Trying to find how to have FaceTime Last July I went on a holiday to Dubai and have bought my very first iPhone from there, the Gold iPhone 6 plus. Recently I decided to start using Facetime but for some reason I cannot find the app. I am using my iPhone in Malta, in the middle of the Mediterranean with a Vodafone carrier.

Can anyone please show or explain how can I have FaceTime on my phone?

I tried finding various videos on YouTube but could not find the right one.

FaceTime is not available for iPhones purchased in the United Arab Emirates.

@jaume answered this question here: FaceTime not working on iPhone 6 Plus purchased from Dubai


Does Mac Pro 5,1 support USB 3? I have a Mac Pro 5,1 running 10.7.5.

Do any of the USB ports support USB 3? Or do I need to buy a card?

No the first Mac Pro with a USB 3 port is the latest (6.1, late 2013)

From the specifications for your particular Mac Pro:

  Connections and audio

  Four FireWire 800 ports (two on front panel, two on back panel)
  Five USB 2.0 ports (two on front panel, three on back panel)
  Two USB 2.0 ports on included keyboard
  Front-panel headphone minijack and internal speaker
  Optical digital audio input and output TOSLINK ports
  Analog stereo line-level input and output minijacks
  Multichannel audio through Mini DisplayPort

A quick Google search shows several PCI Express USB 3.0 cards, e.g.,

Sonnet Allegro USB 3.0 PCIe
CalDigit SuperSpeed PCI Express Card
HighPoint RocketU card


Terminal command to delete all images in folder and subfolders? I need a terminal command to delete all images (*.jpg, *.png, *.gif, *.JPG, *.PNG, *.GIF) stored in myfolder and its subfolders, preserving the folders structure. I do not need to move them to trash folder.

I guess that some regular expressions are needed, but this overcomes my skills.

To just list them (for review/verification):

find MYFOLDER -type f \( -iname '*.jpg' -o -iname '*.png' -o -iname '*.gif' \) -ls

To move them to the Trash:

find MYFOLDER -type f \( -iname '*.jpg' -o -iname '*.png' -o -iname '*.gif' \) -exec mv '{}' ~/.Trash/ \;

To delete them directly (no way to get them back unless you have a backup):

find MYFOLDER -type f \( -iname '*.jpg' -o -iname '*.png' -o -iname '*.gif' \) -delete


Can iPhone autofill emails in contacts based on pattern? I have just filled my work phone with name and phone number to all at work.
Can I somehow make it autofill the email with a pattern?

<First name>.<last name>@<company>.se

Is that possible with some app or setting or something?
It's quite daunting to type all emails when they are all following a pattern that is already in the contacts list.

I found a way to make it happen.
There may be easier ways to do it but this is what I found.
I think this solution will work well with iPhone, Android and Windows phones as it's not an app.

Our contacts sync with our mail office365 OWA.
And in Office 365 you can export contacts as a CSV file.

Once you have the CSV you can open it with Excel and create a formula to build the email.
Since I'm swedish I need to remove ÅÄÖ and make them AO I did that with substitute().
Example:

=Substitute(Substitute(Substitute(A2;"Å";"A");"Å";"A");"Ö";"O")

The above formula can change names with ÅÄÖ, for example Åsa becomes Asa.
If you are Spanish you may need to replace for example ñ to n.

Because the layout of a CSV can be different depending on mail client and you may have a different language Excel installed there is no point in typing out the full formula.

But if the above formula is for first name you can add on last name like this:

=Substitute(Substitute(Substitute(A2;"Å";"A");"Å";"A");"Ö";"O")&"."&Substitute(Substitute(Substitute(B2;"Å";"A");"Å";"A");"Ö";"O")

If column A is first name and B is last name.
Also usually capital letters are "unwanted" in emails, you can use function Lower() to make capital => lowercase letters.

It worked very well at last and I could easily upload the edited contacts CSV and it was synced to my phone.


Automator: pass-through input I have an "ask for finder items" step in my Automator workflow, which produces a list of files selected by the user.

I then use these files as an input for a second step.

At that point I need to execute a bash command (third step).

In the fourth step, I need to use the original list of files as an input. How do I refer to it in Automator? Is there any pass-through for inputs?

Please note that re-ordering the steps is not an option.

UPDATE: It seems the proposed solution does not work for me:

It's very easy to do this; all you need to do is use the 'Set Value of Variable', execute your bash script, then use 'Get Value of Variable'. You can also set multiple variables, name them, etc. as you need. Take a look at the quick example I created, which should resemble what you are intending to do. You'll notice that after I set the variable my bash script searched for files elsewhere, then after that was completed I easily recalled the variable (files a, b, c).


Timers not working anymore on HomePod As of yesterday, the Homepod fails to accept any timer related request, even the most simple "Hey Siri, timer". In fact, any request that has the word "timer" fails even if it is not to start, query or stop a timer.

Any other request I can think of gets processed as usual.

I've tried to unplug and plug it back after a while, but it made no difference.

Am I missing something obvious?

Version is 12.2

Apple support got back to me and although very kind has not been very helpful...
Apparently, they have no idea of what is causing the problem or how to solve it, their suggestion is to do a full reset of the device:

Based on the information you have provided to us, we believe that the following information may be useful to you:
Reset HomePod

Not wanting to lose all my configurations, before going for the hard reset, I tried once again to unplug the device. This time I left it unplugged for a longer time, about an hour, and it did the trick!
Timers requests are now processed just as fine as the other requests and I did not lose my configured automations!


How can I get "related emails" on iPad, like in Mac Mail.app? Lion's new mail.app update has a great feature for displaying emails where it shows "related" messages, ie both messages received and Sent are shown in the same conversation. Is there a way to get this on the iPad?

Unfortunately, it can't be done in Mail under iOS 4.x. And it does not appear to be part of the initial improvements to Mail in iOS 5, according to news reports.


Mac OSX equal to linux time command What's binary that will give exact result for Linux's time command flags?

alias tcmd='/usr/bin/time \-f\ "CPU: %Us\tReal: %es\tRAM: %MKB"'

Current time in Mac OSX for command above is:

/usr/bin/time: illegal option -- f
usage: time [-lp] command.

Nevermind, found it:

brew install gnu-time

the command is gtime


What Causes rMBP Fan Noise When Connected to Two External Monitors Connecting two external monitors to my Retina Macbook Pro 2012 has no problem except for more fan noise, which is a little bit annoying since with one external monitor one doesn't hear the noise at all.

I'm wondering what's the cause of this? What is the bottleneck here? Is it because GPU Clock Speed or Memory of Graphics Card?

rMBP 2012 has Nvidia GeForce GT 650M with 1 GB GDDR5. If I switch to rMBP 2013/2014 which has Nvidia GeForce GT 750M with 2 GB GDDR5 and say if the problem disappears (I'm just guessing), is it mainly because of higher GPU speed or more memory?

Btw, 650M scores 1278 while 750M scores 1461.

Update 01/25/15: iStat Menu:
iStat Menu monitors both CPU/GPU usage and temperature. Compared to only one external monitor, two external monitors causes CPU & GPU temperature up by 20F higher. However, CPU & GPU usage & GPU memory usage all remain the same.

The bottom line is that iStat Menu can't explain the increase in CPU/GPU temperature.

I would recommend the iStat Monitor to find out what is going on.

In comparison the 750 vs 650:

50/45 watt power consumption

and 967 vs 900 MHz clock

would not explain the higher heat generation.

However due to the RAM size difference it could explain that the 650 has to work harder (at max power) resulting in higher heat generation, while the 750 does not break the sweat with 2 monitors.


Is it a bad idea for a file name to contain space and capital letters? When naming a file, (for example in OneDrive) is it a bad idea for the name to contain space and capital letters? Is there any potential conflicts it might cause? Should I use hyphen or underscore instead?

Certain characters and special words aren't allowed and can make a file name or folder name invalid and unacceptable to OneDrive:

Certain characters have special meaning and thus aren't allowed - " * : < > ? / \

On OneDrive with Sharepoint, these aren't allowed - ~ " # % & * : < > ? / \ { | }.

Leading (before the filename) and trailing (after the filename) spaces in file or folder names also aren't allowed. If you're using Office 2010, you can't use "&" in file and folder names.

These names aren't allowed for files or folders: .lock, CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM0 - COM9, LPT0 - LPT9, _vti_, desktop.ini; filenames also cannot start with ~$.

"_vti_" cannot appear anywhere in a file name.

Source: Invalid file names and file types in OneDrive and SharePoint.
So, while spaces are certainly allowed in the name, you have to be careful there is no space before or after the name. Both hyphen and underscore are also allowed.
While spaces aren't likely to cause any issues, as others have pointed out, it is easier to type hypens or underscore in a Terminal command. Many advanced users thus tend to avoid spaces and use hyphens or underscores in general. In general though, spaces in names should not cause any issue with MS Office or OneNote.


Apple ID won't show correctly in Keychain Access I was going through keychain access sorting through passwords and such and I came across a strange problem. I clicked my email (for Apple ID) and I hit "Show Password", I then entered my admin, and when the password came out it was a list of numbers not my password. I know my Apple ID password, but for some reason I am very bugged by this and wanted answers :)! Haha Thanks to all who respond for my OCD's sake...

Apple stores a hash or key so that people’s accounts won’t be compromised.

You’ll need to find another place it’s stored to look up that password.


Compile for iOS 5.1 in macOS Mojave I have a macOS Mojave based Mac, and, for a project, I need to be able to target iOS 5.1 (iPad 1).

Xcode 10 doesn't ship build support for iOS 5.1, so I downloaded Xcode 4.3 from Apple's archives.

Xcode 4.3 isn't compatible with macOS Mojave, and from what I've been able to understand, it is with OS X Mountain Lion.

Without having to buy an old Mac (old enough to be based on OS X Mountain Lion), and without having to completely reinstall the OS, how can I compile for the iOS target 5.1, for an iPad 1?

The latest Xcode version that is documented by Apple to include the iOS 5 SDK is Xcode 4.3.3 for Lion. Apple doesn't document in the release notes whether it is also included in Xcode 4.4 and Xcode 4.4.1. However, by Xcode 4.5 it is definitely not included anymore.

The important thing to notice here is that you actually do not need to have the iOS 5 SDK in order to build an app for iOS 5. This means that you can build apps for iOS 5 with an Xcode that is newer, and doesn't as such include the iOS 5 SDK.

You do this by setting the deployment target of your project. Inside Xcode you click on your project (the blueprint icon), select the Info tab and then you have a drop-down named "iOS Deployment Target". You'll want to set it to 5.1.

With modern Xcode releases, you can download simulators, etc. directly from within the latest Xcode - however this only goes back to iOS 8 for Xcode 10. This also goes for the deployment target.

The end result is that you can use a much newer Xcode than Xcode 4.3, although not the latest Xcode 10 releases. You just need to remember to set your deployment target for the project!


Is having 2 GB of memory not enough with the new Mac Mini? I have the new Mac Mini with Mac OS X, with a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, with 2 GB of DDR3 memory at 1333 MHz, and a graphic card (Intel HD Graphics 3000 288 MB) that uses shared memory; the screen I am using has a resolution of 1600x900.
Periodically, Safari keeps freezing, and becoming unresponsive; all I can do is using Finder to force quitting it.

I am wondering if the memory I have (with the configuration I reported) is not sufficient, or it is simply a problem with Safari that can be resolved changing some of its settings. Which one is it?

If it's Safari 5.1 you're in the same boat as a lot of people. The recommended suggestion is bail out and go to Chrome, but I like Safari so I've stuck with it. I've completely removed Flash from my system (I sandbox it in Chrome), I trash Safari's cache once a week, I completely shut Safari once every 4 hours, and I never have more than 10 tabs open at once. That keeps it relatively stable, but I'm probably going to move to Chrome as it's a bit much for one app.


Extract zip file to different location without Terminal Without third-party software, is there a way to extract a zip file to a different location without using Terminal?
I realize I could use unzip file.zip -d /path/to/destination, but I'd love to do it just by dragging and dropping with a keyboard modifier or something.  Is this possible?

Try throwing your terminal script into automators run shell script and saving as a service, then you just right click on the file and select the new service and it'll extract to your chosen destination.

there are a few other answers here
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17831395#17831395

I also found a very interesting tool today called Keka, which is fantastic for creating seperate zip files from one large folder. It has an option to save to a new folder, perhaps this could help.


I'd like cmd-tab to always take me to the most recent window of the application. Currently it doesn't. Can this be fixed? Situation.

This is a Macbook laptop. No external monitors.

I have two "desktops." I have Chrome open in both desktops. And terminal.app open in just Desktop 1.

I'm in Chrome on desktop 1. I cmd-tab to Terminal. I cmd-tab (not holding cmd, just hitting cmd-tab and releasing) and it takes me to chrome in Desktop 2.

My expected result is that it would take me to chrome in desktop 1 because that was the window/app that I was most recently using.

Can this be fixed?

Things I've tried

Turning off "Displays have separate spaces" in mission control settings. Logged out and in, no success.

Is there a fix?

Thanks

As far as I can tell this is an issue that is provoked by something in Chrome.

I'm struggling with the same issue but while having multiple displays attached (behaves the same as spaces in most ways) where if I have Chrome on Display one and two.
If I now cmd+tab to an app that's only on display 2 it'll switch focus to that display but when I Cmd+tab back to Chrome it will focus back to display 1 in spite of having a Chrome window also on display 2.
If I now switch these two windows of Chrome around the focus priority doesn't change so it doesn't have anything to do with the creation order of the windows but soley with the Desktop which they're on.
For my 2-Display setup it prioritizes always the same one no matter where the Dock is located or anything else I could think of to try. I therefore think it's got something to do with the internal differentiation of macOS between the displays.

But now for the kicker: If I try to reproduce the same illogical behaviour with Safari it doesn't happen. Safari behaves exactly as one would expect regarding focusing order.

Thus I think it's a problem created by some interaction of Chrome and macOS because of the arbitrary lock to a Display.

I therefore think the easiest solution for your Problem is to move the Terminal Window(s) to the Desktop where Chrome focuses. Maybe reordering the Desktops might change something about the behaviour but I didn't check that.


Access iCloud shared photo stream files on filesystem I use iCloud's shared photo albums from my iPhone and look at the files from my OSX Photos app on my mac laptop. I would like to know where these files are stored / cached on the file system. I'm able to "import" these files from the shared album and then see them in Finder by looking at at "Photos Library" files in Finder. However, I can't see these files anywhere on my filesystem if I don't "import" them.

Ultimately, I'm trying to use the shared album functionality to create a stream, but cross-post the album on another source (probably Google Photos) automatically for family members who are not on OSX. (I'm aware of the ability to post these albums on iCloud, but am not happy with the generated web album, so I've decided to go down a different path). I'm happy to write a cron job or automator script if necessary to achieve the above.

Ok, I think I found it. Hopefully this is stable over time. Credit goes to Where does Photos store iCloud photos shared with me?

/Users/user/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd/Data/Library/Application Support/com.apple.cloudphotosd/services/com.apple.photo.icloud.sharedstreams/assets/


No notifications of new voicemails on iPhone despite being able to play them I am not receiving notification of new voicemails on my iPhone 4 (model A1349).  The voicemails are available and I can listen to them if I check but I receive no notification when a new one arrives.

This has been a problem for many months but I've finally missed enough information that I'd like to try to fix it.

I've found suggestions on various websites to use "Reset Network Settings".  I haven't tried this yet because I don't know the full consequences and I'd rather not disrupt the rest of my phone service.

Recently upgraded from iphone 5s to iphone 8 and also changed providers, had 5s call forwarded to new iphone 8 for a month to be certain i would be satisfied with coverage ect. Everything wad 100%, voicemail worked fine. After cancelling old service provider my voicemail stopped showing notifications but were accessable, just didn’t know i had any. After hours of tech support and reading different forums I decided to backup my old phone to my computer and restore to new phone. Now everything is working fine.
Hope it helps someone.


Load clash of clans village asking me to update - state of village Recently clash of clans updated. When I logged into a another game centre account it asked me "Do you want to replace it? if yes type confirm."

Will I lose my other village if I type confirm ?

No. I do that all the time. I have a TH 3 village and a TH 8 village. When switching from my TH 8 to TH 3, it gives me the message. I later switch back to my TH 8 and it is perfectly fine. From here (http://www.reddit.com/r/ClashOfClans/comments/1n51uh/is_it_possible_to_have_2_villages_on_one_device/) it says (quoted from Chief LPFX):

  Each time you switch you will get a Game Center Alert asking you if you want to discard this village and load the other one. You may need to type "CONFIRM" to continue. Don't worry, the other village is not deleted.

So, you can switch between them. The CONFIRM message is just to make sure you didn't mean to accidentally switch.


Life of iPhone 4 LED flash? How many hours can the iPhone 4's camera flash last before it burns out? Have there been any studies done / reports published, or is it just assumed that you probably will need a new iPhone before the flash dies (with normal use)?

From Wikipedia:

LED Flash (Illumination)

  Although they are not yet at the power levels to replace xenon flash devices in still cameras, LEDs (specifically, high current flash LEDs) have recently been used as flash sources in camera phones. LEDs are expected to approach the power levels of xenon in the near future and may replace built-in xenon flashes in still cameras. The major advantages of LEDs over xenon include low voltage operation, higher efficiency and extreme miniaturization.

So, now that we know that we have a LED (Light Emitting Diode) in there, let’s see how much should that live (according the the super-experts @ wikipedia):

LED Lifetime and Failure (read all that for more info)

Short answer:

  "Typical lifetimes quoted are 25,000 to 100,000 hours but heat and current settings can extend or shorten this time significantly.”

Now do you think your iPhone will last 25,000 hours (worst case scenario for the LED)? That’s a little bit less than three years. It’s certainly possible for an iPhone to last much more than that (I still use a 1s-gen iPhone), however, I highly doubt that you’re going to use it with the flash ON, for three years, non-stop. :)


Different ways of displaying documents between Adobe Reader and Preview I use an e-book reader (Icarus Excel) to make notes on PDF files. When looking at the output PDF (which merges the notes with the PDF document) in Adobe Reader, the notes are present. However, the same document, when opened in Preview, does not display the notes. What would be the reason behind different ways of displaying the same document in the two programs and how to make Preview "see" the notes?

Preview.app is a mediocre PDF viewer at best. There is not much you can do, except to complain to Apple to finally get Preview.app up to date.

It is possible that the eBook reader you are using is also not quite up to date, and it writes slightly defective PDFs which Adobe Reader is able to fix, but Preview.app isn't.


How can I make a password protected ZIP file from a selection in the Finder app I would like to use "Quick Actions" within the Finder app from a selection of files and/or folders to make a password protected ZIP file.

This is not a direct solution, however it can be used as an alternate solution because it will create a disk image (.dmg) file of all selected Finder files and or folders, whether the selection is a single item or multiple items.

global myPassword

property destinationFolder : (path to documents folder)
property theName : missing value
property isTrue : missing value

set theName to "New Encrypted Disk Image"

run setPassword
delay 0.1
activate
set deleteOriginals to button returned of (display dialog "Would You Like To Delete The Original Files After The Disk Image Has Been Created?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1)
delay 0.1
activate
set theName to (display dialog ¬
    "Would You Like To Name Your New Disk Image?" default answer ¬
    "New Encrypted Disk Image" buttons {"No", "Re-Name"} default button 2 ¬
    with title "Name Disk Image?")
delay 0.1

if button returned of theName is "Re-Name" then
    set theName to text returned of theName
else
    set theName to "New Encrypted Disk Image"
end if

tell application "Finder"
    if exists of alias ((destinationFolder as text) & theName) then ¬
        delete alias ((destinationFolder as text) & theName)
    set tempFolder to (make new folder at destinationFolder ¬
        with properties {name:theName}) as alias
    set theFiles to selection as alias list
    duplicate theFiles to tempFolder
    set theContainer to POSIX path of (container of tempFolder as alias)
    set filesWithTheName to count of (items of (container of tempFolder as alias) ¬
        whose name contains theName and name extension is "dmg")
    if filesWithTheName is greater than 0 then ¬
        set theName to theName & filesWithTheName + 1
end tell

set theDMG to do shell script "printf  \"" & myPassword & "\" |  hdiutil create -encryption AES-256 -stdinpass -srcfolder '" & POSIX path of tempFolder & "' '" & theContainer & theName & "'"

tell application "Finder" to delete tempFolder

set theOffset to offset of "/" in theDMG
set theDMG to POSIX file (text theOffset thru -1 of theDMG) as alias

tell application "Finder" to set newName to name of theDMG

if deleteOriginals is "Yes" then
    tell application "Finder" to delete theFiles
end if

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    reveal theDMG
end tell

script failedPassVerify
    activate
    display dialog ¬
        "You Have Unsuccessfully Verified Your Password 3 Times In A Row... Please Try Again Later" buttons {"OK"} default button "OK" with title ¬
        "UNSUCCESSFUL PASSWORD VERIFICATION" with icon 0 giving up after 10
    quit me
end script

script setPassword
    set theCount to 0
    repeat until isTrue = true
        activate
        set myPassword to text returned of (display dialog ¬
            ("ENTER THE PASSWORD TO ENCRYPT DISK IMAGE: " & theName) ¬
                default answer "" with hidden answer)
        activate
        set myPassword2 to text returned of (display dialog ¬
            "PLEASE VERIFY YOUR PASSWORD" default answer "" with hidden answer)
        set isTrue to myPassword2 = myPassword
        if isTrue = false then
            set theCount to theCount + 1
            if theCount = 3 then run my failedPassVerify
            activate
            display alert "PASSWORDS DO NOT MATCH" message ¬
                "PASSWORDS DO NOT MATCH" giving up after 3
        end if
    end repeat
    set theCount to 0
    set isTrue to missing value
end script

Open Automator
Make a new Quick Action
Make sure it receives 'files or folders' from Finder.app
Select Run Apple Script and copy/paste in the code
Save it as "New Encrypted Disk Image"


How do I set up an IRC server on OS X for my local network? Is there a nice way to set up an IRC server for my wireless home network, running on an old Mac Mini?

On other forums people have recommended compiling IRCD-Hybrid for OS X. I have Homebrew installed and it contains a formula for ngIRCd; would that work?

Or should I give up and just use the Bonjour functionality built into iChat?

Since you have Homebrew installed, ngircd is very simple to install and configure.

Install ngIRCd

$ brew install ngircd

Add /usr/local/sbin to your PATH

$ vi ~/.bash_profile

edit the config file (very easy to follow, even for a beginner, as the defaults are just fine for everything.) Note the path may be different for you to homebrew / ngircd version folders.

$ cd /usr/local/mxcl-homebrew-697d2ae/Cellar/ngircd/17.1/etc/
$ vi ngircd.conf

Here's a sample config file, should you need it.

Verify your config, if you like:

$ ngircd --configtest

Then simply start the server:

$ ngircd


Can you install two versions of an app on the same iOS device? Is it possible to install two versions of an app on the same iPhone and, if so, how?

The scenario would be that you have purchased an app, and a recent update has changed some of the features--not necessarily for the better or worse, but enough of a change that you'd like to still be able and use the older version at times. You could downgrade from a backup, but it'd be nice to have the new version at times as well. Is it possible to have two versions of an app be 'seen' as different apps so that they can both be transferred to the iPhone at the same time?

It's not so much the name -- at least not the visible one, as an upgrade can change the visible name -- but it's the bundle identifier inside the app that identifies it and allows the OS to know it's supposed to perform an upgrade. The developer has to keep the bundle identifier the same in order to actually provide an upgrade and not a new app, so no, you're out of luck.*

*Note that there may well be some way to do such a thing if you jailbreak your device, but I have no firsthand knowledge of such.


How to check max allowed open files (ulimit) of a running process (or running app)? In Linux, I can check the max allowed open files (ulimit) of a process by simply executing
$ cat /proc/<PID>/limits

Limit                     Soft Limit           Hard Limit           Units
Max cpu time              unlimited            unlimited            seconds
Max file size             unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max data size             unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max stack size            8388608              unlimited            bytes
Max core file size        0                    unlimited            bytes
Max resident set          unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max processes             14248                14248                processes
Max open files            1024                 1048576              files
Max locked memory         67108864             67108864             bytes
Max address space         unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max file locks            unlimited            unlimited            locks
Max pending signals       14248                14248                signals
Max msgqueue size         819200               819200               bytes
Max nice priority         0                    0
Max realtime priority     0                    0
Max realtime timeout      unlimited            unlimited            us

How can I do this in MacOS?
Thanks a lot.
PS1: I knew how to run ulimit commands to check the current ulimit setup. But I don't know how to check and verify those values for a running process.
PS2: I knew how to use lsof to check how many files a process is opening. But it doesn't tell the max number of files a process can open.

You cannot do this in a way that is similar to Linux.
procfs, although common on many Unix-like operating systems, is not available on all Unix-like operating systems. It is not available on macOS.
The POSIX standard prescribes a getrlimit() system call for retrieving these limits for the current process. It is available on macOS as it is POSIX-compliant.
Linux on the other hand has implemented a system call known as prlimit(), which allows getting these limits for other processes than the current process. The system call is specific to Linux and not available on other Unix-like operating systems.
All in all this means that there's no direct API for retrieving that information on macOS.
However, you can retrieve the information by the way of inspection inside the other process. For example by attaching similar to how a debugger would attach (ptrace()), or by the use of dtrace. It is though possible for the other process to actively resist this measure.
Depending on your specific use case, which you have not revealed, YMMV.


How can I remap the right mouse button to the left mouse button? My googling abilities have failed me and I can't figure out how to remap the mouse buttons.

My 3 year old niece is having trouble using the mouse on the computer because she is right clicking by accident. Since she is so little I thought it would be nice to just remap them until she gets older. Is this possible?

Computer: 13" 2010 Macbook Pro with OSX 10.8

What mouse? Apple's Mighty Mouse is configurable as a one-button mouse. For other mice, look at the USB Overdrive mouse driver. It's an amazingly configurable driver for mice, trackpads, joy sticks, game controllers, and other HIDs. I used it with a Kensington multi-button trackball before I had the OEM driver for it. I'd be surprised if you couldn't configure most any mouse as a one-button mouse.


Can not burn 1.4GB data into a 4.7GB DVD (file too big) I'm trying to burn 1.4GB of data into a 4.7GB DVD using Finder in Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. The biggest file is 300MB.

Here are the steps I take:

Insert blank disc
Open Finder and drag files to disc
Go to File -> Burn

However, I get this error message

  Disc_name is too large to fit on the disc. Remove some files and try again.

How can this be solved?

It turned out to be a very simple problem in my case. I just have a bad disc. Sorry for wasting the resources here.


How do I remove contact photos from the messages app in iOS 10? I just upgraded to iOS 10 on my iPhone 5. Besides slowing down my phone greatly, the messages app has gotten cluttered with useless features. One of these is that each contact's photo now shows up at the top of the screen when I am messaging them. Besides the fact that: 1. most of my contacts don't have photos (so I just see giant initials), and that 2. the photos are too small to distinguish anything for the contacts I have that DO have photos, I have a problem with how much space these photos take up on the screen. There's just not enough screen real estate to justify showing me 2 less lines of messages in order to show me giant bubble initials or a microscopic static image of someone.

So, how do I remove contact photos from messages in iOS 10?

Messages app in iOS10:

vs. iOS 9:

There is no way to change the layout of the Messages app to not display photos at the top of the screen.

If you go to your list of conversations and then tap on one, as the screen transitions you can see the difference in the height of the navigation bar at the top that contains the photo. (The conversation list uses a standard-height navigation bar that should be identical, or within a few pixels, of the height in iOS 9.) I took screenshots and measured - it's 42 pixels. Using normal-sized text (as set in the Settings app) that's approximately one line of text.


Can I tell iTerm 2 to change color when I'm root I would like to tell iTerm2 to have red text whenever I'm root when logged into a server.
Note:
I'm not able to change any configuration on the remote server.

Not as part of the iTerm 2 configuration. iTerm has no way of knowing you've gone to root in a remote session -- it's not watching what you're doing that closely (and what you're asking it to figure out is actually really complicated to program).

You can create an iTerm profile that has red text on whatever background colour you want and you always use that profile when you're going to go to root on a machine. It requires no changes to the root environment on the remote machine. But it does require you remember to use that profile for your rooted session.

Edit: while digging around I found this interesting article that talks about how you can change the background image in iTerm to show the hostname of the host you've ssh'ed in to. Notice how it's all based around the environment in your client's Mac shell -- once you're on the remote machine there's not a lot iTerm can do. The changing of a tab title does appear to be controlled by $PROMPT_COMMAND, as set in the remote session's environment, but there appear to be no documented hooks in iTerm 2 that let you extend what iTerm does when it changes the tab title. Pity.

I tell ya: mad props if anyone can figure out how to do this. It'd be handy for sure.


Can I charge my MacBook with a phone charger? Can I use a phone USB-C charger (e.g. the from google) to charge my 2016 MacBook Pro? How about a USB-A charger with a USB A->C cable?

Physically it fits, but this answer says that it is not a good idea, without elaborating why.

The reason you can't do this is a matter of input.

The 13" MBP has a 61W charger - a lot more than your typical phone charger brick. Check your phone brick and see how much of a difference there is.

Your Macbook would probably not even accept the charge because it would be so low


Can you access Siri search querys from an app that runs in the background? Lets say I install a app on my phone which runs in the background, now every time I open Siri and start with the word "BOX" as a example "box whatever" it will open a specfic website (like www.box.com) and use the words after box as a specific search query something like (www.box.com/search/whatever).

Essentially can a iOS app add functionality to Siri to redirect specific commands to the app which then builds a URL (or whatever it needs to do)?

No.

Siri has very specific Human Interface Guidelines. In order to follow such guidelines, your app can only do the following:

These are provided by Apple. More human interface guidelines with Siri can be found here and you can learn more about using Siri with apps here.


Can I tell if a found Macbook Air is lost or stolen? I work in a backpacker hostel where people from around the world leave behind an amazing amount of stuff, not all of which is junk.

I've noticed that a Macbook Air model A1465 / 2631 has been sitting here for a couple of weeks.

Now that I've checked that it doesn't belong to any staff member I'm wondering if it might be lost or stolen.

Is there either some way online or via the Apple Store that lost and stolen Macs are tracked?

I am a technical computer person but I'm not a Mac person, it doesn't turn on, and there's no power cable. But there is a Mac Store I can get to if need be.

PLEASE DO NOT OFFER LEGAL ADVICE. I'm following our workplace procedures and my local laws. I'm only asking here for the technical advice.

No, it is impossible to tell if a found Macbook Air is lost or stolen via physical examination of the device or its operating system.

Computers of the Apple MacBook Air line are not equipped with Kensington security slot which might indicate theft if damaged.
Mac OS X or any other contemporary operating system that can be installed on MacBook Air device does not have any property that changes at the moment of theft.

Apple Inc. published the article "Report a lost or stolen Apple product" on their official support pages with clear instructions for users of Apple products which got lost or stolen:

  If you have lost or found an Apple product, please contact your local law enforcement agency to report it.

Quoted from the version last modified on Mar 18, 2016

Hence the only official way to make sure if a particular unit was stolen is to contact appropriate local law enforcement agency.


Accessing App Store using USB wireless card instead of AirPort I'm having trouble accessing my App Store account on my MacBook Air.

First of all, my AirPort chip was broken, so I bought a USB wireless card. Then my App Store account stopped working.

My question is: can I use my App Store account without having the card?

Yes. You can have dozens of network connections and the App Store supports them all. You’ll want to troubleshoot the store process normally without worrying about network adapter.

Maybe:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203421 official troubleshooting MAS
Stuck at login in App Store


iPad adjusts brightness when it reaches full charge I recently put some iPads up around my office building as conferance room markers.  They're plugged in to USB outlets, and seem to be charging fine.  The screen stays on all the time, running Eventboard Pro.

The problem is that in order to keep the battery from running down while plugged in, I adjust the screen brightness to around 75%.  But, whenever I come back to them later in the day, they brightness slider is back at 100%, causing the battery to drain.  Usually when I arrive in the morning I have to go around the building, manually turning on and lowering the brightness.  Autobrightness is turned off on all of them, and I'm pretty sure the outlets are fine, as it charges during the day with lowered brightness.

Is this auto-adjustment in brightness a known issue, or is there some hidden setting I'm missing?  The iPads are all updated to the most recent iOS as of April 1st, and it's a mix of iPad 2s and New iPads.

If I need to provide any other information, I'll be happy to do so.  Thanks for looking!

First, to directly answer your question, no, there is no hidden setting that is causing your brightness to increase without your input. The only to settings related to brightness as of iOS 6 is Auto-Brightness (which you have disabled), and the brightness slider. As far as I'm concerned, it must be a bug.

So it looks like you have a few sub-par options.

USB outlets are really nice, but in the long run, they may not be a good solution for you. Even though the original power supply bricks that come with iPad, stick out of the wall, and can be in the way, they do supply enough energy to keep the iPad charged, and even charging despite high battery consumption at the same time.
Bring one home to see if you can replicate the problem with original charging apparatus. If this is the case, you may consider scheduling an appointment, and taking it to one of Apple's Genius bars. Perhaps they are aware of a bug or will have an idea as to what is going on.

One side note, I have seen extremely strange behavior when an iOS device is given "bad" power. If the USB outlets are questionable quality, there is a far-out chance this is causing it. That said, most of the behavior I have seen from "bad" power comes from touch screen activity, and this would mean that each device was used in between times that you checked on it.

Either way, my recommendation would be to use the included chargers with your iPad if that is at all possible.


How do I get Safari Mac's bookmarks to overwrite Safari iOS bookmarks? I recently pruned and edited my Mac's Safari bookmarks. I was very dismayed the next time I synced to discover that the bookmarks from my iPhone had been merged with those on my Mac, even though before the lists had been identical. So now I had even more bookmarks than before I started, many of them duplicated.

As an experiment I've tried deleting just a few bookmarks on the Mac and resyncing, and they just come back.

How do I get the Safari Mac bookmarks to overwrite the Safari iOS bookmarks instead of merging? I don't want to have to delete boomarks on the Mac and then grab the phone and do they same thing over again, unless that's the only way. Which would suck. Because I also have an iPad, so I would have to do it three times.

Thanks.

There's an option in the 'Info'-Tab. At the bottom, you'll find an 'Advanced'-section: 'Replace information on this iPad'. Check 'Bookmarks' there. Instead of merged, the data on the iOS device will be replaced.

In MobileMe this was synchronized across all devices, so I hope with iCloud this will be also.


MacBook Pro: 2017 Unable to connect to Dell U2713HM with USB-C to DisplayPort cable I am trying to connect my MBP 2017 to a Dell U2713HM with a USB-C to DisplayPort cable (Part No ELUCDP-01) made by Alogic.

When I plug in the cable to the USB-C port, the monitor will say there is 'No DisplayPort cable' and then show 'Entering power saving mode'.

The main monitor on the other hand will dim for a moment and the keyboard will become unresponsive for a moment.

Anyone know how I can fix the issue?

Error messages in log:

ColorSync: ColorSyncProfileCreateWithDisplayID failed to get profile for kColorSyncDisplayDeviceClass

It seems to me the monitor can be recognised by the MBP. Here is a screenshot of ColorSync:

Upgrade to High Sierra (Version 10.13, build 17A405) allows the monitor to display again.

The picture quality is blurry. It is as if I am using the HDMI input.

It turns out there was issue with the Alogic cable.

At the end I purchased a new set of cables (Konix) and the problem is resolved.


I am trying to compile Varnish caching on my Mac OS X When I do (as root):

./autogen.sh

I get this error:

+ glibtoolize --copy --force
./autogen.sh: line 44: glibtoolize: command not found

And then when I do this:

./configure --enable-developer-warnings --enable-debugging-symbols

I get this error:

configure: error: Package requirements (libpcre) were not met:

No package 'libpcre' found

Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively, you may set the environment variables PCRE_CFLAGS
and PCRE_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
See the pkg-config man page for more details.

Does anyone know how to solve this?

I tried installing Varnish with homebrew and I got this:

sudo brew link pkg-config pcre
Error: Cowardly refusing to `sudo brew link`
You can use brew with sudo, but only if the brew executable is owned by root.
However, this is both not recommended and completely unsupported so do so at
your own risk.

This was recommend that I do before installing.

The easiest solution is to use a package manager like brew.

Download and install it using the installer on their website.

And then simply brew install varnish. It will download and install all the prerequisites for you.


Can I set up an Apple TV to receive content from a Synology NAS? I have a Synology DS210j NAS. My music and movies are served from the NAS by its built-in iTunes server. The content is then available on my MacBook in iTunes / Sharing Library.

I am looking for a way to set up an audio system in my apartment that doesn't need my MacBook. The content would come from the NAS (served by the iTunes server).

I'd like to buy a 2nd generation AppleTV to receive the content and then use iPhone's Remote app to control it. I also thought about extending this setup with AirPlay speakers (probably with an Airport Express) which would allow me to control the music separately in every room.

Would such a setup work? Can an AppleTV receive content from the NAS/iTunes server? If not, what are the alternatives?

Watch Erica Sadun's AirFlick project. It can do what you want from a host running Mac OS X, so one would expect a GUI-less version to appear soon that could be ported to your NAS.


Can I install my old OSX on a different computer after upgrading? I have a couple questions:

1) I currently have Snow Leopard on my one computer and on another computer I just have Leopard. I am purchasing Mountain Lion from the App Store today and am going to install it onto my computer with Snow Leopard. Can I then take my old Snow Leopard disk and instal it onto my other computer?

2) When installing Mountain Lion onto my computer, will everything (Files, applications, games, etc) remain? Or does it wipe everything out?

3) I ultimately want Mountain Lion on both of my computers, does that mean I need to buy two copy's? Or can I down the same copy of Mountain Lion from the App Store on both computer and install?

Thank you in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Yes, depending on the hardware of the other computer and the type of Snow Leopard disc you have. For example, if your existing computer is an iMac, and the other computer is a Mac Mini, and the Snow Leopard disc you have is the disc which came with your iMac this might not work. Many OS / recover disc which come with a Mac will only work on that model. The only way to know if this will work is to test it.
When you install Mountain Lion, you will have the option to Upgrade, keeping all your applications, users, and most of your settings, or Archive and Install which will keep a copy of your current system (which you cannot easily roll back to) but do a clean install. You can also Erase and Install where you will lose everything. OS X upgrades are fairly safe and while you might have to re-install a few applications (VMWare Fusion and Adobe products come to mind) you are unlikely to lose any data.
You can install mountain lion on all Macs you personally own. To quote Apple:

  If you've purchased OS X Lion or Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store, you're allowed to install it on all of your personal authorized Macs

In fact, you can bypass installing Snow Leopard at all, it's possible to install Mountain Lion directly: Lifehacker has an article on this explaining how to create a bootable Mountain Lion installer. Here's an AskDifferent answer with a second method.


Is there anywhere I can get a complete list of historical Safari release notes? I’ve done a bit of searching for specific Safari version numbers in support.apple.com. Quite a few versions have specific change notes, but it seems like often the versions bundled with major OS X releases aren’t given their own change notes.

1.0: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2964

1.2: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL612 (Dave Hyatt also provided some more detailed notes on the old WebKit blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_02.html#004874)
1.3.1: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL445
1.3.2: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL403

2.0.1: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL444
3.1: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA25197?viewlocale=en_US

3.1.1: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL78
3.2.1: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL723
3.2.3: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL820

4.0.5: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL877

4.1: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1045
4.1.2: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1069

5.0: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1046

5.0.2: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1070

Also, sometimes Apple’s release notes can be a bit... terse.

I’m trying to figure out which versions of Safari introduced support for HTML5/CSS features.

Wikipedia’s got a great table of releases, but it is a bit vague on CSS improvements (e.g. “improved CSS support”).

Safari uses Webkit as it's rendering engine. If you're specifically looking for when it began to support HTML5/CSS3, it as a fully open-source repository where you can review changes commit by commit. As such, you can see the full comprehensive, intricately detailed history here: http://trac.webkit.org/timeline


How do I lock down a non-geeks MacBook My mother in law is techphobic. She also lives 8000 miles and several time zones away. So I want to help set up her computer as solidly as possible without needed much long distance sketch support.

I'm updating her Mac to macOS Sierra. I cleaned off mackeeper. I have her use Google Chrome for anything Flash related (yeah I know, but she watches videos and the ones she likes need Flash). I was thinking of restricting apps to App Store apps, but wonder if I'll need to support that long term.

She's based in Taipei.  No current Apple stores. She hates asking for help. I'm pretty much the only one she'll ask. She has backups (not sure how current). And horrible password discipline (currently her account doesn't have one - I had to add one just so I could do sudo in a Terminal)

Any other tips?  Thanks.

Some things I would look into in such a scenario:

Backup

Absolutely essential, and something you can set up easily. At least attach an external drive and configure TimeMachine. If you want to add more protection against handling errors or such, use a service like Backblaze or Arq to get an off-site backup.

Remote Access

Sooner or later you will do support over phone and it is much faster and easier to do if you can see what is happening on the screen. I usually use Teamviewer which is easy to setup and use. Just make sure that everything is working as it should before you leave house.

Restricting things on the computer itself

With remote access in place you can get rather restrictive with what the user can do. You probably don't want to give them administrator rights (so make sure you set up a non-admin account for them) which eliminates most handling risks. I would also restrict application installation to the App Store.


How can I locate a stolen MacBook that didn't have Find My Mac turned on? My MacBook was stolen. Unfortunately, I didn't have Find My Mac turned on. Is there any way to track it's whereabouts so I can recover it?

Without Find My Mac turned on via your iCloud account, you are going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers or local law enforcement to get it back.

Edit:

And my experience with a stolen computer was that even having Find My Mac enabled didn't help me get the computer back. The police would not use the location information to recover the computer. It is mostly for finding a lost computer or deleting your data so the thieves cannot gain access to your data.


Does LibreOffice work on OS X 10.9 Mavericks? I rely heavily on LibreOffice and am hesitant to upgrade unless I can be as sure as possible that LibreOffice (Writer) will run.

Can anybody confirm that the software works and does not crash on Mavericks?

It did not crash with OS X Mavericks, but it does not work at all. I received a message that this OS is not compatible with Libre Office.


LLDB command line installation on macOS Big Sur edition (11.0) beta I'm using the following command in order to install lldb without Xcode

xcode-select --install

However, the window that pops up with the progress bar gets halted on task "Finding Software"
Those are the relevant errors I could trace from log stream:
Code Block runningboardd: (RunningBoard) [com.apple.runningboard:process]
[daemon<com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand(502)>:843]
Error 45 setting darwin role to UserInteractive: Operation not supported,
falling back to setting priority

runningboardd: (RunningBoard) [com.apple.runningboard:process]
[daemon<com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand(502)>:843]
Error 45 setting darwin role to UserInteractiveFocal: Operation not supported,
falling back to setting priority

Any idea how to tackle this issue?

This is fixed on macOS 11.1 BuildVersion 20C69 (and likely before now just I haven’t tried sooner to reproduce your issue).
You need to run the following:
xcode-select --install
sudo xcode-xelect -license

Press space to get to the end of the license and type agree.
Then open Applications folder and drag the calculator app icon into your command line window after typing lldb:
mike@m1 ~ % lldb /System/Applications/Calculator.app
objc[17521]: Class AMSupportURLConnectionDelegate is implemented in both ?? (0x206a678f0) and ?? (0x1163582b8). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
objc[17521]: Class AMSupportURLSession is implemented in both ?? (0x206a67940) and ?? (0x116358308). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
(lldb) target create "/System/Applications/Calculator.app"
Current executable set to '/System/Applications/Calculator.app' (arm64e).
(lldb) exit


Space isn't increasing after deleting files on external hdd mac os trash is empty I deleted files from external hard drive, they are no longer there, trash is empty but space hasn't increased, what do I do?

Launch the terminal / command line, and replacing 'VolumeName' with the name of your drive type:

sudo rm -R /Volumes/volumeName/.Trashes

Each drive has its own hidden .Trash folder, and each user has a folder in that folder. The above will delete all trash folders on that specific drive.


Why does Preivew.app automatically change the saturation of some images? Some images seem to be automatically modified by preview when you open them - in particular, the color saturation changes.

For example, I see an image with a certain shade of red in Finder's cover flow, but when I open it in preview, that red is now slightly desaturated. If I save the image, cover flow now shows the desaturated red - so Preview.app is certainly doing something.

Why is it doing this and how do I make it stop?

This seems to have something to do with the color profile.
You can change the used profile to display an image in preview by using View -> Soft Proof with Profile.

Finder uses your displays calibration-profile by default

reference: http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00TmxN


How to send text messages to non apple devices from an iPad? i just bought my iPad mini for 2 weeks or more which has been jail broken. So since I'm using a weekly prepaid data plan, I need to renew the data plan again and again for every week. Hence I wanna know if I can use iMessages in order to apply my data plan again which I need to send it to '28882'.

Is that possible to use iMessages, or if it does not allow me to do so, do you have any idea how to send text messages as if 'normal messages' to especially non-apple devices?

Any idea what other apps do I need to use?

Up until I did an update, I could email non Apple users without any problem. After the update, I couldn't. I spent over an hour with an Apple "genius" that finally fixed it. I just updated again and I have the same problem. This is ridiculous! I have customers that text me orders. I am so frustrated!! This is messing with my income!


How do I turn off the automatic downloading of iOS updates? I have a data plan for all of my smartphones, computers, and tablets, so I have to be very careful staying within my allotted usage.  When I discovered that my iPad downloaded a 3 GB software update (not apps, the iOS update), I am not happy. I do not know how to turn off the automatic downloading of iOS updates.  All of the answers I get on the Apple Support Communities tell me that iOS updates are not installed, only downloaded.  It is the automatic downloading of iOS updates that is the problem, because my data gets unintentionally used.  How do I turn off the automatic downloading of iOS updates?

This is really now a non-answer - empirically, it appears no-one has yet found a way to prevent iOS updates from downloading except by leaving insufficient space for it to fit.

Settings > App & iTunes Stores...

Switch off either Updates specifically, or all Mobile data


I can't figure out how to download podcasts I can't figure out, anymore, how to download my podcasts onto my ipod.

What version of IOS do you have in your iPod?? (See comment)

The typical way in iOS 8 is

Go to the Podcaster app
A. In the bottom go to the search section (rightmost button). Enter a name of a podcast you know here or
B. Alternatively, got to "Top list" and read about existing podcasts, peruse the Categories (top left link) and find podcasts you want to try this way or
C. If you find a podcast on the web in your browser of choice in the iPod, click their podcast link, it should open in Podcaster. If you can't seem to find such a link, try option A above.
When you are at the specific podcast page in Podcaster, click the subscribe button

Once you're subscribed you can go to the local page for the podcast(bottom left link "My podcasts") to listen and to make changes.

To make changes, tap and hold to drag down a little when on the page of the podcast. You'll see the "Preferences" link where you can make changes to the subscription, like how many of existing episodes to download, retain and so on.

You can also start the subscription in iTunes on your computer and sync that to your iPod.

iOS 7

Follow about the same procedure but use the iTunes app there instead.


How do I encrypt emails using Apple Mail? Gnu PGP was integrated into Mail using this project, but it appears to be dead (only supports old versions of OSX) http://www.sente.ch/software/GPGMail/English.lproj/GPGMail.html

Is there any other way to do it? Or do I have to use Enigmail for Thunderbird?

It appears this is what I was looking for: https://gpgtools.org/


Is there any indication when WiFi Assist is being used? If I have WiFi Assist turned on can I tell when/if it's being used?

There's actually no visible indication on the screen when it's being used (right now). I have noticed that when leaving home and getting on the road, the network switches from my wifi as I drive away onto the 4G a lot faster (without causing a drop in any streaming audio), but there is no indication on the screen that this is happening.

In short, it's a background feature.


Rsync 3.1.2 and High Sierra sparse bundle problem For over a year, I've been using rsync to add a layer of archiving to my systems. It has worked fine.

I recently upgraded the computers to High Sierra. My server contains a volume incorporating a sparsebundle. In the past, this volume (/Volume/Videos) archived without problems. Once I ran my script on High Sierra, it fails with:

 rsync: unpack_smb_acl: sys_acl_get_info(): No such file or directory (2)
 rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1178) [sender=3.1.2]

I've been using rsync 3.1.2 with the -aAXE options to get the ACLs,etc. For this single volume, I'm now trying the default rsync without those options, and it appears to be working. Later, I'll try again with rsync 3.1.2 and no AXE options.

Has anyone else seen this behavior in High Sierra?
Does anyone have an explanation about why it is happening?

Driving today, I realized I had not reset the ACL for that folder; part of my upgrade maintenance ended up involving some group assignment repairs, and I had not changed that group, nor promulgated the new group, so an unassigned unique identifier was listed as the ACL. Rsync does not like this.

Once I assigned workgroup back to this folder, and promulgated the ACL, rsync 3.1.2 handled the job correctly.


midi in + audio out on iPhone 7? I'm trying to replicate the setup I used with my iPhone 6 for music production.

On iPhone 6, I was able to have

midi input from a digital piano, via lightning port
audio output to a mixer, via headphones jack

Is there a way to do this on iPhone 7, perhaps with a 3rd party adapter?

Are you using a USB midi keyboard and the lightning camera adapter for MIDI? If so, this probably won't work for you...  However, if you're just using standard MIDI ports, you might be able to use this, although no guarantees, as I haven't tested it.  It has headphone outputs and MIDI inputs, so in theory you should be able to do what you need.

EDIT: Just thought of this: You might be able to do this with a lightning to USB adapter, a powered USB hub, a class compliant USB MIDI interface, and a class compliant USB to 3.5mm audio interface.  Theoretically this should work since all these devices are supported, however this hasn't been tested by me.


Running Raid0 on MBP 2011 I have a higher end (i7, 2.5ghz, 16gb RAM) 2011 MBP with an older HDD that has been pretty unreliable for the last year or so. I have an unused/unopened 250bg SSD sitting on a shelf and was thinking of buying a matching one for ~$60 and a Tray Adapter ($8) to replace the optical drive and running both SSDs in a RAID0 config.

I do both design and front-end dev work so I typically have photoshop and illustrator open along with a bunch of browser windows and tabs and/or several VScode tabs while running a LAMP or MERN stack along with a bunch of browser windows and tabs.

My desktop can handle all that at once, but if I could get away with running even half (either the PS/Illustrator/Sketch/XD side OR the VSCode/MERN) at a time on this laptop, I'd be psyched. I only use while on the road (which is not very often) and while making system or hardware changes to my desktop.

The main drive is SATA3 and the optical drive is SATA2, which I'm sure would slow things down at startup using RAID0. But I'm wondering (hoping) if, that aside, the RAID0 configuration will boost performance/speed for the kind of work I'll be dong? I'm sure anything will be an improvement from the HDD, but will RAID0 (with 1 disc being connected via SATA2) give me a noticeable increase in performance over just a singe SSD on SATA3? >= $68 worth of improved performance? =)

If you have to stripe data across both drives, then you'll be constantly limited by the SATA II bottleneck.

You'd be much better off just buying a larger SSD for the hard drive slot, or installing two separate SSDs as separate drives.

At best, you might want to look at creating a Fusion drive between a larger mechanical in the Optical slot and an SSD in the HDD slot. (Or even two SSDs...?)


How hard can it be to add a "rotate" action? Can you guys teach me how to rotate an image so that when sent by email we actually send it in the right rotation?

Edit: As of 2016 this functionality is now part of iOS's native photo app

The following information pertains an iPhone, but I assume the iPad is identical in terms of features.

Short Answer: You can’t rotate photos in the default iOS’s Camera Software; you need to install a third party utility, like PS Express (recommended and free):


Adding a gif image to Keynote for macOS I am trying to add an image from Giphy to a presentation in Keynote. It seems to indicate I can drag and drop, but this isn't working.

If I add an image pane all I get is a text address not the actual gif image - where am I going wrong?

Kevin is right. Not sure why Keynote wants to copy a link to media on drag from websites. Something to do with copyrights and attribution, I'm guessing. I'm not sure of your skill level, so I will try to be detailed (which may help someone else, as well).

Right-click (or control-click) the image you want. Choose 'Save image as...' and change the name of the image before saving. It appears the images on the site are named dynamically 'giphy.' Then, in Keynote, use the Media button to select 'Choose.' Navigate to the image and [insert].

Unless you want a big play button on the gif (or if the gif is not animated), you likely need to change the image's behavior in Keynote. Make sure the image is selected (if not, click it once) and on the right side you should see a few options. Click Movie and deselect the last option: 'Start movie on click.'


Dilemma about replacing the battery in my 17" MacBook Pro mid-2010 After 3 years my mid-2010 17" MBP model is telling me it's time to replace the battery. The current one (model A1309, FWIW) has had ~1000 cycles now and can't hold the charge reliably anymore.

Being from a small EU country, I'm now facing a surprising dilemma. We only have one official reseller of Apple equipment and three or four companies that claim to service Apple devices, but I doubt they are all official. Nevertheless, I've sent an enquiry about the battery to all of them. One responded they can't deliver and another told me the price is €330, assembly included. I'm still waiting for the other responses, but I'm not optimistic.

In the mean time, a quick search of the web tells me there are plenty of EU-based sites that sell compatible batteries and deliver to my country. While some claim the batteries are OEM, it's obvious that most are knock-offs, otherwise they wouldn't cost sub $100, delivery included.

But my dilemma isn't so much about money (although $430 is a bit over the top for a laptop battery). It's about the fact, that there probably aren't any new OEM batteries available, because Apple moved away from 17" MBP models and user-replaceable batteries as a whole some time ago. Even at $430, whatever I get, probably won't be fresh from the assembly line. And I'm fairly certain I can't expect to get another 3 years out of a battery that's been laying around some warehouse unattended for 2+ years, OEM or not.

So I'm pondering... Is it better to try my luck with a much cheaper knock-off that's likely fresh, or trust the quality of an expensive and potentially quite old OEM battery?

What would you do given such predicament?

I would have buy the battery on iFixit which provide a great service and a lot of good (OEM) products and change the battery by myself or a friend. (It's not so hard, as long as you can use a screwdriver and follow a tutorial!)


How can I troubleshoot apps which won't quit and force me to reboot? I've been having this problem a lot and it's becoming extremely irritating.

So, I force quit an app (mostly Chrome, Steam and uTorrent) that isn't responding and open it again (this is also the situation when I force quit an app that is bouncing and won't open), it bounces for a long time again, so I force quit again, it keeps bouncing for a while and then 'quits'.

But, you can't open it, and when you right click it, it has the same options it would have if it were open. It appears in the force quit menu, but won't quit. It doesn't appear in activity monitor anywhere. Now, I know an obvious solution is to hardware shutdown, but my macbook pro is under a monitor stand and I would have to move a lot of hardware every time it happens.

Try restarting it. Just go to the Apple menu on the top left of the screen and select Restart. This will shut it down and automatically start it up again. A restart will likely solve your problem.


How can I change the list of "Open With" applications? I'd like to reduce the set of apps for certain file types. For example, I'd like the 3-4 text editors currently associated with .php files to remain, but I'm never going to have a need to open PHP files in Monodraw or Numbers, so I'd like to remove them from the list.

I see similar questions here about a bug involving multiple apps, but that just involves recreating the list rather than altering it.

So one way would be to manually remove the association of these apps for the specific file type.

Basically for this you have to edit the "info.plist" file contained by the specific app package and remove the file type associations.

  Go to the app you want to ban and right-click on it.
  Click on Show Package Contents.
  Open the Contents folder.
  Open Info.plist with any text editor, like TextEdit.
  Look for CFBundleTypeExtensions, which should show up several times. Under that, you should see a few lines that have file name.
  Once you find the suffix you want to take off (in my case. it's the png line), delete it from the text editor and save the file.
  Lastly, open Terminal and enter the killall Finder command. [to restart the finder]

(Source: https://mac-how-to.gadgethacks.com/how-to/remove-duplicates-customize-open-with-menu-mac-os-x-0157100/, point "How to Delete a Specific App from 'Open With'")

There may be another easier way to do this.


What happens to iPhoto originals in Aperture? iPhoto and Aperture can use the same library. When you edit a photo in iPhoto, it duplicates the photo and keeps the original. Aperture on the other hand saves only the edits and not a new file. What happens to these 'originals' when I open a library that was only used with iPhoto in Aperture? Can I remove the iPhoto 'originals' or are they kept even though Aperture handles things differently?

See this link for how Aperture handles master images.

  Masters for images that you import as referenced images may reside in many different locations on your hard disk storage devices instead of in the single location of your main Aperture Library file.


Change the year of 500+ photos in iPhoto For quite some time I had my camera configured with the wrong year. How can I change the year portion of the date of 500+ photos in my iPhotos library?

In iPhoto '09 (or later, I believe)...

Select all the photos with incorrect dates
In the menu bar, select Photos -> Adjust Date and Time
Modify the date to reflect the change you want -- for example, to shift all the photos forward one year, increment just the year part of the date by 1
All the photos will be time-shifted by the relative change you specified


Can sudo's annoying message be removed from Mountain Lion 10.8.0? After the upgrade to 10.8.0, whenever I do a sudo, I always get this message:

dyld: DYLD_ environment variables being ignored because main executable (/usr/bin/sudo) is setuid or setgid

I have checked my .bash_profile, .zshrc all I could think of, and I don't see anything related to the DYLD_ environment.

After googling for hours, I tried to put these two lines in my .zshrc:

unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH
unset DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

But the annoying message still appears.

I go to a guest account and did a sudo but didnt' get this message. So I guess I have some custom library installed... But I don't know how to debug this.

Do you have any other DYLD_ variables set? Run set with no parameters to see all variables and unset anything that comes up with that prefix.

Note that it looks like this is really just a workaround for a bug, those messages shouldn't be printed unless you have DYLD_PRINT_WARNINGS enabled.

Also, the update to 10.8.1 seems to have patched this annoyance.


Put Fitness+ workouts on my TV I do not have an AppleTV, but I have a TCL tv with Roku which has an AppleTV app. The TV says the app is up to date but I see no way to view fitness+ workouts.
I have also tried using AirPlay from my iPad and my iPhone which does put the audio through the TV speakers but the video stays on the device.
Do I currently need AppleTV hardware to put fitness+ workouts on my TV?

Apple Fitness+ can't be used with the standalone Apple TV app.
According to Apple:

Apple Fitness+ requires Apple Watch Series 3 or later with watchOS 7.2
or later and one of the following Apple devices: iPhone 6s or later with
iOS 14.3 or later, iPad with iPadOS 14.3 or later, or Apple TV with
tvOS 14.3 or later.

Just having the app on a TV will not work.  As you've seen, Fitness+ doesn't airplay well when run from an iPad or iPhone.  I hope this is just a bug that they'll fix later.


Audio settings in High Sierra resetting after reboot I have this issue where my selected audio device will reset to Digital Out after I restart.

I have searched online and found some people suggesting deleting some configuration file for older versions of Mac OS, but the file doesn't exist in my computer.

Anyone knows what file holds these settings so I can see if it's a permissions problem?

Or if anyone knows what the true solution is please let me know.

thanks.

If the audio device you're using is always connected, please try these instructions (relevant portion below, although there are some other suggestions in that post that could be worth trying).

However, keep in mind that if the device is disconnected when your system starts, it will revert to the system default. (It is also possible, that if you are loading certain applications on startup, that they are resetting the preferred default, but we'll need more details on your system configuration/startup items in this case.)

You could also, depending on your situation, use an AppleScript method to create a one-click type approach to your audio selection.

Suggested first attempt to solve this issue:

Go to /Applications/Utilities and open Audio MIDI Setup. Select the device you want to use, click the gear, and then Use this device for sound output.


What's the current state of delta updates for iOS apps? Were they ever promised? If not, any word from Apple on if it will come? I'm quite sure that I read, in more than one place, that one of the features of iOS 5 was to be delta updates for apps. However, the massive download that was required for an update to Infinity Blade II (a great example of just the sort of app delta updates would be tremendously useful for) suggests to me that its update was done the old way, by a complete download of the entire new version of the app.

To make perfectly clear, I'm asking about when and if we can expect delta updates for iOS apps. Mac programs in the Mac App Store do not interest me. Another thing that might have confused reporting in the run-up to the release of iOS 5 is the fact that over the air updates for iOS itself are delta updates. Could it be that Apple never even promised delta updates for apps, and the press simply got these two things confused?

Edited to add:
Since my original question wasn't clear, I'll try again. I know that right now, there are no iOS app delta updates. What I'm curious about:

Had Apple ever explicitly told developers or the press that they would be doable in iOS 5?
If so, does anyone know why it hasn't happened?
If not, has anyone heard if it's being worked on for the future?

I believe you mixed the two.

iOS supports delta update, but only for the OS itself. iOS 5.0.1 was a ~40MB update.

Mac OS X supports delta update for the Mac App Store apps.


Language mismatch in Apple menu bar The default language on my iMac is Italian, however, after restoring from a time machine backup, the language of the shutdown and reboot options from the menu bar have mixed language.

The "countdown" is in Italian but the other text is not, as you can see. Also, the text of the password prompt of the lock screen is in English too, "Enter password". I tried switching the language to English and back to Italian but it didn't work. I'm running OS X 10.11.6.

Solved by running

sudo languagesetup

Solution from the ‘If there’s more than one user account on your Mac’ part from the Apple KB article Change the language used at the login screen on your Mac.


Folder in root greyed out in Finder but accessible in Terminal I've just migrated from an old MBP to a new one. I had a folder Transmachina in the root in which I keep a large SVN working copy. I just copied this over with cp -R but on the new machine this folder is greyed out in Finder, and I can't navigate into it.

In terminal, I can access it fine as my user (no sudo) and the permissions are:

drwxr-xr-x   56 nic   wheel    Transmachina

which are the same as on the old machine. Both are running 10.8.2, but the old machine was 10.5 when originally purchased and configured.

Update: xattr -l Transmachina doesn't show anything at all.

Any ideas on how I can fix this?

I found my answer here: http://stephenmonro.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/the-best-file-management-utility-for-mac-osx/

Use a command like this on the folder:

SetFile -d 06/13/2011 PATH/


Add new currency to Yosemite Spotlight Is it possible to add new currency to the spotlight currency conversion?
I'd like to have UAH (Ukrainian Hryvna) in my spotlight.

No, this is currently not possible. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


Delete all Bookmarks / Favorites from Safari I use Chrome as my primary browser (Work and Home) but have to fall-back to Safari for side-businesses during work, such as music streaming sites.

For consistency, I like to keep my browsers in sync. Chrome carries all my bookmarks and I prefer importing them all into Safari. An obvious limitation of this is that to keep my Safari updated with latest bookmarks of Chrome, every once in a while I must delete all bookmarks / favorites from Safari and add them again (just to avoid any duplication).

Now I'm unable to find any button in menus / preferences to Delete All Bookmarks. And deleting each bookmark individually is a pain since there are over 280. How do I delete all bookmarks from Safari without having to reset it entirely (deleting Cache, Cookies, History etc)?

macOS High Sierra 10.13.3, Safari 11.0.3 (13604.5.6)

For those who've been in Apple's ecosystem for a while, this would be straight-forward. But since I come from Windows / Linux background, I'm not-so-familiar with the quick and (subjectively) intuitive shortcuts found here-and-there across macOS.

It's quite easy:

Click on Bookmarks menu > Edit Bookmarks
Here you get list of all your bookmarks and favorites (Tip: If you've imported your bookmarks from Chrome, all those that come from Bookmarks Bar of Chrome are listed under Favorites)
Click on the first bookmark (after favorites section), and hold down Delete key till all bookmarks get deleted

Repeat this for Favorites


I tried to login to icloud, it made me change my password My password is at least 8 digits with a number and a capital, but it is still making me change it. The website says I need a "stronger password", but I meet all their requirements. I don't want to make a new password, how can I keep the old one?

According to Apple, the Apple ID password (which should be the same as your iCloud account and password) must:

  Contain at least eight characters, a number, an uppercase letter, and a lowercase letter.
  You can't use spaces, the same character three times in a row, your Apple ID, or a password you've used in the last year.

If you have uppercase and lowercase letters and a number in your old password, and if there are no repeating characters and not any other restrictions mentioned above, that should be fine. Is that the case? However, if you change the password, it cannot be to a password you have already been using within the last year.

The question is, why is it making you change your password? It's not because the password is too weak. Did you initiate the change? Do they think your account is compromised? Did you try logging in too many times or accidentally press "forgot my password"? Was this totally out of the blue? Do you have any more information about that? If you do have to make a new password, you do have to Make it different from the old one. It's not a bad thing to change your password once in a while, though I understand it can be annoying to get used to a new password and to update your login on all your Apple devices and apps. I remember a few months ago I had to change my iCloud/Apple ID password. I don't recall why or if I initiated the change or Apple thought my account was compromised or if it was out of the blue, but I did have to change it, and it was a mild inconvenience updating my logins.


Apple Remote Desktop - Reports Battery Percentage or Battery Hrs Left With Apple Remote Desktop, how can I generate a Battery Status Hrs Left or Battery Percentage Left on my Mac Laptop(s)?

I did find something that tells me the "Battery Charge Remaining (mAh)", but it give me a number that I do not understand, example: 646.

Can I have the percentage left instead or hours will be fine too?

Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.

Fabio

The "Battery Charge Remaining (mAh)" field in Apple Remote Desktop's Reports function indicates the remaining milliamp hours of the battery.

To find the battery percentage, you can use "Send UNIX Command" to remotely execute the following command:

pmset -g batt

The output is the percentage and status of the battery, including the estimated time until it will be fully discharged, for example:

51%; discharging; 3:24 remaining present: true


Why does my OS X still run older php even though I updated it? I have just updated my system php in terminal via command line.

I deleted the export path in .bash_profile as it was pointing to mamp but for some reason my php still says 5.3 not 5.4 when I run php -v in terminal.

Does anyone know why this would happen. I have also closed terminal and reopened to see the change.

It seems as you did not add the new path to your $PATH.

Citing the FAQ of the website that you have posted:

  Why does php -v on the command line still show my old version?

  php-osx doesn't overwrite the php binaries installed by Apple, but installs everyting in /usr/local/php5. The new php binary is therefore in /usr/local/php5/bin/php.

  You can also adjust your PATH do include that directory, eg. write into your ~/.profile file the following

  export PATH=/usr/local/php5/bin:$PATH

So open you .profile or .bash_profile in a editor like nano or vim and add the last line export PATH=/usr/local/php5/bin:$PATH to the appropiate file.

Source your file with source ~/.bash_profile or source ~/.profile or close and reopen your terminal.


Set my default address for auto-fill? Since updating to 10.7.2, the email addresses in my address book card seem to have re-prioritized themselves. Now when I use Auto-Fill, the wrong address pops up, and I don't see any way to change it.

Can I set a "primary" or default address in Address Book? (I still hate this new version of Address Book by the way.)

Or, can I select which address is used in auto-fill in Safari?

I had the same problem.  I went into address book and put my desired address as the first one on my card.  It worked.


Restoring a Boot Camp image with Windows 7 and making it bootable? I have an image of Boot Camp with Windows 7, which was created by Carbon Copy Cleaner. I didn't realize that the image wasn't bootable until I had already deleted the partition.

I'd like to restore the partition with the image, and make it bootable, so that I can return back to where I was before deleting the partition. Is this at all possible to do?

Why don't you make a new Bootcamp partition, download CCC for windows and let it do its job?


Change space of other non-active display via keyboard My two displays (let call them A and B) have separate spaces. I can go back and forth among the spaces on the active/focussed display A. Is it possible to go back and forth among the spaces on B with keyboard shortcuts and without moving the focus to B?

I do not mean assigning keyboard shortcuts to each space, because there are more than ten spaces and plenty of maximized windows.

There is another question here on Ask Different that answer this question:  Keyboard shorcut to switch focus between multiple displays on OS X 10.9.5 + (mavericks, el capitan, sierra)

Here's the quick summary:

There are some utilities (window managers) that allow you to assign a keyboard shortcut to the focus of a specific monitor.  They are as follows (links provided):

Catchmouse (No longer available so it's a moot point here)
Divvy - $13
SizeUp - $13
Slate - Open Source, Free.  Functional, but there's a lot of manual configuration to be done here and not as easy as the paid software.


cron and "command not found" I'm setting up a cron job to run an executable bash script which contains a pypdfocr command.
Whenever I manually execute the script everything works as expected, if instead I use cron with this schedule:

* 6 * * * cd /path/to/ && ./executable

I get this error:

pypdfocr: command not found

Given this, in the bash script I've tried to give the full path to pypdfocr, i.e.:

/anaconda/bin/pypdfocr

But now I have:

/bin/sh: pdfimages: command not found
/bin/sh: gs: command not found

Any idea on how I can fix this?

When cron runs an event, it uses the default shell environment of the running UID. However, no "profile" customization is applied, i.e. your .bash_profile is not sourced and thus any PATH settings are not picked up. As well, I don't believe that the common profiles are picked up either. As such, you probably have no PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment settings available to the process you're trying to launch and this is why pdfimages and gs isn't being picked up by default.

In the past, I've solved this one of two ways:

Directly reference the full path of the file I need.
Create a wrapper shell script for the job.

I typically prefer the 2nd one since it not only allows me to set up an environment for the job to run in, but it also makes it relatively easy to add debug situations easily. For example, if the job isn't working right I can just edit the shell script and put in STDOUT redirection to a debug file.

So in short, I would have a cron entry of

* 6 * * * cd /path/to/ && ./executable.sh

.. which would change to the path, but the executable.sh would do all the export PATH, export LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc. to get my job set up.

Your sample executable.sh could be as simple as this:

#!/bin/bash

# if you want to just pick up your profile, you can '.' source it
. ~/.bash_profile

export PATH=/where/i/find/gs
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/if/i/need/libs

(./executable 2&>1) >executable.out

The executable.out file redirection isn't necessary since without it all STDOUT goes to cron.out, but it does make it a bit cleaner to do it this way. Also the 2>&1 nonsense with the parenthesis makes sure that both STDERR and STDOUT make it into the output file; this helps with debugging why a job didn't run.


Recover proxy bypass list from System Preferences I’ve been using Freedom to block access to the internet. I had a list of sites to bypass within the Proxy tab of System Preferences, effectively whitelisting the sites I need for work.

I installed Charles to determine and whitelist the hosts/domains Evernote Mac was using, allowing the app to sync. In the process, it deleted my rather long and painstakingly gathered whitelist, rendering Freedom useless.

Is there a way to recover that list, and if so, where might I find that file?

This information is stored in

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

Under the NetworkServices dictionary are each service in the Network preference pane. Look through the list until you find the service with the matching UserDefinedName such as Wi-Fi, then open Proxies and see the ExceptionsList array.

You can recover an older version of this file from your backups such as Time Machine, or from an APFS snapshot.


macOS Sierra: AppleScript mount volume keeps asking for login For several OS X versions I've used:

/usr/bin/osascript -e mount volume "smb://yourserver" as user name  "yourusername" with password “yourpassword”

This has worked great, a nice and quiet mount of the network share, if it is available of course.

Now recently I installed macOS Sierra (10.12 public beta, build 16A238m), and the script still works, however it will now suddenly always show a login dialog, pre-populated with the "yourusername" and "yourpassword" values. The user will still have to click "Connect" to mount the share.

Does anyone know if this is a "bug" in the beta version (I did report this with Apple's Feedback app), or is this expected and/or what would be the "fix" for that?

See also: AppleScript Documentation "mount volume"

As Apple replied to the ticket referenced in mattdwen's Open Radar link above, as of macOS Sierra 10.12,

  you can no longer create items in /Volumes unless root.

Further, my best understanding of the AppleScript mount volume command is that it doesn't have a way to specify the mount point and consequently it only mounts volumes under /Volumes through the Finder's standard mechanism. So, I don't think you can do it via AppleScript.

But there's another way. You can accomplish the same thing using the lower level mount command:

mkdir -p ~/mnt
mount_smbfs "//my_username:my_password@my_hostname/share" ~/mnt

After mounting the volume this way, you should see a normal "volume" icon appear on your desktop and the ~/mnt directory will appear as "share" when you browse your user directory via Finder.

The one thing missing from this approach is saving the login credentials in Keychain. To do that, you have to do a bit more scripting. Something like this.

Save the password:

security add-generic-password -a my_username -s my_hostname -w my_password

Retrieve the password and mount the share:

pass=$(security find-generic-password -a my_username -s my_hostname -w)
mount_smbfs "//my_username:${pass}@my_hostname/share" ~/mnt

NOTE: If you have special characters in your password, you will probably need to URL encode it, perhaps like this:

pass='my !@#%%^& password'
pass=$(php -r "echo urlencode(\"$pass\");")
>>> my+%21%40%23%25%25%5E%26+password


Old MacBook Air 3rd party SSD visibility is temperature dependent 1st gen MacBook Air.. I replaced the failing internal HD with an 3rd party SSD (wasn't hard, but replacing the fan which was also broken was much trickier - pro tip: don't try using a 00 screwdriver on 000 screws). [will update this question with SSD make+model asap]

Problem: SSD visible on boot only sometimes, and oddly enough, only when the Mac is cold from being carried around outside (where its below 0 C right now). Also, when the Mac is initially cold enough to make SSD visible, it is usable, and can even booted from, even as the Mac is subjected to higher temperatures, until shutdown or sleep.

A little more history: When first connecting drive, didn't seem to work, but after several disconnections & reconnections during process of replacing the fan (took a few tries since at first I first didn't have correct screwdriver, see pro tip above), SSD suddenly appeared on boot. I used it for about a day, after which I had to disconnect & reconnect again (to finish installing fan since I finally got the correct screwdriver) which made it disappear again. I tried reseating connections several times, then finally gave up for the time being & closed up the case, resigned to use my external HD exclusively. Only a few weeks later did the temperature outside drop allowing me to notice its temperature-dependant, semi-working state.

Question: has anyone ever seen such behaviour? Is it likely to really just be a matter of reopening case and reseating connections even though my repeated attempts at this have failed? (doing it wrong maybe?) Or might there be something trickier I should try?

If the original drive works inside the MacBook in any temp, then id say faulty SSD.

If not, then faulty MacBook :(

temperature based faults are usually categorised as things like dry joints, where solder between two surfaces is not correctly made and the contraction due to cold brings the surfaces in touch and heat creates expansion breaking the connection.


Making a Mac Mini mid-2007 able to display 2560x1440 in 2D work I have a Mac Mini mid-2007 (MB139xx/A) that can only output 1920x1080 (as far as I've understood).
I have a Dell U2713HM screen, and I'd like to make that Mac beeing able to work on that screen at full res. Not for gaming or such 3D contents, just for simple 2D display (Finder, text writing, Web surfing, etc...).

Do you know some trick that can help me to achieve this goal ? I've read many things about connecting an external graphic card via USB, PCIe, Thunderbolt, etc... but I'm not a Mac hardware expert and I don't see anything that could work with no doubt on my Mac.

Can you help ?

With a Mac Mini that old, you are out of luck if you want anything better than the built-in HDMI.  However, there are USB-to-DVI converters, also known as external graphics cards, that will work fine to connect a second display.  I have had good results with this one.  Two 1920x1080 monitors are a lot better than one!

Newer Minis (the 2008 Core 2 Duo model with GeForce graphics, and later) have two video ports, one of which is a DisplayPort connector which with the right adapters can run a 30" monitor at 2560x1600.


How to not show search results for the whole Mac? I am using macOS Big Sur, and notice if I use Finder and navigate to a folder, and search for a file by name, then it shows me results, but is for the whole Mac.  This is really confusing. I will have to remember to click it from "This Mac" back to "FolderName"  How do I make it search within that folder and its sub-folders by default?

In Finder Preferences, in the advanced tab you have an option to choose where the search starts from.

When performing a search:

Search This Mac
Search the Current Folder
Use the Previous Search Scope


iPad 2 can't update past iOS 9.3.5 My brother gave me his iPad 2. It doesn't update to iOS 10. How can I get it to allow me to download apps like Netflix. I know Apple cancelled the older version on iPhone and iPad to not be able to be updated, and I know if I didn't own app I can’t get past version, but there has to be a way or this iPad I have is basically a large camera you can FaceTime on.

Is there a way I can upgrade iOS on this iPad so I can install latest apps?

This device can't update to iOS 10.

From Apple Support (see System Requirements at bottom):

System Requirements

iPhone 5 or newer
iPad 4th generation or newer
iPad mini 2 or newer
iPod touch (6th generation)


System storage not being correctly represented in 'About This Mac' For some reason, in the 'About this mac' under storage, my mac running el capitan (macbook pro 13" early 2015) doesnt correctly display how much storage i've used. Does anyone have a fix for this?

Try reindexing spotlight:

Go to System Preferences>Spotlight
Go to the Privacy tab, and add Macintosh HD the list.
Restart/Reboot your Mac.
Go back to System Preferences>Spotlight>Privacy and remove Macintosh HD from the list.

WARNING: This will consume large amounts of power (at first you can expect about 1% of power loss every 15 seconds or so, but it will slow considerably). It will also slow you computer considerably, using up almost all of one of your CPU cores, and about 2 GB ram. This is from my experience on a 1 TB hard drive, so it may be less or more intense for you.

P.S. Plug in your charger before doing this.


How are iOS apps protected from theft by other developers? An app can contain proprietary resources like a Core ML model that a developer spent a lot of time developing.

According to this answer,
the app itself is not encrypted when it is downloaded to a device. What stops the developer of a competing app from taking the Core ML model and using it in his/her own app?

Technically - not much. Legally and practically - a lot!

You can easily copy resources such as an ML model that someone spent a lot of resources on creating.

However it is illegal to do so almost everywhere in the world, and you will be facing fines or other types of punishments if you cross that line and get caught.

Another factor is practically. Usually it is not of lasting value to have a copy of the end product. If you cannot refine it, improve on it, add to it or understand it, because you do not have all the other files, documents, and know-how that were used to create it in the first place - it’s really of limited value!


How can I abort Mojave installation? I am on Sierra now, and the appstore has downloaded the Mojave Installer, however I quit it without going though any of the steps, the installer is just sitting in my apps folder.

I would like to cancel the Mojave installation and remove the downloaded files, is there anything I can do?

You already canceled it by quitting the installer, just delete the  installer if you do not ever want to upgrade, or keep it for a later install.

The /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app can be double-clicked to restart the upgrade, whenever you want.

On a side note, if you do not want the App Store to do things automatically... then in System Preferences > App Store, uncheck the appropriate check boxes.

On my system I like to manually control when any upgrading occurs so I set my App Store preferences as in the image below.


How to separate iCloud Drive from Desktop & Documents How do I separate iCloud Drive from Desktop and Documents?

I accidentally clicked on an option to have iCloud store all of the desktop files, then all of the sudden, iCloud ran out of storage.

I got rid of iCloud Drive but all my files disappeared off the desktop. Luckily, I was able to restore them through iCloud.

Now I am looking for a way to have iCloud and the Desktop back to default behavior (separate) - without deleting all my files. How do I do that?

Side question:
If I used TimeMachine with iCloud backing up my desktop, all files on the desktop would also be copied to TimeMachine, right?

To answer your first question:

Deactivate storing your Desktop & Document files in iCloud by doing the following:

Click Apple Menu (in the upper left corner of the menu bar) -> System Preferences -> iCloud -> Click Options (next to iCloud Drive) -> Uncheck Desktop & Documents Folders -> Turn Off -> Done.

What may seem counterintuitive is that your files are still stored in the iCloud ( which is perhaps why you thought you lost them).

To retrieve your files, you should open Finder and navigate to iCloud Drive, and then to the Documents folder within iCloud Drive. You should then manually transfer or copy the files from that directory to the local Documents directory on your computer. You should then do that same with your Desktop folder.

Answer to your second question here: Does Time Machine backup iCloud Drive files that are not stored locally?