iPhone 4S w/ iOS 6, any risks in finally upgrading to 8.4? I have iPhone 4S running iOS 6.
I've never upgraded to iOS 7 since at first I didn't like the new graphics.
but overtime, apps are not being supported anymore. some simply don't work, and some can't be updated as they require at least iOS7. for example, on whatsapp, I can no longer preview about 25% of the messages I'm receiving. It's very sporadic, sometimes It lets me and sometime it doesn't.

So is it about time to finally upgrade? Any risks involve? I guess I can only update it straight to the latest 8.4, right?

Any way to upgrade to iOS 7? is it recommended?
I've read the screen is too small on iOS 8 so you can barely see the email you compose. is it the same with 8.4 as well?
will it be really slow? my 4s with iOS 6 is already kinda slow.
I only have 2.5GB free, can I install it straight from iTunes and it will be ok too?
are there serious Wifi problem with 8.4?

Anything else I should consider?

To answer your questions in order:
1. No, you can only update to 8.4.
2. I don't have any problem composing emails with 8.4. I believe that there is an Accessibility setting for font size, anyways.
3. YMMV. My iPhone 4S ran great on iOS 8, but some don't have that great of luck.
4. I think 2.5GB is enough to download.
5. I believe any connectivity issues with iOS 8 were fixed within the first few updates.

iOS 8.4 ran well on my iPhone 4S, but when I gave it to my Mom, when I upgraded to an iPhone 5S, I've noticed that for whatever reason it doesn't work as smoothly as when I had it. Also iOS 9 is right around the corner in the fall, likely next month, stability and performance are what iOS 9 is mainly addressing and the iPhone 4S will get that update, so you might just wait for that.

I haven't really ever had any major problems with iOS 8, I think it is pretty safe to download.


How to read data from an unreadable drive formatted by a GoPro? I formatted a 128 GB micro SD card from the factory in a National Geographic Explorer 4 4K 30 fps (a camera like a GoPro). It recorded video and I can play it back. On macOS Mojave 10.14.6, I get the warning:

The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer

Initialize Ignore Eject

I am confused because I have transferred data from another micro SD card and the same camera, and because the disk on Disk Utility shows as

disk3s1
USB Internal Physical Volume • ExFAT
127.85 GB

and ExFAT is a format offered by Disk Utility when formatting a drive.

I have run Disk Utility First Aid on the Apple SD Card Reader Media, which succeeded, and on disk3s1, which failed with this log:

Running First Aid on “” (disk3s1)

Repairing file system.
Volume is already unmounted.
Performing fsck_exfat -y -x /dev/rdisk3s1
Checking volume.
Checking main boot region.
Main boot region is invalid.  Trying alternate boot region.
Checking alternate boot region.
Alternate boot region is invalid.
The volume  could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 1.
Restoring the original state found as unmounted.
File system verify or repair failed.

Operation failed…

How can I recover the data from the disk?

Update: I tested the formats on macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and the camera:

macOS cannot read the ExFAT format when a card is formatted by the camera
the camera cannot read the ExFAT format when a card is formatted by macOS
the camera can read and write to a card formatted in MS-DOS (FAT) by macOS
(launch Disk Utility, click on the volume, click Erase, then choose
Format: MS-DOS (FAT)).

I will format every card on the computer first before using it on the camera. For the current data on the card formatted by the camera, I will try on a windows computer this weekend.

The solution was to use a Windows computer with an SD card socket to read the card and transfer the files.

Before that, I tried the following methods mentioned in the answers and the comments. The YUTU PRO smartphone application could transfer small files and not large ones (more details below). The retailer had no idea about the problem or solutions. I did not try @BaconDuctTape's MiniTool recommendation as Windows had solved the problem.

For the future, I will format any card with MS-DOS (FAT).

more details on YUTU PRO app

I followed the directions on the user manual. I was lucky that one file was small enough
  for the phone's available space; unlucky that the second transferred but
  failed to show and lingered somewhere (a common ghost file problem). The app showed two videos with duration 00:00 when they have
  06:49. The app alone was taking 3.3 GB and has no menu option to delete its data. Rebooting the phone clears the
YUTUPRO ghost data (hint from here).

Then I deleted all photos from the
phone, downloaded small files (around 3 minutes of footage) one by one from the app to the phone, transferred to the computer,
deleted the file on the Photos app, went to Albums > Recently deleted to delete
permanently, and started again.

For files at the maximum of 6:46, which showed as 0:00, the app was able to play them by streaming, but not
to transfer them. The app showed "Downloading, Please Waiting ..." (sic, see below) for several hours. So I went for the Windows solution.


Using cask and then brew install I am trying to install gulp - which seems to require first cask:

17:14:34/mozaik-demo $brew install gulp
Error: No available formula for gulp
Searching formulae...
Searching taps...
Caskroom/cask/gulp

Let us install the cask:

17:14:41/mozaik-demo $brew cask install gulp
==> Downloading https://github.com/sindresorhus/gulp-app/releases/download/0.1.0/gulp.app.zip
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Symlinking App 'gulp.app' to '/Users/steve/Applications/gulp.app'
  gulp staged at '/opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/gulp/0.1.0' (830 files, 75M)

But then what is the correct next step? Here is my attempt:

17:15:03/mozaik-demo $brew install gulp
Error: No available formula for gulp
Searching formulae...
Searching taps...
Caskroom/cask/gulp
17:15:09/mozaik-demo $which gulp

You don't need to do brew install gulp after brew cask install gulp. Once brew cask install gulp end, you have your app installed on /Users/steve/Applications/gulp.app, you don't need any extra steps.


Recover application after it becomes unresponsive Is there any way to recover an application once it freezes aside from killing it?

Context being, I have been working on a couple of files in TextMate 1.5 and TextMate has stopped responding, I have not saved these files, and I really do not want to loose the work.  I've killed all other running applications and have let the computer idle for quite some time but TextMate still remains unresponsive.

Before it froze I was conducting a simple regex search query within TextMate.  The files were only about 2kb in size.

This also depends on why it's freezing too. I'm purely speaking from a Mac perspective here, but when something like that happens regularly I tend to delve into the logs to see what's up.

(Usually it's XPC up to its usual)..

If you're not a Mac user, without Windows infant of me, I can't give you exact steps, but here it goes for both to see what's up!

Mac:

Press ⌘+Space to get Spotlight up
Type in console (press Enter)

That is the log "viewer" as such for Mac.

On Windows, off the top of my head and should apply from Windows XP onwards!

Click on the Start button
Click on "Run"
In Run dialog box, type in eventvwr.msc and press Enter.

That's the Windows logging system.

If you're on Linux, then I suggest you watch /var/log/messages.log to see what's happening there.

Anyway, have a look into what's showing up in the log when it decides to crash and let us know!


External USB-C SSD not recognized on MacBook Pro I am using a MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch (Mid, 2015) running macOS Catalina 10.15 Beta (19A558d).

I want to use an external USB-C SSD drive (512GB) to use Windows To Go and store other files. Since my MacBook Pro only has type-a USB ports I also bought a USB type-c to type-a adapter.

However, my MacBook Pro does not recognize the USB-C drive, not in Disk Utility, not in BootCamp Windows, not in System Report, or anywhere else I've checked. What's more, the light on USB device is not blinking, which might infer that the device has no power.

So far I have:

ensured the MBP is full charged and also tested while connected to AC power
tested the SSD USB devices on my phone (which has a USB type-c port), and it powered up and was recognised fine
tested the adapter by connecting it to my Surface Pro 6, and everything works fine
tested the adapter on my MBP but with a USB-C flat drive instead and everything works fine

Consequently, I think the MBP is not giving enough power to power up the USB-C external drive.

Can anyone offer a suggestion on how I may get the USB-C external drive to work with my MBP?

P.S. I found a similar question here.

Since you're using a Beta version of Catalina it is always possible that this issue could be resolved by the final release version of Catalina.

However, assuming this is purely related to a hardware limitation with your current setup, the only way to try and resolve it is to get enough power to the external SSD. As such, you have the following options you could try:

If the external USB-C drive has the option for its own power source connected to it, then doing that will solve the problem
You could opt for an adapter that connects from two USB-A ports to one USB-C port, thereby combining the power from two ports to provide enough for the external drive
You could use a powered external USB hub or dock (i.e. connect the USB Hub to the MBP and then connect the USB-C drive to the hub)
Double-check that the adapter you're using is actually capable of passing enough power through

NOTES:

While there are many cables/adapters that can utilise the power from two USB-A ports to a single USB-A port, I'm not sure if one exists that goes to a single USB-C port - so you may need a second adapter to get this to work.
Only you can decide if the expense of using a hub or dock is warranted in this use case.


Why I cannot extend value column for plist files? This is what I see and cannot extend the value column at all. Why is it so? Is it a bug or am I missing something?

It's a bug. The Value column is meant to be the remaining width in the window.
You can fix it by dragging the right side of the window small enough to hide some of the Value column, then dragging the window bigger again. When you drag the window bigger this time, the right edge of the Value column will follow the side of the window.


Unable to add Visual Studio Code app's icon to macOS Dock I had Visual Studio Code app's icon in my Mac's Dock before, but I can't put it there again.

I tried dragging and dropping the app bundle from the /Applications folder, but the icon doesn't land in the Dock. Have I accidentally banned Visual Studio Code.app from the macOS Dock?

If yes, how can I revoke the ban? I can add icons for other apps just fine. Even when I have Visual Studio Code.app running, the app's icon doesn't appear in the Dock.

How do I resolve the issue and get the app icon to show in the Dock?

Have I accidentally banned Visual Studio Code.app from the macOS Dock?

No.

  How do I resolve the issue and get the app icon to show in the Dock?

You can try resolving the issue by killing the Dock process and re-launching it afresh. To do that, launch Terminal.app and execute the following command-line:

killall Dock

The command-line is case sensitive. Once executed, the Dock would momentarily disappear and then reappear.  Now you should be able to add the Visual Studio Code.app icon normally by dragging in the app bundle. You should also be able to see the icon normally when the app is running.


How to monitor file access for an OS X application? I am looking for the OS X corespondent of FileMon, that was later included in ProcessMon.

BTW, it is essential to be able to filter by process.

Instruments—a part of the Apple Xcode development suite—can monitor all file access and writes. Open it from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Instruments.app, select your application or process, and press Start. You have extensive filter options available in the menus.

Older versions of Xcode are storing the App at /Developer/Applications/Instruments.app


On/Off vs. Sleep Mode The new retina MacBook Pro is boot so quickly that if I don't use it for even 5 minutes it doesn't make a difference to me whether I shut the computer down or sleep it.

What is the best option for computer preservation? Will a lot of rebooting in a day will ruin the computer?

I really don't think it matters. I put my MBP to sleep all the time because I like always opening it to exactly what I had open before. There are probably plenty of arguments that you can extend its lifespan by doing something or other, but unless there's a defect or you drop it in the pool, it's going to be obsolete long before it wears out.

Additionally, on flash-based Macs (Airs and Retina MBPs) running on battery power, the default setting is to go into standby after 70 minutes of sleep. Standby is essentially hibernation - the contents of RAM are saved to flash and the machine is powered off almost completely.


How to turn off a frozen iPhone with a broken lock button? What can you do when your iPhone is in Airplane Mode, the WiFi is off, and the lock button is broken. I can't log in to the phone. How can I turn it off?

You can let the battery run down, at which point the phone will power itself down. You can run its battery down slightly faster by waking it up using the home button -- this will activate the display backlight and run the battery down a bit faster.


Catalina Mail super slow when composing new emails? More people experience slow emails on Catalina?

Running a MacPro with 64 Gb RAM and its slow like fek. Especially when typing emails feels very laggy.

Running latest version 10.15.2 and I have the check spell why you type is off. Got 8 mailboxes of which one is a Office 360. Under settings iCloud, I switched off mail (FWIW). Plenty of diskspace (> 1.4 TB free).

I also tried a reboot and PRAM reset.

Anybody got a clue?

Open up a Finder app session
You will need access to your User library
Go to Folder Containers > com.apple.mail > Data > Library > Saved Application State

Go > Go To Folder and type in as shown above.
Move com.apple.mail.savedState to Trash

Move this folder to the trash
Next, in Finder app, press down the Option key and click on Go at the top of the menu
Type in ~/Library/Containers
Drag com.apple.mail and com.apple.MailServiceAgent out to your desktop
Similarly, remove the envelope files from ~/Library/Mail/MailData and drag them to trash

Envelope Index
Envelope Index-shm
Envelope Index-wal

Empty your Trash and Restart your Mac

If your Mail works without hiccups, you can move the files from your desktop into Trash ( file from step 8 above).


MacBook Pro Late-2013 SD card reader not loading cards after 10.10.2 update In my Macbook Pro 15inch, late 2013, the SD card reader doesn't work after installing Yosemite 10.10.2. Doesn't load cards at all. Tried to blow out slot, fiddling with switches inside port, nothing.

How can I analyze and fix this issue

The first step is to open system information and see if anything shows for that device.

Next would be to install a clean OS on to a USB drive or back up and erase the Mac / reinstall the OS. You could try a safe boot, but I've not seen that make any difference for the SD card slot even though it could help if you had an oddball kernel extension conflict.

Also, be sure to test your SD cards on another computer or reader as it would be a shame to have that be the issue and have to restore a backup to find out that was the issue.


Lines running down screen of iPod touch 4th generation It's almost like stuck pixels- except they're moving down the screen...? Recently, after turning on a 4th generation iPod touch for the first time in two or three months, I noticed that lines were running down the screen!  Rebooting is not helping. Is a restore recommended for this kind of situation? Is it a hardware or a software issue? With iOS 6 due in less than a week, should updating fix this problem? How exactly did this happen to the hardware? Would replacing the screen resolve this issue, or would the problem lie deeper in the hardware?

edit restoring did not help; the lines were shown even when booting at the Apple logo and when showing the 'connect to iTunes' image.

Your display is dying. Replace the display or buy a new iPod touch.


Using Photo Stream and ICloud I am taking py ipad on holiday and plan to take pictures with my Digital camera and at the end of the day transfer the pictures from the memory card to the ipad via a card reader.

Will these photos go into the photo stream?
If I set up iCloud on my PC, which will be left at home will the pictures be synced to that automatically? In which case the 1000 picture limit wont be an issue?
Am I right in understanding that the pictures will lose some resolution when viewed on the ipad but will keep the resolution when viewed on my Windows PC?
Does all of the above only work when connected to WiFi?

Thanks

Yes, photos imported into an iPad do get shared through Photo Stream. This feature is mentioned in this Apple KB article.

The 1000 picture limit is a per hour limit. Apple says (in the same KB article) that…

  If you exceed one of these limits, your uploads to Photo Stream will be paused temporarily and you may see a notification message on your device. Your uploads will resume automatically once you no longer exceed one of the limits (such as the following hour or day).

In addition to the 1000 picture limit, there are further limits…

  Uploads to My Photo Stream per day: 10,000 photos
  Uploads to My Photo Stream per month: 25,000 photos

These limits can not be circumvented (as far as I know) by having your computer constantly sync to Photo Stream.

This Apple KB article explains Photo Stream resolutions:

  On your Mac or PC, your photos are downloaded and stored in full resolution. On your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV, your Photo Stream photos are delivered in a device-optimized resolution that speeds downloads and saves storage space. While actual dimensions will vary, an optimized version of a photo taken by a standard point-and-shoot camera will have a 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution when pushed to your devices. Panoramic photos can be up to 5400 pixels wide.

According to the same Apple KB article as the previous, yes, Wi-Fi is required for Photo Stream to work (emphasis not mine).

  On an iOS device, new photos you take will be automatically uploaded to your photo stream when you leave the Camera app and are connected to Wi-Fi. Note: My Photo Stream does not push photos over cellular connections.


Cannot restore or recover ipod Classic 80gb I have an ipod Classic 80gb.   It is currently stuck on the apple screen.  I am unable to recover or restore the ipod.  It is not recognized by windows as either a ipod or a mass storage device.   When I plug it into my PC nothing happens.

It just sits there with the apple logo on the screen.  None of the buttons respond with the exception of a reset.  (toggle hold switch -> hold center + menu for 6 seconds.)  A reset will cause the screen to go blank for a few seconds.

Nothing else I have found seems to work.

Let me know if you have any ideas

You can try to diagnose the problem with the diagnostic mode.

To enter the diagnostic mode, press the folowing key when the apple logo appears after a reset :

iPod 1G, 2G et 3G, press the keys for 5 seconds :

"back"
"next"
"select"

iPod 4G, 5G, mini et nano,  press the keys for 5 seconds :

"back"
"select"

In the diagnotic mode, you can navigate in the menus with the back/next keys and launch a bunch of test.


RDP from OS X to Windows using RD/TS Gateway Services? I am trying to connect from my Mac 10.8 to my work Terminal Services server. It think it runs Windows Server 2008. When using the RDC Client on WinXP ➞ Win 8 it bring up these menu options:

You can see here it has the computer and the username/domain field. Then when I go to the Advanced field, I get the following:

When I open up CORD, it is missing the option to put the computer name in the field. For RDC to my work network, I had the IT people look at both CORD and Microsoft RDC for OS X and they couldn't figure it out.

Can anyone shed light, based on those settings in my RDC (which is running on Windows 7 in a Parallels environment) how I could join to my network. Everyone says I need to be able to specify the following things:

URL to join logon.tech2group.com.au
Domain and Username stream/danijel.james
Computer name at the other end rdfarm002

Unfortunately, unless you are already a registered iTap user, it's no longer available as of October 8, 2013.  Microsoft's latest free version (8.0.3) does not support TS Gateway services.  I've been looking for something that does, but no luck so far.  Anyone have a suggestion?


Export or list system settings that deviate from defaults I am looking to generate something similar to this osx settings script.  I'm not having any luck finding ways to perform a diff between system defaults and my customized settings.

Anyone know of a command, app, tool, method to generate this?

You might diff the output of defaults read | awk 'length<200' on the current installation and a VM. Or convert the plist files to XML first with something like plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/*.plist.

It would be difficult to do right though:

There are probably thousands or tens of thousands of settings that have been changed.
Settings are stored in different directories like ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost and ~/Library/Containers/*/Data/Library/Preferences.
Many settings are for things like the positions of windows.
Some applications like Chrome don't even use the defaults system.
Many settings can't be modified with defaults or PlistBuddy.
There are a lot of changes between OS X versions.

It's easier to just copy the plist files or recreate settings from GUIs in my opinion.


What Type of SSD is Used in the 2013 Mac Pro? Does the 2013 Mac Pro use M.2 solid state drives (SSDs)? I would like to upgrade my Mac Pro to 1 TB of storage, but OWC's SSDs are too expensive for me.

These particular Mac Pros use an Apple designed PCIe 2.0 x4 interface. If you're wanting to replace the internal drives your options will be limited.

I would check out the following instructions provided by Apple to determine your happy to proceed. If so, I suggest you purchase your SSD from a reputable retailer. For example, the following are some well-regarded sites:

Mac Sales
Simply Mac
RAM City
Macfixit

By buying from a reputable store you'll be sure to get an SSD fit for purpose, regardless of manufacturer. Being reputable means they're only going to sell something that works and they'll stand behind the product they sell, regardless of the brand. I would also check out Amazon as well for particular models once you know what you're after, as you'd probably find you can buy cheaper from there.

Another option

If I was you I would seriously consider keeping your current drive and using an external Thunderbolt enclosure to increase your storage capacity. If speed isn't so important, then you could use external USB drives instead.


How to caffeinate a function on CLI? Mac's caffeinate tool accepts the name of a utility: caffeinate sleep 1, for instance.  Is there any way for it to accept a function as well?  For example:

function mysleep {
  sleep 2
}

caffeinate mysleep    # mysleep: No such file or directory

caffeinate launches executables. However, shell functions exist only within the shell. Shell functions are not executables.

Workaround: call bash directly

This works best for one-liners and simple commands.

caffeinate bash -c 'sleep 2'

Multi-liners work too:

caffeinate bash <<EOF
  sleep 2
  echo "done :D"
EOF

You can use functions:

caffeinate bash <<EOF
  function mysleep {
    sleep 2
  }
  mysleep
EOF

Workaround: call a script instead of a function

Instead of doing your work inside a function, split it out into a separate script:

caffeinate mysleep.sh

#!/bin/bash
# mysleep.sh
sleep 2


Is there a way to print a webpage as PDF in landscape mode using Safari? Short question is: can I use Safari to print out a webpage as PDF, but in landscape mode, if no printer is added whatsoever?

Details:
First of all, I cannot use Google Chrome to print out the document
https://redux-toolkit.js.org/usage/immer-reducers
and be able to highlight it, because the highlighting is about 1/3 inch off (try highlighting the header or text and we can see).
So I am using Safari.  On my other MacBook Pro, I added a printer, and was able to choose Landscape Mode. But I have a MacBook Air M1 and don't always use that MacBook Pro, and if I use the MacBook Air M1 to print out that webpage, there is no way to choose Landscape Mode, seemingly because no printer is selected, and there is no printer "capability" of printing in landscape mode.
So is there a way to make it work, other than to somehow find a real printer and add a printer?

By default, macOS does provide basic print options of paper size and orientation in the Print menu, even if you don't have a printer. (Though these may need to be 'revealed' using the "Show Details' button.
However, I have always recommended that if you don't have a physical printer, there may be benefits to creating a 'Generic PostScript Printer' print queue.

The "PDF button" in the print menu does rely on the CUPS print system, and that usually means having some form of print queue.
The other option is to use a dedicated print-to-file queue, like CUPS-PDF.


Cannot reset password due to does not match any of last n passwords requirement I've recently added some rules using pwpolicy. When I restarted the mac, it asked to reset the password after I input the current password. But I can't satisfy the does not match any of last 3 passwords requirement.

The mac used to have no password policies, so I think it is probably failing because it has no history of old passwords.

Anyone know of a solution for this?

I contacted Apple Support. I was able to reset my password using macOS Utilities in Recovery Mode.

Boot up holding command+R until the macOS Utilities screen comes up and go to Utilities > Terminal. Type in resetpassword and follow the prompts. I chose the second option, something like 'my password does not log me in' which lets you reset your password if you know the current one. It worked in that reset password function but not the one from the login screen.


How can I unlock an iPhone 3G that no longer has a service plan? I have an old iPhone 3G which I purchased in Canada and it was locked for three years to Rogers, a service provider.

Last month, I stopped the service and moved to the US. I was not able to use the iPhone because it was still bundled with a Canadian service provider and could not even go into the operating system.

I called the service provider but they won't help me unlock because I've stopped the service.

What can I do now?

The programmer chpwn has created a web site where you can see if you can unlock your iPhone at http://caniunlock.com. Look there, and also at http://jailbrea.kr for jailbreak information. Good luck!


how long time to get approve for Apple Developer Program enrollment? I have registered my program with individual type from India and it's already 6 days delay but still now i haven't got any email yet. So how long it will take for the activation.

It usually takes 5 to 7 days for Apple Developer Program enrolment to take place. This may take longer if they have a query, but they will contact you if so.


Save it or replace it? I have an mid 2009 MacBook Pro 13" (processor: 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, memory: 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, HDD: 160 GB SATA) and it has started giving me trouble a few months ago. It runs on Max OS 10.7.5 and has been getting excruciatingly slow. Additional software is Adobe CS4, Skype and OpenOffice.  I mostly use it for OpenOffice work, internet research, Skype, and movies.

The cost to fix it with a new battery, new RAM and new HDD which would get me in the price range of about $300 to 400 in my estimates.

What reasons should could help decide between fixing it or rather save up for a replacement. MacBook Pro 13" again with a non-retina display?

My mom is still using my 2009 MBP without any issue.  If the CPU is fast enough for you, I'd recommend refurbing it.

I'd also agree with Robuust about getting an SSD.  The prices are low enough now that you should be able to get 250GB for < $250 and anything smaller is still < $1/GB.  If you've been getting by with a 160GB spinning drive, you'll be amazed by the speed increase.  Mine went from a 40s boot time to about 12s.

The only caveat I see is that my mom's MB DID need a new keyboard a couple years ago due to the mouse button failing to click anymore.  That was a $80 repair -- bought one from ebay and installed it myself.  So if you have any kind of HW problems, you would need to address those down the road.

Then again, you can get a complete late-model MBP on ebay for $700-ish.  If you aren't afraid of buying a used one, that may be the better way, but for what you are doing, the old one should continue to work well.


Bad keys on Macbook Pro This week the keys hjkl on my (Early 2011) Macbook Pro sort of all stopped working at the same time (and only those keys are affected).  I say "sort of" because they can all start working perfectly again for an extended period of time and then suddenly for no reason they all stop working.

And then in gets weirder.  If the keys are all dead I can repeatably press just one of the keys and (after varying length of time) it comes good.  At which point the remaining bad keys also start working again.

My initial thought was that it is time to replace the keyboard, but the action of the keys all coming good at the same time confuses me.

So is there an explanation to what is going on?  Or is it time to replace the keyboard?

Try removing the keys and cleaning under with cotton buds, there are some tutorials on how to do this safely - check your keyboard layout and settings in system preferences too.


When using Mail with Gmail IMAP, how to move emails to different folders and not label them? I'm using Mac Lion Mail app with Gmail IMAP and when I drag and drop or command-click to move messages from my Inbox to a folder called Personal, it appears to work in Mail.  But when I look at Gmail, the message remains in Inbox.  Instead of actually moving the message, it simply gives it the label, Personal.

In Gmail, I never label anything, I always move messages to various folders and I want to mimic this behaviour in Mail app.  How can I do this?

Gmail has a guide on how actions on IMAP clients correspond to Gmail actions. In order to remove items from your inbox in Gmail, you will need to delete them from your inbox in Mail.app -- this will "archive" the message in Gmail rather than moving it to the trash. The trouble with this is that emails that you move to a folder in Mail.app probably won't show up in your Mail.app inbox until you refresh it, so it may take a few steps to move and archive a message. Unfortunately, Gmail behaves so differently from normal mail services that using it with a standard IMAP client tends to be a pain. However, the reference in the link above should help you figure out which actions in Mail.app correspond to various Gmail actions.


How to add a confirmation dialog when deleting any item in finder Hi would like to add a "Are you sure?" prompt when deleting an item (file, folder) from the finder (like the one when emptying the trash...).
Can this be enabled?

Yes, just lock it!

Right click the item and Get info, or select the item and hit CMD + i.


Hyper-V in Windows 10 on MacBook Pro I am considering a Mac as my main development machine, and will most of the time be required to use Windows for my development work.

According to the Apple support article Turn off Hyper-V to use Windows 10 on your Mac it is not possible to use Hyper-V in Windows 10 on a Mac in Boot Camp.

This is a big limitation for me, since also it means it will be impossible to use Docker Windows Containers on a Mac, since they require Hyper-V.

Are there any practical workarounds for this?

Know this is a year old, but instead of using Parallels and suffering with nested virtualization, you can enable VT-x prior to Windows booting up by using the rEFInd boot loader.  This is the blog post I wrote about how to do it:

http://nuts4.net/post/hack-force-vt-x-to-be-always-on-when-booting-to-windows-on-your-macbook

WARNING: While this has worked on many Intel-based Mac's, rEFInd messes with the Model Specific Registers on the Intel processor to enable VT-x.  If Apple should ever come out with an AMD-based laptop, or Intel makes massive changes to their MSR's in future versions of their chips, make sure rEFInd supports your specific processor!  You do these steps at your own risk.

Go here and download rEFInd (the zip version): http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html
Extract the zip to a folder, open the refind folder and edit refind.conf-sample.
In refind.conf-sample:
Set the timeout to 5 seconds (or whatever you want)
Find enable_and_lock_vmx, uncomment the line and set it to true
Shut down your computer.
After powering back up, press and hold Command+R before the chime/apple logo appears to boot into Apple Recovery.
Once in Apple Recovery, go to Utilities -> Terminal.
Navigate to the folder where you extracted rEFInd, and run ./refind-install
If a warning about SIP (System Integrity Protection) appears, press "y", and continue with the installation.  We're in Recovery Mode, so SIP should be disabled at this point.
Note: The installer will copy the refind.conf-sample file to EFI/refind/refind.conf on your ESP partition.  If you need to change settings later on, you'll have to mount the partition first (use the first two commands from the uninstall instructions below to mount it.)
Reboot your Mac. (Now, your Mac may freeze. If it does, press and hold the power button until the LCD turns off, then turn it back on.)

You'll be greeted by a GUI bootloader menu, which will load whatever OS you sat as your default.  In my case, this was Windows, and Hyper-V worked flawlessly from a cold boot!

If by chance you want to use something other than Hyper-V, you'll need to use bcdedit in Windows to disable the hypervisor (since Hyper-V takes exclusive control over VT-x once Windows boots):

bcdedit /set {current} hypervisorlaunchtype off <-- Turns off Hyper-V

bcdedit /set {current} hypervisorlaunchtype on <-- Turns on Hyper-V


MacBook Air mid 2011 external Display resoltion > 1080p which adapter? I want to use my new 27" Display in full resolution. I've tried two different cheap mini displayport to hdmi adapters but they only work with a max resolution of 1080p.
Do I really need an expensive Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link-DVI-adapter or should i try a mini displayport to displayport adapter to get the full 2560x1440 resolution?

Mac OS X should detect the supported resolutions when you connect the display. Your problem might indeed be related to the adapter and cable you are using. According to the HDMI 1.4 spec, standard HDMI cables only support resolutions up to 1080i.

I suggest you use the DisplayPort or DVI port on your monitor instead, and buy the appropriate adapter for one of those.


Must I reformat my hard drive to reclaim space from unused 2nd partition? I wanted to see if I could also have Ubuntu on my Macbook alongside the usual OSX. Now, a year later, I want to remove the Ubuntu and the space associated with it on the hard drive. That is, my hd is partitioned into two separate spaces.

My question is, if I want back the space that Ubuntu took, must I reformat and delete everything on my Mac?

You won't need that, you can delete your Ubuntu partition and expand the current OSX one.

Using Disk Utility :

Choose your hard drive
Under the Partition tab
Delete your ubuntu partition and expand the OS partition.


What's the best match iTunes version for iPhone 2G (first generation) now? My iPhone 2G (first generation) can't be recognized by the current iTunes 11. (Tried both DFU mode and recovery mode but failed.)

So whats the best match iTunes version (and where can it be downloaded) for iPhone 2G so that this ancient guy be can recognized.

I'm not sure there is a 'best match' version.

The earliest version that will support an iPhone 2G to iOS 3.1.3 [the latest the phone can use] is iTunes 9.2.1

But I know of no reason it shouldn't be recognised by the latest iTunes. v12 still recognises my old 3G & even has no trouble with my seriously ancient iPod Photo from 2004, which is still going strong as my in-car player.

I've seen suggestions to completely uninstall & reinstall iTunes - but no conclusive proof it really does anything useful.

I also came across this whilst Googling - don't know if it still works, but might be worth a look - You Can Now Install iOS 5 On iPhone 2G/3G And Old iPods Without Jailbreaking


Moving files from bad external harddrive I use OSX mavericks. My external 1TB harddrive is partially unreadable. I want to salvage its content as much as possible. I have tried dd but it took almost a day, so I killed it, and it could not resume from where it left when I rerun it.
I am currently trying moving folders one by one with Finder.

My question is there any option in Finder to continue moving even if errors are detected ?

Finder will always halt on Error.
Have you tried Data Rescue 3? I've had good results using that in the past.
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php


Is there a spatial map for 2020 MacBook Air track pad's right-click "sweet-spot"? I'm migrating from a late 2012 to a new 2020 MacBook air and having difficulty right clicking. Sometimes when I push with the side of my right thumb:

a light touch works perfectly and I feel some haptic feedback or "give" or "click"
it feels solid and unyielding and nothing happens
I feel some haptic feedback or "give" or "click" but it's interpreted as a "left click"

I've try clicking around and making a map manually but I get strange results and I'm thinking there is something more complicated going on that I don't understand. After eight years of using one trackpad it's all in "muscle memory" and I'm struggling now that I have to think about it. I'm so tired of the wrong thing happening that now I'm afraid to right click.
I think if I could see a map of the track pad's sensitivity for right-vs-left click and for haptic-feedback, or better yet some engineering-like testing of their spatial variability, that might help me to interpret what I'm doing wrong and how to improve it.

The options for right-click are configured in System Preferences > Trackpad. You can either initiate a right-lick with two fingers, or in the bottom right or bottom left corners.
I don't know what the default is, so perhaps it's set to use two fingers, and there is no 'sweet spot'. Personally, I prefer using two fingers, as it prevents accidental right-clicks if you happen to be 'in the zone'.


Why is syslog not logging where I tell it to log? I've configured syslogd like so:

*.debug /var/log/messages

I want pretty much everything logged in /var/log/messages.

When I run

syslog -s hello

I get the message showing up in /var/log/message.

I tried restarting syslog using

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist
ps -x | grep [s]yslog

to check that syslog is not running, then

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist

to restart.

I checked /etc/syslog.conf to make sure it doesn't change, and it doesn't. Still I get messages logged to /var/log/message.

Is there another place to set this?

I can confirm the following worked on my Mac running 10.6.7:

I added the following line to /etc/syslog.conf (where <tab> is a tab character):

*.debug<tab>/var/log/messages

I HUP'd the syslogd process using sudo kill -HUP <syslogd pid>.

And tested it with logger -p debug test_msg and syslog -s hello.

syslog created /var/log/messages on the fly as I used the logger and syslog commands.

The man page for syslog.conf(5) specifies the use of tabs between the fields.  However, I tried using a single space instead and that worked as well.  Based on the man pages for syslog and syslogd, /etc/syslog.conf appears to be the only configuration file you need to worry about.


Backup verification canceled due to thermal pressure After a Time Machine backup, a verification kicked off:

  2016-10-29 23:47:35.736819-0500  localhost backupd[198]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogInfo] Checking for runtime corruption on /dev/disk5s2
  2016-10-29 23:47:36.450339-0500  localhost backupd[198]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogInfo] Verifying backup disk image.
  2016-10-30 09:18:16.815734-0500  localhost backupd[198]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogInfo] Backup verification canceled due to thermal pressure.
  2016-10-30 09:18:17.167520-0500  localhost backupd[198]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogInfo] Backup verification skipped during fsck.
  2016-10-30 09:19:01.016411-0500  localhost backupd[198]: (TimeMachine [com.apple.TimeMachine.TMLogError] Backup verification incomplete!

My problem is I want the verification to complete. The error is Backup verification incomplete!.

Does this mean that my Mac overheated or is it memory pressure or something similar?

Thermal pressure comes and goes. Unless your verification cannot complete after a week of attempts, I wouldn't worry about that specific error.

However, this is some cool technology to manage variable workloads on Mac hardware that integrates with Intel chipset power management for multiple core and variable clock rate CPU. If you don't mind using the command line - open terminal and type:

pmset -g thermlog

Then you can watch as you run some programs that use the CPU to see the various warnings come and go. Basically the OS will schedule the kernel_task to "soak" CPU and idle the system to keep the thermal heat generation from overwhelming the cooling method.

On my MacBook - there is no blower or fan, so the thermal throttling lets the conduction of heat from the CPU / GPU to move out to the frame. Sometimes I have to remember get my Mac up off a thick conformer / blanket (which insulates the case) or open the display when I run it attached to a USB-C display in closed clamshell mode. More air past the frame = better heat dissipation. The keyboard area can also let off a lot of heat when the closed screen (thin layer of glass and air - a nice greenhouse) is causing thermal pressure on the CPU during a movie render or long compile cycle that uses all the cores.

Other Macs with active cooling, the blowers will speed up in response to thermal events. Once they can no longer turn faster, the same CPU throttling will take place.


What is the framerate of the macbook pro mid 2012 non retina facetime hd camera? I have a macbook pro mid 2012 non retina facetime hd camera. It is advertised as having a facetime hd camera however the frame rate seems to be very low (14.5 fps). Is this normal?

The hardware is capable of 30fps, I have this model (MacBookPro9,1, i7 2.3 GHz) on my desk in front of me and just shot a movie that lists as 29.81fps at 720p.

However, Apple will, in software, reduce the frame rate if your HDD/SSD/other storage and/or processor and memory are not capable of handling the maximum frame rate at the time of capture. The do this to ensure you can still use the camera even in non-optimal conditions.

How much free space (percentage) do you have on your storage? Are you running any processor intensive applications. How much RAM do you have? These factors can have a serious impact on capture rates.

It is also entirely possible that the frame rate is being affected by other factors if you are using a 3rd party application such as Skype.

Hope this helps?


How do I get iCal push notifications working? If I update an event on my iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3, it is updated correctly on the MobileMe calendar web site, but not on iCal – I have to refresh the latter manually. I took a look at my system log, and there are entries like this:

  Sep 23 10:40:59 Musa applepushserviced[147]: : Stream error occurred for : Error Domain=kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork Code=2 UserInfo=0x10012d5e0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 2.)"

Could this be responsible? If so, what is the solution?

MobileMe was discontinued on June 30, 2012. Your phone isn't able to sync because the sync servers are no longer available. If you want to sync calendars with an iOS 4 device, you might have to use a Google account and IMAP.


How do I send compass app data to apple watch? Ok, I was very disappointed to know iWatch doesn't come with a most basic wrist watch feature: a compass.
It's reasonable that due to magnets used in coils and straps, it's not possible to include a magnetic sensor.
But is there any way we can send the data of iPhone's compass app to watch. Better yet, a complication?

I have Googled it online, but found no luck.

There's currently no way to get data from the iPhone's Compass app to your Apple Watch, and no complication option available. There is no API on watchOS for compass heading and you would need to have your iPhone / iPad out and pointing in a specific location for the watch to match the iOS device.

I suppose you could mount the phone to a stand inside a ship or vehicle and know that the watch is showing where the other device is pointing and not necessarily where your watch is "pointing"

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/getting_heading_and_course_information

This sort of "making do with what's available" is documented here in open source as well as dozens of App Store apps where no one in particular stands out as good or useful to me.

https://github.com/woutercx/iOS.Compass.Sample

You would have to adapt that for watchOS complication and iOS companion app.
In the Watch app on your iPhone you'll find an App Store icon on the bottom that allows you to search for Apple Watch apps directly. You'll find there's a number of Compass apps available you can try doing exactly what the code above allows and no more or no less.

There isn't a magnetometer in the watch so it doesn't get it's own magnet in early 2019 at least.


How to choose GUID with High Sierra's Disk Utility? Most often USB flash drives on the market are pre-partitioned under (Windows) Master Boot Record.

Until El Capitan a special widget in Disk Utility made it possible to set the partition type to GUID.

In High Sierra there is a dedicated partition button, but it is greyed out. How can an alternative partition table be chosen?

In Disk Utility, near the close/minimize/fullscreen buttons, you can see a "View" mode dropdown menu. Set the view mode to "Show All Devices", then you'll see the "root" drives. Click on a root drive, and then click on the "Erase" button. Now an option to change the "Scheme" from Master Boot Record to GUID appears in the Erase subwindow.


Mac Mini Server running Mountain Lion (10.8.2) is freezing during boot (last line: IPv6 packet filtering initialized) Starting in verbose mode (Cmd+V), the last line I see on the console is:

IPv6 packet filtering initialized, default to accept, logging disabled

This happens regardless of having an ethernet cable plugged in or not.

Starting in single user mode (Cmd+S), I can look around the filesystem, can remount it read write, everything looks ok. I can even start the network using:

mount -uw /
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.kextd.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.notifyd.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.configd.plist

And ping systems on the local network.

When I exit the shell, the boot stops on the same spot.

Any ideas?

A possibility

The lack of progress, beyond the firewall-related message, may be unrelated to the firewall or networking. For example, these two lines from Intel Mac Pro Stuck on Gray Apple screen before OS load (2010-07-17):

IPv6 packet filtering initialized, default to accept, logging disabled
Jul 15 22:08:39 kextd[25]: kextd_watch_volumes: Couldn't set up diskarb sessions

– that's not to say that your issue may be the same; just to encourage thinking beyond networking.

Preliminary advice

Use Recovery OS:

Disk Utility to verify the file system of the OS X startup volume
verify permissions of the OS X startup volume.

Then – if the file system is OK – get the full installer for OS X (at another Mac, if necessary); install to the outdated Mac.


How do I set up 3 monitors to a Mac Mini I have 3 monitors which I want to connect to my Mac Mini. 2 x HP and 1 x DELL. All 3 monitors have HDMI cables.

I already have a Thunderbolt adapter but it only has one HDMI port.
The adapter is plugged into the back of the mac using the thunderbolt connector.
I currently have one HP monitor connected directly to the mac mini, via HDMI cable and port.
I have the second HP monitor connected to the adapter via HDMI cable, using the adapter HDMI port.

I want to attach the third monitor now. Thought I could just buy a new adapter which would have 3 HDMI ports and connect that directly to the Mini, but can't find this type of adapter on the market. After reading some of the previous queries on here, not sure that will even work.
My third monitor is a DELL and has the following ports:
DP In
DP Out
HDMI (which is what i wanted to use as i already have cable)
3 x USB slots

My current Thunderbolt adapter has a VGA port but no VGA port on the DELL monitor so can't use that. It also has HDMI port, which I'm already using for another monitor, and then it has a DVI port.

So think I need to purchase a new adapter to connect all 3 monitors, but can't find one on the market. Is there a different solution? Any ideas?

Not 100% certain but think you probably need a Thunderbolt PCIx expansion enclosure with 3 or more slots so you can add something like a Blackmagic HDMI display card. There may be less expensive options available but I have been looking into adding more HDMI input ports to my MacPro and this was one of the few options I found.


Mountain Lion Share Sheet Keyboard Shortcuts? Using the Keyboard Preference Pane, I've assigned shortcuts to the items in the share sheet in the Finder. Command-Option-Control-M for "Email" and Command-Option-Control-C for Message. The keyboard shortcuts actually get listed next to those commands when I click on the share sheet.

But they don't actually work. I've tried relaunching Finder and restarting, but to no avail. Any ideas to kickstart these commands, or is it just a glitch that they even appear in the menu?

Though these actions can be given shortcuts for All Applications, it does not  appear that they will work in all apps. For example, Finder and Safari will not recognize them, but Preview will. I'm not sure if this is the intended functionality—due to some of the applications having application-specific sharing options—or a bug.


How to archive iOS notifications? I'd like to record/save my iOS notifications (e.g., games and apps) as they come in as part of a statistics project, and would prefer to have them automatically recorded rather than taking manual screenshots. (Ideally, I'd like to pull them into IFTTT and then push them to a Google Spreadsheet.) Some apps may let me switch the notification method in-app, but that may also change the frequency of the notification, and in any event, it won't work across all apps and I'm looking to track the phone notification frequency. Is there some way to do this without jailbreaking? If I were to somehow push the notifications to macOS, is there a method for automatically recording them on the computer? If the version matters, I'm on the latest iOS.

Due to iOS restrictions, apps can't read notifications. This means you can't run an app to automatically gather notifications without jailbreaking.


Adapter to use my Thunderbolt display with my iMac 11,3 (Mid 2010) I am looking for an adapter to use my Thuderbolt display (just purchased, worked great on my MacBook Air) with my iMac 27-inch, Mid 2010 (iMac 11,3) Anyone know if one is made and where I can purchase it?

The iMac 11,3 has an ATI Radeon HD 5750 and a DisplayPort connector.

Apparently there is an adapter somewhere that staff at Apple have mentioned. See:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=15336051&postcount=8

There are no shipping adapters that take a HDMI / DVI / Display Port signal and capture that video and send it back out over Thunderbolt directly to an Apple Thunderbolt display. There certainly weren't any in existence July 2012 when that item was posted to MacRumors.

It's most likely that the reports are confusing the existence of many TB -> other adapters that are ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive.

Since we are finally seeing video capture devices that use Thunderbolt for the ingest to the Mac (as opposed to pumping out video over Thunderbolt to a Thunderbolt display) it might be some more months or even years before something like you ask gets released. Of course, I could be totally wrong and someone will release one tomorrow.

I would explain things as follows: it's very easy and requires no expensive tools to take flour, water, and yeast and make bread. It's an entirely different situation if you want to start with bread and make flour, water and yeast. The analogy is slightly strained since you are just feeding one digital video signal and looking to extract/process it into another format of digital video signal, but at present, only a very expensive video capture console is capable of doing what you ask.

The cheapest working solution I can come up with would be the following convoluted processing path:

iMac sends video out Mini DP out
to an adapter for mDP to HDMI
to Black Magic
plugged into to a Mac with a Thunderbolt monitor
feeding live video into Video Processing software on the Mac
that the graphics card would then show in the Thunderbolt display.

This makes no sense. You'd sooner sell your iMac and just buy a Thunderbolt iMac. If you were OK with a networked solution, you could also run AirDisplay software on the Thunderbolt Mac and send your iMac's video over the network to the second Mac, but that wouldn't be as low latency as the above convoluted solution and still involves two Macs.


How to import Notes.app notes into Simplenotes.app? I now use Simplenote to take notes. On iOS I write directly in Simplenote.app and on OS X I write in nvAlt which syncs with Simplenote.

How can I export my hundreds of notes from my iOS Notes.app, where I used to write all my notes, into Simplenote? I'm open to any solution that doesn't involve manually going note-by-note.

Thanks, guys!

Answer from SimpleNote Agent

Spoiler alert: Not unless you want to copy/paste. If you're a premium user of SimpleNote, you can email all of your Notes.app notes and import them that way.

The only other solution is if you can find a way to import a SQLite database into SimpleNote, in which case you would use the files located at:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/


What are the techniques for upgrading scripting languages on Lion OS X How can I painlessly upgrade ruby and python languages and their libraries? Can I nuke the system versions (which are present somewhere in /System/Libraries) and install newer ones using package manager (macports, fink, homebrew) or should I install them side by side to separate --prefix and override the $PATH variable to use installed versions first? Any other decent options?

Don't overwrite or remove the system versions. Future OS X updates will break things.

MacPorts, Fink and Homebrew will use prefixes to prevent such problems, and typically set up the path so that your own calls to scripting languages will use their custom versions, whereas OS X packages will continue to use its own versions.


Automator: "Ask for Text" pass to "Rename Finder Items" possible? Lets say there is monthly recurring documents that I scan, rename, relocate and tag. I would like to use automator to make this easier. The idea is the following:

Create a folder action that is attached to the location where I would like to store the document.
Move the scanned file to folder to trigger the workflow.
Get a prompt ("Ask for text") for the year and month the document is for. (e.g. 2018-10)
Combine the result with a fixed text (e.g. Document_Subject_).
Rename the Document accordingly. Here to "Document_Subject_2018-10.xxx"
Add Custom Tags

As of now I do feel kind of stupid as I am not getting anywhere. All the examples I could find regarding "Rename Finder Item" did not help.

What did work for me is to drop a file into a folder with attached workflow and have it automatically renamed and tagged. However the name is set in the automator and the tag is one of the available standard color tags. Both things are not what I need and I have not been able to adapt them to my need.

Thanks for any help!

I have found a partial solution to my problem. The workflow is not a simple as desired  but does everything but points 1, 2 and 6. above. Point 6 (Add custom tags) is the one I would really like to add.

Heres a script to rename the file to the correct format. But you must move files out of the folder after being processed or it will prompt to change the file name again, as you will see with this script.  Please edit your question to include where you would like to move it (or even a folder select).  I will also add the tag part after.

Use the "Run AppleScript" action for this:

on run {someFiles, parameters}
    set theMonth to (do shell script "date   +%m")
    set theYear to (do shell script "date  +%Y")
    tell application "Finder"
        repeat with theFile in someFiles
            display dialog "Enter Static Text for " & the name of theFile default answer ""
            set theStatic to the text returned of the result
            set theEXT to (name extension of theFile)
            tell application "System Events" to set the name of file (POSIX path of theFile) to theStatic & "_" & theYear & "-" & theMonth & "." & theEXT
        end repeat
    end tell
    return input
end run


This MAC address keeps showing up -- A8:BE:27:AC:10:37 -- it’s not mine This MAC address keep showing up on my Xfinity account and my Wi-Fi.

A8:BE:27:AC:10:37

If you use a MAC address lookup tool on the internet it does show up as an Apple device, so there is that.

Some routers allow you to ban devices, if yours does, ban that device and see if anyone in your household complains.

Some routers only allow you to set a whitelist (only allow the devices I specify on), in that case you have to add the MAC addresses of everything you want on your network and everything else is effectively banned.

Again if someone complains you know what that device is.


Recently bought new iPhone and notes were not transferred. Trying to find old files via Time Machine I recently bought the new iPhone 7 and backed it up via iCloud however, apparently all of the notes I had on my old phone were not saved to the cloud. (I already erased my phone so there's no going back that way). Is there a location on my MacBook (via Time Machine) where my Notes files were saved that I can locate via TimeMachine? I already checked the Notes app and it just has the 3 notes that were saved on the cloud. I'm running 10.10.5 Yosemite.

As you would know, Time Machine backs up what's on your Mac. Because of this, it's not possible for your Time Machine backups to have copies of your iPhone notes unless you:

also backed up your old iPhone via iTunes on your MacBook, and/or
did have all your iPhone notes backed up to iCloud at some point in time

Scenario 1

This is a more difficult scenario to work with since all you want to recover is your Notes data.  It's not impossible, but to make it practical you would still need access to your old iPhone or use specialised data recovery software. If Scenario 2 applies, try that first. Otherwise, if you do still have access to your old iPhone then you could restore your old iPhone from an older iTunes Backup (located within your TM backups) and then access your old notes that way to either resync back to iCloud or to just copy from and paste into another app (e.g. Pages, Word, Evernote, etc) and then copy from their into new notes in iCloud or your iPhone 7.

Scenario 2

Your Notes data is stored in a Core Data database located in your user Library.  More specifically, it is located in the following path:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes

Therefore, within your Time Machine backups you would be looking for the above location to recover your notes from.

Notes:

The ~ indicates your User directory, not the root level of your drive.
Depending on your situation you may not see this directory by browsing your TM backups. If you don't know how to make this visible there are questions here on Stack Exchange that deal with this.
Within the Notes folder there will be files named as follows:  NotesVx.storedata-yyy where the x could be a 1 or 2 or 3 etc (depending on your version of Notes) and yyy denotes additional file name characters (e.g. shm, etc).

IMPORTANT - This is a database so you can't restore a single note - it's all or nothing! You could restore the whole database, but if you're syncing with iCloud, there is the chance that even if you restore it, that it will sync and then get deleted again.

Another option

You could also just copy the NotesVx.storedata file and edit the file extension by changing it to .html and then open that in Safari. By doing this you should be able to see all your old notes (assuming they were there to begin with). Then it's just a process of copying and pasting into new notes.


Does pressing the Force touch trackpad hard damage it? So I just have this question because one time when I was cleaning my MacBook with a damp wet cloth, I started cleaning my trackpad but I didn't notice that I was clicking it very hard so I immediately took of the cloth and I stared testing whether my trackpad was working correcting by clicking random stuff it felt weird however after some 3 secs it worked perfectly fine like brand new. Should I worry about hardware damage to my force touch trackpad.

PS. I had also run a hardware test on my Mac and it reported
"No Issues found"

The force trackpad is a piece of glass that doesn't move, but provides feedback based on where your fingers are using motors. Cleaning it with the damp cloth probably confused it as to where your fingers were, providing strange feedback until it dried a little.

But yes, really pushing your trackpad really hard could hurt it just like pushing on a piece of glass really hard can break it, but that seems unlikely given the strength of the glass.

As a fun experiment, shutdown your mac while clicking on the trackpad. You can tell when it shuts down completely because the trackpad stops clicking.


What should you do if your OS X system fails to boot, being stuck at gray screen with the moving wheel? What to do if your OS X system fails to boot, being stuck at gray screen with the moving-wheel?

The system boots from recovery partition, it does check the partition but it will not boot.

The OS X boot process is chock full of little tasks in parallel and sequence, but it boils down to three major parts:

Gray Screen - Hardware governed / POST / EFI / locating a boot image.
Apple Logo on Gray Screen - System level OS X processes start.
Blue Screen - User level processes starting.

Since you haven't gotten to the blue screen - it's not anything in your user account as the system itself hasn't booted. Rather than guess what exactly has caused it, I'll link to the two articles that Apple has on getting to the nub of startup issues.

If you see a gray screen at startup
If you see a blue screen at startup

I am including both since you may have to solve user issues if the cause of your boot is hard drive corruption or major hardware issues. Hopefully it's just one thing in the system startup.

If you don't have time - start with a Safe Boot (hold shift key down) to see if you need to get your recovery disk or another bootable system. If you have a backup - you can jump to re-installing the system since that should re-write everything needed to get to a blue screen. Do run a safe boot before or after to rule out incompatible non-essential system level startup tasks - it could be as simple as one launchd problem during the system start process. The system logs will likely point you to what is going on when it pauses.

Good Luck and let us know what you find out!


Import selected items from one iTunes library to another, with metadata Is it possible to import a few selected items from one iTunes library to another, including their iTunes-specific metadata — ratings, play counts, etc?

My specific circumstances: yesterday, I was tidying up a bunch of my music’s info (correcting some dates, artist listings, etc, since especially for classical music, the ones provided by CDDB are rather inconsistent).  Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted a few collections that I didn’t mean to, and didn’t notice until I’d already emptied the trash.  Fortunately, I have a backup of my whole library from a couple of weeks ago.  So I’d like to restore the deleted albums from the backup, but not the whole library, since I don’t want to lose the work I did yesterday.

What you're asking, technically, can be done however not automatically.  In other words you'd have to add back the songs to the Library and then manually edit the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file to restore the non-encapsulated meta data.

I'd first manually restore the hierarchal folder structure as needed, that's missing, into the existing "~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music" folder for each artist/album from the backup and then from iTunes > File > Add to Library... select the restored folders to bring them back into the iTunes Library.

Okay, that's the easy part, the songs are back in the Library however the ancillary meta-data will now have to be updated manually by editing the working "iTunes Music Library.xml" file using the information in the backed up copy of that file while iTunes is closed and the working file is first backed up before editing. This is not an operation for the faint of heart and it's geek factor is hi.

Otherwise, after adding back the songs your other option is if you also have your music on a iDevice you can selectively import into iTunes some ancillary meta-data from the iDevice using iMazing.


HDTV only detected when turned off (connected via DisplayPort to HDMI) I tried to connect my LG HDTV (42" LD650) to my MacBook Pro 13" (mid-2010) using a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter. When I plug the cable in, my MacBook's screen flickers every time but the TV is only detected when it is in standby mode. Its status will switch to "No Display Connected" the moment I turn it on.

Here is what System Profiler shows when the TV is in standby mode:

NVIDIA GeForce 320M:

  Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 320M
  Type: GPU
  Bus: PCI
  VRAM (Total): 256 MB
  Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
  Device ID: 0x08a0
  Revision ID: 0x00a2
  ROM Revision: 3533
  Displays:
Color LCD:
  Resolution: 1280 x 800
  Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Main Display: Yes
  Mirror: Off
  Online: Yes
  Built-In: Yes
LG TV:
  Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 50 Hz
  Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Mirror: Off
  Online: Yes
  Rotation: Supported
  Television: Yes

I tried the TV and HDMI cable using a Windows PC and it worked instantly.

Is my TV somehow incompatible with the MacBook Pro, or is my adapter faulty, or am I doing something wrong?

While the TV is on standby, try going into System Preferences > Displays Preferences and set your displays to mirror.


Get iOS push notifications from GitHub Is there a way receive push notifications from GitHub on my iPhone?

I'd like to receive updates about pull requests and comments for my hosted projects, but the site only offers notifications via email or through the website, and there isn't an official GitHub app either.

Depending on your mobile provider you could probably email-to-text. It's not very popular nowadays so most people have forgotten it exists but most providers have some kind of email address format that lets you send an email and it'll come up as a text on your phone.

For instance, AT&T's is your10digitmobilenumber@mms.att.net and T-Mobile's is your10digitmobilenumber@tmomail.net.

So if you had something like GMail you could setup a filter to auto-forward all GitHub notifications to one of these email-to-text gateways your provider has setup. It's not a push notification but it would serve the same purpose of notifying you each time you got a notification from GitHub.


Macbook Pro 2018 (Mojave) - No WiFi hardware installed My wifi stop working and it display "No hardware installed" message on my Macbook Pro 2018. I've tried reset NVRAM and SMC but no luck. In system rapport it looks installed, on en0 BSD. Also i've tried to remove NetworkInterfaces.plist.

Ps: i have an MINIX NEO C adapter and since i've used that i had this problem. First time it started to work bi itself, but second time don't want to start anymore.

Looks like wasn't a software problem, was a hardware one. Apple replaced my motherboard and touch-id. Now the WiFi is working. A little bit disappointed for my first Apple product.


Can a single Apple ID/ iTunes account switch between multiple country AppStores to buy free Apps unique to each country? Can a single Apple ID/ iTunes account switch between multiple country AppStores to buy free Apps unique to each country?

If I use my single Apple ID/ iTunes account but move & have moved across countries where certain Apps are only on those country AppStores, can I switch between them and buy Free Apps, yet maintain them on my iTunes and iOS devices?

Additional Information:
I am wondering if this workaround worked for someone / still works?

It was done on Mac OSX, but I am wondering if it can be done in Windows.

Changing a country of your single Apple ID is a pain. You can do it ones without consequences but the second time you do it you'll be asked to provide credit card details of a "new" country of your residence. The easiest way to use App Store of different countries is to have 2 different Apple ID registered for certain country.


What will registering an apple device a developer device do to it? I have an iPad 2 and I need a device to test my ios app on. I was wondering if their are any consequences to registering a device to be a developer device. For example, can I still use it as a regular device when I am not developing on it? Will I be able to use it regularly if I put iOS 7 on it?

Still works fine. This will allow you to install you own Apps on the device for testing. Otherwise the only way's to get apps on you iOS device is Jailbreak or App Store.


How to install OS X 10.10 from USB? I bought a second hand MacBook, that had not had a fresh install of OS X.  The original owner's username and password are in the system. I do not know the administrator password.  I can use the Mac normally by signing in/out without asking for authentication. However when I tried to install some programs, the system asked for authentication, so I decided to reinstall the system.

I downloaded a Mavreicks OS 10.10 from the Internet, then I made a bootable OS X on a USB thumb drive using Transmac software. I logged to my Mac in the Recovery mode booted from the USB. I then erased the main HDD partition and tried to reinstall the OS, but an error msg poped-up saying:

  Can't download the additional components needed to install OS X.

How can I now do a fresh install of OS X?

Some OS software from another internet source other than Apple is not entirely reliable unless they are a certified Apple seller. In order to get back to the OS you want you can do a few things. Delete the HDD from disk utility and recover it from Internet Recovery. This should bring you to download El Capitan, after that you want to go to the app store and see if you have a version of Mavericks already downloaded, if you go great. If not, you are going to need to buy a copy and then download that onto your USB to reboot from there. Chances are, the copy of Mavericks you have is corrupt in some way or missing essential components.


How do I identify the latest iPad Pro model? How can I tell if an Apple 12.9 inch iPad Pro with Wi-Fi is the latest model? Is the model # enough? Thank you.

Apple has only released one 12.9 inch iPad Pro model so far (Wikipedia, EveryMac:iPad Pro 12.9 Wifi, EveryMac:iPad Pro 12.9 Wifi/Cellular), so the current model in fact is the latest.


What is "legal authority" which is required for iOS developer program? I am trying to enroll into iOS Developer Program as government organization.

One of the requirements is:

  The legal authority to bind your company/organization to Apple Developer Program legal agreements.

I am having some confusions with understanding that.

Is it just requiring an ID for a responsible person on the organization, let say the IT manager?

Apple's phrasing is deliberately wide because the terms need to cover a wide range of countries and legal systems.

Depending on the jurisdiction you are in, the meaning of legal authority will differ. Typically, it means the individual agreeing has the power to make a binding agreement between the individual or organisation and Apple Inc.

As an example, a Limited Liability company registered in England and Wales would typically require a Director to make the agreement. The Director in this case being able to represent the company unlike an employee or sub-contractor.

As always, if you are unsure of your legal role or position, please get professional advice.


Importing citation style to Zotero from Citavi I am a Mac user so I can't use Citavi.
My institute has its own citation style but they only provide a Citavi citation file. I don't know a way to import a Citavi citation file into Endnote, Zotero or Mendeley so I don't have to use Windows....
Do you have a tip for me?

I'm sorry to say that there is no way to do that. Citavi citation styles are in their own format and there is no conversion tool.
There is a tool for Zotero/Mendeley styles that let's you find close matches that you may found useful.


Does the CDMA iPhone 4S support simultaneous voice and data on Verizon I read that the iPhone 4 couldn't do this. Is that still true of the 4S when used in CDMA?

As @Jannemans points out this wasn't possible in any CDMA phone until one point. But the question is valid now that the CDMA standard allows it.

The limitation of simultaneous voice and data is not one of the iPhone but one related to the CDMA2000 standard.

However, the official CDMA Development group announced the CMDA X standard on Aug 17 2009. This standard allows for simultaneous voice and data:

Quoting the press release

A complementary device enhancement known as simultaneous 1X Voice and EV-DO Data (SVDO) will also become available during the same timeframe and will enable CDMA2000 devices to access EV-DO packet data services while in an active 1X circuit-switch voice call. For example, users will be able to send emails or access the Web while on voice calls; phones with GPS can update maps or download real-time traffic information while on voice calls, etc. This device enhancement, which enables these concurrent voice and data services, is independent of the air link standard and infrastructure.

When Verizon or any other CDMA carrier will implement this, is an entirely different question...


How to get Garageband 6 ('11) I recently got a used 17'' MacBook and installed the latest Garageband, 10.1.0, onto it.

But when I tried to load some of my old files, it said it could not find many of the instruments that are needed to play them.

After some research I found that many people had been able to re-install by using a file from the old Garageband (6.x) that was still left on their computer, or by finding it again from the "Purchased" tab on the App Store. I am unable to do either of these options.

Is there any way for me to play my old files without spending about $50 to get iLife '11?

This assumes you already have the initial pack loaded & need what used to be the 3 additional "Jam Packs"…

Would you consider 5 bucks worth it, to stay on Garageband 10?

GarageBand menu > Download More Sounds
If you previously purchased this content, select Restore Purchase to install the content
[I'm not certain if 'previously purchased' includes the iLife purchase, but it would be worth testing]

Source : Apple KB - Expanding GarageBand for Mac (v10.0) content with an in-app purchase

Alternatively, if you don't already have the first Jam pack fully loaded, this might be a solution…

  Open GarageBand and either create a new project or open an existing one (don’t worry, we won’t be making any edits to the project).
  Navigate to the Loops section by clicking on the Loops button in the lower right corner of the application.
  Next, you have to find a Loop that GarageBand knows exists, but has yet to be downloaded. It appears Apple let GarageBand know that there are other Loops in existence that were not opted to be included in the base install of the application.

  The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to first Click on the “Rock/Blues” category to narrow the number of Loops displayed, and then find the “70s Ballad Drums 01”; which will appear slightly greyed out and its icon will be an empty box with a dashed border.
  Double-click on the missing Loop, and a rather large (and semi-confusing) dialogue box appears. In short, you want to select the “Download Now” option and click OK.
  Next, you need to open the App Store application and navigate to the Updates tab. Once there, you will find the ‘Update’ to GarageBand nestled under Software Updates for OS X. It is entitled “GarageBand Instruments and Apple Loops 1.0”.

  Even though the large dialogue box in GarageBand said the update would be downloaded “now”; when I went through this process it did not automatically start the download. This may be due to how I have automatic updates turned off on my machine (for development reasons); so it may have already started downloading for you at this point, but just make sure the 'Update’ is downloading and you’ll be good to go!

  One quick thing to note: you will have to quit and reopen GarageBand before you can start using the new software instruments and Loops that were downloaded.

Source : How To Update GarageBand with Nearly 1,000 Instruments and Loops for Free!


Sort and remove duplicate photos I have been trying to collate all my photos & remove the duplicated ones. I have purchased a few apps but none do the job properly, they are still there the next day, I have 3 hard drives so plenty of space. The pictures seem to get duplicated every time I try something. I have tried iPhoto but still get the same problem.

There are many options – and at least three different approaches to this:

Use a third party application to find (and remove) duplicate files. Probably the most convenient option – there is a variety of different apps like Duplicate Detective available – but you'll have to buy a license. There used to be a free demo version of Gemini, if you just want to find duplicates and delete them yourself. Haven't tried it for years though.
Use the search function of your finder. This is a bit clumsy, but good method to find duplicates occasionally. You can search for "*" (asterix/wildcard) and then narrow your results down by using the filters and the sort options – e.g. "only images, modified after 1st of January 2014" or the like.
Use Terminal Commands or Apple Script. You should probably only go this direction if you know what you're doing.

There is a blog post "How to Find and Delete Duplicate Files in Mac OS X" that goes deeper into these three approaches.


Option + Command + Spacebar opens Searching this mac window instead of Finder A normal Finder window used to open when I pressed Option + Command + Spacebar but not its a Search window. I know this happened once and I found how to fix it but I can't find it anymore.

I found a solution to the issue. OptCmdSpace has always been a command for showing a "finder search window". If you now just see a window without the sidebar just do this:

press OptCmdSpace To open this window
Press OptCmdT or go to "view>hide
toolbar".

Sometimes we just press it accidentally and this hides the toolbar, which makes this searching window into a "normal finder window".


How to view Software Update menu in top toolbar According to this:

http://www.apple.com/uk/softwareupdate/

I should be able to update Mac software from the View menu of System Preferences. However, I don't see a Software Update option.

Here's what I do see:

etc... then ...

Has something changed?

I assume you're using an operating system greater than 10.7 (10.8 - 10.10)?  With Mountain Lion (10.8), Apple moved the software update process to the Mac App Store application.

Prior to 10.8 Software Updates were handled in the manner the link describes.  As such System Preferences had a Software Update section for managing timing of update checks.

Following 10.8 this is no longer found in System Preferences.  Instead you should open the App Store and click on the Updates tab. Alternately the Apple menu has an option for App Store which, if updates are available, shows the number of updates waiting.  (see picture)


Is it impossible to install windows 7 via boot camp in a lion based macbook air? I have installed windows xp/vista through bootcamp with snow leopard (boot camp 3.x) several times. After a fresh installation of lion on my macbook air, something has changed.

With boot camp 4.0, I cannot create a bootcamp partition for windows 7 without external cd-rom, which would not occur with snow leopard. I tried to use usb stick and virtual windows 7 cd on the usb stick however, both not work.

It's possible.

Create a partition for Windows.
Get the Windows 7 USB DVD download tool.  Create a bootable USB installer.
Boot from the USB stick and install Windows to the partition you made.

If you already tried the above, what error do you get?


mark mail as read without opening When I get a mail notification I can hover it and I see options to "delete" and "reply" but I almost never want to do either of those.

Normally I want to ignore it, and mark it as read, or I want to open it and read it.

Opening it is currently possible.

But how can I mark it as read in Notification?

Modifying Notification center pop up would be near impossible task, to add the "Mark as Read" option to the mail pop up.

It would require some heavy duty programing, but someone might prove me wrong and just do it.

But it is a good suggestion so send it to Apple, so they might do it in next release.


Is there a way to set multiple passwords for a single account on macOS? I wonder if there is a way to set multiple passwords for a single user under macOS?

No, one password per account. You can authenticate as another user anytime the GUI asks for authorization, overriding the current user as the default choice, but there’s one correct password per account.


Why setting image as its own icon with sips result a blurred icon? Are there any alternatives? I've successfully changed icons using the procedure described in an another question: Changing or setting a file or folder icon programmatically. Either my sips (or Finder) got broken afterwards or I just zoomed in for the first time (it seems the icon is sharp from ≈100x100 downwards), but, anyway, the icon that sips -i image.png creates is blurry/pixelated:

What I did before the blurrification:

$ cp FIN-2.png FIN-3.png
$ sips -i FIN-3.png

So FIN-2 and FIN-3 are the same. FIN-2 is a 512x512 PNG-file

Furthermore: using sips breaks all further attempts when trying to set a custom icon even with any GUI method and with any file in any folder.

Only cure is to delete ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder/ and restart Finder. Then changing icon via GUI (drag&drop, copy&paste) works normally with any file.

Two main questions—and answering to either one probably solves the problem close enough for me:

How can I set an image as an icon programmatically without using sips -i (= sips --addIcon) in the process? (again, refer to the other question for more comprehensive info)

Shell (bash) or AppleScript is preferred
I could convert the PNG to e.g. ICNS if needed.

Is sips broken? Why/How? Can it be fixed; how? (Or is it the Finder? Or something else?)

I think I've found a workaround!

First off, install osxutils bundle which is a bit dated (2005) but nevertheless it works. (see the osxutils contents and man pages)

Prepare the PNG to ICNS†—ironically you can use sips‡. Then use seticon from the osxutils bundle to change the icon:

$ sips -s format icns FIN.png --out FIN.icns
$ seticon -d FIN.icns FIN.png

The seticon also changes the file's attributes, ie. using SetFile -a C isn't necessary.

†: Using a PNG as a source file for seticon changes the icon to a generic PNG icon, even with -d option. Furthermore, using seticon FIN.icns FIN.png changes the icon to a generic ICNS icon. (Consult the seticon's man pages)

‡: NB: the source file must be a square and possible side-lengths are: 16, 32, 48, 128, 256 and 512.


New Corsair ram beeping on late 2008 MacBook I purchased Corsair RAM memory (2x4GB) CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7 from Amazon.com. According to the description it "Works with any Mac computer that supports 4GB DDR3 SODIMMs". My MacBook supports 6GB officially and 8GB with the firmware that I am running.
However when I inserted my MacBook sounded three beeps at start-up. I tried inserting only one stick in both of the slots but that didn't help. I also tried it with both sticks but that does not work either.

When I plugged in my old RAM it worked perfectly. I also tried another 8GB RAM stick from Crucial with the same specs (CT2CP51264BC1067) and it also worked as expected.

I tried the 2x4GB sticks with my HP laptop (dv6) but I got a blue-screen when booting  with the messag IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL. The 8GB Crucial RAM works fine in the HP so there must be something wrong with the 2x4GB sticks

Has any of you experienced a similar issue? Is there anything I can do? I already tried PRAM reset.

Unfortunately I cannot return it as I am not in the US anymore.

3 beeps indicate that the RAM didn't pass the system test. As the 2x4GB Corsair RAM also gives you a Blue Screen Of Death on your HP I would say that the RAM is faulty and your only option is to return it.

Try shipping it to a friend in the US or to Amazon.com directly as you're not in the US anymore.


How tell Safari to open new tab instead of a window How do I tell Safari to always open links that want a new window in a new tab?

I know I can use cmd-click to do this but that's not what I want.

There has to be a setting somewhere?

You can use Safari preferences (⌘ ,) to change this setting, you can use automatically or always for opening pages in new tabs instead of new windows.


iMessage / iCloud via SSH Port forward to get through firewall What ports does iCloud and iMessage use and is it possible to use SSH port forwarding via  a proxy to use them on a network that blocks the services?

According to: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202078

| Ports                     |FaceTime | iMessage|
| 80 (TCP)                  |    ✓    |    ✓    |
| 443 (TCP)                 |    ✓    |    ✓    |
| 3478 through 3497 (UDP)   |    ✓    |    -    |
| 5223 (TCP)                |    ✓    |    ✓    |
| 16384 through 16387 (UDP) |    ✓    |    -    |
| 16393 through 16402 (UDP) |    ✓    |    -    |

Which means 80, 443, and 5223

That being said I have YET to actually tunnel iMessage correctly


Unable to create a partition to install Mac OS X When I try to install Mac OS X there is no partition for me to choose.  I tried to create a partition and got the error, "Partition failed with the error: Couldn't unmount disc."

Anyone have a clue?  I can't install any OS unless I am able to create a partition.

How are you doing this? What are you booted to? You can not partition a drive which you are running.

Try inserting the install DVD which came with your computer and see if you can repartition or erase that way. If you still get the error message, select the drive you want to erase on the right side and then in the top toolbox select 'Eject'. If it ejects, rock on. Otherwise you might have an issue where the drive is damaged and can not be unmounted as the active OS is attempting to read the Volume Header and getting an error kicked backed.


Automatically apply tag to folder based on content Is anyone aware of a way to automatically apply a given Finder tag to a folder based on its contents?
For example, I can easily run a Finder search for files based on their "Document Container".
But it seems there is no way to get containers based on files they contain.  What I'm trying to do is to apply tag "X" to all folders that contain one or more files with file extension "Y".
It seems there's no way to do it directly from Finder but I haven't been lucky with Automator either as I can't seem to find a way to select a range of folders based on what they contain.

The proper tool for this job is Hazel.
It can apply tags based on file names, file extensions, even file contents and a lot more. It can also do that on sub-folders as well.
The app has been around for a long time, its developer is very well respected, and the app is well worth its asking price.
There’s a free trial available which you should download and try before buying, but it’s an essential tool for me, and much easier to deal with than Automator and Folder Actions.
Updated To Add
I’m 99% sure that Hazel can do this (if I am understanding the idea properly), and would recommend checking out this page as a starting point:
https://www.noodlesoft.com/manual/hazel/advanced-topics/processing-subfolders/
The developer is also very responsive. The best place to ask questions is here:
https://www.noodlesoft.com/forums/


How to make my app only on iPhone 4S and higher? My app is for a smart device and uses Bluetooth Low Energy. I would like to enable my app only for iPhone 4S and higher. Is that possible ?

You can restrict your app to devices having certain capabilities.

In the Info.plist file add a new key UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities with an array as value. You can put all your required capabilities in the array. In this case bluetooth-le.


How do I open .icloud files? I'm saving data to iCloud in my app using iCloud Documents capability, however I'm not using the Documents folder, instead I'm hiding my files in another folder i.e. User'siCloudContainer/MyFolder.

I've uploaded some .plist files to this folder but when I receive them using another device they've been given a .icloud extension. What does this mean and how can I get my original .plist files?

EDIT: It seems that these files have been wrapped by NSFileWrapper during cloud synchronisation.

The answer as I have now discovered is that .icloud files are the metadata that precedes the full file being downloaded to a device.


What drivers should I install to use the trackpad "two finger swipe" on Windows 7 running under VirtualBox? I'm using Oracle VirtualBox to run several VMs on my MacBook and am unable to use the trackpad to "two finger swipe" to the previous webpage under Win 7.

I'm guessing this is a driver issue.

Since my mac never came with a CD, or anything else, where can I download the Win7 drivers that will allow me to properly "swipe" under Win7?

(The OracleBox drivers do currently support two finger scroll, but not the "go back" macro in IE)

Multi-touch gestures aren't built in to Windows. you'll need to use third party utilities to get these sort of functions. Check out this page for instructions on how to get the various mac functions working in Win7.


Switching from month to week calendar On iPhone one can switch to the week calendar view by turning the device into the landscape orientation mode. If you are on a day the week shown is the week, where the current day was. There are always three days shown in the week view. The first day of the week is either the current day or the selected day is in the middle of the three shown days.

If you are on month view things get complicated. I can't really predict which day will be shown. It works for most times if you go two rows up from last row (week) shown. But this doesn't work for all cases.

What is the system behind showing the first week calendar day when switching from month view?

If the current week is visible in month view, this week will be shown. Otherwise the week, which is in the view centre will be shown.


How to change the charging chime on MBP (PowerChime.app) Many people want to disable the charging chime introduced with the USB-c MBP's (and some enable on non-USB-c). I, however, want to change the chime.

Sadly however I can't change anything in "PowerChime.app" even after disabling the SIP (startup CMD+R, terminal > csrutil disable). I also can't "swap" the PowerChime.app app.

Does anyone know a solution for this?

I had the same exact question, Googled it, landed on here and found the answer hours later, lol.
If you're still looking for the answer, or for anyone's future reference -- after disabling SIP and restarting, open terminal and run:
sudo mount -uw /
killall Finder

... and you're good to go. Just proceed to replace the .aif file in "Powerchime.app". For me, I changed mine to the old iOS charging chime!
Haha


Quick look doesn't work in spotlight When I use spotlight (on Yosemite 10.10.2), Quick Look doesn't display a preview in the right panel anymore. Only when I click on a folder in the left panel it displays the contents of the map in the right panel. But when I click on either a .pdf or a .pages file in the left panel, the right panel is empty, whereas a few weeks ago it still did display a preview in the right panel in those cases.

Do you have "Show Preview" or "Hide Preview" in the View menu when Finder is in the foreground? You can turn the Preview off and on with SHIFT + CMD + P.

However, the preview pane only works in column mode.


Current power consumption Is there a way to know the current (or average power consumption) on OS X (a Mac Mini without battery). Preferred would be a command line tool but anything is OK.

You can monitoring your energy consumption with :

iStat Menus :

http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

You also have some free alternative on the web

The Activity Monitor

http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/use-activity-monitor-energy-tab-os-x-mavericks/

And if you want to know the kW energy consumption, ArchonOSX is right.


How to Change default fallback font (for non-latin languages) My question is: How do I change the default fallback font for Thai (or any non-latin language for that matter) so that the terminal app shows the Thai font of my choice while keeping the English font.

Forgive the long extra details, but I’m really stuck here on Mac OS 10.11.1 and my terminal font is set to Menlo at a font size that is comfortable to me. Menlo does not have any Thai characters, which I double-checked in Fontbook > View > Repertoire and also via the Menu bar > Show Emoji and Symbols. (But interestingly has Lao.) However, when I type Thai characters in the terminal, miraculously Thai appears. Apparently, there is a system wide default fallback font. However, one Thai character does not display properly. (Sara Am, สระ อำ) I can change the terminal font to CS Prajad and the Thai looks very good including the problem character. However the English font is hideously ugly and is useless as a programming font.

I disabled SIP (System Integrity Protection) in order to modify the xml file DefaultFontFallbacks.plist located in

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreText.framework/Versions/A/Resources then rebooted thinking that this would solve my problem. However, the original default Thai font is still showing in the terminal.

(Changes I made to DefaultFontFallbacks.plist.)

Substitute default string.

<default>...
    ...
    <string>Thonburi</string> to <string>CSPrajad</string> (no space)
    ...
</default>

add CS Prajad as monospace font as per Han Chinese and Korean xml strings.

<monospace>
    ...
    <array>
        ...
        <array>
            <string>th</string>
            <string>CSPrajad-Regular</string>
        </array>
        ...
    </array>
    ...
</monospace>

How do I change the default fallback font for Thai (or any non-latin language for that matter) so that the terminal app shows the Thai font of my choice while keeping the English font.

You were almost there!
Add it in the Language Preferred Fallback List as you did, but make sure you are using the PostScript name for the font. It has to be exact!
<array>
    <!-- for Thai  -->
    <string>th</string>
    <!-- below is the case sensitive PostScript name  -->
    <string>CSPraJad</string>
</array>

References:
https://gist.github.com/Moligaloo/3180490
https://github.com/zerustech/font-fallbacks-tutorial
https://github.com/zonble/tcfail/


Graphic card switching delay I got this MacBook Pro 15" 2016 with Radeon. And every time it switches graphic cards there is a delay for like 10 seconds.

How do I know this? I have installed gfxCardStatus that displays a notification every time the card is switched.

For instance logging in to Gmail is like this, open a login page, the card is switched to Radeon 455, wait 10 sec, back to Intel HD, wait a little bit more, finally you can proceed. It becomes a real nuisance when you need quickly log in and out of different Gmail accounts as you get blocked every time you reach the login page.

Open a gfx editor... wait again. You get the idea. It only works okay when connected to an external monitor and Radeon is always in use.

Apparently, this is not something everybody is dealing with because I don't see people complaining left and right. Should the switching be pretty seamless?

There seem to be less delay when it falls back to Intel HD, but switching to Radeon is unbearable. If I open, say, a graphics editor, the cursor disappears for 6-10 seconds and it looks sort of depressing as notebook hangs as well.

Is there anything I can do to fix it?

It was driving me crazy but in the end, after a few updates, everything went back to normal.

It might not switch back to the integrated card on battery even if nothing is using a dedicated one, but that is another issue.