' | sed 's/^0*//': send the output of echo to the stream editor sed and do something with it
^0*: regular expression: ^ = start of line * = quantifier- matches between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible
's/^0*//': 's/reg_ex/replacement/': substitute the replacement string for the first instance of the regular expression in the pattern space. This means: replace as many leading zeros as possible with the replacement string (=NIL/nothing) = strip off leading zeros
set text1 to ...: $text1=501234567
do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971" & text1: open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971501234567

Both tested in 10.11.6 (El Capitan) only.


Apple ID - Want to make my xxx@icloud.com primary Apple ID? I recently created an @icloud.com address and now I would like to make that my default or primary address for my Apple ID instead of my current @gmail.com address.

I tried to change it through the Manage Apple ID page but it said 'Not use a domain used by Apple'.

Is it advisable to change my Apple ID from @gmail.com to @icloud.com?

This problem still exists to this day.  When you set up your Apple ID you are required to enter an already in-use email account that is not associated with an Apple domain.  This becomes your primary Apple ID email account.  From here you can then set up your @icloud.com account but you cannot set that @icloud.com address as the primary account address because Apple does not allow users to do so with Apple owned domains.

Not to be confusing, but you can set the @icloud.com address as your Apple ID.  To do so, just attempt to log into your primary email address a few times until you are prompted to go to iforgot dot apple.com.  From here just enter your @icloud.com address and select to verify account by answering security questions; do not use verify by email.  Once you successfully answer the security questions you will be prompted for a new password.  After that your @icloud.com address will become your default Apple ID, you can now access iCloud with the @icloud.com address, and you can now use the @iclould.com address for email.


Google Chrome tabs titles are not completely visible (cut) Starting from yesterday I've a weird problem with Google Chrome on my iMac 5k with Yosemite (updated).

As you can see, the text is shifted down some pixel and the lower part is not visible.

Chrome is updated to the latest stable 43.0.2357.134 (64-bit), I have already tried to restart Chrome and the iMac itself.

I have even Chrome Canary and on that version everything works correctly.
On my MacBook Pro with Chrome stable everything works.

How can I fix it?

The problem is related to the San Francisco font on Yosemite, remove it and it get fixed


Advanced gmail settings missing on iPad? I'm trying to make some changes to my gmail account on my iPad. All recommendations ask me to go into Settings, select mt gmail account, then select "Advanced"
which I don't have as an option...
What am I missing?

The route is Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > [Name of your Gmail account]

On the first row of this screen it says Gmail and just below that, "Account"; to the right is the name of your account and an arrow.

Tap on the arrow. The "Account" screen is opened.

On the bottom row there is an "Advanced" button, tap on it.


Is possible to distribute app only to one account? I'd like to ask you if it's possible to distribute my iOS app only to certain users/client.

If yes, how?

Yes. Sign up with apple for their custom B2B store and you can sell apps to only the clients you approve.
Your clients will sign up for VPP and you'll need to set  things up when you upload your app to the App Store.

http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/
For the administrative hassle, you get the ability to sell purchase orders, set custom pricing, negotiate custom contract directly with your customers and have Apple still do the app review, the QA and app distribution for you.

Alternatively, your clients can set up a MDM and custom App Store and you can follow Apple's instructions for app distribution outside the App Store.


What happens after a stolen Mac was remotely wiped? A Macbook Air was stolen from us last month and we immediately activated "Find my Mac" and a few minutes later we requested it to be wiped (through iCloud). Today, 1 month later, we received an email saying that the Mac had been wiped (but no location).

My question is: now what?

is there any chance we get a location on the Mac? (i.e. is "Find my Mac" still active? even if OS X is reinstalled?)
is the Mac usable or is it locked by a pin code? Is it possible to reinstall OS X and use it?

In general, do thieves know what to do with stolen and locked Macs (is it easy to unlock them?), or is it now a brick?

Also the name of the Mac was changed to something generic: "Macbook de mac" (in english: mac's Macbook), which sounds like the thief might have been trying to sell the mac. Now that it has been wiped, could it be because somebody bought it and connected it to a wifi? If it's locked and un-usable, maybe there's a chance that they would bring it to an Apple Store and that we could get it back.

Yeah u ain't getting it back! Once iCloud is turned off it can't trace like with a phone I factory reset it I don't add iCloud an that tracker the hole thing is factory reset. An that's what a thief would do reinstall it it's easy to get the firmware password. Were u insured? If so talk to Apple about them giving u another one. But straight up truth its long gone.


Why can I only have 2 partitions on my 3TB Apple Fusion Drive? According to Apple, I can only have 2 partitions on my 3 TB Fusion Drive.  I do not understand why.  Techtool Pro made an eDrive, their emergency boot drive, and Apple made their Recovery HD.  It seems to me that I have 4 partitions on my Fusion Drive, something which Apple says cannot happen.

Source:

  ...

  Can I add a partition to the hard disk with Fusion Drive?

  Using Disk Utility, you can add one partition to the hard disk on Fusion Drive. >Once you add the partition, the "plus" symbol in Disk Utility to add additional >partitions will be grayed out. You cannot partition the Flash storage.

  ...

Any explanations?

It's indeed impossible to create a third regular partition in Disk Utility.

The +-button is greyed out (please check the screenshot below):

The superior HDD is my CoreStorage Volume Group, the inferior HDD is my CoreStorage Volume (spanning over disk1s2 and disk2s2) and HDD 2 is a simple JHFS+ non-CoreStorage volume.

The complete volume list and the partition table of disk1 looks like this:

root# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS test1                   1.5 TB     disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS test2                   1.5 TB     disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *68.7 GB    disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         33.1 GB    disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s5
   4:                  Apple_HFS HDD 2                   34.7 GB    disk1s4
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *17.2 GB    disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         16.8 GB    disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk2s3
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS HDD                    *47.3 GB    disk3

root# gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=68719476736; sectorsize=512; blocks=134217728
gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 134217727
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640   64562272      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   64971912    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   66241448   67714096      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  133955544     262151
  134217695         32         Sec GPT table
  134217727          1         Sec GPT header

After booting to another boot disk and deleting HDD 2 (disk1s4), I added two new partitions (hdd2 and hdd3) instead with gpt add...(check screenshot below)

The partition table of the same disk (the DiskIdentifier changed meanwhile from disk1 to disk0):

root$ gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk0
Password:
gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=68719476736; sectorsize=512; blocks=134217728
gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 134217727
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640   64562272      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   64971912    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   66241448     158552
   66400000   30000000      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   96400000     200000
   96600000   30000000      5  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  126600000    7617695
  134217695         32         Sec GPT table
  134217727          1         Sec GPT header

Result:

Apple is right: you can't add a third volume with Disk Utility. But it's no problem to add a second and a third (and probably even some more) regular JHFS+ volume from the command line booted from another boot disk.

The reason why Apple doesn't allow to add more volumes in Disk Utility is beyond my knowledge.


SD flash card READ-ONLY all of a sudden I have a MacBook Air running Yosemite.

I have an external SD drive that I save files to frequently.

Info on SD drive says it's READ-ONLY all of a sudden?  I am the ONLY person that uses this drive and it worked literally minutes ago!

Some SD cards' firmware will lock the device to read-only if any write error occurs.

If this happens, the only solution is to copy all data off it & discard.

SD/flash is not worth the effort of trying to fix, once it starts to go wrong.

Things to try…

Double-check the physical lock has not been flipped by accident.
Reboot the computer & try again
Try it on another computer/device
Once you have all existing data copied from it, attempt to format.

If none of this is successful, throw it away.

I work with hundreds of (admittedly very cheap) SD cards for work, & this is our standard practise if they start to fail.

Golden rule
Never store any important data on SD without having a safety copy on some more reliable medium.
I'd even extend that to - if you have to use SD to carry data from one machine to another - home/work etc - use 2 cards & keep them manually in sync with your work.


How to update Time Machine's recovery partition? The backup disk used by Time Machine has a recovery partition you can boot from.

Since I started using Time Machine with OS X Snow Leopard, the recovery disk is a Snow Leopard recovery disk, and will only Snow Leopard.

How can I update the disk to be a Mavericks recovery disk?

The hard way: Wipe the backup drive. Set up Time Machine again to backup to this drive. Wait for the backup to complete - and find a Mavericks recovery partition on it.


iCloud allows access to files via direct link without authentication! I've been testing sharing files from iCloud when I accidentally stumbled onto this bug.

Steps to Repro:

In Firefox preferences, set "Portable Document Format" download action to always ask.

Log into iCloud.com and tap on a PDF file's name (Blue URL) to download it but, instead of saving it, Select Open with  other..  and choose Firefox.app in the app list.
The file will display right in the browser as expected. Now, copy the link in the address bar: https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/[loooong_string] and
take that link to a different browser altogether with no iCloud login.

The file is still openly accessible. To anyone with that link!

Yes, granted it's not the type of a link to be easily guessed but the file was NOT intentionally shared or made available via a link and NO authentication was needed to access it.

Is this behavior by design? Gaining access to this link appears to be posing a huge security risk, isn't it?

I filed a bug report.
Them:

Can you please set up such a file (not shared) and then send us the link so that we can confirm we are able to access it despite your intent not to share?
Thanks,

Me: Here's the link.
Me, later: The link shows "gone" after some time. Here's another.
Them:

This is by design. The link URL will expire.
Thank you for your feedback.


Saved passwords in Safari keep coming back So I had saved some some passwords in my Safari on my Mac (Mavericks). I went to Safari > Preferences > Passwords > Remove All to remove all the stored passwords. But no matter how many times I do it, all of them keep coming back. All autofill options are disabled. I also disabled the cloud keychain on my iPhone.

I don't want to have any Passwords stored in cloud or anywhere. What am I missing?

Found the solution. I searched for keychain in spotlight and found something called Keychain Access. All the passwords were here under Login. When I deleted them from here, it removed them from Safari as well.

Safari's preference to Remove All just removes the locally stored passwords in Safari and not the ones that are in the user keychain.

Additionally, go to System Preferences and make sure that keychain syncing is disabled if you don't want any data stored in iCloud. You can empty that keychain if desired using Keychain Access before disabling the sync for extra security if you are sure no other devices depend on keychain syncing.


Mirror iPad 2 display to Mac WITHOUT Airplay I'd like to mirror my iPad 2 display to my Mac running OSX 10.6 WITHOUT using AirPlay, because the app I'm running on my iPad won't show the content using AirPlay or using the traditional output at the bottom (like running a cable from there to HDMI on my TV).

How can I accomplish this? Are there any app combinations that let you simply mirror the iPad display to the Mac over wi-fi without using AirPlay?

Sadly there is no way to mirror your iPad to your Mac without jail breaking it and installing DisplayOut and getting some cable. There is just no way for the Mac to know what is on the iPad without something on the iPad and on the Mac that syncs with eachother.


Charging problems, MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports) c I have the MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports) and I've been having weird charging issues (I recently upgraded to macOS Big Sur if thats relevant). When I connect the charger it won't always charge, and when I press the battery symbol it only says "not charging". One of the ports never works, but the other works after its been plugged in for a little while.
The battery still drains when the charger is connected but not charging.
I've tried resetting SMC, troubleshooting/diagnostic scan shows nothing wrong, the ports and the charger looks undamaged...
The battery works completely fine as far as I know other than this, this is a recent issue.

Firstly, make sure that you are using the correct charger, and not a lower-rated charger from a different Mac, such as a MacBook Air. If you have another charger, or can borrow one from a friend, it's worth checking whether a different charger works correctly or not. (Or alternatively, see if the charger works ok on another Mac.)
As this is a recent purchase, you should take it to an Apple Store for investigation. I realise that may be difficult at the moment with Covid-19 restrictions. It's likely to be a hardware problem that can't easily be identified or fixed remotely. (I wait to be proved wrong!)


Two displays - Menu Bar disappears in fullscreen I have two displays: My MacBook Pro and and external display (primary screen). When watching a YouTube video in fullscreen mode, the Menu Bar on the external screen disappears. The Menu Bar contains the clock, which I want to remain visible.

How can I prevent the Menu Bar from disappearing while in full-screen mode?

When using full-screen the application will take over the entire screen space.  Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to make it always display.  You should, however, be able to move your cursor to the top of the screen and make the menu bar appear that way.


Can I create an iTunes U course indepedent of an educational institution? I would like to create a course to share on the public iTunes U Catalog, however I do not want the course to be associated with an educational institution. Rather, I just want the course to be available to everyone as an independent instructor.

How would I do this in iTunes U?

You can inspect the agreements that Apple wishes you to accept as part of the enrollment into iTunes U as an instructor from the web page:

https://itunesu.itunes.apple.com/coursemanager/

You will need to sign in with an Apple ID or make a new Apple ID to access this page. It asks you to define your affiliation with some sort of school - so that might be a problem if you don't have a school that will permit you to represent them. You could of course form a school since the categories look broad (Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle, High School, Undergraduate, Graduate, Professional and/or Vocational) and it's not clear based on where you live what legal requirements are present to form a school.

There is a second registration step for each institution to establish a public iTunes U page that also might have more detailed requirements to vet the existence of a formal organization, but the footnote 3 on the main marketing page for iTunes U lists:

  Teachers not affiliated with schools that have public iTunes U sites are limited to 12 courses and 50 students per course.

So, you might either find a school that allows you to begin publishing or consider forming one. The system is clearly designed / worded to prevent just anyone from joining, but I don't know how strict Apple would be in approving an application. I'd say you wouldn't want to waste your time making a fictitious school or being dishonest on the application, but if you were unaffiliated, you might list that and see how the application process goes.


'This Apple ID has not yet been used with the App Store' error I just got a new macbook pro and I had to set up an Apple ID.

The computer took me through the steps to verify my Apple ID. It says it is verified, but not activated yet. How do I activate it?

When I want to download something from the App Store, it tells me:

  This Apple ID has not yet been used with the App Store. Please review your account information.

When I click "review" it sends me through this process in which I have to agree to the "Terms and Conditions of the Apple Privacy Policy".

When I click the little box to agree to the terms and conditions, there is nothing left to do. It just sits on the screen and does not allow me to proceed or does not have an option to proceed. What am I supposed to do?

How can I activate my new Apple ID account in order to be able to download from the App Store?

If you've just created a new Apple ID, and it is giving you the message "This Apple ID has not yet been used with the App Store", it is because you have to set your billing and shipping address in your account information.

Login to appleid, go to "Payment & Shipping" and set your address for both Billing and Shipping.


Can I use Karabiner-Element or any other apps/workarounds to swap colon and semicolon in Sierra? Until OS X El Capitan, I used Karabiner to swap the colon with the semicolon.

However, at least until now, the Karabiner Element doesn't support a key swap where both of keys are based on the same root key (so for example, swap between delete and backslash works but swap between single-quote and double-quote doesn't).

Is there any other hacks in Karabiner-Element that enables this swapping, or any other apps or workarounds in macOS that enables you to swap a key that built on the same base key?

I just did a test and TextExpander will do exactly what you want. (Keyboard Maestro couldn't.)


How to connect bluetooth magic mouse and keyboard on thunderbolt display, if they don't show up? I used a thunderbolt cable to connect my Macbook and iMac.
Pressed cmd+f2 on my iMac and the displays works perfectly.

But I cannot use my bluetooth mouse and keyboard to control the Macbook.It cannot find the mouse or any other device.

How should I pair those peripherals?

Your iMac is acts as a screen only, not as a bluetooth hub. You need to pair your devices to your main laptop only, and get a cheap keyboard for your iMac who's only purpose will be to kick it in target display mode as you described.

To re-pair Apple input devices:

Mouse / Magic Trackpad: hold "clicked" while turning on 10- 15 seconds

BT keyboard: hold power for 15 seconds.


Encryption of Time Machine backup disk taking several days It has been two days since I started Time Machine encrypting my external hard drive (6 TB in size.)

Why is it so slow? (disk connected via USB 3)
When I selected the disk for Time Machine, Time Machine itself formatted it to Mac OS Extended (journaled, encrypted). It then ran a successful backup, after that it encrypts the disk - what logic is that? Did it first write the files unencrypted, then it encrypts the files? Really?

Regarding your first question, it is hard to say exactly "why" it is slow. There's multiple factors involved - obviously reading in and writing out 6 TB of data from an external hard drive is going to take some time. If we say your drive does 100 MB/s (which might be very optimistic for some drives if we're looking at small transfers), then that alone takes approx. 18 hours.

Add to that the time needed to encrypt and validate the data as well as overhead. I doubt that the process is optimized for taking the shortest time - rather it is optimized to affect the rest of the system the least, so that you can keep working on your computer while it runs.

Regarding your second question: No, it does not first write the files unencrypted and then encrypts them afterwards. The files are written to disk in encrypted form.  However, you should note that when you encrypt the drive, you're not only encrypting the files you transfer to it right now, but all the blocks on the drive (used or non-used for your data).


How do I trust a self-signed certificate in iOS 10.3? With iOS 10.3 Apple changed the mechanism for trusting a self-signed certificate. Before you simply just send the PEM file to your phone and it would install as a profile and the certificate would be trusted. Now that's no longer the case as even after installing the certificate, the cert is not trusted.

Even when I use Apple Configurator to make a profile that trusts my cert, it still doesn't behave as trusted on the system.

How do I trust a self-signed certificate in iOS 10.3?

I've identified that the specific parameter that Apple looks for when allowing you to manually trust a certificate is the CA Basic Constraint (E.G. critical,CA:true). If the certificate has this extension, the system will allow you to manually trust the certificate.
However the process has one extra step (as opposed to iOS 9.3):

Export the certificate as PEM format
Send the certificate to the device (Safari, Email, AirDrop, etc...) and open it
A message will appear telling you the profile has been downloaded.
Open the settings app and tap the "Profile Downloaded" item below your Apple ID row.
Install the Certificate. You will have to provide your devices passcode.
Navigate to Settings -> General -> About -> Certificate Trust Settings
Enable full trust for your certificate


Using a MacBook Pro as an external monitor I would like to use my MacBook Pro (2010, with mini DisplayPort) as an external monitor for my Windows 7 PC. Before I buy an adapter, I want to know if it's even possible.

It is not possible. You can only use an iMac as a target display.


Prevent apps from changing the default app to open PDF files? The Preview app used to be the default app to open PDF files. For some obscure reason, this is being changed into Photoshop every now and then.

If this happens, I do this:

Right click on a PDF file, Open With...
For some reason Preview isn't even in that list, so I click Other
Select Preview, check the 'Always Open With' box, and click Open
Then I right-click the file again, Get Info
The "Open With" part shows Preview, and I click the "Change All" button

And then it's OK for a while. But a few days later, without me changing any settings, for some reason PDF files are being opened with Photoshop again :(

Is there a way to prevent an app from binding file types to itself without my permission?

FYI I'm using macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 (17C88).

Try rebuilding your Launch Services database.

In Terminal:

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

Then reboot immediately.

References:

https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/rebuild-launchservices-fix-duplicate-entries-os-xs-open-menu/
https://eclecticlight.co/2017/08/11/launch-services-database-problems-correcting-and-rebuilding/


macOS filesystem corrupted after spliting disk in Windows. How to fix? I've installed macOS Sierra and then Windows 10 on the second partition. I've decided to split Windows partition to another 2 partitions and it doesn't work. Splitting executed using standard Windows disk management utility. Before splitting I've got message that "Your disks become dynamic..." something like this. Have clicked Yes anyway and splitting didn't done, but in disk management partitions become another color. Windows still running until rebooting. Then it won't boot with error "Something wrong with your PC. Try to reboot again". Autofixing problems, check disk etc. didn't help at all. macOS disappeared from boot menu and now has RAW filesystem. I guess splitting disk corrupted its filesystem. Is there a way to back macOS to boot menu? It seems RAW filesystem have to be converted to GPT someway. macOS is on G: partition. Please help.

UPD: TestDisk util restored Windows10 boot. So how now restore macOS?

There is a way I fix this. This is the simplest solution you may use in case you have backup of Windows files and macOS files using via Time Machine or external drive.

Create a backup image of restored Windows partition. If Windows didn't restore yet use TestDisk util. Example of restoring.
Boot your Mac in recovery mode and there you'll have option to reinstall macOS or to restore from Time Machine. You're lucky if you have backup. However on my 2011 late MacBook I've got Sierra macOS option to install, instead of default MacOS Lion. This saved me a hour of time to update from Lion to Sierra.
NOTE: that installing macOS again will erase your Windows disk. Therefore we made a bit-to-bit backup on step 1.
After installing Sierra you have an ability to reinstall Windows via Bootcamp.  If your Mac newer than 2012 that supports Windows 10 installation you can skip this step. My late MacBook Pro 2011 doesn't support Windows 10 by Bootcamp, so I need to do a trick by installing Windows 7 first. Then convert MBR record from Hybrid to Protective (Win10 doesn't support Hybrid). And only then install Windows 10. Read this perfect post for details.
Restore Windows 10 from backup we've created on step 1. You have to boot in the recovery mode of Windows and go to Restore from backup step.

Not sure this is the fastest way to restore, but I didn't find another one. This took over 4-5 hours to get back to normal state of booting macOS or Windows 10 on my old MacBook. And get a lesson that to DO NOT SPLIT disk when you have more than one OS installed.


How to completely reset or remove and restore Safari in Mojave Safari is bugged in my macbook. It's a macbook air 2019 with mojave 10.14.5

The problem is I can't delete bookmarks nor save new ones on it because it ask to keep or remove firefox bookmarks, which according to Safari, where imported on january 1st 4001.

I've pressed every button, but nothing happens

I've tried deleting the cache and even restoring to another mac my timemachine backup to see if it's solved, but no, so before I tried to reinstall from zero, I would like to know if I can do something else.

The first thing I would do is Clear History from the Safari menu. After that quit and re-launch Safari while holding down the Shift key. That will launch Safari in Safe Mode and disable any third party extensions.

If Safari behaves itself after that, disable your extensions and re-enable them one at a time.

Failing that, more extreme measures are in order. I would start with a preferences clean. Quit Safari and then in Finder hold down the Option and select the Go menu and then "Library" from that menu.

Once the Library folder is open look for a folder or folders with Safari in the name and move the contents of each to folders on your Desktop. Then look for a Preferences folder in the Library folder and open it up. Look for any file/folder with Safari in the name and move them to the desktop. Once the library folder is clear of Safari-related files Try safari then and see how things are working.

If things are still not working properly I would download and install the Combo update for the current version of your macOS. Search on "combo update mac os 10.14.5" (or whatever your current version is). It will lead you to a large file on apple.com. Download and run it. It will update your OS and will usually fix problems such as this.

If that still does not fix the problems let us know.


How can I manage apps with File Sharing within iOS (without using computer)? I want to know if I can manage (copy MEDIA (music or video) from it   and   paste MEDIA to it) the File Sharing folder of iOS apps using iOS devices (iPhone, iPad ...) without plugging the device to a computer. AND WITHOUT JAILBREAK

If you have already jailbreaked, then you can use iFile. If not, sorry I don't know either.


How long does the wake-up alarm last? So I forgot my iPhone at my locker at school and I didn't turn off the wake-up alarm and I want to know how long it lasts.

15 minutes and then it will turn off by itself.


Best resources on data recovery from corrupted OS X HFS+ partitions My Macbook Pro won't boot from it's hard disc. If I boot it from CD, the drive will only mount sometimes. Where should I go to get hints and tips on data recovery? What are the best tools that should be in my toolbox?

The best free solution I've found is TestDisk. I have no personal experience with it, but I've heard rave reviews.

You can also try Data Rescue 3, a paid solution. I've used an older version in the past with good results. Problem with this sort of solution is that they can only recognize certain formats of files. But there is an extensive list of files that it can recover.

Of course, the best tip I can give you for data recovery is keep regular backups -- especially for laptop computers!


Can you upload contacts from a car [Kia] *to* an iPhone? Last night I accidentally deleted all my contacts from my phone. However, my contacts were synced via Bluetooth with my 2016 Kia Sportage. Is there a way to upload them back from the car and onto my phone, rather than trying to track them all down again? A cursory sweep of Google/Apple did not even answers if this is possible, let alone how to do it.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely that you will be able to send contacts back to your phone.

While the iPhone (iPhone 4 and newer) supports the Bluetooth Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP) the process is typically only one-way.

There are two roles in the PBAP profile:

Phone Book Server Equipment (PSE) role - this role is for the device that contains the source phone-book objects; for example, a mobile phone.
Phone Book Client Equipment (PCE) role - this role is for the device that retrieves phone-book objects from the PSE device; for example, a portable navigation device (PND).

Your iPhone acts as the server and the car radio acts as the client.

  Phone Book Download Feature

  This feature is used to download the entire content of a phone book
  object. It is especially designed for devices with relatively large
  storage capacity that are typically attempting to download and locally
  store the entire phone book.

  Note that this feature is very basic. In particular, phone book
  entries are delivered in ascending index order only. No sorting is
  possible.

M = mandatory

In the Bluetooth specification for Phone Book Access Profile (where the above info was sourced), there is no "push" function; only "pull."  This means for your iPhone to receive the Phone Book, it must change roles to being a client and your car radio to becoming a server.  I can't find any documentation that indicates iPhone supports this role or the Kia radios becoming a server.


Should I jailbreak my phone or unlock it? My sister recently gave me her iPhone 7+ from T-mobile because she has switched phone companies. The only problem is she owes T-mobile for the phone but I doubt she is planning on paying off the phone anytime soon. It's still pretty new and in good condition, and I want to use it. Since she has not paid it off I know T-mobile has probably put some restrictions on it.

Would unlocking it and using a sim from a different company help or would I have to jailbreak it, which is something I don't really want to do?

I'd do neither, personally. I don't trust or like any unlocking service or jailbreaking, so I would try to check if it's carrier unlocked by this (optionally not contacting T-Mobile to ask them yet to unlock).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201328

If it's locked, I would take the phone to a T-Mobile shop and tell them truthfully  the essential facts you know:

An acquaintance said they couldn't afford this phone and I'd like to see if I could establish service with it. Can you help me shop for a mobile plan?

You don't have to tell them who / relationship and certainly don't speculate. If they are probing to see what else you know about the phone, don't get nervous and do be polite and deliberate. Just repeat what you told them in pretty much the exact same words and then ask if they can help you. Just keep in your mind - you're notthe previous owner and you're the owner of the device now and this is a chance for them to earn your business.

It's not their "business" if you paid for it or not and they shouldn't tell you anything about the previous owner. It is their business to help you pick out a plan and understand if it has a contract or not and propose another plan if you don't like the one they suggested initially. From some very astute comments, you should probably protect yourself with a written bill of sale if you intend to say you "own" the device. Paying a dollar and writing up a transfer keeps you from lying if you go to the store. If it doesn't work out, you can always sell it back later to the previous owner.

If you can get service in your name and avoid a contract, I'd do it. Then you can look at getting it unlocked after a month or two if you're not happy with your service in getting the phone working and with the service as a user of T-Mobile. At that point, they'll have a much harder time saying you're to be penalized as a paid up customer asking for an unlock.

Make sure that whomever signs into this iPhone doesn't keep "Find My iPhone" turned on. If the device ever gets locked and the user doesn't know the password or can't get the verification code to the account. You will be stuck with an expensive coaster that Apple won't be able to help you with. They will need the proof of purchase and that doesn't exist since only T-Mobile has that and will not give that up until the balance is due.


Upgrading OSX on a three partition hard without losing bootcamp I have a three-partition hard drive on my MacBook pro mid 2009:

1) Snow leopard (10.6.8) on Macintosh HD with 175GB free

2) DATA on a FAT32 partition

3) Windows 7 on a Bootcamp partition with 85GB free

I have installed windows from within the OS X, following the Bootcamp instruction, then I have created the third partition and did some "recovery" on windows side to have all three partitions working properly.

Now after some years, I want to upgrade Snow Leopard to new OS X (El Captain).
I downloaded the new OS X from App Store, and tried to upgrade, it started the upgrade process but then it failed saying that it cannot upgrade on this partition. It suggested to change the size of Macintosh HD by at least 128 MB, and re partition it, so that it would fix the errors, and the new os x would install. So, I shrank the macintosh HD partition by 1.5 GB, and repartitioned. Still no good.

So, not that my Snow Leopard is upgraded, but also my Bootcamp startup option is also gone now. Bootcamp options does not appear in the Startup Disks menu, nor when I hold OPTIONS key on system boot.

a) how to get bootcamp startup disk back?

b) how to upgrade to el captain, maintaining three partitions, and the windows installation?

Thank you so much

edit:
Some details:

diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            274.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                24.9 GB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data DATA                    299.4 GB   disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                150.8 GB   disk0s5

.

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
Password:
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         MBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640   536157600      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   536567240      262144
   536829384    48673336      3  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   585502720      262144
   585764864   584828928      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  1170593792   294553600      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  1465147392        1743
  1465149135          32         Sec GPT table
  1465149167           1         Sec GPT header

.

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Password:
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 91201/255/63 [1465149168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
 2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  536157600] HFS+
 3: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 536829384 -   48673336] HFS+
 4: 0B 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 585764864 -  584828928] Win95 FAT-32

a) how to get bootcamp startup disk back?

You have an additional 24.9 GB partition between the "Mackintosh HD" and the "DATA" partitions. This means you have 5 partitions (if you include the hidden EFI partition). The "BOOTCAMP" partition is the 5th and last partition. The Apple software is designed by default to search for Windows on only the first 4 partitions. This is why you can not startup to the "BOOTCAMP" partition.

The easiest fix would be to delete this partition using the Disk Utility application. The space could then be added back to the "Mackintosh HD" partition. I have not used the OS X 10.6.8 Disk Utility application in a long time, but with the newer OS X versions, sometimes this application can fail to properly delete partitions. So, beware and you probably should have a backup of important files.

b) how to upgrade to el captain, maintaining three partitions and the windows installation?

I am not sure why El Captain would not install. Are you sure you first upgraded OS X to version 10.6.8? Also, I do not think shrinking the "Mackintosh HD" partition by 1.5 GB would help. If anything you would need to erase files to create more available storage. I believe you need 8.8 GB of available storage.

It is possible to maintain the three partitions, but requires an effort. The problem is Windows can only be aware of four partitions per HDD or SSD. For your internal drive, you currently only have four partitions. (The first partition is a hidden EFI partition.) Installing El Captain will introduce a fifth "Recovery HD" partition after the "Macintosh HD" partition.  There are three ways around this problem:

Delete the "Recovery HD" partition. You can optionally first copy
this partition to a flash drive if you wish. The problem here is
that some later update will probably recreate the partition, so you
will have to do this again later.
Use some free third party utility like gdisk to manual set which
partitions Windows can access. The problem is the Disk Utility may
reset the manual changes back to the defaults, requiring you to
manually set them again later.
Put the Windows and FAT32 partitions before the "Mackintosh HD"
partition. The problem here is that you need to reinstall Windows or
use a third party tool to move the partitions. If you reinstall, you
can not use the Boot Camp Assistant to create the Windows partition.
Personally, I chose this method. You can use the Snow Leopard
installation DVD to create the partitions.

Note: If during installation you are asked about Core Storage, I would advise to avoid using it. You do not need Core Storage unless you want to encrypt your disk.


What setting enables split screen mode in OS X El Capitan? I just started using OS X El Capitan on a new Mac Book Pro.  I was looking forward to using split screen mode but I cannot get it to work.  I have read online (cnet and apple) that there are two methods:

By pressing and holding on the green circle with two outward pointing arrows.
By making a window full screen, then using mission control to move another application to the same workspace.

Neither of these options work for me.

I did find this post which says that you must have 'Displays have Separate Spaces' enabled (found in System Preferences > Mission Control).  Is this really required?  I often work with an external monitor and it is more intuitive for me to have this setting off.

Split screen will only work when you turn on 'Displays have Separate Spaces' setting.

After you turn this on, you can use both methods you described.

To expand on bullet 1, from your desktop (i.e., not in a full screen app), click and hold on the green circle and it will give the option to put a window on the right or left.  It will then prompt to put a second, already open, window on the other side.  The two apps will now be in full screen mode together.