Bless error when installing rEFInd I am trying to install rEFInd on my MacBook Pro 2018 laptop with the new T2 chip that adds extra boot security.

I have both used APFS and MacOS Extended (Journaled). I have also disabled secure boot and csrutil.

When I install rEFInd using sudo ./install.sh  --alldrivers  --ownhfs /dev/disk0s3 (where disk0s3 is my MacOS Extended (Journaled)), I then get an error when selecting the rEFInd disk in the Startup Disk, I end up getting an error saying that there was a bless error.

How would I install rEFInd on my MacBook Pro 2018 laptop?

Edit:

If it helps, I am on macOS High Sierra and will soon be updating to macOS Mojave in the next few weeks.

This is also the format of my disk:

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         499.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTMGR                 307.2 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.7 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            199.5 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 44.6 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

If you wish to attempt to use rEFInd from a MS-DOS partition, then follow the instructions below. I have made the following assumptions.

You will be reusing disk0s3.
System Integrity Protection is enabled.
You have booted to macOS. Do not boot to macOS Recovery.
Secure Boot is is set to "No Security".

Below are the steps.

Enter the following command to change disk0s3 to a FAT formatted partition.
sudo diskutil eraseVolume MS-DOS BOOTMGR disk0s3

You could also change the partition by using the Disk Utility application. Highlight the partition then select Erase. Use BOOTMGR for the name and MS-DOS (FAT) for the format.

I assume you have downloaded the current version of rEFInd (refind-bin-0.11.3) to your Downloads folder. Enter the following command to change to the root directory of the rEFInd download.
cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.11.3

Enter the following command to install rEFInd. I omitted --alldrivers since both macOS and Kali Linux do not needed any rEFInd supplied drivers to boot on a Mac. Also, adding --alldrivers caused rEFInd to hang on my 2011 iMac.
sudo ./refind-install --root /volumes/BOOTMGR

You should get the following alert followed by some additional error messages.
**** ALERT: SIP ENABLED! ****

You can ignore this alert. At the prompt shown below, enter y.
Do you want to attempt installation (Y/N)?

The follow error message was expected and can be ignored.
Could not set boot device property: 0xe00002bc

Rename the refind folder to BOOT and the refind_x64.efi file to bootx64.efi so that the Startup Manager will include it as a startup option. This can be done with the Finder application or by entering the commands given below.
cd /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI
mv refind BOOT
mv BOOT/refind_x64.efi BOOT/bootx64.efi

Add a label for this new startup option. Without a label the Startup Manager will show EFI Boot which may be confusing if you have other partitions with an /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi file.
cd /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI
bless --folder BOOT --label rEFInd

(Optional) Goto my Mac icons website and download the mac-icons.dmg file. Use the Finder application to mount this file. Enter the command given below to copy the rEFInd icon to BOOTMGR volume.
cp /Volumes/mac-icns/OSX10.11.6/os_refind.icns /Volumes/BOOTMGR/.VolumeIcon.icns

The icon shown below will now appear in the Startup Manager above the rEFInd label.

Restart the Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Next, select the icon labeled rEFInd. Finally, hold down the control key and select the circular arrow below the rEFInd label. This effectively blesses rEFInd.

Changing which drivers are used
The drivers used to access file systems by rEFInd are stored in the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64 folder. You can create a new folder named drivers_x64_not_used in the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT folder. You can then move any drivers you do not wish to be used by rEFInd from the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64 folder to the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64_not_used folder.
If you are still getting a grey screen or a no entry sign, this link shows that you will have to copy the apfs driver in order to boot. To do so, run the following command.
cp /usr/standalone/i386/apfs.efi /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64.

You may still have one boot option that shows the 'no entry' sign but the other option should now boot you into macOS instead of showing you a grey screen.


Alarm not based on neither sound nor vibration When my neighbour's iPhone alarm sound wakes him up each morning, it wakes me up too. To top it off he snoozes for aeons, which usually means I'll never get to sleep again, even after he gets up.

I thought to ask him to switch to vibration only, but the walls are so paper thin and our beds are both right up against each side of the wall, that even this is likely to wake me up.

The solution I've been pondering is to find an alarm app that uses the flash light to wake people up. Questions:

Is the flash light on an iPhone sufficient to wake up a person?
Are there other options for waking him that will not wake me?

I reckon for example that the Apple Watch has a vibrating alarm, but this is a rather costly solution. Maybe there's a cheap ($10), small, comfortable, cool-looking wearable that does this specifically?

Not part of the Apple eco-system but inexpensive at under 20 USD and fits your criteria…

  Shake-n-Wake

  Silent Vibrating Alarm Wrist Clock You will never oversleep again! Wear it on your wrist. Wake up without disturbing others. Silent vibrating alarm clock wont disturb others -Lightweight and Comfortable -Large LCD screen -One touch backlight allows for easy time telling -Vibrating or sound alarm selectable -Perfect for a reminder to take medication -Includes a wrist band or belt clip. -Runs on 1 AA battery - not included -Excellent clam shell package


Will my emails be kept if I upgrade from 10.6.8 to 10.11? I have a (Mid 2009) Macbook Pro. I want to upgrade my MacOS X version from 10.6.8 to 10.11 but I have some issues.

I have so many important emails stored in Mail v4.5 on Snow Leopard that I don't want to lose. I wanted to know if I upgrade, will all my mail be kept in the new version of Mail?

The upgrade does keep all emails, but the new mail program will reprocess and reindex and move the actual files.

IF there is corruption in the filed or database on your computer now, an upgrade is when things get worse, so be sure to back up your Mac before the upgrade. That way, no matter what happens with the script, you could wipe and go back to the way things were or investigate your follow on question of how to export or make the mails portable in general as opposed to trusting the upgrade does what is intended.


New to OS X - How do I navigate through finder? I am used to Windows because I simply go to computer and can click my partition and see my entire file structure right there. I can go to users, and then view my documents, and I also have the handy address bar in an explorer window. I just got OS X and I can't figure out how to navigate the file system, and I never know where I am in the file system. Can anyone give me tips on these two problems?

You can drag the home and root folders to the sidebar. They used to be there by default, but they were removed in 10.7.

I have also removed all of the default locations, so the root folder of column view windows is always ~/ or /.

⇧⌘G opens a Go to Folder sheet. It can also be opened by pressing ~ or / in file dialogs.

You can show the path at the bottom by checking View > Show Path Bar:

There is also a hidden preference for showing the path on the title bar:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool true
killall Finder


(Mavericks) Appstore repeatedly updating Xcode to 5.1 (fixed?) In the past 7 days I have updated to Xcode 5.1 seven times!

Yesterday I dragged Xcode to the trash and emptied the trash in an attempt to make it stick, this morning I got a popup saying that Xcode had been auto updated (should it even do that?) EDIT it is a preference setting!) but there is still an update showing Xcode 5.1 as being available.

I have now dragged Xcode to the trash, emptied the trash, rebooted and fixed permissions. Noting the previous thread about repeated updates I have enabled the App store debug menu and cleared cookies and reset the application. In desperation I even shutdown my NAS which has the old version of Xcode on it (I invoke Time Machine manually)

I am trying to resolve an issue with my ISP and this is not helping. Before I install Xcode for the 8th time, is there anything else I can do to convince the App store that it has indeed updated Xcode?

EDIT: Despite the above preparations, I updated Xcode just now and another update is already showing as being available!

EDIT: I may have solved the problem. Another application needed updating and then also exhibited the repeated download issue. Reading around I discovered comments about Spotlight and App Store issues. The Spotlight fixes didn't seem to do anything for me but I read a comment that deleting some dubious looking files in "/Library/Application Support/App Store" seemed to do the trick. I moved these 3 files to a temporary directory and rebooted. At last! The problem seems to have been fixed. 2 of the files were recreated, the 3rd (utd.plist) wasn't. I will leave it for a few days before declaring success.

I was having the same problem with the Xcode 6.0.1 update continually showing up in the App Store. I applied the same update several times during my troubleshooting, even though during the process I kept deleting Xcode from my hard drive, I have no need for it any more. I didn't have more than one copy of Xcode on my drive, one possible reason for this issue.

I just solved my problem. I had disabled Spotlight indexing a while back, on the advice of a web page I had seen, because it was using too much CPU and I didn't believe I really needed it. What I didn't know was that the App Store depends on the Spotlight indexes to determine whether you have an app installed; it was looking at a stale index.

I just re-enabled indexing ("sudo mdutil -i on /"), and as soon as Spotlight actually started re-indexing, the App Store decided I didn't have any updates to be applied for Xcode.


Airpods battery life I just got my Airpods gen 2 a couple of weeks ago. However the battery life is nowhere near the 24 hours Apple says.
I took notes, and got 9½ hours of listen time, before the Charging Case was empty (5%; no longer charging the Airpods). Once the Case is empty, the Airpods slowly discharge, inside the Case, at around 6% per hour. This appears to be the case for others, but this would mean they would be empty within a day.
I exclusively use them when walking the dog, so 4 times a day, for about 30 minutes. I get only 4 days of use out of them, before I have to recharge them.
My question is; Is it normal to get so few hours out of them, with my usage pattern? Or should I have them checked out, by the store, under warranty? I know the 24 hour they promise is under ideal conditions, but getting around half that seems odd. Other than this, I'm really liking my Airpods.
Some additional info:

My volume is always below 50%
I have them connected to my iPhone 8 (which supports Bluetooth 5 AFIK)
"hey siri" is disabled
I only listen to podcasts (Overcast App)
After walking for half an hour, the Airpods charge is around 90-93%, which is about right (10% of 5 hours = half an hour). When I put them in their case, and wait for them to charge up again, the case looses 6-8%. One would expect this to be only 2-3%.
I measured charging only the case with a generic Charger Doctor, and got 326mAh of current usage (5% -> 100%).
One would expect the case to add 19 hours of usage (i.e. 24h total - 5h for the Airpods themselves). So I get exactly halve.
I tried looking this up, but everyone is only talking about the battery like of the airpods themselves (5h), not the case (or both combined).
(I don't live near a Apple store)

Apple:

A single charge provides up to 4.5 hours of listening time or up to
3.5 hours of talk time on your AirPods Pro. If you charge AirPods Pro for 5 minutes in the charging case, you will get about 1 hour of
listening time or about 1 hour of talk time.

As mentioned in the comments:

No, it's not normal battery life. You should just return and replace
them

Note: Telephoning, for example, puts a particularly heavy load on the battery, but even listening to music usually brings the editorial staff's Airpods to their knees after just under an hour and a half.


Examples of 3D Javascript of CSS3 animations in-browser on iOS? Are there any examples of 3D animations rendering in mobile Safari? To date, nearly all of the 3D animations I've seen working on a PC don't seem to render correctly on iOS. (Why is that?)

I was under the impression that because of full hardware acceleration, 3D animation would be no problem in mobile Safari, especially since mobile Safari is pretty standards compliant and supports both Javascript, HTML 5 and CSS3 quite well.

If there are no examples, why not? What are the limitations?

3D CSS works well on mobile safari.

http://www.clicktorelease.com/code/css3dclouds/
https://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/vr.php
http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/3dcss/demo


Can iOS apps be safely deleted from iTunes? On my PC, the iOS apps synchronized by iTunes take up a pretty substantial percentage of my total disk space.

Since most, if not all of them, can be recovered from the App Store, is it safe to delete them on my PC?

I've already verified that removing apps does not affect any apps currently installed on my device; now I'm wondering if it might cause problems once I have to restore from a backup.

It seems as if the backup itself only contains the data of the applications, and not the apps themselves. What happens when restoring a device with most or all .ipa files missing in the iTunes folder; will the missing apps be downloaded from the app store, or will restoring the apps and their data fail?

The apps can be safely deleted from iTunes without affecting either the apps currently on the device or your backups. When you perform a backup, all of your data is backed up regardless of the apps you have in iTunes.

However, when you restore from a backup, apps are re-download from the iTunes Store. If one of your apps is no longer available on the store for some reason, that particular app won't be restored. If you still have a copy of the app on your computer, you'll be able to install it on your device from iTunes. (I'm not sure what happens to the app's data in this case, however. I suspect it depends on whether you're restoring from an iCloud backup or a local backup, but I've never had the chance to test it.)


I downloaded iTunes 10 but now it won't update my iPod Touch software I downloaded the newest version of iTunes because it said it couldn't update the iPod Touch to 4.2 without it, but after the download I went to update my iPod Touch and iTunes said it couldn't contact the update server. This happened when I downloaded iTunes 9 and tried to update, but I never fixed it. Any help would be appreciated!

Is there a error number associated with this error?

Did you check to see if you have an internet connection?

Did you restart your computer?

Did you wait a while and try back later? Apple could be experiencing a downtime when you tried to access their server.

Do you have a firewall on? Is the port open for iTunes?

It could be any number of things...Let me know if this helps!


Set default priority of mdworker processes How can I reduce the impact of spotlight indexing by pushing the priority down?

Spotlight is both useful and annoying.  When I build code on my mac, I may generate 1000s of new files.  I can tell spotlight that my home dir is off limits but what I'd rather do is to tell spotlight that its processes have the lowest priority possible to ensure their indexing doesn't impact my user experience or blood pressure.

So, anyone know how to set default priority for mdworker processes or is that a silly question as even with low priority the IO impact would be roughly the same?

See https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/265751/263848.

Spotlight indexes in the background and should not impact performance significantly. If you are experiencing serious issues, you may have a bigger issue at hand.

Are you sure it doesn't occur when spotlight indexing is off?

I would suggest trying basic troubleshooting steps. Maybe a reinstall.


How to refresh the shared list in the Finder's side panel? In the left side of the Finder, under favorites and devices there is a shared list that contains computers and other devices on the network. I use the MacBook in two places, both with wifi. When I switch between these places, the Mac automatically connects to the wifi network there, but sometimes the Finder's shared list still contains the devices in the previous network.

If I close the laptop's lid and open it again, the list refreshes, but is there any other/better way to trigger the refresh? Why doesn't the refresh happens automatically?

Relaunch the Finder
option+right click [or Ctrl+Opt+left click] the Finder icon in the Dock, last item is Relaunch.
Or try this I found on StackOverflow Automator Command to Refresh ALL Finder/all Finder Windows - works for Finder windows, can't test for Shared items.
tell application "Finder"
    set theWindows to every window
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in theWindows
        set this_item to item i of theWindows
        set theView to current view of this_item
        if theView is list view then
            set current view of this_item to icon view
        else
            set current view of this_item to list view

        end if
        set current view of this_item to theView
    end repeat

end tell

Or use Terminal app to performing it manually
killall Finder


Do app developers know when users disable notifications? Some iOS apps annoy me with push notifications that I cannot customize inside the app, so I go into iOS settings and turn off notifications entirely.

But I wonder, do app developers get any metrics on this?  I'd like them to be aware that their customers are turning off notifications, so maybe they could improve the app.

They can't tell when a user has turned off notifications.  Apple doesn't share that info with developers.

The developer can tell if a notification was dismissed or a button was pushed.

Those are types of notifications that you, the user, must take action on.  There's another type known as silent notifications that don't require you to take action.  These are used by Watch complications, VOIP apps, etc, and they do things like put badges on the icon.  These will be delivered to your device whether you have notifications enabled or not.

A developer is 'promised' by Apple that these notifications will be delivered so the developer knows if action was taken because of that (i.e. you read an email because an icon badge told you there was a new message).

The best thing to do is notify the developer directly that you don't like what they're doing.  Honestly, some developers don't care and won't change.  In that case, stop using their app and find something better suited to your needs.


How do I run BeyondCompare in X11 as root? I used WineBottler to install Beyond Compare on my Mac.
It runs within an X11 environment. (It works great, by the way.)

But it cannot access many folders to which my user account does not have permission, e.g, in the /System folder.

How can I run BC with "sudo" permissions?

I haven't used WineBottler, but I'm assuming it creates an icon for the app in your Applications folder.

To run any App in OS X as sudo, open Terminal and enter the following:

sudo open -n $foo

Then drag the icon for the App from Finder into Terminal (replacing $foo in the example above). Press Enter and type your password. Voilà! Terminal launches the App as root.

Note that open -n works in Terminal to launch any $foo.app as if it were launched via the Finder. (Otherwise it's impossible to launch and OS X app via Terminal as Apps are really just specialized directories on the filesystem-level.)

  We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
  Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.

( I couldn't resist :P )


How to change MacBook's performance back to normal after it was reduced? Sometimes my MacBook shows a "Performance is reduced" notification after it gets hot from running intensive apps on a hot summer day.

When it's left idle for about 30 minutes and becomes cooler, is there a way to manually increase the performance back to its normal level without having to reboot the Mac?

Or, when the Macbook is left idle for a couple of hours, will it automatically go back to the usual performance and how can you tell?

I installed the Intel Power Gadget to check if anything can be shown.
Then one time I left YouTube running, showing 1080p, and placed the Macbook 12 inch on the bed, and an hour later, I saw that the notification said CPU performance has been reduced, and Intel Power Gadget showed:

so it seems like the Blue Line (for the processor) is showing that it was running at 1GHz.
And then I stopped YouTube, and put something under the Macbook so that it can ventilate better under the notebook base. After 30 minutes, without rebooting the machine, I ran YouTube again and some other apps, and the Intel Power Gadget showed the Mac running at 2GHz or above again. So it looks like the processor speed got bumped up back to normal, but it won't show you any notification:

P.S. When I have some apps running and Google Chrome running with a dozen tabs, the temperature kept on being 60°C and it won't jump back up to the 2GHz range. I had to quit the apps and Chrome and the temperature went down to 50°C, and after about 30 minutes the Macbook went back up to 2GHz. By the way, the processor can go up to 90°C and it was a bit scary... it is almost enough to boil some water.


How do I programmatically change the "Hide extension" setting for a list of files? For some reason, when I do a bash operation on a list of files (i.e. ls | cat -n | while read n f; do mv "$f" `printf "name-%02d.png" $n`; done, the "Hide extension" setting becomes enabled on all of them, and I have to manually uncheck that via "Get info". How can I avoid this, or fix it programmatically?

EDIT: The files I was operating on were native screenshots and thus already had their extensions hidden. My bad!

Hmmm, that sounds really odd. I just ran your sample code on some test files and it didn't alter the Hide extension flag at all. Are you sure the files didn't already have that option checked before you ran your command? Have you tried creating a few fresh files, verifying manually that none have that option selected, and then running your command on them?

I can't help in terms of the "how to avoid this" part of your question, as I can't manage to recreate your problem on my end. But you can disable that setting programmatically. If you have Xcode installed, you can do the following:

# Disables "Hide extension" for all visible files in current directory
for file in *; do
    SetFile -a e "$file"
done

Note that if you ever want to reverse the process (i.e. turn on the setting), you can do so by changing the lowercase e to an uppercase E.

# Enables "Hide extension" for all visible files in current directory
for file in *; do
    SetFile -a E "$file"
done

If you don't have Xcode installed, see this answer on superuser for instructions on how to do the same thing using AppleScript.

By the way, you should try to avoid parsing the output of ls like you have done in your example. It can cause problems if any of the files you are processing contain a newline character in their filename. This is particularly important if you ever write a script that will be processing files which you have not created yourself (as you won't know how they are named). See Why you shouldn't parse the output of ls(1) for details.


How to name new hard drive without conflict? I have a MacBook Pro with a single SSD installed - the disc is called “my favourite name”

I just purchased a new larger ssd which I want to install instead of my old ssd.

When I format the new drive can I name it “my favourite name” ? What happens if I try to use migration assistant to migrate files from my backup of my old ssd called “my favourite name”?

How do I successfully transfer my files, and ensure my new ssd is also called “my favourite name”

Edit: just to clarify - this is a laptop. I remove the old drive and install the new.

The name is relative and you can change it later. Just name the new drive new and use it for a week or day. Once you are ready to shift, name the old one "old" and put the name you want for new.

Or rename the old one before you introduce the new one.

This works out of the box, so I'm guessing you might have some other constraint that needs to be discussed, but perhaps you didn't know you could rename things on the go.

Also - never remove a working drive to swap until you’ve already set up the new drive externally and tested booting from the external drive. Then you know it’s bootable and working and if you put it inside, you know the fault is always the cable and installation - you don’t have to wonder if the OS wasn’t OK or drivers, etc...


Which version of Safari is in Mac OS Lion? As far as I know, Lion was to ship with the next version of Safari which would be Safari 6. However, I cannot find any information about a new version of Safari...

So, does Lion ship with Safari 6 or not?

Lion ships with Safari 5.1.

Apple releases updates to Safari independently of Mac OS X. The next version of Safari will be released sometime in the future (when Apple finishes it), and will be a free download for Mac and Windows.


How to find the IMEI and serial number of an iPhone before selling it? I am selling away my iPhone 5s as I wish to upgrade to a new one. The IMEI number mentioned on the back side of the device is scratched.

How do I determine the IMEI and Serial Number of the device.

Is there anything else that needs to be taken care of before giving away the iPhone?

You can easily determine the IMEI and the serial number by going to Settings app → General → About and looking for fields named IMEI and Serial Number (along with host of other information).

There's also an Apple support document titled Find the serial number or IMEI on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch which is worth going through.

The other crucial step to take before giving away your iPhone is to make sure you have synced all your important data (Contacts, Photos, Notes etc.) to iCloud. Also, make sure to create a backup of your iPhone if you wish to restore it to a new iPhone. The backup can be created either on iCloud or an Mac or a Windows computer using iTunes.

Once you have backuped up all the important user data, make sure you sign out of iCloud. To sign out of iCloud, go to Settings app, tap on your name shown with profile picture (this should be the first item just below the Search bar), scroll down and tap on Sign Out (last item shown in red).

You may also be asked to turn off Find My iPhone. Do so by tapping on iCloud on the same screen and than tap on Find My iPhone. Toggle to turn off the switch shown in front of Find My iPhone.

When signing out, iPhone prompts you to choose between deleting or keeping data (Contacts, Notes, Reminders etc.) locally on device. It is recommended to delete the data from device as you are giving it away. As an extra security measure, it's recommended to factory reset the device. Do so by going to Settings app → General → Reset and tap on Erase All Content and Settings. You may be prompted to provide the device passcode.

Once the device is erased, do not set it up again before giving away. It is possible to see the IMEI number even on an iPhone that isn't setup.

It's recommended to go through the Apple support document What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and make sure to follow all the official guidelines.


Finder: Colored tabs Is there any app or trick to color Finder tabs?

Something like this:

A Finder tab doesn't display the folder icon, just the folder name. However, you can use a workaround (which may be helpful in a specific and limited use case).

You can add an Emoji character as part of, or at the beginning of the folder name to have it visually distinguished and easily identifiable. Here I have three folders with similar names, that I often keep my files in, and work with simultaneously. I have added different Emoji characters to all three of them to easily distinguish between them at a glance.


How can I stop using beta iOS on my iPhone? I'm currently on the beta program on my iPhone. How can I stop using the beta versions and go back to the newest version of iOS (non-beta)?

To opt out of getting future betas, delete the iOS beta profile. On iOS 10, this can be done as follows: Settings > General > Profile > Delete Profile.

This will not remove the installed beta. It appears, the easiest way you can go back to a non-beta version is by restoring a backup.

Some articles that may be useful:

Removing iOS beta profile
Downgrading to iOS 9


Pressing the control key with AppleScript I use Voice Over and Dragon Dictate. I have figured out how to make Dragon Dictate press Control-Option-A, which makes Voice Over read a page of text, and now I would like to figure out how to tell Voice Over to stop reading through Dragon Dictate. The trouble is that the Voice Over keystroke is just Control. I have never been able to find any AppleScript key code for this.

On the same note, whenever I read about keystrokes in AppleScript, I get the impression that I'm always expected to press some other key along with the control, the command or the option modifier key. But what if I just want to press one modifier key through a program like Dragon Dictate?

If you need to do something and hold it down, try something like this:

                tell application "System Events"
                    tell process "Photoshop"
                        option key down
                    end tell
                end tell
                DO OTHER STUFF HERE
                tell application "System Events"
                    tell process "Photoshop"
                        option key up
                    end tell
                end tell


Only show active windows in the current space in Mac OSX when pressing CMD-Tab I'm new to Mac and have the following wish:

I would like to have one instance of an application (app1) on space1 and another application (app2) on space2. When I pres press CMD-Tab I see every open programs in every space. For example I'm in space1 and press CMD-Tab then I can switch between app1 and app2. But I would like to see only app1 when I'm in space1 and no app2 when I'm in space1.

Is there some setting where I can change this behavior?

Thanks for your help.

Matthias

I'm afraid you cannot do that, since the Dock (where this menu belongs) cannot be distinctly used on each space.

But, what it might be handy is to disable the option:

"When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application" from System Preferences > Expose & Spaces > Spaces.

That way, even if you select an application which is not present in the current space, you wont be moved to that space.

After all its just a matter to get used of it. After a while, even you'll be ok with it or you'll just deactivate spaces at all (the latter happened to me).


MacBook Pro 4.1 not responsive? I have an old MacBook Pro lying around that a friend left with me. I believe it is the 4.1 model, it should be the last one before the Unibody models came out (can't access About This Mac and the serial number rubbed off as well). I knew it wasn't working before but I tried booting it up to see if I could get it working.

Anyways, it seems to boot up fine but the keyboard and trackpad seem non-responsive. It does say Remote Mouse in the top toolbar, I think my friend installed some software to use the mouse through her iPod, but I would think the trackpad would still work. Also, it's weird because it does search for WiFi hotspots and finds them and also when I press the power button the shutdown menu comes up.  My friend mentioned there may have been a hard drive issue.  Do you guys know what might be the problem and if it is fixable?

On a side note, I also have a 15" late 2008 (5.1) model that I use but the optical drive is broken. Would I be able to swap the drive from the broken Mac to my newer one?

It's likely that the controller for the trackpad and keyboard (I believe it's one chip for both) is dead. I had an issue where the keyboard and trackpad on an older pre-unibody model would become non-responsive, but the rest of the top case components were fine (power button, back light). It was tracked to a faulty controller in the top case, but the solution was to replace the whole thing.

iFixit sells replacement top cases, but they're rather pricey ($299.95 for the A1260-compatible part). You might be able to find a cheaper one used on Ebay or elsewhere. The repair itself is fairly straightforward.

Have you tried plugging in a USB mouse or keyboard yet? If the problem is what I think it is, that should work fine.


How do I publish a book in the iBook store for both the UK and the USA? my one friend from UK want to publish a book for UK and USA ibook store

I found this page http://www.apple.com/itunes/content-providers/book-faq.html it has all the info  but there is a section about U.S. Tax ID

My friend lives in UK and don't have any bank account in USA but have a Bank account and credit card in UK
my question if my friend is only want to publish book for UK store, will he need  U.S. Tax ID?

Please guide how he can upload the book to iBooks store and people from USA and UK should be able to download the book in iBooks app on their iPad and iBooks.

He has his book in ePub format.

On the page you linked there is a paragraph about this.

  A U.S. Tax ID is required as part of the iTunes Connect sign-up and
  authentication process to sell books on the iBookstore. This
  requirement also applies to publishers outside the U.S.

You can apply here:
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=102767,00.html

The online form is only available at these times:

  Monday – Friday 6:00 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Eastern time

  Saturday 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern time

  Sunday 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Eastern time


Maverick installation problem Trying to install OS X Mavericks the computer re- started as part of the installation process but when it came back on it just has a white square half way down with the x in a circle and above says download OS X. There is no desktop or launch pad behind so I can't do anything at all! What can I do?

Turn off the Machine by holding the power-button.
Start again while holding the alt-key, there should be a recovery-partition that lets you reinstall


Fade to black for eight seconds (iMovie) I have a clip at the end of my movie that is eight seconds long, but the Cross Dissolve or Fade to Black transition will only let the end transition happen for one second. Trying to increase the duration shows the error: “The clips do not have enough media available to change the length of this transition.”

In order to increase the duration of the transition, you can use the "Precision Editor". Right-click on the transition, and select "Precision Editor" in the context menu. Done!


macports/dylib failure with libc++abi.dylib: terminate called throwing an exception Abort trap: 6 I installed Macports vowpal_wabbit v6.1 on MacOS 10.8.4 and it dies with:

libc++abi.dylib: terminate called throwing an exception
Abort trap: 6

I read around a lot and it seems this is a known compatibility issue between libc++ compiled with gcc vs llvm.
I did read the caveats about mixing compilers.
Symptoms seem to be similar to this.
I vaguely recollect there was a compatibility reason with some port I installed which forced me to use mp-gcc instead of llvm, it might have been some crufty old dependency of numpy or suchlike.

MacPorts version is 2.2.0. XCode version is 5.0 and I previously also unsuccessfully tried with 4.6. I did uninstall, clean and reinstall to no success. Versions:

vowpal_wabbit-6.1_0+cluster.darwin_12.x86_64
boost @1.54.0_0+no_single+no_static+python27

Macports compiler versions are:
sudo port select --show gcc returns mp-gcc45
sudo port select --show cc returns
Error: The 'show' command failed: The specified group 'cc' does not exist.
I don't see which compiler would get used by default? Doesn't it break things if I reinstall every Macport with llvm? I have many installed ports and that would be really painful, needless to say also breaking other things.

Also:
    otool -L /opt/local/bin/vw

/opt/local/lib/libboost_program_options-mt.dylib (compatibility version 0.0.0, current version 0.0.0)
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 169.3.0)
/opt/local/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.7)
/usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib (compatibility version 7.0.0, current version 56.0.0)

Both vowpal_wabbit and its dependency Boost seem to be getting wrongly compiled and linked with the system libstdc++ instead of macport's /opt/local/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib

Solution seems to be:

a) Hack the macports Boost install by either:

hack the portfile to override configure.cxxflags, linkflags
manually compile and link Boost as per Remove Boost libstdc++ dependency with clang++/libc++?

b) Then we have to hack the macports file to point VW to the Boost install


Hard Drive is not showing up on my Mac Laptop I have recently formatted my hard drive through disk utility and trying to reinstall OS X through the recovery mode but it comes up with the attached picture and the laptop is not going to its Recovery mode. Also i have realised when i press alt Key during the boot process i dont see any hard drive there.

This occurs when there is no information on any hard drive that the computer can process. This means that at some point you likely accidentally deleted the recovery partition of your hard drive. There is no regular recovery partition so the computer has no idea what to do.

You need to have a bootable USB drive to do anything with that computer besides use it as a very expensive paperweight. Find a USB drive and someone with a Mac and make yourself an OS X (or MacOS) install disk. Then boot from that drive (by holding down Option during boot). Then wipe your internal drive and install the OS (which will automatically install a recovery partition).


Why can't I write to the last block of my SDXC card on my MBP? I have a 64GB SanDisk SDXC memory card which I would like to use with my MacBook Pro and its SD card slot. However, I am having some trouble formatting/partitioning my SD card and I can't figure out what's going on.

When I insert the SD card into the slot, I get the following from Lion: The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer. Initialize... Ingore or Eject
If I open up Disk Utility, I see the disk listed as Apple SDXC Reader Media and when I try to format from "Erase" tab (as exFAT or any other format), I get the following error: Disk Erase failed with the error: Unable to write to the last block of the device.

A little background: the SDXC card was working fine when I first purchased it. But then I started using sabnzbd http://sabnzbd.org/ to download and write files directly to the SD card. Something happened (I can't remember what the error was!) and since then I've been unable to write to my card. I've been trying to format it to solve the problem, but it looks like the issue runs pretty deep.

What is the best way to format the card to exFAT via terminal? That may be the next thing I try.

Do you have any suggestions for formatting/fixing this SD card?

The following procedure should format your SD card to make it usable again and cause bad sectors on the card to be remapped if that is part of your problem.  Warning, erasing the wrong drive could make you cry so make sure that you know what you are doing.

Before inserting the SD card into your Mac, make sure that the write protect (lock) switch is turned off
Open a Terminal window and type diskutil list
Insert card
If an OS X messages pops up asking you to "Initialize... Ingore or Eject", choose "Ignore"
From the Terminal windows, type diskutil list once again
Examine the difference between the two Terminal outputs to determine the disk number for your SD card.  You should be looking in the left most column for something like /dev/disk3 or 4 or 5 etc.
Now type diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk# where # is the number you determined earlier
Here is where you must be VERY CAREFUL.  Enter the following sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk# bs=64k and be sure to replace the # with the previous disk number.  Note the 'r' in front of the rdisk in case you are typing this by hand instead of copy/pasting the text.  You should be prompted for your password to run this command because it is dangerous
Be patient until it finishes.  You can estimate time by opening the "Activity Monitor" application in Utilities and clicking on the "Disk" tab.  At the bottom you should see the Data written/sec in red. It should be some number in MB like 5.  (64 x 1000 / n) / 60 = minutes until it finishes where n is the rate in MB that you just determined or 5 in my example
Once the previous command completes, the card should be completely erased and ready for formatting.  At this point you can close your Terminal and open the Disk Utility application to create an exFAT partition like you were trying to do earlier.


Does macOS treat input from voice dictation the same as it would from a keyboard? I have a lot of typing that I need to do and would like to use voice dictation. However, it doesn't seem to "type" consistently across applications.

I've had success with the feature on a few native applications such as MS Word, gVIM and macOS Notes. I've noticed that it often will not be a consistent stream of "typing", rather it will sometimes burst several words out and then backspace and correct once it determines a better interpretation based on after-the-fact context. For example, if you say "3:26 PM" it will start bursting "three twenty six", backspace and replace it with "3:26 PM" because it eventually realized you were dictating a time of day.

In particular, I'm trying to use this on a Citrix Receiver session to a remote machine. It seems that the "backspace and replacement" adjustments it does do not make their way through to the remote session and I would see something more like "three twenty six 3:26 PM".

I would suspect that it doesn't register key press events since you're not physically pressing keys, but it would appear that Citrix isn't looking at "key PRESSES" anyway given that some input does work. However, I am curious how exactly it is interfacing with the software expecting input? Perhaps corrections aren't simply "backspace" operations but more "remove previous word" operations that some combination of keystrokes would do?

Does anyone have an idea here?

The short answer to your question is it's complicated...

Depending on how the application was developed it might use any number of different APIs from Swift, Cocoa, Carbon.

If your application uses Apple's standard user interface elements like text fields, then it likely has a way to put the text directly into the field, however Apple has probably added functionality to support other software by simulating keypresses.

How well this is supported depends on the application developer.

As an example an application like Citrix likely doesn't use any standard UI elements because it's got no text box to type into, instead it shows an image of a computer and records where you click on that image, sending that to the other computer, similarly it has to record your key presses, but evidently it's not doing that very well.

Microsoft Word is likely a very old code base that has grown from the days of Carbon which may explain why it's not working as expected, and I don't know what gVIM but I think you mean MacVim but as it's a port from another project it may not have been tested for this properly / it's not on their list of priorities.

For what it's worth I have had similar issues using software like TextExpander and Dash which auto complete sentences in Terminal, and using Apple's own remote desktop software like Citrix, so I think this is to be expected.


Why does the gyroscope in an iPad stop working on an airplane? The gyroscope (not to be confused with the accelerometer or GPS) in my iPad (3rd generation) works wonderfully both when standing still on the ground as when moving at high speeds in a car on the highway.

However, as soon as I try out the gyroscope while in flight on an airplane, the gyroscope returns non-sensical data!

Does anyone else experience this? I have tried replicating the airplane conditions on the ground (high temperatures, vibration, driving as fast as possible) but the gyroscope keeps working while on the ground.

Why does the gyroscope not accurately work in the air?

OK I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT!
It was my fault almost entirely, but I have an answer that may be useful to others.
Here is the deal:

1: I set the gyros to update at 60 hertz
2: On the ground, the app RAN at 60 hertz, so grabbed one gyro update per frame
3: In flight, my app did MORE WORK (!!!) to display what the airplane was doing, and thus fell to less than 60 hertz update rate of the app!
4: At this point, the update messages from the gyro queued up and the event-reader got behind... WAY behind, so I was looking at real gyro data from EARLIER IN THE FLIGHT!

So, the REAL lesson here is that setting the update rate of the gyros to a value greater than the frame-rate of the app results in event queing that has you running behind.

If anyone knows how to soak up ALL the gyro events EACH frame of the app, rather than just reading one, then that would APPEAR to solve this issue... whew! Interesting!


What determines whether 'Warranty' appears in About This Mac? At the foot of the About This Mac window:

some Macs show License Agreement
some Macs show License and Warranty.

What determines whether the word Warranty appears?

(For someone whose late 2013 Mac Pro 6,1 serial number is listed in their support profile, the word does not appear.)

Are the two spellings of 'license' and 'licence' accurate in your question? The second spelling is usually a British spelling variation, (like labour for labor, aluminium for aluminum, &c.)

I would hazard a guess that the word 'Warrantee' appears because different legal conditions are in effect if this particular Mac/OS X was purchased in the UK.

My iMac, registered with AppleCare and purchased in the the US, does not have 'Warrantee.'


How can I switch between the two Java versions in Mountain Lion now that Java Preferences is gone? I have two versions of Java installed with Mountain Lion:

Apple's Java 6 Update 37 (Java for OS X 2012-006)
Oracle's Java 7.

The update from Apple removes Java Preferences. In another question someone wonders about the removal of that utility.

My question is different:

how can I switch between the two versions now that Java Preferences is gone?

I previously used Apple's utility to set Java preferences with ease. Without that utility, is there an easy and fast way?

Open up a terminal use this command:

/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6

You can change the 1.6 to any version of java you want to use and the command will output the location of where that version of java resides. (i.e: /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home)

then you can set the JAVA_HOME like you normally would with the output of the previous command. i.e.:

export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

So to simplify; something like this should work:

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6)

remember to check the version with:

java -version

Hope it helps.


How can I view the signer of a bundle? I have a .bundle that is digitally signed. I can verify this by opening the bundle by selecting "Show Package Contents" and indeed there is a _CodeSignature directory underneath the bundle.

However, I am trying to figure out who is the signer of the bundle. Is there any way with Xcode, or any other tool, command line or otherwise, to view the certificate that was used to sign the bundle?

If you have the optional command line tools that XCode will install for you, codesign is the tool of choice.

Using the Terminal app:

$ codesign --display -vv /Applications/GarageBand.app/
Executable=/Applications/GarageBand.app/Contents/MacOS/GarageBand
Identifier=com.apple.garageband
Format=bundle with Mach-O thin (i386)
CodeDirectory v=20100 size=24489 flags=0x200(kill) hashes=1218+3 location=embedded
Signature size=4169
Authority=Apple Mac OS Application Signing
Authority=Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Certification Authority
Authority=Apple Root CA
Info.plist entries=27
Sealed Resources rules=14 files=2021
Internal requirements count=2 size=500

And a non-Apple signed app..

$ codesign --display -vv /Applications/iTerm.app/
[snip]
Authority=Developer ID Application: GEORGE NACHMAN


How to convert my music to ringtones for the Iphone 5 I am trying to convert some of my favourite music files to ringtones on my iPhone 5. It has been pretty confusing maneuvering iTunes to do so, so I'm looking for a much easier way to do so.

I connect my iPhone (iOS 6.0.2) to a PC running iTunes 11.0.1.12.

GarageBand can do it. Import a song, select a 30-second range, export it as a ringtone.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1358

Edit:just saw the PC bit.

Haven't tried it, but there's an app:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ringtone-maker-make-free-ringtones/id390929278?mt=8

And a website: www.iringer.net/


Minimum Resources to Download / Install OSX on MacBook Air Given a 2012 MacBook Air sold without an SSD, what would need to be on a replacement SSD to be installed in the MBA?  The goal is to have enough resources on the machine to download and install OSX?

For those providing answers, do not assume the reader has experience installing operating systems: please provide at least a reference (hyperlink) to the steps associated with your answer.  Thank you

Update: perhaps there is a method to place the OS install files on the replacement SSD (maybe it own partition is necessary), install and somehow prompt the install process?

Usually nothing is required to install macOS except an active WiFi-Router connected to the Internet with DHCP enabled and its WiFi password.

After turning on the Mac and immediately pressing ⌘ cmdR the MacBook Air should boot to macOS Recovery over the Internet (earlier "Internet Recovery") (Apple Support: About macOS Recovery). You will be asked for a WiFi password.

If macOS Recovery over the Internet works you should see a spinning globe and depending on your Internet speed you will see the Recovery console sooner or later.

The console contains several tools including Disk Utility and Reinstall macOS

Disk Utility is required to partition and format the SSD. Later choose Reinstall macOS to install a new system.

If the above shortcut doesn't work you can try to press and hold ⌥ alt/option⌘ cmdR or ⇧ shift⌥ alt/option⌘ cmdR at startup.

The different boot and install options are outlined here: Learn more about these key combinations.

To improve user experience I would ask the future (unexperienced) user which system he/she/* would like to have and simply download and install it up to the configuration screen (like Apple does with new Macs).


Thumbnails for old photos are wrong in Photos app I imported a large number of old photos into iPhoto, and I then updated to the new Photos app recently. After the update, the thumbnails on the old photos are incorrect. They are just thumbnails of different pictures.

I cannot find a way to fix this. I tried launching Photos with CMD and Option held down and allowing the repair to complete. The problem persisted.

I have added an image that shows a thumbnail that doesn't match the selected photo. Any ideas?

To Rebuild the Photos.app Thumbnails:

Backup your library before following these instructions.

Delete the old thumbnails and various parts from the library:

Quit the Photos app.

Open Finder, and go to the Photos.app Library, on my system it is called Photos Library and is found in the Pictures folder.

Now right click the library and click Show Package Contents.

Next delete the folders called Previews and Thumbnails.

Then delete the files called ImageProxies.apdb, ImageProxies.apdb-wal, Library.apdb and Library.apdb-wal from the database folder.

Lastly delete the folders RKCloudResource, RKImageProxyState, RKMaster and RKVersion from the recovery folder.

Now rebuild the library

Open the Photos app while pressing ⌥+⌘. It will ask you to if you want to repair the library, click Repair. It will do a repair, then your photos will go through a reprocess/reimport process. Once finished the thumbnails will start rebuilding.

P.S. I tried this on my own Photos library, and it worked.


What does "Reinstall macOS" do, exactly? I was recently having some problems with iTunes, and decided to reinstall macOS Sierra. I held Command+R on startup and clicked on "Reinstall macOS" without erasing the hard drive in Disk Utility. Once the reinstall was complete, I started back up and all of my files and programs were still there, along with my settings, desktop wallpaper, and everything else. (The iTunes problems were fixed.)

What exactly does this "Reinstall" feature do, if it doesn't remove programs and change settings to default?

It does exactly what it says it does–reinstalls macOS itself. It only touches operating system files that are there in a default configuration, so any preference files, documents and applications that are either changed or not there in the default installer are simply left alone. No doubt it is a bit more complicated than that but all a re-install does is replace the old files with "fresh" versions.

No doubt there are preference files and other things that are deleted/modified but Apple seems to have gone to great lengths to ensure that reinstalling the operating system won't delete anything that you have subsequently installed/modified.


How do I uninstall Mountain Lion Server? Ok, so, here's my situation:

I had Mavericks running on my computer, and I managed to downgrade (ugh). Anyways, all my OS X server data was corrupted because OS X Server 10.8 attempted to "fix" it, when it had no idea what this 10.9 magic was. So, I executed a simple rm -rf /Library/Server and used AppZappr to wipe all plist's from the computer, except for the .app. However, it goes and tries to recover that data. It now cannot read any preference data for any service. How can I remove the whole thing so it thinks it is a new install?

After trying numerous things, a full zap using AppZappr and deleting the /Library/Server folder allowed me to reinstall the app from the App Store and re set it up. :)


Remove a single tab on a new Finder Window (Yosemite) I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem? It's kind annoying, and I can't figure out how to fix it.

THE PROBLEM IS whenever I open a new finder window, it also creates a single tab that I can't close. This tab takes up some screen space and is kind annoying. I can't figure out how to make it go away. I've looked in View Options and Finder Preferences.

Here is a picture:

Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   T  will show/hide the tab bar (if there is not more than one tab already).

It appears that if you close a Finder window with the Tab bar open, then subsequent window will start with it open, even for a single tab.

So I guess the trick is to always close tabbed windows one tab at a time, or remember the above key-combo for when you forget.


Screen auto lock on iPhone does not work My 2 week old iPhone 8 won’t lock automatically after the set limit of 30 seconds. My phone remains unlocked until I physically press the lock screen button.

Even then, if the screen is touched, the display wont turn off itself.

How can I get my autolock screen function to work?

I had the same problem with my iphone 8 and this morning kept googling answers thinking it was a major problem.  Then I have restarted the phone and it now works.  Should have done this first! lol


How to disable the "this cable or accessory is not certified" message on iPhone? The message "this cable or accessory is not certified and may not work reliably with this iPhone" pops up whenever I use a 3rd party USB cable for it. It's really annoying, because then I'd have to unplug it, then plug it in again for it to start charging (the pop up message prevents phone from getting charged).

Is there some way to disable it? I'm fine with jailbreak tweaks as my iPhone 5 is jailbroken. I very highly doubt it's actually anything to do with the cable because I've been using it for a year now and no problems whatsoever, it's obviously just Apple's way of tricking users to buy their completely overpriced accessories by throwing in this annoyance.

So iPhone 5s use a Lightning cable rather than the old school dock connector.

Lightning cables actually have an authentication chip in them, hence the message.

There's a jailbreak tweak out there that may be worth checking out, but it's quite old and may not have been updated.

Your best bet would be to just get a new cable. Certified cables can be had for $8 on Amazon, and you don't run any risks of having dodgy cable damage your phone.

It's not just Apple protecting their profits, either. Certification actually means standards were followed.


Does installing rEFIt void my warranty? I would like to install rEFIt. Will it void my warranty, even though it can be uninstalled?

No, rEFIt is software and therefore should not affect the hardware warranty.

However, if you're concerned about that and want to avoid trouble (there's always the odd thickheaded customer service rep, even at Apple), you can simply wipe your drive and do a clean OS X reinstall before you send your machine in for service (and restore from backup once you get it back). rEFIt does not modify your EFI or anything else, so there'll be no trace left of it if you do so.


Can an iPhone be backed up when its screen has been damaged? I have an iPhone 5s and I dropped and smashed it the other day and now it has just stopped working. The screen is fully black and I cant see anything nor touch the screen but it charges and vibrates when i get messages. I want to back it up before getting a new phone but when I try and back up it asks for me to put my  passcode in which I can't do. Is there any possible way I can actually  back up my phone?.

Yes - the screen has no bearing on whether the dock connector and internals are operational. You can charge the device on a wall adapter for 30 minutes and then plug it in to iTunes.

As long as the device is working (i.e. whatever damaged the screen didn't also damage the connector and the storage), then it will show up in iTunes and let you make a backup.


Safari adblockers slow down browsing I didn't realize it but a bit of checking tells me that both Adblock and Adblock Plus slow down the effective and actual speed of refresh of web pages.

Is there a configuration or other setting that I am missing or is this the case with all Adblockers?

I use and suggest uBlock for Safari.

UPDATE 2:  Even better perhaps is a Safari port, by el1t, of uBlock Origin. It is based on the latest version and @Scott says it works well. Available for download here on github.

(I wondered why https://safari-extensions.apple.com/?q=ublock turns up 0 results.  Still does, oddly. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/1596 explains why for a while there was no uBlock Origin for Safari.)

UPDATE: Another option is to try Opera.  It now comes with a built-in ad-blocker which, it's said, allows it to work much faster.  Safari has also received some enhancements that allow it to do a limited amount of ad-blocking very quickly.

Evidence the uBlock extensions speed things up


How to send a Apple iCal invitation from special eMail adress when I use iCloud I use MacOS X 10.7.3. I try to send a event invitation to colleagues. I have added iCloud to my iCal to sync my calendar with.

When I try to send a invitation and choose the "business" calendar and want to invite the person, iCloud send a eMail via my Apple-ID (Which is not my working adress) and this in a not professional layout.

My question is: How can I send invitations via my business Adresse?

Thank you

Your iCloud account (which is associated with your Apple ID) automatically sets up two calendars. One is called "Home" and the other called "Work". When you sent an invite from your iCloud "Work" calendar it will automatically use your Apple ID email address because that is the email account that is "hosting" the calendar. This can be confusing because it's the same email but two different calendars.

Gmail addresses (and most others), for example, come with calendars in the same way that iCloud does. In order to send invites from your work account, you will need to create a calendar with your work email address, and make sure that you select that calendar when you create an event. You should be able to make invites from that calendar and they should send from your work email address.


2012 13" Macbook Pro (nominal 2.5 Ghz) runs constantly at 2.9 Ghz This may be an odd complaint, that the computer runs too FAST. But, I'm puzzled and wonder what is going on.

It's late 2012 MBP 13" retina (Norwegian keyboard, not that that should matter). My son-in-law noticed that the machine runs a bit warm (80 C all the time) and the battery life is not that good.

I installed the Intel Power Gadget and found that the machine is running all the time(!) at 2.9 Ghz, independent of load or programs running.

Activity monitor shows no significant load on the machine; in fact, I quit everything else (except Intel Power Gadget), and the only load worth mention is from IPG and AM, about 3%.

I've reset the SMC, replaced the battery (not trivial, but it needed a new one), and also refreshed the thermal paste.

I'm very puzzled. Doesn't a core i5 of 2012 vintage support speed step? The machine is running macOS 10.14.5.

The Late-2012 13" MacBook Pro Retina comes in two variants - one is a 2.5 Ghz i5 CPU, and the other is a 2.9 Ghz i7 CPU.

If you have the 2.9 Ghz i7 variant, then this is why your machine is running at 2.9 Ghz.

The 2.5 Ghz i5 CPU supports TurboBoost which allows the CPU to boost its frequency from 2.5 Ghz up to a maximum of 3.1 Ghz. In simple terms, the boost is effective only when one of the two cores are busy, but the other is not. This occurs for example when you're really only running one, single-threaded application program.


Cmd+plus now opens Widgets instead of zooming This has just started happening in the last few weeks, and I can't work out how to change it.

It used to be that I could use Cmd+= to zoom in in my web browser, and cmd+- to zoom out. But just recently, that has been overridden so that it opens Widgets settings. It's also odd because there are all these (x) buttons to close widgets (presumably) but there is nothing there apart from the buttons.

Anyone know how to change that shortcut so I can zoom in my browser again?

I was able to fix it by unchecking "Show Dashboard as a space" in Mission Control Preferences. No idea when exactly this change happened or why this fixes it though.

I would have preferred to be able to just re-map the shortcut, but I can't find it anywhere.


Convert image and save to same folder in Automator I'm trying to figure out an Automator workflow (to make as a Service/Quick Action) to convert an images' file type - easy enough with the "Change Type Of Images" option. BUT, doing that alone replaces the original image - where i want to keep the original image.

Using the "Copy Finder Items" requires you to choose a location for the converted file, BUT, i want it to save to the same folder as the original, AND, i don't want to have to have a "choose folder" option come up every time.

I've read that it may not be possible without using "Variables" & "Applescript" - both of which i don't know. I would think that it should be more simple than that - that only if the "Copy Finder Items" had an option to use the same folder.

I found another workflow where if you put the "New Folder" option in there, it will leave the original alone and copy it to the new folder and convert that one. i could do this if i have to, but would still rather the conversion to take place in the same folder as the orig.

any ideas?
thanks.

Use the following actions:

Duplicate Finder Items
Change Type of Images
Rename Finder Items: Replace Text (" copy" with "")

With this sequence, the 'change type' occurs with the copy while ignoring the original. You end up with both files in the original folder.

NB To test as a workflow prior to rendering as a service, insert Get Specified Finder Items at the beginning and specify your test image(s).


Can't access localhost server after pf redirect After adding some pf rules to redirect certain egress traffic to a localhost server, I can't access that localhost server directly. I can access it through the redirect just fine though.

I basically followed this answer and added the following rules:

rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 169.254.169.254 port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 1254
pass out route-to lo0 proto tcp from any to 169.254.169.254 port 80 keep state

After doing this, I can test successfully with curl http://169.254.169.254. However curl http://127.0.0.1:1254 does not work.
If I remove the rules (specifically the rdr rule), 127.0.0.1:1254 works just fine.

When I perform a tcpdump on lo0, I see the following:

08:27:49.659051 IP 127.0.0.1.63994 > 127.0.0.1.1254: Flags [S], seq 677650599, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439529 ecr 0,sackOK,eol], length 0
08:27:49.659177 IP 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.80: Flags [S.], seq 2981033646, ack 677650600, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439529 ecr 1709439529,sackOK,eol], length 0
08:27:49.762036 IP 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.63994: Flags [S.], seq 2981033646, ack 677650600, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439629 ecr 1709439529,sackOK,eol], length 0
08:27:49.762056 IP 127.0.0.1.63994 > 127.0.0.1.1254: Flags [S], seq 677650599, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439629 ecr 0,sackOK,eol], length 0
08:27:49.762089 IP 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.63994: Flags [S.], seq 2981033646, ack 677650600, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439629 ecr 1709439629,sackOK,eol], length 0
08:27:49.866634 IP 127.0.0.1.63994 > 127.0.0.1.1254: Flags [S], seq 677650599, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439729 ecr 0,sackOK,eol], length 0
08:27:49.866690 IP 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.63994: Flags [S.], seq 2981033646, ack 677650600, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439729 ecr 1709439729,sackOK,eol], length 0
08:27:49.967548 IP 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.63994: Flags [S.], seq 2981033646, ack 677650600, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1709439829 ecr 1709439729,sackOK,eol], length 0
...

So we see the original SYN with the correct source & dest. But then we see two responses coming from 169.254.169.254:80, one to 127.0.0.1:80, and another to 127.0.0.1:63994.

When I add log (all) to the rule, I see similar information:

 00:00:00.000000 rule 0/0(match): rdr out on lo0: 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.80: Flags [S.], seq 1734908561, ack 3748497075, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1711591000 ecr 1711591000,sackOK,eol], length 0
 00:00:00.100977 rule 0/0(match): rdr out on lo0: 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.80: Flags [S.], seq 1734908561, ack 3748497075, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1711591101 ecr 1711591000,sackOK,eol], length 0
 00:00:00.000044 rule 0/0(match): rdr out on lo0: 169.254.169.254.80 > 127.0.0.1.80: Flags [S.], seq 1734908561, ack 3748497075, win 65535, options [mss 16344,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 1711591101 ecr 1711591101,sackOK,eol], length 0

Why is the rdr rule matching the response traffic and rewriting it? The match rule is defined as to 169.254.169.254 port 80.

This is on High Sierra.

To make it work you'd have to add that rule:

pass quick on lo0

— I typically have it as the first line of filtering rulesets I manage.

To be precise, even this would be enough:

pass in quick on lo0

but why bothering with directions if you typically need it both ways on loopback anyways(?)…


How can I automate taking screenshots of 10,000+ pages? I am using mac OS X El Capitan and need to find a way to automate taking screenshots of 10,000 or more pages. The problem with all current solutions is that the webpage requires me to login using my email/password combo. The webpage is CSS/Java and the screen requires you to scroll down in order to view the entire page, all current solutions are not capable of scrolling down to view the whole page and only screenshot the visible portion. The second problem is that a certain combination of clicks needs to be pressed in order to go to the next page. I have considered using a "Cross browser testing" solution since some are capable of screenshots. The problem with that is that none are free and none are capable of entering login/password authentication. Are there any softwares/solutions that would allow me to screen capture 10,000 pages without manually doing it?

Write a script,  use something like pageres.

Check out this list , in the "Screenshot Utilities" section, you'll find many links to utils, APIs and web services.


Why can't I find OS X Yosemite in the Mac App store? I need to install OS X Yosemite onto my laptop, but can't find it in App Store.

Unfortunately the OS X Yosemite installer is no longer available on the Mac App Store.

If you have a paid Apple Developer account you can download it from https://developer.apple.com/downloads/


Random contacts on my iPhone 5 I recently bought a new iPhone 5. When I was going through my contacts today, I noticed a lot of email adresses stored along with the other numbers. I didn't even know most of them! What has happened?

This is likely because iOS 6 has Facebook and Twitter contact import. So, if you logged into your Facebook account on your iPhone, it will automatically go through your contacts and pull in information that it finds in their Facebook account.


brew: how to delete outdated version of package Homebrew upgrades itself to brew. And it looks like the maintainers have not implemented some daily-used commands like brew cleanup.

So anyone knows how to delete outdated version of software automatically?

$ brew
Example usage:
  brew search [TEXT|/REGEX/]
  brew (info|home|options) [FORMULA...]
  brew install FORMULA...
  brew update
  brew upgrade [FORMULA...]
  brew uninstall FORMULA...
  brew list [FORMULA...]

Troubleshooting:
  brew config
  brew doctor
  brew install -vd FORMULA

Brewing:
  brew create [URL [--no-fetch]]
  brew edit [FORMULA...]
  https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/share/doc/homebrew/Formula-Cookbook.md

Further help:
  man brew
  brew help [COMMAND]
  brew home

The command you want is cleanup -- running brew cleanup will remove packages that are on disk, but no longer installed.

> brew help cleanup
brew cleanup [--prune=days] [--dry-run] [-s] [formulae]:
    For all installed or specific formulae, remove any older versions from the
    cellar. In addition, old downloads from the Homebrew download-cache are deleted.

    If --prune=days is specified, remove all cache files older than days.

    If --dry-run or -n is passed, show what would be removed, but do not
    actually remove anything.

    If -s is passed, scrubs the cache, removing downloads for even the latest
    versions of formulae. Note downloads for any installed formulae will still not be
    deleted. If you want to delete those too: rm -rf $(brew --cache)

For example:

> brew cleanup
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/awscli/1.10.19... (2,955 files, 22.3M)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/git/2.8.2... (1,418 files, 30.5M)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/imagemagick/6.9.3-7... (1,459 files, 17.9M)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/libgcrypt/1.7.0... (17 files, 1.5M)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/libgpg-error/1.21... (19 files, 419.4K)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/libksba/1.3.3... (13 files, 343K)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/mercurial/3.7.3... (386 files, 4.7M)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/node/6.0.0... (3,655 files, 38.8M)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.2g... (1,678 files, 12.0M)
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/vim/7.4.1795... (1,687 files, 22.6M)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/git-2.8.2.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz... (11.2M)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/imagemagick-6.9.3-7.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz... (7M)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/libgcrypt-1.7.0.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz... (565.4K)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/libgpg-error-1.21.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz... (130.8K)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/libksba-1.3.3.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz... (126.6K)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/node-6.0.0.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz... (10.9M)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/openssl-1.0.2g.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz... (3.6M)
Removing: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/vim-7.4.1795.tar.gz... (12.0M)
==> This operation has freed approximately 196.4M of disk space.

I have a Monday morning regimen of:

brew update
brew upgrade
brew cleanup

That brings me up to date on Homebrew, then all of my installed brews and then it frees up disk space by removing old brews that are no longer referenced. For brews that I need to keep at a specific version, I use brew pin to hold them there so I can still run this simple, three command, chain to update everything else around the pinned packages.


Radio tab disappeared in iOS7 music app I was listening to iTunes Radio yesterday - US iPhone, US Apple ID - after launching it from the 'Radio' tab in the Music app (mentioned here). Today that tab disappeared. What happened?

iTunes Radio runs as a separate app. If it's running in the background, the tab may disappear from Music. Double-tap the home button to see background tasks, swipe left to find the running Radio app. Swipe up to kill it, if needed, and the tab in Music returns.


How does the new "local snapshots" feature of Time Machine in Lion work? Apple's advertising for Lion highlights a new "local snapshots" feature of Time Machine:

  OS X Lion lets you take the Time Machine experience with you when you’re away from your Time Capsule or backup drive. Time Machine keeps a spare copy of the files you create, modify, or delete right on your Mac. Now if you accidentally delete a file while on the road, you can recover it from a local copy.

I'm wondering how this integrates with the regular Time Machine backups. Are the "local snapshots" copied to the external Time Machine drive the next time you connect it? And are they then deleted from the internal drive? What if you're doing dual backups with two separate external drives? ...

I haven't found any documentation for this feature yet, so I don't have any specific answers for your questions about interactions with external Time Machine drives.

However, I did do some playing around with the feature while using my laptop on battery.  The first thing I noticed is that local snapshots were not enabled by default – for me, at least. I know that because "entering" Time Machine while my backup drive was detached resulted in the usual error message — until I executed the following from a command line:

sudo tmutil enablelocal

After I did this, a hidden volume called MobileBackups was created (in /Volumes) and I was able to "enter" Time Machine. (Perhaps local snapshots weren't enabled on my machine because I have less than 10% free disk space?)

Unfortunately, the feature seems a little half-baked. I tried the following, with pretty unsatisfactory results:

Created a new folder, ~/Documents/Test.
Forced a new snapshot by running tmutil snapshot.
Verified that a new snapshot was created by looking in /Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/hostname/Latests/drivename/Users/myname/Documents.
Deleted the Test folder.
Entered Time Machine and browsed the backups/snapshots. The Test folder was not there in any of the backups.

Update: I installed Lion on a second Mac, and without any explicit action on my part, this Mac has a MobileBackups volume. And restoring deleted files from a local snapshot works on this Mac.


Why is the Arabic font on my iPhone different from what it is supposed to be? The default font for Arabic seems to have changed to "San Fransisco" in some update in the past, but my iPhone shows what I believe is the "Nastaleeq" font, which is supposed to be used for Urdu.

This is what it should look like (SF Arabic):

This is what it looks like on my iPhone:

To be clear: my device language is set to English, but wherever there are Arabic chracters they appear as in the second photo. It is quite hard to read this font, and I am puzzled as to why it appears for me, even though it is supposed to be SF Arabic.

Is there a way to fix this/change the font?

Edit: Here is an example from Safari:

It seems I had my language preferences list with Urdu higher up than Arabic, so it used the Urdu font (Nastaleeq) wherever it saw Arabic text. Putting Arabic higher up in the list fixed the issue and made the font San Francisco.

As a side note, it is kind of a shame that it can't distinguish between Arabic and Urdu (seeing as they use the same alphabet), and yet it assigns a separate font to each of them and uses said font depending on its position in the language preference list.


2007 Imac with 10.5.8 Leopard with mini-DVI port to HDTV not working I'm trying to hook up my IMAC mini-DVI port to my Samsung HDTV.  I have a (mini-DVI port to HDMI) adaptor plugged into a 15' HDMI cable.  This plugs into the TV's (DVI/HDMI) port.

I also have a 15' audio cable plugged into the MAC's headphone port then to the TV's (PC/DVI) audio port.  Nothing works, video or sound.  TV says no signals detected.  MAC doesn't know it's connected. Does anyone have the slightest idea as to what the problem is? Do I somehow have to activate the mini-DVI port?

Apparently older Macs don't support audio through HDMI. Audio needs to be transmitted separately through the jack connection on your Mac, just as if attaching speakers.

Then depending on your TV could be jack or RCA.


Open an encrypted HDD/USB on Leopard? Is it possible to access an external HDD or USB drive encrypted on Lion, through a Mac running Leopard?

In other words, is FileVault 2 encryption on volumes/partitions backwards compatible? (It really should be.)

No - OS X older than Lion cannot read or comprehend/mount/use a Core Storage volume such as used with FileVault 2.

Someone could reverse engineer the protocol and write drivers for older OS or different OS, but I haven't even seen a start towards that effort in any open source project.


Automate Duplicating and Renaming Images I've got an image and I need to duplicate it 800 times but add a new prefix every time I duplicate it. I've got the prefixes in a CSV file (or spreadsheet) and I'm wondering if there's a way that I can have Automator (or some other automation) program duplicate the image but rename the image with the different prefixes.

I'm aware of how to duplicate multiple images with the same prefix but is it possible to duplicate one image multiple times with different prefixes. Thanks for your help!

I whipped up a quick script that will copy the image for you (it will work with any type of file actually) and rename it from a plain text file with one prefix per line.

#!/bin/bash
file=$1
prefixes=$2
filename=`basename "$file"`
while read line
do
    cp $file "$line-$filename"
done < $prefixes

Put that into a text file, save it as copier.sh. Then in Terminal, run chmod +x copier.sh (make sure you’re in the same directory as where you saved the file, ideally the one with your images in it). Then run ./copier.sh myimage.jpeg prefixes.txt and you should have a bunch of copies with different names.

The prefixes.txt file (or whatever you want to name it) should have one prefix per line (which should be easy to get by copying and pasting from your spreadsheet).

Updated Version With Folders

#!/bin/bash
file=$1
prefixes=$2
filename=`basename "$file"`
foldername=${filename%%.*}
if [ ! -d "$foldername" ]; then
    mkdir "$foldername"
fi
while read line
do
    cp $file "$foldername"/"$line-$filename"
done < $prefixes

That will create a folder with the same name as the original file (if it doesn’t already exist) and place the copies in it.


Xcode 10.2 does not open after installation from Mac App Store When I try to open Xcode 10.2 after installing it from Mac App Store, it doesn't open. After a while, a dialog box comes up with an error

  check with the developer to make sure Xcode works with this version of macOS

I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.2

Xcode 10.2 requires a minimum macOS of 10.14.3.

It would appear that the App Store doesn't check the minor OS version number before allowing download, leading to this potential for confusion.


How to identify the 3 thermals sensor connectors from the mac mini motherboard? I opened my mac mini to switch the DVD with another hard drive and I forgot to take a picture with the ways the 3 thermal sensors are connected.

THeir codes on the mainboard look like:

J5550 - left one, when you look from the front of the mini (dvd opening towards you)
J5520 - middle one
J5560 - right one - the closest to the two sata connectors
One of them is for the DVD
One of them is for primary HDD near the connect
One of them for the primary HDD on the other side (glued)

How do I pair them? It's important as I do not want to mess the logic of power management.

I suspect that you have found the answer via other means, but I'll answer it for the next person that finds their way here.

I was looking for a way to repair the connector on the motherboard when I found this question unanswered.  I'll continue my search after answering.

So, after much double checking:

One of them is for the DVD.

This is connector J5550. From your perspective, the left one.

One of them is for primary HDD near the connect.

This is connector J5560. From your perspective, the right one.

One of them for the primary HDD on the side (glued).

This is connector J5520. From your perspective, middle one

PS: I would recommend including your Mini model in the future.


I receive a "could not sign in" error after upgrade to iOS 11.0 I receive a "could not sign in" error after upgrade to iOS 11.0 Now I can't access my iPhone. What should I do?

Since I have the same problem described above, I am going to describe the steps which I take before the message "could not sign it" appears.

I see the screen "Update completed. Your iPhone was updated successfully. There are just few more steps to follow, and then you're finished!"
I press the button "continue".
An "Apple ID" page appears. Apple credentials should be filled. I am filling my Apple ID and Password and clicking the button "next".
A screen appears: "It may take a few minutes..."
Terms and Conditions. I press the button "agree".
And then the message "could not sign in" appears.

Now I can't use my iPhone.

Try switching networks.

If you were using Wi-Fi try another Wi-Fi or switch over to mobile data by disabling Wi-Fi. If you were using your mobile data, try using Wi-Fi.

Often times that helps me out.

If those dont work then you have some options:

Restart device
Reset network settings (if you can get to them)
If resetting device and settings didn't work, check for an iCloud backup or iTunes backup (iCloud preferred). And then erase & restore the iPhone without the backup. If you can sign in with no problem then erase, restore and bring your backup up.

If you can't sign in after the 1st erase and restore without the backup then, call AppleCare and let us know everything that was done and make sure to mention that the restore was done, but it hasn't fixed the issue.


Pause and continue Wi-Fi sniffing in Terminal using airport command I'm capturing packets on a specific channel using "airport" command on Mac OS X Sierra. The command saves the packets into a *.cap file in my tmp folder. The file is already almost 2 GB large.
What I would like to do is to pause the capturing process and then be able to continue to capture on the same channel and into the same *.cap file.
I'm afraid to just abort the command in Terminal using CTRL+C because then after rerunning the command I suspect it will just create another *.cap file and not continuing using the original one.

The exact command I ran is:

sudo airport sniff 12

Anyone can help please? Thanks in advance.

You can suspend a command in the bash shell using control-Z. To resume the command, run fg.


Only keep the escape key on touch bar keyboard I would like to remove all the keys on the touch bar except the escape key.

System Preferences -> Keyboard ->
  Touch Bar shows: Quick Actions
  Press Fn key to: Show Control Strip

After that you only have Esc and Configure in: Extension Preferences buttons on the Touch Bar, while quick actions are accessible through pressing the hardware Fn key.

Now, the question is how to also remove that Configure in: Extension Preferences button as it still results in accidental key presses, but at least it only shows a preferences window, which is easy to quickly close with Cmd+W.


AppleScript vs. Bash script? I'm a long-time Windows "power user" and developer who has recently decided to move over to Mac OS X.

On OS X Lion and indeed previous versions there seem to be two main options for scripting and automation in OS X: AppleScript and Bash script. The latter is of course a direct consequence of OS X using the Unix "bash" shell, while the former is Apple's own innovation. The syntaxes are clearly very different, with AppleScript having a pseudo-natural-language style.

My question is, are AppleScript and Bash script commonly used (indeed, should they be used) for disparate tasks and purposes on OS X. I am vaguely cognizant of the vast array of tasks I can accomplish with Bash script, though of course the code for some more advanced ones can quickly become convoluted. Do these two languages have overlapping or near-identical usage cases, despite Apple's later invention of AppleScript -- or are they intended to be used with different scenarios in mind? A high-level overview as well as some specific examples would be appreciated.

Both shell- and AppleScripts can be used just about anywhere either is appropriate.

AppleScripts work better when talking to apps and user-level system facilities. (For instance, you can say tell app "iTunes" to play and it will, or tell app "Finder" to open the first file of the second window.)

Shell scripts (you referred to bash) work better when talking to low-level system objects and Unixy stuff.

They're both interoperable: you can call a shell command from AppleScript with do shell script "command here" and you can call AppleScript code from the shell with osascript -e "AppleScript". Further, there's quite a bit of overlap between the two (especially when it comes to file system operations).

There are certainly more resources for learning shell scripting online than AppleScript and it doesn't help that AppleScript has a reputation for being a "read-only" language (i.e., harder to write than read).

In any case, the most modern way to do scripting is with Automator, where you can use either shell- or AppleScripting (or both) along with pre-built modules from various apps you have installed.


Where is the MAC address of my Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter? I have a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter for a MacBook Air and I need to assign a static IP address to it.

I assume the MAC address is embedded in a given adapter... and by convention I would assume that the MAC address would be written somewhere on the device, but it is not.  Does the MAC address have more to do with the adapter of the MAC itself?

In other words if I swap adapters will the MAC address change, or will it stay the same?  What if I swap thunderbolt ports it's plugged into (for MacBook Pro Retina)?

Does the same logic above apply to Thunderbolt displays since they have Ethernet?

The MAC Address is unique and a property of the actual network hardware (although it can be spoofed). So your adapter has its own MAC address, as does the the network interface in a Thunderbolt display, and the Wi-Fi in your MacBook Air.

Different Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapters will have different MAC addresses, but moving one between different ports won't change it.

You can view the MAC address of any network interface attached to your Mac by using Network Utility, which you'll find in the Utilities folder within your Applications folder. It calls it a Hardware Address, but it's the same thing.


How can I check the cookie in the Safari? How can I find the panel for the website cookies in Safari?
I can't seem to find it in Safari's Network panel:

How do I check website cookies in Safari?

EDIT

If I use Firefox browser's Firebug, I can see a tab for cookies:

Choose the storage tab, second from the right with the database icon (three stacked ovals).


Why can't I choose full screen mode in Photoshop CS6? I am using a trial version of Photoshop CS6, and I can't choose full screen mode. I am running OS X 10.9.

What's wrong?

Make sure there is a file opened first, if photoshop is "empty" the options are indeed grayed out even in the registered version of photoshop cs6.

Let me know if this fixed it


How do you disable Printer Sharing via terminal? I am looking for a command/script to disable the printing sharing feature via terminal. Does anyone have any idea or know how to go about doing this?

Use lpstat -v to get the appropriate printer name, then use:

lpadmin -p Printer_Name -o printer-is-shared=false


Applescript - Get information from terminal command I'm creating a little script to allow quick changes to the network settings of my Mac. I have got it all working, but I wanted to be able to see what the settings are before I change them in the first dialog pop up.

The command that gets this information is "networksetup -getinfo device"

The result is like this:

Manual Configuration --This may also say DHCP Configuration--
IP address: 192.168.0.100
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.0.1
IPv6: Automatic
IPv6 IP address: none
IPv6 Router: none
Ethernet Address: (null)

How can I get the IP address, Subnet mask and Router as 3 variables in my script so I can output them to the user over the following prompts?

I've whipped up this nice code snippet, try it out, it should work well for your specific application.

set device to "Ethernet"

set getInfo to paragraphs of (do shell script "networksetup -getinfo " & device)
set ipAddress to ((item 2 of getInfo) as string)
set subnetMask to ((item 3 of getInfo) as string)
set router to ((item 4 of getInfo) as string)
-- You could use the output here, and remove the rest of the script, or continue to remove the excess wordage.

set ipAddress to ((characters 13 through -1 of ipAddress) as string)
set subnetMask to ((characters 14 through -1 of subnetMask) as string)
set router to ((characters 9 through -1 of router) as string)


Making Conflicting UIDs across a LAN of MacOS and Linux hosts Consistent I have an expanding network and while I have the long term goal of eventually implementing Active Directory hosted on a QNAP NAS. However, in the meantime I have the issue of where my MacOS machines have one set of UIDs for the 2 or 3 users I use while my Linux machine have another.

I learned that in Mojave you need to use dscl to change attributes like UID but I am not sure how I can set the UID scheme for new users to make the new Unix and MacOS accounts more easily line up going forward. While I envision Active Directory making this moot once its in place, I presume I must get my LANs UIDs and GUIDs under control first.
Aside from doing all of this manually by using tools like find and chown manually, are there tools for migrating to AD where normalizing UIDs for the same users across different hosts can be better automated and a reliable process with less risk of breakage? If not, I am pretty sure I know what I need to do and it will be gritting my teeth, but at least I know what it's going to take. If you have any suggestions that might make this easier and less dangerous please share your thoughts! For instance, I presume that no user should have it's UID changed while logged in, yes? Anwyay I welcome all thoughts and ideas!

I used this procedure to change uid's on macOS Tiger and Ubuntu. The info on passwords has changed.

  Ok, so how can I check my UID? I've heard that it's dangerous to
  change the UID, so how should I do if I want the permissions to work
  in both OSes?

You can change the permissions of files and directories in either OS.

I suggest that you make a complete backup of your system.  You should create a second administrator account from which you use to change your original account.  You should log out your original account before proceeding.

Mac OS X ... harddrive -> Applications -> Utilities -> terminal

Ubuntu ... Applications > Accessories > Terminal
or where ever the Terminal is today.

Your current user is:
echo $USER
Let's assume myuser

To find out your UID and GID do:

ls -ln
ls -l

Or, you can use the id command.

id

compare the output and write down what you find.

You best use the numeric value for your userid.  In this case it is 500.  To list all the files owned by a userid do:

sudo find / -user 500 -exec ls {} \;

adding a -x before the / limits the search to the current file system.

You need to adjust the uid and gid in your account definition.

In the Ubuntu terminal,

man 5 passwd

... will give you the format of the passwd file.

sudo nano /etc/passwd

... the format is user-name, password, uid, gid, ...

control-o
  ... to save
control-x
  ... to quit

The groups are defined in /etc/group

cat /etc/group

Now change the UID and GID of all files:
You best use the numeric value for your userid.  In this case it is 500.

sudo find / -user 500 -exec chown 1100:211 {} \;

/* Where chown has the format of chown uid:gid file-name */
/* adding -print before -exec lists the files that will be changed. */
/* You may want to leave off :211 if your uid & gid are not paired. */
/* Notice the -exec runs another command on the found file. */

sudo find / -group 20 -exec chgrp 211 {} \;

On the Mac you get into single user mode by holding down command-s when you poweron your machine. Just in case you run into problems.

On Mac OS, there are a few files that have the old uid as part of their name.  The .Trashes file will be used on removal media. Here are other directories.

/.Trashes/500
/Library/Caches/com.apple.IntlDataCache.500
/Library/Caches/com.apple.IntlDataCache.sbdl.500
/Library/Caches/com.apple.user500pictureCache.tiff

You will need to look on the external drives. All the trash is in a common folder with uid based subfolders. You can use the find command to do a search:

find -x /  -iname "*500*"

Be patient.  You can quit this command with a control-c

It similar in Linux, but based on the short user name.

On Linux, there are a few files that have the old user short name as part of their file and folder names.

Should some of the files be locked on macOS, you will need to unlock them. See  – Darf Nader comments below. The macOS lock flag corresponds to the Unix layer uchg flag.

#To display flags:
ls -lO <filename>
#Turn off the lock:
sudo chflags nouchg

Here is another explanation of the procedure. ( It misses some files because the author checks only the most likely places.
http://lissot.net/netinfo/change_user.html

Robert


iPad mail swoosh sound gone missing An iPad running iOS 12 has lost its swoosh!

Apple Mail would make a swoosh sound when mail was sent.  But a couple of days ago it stopped.  The sound is on, (not muted.) I go to sounds > sent mail classic etc and can hear the swoosh no problem, but not when I actually send mail.  Nor if I change the sent mail sound to one of the other sound options.

iPad volume, and sent mail sounds are the only solutions I have found, but do not apply.  Is there anything else to try?

Edit - I now see that lots of systems sounds are not working.  Lock and keyboard are set to green but do not make system sound.

All volumes are set to max.  Anything else to try?

General > Reset > Reset All Settings

Solved the problem with a hack.  Which just means iOS does not do what you tell it, and needs to be reset as it is not written properly.  Frustrating, but would have liked to know why the sounds were not sounding


excel file read-only but not locked I open an Excel file (Excel 2008) and it opens as read-only.  File info shows that it is not locked and my user account has Read-Write access and it's a LOCAL file.

Please advise on how to get back to editable file?

File name is ca.xls  so all those posts discussing / are not relevant.

Redo permissions and ACL's in Recovery.
Boot to Recovery.
Open Terminal from the Utilities menu.
Type in 'resetpassword' press return.
Select your drive and user account.
Hit button to reset ACL's.
Reboot.
Attempt to manipulate your file.