Mac Mini 2010: DualBoot (BootCamp) OSX Mavericks + Windows 8.1 Before Mavericks I had a BootCamp dual boot configuration with Lion and Seven x64.
That was fine but, because I replaced the hard drive with a SSD model, I took a chance to set as the newest environment as possible.
I found out to my sadness that Mac Mini 2010 (model 4,1) is not supported by BootCamp 5 therefore Windows 8/8.1 neither.

But there are workarounds to install BC5 and the other missing (mostly graphic) updated drivers.
The problem is to get to that point.

A second aspect is that, even if I have a DVD unit (by the way I own an external one too), don't ask me why, it doesn't read Windows DVD properly, so I decided to go for a pen drive installation, that is possible with another workaround.

So, goals:

Install native OSX Mavericks + Windows 8.1 x64
Complete the Windows installation through a pen drive, not using DVDs

What I did:
Modify Info.plist file as it follows:

add my Bootrom Version at the top in the "DARequiredROMVersions" section
delete "Pre" from "PreUSBBootSupportedModels" that becomes "USBBootSupportedModels" and add my Model Identifier at Top First
delete my model "Mac mini 4,1" from the Win70onlymodel

Editing has been done with TextEdit plus XCode4 and thanks to this post.

Cool, now BootCamp assistant in Mavericks has more features enabled, like the possibility of setting a flash drive up to install Windows or prepare a boot device with Windows 8, not only 7.

Because I read that there are some problems to make the hardware being immediately recognized, I decided to postpone that part and not including Bootcamp drivers in the device.
The pen drive was set up on a MacBook Retina 2013.
After creating a partition (through the assistant), here come the problems.
Windows 8.1 installation starts, I'm asked to choose a destination partition but, whatever I do, a message appears and says:
"windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks"

I tried to
- re-format the disk (I don't see any advanced options by the way, like this)
- install rEFIt
- use Windows 7 Tools, but it keeps telling that "unit is in use" and I can't reverse the .iso on the pen drive
- change the partition table of the pen drive, from MBR to GPT but then I cannot copy the contents of .iso inside then

I don't wanna make an upgrade from Seven and as far as I know Win8 use EFI just like OSX does, so what d'u suggest me to do? Are there any other ways I haven't explored yet or the solution is to re-format the disk again with the GPT file structure, install OSX and then Win8.1

This is the actual partition table is this one:

    /dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MacOSX                  49.2 GB    disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data Untitled                200.0 GB   disk0s4

I tried to use virtualbox by enabling it permissions access to my whole drive. This also did not work.

The only available solution, after extensively scanning the web, is to install with the native dvd drive.

However, I am surprised that the community has not defined a better solution. One where one can dual boot windows/ or, bootcamp windows in a macbook 2010 (for example) where the optical drive has been replaced by a second hard drive [without removing the second drive and reinstalling the optical drive]. I am also not satisfied with the cloning a drive option as this too requires removing drives and reinstalling and gaining access to a second mac.

I think that ubuntu (http://www.askubuntu.com/) may be able to define a solution using unix code to fix the problem once and for all!


macOS no longer finding Windows Partition While attempting to remove a Windows partition through Boot Camp Assistant, the process ended in an error. Now, upon going into Disk Utility, macOS is only showing my macOS partition of 400GB out of the maximum 500GB and the original 100GB Boot Camp partition is missing. Any way to resolve this and to recover the space to fully remove the Windows installation? The end goal being to use Parallels to reinstall Windows. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Info:
macOS 10.13.3
MacBookPro 10,1 (Retina Mid 2012)

    diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         400.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +400.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            309.4 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 19.7 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +2.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Time Machine Backups    2.0 TB     disk2s2

diskutil apfs list

diskutil apfs list
APFS Container (1 found)
|
+-- Container disk1 F4485D24-ACD0-4DBF-A434-D8C941763B6C
    ====================================================
    APFS Container Reference:     disk1
    Capacity Ceiling (Size):      400068423680 B (400.1 GB)
    Capacity In Use By Volumes:   309839974400 B (309.8 GB) (77.4% used)
    Capacity Available:           90228449280 B (90.2 GB) (22.6% free)
    |
    +-< Physical Store disk0s2 8DC157B0-BAE2-4C3F-B025-6DC4DC81C1E9
    |   -----------------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk0s2
    |   Size:                       400068423680 B (400.1 GB)
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s1 58B8E3C4-B274-3000-871A-A81E7DDCFD5C
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s1 (No specific role)
    |   Name:                      Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /
    |   Capacity Consumed:         307010723840 B (307.0 GB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s2 2ED43133-C410-4C09-9A86-DF35400166C5
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s2 (Preboot)
    |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         19677184 B (19.7 MB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s3 E8F57C77-7C8D-492F-9C45-ECD8924AACF2
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s3 (Recovery)
    |   Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         509825024 B (509.8 MB)
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s4 EE50DC81-0666-4492-99D9-1393244B0DF0
        ---------------------------------------------------
        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s4 (VM)
        Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)
        Mount Point:               /private/var/vm
        Capacity Consumed:         2147504128 B (2.1 GB)
        FileVault:                 No

The command given below will add the free space back to the container. You need to enter the command in a Terminal application window.

sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  0

I thought this command could be entered while booted to High Sierra. Evidently, the OP needed to boot to recovery mode.


How to insert "n" rows into an Excel spreadsheet? I simply want to insert "n" rows. None of the resources that I have found have stated how to do this. The closest I have seen is "select same number of rows". That is fraught with problems.  Any hints / VBA code or other ideas?

Simple, even though visually it looks like it is fraught with problems.

I've been doing this for decades, literally, and I use Excel almost every day.

Ex: insert 5 empty rows between row 4 and row 5:

Click on the numeral 5 at the far left, then entire row is selected.
A small yellow box appears at the lower-left of the selected area.

Hold-drag the small yellow box down to row 10. Release the mouse button.

Right-click and choose Insert

Boom! 5 empty rows!

It can't get any simpler than that!


How do I get F11 and F12 to behave like normal function keys? I have a 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 15" and I'm trying to set the function keys to perform as normal function keys.  So I want the behaviour to be inverted from the standard behaviour where I need to press Fn to get the keys to work normally.  I've enabled the setting in Preferences as shown below.

This works fine for all function keys except F11 and F12.

Fn + F11 and Fn + F12 both have the expected behaviour of adjusting the volume now, but when I press F11 by itself it enters Expose and when I press F12 by itself it launches Dashboard.

How can I get my F11 and F12 keys to just behave like normal function keys?

Well I actually just figured this out.  In Preferences under Mission Control there were two options set to use the F11 and F12 keys.  I set these to '-' and that fixed the issue.  The options that were set to use these function keys are highlighted in the screenshot below.


iPhone shortcut to turn location services ON/OFF Considering the use of 'Shortcuts' app in iOS, is there a way to quickly get a shortcut to turn location services ON and OFF rather than poking through the menus in settings?

Another thing you can do as of now is open the Location Services settings menu from the attached shortcut (export from the Launcher App from the App Store)


Brew Problems on Mac On my mac OSX Yosemite.

when I do a  brew update

error: unable to unlink old 'bin/brew' (Permission denied)
error: unable to unlink old 'share/man/man1/brew.1' (Permission denied)

OK. So I do a sudo brew update

MacBook-Pro:bin$ sudo brew update
Password:
Error: Cowardly refusing to `sudo brew update`
You can use brew with sudo, but only if the brew executable is owned by root.
However, this is both not recommended and completely unsupported so do so at
your own risk.

So it doesn't let me run the update in any way.

Try this:

sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local; brew update


importing .vpl files (vpn tunnels) on mac Is there any way I can import a .vpl file? This is the only way of connecting I have and for now I can only do it on Windows (with FortiClient 4.x.x) because 5 doesn't support importing .vpl anymore.

You can use the "FortiClientTools" application in Windows to import your .vpl configuration file. From there, you can export the configuration file to a newer type (4.3/5.0) that can be imported into newer versions of FortiClient. Exported config files that are encrypted will likely have a filename extension of .sconn; unencrypted config files should be appended with .conn.

If you need to import those config files into the newest version (5.2) of FortiClient, you can change the filename extension from .sconn or .conn to the newer format (.sconf; .conf). Once the extension has been changed, you can import that config file under the FortiClient menu -> Preferences -> General -> Restore.


Phantom Images showing in image capture macbook pro catalina 10.15.7, iphone 7 ios 14.2. Here is a screen of some pictures in the camera roll that were taken with the phone.

When i connect the phone to the mac book pro and open image capture, i get duplicates and there is an "E" added to the file name and the duplicates files seem to be smaller in size.  Question - what causes these duplicates and why arent they showing in the camera roll on the phone?

E photos are edited.
The text you added to the photo creates an IMG_Exxxx.JPG file with the changes you made.
The original is preserved as IMG_xxxx.JPG which can be reverted to using the Revert button in the Photos app when editing a photo.


Date is wrong by months when set to automatically Since a few days my MacBook Air 2020 shows the wrong date when set to "Set date and time automatically".
This is regardless of the chosen NTP server.
When time set manually, querying a NTP server from the command line returns:
$ sudo sntp -sS pool.ntp.org
-9.789671 +/- 0.018845 pool.ntp.org 95.81.173.74

Which does not show date and time, but also no major offset.
The offset is consistent at 5 months, 2 days, 3 hours and 10 minutes.

Tried time.apple.com and pool.ntp.org. No luck.
Tried different time zones. No luck.
Tried VPN to fake a different physical location. No luck.
Changed WiFi networks, including using my phone as hotspot. No luck.
NVRAM reset didn't help. No luck.

Fix
It somehow got fixed when I installed sntp via homebrew and ran it in combination. After running
sudo touch /var/db/ntp-kod
sudo chown root:wheel /var/db/ntp-kod

Excellent question. There is a lot that you can do to inspect this process.

How can I tell if my Mac is keeping the clock updated properly?

Some things to point out:

Check which time servers you have selected
Change them and retest
If you have a VPN, try that and be sure you try without
Look over your time zone (set it if it’s not correct while you sort out the time servers

Some computer is telling yours the wrong time, so think about networks and then dig into the command line tools if needed.


How to set specific startup routines? Another simple question for those keeping track, but I was wondering how and where I could setup the startup routines for my mac. What I would really like is for email to open, messages and activity monitor to open but not in a new window, and for safari to open in fullscreen mode in a separate pane. Is this possible or at least where might I look? I'm less interested in accomplishing this as learning some of the more behind the scenes stuff related to the operating system.

Open system references and go to the accounts or users section.

Add the applications needing to start to each user's startup items. You can start apps (and optionally hide them) and mount shares as well as start automation scripts.


"Alignment grid" suddenly showed up on my desktop I am on OS X 10.9   Yesterday, an "alignment grid" mysteriously showed up on my desktop.  How do I get rid of it?

The grid lines don't show up when I do a proper, OS X screenshot. So I've taken a picture of my physical monitor, an Asus monitor, to show the problem.

As it turns out, the problem is with the monitor (Asus in my case), not OS X. You should be able to reset this - i.e. make the grid disappear - via the monitor's menu 'System Setup'.


iPhone SE - Icons at the top-right corner seldom work in many apps I just got an iPhone SE. I have a strong suspicion that parts of the screen (mainly top-right corner, but it might be top-left corner as well) are not responsive enough. On the other hand they work flawlessly in many apps. That's what confusing me even more. I'm pretty much sure it must be app-related but how can an area of the screen might be broken in so many popular apps?

Here are some screenshots:

Mail: Edit - Works every time.

Screenshot Editor: - Undo/Redo Arrow icons: Works every time.

Safari: - Refresh button: Works every time.

Spotify: - Cog Icon: This one is almost impossible to tap. Worked only 3 times out of 100 attempts.

Endomondo: - Bell Icon: Same story with the bell icon as with Spotify. Getting to notifications screen is nearly impossible.

Memrise: - The left edit icon works flawlessly, the right one does not. It's slightly better than with Spotify but still no more than 5% of taps work.

What's could possibly be causing this? I find it hard to believe that these apps would be that bugged. It's my first iPhone ever and I might be doing something wrong?

I just upgraded from iOS 11 to iOS 12 and it's the same. Reseting phone does not help. The screen seems to be working fine excepting these apps. I'm using glass on the screen but I think it must be a software-related issue. I'm wondering what all these broken apps have in common, do they all use WebView?

Any ideas? Is there any software that could help me test the screen (like displaying touch pressure full screen etc.)?

I realize this is an old question but in case someone else has this issue; the answer about the screen protection is definitely wrong. Yes cheap ones can sometimes do that but the author should have read the original post more clearly. If that were the case it would happen in any app, the fact that some apps do it and others (which are all native apps) don’t is a dead giveaway. Moreover I KNOW that isn’t it because I have the same problem and have never had screen protection on my SE.

The most likely culprit here is the apps in question were coded incorrectly in some way. Probably in relation to the size of the region that registers the touch input for that button. I’m just guessing on specifics here as I’ve never coded for an iOS device but the SE runs a much smaller resolution screen than newer devices. If the area were set at a given size which was adequate for a new phone then just scaled down for the SE it might become so small as to have difficulty sensing input. (You see this when people use an automated method to make their program compatible with multiple devices)

My advice is simply to send a bug report to the developer of any affected apps.


iPhone stuck at Apple bootup after attempted evasi0n deletion I have an iPhone  5c, I have it jailbroken, and I was trying to take it off. So, stupidly, I went into iFile and started  deleting anything I saw about evasi0n, Cydia, or any tweaks I had installed.

I'm guessing it was a big mistake, because now my iPhone:

A. Is stuck at the bootup and

B. Won't connect to a computer.

Could anyone please help?

Put your device into DFU mode following these instructions:

Connect the iPhone to your computer and open iTunes
Hold the power and home buttons for ten seconds
Release the power button but keep on holding the power button
iTunes should pop up saying that it detected an iPhone in Recovery Mode. At this point, the screen should be black. If you see anything, start over
Restore the iPhone

You should never delete jailbreak files. They are essential to your device. The only official way to remove your jailbreak is to backup files and then restore.


Mavericks: User no longer owner of Home folder and content One of the Users (called: The_Problematic_User) of a Mavericks installed MacBook Pro is no longer owner of the Home folder and content. Here's what we've tried to no avail:

restart computer and log in recovery mode (Command-r) and;

repair disk permissions,
repair disk,
with resetpassword (command line),
reset Home Folder Permissions and  ACLs,
reset password,

restart computer and log in single user mode (Command-s which is root access) and;

Strip ACLs on all account items with: chmod -RN /Users/username
response: chmod: Failed to clear ACL on file ...
Try to regain ownership of files and folders with: chown -R username:staff /Users/username
response: chown: username: illegal user name (where username was the user name of the user, obviously)
Try to assign ownership of files to root with: chown -R root:staff /Users/username
response: chown: /Users/username/*: Read-only file system (where * represents all the files and folders in the directory)

Another thing: when I ls -l /Users here is what I get:

drwxrwxrwt  6  root wheel 204  Feb 24 10:53 Shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 12 501  staff 408  Mar 21 17:16 A_user (with admin privileges)
drwxr-xr-x@ 47 502  staff 1598 Mar 15 12:03 The_Problematic_User
drwxr-xr-x+ 24 505  staff 816  Jan 10 15:11 Another_user

What is the @ doing instead of the + in the permissions of The_Problematic_User?

For info: The_Problematic_User does NOT have admin privileges

An erroneous extended attribute has been applied to this directory somehow, but it can only be removed using the xattr Terminal command. You should take a look at a brief explanation here.  A more detailed question and answer can be found at this StackOverflow page.


Is the iPhone 5s Voice over LTE (VoLTE) capable? When carriers roll out Voice over LTE (VoLTE), is the iPhone 5s capable of using it?

According to all sources I checked the iPhone 5s hardware is capable of VoLTE.
As you probably know, recently Verizon announce the feature most likely to highlight it during the upcoming iPhone 6 release.

http://9to5mac.com/2014/08/26/verizon-rolling-out-volte-in-coming-weeks-ahead-of-iphone-6-ios-8/


How to prevent child from using Find My to interact with parent's device? Both me and my child are members of one Family, with Family Sharing turned on. We use different Apple IDs. When my child opens "Find My" app, my devices are listed there as well.

How do I prevent my devices from showing up on that list?

The only option I have found is that I can turn off Location Sharing. But my child can still for example use "Play Sound" to remotely play a sound on my device.

I know that I can turn off "Find My" for any of my particular devices completely, but that would also prevent me from finding this device using my iCloud account, so I don't want to do that.

Alternatively, perhaps there's a way to block "Find My" on child's device completely?

I would implement parental controls on their device. You set a passcode and then you can control which apps are hidden.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304

Start with hiding that one app and then see if you want to impose other restrictions. You might ensure iCloud backups are set and lock their iCloud to your family plan as well for extra security in case you lose the passcode or the device becomes locked.  Some people RE prone to try to erase or get around things, so getting a good backup can save you time and grief.

Also, you can decline to share your location with accounts one by one and let then use the app for other people to share if that’s compatible with your end goal.


How can I use Automator to open a website & log in everyday at a certain time? I need to set up an auto log in for an Intranet web site so I can get right to work with no delays. I want Automator to open safari, go to the page, input log in and password credentials and hit log in (enter) on a daily basis (9am daily) I'd like to use Automator or AppleScript if at all possible. I've heard that lastpass or 1password may have this functionality and I have both paid versions and cannot find any way to use them either.

I have read a lot of questions posted on this topic previously and have not found a solution nor has Google been my friend this time around. :)

if you can use firefox instead of safari you can use:

set firefox with iMacros
set a cronjob with croonix that launch firefox


Why doesn't my MacBook recognize the original HD any longer? I replaced the stock hd with a samsung ssd (840) about 18 months ago. It died last week. I tried putting the original HD back in and the computer won't recognize it. Even when I hold down the option key when booting nothing happens. When I remove the disk and connect it via USB it boots up fine as an external hard drive. Any reason why that would be?

If the original drives does work in an external case but not internally than patrix has the right idea.

We know the old drive is good as it works in an external case
We know the SSD does not work at all because it doesn't work externally or in the Mac.

In both of those cases drives are not working internally, one known bad and one known good.

Unfortunately that points to a problem with the MacBook itself. It could be a loose connector (at the drive end or the motherboard end) And by connector I mean data and power, check both, end to end. Look for breaks, bends, crimps (that are not part of cable routing). Look for dirty or obstructed contacts. Blow some canned air into the contacts. Ifixit.com has come really great take apart instructions for just about every recent model of Mac/iPad/iPhone. Follow along with there instructions and pictures and look for differences in what theirs looks like and what yours looks like.

Logic dictates that the problem is inside your MacBook. the problem now is finding out where and then how to fix it.


Why all OS X verions are 10? I was looking at the versions section of Wikipedia's article for OS X and I realized that all versions are prefixed with 10. Why? What is the logic behind prefixing al versions with a number that never changes?

Does it have to do something with the X in OS X? Why is it OS X? Is there some kind of fanaticism over the number 10 at Apple?

OS X is supposed to be pronounced "Oh Ess Ten" though no-one outside Apple ever seems to, common parlance would be "oss ex".

Though OS XI would, I guess, be OS eleven, how many people are going to end up calling it "oss exie" or "oss ex eye"?

The actual answer to the question "Why?" is presumably because Steve Jobs decided it would be; & that would brook no argument.


How do restore an iOS 12 beta backup to a new iPhone running iOS 11? I have an iPhone 7+ that is running iOS 12 beta. I got a new iPhone X and I want to have it mirror the 7+ by restoring the X from the backup. When I try to do this process, it seems that the X gets the OS wiped and restored to iOS 11, there it is not possible to restore the iOS 12 backup. Is there another way of doing this? Or a workaround? Help! Thanks.

I restored an iPhone X from a iOS 12 beta iCloud backup.

Hardware: iPhone X factory reset to iOS 11.

Steps:

Enrolled device into the beta program, installed beta profile and allowed iOS upgrade. After restart pass through all intros to home screen.

Note: Restore from iCloud showed the iOS 12 backups but they are inaccessible.
Go to Settings -> General -> Reset, then tap Erase all content and settings., confirm and restart. This reset the phone again but at the iOS12 level.
Proceed through intros and restore via the now accessible iOS 12 backup.


iPad Air 2 used ~2GB of Mobile Data Overnight: what for? I just checked my email and have had a shock. Two emails received from O2, one at 6:39 am warning me that 80% of my allowance has been used, the other warning me at 6:45 am that I had run out of data allowance completely. I had almost my full 2GB allowance left, since it just renewed on Tuesday, and so that means something downloaded ~2GB of data on the 3G/4G connection!

I can't figure out why. 6:39 am was around the time I left the house this morning, so it would have been using 3G/4G, but the iPad was in my backpack and I was therefore not using it; so why/what was it downloading? When looking at the mobile data usage (I reset the statistics on Tuesday) I can see that 2GB has been used this period, but there is no breakdown about which apps have used the data.

One other thing to note is that I had set Sleep Cycle to wake me up, but when I did wake up the alarm was no longer set and unlocking took me to the home screen. As if the iPad had rebooted overnight.

I want to find out what's happened here, but I am unsure how to find out any more. If iOS' Mobile Data statistics won't tell me which app did this how can I find out?

2Gb is in the range of a full software update (or a full backup), and it's unlikely the iPad did that over cellular.

Did you have anything tethered to the iPad? A laptop perhaps? The data limiting doesn't kick in over tethering, and the tethered device thinks it's on wifi.

If that is the case, you may want to turn off auto-update.


flac terminal app no longer works - giving me libogg.0.dylib errors I've been a happy user of flac on the OS X Terminal. I mostly use it to either encode, or decode wav -> flac  or flac -> wav.

What I'm meeting nowadays is this:

flac -d *.flac
 dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libogg.0.dylib
  Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/flac
  Reason: no suitable image found.  Did find:
    /usr/local/lib/libogg.0.dylib: mach-o, but wrong architecture
    /usr/local/lib/libogg.0.dylib: mach-o, but wrong architecture
Trace/BPT trap: 5

What should I do? I've tried to brew uninstall libogg and brew install libogg, but that did not actually help.

Is there some easy commandline version for OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 for unflac/flac or should I switch to some OS X app that does it for me? Which would you recommend?

Try this:

brew uninstall libogg

and then:

brew install libogg --universal


MacBook Air's Safari browser keeps opening new tabs I have checked for extensions but there are none installed on the laptop, and I have checked everywhere in Finder to no avail. This is also happening on Chrome and would probably happen on Firefox and other browsers. The tabs that pull up seem to be from the search history because the tabs are usually sites such as Amazon. I have only had one or two encounters with actual scam sites. It also usually happens when a website is loading. The laptop used to have another virus where the search engine was replaced and notification windows popped up in the corner of the screen to make money (The current symptoms that I am experiencing happened with this virus as well). I can't remember what the virus was called.

A new Update for Safari was released on September 22nd 2019. As that introduced a totally new safari version. This problem should no longer occur. Make sure the Mac is updated.
   Also if it still continues make sure the keys cmd and N are functioning properly. As due to faulty butterfly keys if these two are simultaneously pressed it should result in tabs being opened.


What does Skype on Mac do with Webcams? I don't know if many of you have had this problem: After starting Skype, you can no longer use the webcam you specified for Skype to use in other applications such as Quick Time Player.

Even completely closing Skype doesn't release it, you actually have to completely reboot your machine.

The question I have is: What the hell does Skype do with webcams and has anybody found a solution?

I don't have that problem at all! Skype video call > Photo Booth > Skype video call works fine!

Remove Skype fully (preferences and AppSupport usw) and then reinstall? Or use an older version.


Automatically delete a folder daily Is there a way to automatically have a folder deleted every day at 4am?

I'm running 10.6.7.

Appplescript & iCal

Open Applescript and enter the following code:

tell application "Finder"
  delete folder "folder" of home
end tell

Replacing folder with the folder you want to delete, and save the file.

If the folder you want to delete is outside home directory, (for example the folder /Users) then replace the delete line with:

delete folder "Users" of startup disk

Then open iCal and create a new recurring event at the time you want and as an alarm choose Run Script and select the applescript you created.

Cron

Open Terminal.app and enter:

crontab -e

There to the file opened, add the following line

0    4       *       *       *       rm -rf /Users/USER/folder

replacing /Users/USER/folder with the full path of your folder and save the file.

Launchd

Create a new text document, and paste the following code:

rm -rf /Path/to/Folder

Let's call it script.sh

Based on this article, create another new text document and paste the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>Recurring Folder Deletion</string>
  <key>UserName</key>
  <string>nuc</string>
  <key>Program</key>
  <string>/path/to/script.sh</string>
  <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
  <dict>
    <key>Minute</key>
    <integer>0</integer>
    <key>Hour</key>
    <integer>4</integer>
  </dict>
  <key>Debug</key>
  <false/>
  <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Replace nuc with your account username, and /path/to/script.sh with the full path of the script we created on first step.

Save the file in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ as my_rfd.plist.

Finally, launch Terminal.app and type:

launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/my_rfd.plist


Zip the contents of every sub-folder in a folder in Mac automatically I have this folder/file structure

parent folder
--subfolder1
  -sub-subfolder
  -file1
  -file2
--subfolder2
  -sub-subfolder
  -file1
  -file2
...

I want to:

create zip files from the contents of the subfolders. which means,
file1, file2, and sub-subfolder will be zipped, but not the enclosing subfolder.
name each zip file with the name of the folder, like subfolder1.zip,
subfolder2.zip...

I'd prefer that the zip files remain in the related subfolder so it will be:

parent folder
--subfolder1
  -sub-subfolder
  -file1
  -file2
  -subfolder1.zip
--subfolder2
  -sub-subfolder
  -file1
  -file2
  -subfolder2.zip
...

I am hoping that it would be possible with Automator but had no success till now.

My searches resulted in solutions that zip every folder individually with the folder itself, which in this case is not useful for me. I need the contents of the folders to be zipped.

Any ideas?

Not sure about Automator, but you can easily accomplish this in Terminal.

find "parent folder" -type d -depth 1 -execdir sh -c 'cd "$1" && zip -r "$1" .' _ '{}' \;

find "parent folder" -type d -depth 1 lists all subdirectories of "parent folder" (just run it to see the result)
-execdir executes the part up to the \; for each subdirectory found
sh -c 'cd "$1" && zip -r "$1" .' _ '{}' starts a subshell to change into the directory to pack and then zip the content there. The {} contains the name of the subdirectory and is the value $1 will be set to within the subshell, _ is syntactically required but the actual content is ignored.


With Mac Pro, is software RAID 0 worth it? Does anyone have any reason to believe RAID 0 is any faster than independent drives on a Mac Pro?

I have always run my Mac Pro with all five drives in RAID 0.  I recently decided to try out Bootcamp for running Windows & Linux, which, I believe, does not work with RAID.  I decided I would remove at least one drive from the RAID array, but now I'm reconsidering RAID altogether.

My next post on here will be, what's the easiest way to remove a drive from RAID 0 on Mac Pro.  :-)

TIA

Yes, RAID 0 is faster than using the drives independently of each other. Whether or not its noticeably faster depends on what kind of application you're looking at. Some setups benefit hugely from a RAID 0 setup, while for others, its pretty marginal.

There's also the convenience of everything being treated like one big drive.

I will however say that spreading your data like this has one huge disadvantage. You've multiplied the number of potential points of failure by increasing the number of drives in your array, and the data isn't being protected by any sort of mirroring or large scale redundancy. When a RAID 0 array fails, it fails hard, and you'd be well served by having a very robust backup scheme.

For the record, my Mac Pro's drive are not in a RAID configuration.


OS Catalina Recovery mode: "Downloading installer information to the target volume failed" Specs: Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch Core i7 2.6 2019 - MVVL2LL/A* - MacBookPro16,1 - A2141 - 3347 - SSD Drive
I just got my MBP from service, it just had a software problem preventing it from powering up, they just did a SMC reset.
As the computer was locked with the apple id, they sent it to me to unlock it and finish reinstalling OS Catalina.
I'm not upgrading, the computer came with OS Catalina.
I have to boot in recovery mode, asks for the Wi-fi password, connects, spends several minutes with the revolving globe, which I guess that is downloading the OS installer.
After starting the OS install, I get the message Downloading installer information to the target volume failed.
Can't get past that.

Only once I formatted the drive to HFS+ instead of APFS and didn't get that error message, but instead got a message about not being able to install the OS with that format. (I guess SSD only works with APFS?)
Anyway, I tried to create an installation USB stick, but this Mac won't allow external drive boot without admin privilege, and guess what, there is no admin at all!

It doesn't have a firmware password.
It doesn't have iCloud lock.
Things I tried and didn't work:

all types of recovery mode boot: ⌘-R, opt-⌘-R, shift-opt-⌘-R
Reset NVRAM
SMC reset
Erase the disk
iCloud erase (find my mac didn't even detect the mac online, even when it does connect to the internet)
Checked the date & time where correct
Tried to set the DNSs to the google ones
Tried two different connections. (All the other devices using those connections have no problems)

For reasons out of the scope of this question, I can't send the computer back to service. *
Any ideas on what else can I try?
Edit: I uploaded the logs of 2 install attempts, full with error messages, maybe that can help?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kf1fSK-hN_uY7cbsxxkyktWpcXTZMyno/view?usp=sharing

I am having the exact same problem. Something weird that helped me past the "downloading instaler information...failed" is using different wireless connections, and retrying many times. Some (magical) times it just passes to the next screen. This is very weird, I know, but it helped in my case. When I get passed that error, I find a different one: the installation gets a timeout around 90% of the installation. I have probably the same computer as you, Macbook pro 2019, 16 inches, 8core base model with T2. Please let me know if you find a solution as I am in the same condition as you. I will let you know if I find a solution too. What I will try is continue trying on different wifi connections and let you know. I am 1000 miles away from an Apple store too (at a mountain village in Argentina). God help us, hahaha!


Trigger the Creation of a Specific Preference List? I have the following function:

hardware_model () {

  local hardware_mod
  hardware_mod=$(defaults read ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SystemProfiler.plist 'CPU Names' \
  | cut -sd '"' -f 4 \
  | uniq)

  write_header "Hardware Model" "$hardware_mod"
}

which returns, e.g.: MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014).

However, on some machines--running the same OS X version--I get:

2018-08-20 11:59:30.331 defaults[25029:3478859]
The domain/default pair of
(/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SystemProfiler.plist, CPU
Names) does not exist .

My question is: what specific action(s) trigger the creation of: com.apple.SystemProfiler.plist? I'd like to be able to create this file reliably in OS X 10.10-10.13 (inclusive), from a terminal, if possible.

Thanks.

In case you're still trying to do this, I just figured out how to generate the file on my Mac running Mac OS X 10.13.6 (17G65).

It's remarkably simple. The file seems to be generated once you select “About This Mac” from the  menu, as shown here:

Before that, "$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SystemProfiler.plist" did not exist.

After that, I could run

defaults read "$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SystemProfiler.plist" 'CPU Names'

and get the result I was looking for.


Can terminal be launched via keyboard shortcut: CTRL+ALT+T? I am using Alfred and hence I don't have any use for the Cmd+Space keyboard shortcut. I want to invoke terminal using that shortcut. Just like in Ubuntu, when you press Ctrl+Alt+T
I don't want to use Alfred to start the terminal. I just want to press Cmd+Space and I want the terminal to appear just like it would in Ubuntu.
Is there a way to start terminal like that in OS X Mavericks?

Keyboard Maestro

You can do this with Keyboard Maestro, using a macro such as this:

Alfred

You can set up a custom hotkey to launch an app using a workflow:

Go to the workflows tab, create a new workflow and add a hotkey and a 'launch apps' with Terminal selected as the app to launch.

KeyRemap4MacBook

You can use KeyRemap4MacBook with a private.xml such as this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <vkopenurldef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_Terminal</name>
    <url>file:///Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app</url>
  </vkopenurldef>
  <item>
    <name>Activate Terminal with ⌘Space</name>
    <identifier>ActivateTerminalWithCmdSpace</identifier>
    <autogen>
      __KeyToKey__
      KeyCode::SPACE, VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE,
      KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_Terminal
    </autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Automator Service

You can create a service in Automator:

…then in System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Services you can assign a keyboard command to run it.


Mac Mini Server Reset To Factory - Help With Fatal Error I am in desperate need of assistance. I am doing my very first in-house server reset and wipe since graduating from school and I am in over my head. I know I am a noob at it but I am THE I.T. GUY at my office so I am stuck doing this job....

I did my homework as usual and made sure to follow all steps correctly for my mac mini server at the office. It is the kind with no DVD drive therefore I am relying on attaining my OSX 10.8.5 from apple via the internet. We had a time capsule used as a base station for our office WIFI and since I have begun this project we are without internet and my colleagues are frustrated. I badly need this problem resolved today.

To wipe and reset, I...

Shut Down The Mac Mini
Held Command + R until The "Connecting To Apple" screen came up with a spinning world. When I started this all the time capsule was causing me huge problems as it wanted to connect to apple for the OSX download via WIFI.... which cant work since our office WIFI is infact the Time Capsule... So I now have all connections unplugged and the direct modem connection into the server and FINALLY I have the option to do the install via LAN direct connection.
Clicked on Disk Utility, this is where I get confused. I did what I was told, I clicked on my Macintosh HD of 996.8GB size and erased the data. However, there are somehow two other RAID drives showing up here each their own 1TB slot. Was I supposed to erase all of those also? I did only what the online tutorials said to do which was remove the Macintosh HD data. I picked the fast option that wipes in like 4 mins instead of 2.5 hours.
Waited until drives were wiped and then exited out of the utility program and back to the main screen to then click on Reinstall OSX. This installed with no warning messages and then rebooted my server for me.
Once it reloaded back up this is the message I get, which launches into an infinite loop of restarting my machine from an internal error to then let me know the same error occured, to then restart all over again....

Can any one offer a new graduate into the field a bit of help here? I am a great programmer, but a noob server admin.

UPDATE 1

Since this post I have had a bit of help but still no luck. I have now tried the OSX reinstall option three times total. There is a raid set running on two other 1 TB drives other than my Macintosh GB HD drive that used to be my main drive. I am not sure if I am supposed to remove or erase these drives and try again?... As you can see its not my main drive that has the raid setup. Its two seperate drives each with a different raid I think. My main drive used to be Macintosh HD.

UPDATE 2

There was no option to remove the extra drive partitions in the RAID since the minus button, the delete button, the erase button and all the HD verify/repair options are ALL greyed out :(

In case anyone has searched this and had the same problem as me here was the problem.

After a trip in to the apple store and some work on my own It turned out to be partly a broken sata cord inside the mini as well as the raid partition setup. Once the apple store employees helped me find the sata cable that was causing the error I realized the final problem was that one of the raid slices was set as a promoted drive.

The reason I couldn't tell this was the actual problem was an unrelated separate problem which turned out to be a broken sata cable. Once that was replaced it was fairly easy to see that one of the raid slices needed to be demoted in order to remove both partitions and truly wipe the HDD.


clone and boot from segment I have an external hard drive with a case. It is an older computer’s hard drive. To use certain software, I have to boot from that hard drive but since I am running the computer from an external hard drive with a usb cable, it runs pretty slow.

Mac has 500 GB drive ??? available
USB is OS X 10.6.8 and 500 GB drive with 240 available (260 GB space filled)

I’d like to transfer it to a section of my hard drive and have the option off booting from that section/drive. Do you know of tutorials that can tell me how to do this or do you know how?

What you are trying to do is called dual booting and your "segment" is actually what is referred to as a "disk partition" or just "partition." This is nothing more than a logical segmenting of the disk. While the data is all on one drive the operating systems will see it as two (logical) drives.

I have not done a Dual boot Mac in a long time so take this (overview) with a grain of salt and do some googling on dual booting your Mac with two Mac OS partitions (there will be a lot with Windows and Linux, ignore those).

Basically you would boot into recovery mode (COMMAND-R) at startup and go into Disk Utility. In Disk utility you should have the option of re-sizing your main Mac partition by clicking on it and dragging up to make it shorter. It will only allow you to resize the partition by removing unused space. How much you will be able to resize depends on how big your drive is and how much of it is used.

Once you have done that you should be able to create a second partition. Once that is done you can boot from your install media and point the installer to your new partition. Once that is done you can use the Apple Migration Assistant to move selected files/apps to the new partition from your old external drive.

Again this is a 30 mile view. No doubt others have more recent experience with this and can add to (and correct) the basic procedure here. But it is basically possible but like bmike mentioned knowing the relative sizes of your drives and available space will help...


App store id different from OSX system id? My dad also has a macbook and he now has a strange problem. He knows the password for the app store with which he can install new apps. I verified that works. But when I wants to install an app by double clicking a .pkg file (for google earth) he is asked the system password. I always assumed this is the same as the password for the app store, but to my surprise, the same password doesn't work.

I checked on the terminal by entering sudo ls and trying the password which works in the app store, but that fails. I am 100% sure I type the same password, and also tried copy pasting the password.

Does anybody know where I'm going wrong here? How can the password for the app store be different from the system password? All tips are welcome!

You're talking about the password for a specific Apple ID (which you use on the App Store), versus the password for a specific user account on the Mac. There's no requirement anywhere that they have to be the same.

Your dad probably used a different password for his user account. If you cannot remember it, you can reset it by following the instructions here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202860


exporting LSCOLORS in .zshrc not working as expected In my .zshrc file I am loading my color scheme using the below command:

export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=GxFxCxDxBxegedabagaced

But when I load my terminal I get another color scheme. I am not sure why this is happening.
On sourcing

source .zshrc

I get the color scheme. I am not sure why it doesn't load automatically.
I am using prezto for my zsh shell.

All my aliases present in .zshrc file load fine.

I'm guessing you put the LSCOLORS export at the top of the .zshrc? Move it below the zprezto stuff and it will work. The variable gets overwritten when zprezto sets up (hence why it works when you manually source the file a second time - zprezto detects it's already running so it doesn't go through its setup a second time when sourced again). This is why you should always put/source your own stuff as late in the chain as possible, it's the only way to have final say.

You can always rely on simple debugging with echo with stuff like this. Just inspect the var (both in scripts and interactively) and you can confirm what's going on.


Well, it seems there's no cleaner way than Applescript - at least my searches have turned up nothing.

So I've written a simple script to add/remove/list login items:

% loginitems -a Caffeine -p "/Applications/Caffeine.app"
% loginitems -l
Caffeine
% loginitems -d Caffeine
% loginitems -l
%


I want to play my guitar via iRig through my computer with my iPhone 4 I want to play my guitar via iRig through my computer with my iPhone 4. The earphones are uncomfortable, and the wires keep tangling with the guitar. I've connected my iPhone to the computer, but what do I do now?

If you absolutely postively must play it through your computer (see below for better options), you could try installing XBMC on your computer and using AirPlay off your iPhone to play through your computer speakers.

Better options: attach the speakers on your computer (if you have external speakers) to the headphone jack; get a 1/4 inch to 1/8 inch adapter and plug it into the microphone port on your computer, then pirate acquire Ableton Live; get a decent audio interface for your computer, you'll get way better sound out of it.


iOS 7 iAd Implementation & iAd Network Temporarily Unavailable I have submitted three iOS apps and they have all been approved. I implemented iAd into them, and the test ads show when I test the apps. But now they have been on the App Store for a few days, and I haven't seen any ads when I download the apps on devices that are not provisioned as test devices. I have already accepted the iAd contract, and the iAd page simply says "iAd Network is temporarily unavailable Sorry: We were unable to locate information relating to your account. Please try again later".

I have the exact same issue , my app rolled out to the app store today.

Some people say that it takes a couple of days for production ads to show up in new apps
Can anyone confirm?


Can I prevent websites from disabling the context menu in Safari on macOS? More and more websites seem to disable the context menu in web browsers.

Can I prevent websites from disabling the context menu in Safari on macOS?

I finally found a tool that brings back the context menu for Safari on all those websites that disable it. It’s aptly called StopTheMadness ($8.99).

It also offers solutions for other browsers like Firefox, but I haven’t tested those.

  Many web sites disable user interface features in your browser that you normally expect to work. StopTheMadness ensures that those features continue to work for you in Safari and Firefox:


Installing windows 7 on Imac I have a mid-2010 27" iMac with macOS 10.12.5 and an external DVD - USB SuperDrive (the internal DVD drive is broken).

I can't install Windows 7 from DVD with Bootcamp. After downloading support software to USB flash drive via BootCamp Assistant, I get an error on restart:

  No bootable device -- Insert boot disk and press any key.

What can I do?

You need to convert it to an ISO.
Apple's official guide


Which office software to choose for university and day to day tasks? My daughter currently uses a Microsoft laptop for university and other day to day tasks. I'm about to buy her a Macbook Air for her 21st.

What Microsoft Office software for Mac does she need or would be best purchase?

Your Microsoft choices are listed here.

Main differences are, the online version and the fully installed on your hard drive.

Microsoft Office 365 (it is a online app), lower cost and 4 Years access.

Microsoft Office 2011 (on you hard drive)- no need to go to Internet.

Free app: Open Office, does almost everything Microsoft Office does.

I have the Office 2011 on my MacBook Air, it works like a charm (PowerPoint, Excel, Word), but stay away from the Outlook Email, and use the build in Apple Mail instead.


How can I update my 3rd generation iPod touch from iOS 5.1.1 iOS 6.0 My itunes keeps on telling me that my iOS 5.1.1 iPod touch is up to date when I click Check for Update:

iTunes 11.0.2
OS X 10.8.2
iPod 3rd gen (MC008LL)

I recall that back in the day I used to get the prompt to update to 6.0.. and then I asked iTunes never to bother me about it again. But now I went to iTunes->preferences->advanced->reset all dialog warnings. that still doesn't work..

I also tried updating my software from within the iPod itself: Settings->General->Software Update, but I get the exact same message still.. Ideas?

Unfortunately you can't, iOS 6 requires at least an 4th generation iPod touch (as noted in the System Requirements (right hand side) of Apples Update overview).


Folder with question mark when booting including recovery partition on MacBook Pro 2010 I have an old MacBook Pro (2010) whose hard drive was long dead. I recently had to replace the hard drive in my 2012 MacBook Pro; it wasn't dead yet, but had a bad block. I use the laptop for work, so I bought a new one. Anyway, I decided to try and install the old, bad block drive in the old MacBook 2010.

I got the folder/flashing question mark, so tried option key at startup. That gives me the Recovery partition, which I can select. However, once I do so, I'm back to the folder/question mark. Wondering if because the drive in question had OS X Mavericks on it, it's not playing nice with the 2010 MacBook Pro's architecture/motherboard/etc?

Anybody have any ideas as to what I can do here? Would like to give the laptop to my daughter if I can get it working.

The differing architecture shouldn't be a problem. If you installed Mavericks on a 2012 MacBook that drive should boot okay on a 2010 MacBook. If you are unable to boot into OS X and unable to boot into the Recovery then it suggests both are corrupted in some way.

Internet Recovery might be an option, but unfortunately for Internet Recovery to work on a 2010 MacBook it would have needed to have this early 2012 EFI Firmware ROM update installed. If your MacBook isn't offering that option then I assume that means it didn't receive this update.

Two options are, to create a USB installer for Mavericks and try reinstalling Mavericks on that same hard drive, or to buy another hard drive and install Mavericks using those instructions. I'd lean towards the latter, as if the drive failed a Hardware Test that isn't a good sign. Modern hard drive are designed to cope with a certain amount of bad blocks. If the drive has enough bad blocks that it failed a Hardware Test I just wouldn't trust it.

BTW There is also this free tool to simplify the process of creating a USB installer for Mavericks called DiskMaker X.


Offline DNS resolution on Sierra I have configured dnsmasq to resolve all .dev domains to 127.0.0.1. This works great as long as my Mac is connected to the Internet (using Wi-Fi or even my iPhone in hotspot mode).

As soon as I turn off my Wi-Fi or there's no coverage (say I'm nowhere where there's no Wi-Fi connection available) I can't access my .dev websites anymore. Safari refuses to connect saying I'm offline. I would have to put my phone in hotspot mode but in this way I can't truly work offline.

Is there a way to have this setup work? I do remember it was working back in the days of Snow Leopard. Even up to Mavericks for sure.

All CLI tools work fine. Cocoa apps don't.

My dnsmasq config is as simple as:

address=/dev/127.0.0.1
domain-needed
bogus-priv

I've got the same problem and tried and searched a lot, but no solution in the horizon.

But Chrome seems to be not affected by this problem, so you can use it when in no-net mode.

I'm hoping for a better solution.


/bin/sh: rm: command not found I have problems with some applications that use AppleScript shell script feature. For example, Growl's uninstall scripts shows an error:

error "/bin/sh: rm: command not found" number 127

The source of the script is

display dialog (localized string "title")
if button returned of result = "OK" then
    try
        quit application id "com.Growl.GrowlHelperApp"
    end try
    try
        quit application id "com.Growl.MenuExtra"
    end try
    do shell script "rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/Growl.prefPane ~/Library/PreferencePanes/Growl.prefPane" with administrator privileges
    display dialog (localized string "succeeded") buttons {localized string "OK"} default button 1
end if

I've added echo $PATH > /omg.txt && to the command to see what's the search path for rm. But it has a weird value:

$ cat /omg.txt
â

What can I do? I don't understand what's going on. When I just run sudo /bin/sh in Terminal, the environment is just fine!

Now, I know that to uninstall Growl I can just run the command it tries to run in the Terminal. But it won't solve this problem, just postpone it until another application fails with the same error (it happened before).

According to Apple's official documentation, it is by design that shell scripts invoked from AppleScript's do shell script action do not inherit the $PATH variable from your login shell's environment.

Accordingly, Apple instructs users to use full paths to commands when invoking shell scripts from AppleScript rather than relying on the $PATH variable in the environment.

In the script in your example, you could replace rm with /bin/rm

According to the aforelinked documentation, this is the intended, documented behavior; a script that expects the environment's $PATH to be set for do shell script commands is a script with a bug.

That said, if you absolutely need to use relative paths and use $PATH to complete them, you could prefix any shell script called by do shell script with the command PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin;


Can I push notify based on geo-fencing without an iOS App? I want to know, if there are any way to get notification when I entered in any marked geo area.

For instance when entering a mall, I want to push to devices a notification to download a specific app.

I know, it is possible with a third party app, that will read GPS coordinates, and then check is user location within specified region but I want to do this without creating app.

Some where I heard it is possible with DSP (Demand Side Platform).

Can any one suggest me regarding this, or how can I achieve my goal?

No. Apple includes find my phone and friends which lets the owner of the device set up geo fences with notification when those devices a device has permission to track cross a geofence. There is no hook to automate what you contemplate as the device just receives a notification.

Similarly, the workflow automation let’s you get a location but not set up geofence push notifications.

You need to make or use a third party app to use location notifications and APNS as you requested on iOS 12 and below.

To achieve your goal without an app, convince Apple this needs to be added to the OS and to the workflow app to have geolocation triggers.


make new Finder windows open at current folder In Windows when I browse in Explorer, if I open a new Explorer window, it is opened to the same location as the window I had selected when I hit Ctrl-N. Is there a way of doing the same with Finder? So if I'm browsed to Pictures, when I hit Command-N, the new Finder window opens showing Pictures.

Edit: to clarify, what happens now is that regardless of where I have browsed to, when I hit Command-N, the new Finder window opens in my home directory /Users/my_user/.

Enable show path in the view menu (not sure about the menu names but it should appear at the bottom of the finder window) then cmd + double click the folder you want to open, in this case, the last folder is your current folder.

I made an image but can't post it :\

Edit: Image example


Is there any good iPhone stand with high-quality microphone for my desk? I use my iPhone 4 to go jogging and at some point the built-in mic has gotten damaged and the only way to talk to people is via an earbud with mic.

I am looking for a desk charger which also has a high-quality mic so that I can take calls from my desk, hands-free. Does anyone know of a suitable product?

There is no product that provides a stand and charger with a mic, but there are several external mics you can clip onto the iPhone. Some (lower quality) use the headphone jack, and some (higher quality) use the 30-pin docking port.

Here are two examples:

IK Multimedia iRig Mic Cast

This mic uses the headphone jack.

Tascam iM2W stereo mic

This mic uses the docking port, but has a pass-through USB connection that permits charging while the mic is in use.


Cursor as full screen crosshairs I have a 27" iMac running Snow Leopard.  In a wide range of applications I often need to use a straight edge to compare different values on charts, even sometimes charts generated by different applications.  To do this I have made do with clumsy solutions like creating a floating and transparent Sticky or using Shift + Command + 4.  I've also tried a small app called Crosshairs.

None of these things do what I really want.  Ideally, I'd like a full screen crosshair centered on the cursor.  Another way to think about this, it would give me a full height vertical and full width horizontal line that would show up over (on top of) any and all applications, just as a cursor does. Nice to haves it would give the coordinates of the display and have toolbar or right click access to turn it on or off.

Any suggestions?

While it has many more features than this, something like xScope sounds great for this.

Some main features:

mirroring
getting on screen dimensions
rulers
guides
frames
crosshair


Keyboard shortcut mapping for Ctrl+Alt+Del in Parallels I'm a Windows user with a Windows-oriented keyboard, and I switched the Command and Ctrl keys in OSX, because I want to use the same keyboard shortcuts whether in Windows or OSX.  This came back to haunt me though when I installed a Windows VM in Parallels, and it broke the Ctrl+Alt+Del key combo to login to Windows in the VM (since the Ctrl key is mapped to Command).  I would like to create a shortcut mapping Command+Option+Del to the Parallels menu item Devices -> Keyboard -> Ctrl+Alt+Delete, but the shortcuts section of System Preferences -> Keyboard does not allow me to use the Del key.

I tried following the instructions in this answer, adding this:

<key>Ctrl+Alt+Delete</key>
<string>@~&#x7f;</string>

to each of

~/Library/Preferences/com.parallels.Parallels.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.parallels.Parallels Desktop.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.parallels.desktop.console.plist

but the key combo is not activating the menu item to send Ctrl+Alt+Del when adding the XML to any of those.

What am I doing wrong here?  Do I need something special to activate the options in the "keyboard" submenu of "Device"?  Do I have the wrong code for the Del key?  Am I putting the XML in the wrong plist file(s)?

[Edit]

The problem is worse than I thought, because the keys stay switched in Windows.  Is there a way to set the modifier key behavior on a per-application basis?  It would be great if I could swap the Command and Ctrl keys generally, and swap them back in Parallels.

I did not find an answer to the base question, but I did locate a sufficiently good workaround.  Karabiner offers finer-grained control of keys than OSX's keyboard settings, including the ability to add exceptions to key switching.  I used these settings:

Karabiner -> Change Key
    Change Command_L Key -> Command_L to Control_L (except Virtual Machine, RDC)
    Change Control_L Key -> Control_L to Command_L (except Virtual Machine, RDC)

Now all of the Ctrl keyboard shortcuts I am accustomed to work in both OSX and my VMs.


How to transfer Mac Yosemite Notes to Mac Sierra I want to transfer my Notes app notes from one Macbook Pro (OSX Yosemite 10.10.5) to another (macOS Sierra 10.12.1).

I've been able to transfer notes just fine from Yosemite to Yosemite before by simply airdropping my NotesV4.storedata, NotesV4.storedata-shm and NotesV4.storedata-wal files in /Users/myuser/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes to my other Mac.

Sierra's Notes files are the same, but are NotesV6. After I replace the notes files, I can usually close and reopen Notes and my notes appear. If I transfer V4 files into V6 Notes, the files are removed and re-replaced with V6 files due to, I'm assuming, compatibility.

How else can I export notes then from an older Notes to a newer Notes?

On Yosemite:

On Sierra: (Where I'm trying to transfer)

Same iCloud sync as above.

Why not just sync your notes using iCloud?

If they aren’t currently associated with your iCloud account, just copy them over to that account (within the Notes app) on the machine running Yosemite. Then, enable iCloud on the machine running Sierra, checkmark “Notes” to sync under iCloud preferences, and then you’ve successfully transferred them.

It’s a much easier solution than navigating through the filesystem and manually selecting the data.


Delete crashes reports using Terminal I am trying delete the crashing reports plist using terminal (OS Sierra):

sudo rm -rf "~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/*"

But nothing happen. What I am doing bad?
Thank you.

Tilde expansion must not be quoted nor the wildcard. The space between Application and Support would be quoted with a backslash.

~/Library/Application\ Support/CrashReporter/*


NoSleep still in in settings though uninstalled? I have still the NoSleep options in my settings panel although it's fully uninstalled. How can I remove them, too? System is 10.9.

Download NoSleep.dmg or use it if already there. Mount it and click "Uninstall.command".  Reopen preferences, it should be gone.

Uninstalling using official methods is preferred over simply deleting the app packages. Two old, but still relevant questions:

Why there is no standard way to uninstall programs in MacOS?
How do I uninstall a program completely on a Mac?


Send current location in Messages app running iOS 12 In older versions of iOS, the Messages app had an i character in a circle which allowed us to send our current location to the other person. The location could be one-time snapshot of location, or a location updateable for a certain amount of time.

The i-in-circle is gone in current iOS.

Can I send current location in Messages?

Tap recipient’s name > info button > Send My Current Location (or Share…)

Sure, It's just two taps away. But it's not visible, so you wouldn't know it by looking.

Tap the name under the icon for your contact in details. (this tap target it pretty small, so you might miss it first time you try)

The panel expands to display audio, FaceTime, and info buttons. Tap the info button to display a panel with several items. One of this items is the option to send current location, either snapshot or ongoing.

Then tap, Send My Current Location (this one is thankfully easy to tap)


How to check what's locking a file? I noticed that sometimes Mail.app locks files. The lock itself allows for files to be moved to Trash, but doesn't allow Trash to be emptied. (Perhaps Trash should be renamed Thrash in this case)

Is there a way (via a terminal command or an app) to see which app locks the file and/or unlock the file without quitting the app?

As Rabarberski says, lsof can be used to find any process that has the file open. Note that you need to run the program as root, i.e., using sudo, and that you can give the pathname to the file you're interested in as an argument, so there is no need for the grep invocation in the hint that Rabarberski points to. Also, if a process holds a lock on the file, you're supposed to be able to see that from the FD column in the lsof output. See the manual page for the details. (When I run sudo lsof on my machine, I see no locked files, so I won't guarantee that this works right on the Mac. sudo is after all a generic unix program, and conceivably some features don't work on OSX.)

You cannot unlock a file without killing the process that holds the lock. But you can remove it with rm from the command line.


Delete music on iPhone I have iOS 7 and I know how to work all of it but when there was iOS 6 all music you've bought on iTunes, could be deleted from the device. Now I you remove songs that you've bought on the device stay there with the stupid iCloud download symbol. I want it to go away completely because I have duplicates of almost everyone of my songs. How will I erase all music from my phone without doing factory reset.

Under Settings, iTunes & App Store there's an Option for "show all" (music, videos). If you disable it, it will only show you the songs that are actually on your phone, not those that are downloadable because you bought them.


iChat sends out connections to an IP address when configuring camera and mic settings Using LittleSnitch I noticed that Messages (iChat) tries to connect to 17.154.239.222 over udp when I open the audio and video preferences for the application.  Apple owns that IP address but does anybody know why it would need to call home?

The port is used to "set up Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP), Real-Time Control Protocol (RTCP)" according to Apple.

According to wiki, "the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) defines a standardized packet format for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used extensively in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applications, television services and web-based push-to-talk features."

Note: iChat became Messages.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1629?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


How can I successfully uninstall the new Mac Pages program and go back to the 09 version I'm currently working on a project that requires hyper links, which I was able to create in the 09 version of Pages, and which could be exported to PDF with all hyper links fully operational.

Unfortunately the new version of Pages won't do this (you can enter hyper links in but they won't work when exported to PDF).

I do have both the old version, as well as the new version of Pages on my mac. However every time I open up an existing file, or create a new one, in the 09 version, it automatically asks me if I want to upgrade this to the new version. To not upgrade one needs to click "edit existing copy." But the problem is when you save it (which has to aways be as a copy) and then close the file, it seems to save it regardless in the new version, or certainly when re-opening this same file, all the hyper links and other goodies associated with the 09 version, are all gone.

As far as I'm concerned the 09 version is a way superior product. Therefore I figured the best way to go is to completely get rid of the new version and go back to the old one.

Is this possible, and if so how can I go about doing this in a way that won't affect any of my files? I have them all backed up anyway, but just wanted to make sure before going this way and want to make sure I can go back to the 09 version without any major issues.

My 09 version was originally loaded in via disk by the way. Please advise if possible, thanks guys.

The Mac App Store updates to iWork should not have replaced the original iWork '09 apps. Simply delete the new apps and use the old ones.

The original apps should still be available under /Applications/iWork '09 as well as if you search for them in Spotlight. If you've deleted the older versions, you can use Time Machine or reinstall them from the retail CD.


Non-apple adapter for iPhone I bought a used iPhone 3G.  Came with an adapter called I-Tec electronics. Will this damage my iPhone? A warning message appears when I charge it.  But it does charge.  Just want to know if it will damage iPhone.

Looking up for the I-Tec T7001 Iphone 3G charger is safe to use, it is UL approved.

  COMPATIBLE WITH IPHONE & IPHONE 3G/3GS; CHARGES IPHONE FROM ANY WALL
  OUTLET; FEATURES A SNAP-IN POWER UNIT TO ALLOW USER TO CONTINUE USING
  PHONE WITHOUT INTERRUPTIONS WHILE CHARGING; FOLD-AWAY PRONGS FOR EASY
  TRANSPORTATION; 6-FOOT LONG CABLE; UL APPROVED

UL is one of several companies approved to perform safety testing by the US federal agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)


Upgrading from Snow Leopard (10.6.3) to Mountain Lion How do I upgrade to Mountain Lion, and then to El Capitan?

I just installed Snow Leopard (10.6.3). I have tried to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but that requires that I have 10.6.8 or higher, which I don't.

Also, I have for the last 2 days, checked for any updates and have installed whatever was available. I am now confused on what to do.

Step Zero: consider your backup and if you want to do a two-step upgrade per http://apple.blogoverflow.com/2015/09/back-up-then-step-up-to-el-capitan/

Step One: Download the 10.6.8 combo updater at https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399

Step Two: Use the App Store to install OS X and be aware you might need to jump 10.7 to 10.8 to 10.9 to ....


What permissions to host website for OS X Server? I am trying to install Dropplet on my Mavericks Server. I have created the site in Server and copied the files to the root directory.

When I go to configure it, I get the following error, "It seems that your config folder is not writable, please add the necessary permissions.".

I believe it comes from this line,

// Check if the install directory is writable.
$is_writable = (TRUE == is_writable(dirname(__FILE__) . '/'));

I have searched all over for what owner/group/permissions are needed for a website so Apache can write to it.

Anyone encountered this?

This seems to have worked: http://francoisdeschenes.com/2013/02/26/enable-write-permissions-for-apache-built-into-mac-os-x

Strange that this is not on by default?


Is it possible to make Keynote more accurate with autoplaying? I am currently preparing for an Ignite style talk (5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds auto-advancing).

So, due to the talk format, I have set my slides in Keynote to autoplay (Inspector -> Document -> Self-playing, 15 seconds).

However, I've realised that after a couple of slides, the timing starts to be off - such that the entire presentation will be ~5:05 (instead of 5 minutes)

Was wondering, if anyone knows if it is possible to tweak Keynote such that the autoplay delays are more accurate?

Some details:

Using Keynote'09 v5.1.1
Tried using automatic slide transitions with 15 sec delays, same problem
Borrowed laptops from friends and it seems like Powerpoint and Mac Powerpoint seem to be spot on 15sec/slide (total 5min)

Thanks!

My understanding is that this is due to the fact that the slide transition takes a certain amount of time - the 15 seconds is the total time the slide is undistrubed on the screen and it allows a certain amount of time for the changover - the way to check this is to set the timing to '0' and see what happens :)


Which MacBook screen should I buy? My wife broke the screen on her MacBook. I want to buy a replacement and try to put it in myself. How do I determine the correct screen to buy? It is a 13.3" screen. But, the computer is several years old.

I am not asking for a product recommendation. I am going to buy the official Apple screen. I just read that not every screen fits every MacBook. For instance, one site said I have to worry about which wireless antenna I have. Another said I have to worry about unibody or not. But, I don't know the various specs of the MacBook my wife has. I tried to look up the serial number online, but it doesn't list the model number when I do that.

Sounds to me like you need to identify your Mac model more than anything else. Give a try How to identify which model is my Mac?

Once you know your precise model, you may want to go to ifixit.com to identify the precise piece number you’re looking for.


Keep AirPlay toolbar icon permanently visible or hidden I have a toolbar that semi-randomly every couple of minutes flips the Airplay icon on:

or off again:

How do I freeze it into a state of either always on or always off? The current behaviour of occasionally shifting the seven leftmost icons a step to the left or right, because some AirPlay unit went in or out of range (or whatever's happening under the hood) is maddeningly distracting.

You can disable the icon in the menu bar by ⌘-dragging it off the menu bar, which unchecks the option in System Preferences → Displays entitled "Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available".

Should you wish to use the menu bar item, you can check this box again, or just use the AirPlay Display dropdown in System Preferences → Displays to connect to an AirPlay device.


How do you get the internal drive to show up when you're reinstalling? Macbook Pro.  Trying to reinstall Yosemite.  I can get to the "Install OS X" page, but the only destination given is "Recovery HD".  I can go to disk utilities and see that "Macintosh HD" is there, and I can hit the "Verify Disk" and "Repair Disk" options and those run through with no errors.  The partition map shows one partition covering the entire disk (449.42G) with a Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" format.

How do I actually install to "Macintosh HD" though, if it doesn't show up as something you can install to?

The comments about encryption pointed me in the right direction.

Can you reinstall OS X on a FileVault 2-encrypted drive? has the answer; you need to erase the drive first, and you need to do it from a terminal.

Use diskutil cs list to get the UUID of the Logical Volume Group. It's the first listed:

    CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    |
    +-- Logical Volume Group BE3F9C36-A105-4854-9A5B-79511B0303B5
        =========================================================
        Name:         System
        Status:       Online
        Size:         67859718144 B (67.9 GB)
        Free Space:   12656640 B (12.7 MB)
        |
        +-< Physical Volume 9BB1A946-B429-47D0-970B-99CD78D8E502
        |   ----------------------------------------------------
        |   Index:    0
        |   Disk:     disk1s2
        |   Status:   Online
        |   Size:     67859718144 B (67.9 GB)
        |
        +-> Logical Volume Family F3AB68B3-6831-4BEA-B509-B1BF97DFC65E
            ----------------------------------------------------------
            Encryption Status:       Unlocked
            Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
            Conversion Status:       Complete
            Conversion Direction:    -none-
            Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
            Fully Secure:            Yes
            Passphrase Required:     Yes
            |
            +-> Logical Volume 4B5B7F22-9113-4813-B5B6-FF1C1117F0B9
                ---------------------------------------------------
                Disk:                  disk2
                Status:                Online
                Size (Total):          67494739968 B (67.5 GB)
                Conversion Progress:   -none-
                Revertible:            Yes (unlock and decryption required)
                LV Name:               System
                Volume Name:           System
                Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

then diskutil cs delete UUID

With the above example: diskutil cs delete BE3F9C36-A105-4854-9A5B-79511B0303B5

(If you're looking at the startup menu that has four options - Restore from Time Machine backup, Reinstall OS X, Get Help Online, Disk Utility - you're in the right place.  Terminal isn't one of the obvious options, it's on the Utilities menu at the top of the screen.)


Applescript: open finder window displaying all files with certain tag. Possible? It's easy to write an Applescript to open a Finder window to a certain folder, e.g.

tell application "Finder" to open "Macintosh HD:Users:Username:Downloads"

Is it possible for Applescript to open a Finder window showing all files tagged, for instance, green?

Thanks!

If you can process an array of file paths (instead of opening a Finder window), you can use the mdfind utility:

set greenFiles to paragraphs of (do shell script "mdfind \"kMDItemUserTags == 'Green'\"")


Are there alternate OSes for the click-wheel iPods? The firmware on the click-wheel iPod is very simple and doesn't have a lot of "extra" features. It also doesn't allow you to drop music on it; it has to go through iTunes. Are there alternate OSes for the click-wheel iPods?

An alternate OS is Rockbox. It is a free firmware replacement that works on many music players. Rockbox supports:

  iPod 1g through 5.5g, iPod Mini, iPod Nano 1g and iPod Nano 2g

One downside to Rockbox is that you have to make your iPod a Windows formatted partition on a Windows computer.

There are many different themes for Rockbox. Here's an example of just one:


How to re-encrypt a decrypted partition that says "The Core Storage-targetvolume is already encrypted"? I encrypted a Lion partition called "Storage" and it worked perfectly. I needed to decrypt it momentarily because I had some issues, but now I want to encrypt the same volume again and it says "The Core Storage-targetvolume is already encrypted".

Other partitions work fine with decrypting and encrypting, just not this one. Perhaps it has something to do with my home-folder being on the "Storage" partition, but it is strange that encrypting worked the first time and now it doesn't anymore after I decrypted it.

When you say you decrypted it momentarily, it can take from minutes to days depending on the size of the partition and data within it and the speed of your system. The same goes for encrypting. The amount of free space also impacts how long things will take as it needs to encrypt/decrypt files somewhere.

It could be the case that it hasn't finished decrypting it yet.


pkgbuild created package does not install correctly Have now used pkgbuild/productbuild to create a product archive, consisting of three packages (application, uninstaller, KEXT), that according to installer installs fine, no errors.

The KEXT is correctly placed in /Library/Extensions and postinstall script loads it nicely.

But my applications are not moved to the /Applications/Company/ folder. The folder is created, but the applications are not placed there.

The process of doing the component plist + distribution XML is so utterly simple so I just cannot fathom what the h*ll can go wrong ?

The package can be "installed" via Pacifist, albeit then the postinstall script is not executed.

Help?

Update:

Analyze phase (application resides in ./pkgbuild/app_path/ folder):

pkgbuild --analyze --root "./pkgbuild/app_path/" app.plist

Build phase:

pkgbuild --root "./pkgbuild/app_path/" \
         --component-plist ./app.plist \
         --install-location "/Applications/Company/" \
         --identifier "com.company.myapp.pkg" \
         --version "1.0" \
         app.pkg

Then the product archive, step 1:

productbuild --synthesize --package app.pkg distribution.xml

distribution.xml is then modified with correct background image, license, etc.

Step 2:

productbuild --distribution ./distribution.xml output.pkg

(I omitted the KEXT package as that works perfectly)

When installing "output.pkg", folder /Applications/Company/ is created but is empty.

SOLVED (see Grahams answer below):

By setting BundleIsRelocatable in the component plist files to false, the applications are put into the correct place.

Viewing the installer log, the application got "relocated" to where my Xcode project built the app, but still create the /Application/Company folder. A "slightly" peculiar behaviour I would say.

OSX version is 10.11.1.

Moved Applications

The Installer is likely updating the first copy of the application it finds and not the application in the default install location.

This behaviour is deliberate and allows users to move applications, while retaining the ability to use Installer packages to apply updates.

As a developer you probably have numerous copies of the target application on your Mac. It is likely the last copy you – or Xcode – launched is the one being updated. This can include copies within hidden build folders.

Enforce the Location with BundleIsRelocatable

Setting BundleIsRelocatable flag to false forces Installer.app to use the exact path provided by the package.

Without this flag set, the Installer.app will search the target Mac for matching applications and write the new copy to the discovered location.

Try your installer with a clean Mac with a fresh copy of OS X.
Look closely at the log output from Installer.app or installer; you will see entries regarding the search and final location of the relocated application.

Report the Bug

That the Installer still created the parent company folder does feel like an error. Please report a bug with Apple.


How to natively enable TRIM in Sierra for a 3rd-party SSD? My question is: How to natively enable TRIM in Sierra for a 3rd-party SSD?

A solution I found involves installing an "out of the App Store" app that will probably ask for admin credentials etc which I generally don't like.

Is there a native way in OS Sierra to enable TRIM ? Since many paid apps like the one I mentioned are just GUIs for basic BSD tools already in Sierra.

I'm all new to SSDs and just heard about TRIM and how it can help boost the life of your SSD etc.

Thanks !

Open a terminal window, then type sudo trimforce enable. Enter your password into the command line, trim will be turned on. Devices seen below will not work with TRIM commands. If you are unfamiliar with using the command line, I'd see the bottom of this post for guided images.

To enable trim, see below


Is there a way to delete something off your computer but not your itunes account? Memory on my computer is running low. Is there a way to remove stuff from my iTunes account (like delete them from my computer) and still have them on my account (not delete them off my account) so that I can access them on another computer?

There are several ways.

Easiest, but most costly is to subscribe to iTunes Match service which will let you download your entire library on another device and keep it in the cloud for you.

Harder, but relatively cheaper is to migrate your iTunes library to another computer.

Migrating iTunes library when replacing the hard disk

Middle-ground is to enable home sharing which is a simple way to transfer.

transferring itunes

Then afterwards delete songs from old comp. easiest thing to do for that is delete it from iTunes and agree to also remove the file and remove from library (on this computer). Old files will be in the trash bin until you empty it.


List of Macbook Pro's with user replaceable parts After finding out that my 2011 macbook pro is slowly dying I am now thinking about its replacement.  However I would prefer an updated macbook pro in which I can replace both the hard drive and RAM.

So is there a current, simple list somewhere that identifies the year/model of a macbook pro and what parts are easily user1 replaceable?

1. [Pedantic mode on] And by user replaceable I mean only with something like a screwdriver.  I am not looking to de-solder/solder items.[Pedantic mode off]

All new Retina MacBook Pro models don't have user serviceable parts. You can still buy a non-retina MBP which do have user serviceable parts. I believe the latest model is Mid-2012. It is a bit old but it is the only MBP that you can change components without the need to solder things.


Make Facetime ignore incoming calls in macOS Does anyone know of a way (hack or otherwise) to prevent incoming FaceTime and iPhone Continuity calls, other than disabling both entirely? I still want to make iPhone and FaceTime calls from my Mac.

FaceTime is ridiculously aggressive about incoming calls: It will not only steal your mouse and keyboard focus and tab you out of fullscreen programs, it will also lower your entire system volume and pause your music. This sucks because I get about 4 spam phone calls per day. I don't mind answering legitimate calls on my iPhone.

The focus-stealing problem is the biggest, and I'd settle just with fixing that. I've seen a question about that asked on Reddit but with no answer.

Have you tried disabling notifications? Or at least turning them down?

Under  → System Preferences → Notifications → FaceTime, uncheck Play sound for notifications, then change the Alert Style to Banners. Banners shouldn’t steal focus.

You could also enable Do Not Disturb while in fullscreen by ⌥ opt-clicking the Notification Center icon at the far right of your system menu bar. Some apps do this automatically, while others observe the When mirroring to TVs and projectors setting under the Turn on Do Not Disturb header.

This is accessed by going into  → System Preferences → Notifications → Do Not Disturb.


How to change cell background color in numbers according to some rules? Making it simple, using Numbers, how can you set up the following:

If number is positive make background cell green, else make it red.

Select the cell where you want to apply the rule. From the menu choose Format -> Show Conditional Format rules. A window opens which allows you to enter rules.

For example (this is the rule you asked for):


Why do I get serious execution lag on clicks, application switching and general usage I have an MBP 8.1, early 2011, 13 inch, Mountain Lion. Whenever I leave it on for more than a couple hours, I get serious execution lag on every command. For example:

I click something (a link, button, command, even a tab in the browser) and the rainbow wheel of death shows up. After a couple seconds, my command gets executed.
I click on another app, and the app does the same before warming up for use - rainbow wheel of death, couple seconds of stall, revival, work.
Text edit and preview are sickeningly slow in opening the very smallest documents, so I've had to stop using them completely - the forced version control of 10.8. is not helping in the least.
Whenever I do anything I get this rainbow wheel of death lag prior to execution, and what's interesting is the fact that

a) The CPU usage NEVER spikes above 10% (I have it on scree at all times)

b) I actually have free RAM while doing this

I can find no processes hogging up the machine, and there are no fatal errors in the console showing up.

I use it for web development, so I have the following apps open at all times: a Java (I know, death to any machine) IDE running (PhpStorm), Chrome, Sparrow for mail, Twitter client and TotalTerminal.

That's all the apps I'm running.
Any ideas?

I'm willing to try anything except sending it to an Apple store for diagnostics and service.

Edit: Additional info: This is a mint condition MBP, formatted a mere three months ago to Lion and upgraded to Mountain Lion some weeks ago. It has 4GB of RAM.

Final edit:
I have installed Ubuntu alongside OSX, on the same hard drive. I have also installed all the apps I use on OSX. Ubuntu FLIES, the difference is enormous. Not a single lag, in clicking, rendering, indexing, nothing. Conclusion: OSX just sucks.

Let me explain to you how RAM works. Data is loaded into RAM first, in blocks called "pages". That is called a “Page in”. When a piece of memory is just paged in, it is in Active or Wired Memory. Wired memory is the memory used by the Core System and Active Memory is memory used by other applications.

When a page in Active Memory is no longer being used, it becomes Inactive Memory. The data still stays in RAM because an app may request it later, at which point it becomes Active Memory again.

When your RAM starts to fill up, the oldest pages in the Inactive Memory region are “Paged out”, which means that they are written to the Swap. Your system is slowing down because of this. Your RAM is full, so the system is paging out things to the disk. The disk is slower than the RAM, so your system slows down as data is paged in and out.

You must find out the app(s) using up your RAM with a combination of trial and error and using the Activity Monitor to check the memory usage of each app. Most likely, the problem is a memory leak in an app.


Can I switch between iOS 5 & 6 (and possibly Android/Windows 8) on my iPad? On my iPad 3 (The New iPad), is it possible to switch between different versions of iOS (iOS 5 & iOS 6)? If so, how?

Would also be possible to install Android and or Windows 8 on iPad?
(I know for older versions of iPhone there is iphodroid and Bootlace, but these don't work on the iPad 3. There are also services that let you run Windows 8 on a computer and access it from iPad, but that is not the same as installing Windows 8 on iPad).

I don't mind if the answer involves jailbreaking.

None of what you want is possible. And it never will be possible until suddenly Apple and Microsoft get married and the marriage is watched on live television by more than 50 million people worldwide.


Moving text on OneNote for iPad I'd like to move text boxes on the official OneNote iPad app, but can't figure out how to do so.

I've tried tapping and dragging, and double-tapping and dragging, but both only scroll the page.

I am a regular user of the current OneNote iPad app.  Your only option for moving the text boxes is to use the iOS method for selecting, cutting and pasting.  There is not currently a way to grab text box handle and move the entire box like you can with the desktop app.

After you select and cut your text, tap into the area of the page you wish to move the box and then tap and hold and paste.

FWIW, the rumor mill says that Microsoft will release a full-on touch compatible version of the office suite, including OneNote for the iPad very soon.  Hopefully that version will support more of the features of the desktop app like moving the text boxes.

Happy computing.


Bought a used MB air- should I be worried about a root kit / keylogger? I ebayed a used Macbook. There is a new install of 10.8.3 on it. When I turned it on, it brought me through the user setup etc...

What's the chance that the os install is corrupted with a root kit / keylogger? How would I check for that?

I'm afraid there isn't a meaningful way we can tell you the probability that your system has a root kit and keylogger. The odds are certainly low, but not zero. Furthermore, if this is done well, it would be very difficult to detect.

One way could could check for this problem is if you use the computer to log into your bank account and then the money disappears and your identity gets stolen, perhaps it was infected. Obviously this is not the way you want to check.

While the odds are very low, if there is a keylogger installed, the results could be very very bad. If this Macbook is from mid-2010 or later (check your model for compatibility before proceeding!), you can use Disk Utility to erase the recovery partition, then hold down ⌘R while booting to boot in Internet Recovery mode. This will cause the computer to connect to Apple's servers and re-download the operating system fresh.


Prevent File Sharing access with Apple ID I use same Apple ID on different Macs (used by different people), only to use Find My Mac.

So I disabled Message, Facetime etc. – App Store updates are still a bit problematic since I don't want to share the account password.

We also use Drop boxes to share files, so everyone has enabled public file share of Public folder.
But since El Capitan (or Yosemite), all computers is accessible to everyone, because they connect themselves with the Apple ID (instead of connecting as Guests), and not only Public folder but also HD and Home folder are visible. (And I see the apple ID as "Connected with".)

How can I disable that?
And is there a better management of Apple IDs (I want to avoid a per-device ID)?

Thanks!

Joan, try this (it worked for me):

Log in as a different user than the one you want to modify; also, make sure the account you want to modify is not logged in.
Open the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences.
If the lock icon in the lower-left corner of the Users & Groups window is “locked,” click it and provide an administrative username and password when prompted. This allows you to make changes.
In the list of accounts on the left, right-click (or Control-click) on the name of the account you want to modify, and then choose Advanced Options from the resulting menu.
Look inside the box that says "Aliases".  If your apple ID is listed there, delete it.
Then close the padlock, and that did it for me.  If computers connect via the Apple ID now, all they can see are the shared, public folders. Nothing else.

Hope it works!


How to upcycle a 10-year old iMac (display)? There’s a lot of close-to-duplicate questions around here asking how to connect some computer (often laptop) with an iMac to reuse its larger display as a second monitor. Depending on the ports available and exact model number, there are frequently cited solutions like Target Display Mode, VNC Screen Sharing, Remote Desktop, Screen Recycler, Air Display or Air Play. They all require the iMac to run an operating system, though.
What if some component of the old iMac (32-bit Intel model from 2006, limited to OS X 10.6.8) was broken, say the hard drive, so it won’t boot up and it would be okay to take it apart.

I'd like to keep at least the display, power supply and casing, maybe solder on some connectors or add some alternate cables, which shouldn’t cost too much. Anything else could stay inside unless it needlessly consumed energy.

What would it take to reclaim the still functioning display?

There is an I Fix It Guide which describes the steps and hardware necessary. @Allan is right, though, in that it may not be worth it except for the fun of fixing stuff. This first Intel iMac can also be ugraded to a 64bit CPU with 4 GB of RAM and a SSD without a lot of efforts or costs.


Which apps are shown in launchpad? (how to flag them?) - Mavericks Since Mavericks I think, launchpad decides on it's own which apps should be shown in. For example, the uninstaller apps of the adobe apps are hidden by default in Mavericks. In Mountain Lion they were shown.

Why am I interested in?
I installed an app in "Applications" folder, but it's not shown in launchpad.
I tried the following: sudo rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db
In the newly created database the app is not shown as well.

So is there a possibility that the developers flagged that app falsely as hidden like the uninstaller apps of the adobe apps?
If so, how could I fix that?
If not, same question. ;)

Move the application out of the applications folder, restart launchpad (either log out/log in or in terminal write killall Dock). Then move back the application to the applications folder.