Did Apple get rid of autosave and versions in Mavericks? (As a heads up, I've hardly used any versions of OS X newer than Snow Leopard. So, I might be missing something obvious here).

I recently installed Mountain Lion and after that Mavericks. While on Mountain Lion, I noticed the "new" versions and autosave feature (released in Lion, right?) that you could access via the context menu of a file in Finder or the arrow next to the file's app's window title.

But, now that I'm in Mavericks, I can't find it in either of these places.

Versions is not in Finder's context menu in Mavericks and later. Apple recommends the use of the File menu to access versions of files.

  Browse, restore, duplicate, and delete versions

  Open the document, then choose File > Revert To > Browse All Versions.
  Click tick marks along the timeline to browse versions.
  Display the version you want, then do one of the following:

  To restore your document to this version, click Restore.
  To duplicate this version in a new document, press the Option key and click “Restore a Copy.”
  To leave your document as is, without changes, click Done.

Source: OS X Mavericks: View and restore past versions of documents

Documents can be reverted again using the File menu.

  Revert a document to the last opened version

  Choose File > Revert To, then choose Last Opened, Last Saved, or Previous Save.

Source: OS X Mavericks: View and restore past versions of documents

Access to versions through the disclosure triangle icon next to the name of the document in the title bar is also gone—again, the File menu is preferred.


How to delete contacts from iPhone? I just set up my brand new iPhone 5 running iOS 6. I set it up as a new device.
I have been using Exchange to sync my contacts with Google (Gmail) Contacts for the past few days. Today I stopped doing that and started syncing via CardDAV.

However I have some contacts that I can't delete. In fact, if I turn off all contact syncing (including iCloud) I am still left with 50 contacts that I can't delete. I try to delete them, but they just stay there.

Any thoughts on how to solve this?

Update: Note that I have tried a restore (and restored from backup) on the iPhone and this did not fix it.

Just go to your contact via contacts app icon. Select desired contact then click edit in top right corner and then scroll down to very bottom and click delete contact, voilá!


Backup MacBook pro late 2011 My MacBook pro keeps restarting while booting.  I showed it to Apple care.  They said they will check.  But I might loose my data while they do so.  In hardware test they did everything was fine.  Including hard drive.  Is there a way to backup my drive?

I see 2 alternatives, if it won't boot…

Take the drive out, mount it in an external USB case, then you can back it up from any other machine that can read the drive.
If you have another Mac, mount it in Target Disk Mode

  If you have two Mac computers with FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, you can connect them so that one of them appears as an external hard disk on the other. This is called “target disk mode.”

  Connect the two computers with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.
  Start up the computer to be used as a disk in target disk mode:

  If the computer is off, start it up while holding down the T key.
  If the computer is on, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Startup Disk, and then click Target Disk Mode.

  When the computer has started up, a disk icon appears on the desktop of the other computer.
  Transfer files by dragging them to and from the disk.
  Eject the disk by dragging its icon to the Trash.
  While you drag, the Trash icon changes to an Eject icon.
  On the computer you used as a disk, push the power button to shut it down, and then disconnect the cable.


How to "unshare" a video in iCloud I shared a home video on my iPhone with myself via iCloud using my cell phone number. I was hoping that this would allow me to see the file somehow on my Mac but alas that did not work. I'm assuming this video is now using space on my iCloud account, so I'd like to "unshare" and delete it. How is this done?

Follow-up question, the video in question was added twice. I'm able to delete the videos as suggested in in the selected answer, however I'm now left with an empty stream that says "shared by (null)(null)". How do I get rid of that?

It appears that you've added a video to an iCloud Shared Photo Stream. Since you are the one that added it to the stream, you can delete it.

  Can I delete photos, videos and comments from a shared stream?

  Yes. If you are the owner of a shared stream, you can delete any photos, videos or comments that you or your contributors have added.

Source: Apple KB article: iCloud Photo Sharing FAQ

To delete a video from a shared stream:

Go to Photos → Shared.

Select the stream that you added the video to, then select the video.
Tap the Trash  icon to delete it.

To delete the entire shared stream:

Go to Photos → Shared.
Select the stream that you wish to delete.
Go to People → Delete Photo Stream.

With regard to your statement about using up iCloud storage…

  Do Shared Photo Streams use my iCloud storage?

  No. Photos uploaded to Shared Photo Streams do not count against your iCloud storage.

Source: Apple KB article: iCloud Photo Sharing FAQ


Dictionaries.app only has Wikipedia on High Sierra I have installed High Sierra 10.13 today over the top of a working 10.12.6 installation.

I have previously used the dictionaries app for the thesaurus and other dictionaries. Upon opening the dictionary app, and going to preferences I can see that only Wikipedia is available.

It seems that it is supposed to download the dictionaries, but it doesn't.

What should I do?

Had same problem as jakethedog, only Wikipedia showing! Looked through potential blocking of outgoing calls by Little Snitch. When I removed blocking of nsurlsessiond I got all this other dictionaries also.

Answer to Allan below: Well this is relevant only if you use software Little Snitch for privacy purposes to block outgoing calls from different software https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
Sometimes one blocks outgoing calls with unexpected consequences. In my case I blocked Apple process nsurlsession from "calling home" since it is not entirely clear what info this process transmits to Apple. Apparently it also blocked discovery of these dictionaries. Little Snitch users will understand, for others it is not really relevant.


How to install Widevine CDM with Chromium on macOS? I have just built the binary for Chromium. I am looking to install widevine. How might I do that?

I have only found tutroials for linux https://github.com/proprietary/chromium-widevine.

I was able to successfully install Widevine by adding the following arguments to my build config:

ffmpeg_branding="Chrome"
proprietary_codecs=true
enable_widevine=true

First and second one makes sure that the codecs are available to play most video. enable_widevine well enables widevine.

Once built, go to chrome://components and scroll to the "Widevine" one. It should list the version as "0.0.0.0" or something like that. Click "Update". This should change the numbers to the most current version and install it. Restart the browser and it should work.


Trackpad left-click is unresponsive - MBA Tap-to-click works fine, and so does right-click - most of the time. Left click does not work at all, unless you press it very hard at the very corner and hold it there for a while until it registers, although it worked a little sporadically yesterday, worked completely normal the day before.

The computer was manufactured mid-2013, but the battery was in 2016 and replaced mid-2017 - that's all the modifications done to it.

I'm guessing it's a hardware problem, but the clicking sound and feel is completely normal.

Any ideas about what is at fault and how to fix it?

The 2013 MBP has still the mechanical trackpad. Check if the trackpad is stressed physically in some way. When the battery swells it happens that the trackpad stops registering clicks, because it can not be pressed.


The rubber gasket around my Macbook screen is coming off! Does this mean that I have to change the entire screen. I read somewhere online that I might have to change the entire screen.

Can't apple just change the rubber gasket?

What if I just leave it as it is? Will the screen come off? :O :O

Picture for reference:

Okay, first things first. It's definitely worth you taking it in to an Apple Store (if you're able to) or phoning Apple support about this. I have known Apple to replace this even if you're technically outside their warranty period. Of course, each case is different, and it will depend on the What, When, How and Why of your situation. In a nutshell, it doesn't hurt to ask.

Now, regarding whether this has to involve the replacement of your entire screen, the answer is not so straightforward.

Officially Apple does not supply the rubber as a separate part, instead it comes with a new lid/screen replacement. However, I have known Apple to replace the rubber on its own, so they can do it.

Also, I'm personally aware of this being done by following the same steps of replacing the screen - except that you only go as far as removing the old gasket and then follow the steps in reverse to add the new gasket and put everything back together again.

If you have no joy at Apple you can choose to repair it yourself (if it's not something that scares you).

To repair it yourself you can purchase a new gasket from places like eBay. Of course the steps involved can be found online or you could ask another question here for guidance.


How to prevent app falling in sleeping status on Mac? As the title asked, the office Mac Pro can keep running without falling in sleeping, however, the program, like TeamView, always falls in sleeping so I cannot remotely communicate with my office computer.
I can remote log in my office computer using xshell and reboot it, and then remote log in TeamView. Is there any other way to change the sleeping status using commands or prevent the software falling in sleep?

Any suggestion would be appreciated.

MacPro 5
Sierra 10.12.6

You can disable the App Nap feature on any app by finding it in Applications, Get Info, then uncheck App Nap.

The App Nap checkbox doesn't appear for all apps - & I can't figure out what determines that.

Otherwise, you can disable it globally from Terminal using the command
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES


Thunderbolt Bridge not connected I need to transfer a lot of files between two 2019 MacBook Pros, but when I connect them using a Thunderbolt cable, the bridge never connects and assigns an IP via DHCP.
I tried manually assigning an IP and subnet mask to both of them, but still can't connect them.
What is wrong here?

Using a Thunderbolt Bridge with Internet Sharing
This is an example where a Thunderbolt bridge was be setup to transfer files. This was done using legacy Thunderbolt. I assume the same procedure would be used with Thunderbolt 3. The host computer is connected to the internet through ethernet using a DHCP assigned IP address of 192.168.0.88 and subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, so I setup the Sharing pane of System Preferences as shown below. You could also use Wi-Fi.

I have a Thunderbolt 2 cable connecting the two Macs. On the client computer, I setup the Network pane of System Preferences as shown below. I needed to select the Renew DHCP Lease button. The client is current not connected to the internet by Bluetooth, Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

I setup the Sharing pane of System Preferences on the client as shown below. Note: In my case, the image shows I can connect to the client from the host by using smb://192.168.2.2.

From the menu bar of the Finder application on the host, I can select Go->Connect to Server... and enter smb://192.168.2.2, as shown below.

Proceed by selecting the Connect button.
Using a Thunderbolt Bridge without Internet Sharing

Note: Here the IPv4 addresses of 192.168.2.1 and 192.168.2.2 were used because these were the addresses chosen by the host in the internet sharing example. If you use these address, then you must make sure there will be no conflicts with other LANs being used by either of your Macs.

I suppose internet sharing is not required. For example, the computer, referred to as the client, could have been manually setup, as shown below.

And, the computer, referred to as the host, could have been manually setup, as shown below.

With the above configuration, the Sharing pane of System Preferences, for the computer referred to as the host, could have internet sharing turn off, as shown below.


Can I get the original Mac font Chicago on a Mountain Lion Mac? I'm running Mountain Lion on a mid 2011 MacBook Air.

I'd love to be able to set type in the oldest Macintosh system font, Chicago. Is this font included anywhere in OS X Mountain Lion? If not, what is the most recent Macintosh operating system to include the font, and can the font be purchased anywhere?

The last version of the OS to use this font as default was System 7.

  For Mac OS 8, Apple decided to discard this wonderful part of their
  brand’s identity, and commissioned David Berlow of the Font Bureau to
  design Charcoal.

Apple actually released System 7 for free download here. Conceivably you could load up System 7 in an emulator like Sheepshaver and get the font out somehow. Or unpack the system images provided by Apple, though I don't know which software you would need for that.

Apple abandoned Chicago as of OSX, as evidenced by the outrage here. Locally, I can buy an original iMac running OS 9 for 50 EUR. So you could buy one of those and transfer the font :-)

UPDATE: extracting Chicago from System 7

Download the System 7 disk image from Apple for free here
Unpack System 7.0.1.smi.bin with "The Unarchiver.app" (free on the App Store here)
Convert System 7.0.1.smi to a dmg image using Disk Utility using the menu item 'Images > Convert'
Open the resulting System 7.0.1.smi.dmg and get the Fonts.image inside
Convert Fonts.image to a dmg using Disk Utility
Open the resulting Fonts.image.dmg
Enjoy your retro goodness.


App doesn't remember my preferences or information when restored My old iPhone got replaced by Apple as it was faulty. Now I did my iCloud restore on my new iPhone 6, but when I open WhatsApp or Viber and even the any of app doesn't remember my number or information of any sort, e.g on WhatsApp it is asking me for my number and I sort of can't provide it, as I am outside the country for a few months and don't have my SIM card with me, which was registered to that. I am totally blocked out. Should i making a appointment with apple or is it something wrong with my backup, as in past i was able to recover my icloud data and app stored information without re-entering it again,

Is there a way to solve this?

Even if you're outside the country where the phone carrier is originally provided, you still can provide your number to WhatsApp. After providing your number, you'll receive a text from WhatsApp that contains the activation code. Then, enter the activation code in WhatsApp to re-activate it.


Export Keychain Items is not enabled from File menu of Keychain Access As can be seen in the screenshot I have selected a bunch of keychain items. So why is Export items disabled?

You can only export one key at a time, or one key and a matching certificate.
It will be encrypted upon export and can only contain one key.

If you need to move an entire keychain to a different computer, look at ~/Library/Keychains - example login.keychain (in finder, cmd + shift + g, paste path, go)

It can be added to another machine and you can change the password of the keychain.


What prevents export of a private key from Mavericks keychain? In Mac OS X Mavericks, I'm not able to export a private key from keychain. I'm getting the following error message:
 /* In dark wake, no UI possible */

Searching it in Apple documentation fetched the following details:

value: -25320

Description: The user interface could not be displayed because the system is in a dark wake state. Available in OS X v10.7 and later.

Can someone please suggest a solution or the cause of problem?

It appears that your system was mistaken about being asleep (because an internal flag it used to keep track of sleep state got out of sync with the true state). As you confirmed later, a reboot fixes this problem.


Route (MacBook Air) audio output through (Dell) LCD Monitor speakers My Dell LCD monitor has a "speaker power" socket in the back. This suggests it has its own internal speakers behind the LCD panel.

However, it doesn't have any audio input. So I suppose the only way must be through the data cable, which in my case is Thunderbolt -> DVI.

But OPT+click on the volume Icon in OSX's system tray doesn't list any corresponding audio output.

Is there any way to get audio outputting through the monitor?

Okay so a couple of things are at play here. First of all, DVI doesn't carry audio - so even though the Mac's Thunderbolt port is capable of sending audio, when you convert it to DVI that audio stream gets lost. This can get confusing though, because it is possible to send a HDMI signal over a DVI-D cable, which will carry audio. But that's technically not a DVI stream any more.

  A DVI-D source can output HDMI signals including audio (e.g. ATI 3000->series and NVIDIA GTX 200-series).[9] Some multimedia displays use a DVI >to HDMI adapter to input the HDMI signal with audio. Exact capabilities vary by video card specifications.

Source: Digital Visual Interface article on Wikipedia

The next thing is whether or not that port is an Input or Output. I've got an LG monitor down the end of my desk that has a 3.5mm Jack on the back, but it's an output. Meaning if you plug in a source that supports audio (in its particular case, HDMI) then you can pass that audio out to a set of desktop speakers. But it doesn't have any built in.

If it is indeed an input, you just need a 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable, and connect the headphone output of your MacBook to the speaker input on the monitor.

Something like this would do the trick: 3.5mm Stereo Jack Cable on Amazon

The upshot being, you can't do audio and video over DVI connection alone.


Setting preferred language order on iPhone Q: Is it possible to set a secondary preferred language on the iPhone?

Background:

On the Mac Desktop it is possible to select a "Language Preference" order, so that if your favorite application isn't localized for your primary language, then it will prefer the second best (Good example here would be a German user who speaks fluent french, but not English trying to use an application that has been localized for English and French should be able to specify they prefer the French to English):

However in iOS it seems that it isn't possible to specify a secondary (or 3rd preference), only to choose what your primary language is, at which point, iOS then makes English your second preferred language.  (So in our first example iOS will incorrectly show you the English version even if you'd have preferred the french, unless you restart your springboard and change languages every time you want to use the app):

I'm not concerned here with the keyboard internationalization, but just with viewing the applications in the correct format.

As of at least iOS 8 you can change the order of languages in Settings > General > Language and Region under the heading Preferred Language Order.


Spotlight search customizations How do I customize the news sources in Spotlight suggestions?  I don't want to disable as others have answered.  I want to remove certain suggestions that require subscriptions to read the articles.  It is not totally location based.  I get results from LA Times and I'm somewhere Louisiana.

You can't do what you're asking for.  That's controlled by Apple and it's been a problem with that service for quite a while.  Hopefully, Apple will allow us to 'like' and 'dislike' news sources


Small font size with 1440p external monitor I've connected 27" Dell U2715H to MacBook pro 2012 and have a default resolution 2560x1440. It looks nice but the font size is waaaay too small, so I had to lose some of this niceness by scaling down to 2048x1152.

I wonder is this a usual thing people do? I know this kind of displays (27" 1440p) are popular as an external MacBook monitors. As far as I know, it's not possible to change the global font size. I can't imagine how people go along with this tiny text by default with 1440p.

UPDATE:

a good question came up in comments about what do I consider a tiny font size, it's a good point, here's how it looks (full screen snapshots):

Default 2560x1440: https://i.imgur.com/HWz3N14.png
Scaled down 2048x1152: https://i.imgur.com/neyt4r1.png

My eyesight isn't perfect so I asked my colleague who wears glasses to take a look at it, he confirmed that it does look tiny

In my experience if you connect your monitor via HDMI it won't give the the font scaling options in System Preferences > Displays.

If however you connect via DisplayPort i.e. Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort it should give you the options similar to these:

There used to be some hacks to trick the monitor into switching into HiDPI mode but I couldn't personally get these to work on macOS High Sierra, but using a DisplayPort cable rather than either HDMI or Mini DisplayPort to HDMI did resolve the issue.


How to pass an AppleScript variable to Perl script? I have a Perl script that does some text transformation on a given file.

Now I would like to call this script from an AppleScript which in turn I could execute from the script menu in order to run the Perl script on a set of files with a choose folder prompt.  My Perl script starts like this:

open my $in, '<', 'myfile.txt' or die "No input: $!";
open my $out, '>', 'myfile-modified.txt';

And then it does a bunch of search-and-replace and what not.

I would like to somehow call this script from an AppleScript and process multiple files. The AppleScript should look more or less like this:

set myFolder to choose folder with prompt "Choose a folder:"
tell application "Finder"
    try
        set myFiles to (every file in entire contents of myFolder whose name ends with ".txt") as alias list
    on error
        try
            set myFiles to ((every file in entire contents of myFolder whose name ends with ".txt") as alias) as list
        on error
            set myFiles to {}
            display dialog "No files in folder."
        end try
    end try
end tell

How can I run the Perl script from AppleScript while passing myFiles as a variable to it (the perl script) and looping through them?  I assume I have to do a do shell script command but I don't know how to pass the variables on.

I also don't know whether it'd be better to pass the files as a file list to perl or to somehow put that into a repeat loop within AppleScript?

The maximum length of a command line is 2**18 bytes:

$ getconf ARG_MAX
262144

So that for example this results in an error:

read "/usr/share/dict/web2" for 270000
do shell script "printf %s " & quoted form of result

If the input is short enough, you can pass it to perl as part of the command line:

read "/usr/share/dict/web2" for 260000
do shell script "printf %s\\\\n " & quoted form of result & "|perl -pe'$_=uc'"

Otherwise you can use a temporary file:

set input to read "/usr/share/dict/web2" for 270000
set f to (system attribute "TMPDIR") & "my.tempfile"
set fd to open for access f with write permission
set eof fd to 0
write input to fd as «class utf8»
close access fd
do shell script "perl -pe'$_=uc' " & f & ";rm " & f

The default text encoding is still an encoding like MacRoman or MacJapanese, so that adding as «class utf8» to the write command preserves non-ASCII characters, even though it is not necessary in the example above.

In your case you could also do something like this:

quoted form of POSIX path of (choose folder)
do shell script "find " & result & " -name \\*.txt|perl -pe'$_=uc'"

quoted form of escapes text for shells, so that it replaces ' with '\'' and surrounds text with single quotes.


External Monitor Ghosting (MBP 2016) I tried to connect an Eizo Flexscan EV233W to My Macbook Pro using an SVGA cable (suspiciously cheap, but the only one available) and a VGA - Type C adapter.

The image on the external display was ghosted and low-res.
I suspect SVGA itself is a bad choice, although I know nothing about DisplayPorts.

Or perhaps it could be the quality of the cable?

Should I try using my DVI cable that came with the monitor with a DVI to USB-C adapter?

Thanks in advance!

Get yourself a Belkin MDP (Thunderbolt video) to HDMI adapter, and a handy HDMI cable you might have lying around, or get a Belkin all-in-one MDP > HDMI cable and it will work. I use both models at work to connect many MacBooks with Thunderbolt video ports to connect to HDMI-equipped monitors.

After years of testing, my institution trusts Belkin adapters to be the most robust and applicable for the task.

Disclaimer: I have no financial or other ties to Belkin; just a satisfied user.


Display preferences pane could not be loaded I am running OS X 10.10.3 and I tried to rotate the internal display of my Macbook Pro using this rotation trick. After I selected the 180 degree rotation, the screen rotated properly but all the rotation options were grayed out so I closed the System Preferences to try the process again.

When I go to my OS X Display preferences I get the error "Display preferences pane could not be loaded".

How do I reorient my Macbook display back to the standard orientation without erasing everything on the hard drive and reinstalling OS X?

This is so old, and I guess they've fixed it in El Capitan. One of the worst bugs I've ever ran into, because once it's triggered you'd struggle to fix it while your screen is upside down, especially if you don't have any peripherals handy. So, here are the steps just in case some unfortunate souls run into this.
* Assuming you're doing this on MacBook, or otherwise you know you're dealing with your main display. If you know better, run fb-rotate without parameters for help message.
Manually

Go to https://github.com/CdLbB/fb-rotate
Instead of following the instructions at the top to download the source and compile, you might want to scroll down, download the binary and run it directly. There's certainly risk, but your screen is now upside down so.
Follow the links, download fb-rotateNEW2.zip and extract it.
Open your favorite terminal such as Terminal.app
Go to where you've extracted it e.g. cd ~/Downloads/fb-rotateNEW2/
Run: ./fb-rotate -d0 -r0

Easy way
Copy the following single line and paste it into Terminal.app (Note the link and names might change, so if it fails fall back to the manual steps above. If you don't see 'done' at the end of the output it failed):
cd ~/Downloads && curl -LO http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6347985/Modbookish/Downloads/MacFlip/fb-rotateNEW2.zip && unzip fb-rotateNEW2.zip && fb-rotateNEW2/fb-rotate -d0 -r0 && echo done
If you're still getting the display preference pane error:
Open system preferences -> hold option/alt key and click on its dock icon -> force quit -> re-open it
That should fix it.
I managed to find the answer and fixed this like a real engineer, flipping my mbpr one way to type, another way to read, so proud of myself after this. God bless.


Vpn service to log iOS internet usage? I want a service like rescueTime for iOS. I'm pretty sure apps can't look at other app usage directly, but I think a vpn could track most of my usage, as I mostly do stuff that requires an internet connection. Are there any vpn's that have iOS apps that could summarize my usage?

I believe My Data Manger would solve your problem. ;)


App that shows an image with transparency so you can see through the window? Is there an Application that lets you display an image with some alpha transparency ( either in the image or in the app ) that lets you see through the image into what's beneath? (the desktop, or other windows)

I need this for tracing over (in this case under) in a drawing application that doesn't allow importing background images.

Afloat could be a good call:
http://infinite-labs.net/afloat


Can two different App with the same name exist in App Store? Is it possible I use same name but different icon for an App I sumbit to App Store?

No, the name of your app as it appears in the App Store must be unique.  When creating your app, you will receive the following error if you try to use a name that is already taken:

  The Application Name that you provided has already been used. Please provide a unique Application Name.

But the name on the icon can be whatever you want - it can be the same as another app's icon name.

Source: Quora


iPhone screen degraded performance - evident when using Maps I have an iPhone 5s and I have the following issue: after a while, the screen gets progressively less responsive and horizontal and vertical stripes appear. Things are much worse if I use the phone while moving (especially when using Maps) than if I'm at home or at the office.

Is this behaviour indicative of a screen problem or of something else like a motherboard fault?

In the attached pictures, you can see the typical striped pattern.

I've seen a few iPhones with vertical lines over the years, but can't recall if I've ever seen one with horizontal lines.

Firstly, just to get this out of the way, I assume this is the original screen? I have seen strange behaviour such as this when non-genuine screens have been used. If you have a non-genuine screen, this could very well be your problem.

Assuming it is a genuine screen, the first thing to try (because it's easy to do) is a full reboot of your phone. By this I mean simultaneously holding down the power and Home buttons until you see the Apple logo on your screen.

If a full reboot doesn't work, then the next thing to try is to manually do a full backup of your iPhone (via iTunes on your Mac/PC) and then restore the iPhone from that backup. This process resets your iPhone to default settings and can erase any firmware glitches.

Finally, if none of the above explains or resolves the issue, then it's going to be a hardware issue. This could be a faulty/damaged display, but may also just be a loose connection. You're best bet is to take it into Apple or some other repairer to look at.


HFS partition fails to mount on Mac after being mounted on Ubuntu I recently followed the instructions here to mount an Apple-formatted HFS external drive on Ubuntu. I transferred the files I needed, then unmounted the drive. Now the drive won't mount in OSX. In Disk Utility, the volume (top level) and partition (bottom level) for the external hard drive show up, but the partition will not mount. First Aid on the top level completes without error, but running First Aid on the partition level fails.

What could be preventing me from mounting the drive after following those instructions?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

$ diskutil verifyVolume disk2s2
Started file system verification on disk2s2 WD My Passport
Verifying file system
Volume is already unmounted
Performing fsck_hfs -fn -x /dev/rdisk2s2
File system check exit code is 8
Restoring the original state found as unmounted
Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed
Underlying error: 8: Exec format error

I solved the issue by running sudo fsck.hfsplus /dev/sdx# from my Ubuntu machine. My external drive can now connect to both my Ubunutu and Mac machines.


Macbook air colorful pixels on screen I see these tiny colorful pixels on my screen which (seemingly) do not go away.

The reason is probably me wiping off smudge with paper or whatever I had around the house.

Is there a way to get them off? I don't want to try "scrubbing" any harder.

There are two possibilities: dirt on the screen, and actual internal dead pixels.

If it's dirt on the screen, then since it doesn't sound like you've tried this already, I suggest water. Water will not hurt your screen, as long as it does not run down into a crevice and into the electronics. Use a damp microfiber cloth if you have one; otherwise, use a damp paper towel very lightly (paper towels can be scratchy). Most crud that you can get on a screen will wipe away easily with wet wiping; you do not need to scrub hard, and you shouldn't as this could scratch the screen or damage the internals.

When I say “damp”, I mean getting the cloth wet under a faucet and then firmly wringing it out until it doesn't drip. Dry water off your hands so they don't drip either.

On the other hand, a colorful single pixel defect may well be a “dead” pixel. (Dirt on the screen typically doesn't look colorful except when it's fresh liquid droplets, which act as little lenses magnifying the pixels.) Typically, there is nothing you can do about these, but I have seen occasional reports of a dead pixel being restored by gentle rubbing. I would not recommend attempting this, myself.


Free programming editor w/ syntax highlighting for iBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.11 (PowerPC) I am looking for a free programming editor for my iBook G4.

I was going to to get the lightswitch trial until I looked at the sys requirements (needs Intel CPU).

Can someone please point me to a free editor that will work with a G4 iBook running 10.4.11 and supports html, css, javascript, php and c# syntax highlighting?

TextWrangler will do. It's a freeware, but you probably need to search for an older version.


Finder does not recognize + in filename I use + signs in filenames to indicate quality of publications, e.g. Johnson 2013 +++.pdf. However, Finder gives me zero hits when I search for + either in filenames or file contents. I started using + in filenames under Windows, and I had not expected this error when I converted to Mac.

  I have no problem with other symbols e.g. ^, = or '. Also, I could replace or insert + in filenames with Automator without problem. But Finder does not even recognize a file named +.txt even when the + was inserted by Automator.

Any suggestions? I run OS X 10.7.5 (11G63) on a mid-2011 Macbook Air.

If your just searching for + then put that in quotes like this "+" and finder should return results.


How to debug missing libraries on macOS? I'm trying to figure out why a binary isn't linking a shared library.  On Linux the standard way to do this is LD_DEBUG=libs that shows the path of all linked libraries, but this isn't producing any output for me.  I've read several articles recommending this on macOS, so was it removed or is there some trick to using it?  I'm running on Catalina and I've tried both bash and zsh shells.
Example from macOS:
$ LD_DEBUG=libs uptime
19:18  up 10:06, 4 users, load averages: 2.00 2.21 2.04

Example from Linux:
$ LD_DEBUG=libs uptime
     25453: find library=libprocps.so.7 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libprocps.so.7
     25453:
     25453: find library=libdl.so.2 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libdl.so.2
     25453:
     25453: find library=libc.so.6 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6
     25453:
     25453: find library=libsystemd.so.0 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libsystemd.so.0
     25453:
     25453: find library=librt.so.1 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/librt.so.1
     25453:
     25453: find library=liblzma.so.5 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/liblzma.so.5
     25453:
     25453: find library=liblz4.so.1 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/liblz4.so.1
     25453:
     25453: find library=libgcrypt.so.20 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libgcrypt.so.20
     25453:
     25453: find library=libpthread.so.0 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libpthread.so.0
     25453:
     25453: find library=libgpg-error.so.0 [0]; searching
     25453:  search cache=/etc/ld.so.cache
     25453:   trying file=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libgpg-error.so.0
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libpthread.so.0
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libgpg-error.so.0
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libgcrypt.so.20
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/liblz4.so.1
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/liblzma.so.5
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/librt.so.1
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libsystemd.so.0
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libdl.so.2
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libprocps.so.7
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: calling init: /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-v7l.so
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: initialize program: uptime
     25453:
     25453:
     25453: transferring control: uptime
     25453:
 19:17:22 up 22:36,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Try this:
$ otool -L /usr/bin/uptime
/usr/bin/uptime:
    /usr/lib/libresolv.9.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1225.0.0)

(that's on macOS 10.11.6 but should work on newer versions)


Will a Dell U2419HC provide enough power to charge a MBP 15" (Late 2016)? The monitor comes with a USB-C port that sends power as well as image. But it's unclear to me:

What's the wattage it sends?
Is that enough to charge an MBP that's in use?

Your model MBP ships with an Apple 87W USB-C Power Adapter and USB-C Charge Cable. However, you don't need the full 87W in order to be able to charge the MBP. Apple's adapter is designed to provide an ideal amount of power in order to both use the MBP and charge it at a certain rate.

You can use lower rated power adapters, but depending on the quality and actual power output, they may not last long if used continuously for charging the MBP, or they may not be able to charge it while it's operational. Obviously, I can't cover all scenarios here.

However, in terms of the U2419HC Dell UltraSharp 24 USB-C Monitor, one of the USB downstream ports does provide up to 65W of power. By way of comparison, Apple typically provides:

30W adapters for their MacBooks and MacBook Airs
61W adapters for their 13" MacBook Pros
87 W adapters for their 15" MacBook Pros

In a nutshell, what this means is that you will be able to use the U2419HC Dell Monitor and also charge your MBP at the same time, but it won't charge your MBP as fast as your Apple 87W USB-C Power Adapter will.

How fast it will charge your MBP will also depend on its usage - if you're just doing some word processing it'll charge faster than it will if you're rendering videos or playing graphics intensive games, so that may factor into your considerations. However, for most people most of the time, this monitor will work fine as a display and charging source.

Since you're interested in understanding the rate of charge and discharge of your MacBook Pro, I thought I'd recommend you download and try coconutBattery. It provides a whole heap of information that you'll find useful, and from memory includes both Discharging with and Charging with measurements in watts (obviously, only one is displayed at a time since your device can't do both simultaneously).

Also, I should point out that macOS also provides a great deal of information. Follow these steps:

Got to Apple > About This Mac
Click on the System Report... button
In the left pane under the Hardware heading, select Power (it's about 2/3 of the way down)
On the right-hand side, scroll down to view the AC Charger Information
This will show you whether it's connected to a charger, the amount of wattage it's receiving, and if it's currently charging or not

Note: I am not affiliated with coconutBattery in any way.


Applescript to open Get Info box for the previous iTunes track? I like having a hotkey to bring up the get info box for the current iTunes track so that if I'm using another app and a song comes up, I can quickly edit it.  This works (though if it's not the best way, please let me know):

tell application "iTunes"
    activate
    reveal current track
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "iTunes"
        key code 34 using command down
    end tell
end tell

I've assigned that a hotkey in BetterTouchTool and it's great.

I'd like to have a version of that script to edit the previous song...  but changing "current track" to "previous track" causes a completely different result.  iTunes goes back to play the previous track again even though I only told it to reveal it, and then I get an error saying applescript can't continue reveal.

tell application "iTunes"
    activate
    reveal (previous track)
end tell

What's the easiest way to get iTunes to show the previous track in a playlist using Applescript?

You can in a round about way using the "Recently Played" playlist.

You configure it the way you want, I've set it to the 5 most recent items,  and then run this code...

tell application "iTunes"
    set rp to get playlist "Recently Played"
    #get name of every track of rp
    #get name of last track of rp
    #set tid to get id of last track of rp
    reveal track 5 of rp

    activate

    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "iTunes"
            key code 34 using command down
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Hope this helped.

EDIT: This only works with songs that are fully played. Partially played tracks will not show up in the "Recently Played".


How to restore bluetooth PAN? I used to have bluetooth PAN by default, but i was messing around with the network interfaces.

and when removing it, i accidentally set it to not return. I've spent hours googling and constantly removing plists, yet i can't get it back. please help.

Version OSX 10.13.2

Open System Preferences > Network,
select the appropriate location you want to configure. You might have only one named Automatic which is only for very basic configuration and shouldn’t be kept for different network usages.

Then down under the left window select the + button and choose the appropriate interface to recreate.


Remove audio track in QuickTime 10? In previous versions of QuickTime you could remove the audio track and save the file. This function appears to have been removed in QuickTime 10.

Is it still possible?

Audio tracks can be removed from QuickTime movies using Automator.

This workflow

will remove the audio track from all the files in the Movies folder on the desktop.

Note this will remove the audio tracks in situ so please take a copy of them if you want to keep the audio.


Unreadable Windows DVD I have disks burnt commercially on a windows system, which my 2010 iMac (OS X 10.8.2) refuses to read.

I know the disks are correctly burnt for windows (tried them on the vendor's win machine - probably xp) but os x says:

  "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer"

I've no idea what to try (short of accessing them on an at work win machine.
Any pointers out there?

Cheers

Two possibilities. There is a problem with the software and/or hardware on your Mac, or the disk wasn't truly burned properly.

If your Mac reads all other DVDs fine, I'm guessing the problem is with how it was burned.

I'm not sure what software or method you used, but maybe there's a problem with the partition or something on the DVDs. Try to see what it says in Disk Utility.


Automatic Deployment of 802.1x profile for Wi-Fi I am wondering if there is a process that people use here to deploy 802.1x profiles in a Windows AD environment on Apple hardware specifically MacBook Pros?

Specifically when the Root CA is renewed and profiles need to be deployed. I have read up on some techniques here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macsysadmin/comments/9ugsq9/macos_8021x_authentication/
https://community.cisco.com/t5/identity-services-engine-ise/how-to-automate-process-when-deploying-dot1x-between-ise-and-mac/td-p/3749868
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4784

These either mention a third party or the information is outdated. I may be missing something but any help would be greatly appreciated.

So the solution I came up with isn't perfect but it beats a lot of the stuff I was reading online. I decided to use Ansible to remotely config the mac computers. Ansible uses ssh which most macs in our environment have turned on by default. I would recommend deploying an Ansible service account user to macbooks in order to do the following tasks. I want to iterate that this task is because we are using a Windows CA and the profiles need to be reloaded IF the Windows CA cert expires. The issue that we have had is that the laptops will not connect to 802.1x without said mobile config. The solution here is to have the macbooks connect to the network through a guest wifi and then vpn into the network. Preferably a guest network that your company has that is separate from internal resources.

We will use the following Ansible playbook to make sure we remove the old profile and then transfer over the old profile. Apple does allow you to install mobile configs via the command line but I could not get it to work so a manual install of the profile is necessary post transfer but the hard steps are done.

Here is the playbook and the remove profile script.

# Remove mac Profile

- name: Transfer and execute a script
  hosts: all
  user: USER
  sudo: true
  tasks:

     - name: Execute the script
       script: /home/USER/ansbile-play/removeProfile.sh

     - name: Execute transfer of mobile config
       copy:
         src: /home/USER/MacMobile.mobileconfig
         dest: /Users/Shared/
         mode: 0644

 #!/bin/bash
sudo /usr/bin/profiles -P | grep com.apple.mdm | awk -F'profileIdentifier:' '{print $2}' | awk '{sub(/^[ \t]+/, ""); print}' > test
testvar=$(cat test)
sudo /usr/bin/profiles -R -p $testvar
sudo rm test

After having this config you will need to have a hosts file with the hosts you would like to deploy to. Manually doing this is a pain so I suggest dynamically creating it off Active directory or however you manage computers.

Here are some resources I used to solve this proble https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/index.html
https://serversforhackers.com/

This is not a perfect solution and my code is also not perfect. Feel free to edit or change in anyway you see fit but this worked for me and was a pretty good quick fix to an issue.


How to change shape defaults in keynote? I'm using Keynote 6.2. Is there a way to change the default properties of shape objects? Specifically, I'd like to get rid of the drop shadow and the advanced color fill. It's a pain to have to change it manually every time I create a new shape.

I figured out that I can create a shape, change the style and go to Format | Advanced | Create shape style, then I can delete all the default styles by right clicking, so only my styles show. The problem is that when I create a new presentation, my custom styles disappear and the defaults come back. Is there any way to make them permanent?

Also, can I change the default text size and font?

Yes that is possible - you need to exchange the template file within Keynote.

First, save the presentation you want to use as a the new template with a .kth extension. Keynote will not directly let you do that, so you need to rename the file in Finder.

Within the Keynote.app package, find the folder Contents / Shared Support / Templates. To change the defaults of the "White" Theme in standard format, replace Standard.kth in the White folder.

I have also made a step by step guide with screenshots for the method.


why is itunes not acknowledging my gift card credit? I have $50 of store credit to iTunes from gift cards for my birthday and when I go to buy anything it's trying to charge my debit card, not my iTunes gift cards.  is there something I have to do to change that or what?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201209

That should answer your question. ;)


Different Apple ID contacts appear on my device I got a new iPhone for Christmas and made my own Apple ID/iCloud so I could use it between my devices (I also have a Mac & an iPad) without sharing with my family. Today I realized that many of my parents' email & phone contacts have synced to my phone & iPad. When I try to deselect their groups on the contacts app, all of my contacts are removed. I have been using iCloud to backup pictures, etc., and it is all my own - no one else uses my Apple ID. I want get rid of the extra contacts without individually deleting them.

At some point somebody used your Apple ID on one of their devices (either OSX or iOS), or their Apple ID on one of your devices.  Or, somebody might have connected your or their iPhone in your or their iTunes in the past.

And things got mixed up.  If you don't have a local iTunes backup, there's not too much you can do to recover.  And if you have a local backup chances are that it was made after the damage was done.

Having had the same mishap in the past, I have a couple 1000's pictures of my wife's iPhone mixed up with my personal collection.

If this is not enough, chances are (albeit small) that one of those devices is still connected to your Apple ID and syncing is still going on.

My following suggestion might seem stupid and short sighted, but if I were you, I would

change my Apple ID password
Delete all contacts on your device(s)
Add all your contacts again from the beginning

I understand that, if there's a lot of data involved, adding your contacts piece by piece can be quite time consuming, but the effort might be worth it.

If you have access to a Mac, things can be facilitated quite a bit:

You can use the native Contacts app to export your current data
to csv, import it in Excel and manipulate chunks of data much
quicker.
Busy Contacts can do some of
this for you, and it also can sync with other online addressbook
services.  If you have your contacts in e.g. gmail this can fasten
the process.


Gmail on OSX Right Click Gmail is showing me this menu instead of the regular right-click menu. Particularly, I need "Open in Tab" for individual mails.

How do I get back to the "regular" Chrome/Safari right-click menu?

You can't change the contextual menu (activated by Control Click or "Right-Click") because it's embedded within the App; this includes the HTML code of a web page.

From Apple's Developer Documentation

  Contextual menus pop up when the user Control-clicks or right-clicks
  over an object. Safari presents different contextual menus when the
  mouse pointer is over the toolbar, Bookmarks bar, an extension bar,
  the tab bar, or the contents of a webpage.

  Your extension can add menu items to the contextual menu that pops up
  over web content. You control the actions of the menu item by
  installing a listener function for the "command" event in either your
  global HTML page or in an extension bar.

(Emphasis mine)

Essentially, what this is saying is that the developer of the (web) app sets the contents of the contextual menu.  If they don't set it, it will be the default for whatever is set in Safari/Chrome/Firefox/etc.

If your goal is to open a link in a new tab, hold Cmd while clicking to bypass the menu.  Holding Shift while clicking opens the link in a new window.  I have found these options quicker than right clicking as my left hand rarely leaves the keyboard and I don't have to parse through a menu to find the item I want.


show notifications of new e-mails without displaying the content When my iPad is locked, you can still read notifications of new e-mails. the app in question is gmail. for privacy reasons I wish that with the iPad blocked you could not read the content of the e-mails, but only show notifications of new e-mails without displaying the contents.

Go to Settings → Notifications → app name (e.g. Gmail) → Show Previews and change  the setting from ‘Always’ to ‘When Unlocked’.


Mac Mini private network I am trying to set up a very simple network using a Netgear 5 port Gigabit switch, a Mac Mini, a Seagate Central 4Tb NAS and an Apple TV to serve movies to my Samsung TV.

I followed a guide on WikiHow, connected up all the devices, set the IP of the Mac manually and assumed that would be that.

I am far from expert in this area so as I cannot see anything under "shared" in finder I am now at a loss as to what to try. Is there something I need to do to tell the Mac what is there? I tried "connect to server" but none appear to be there.

The 3 lights on the switch corresponding to the ports connected are green and flash occasionally so they appear to be connected. I do not have an internet router where the devices will be deployed hence the wired solution with switch.

I didn't see you mention iTunes at all in your post.  iTunes is essential.

Unfortunately, AFAIK, you can no longer just "share" movies from iTunes to ATV.  You have to turn on Home Sharing, and I believe this requires a live internet connection.  Both iTunes and ATV log into Home Sharing, and everything loaded in iTunes is available on the ATV.

If you do not have an internet connection in this setup (and can't/won't add one), you can setup Airplay Mirroring on the Mac mini (2011 or newer, I believe), play the movie in iTunes, and send the content to the ATV.  This is not ideal to me, as you have to use the Mac (iTunes) to control the ATV.

Home Sharing is the way to go with ATV.

There are lots of other options like Plex if you want to use Roku or Chromecast, which should work without an internet connection.


Recover Bootcamp EFI Folder/fix boot entries? I had macOS and Windows 10 installed through Bootcamp on my Macbook Pro (late 2013) and everything worked fine. Then I tried installing Ubuntu on an external drive and setting up pure-EFI triple boot. However, in the process I accidentally deleted the original EFI folder (not the partition, just the folder) and now the option for Windows doesn't show up when holding down ALT/Option key during startup, though I am able to boot into macOS and Ubuntu without problem. I noticed the EFI folder in /dev/disk0s1/ (the EFI partition) has only an APPLE folder but is missing the Microsoft one. I wonder if there is a way to recover the EFI files/entries and fix this problem so I can boot into Windows again?

If I remember correctly, I deleted the original EFI folder by doing this in Ubuntu:

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/sda1
$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
$ sudo rm -r /mnt/sda1/EFI

Now when I boot into macOS, I can still see the BOOTCAMP partition with my Windows files on it. Also, System Preferences-->Startup Disk still recognizes two System, the macOS and the "BOOTCAMP Windows". However, selecting the latter and reboot would lead to a black screen with error message reading "No bootable device found."

In macOS, typing diskutil list returns this:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         164.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                86.3 GB    disk0s3
   4:           Windows Recovery                         471.9 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +164.0 GB   disk1
                             Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            148.7 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 20.7 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                506.6 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk2
   1:                  Apple_HFS Ubuntu                  536.9 MB   disk2s1
   2:           Linux Filesystem                         131.1 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Linux Swap                         17.1 GB    disk2s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         107.4 GB   disk2s4

Is there anything I could do to get back into my Windows system? Many thanks in advance.

I suppose you will need a Window 10 installer flash drive. If you do not have this flash drive, you will have to build one. First download the 64-bit Windows 10 iso from this Microsoft web site. This can be done while running macOS. Next you will need 16 GB or larger flash drive. For your model Mac, I believe the Boot Camp Assistant will aid in the creation of the Windows installer flash drive. If not, let me know.
If the root folder of the flash drive contains the file AutoUnattend.xml, you will need to rename the file to NoAutoUnattend.xml.
Boot to the flash drive. Hold down the option key at start up. From the Startup Manager, select the icon labeled "EFI Boot".
Open a Windows Command Prompt window, by following the procedure outlined in this step. Below is an image of what is initially displayed by the Windows 10 installer. Select "Next".

In the image shown below, select "Repair your computer".

In the image shown below, select "Troubleshoot".

In the image shown below, select "Command Prompt".

The result should be the image shown below.

Use the diskpart command to determine the drive letter for BOOTCAMP partition.

diskpart
list volume
exit

Enter the command below to assign drive letter S to the EFI partition.

mountvol S: /s

Here I will assume the BOOTCAMP partition is assign the drive letter C. Enter the command shown below to recreate the boot files.

bcdboot C:\windows /s S:

Enter the command shown below, then select option to "Turn off your PC".

exit


Siri: "I can't update reminders. Sorry about that." Why? I use Siri to set reminders a lot, like a dozen times a day.

This morning Siri is saying, "I can't update reminders. Sorry about that."

It happens on my Watch, my phone and my iPad. I've tried switching them off and on again.

It may be only for certain reminder lists. "Put cake on my shopping list" fails, but "In five minutes, remind me to do that thing" works.

There are a lot of old items on the Shopping List; I've tried deleting a few, but that didn't help. I've also tried making a new empty list and adding items to that, but that fails too.

I can use Reminder lists in the app on the phone without any problems.

What's going on and how do I fix it?

Update: I've just found that "Add cake to my shopping list" works, but "Put cake on my shopping list" doesn't. What!? Siri clearly understands what I'm requesting, since the error is, "I can't update reminders".

Apple's new Siri has a huge flaw that will effect many users like myself which is speed of internet.

Siri still runs over the internet to translate what you say into a usable set of actions. Therefore if your internet is not fast enough/gets interrupted from your ISP, Siri will respond with errors.


Time stamp for pictures actually taken before being sent to recipient on iphone My boyfriend sent me a picture from his Iphone 6, I have an iphone 5.  I wanted to know if it was possible to find out when the picture was actually taken, not just sent to me or saved on my own iphone.  Is there any way to find this out?  I have used certain apps to find out with no luck.  They only show me when I saved the picture sent to my phone or when he sent the picture to me in a text.  Does anyone know?

This website
Can show you some of the metadata/exif about an image. It should show you the date of when the picture was taken.


How do I make messages on iPad stop interrupting my music I use messages on my mac and enable it on my ipad as well. When I play music (spotify) on ipad, it keeps getting interrupted by the iMessage. The interruption is the dimming of the sound. This is very annoying. How do I stop that?

Note that I don't want to stop imessage from coming in. But on the iPhone, when the phone is on silent and I am playing music, new messages don't disturb my music. I want that same functionality with the iPad.

Thanks.

You do this by turning the iPad onto silent in a similar manner to iPhone. The difference is the side switch is configurable on iPad.

If you have the side switch set to "Lock Rotation" then:

Double tap the home button.
Swipe right.
Tap the sound icon to mute the device.

If you have the side switch set to "Mute" then:

Toggle the side switch like you do on iPhone.

You can change the side switch configuration in Settings.app -> General.


How can I show Growl notifications on both displays? I've got a MacBook Pro connected to an external display. Right now the notifications come through on on the primary display (MacBook Pro built in display) and not the external display. I know I can change this so that it shows on the secondary display but not the primary, but I want the notifications to show on displays. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks.

Currently there is no way to accomplish this. The Growl mailing lists have discussed allowing Growl to always place the notification on the display that you have a window focused in.

For example, you have 3 displays, oriented in a horizontal line, and you're doing some file management on the far-left display and web browsing on the far right. If Finder has focus, the notification will be shown on the far-left display, if Safari/Chrome/Firefox/$BROWSER has focus, the notification will be shown on the far-right display.

But this feature has not yet been implemented, so you are limited to explicitly configuring Growl to send notifications to a single display.

This feature has been written up on their Google Code Project page, so you can star the issue in order to receive further notifications.

Note that you can star it on an issue detail page by clicking the star outline to the left of the title "Issue 122: [...]", or at the bottom of the page just above the comment box. After clicking the star in either location, it will turn yellow and have a thicker blue outline, that means you've subscribed, and in essence, "voted" for the feature.


Mountain Lion sometimes hangs when mouse enters Dock – pointer is movable, but the MacBook Air seems otherwise frozen I have a mid-2011 13" MacBook Air (MacBookAir4,2 with Intel HD Graphics 3000).

Since installing Mountain Lion I sometimes encounter a problem when I move the mouse cursor over the dock to click something.

Sometimes I get pinwheeled, sometimes I don't.

Whenever the problem occurs:

there appears a 75% transparent label for a dock item
I can continue to move the mouse
the computer does not recover, I resort to a forced shutdown.

There doesn't seem to be any common denominators yet, other than it always happens as I mouse over the dock.

Is there a log or anything I can look at to rectify the problem?

Not a solution to the problem, but I found that closing the lid and waiting until the computer sleeps (status led pulsing) and opening it works.
At least its better than a forced shutdown right?


AppleScript "Copy Link" function for Safari I need to right click a link on a website...
and open the Services menu...
to run an Automator Action on the text/url of that link.

I need to "get" the url from the link into the script so I can run some shell script actions on it and then output the result to the clipboard.

I am having a hard time finding a way to copy that url into the Action using automator. I need a way to replicate the "Copy Link" function that already exists in Safari drop down menu when right clicking inside of the Quick Action.

I would prefer to not "allow javascript from Apple Events" as it's a security risk.

There is a right click command on AppleScript.

Might also be worth looking into a combination of CliClick and cURL using Brew / Bash for this purpose.


merge folder trees on OSX by moving, not copying them It's backup time, and I've been trying to merge two big directory trees on the same (physical) partition, with lots levels of depth. The first one is the base containing all my projects up to 2014, and the other one is only a partial one containing the "changes" that have happened over the last few years (2014-16). New projects, and revisited ones.

In other words, mostly directories or files that have been added/modified exist in this new tree. There are a few files that only by accident ended up having the same name (but in essence are different, and not from the same original) and a few untouched files here and there (mostly files in projects that were revisited, updated, but not in every single aspect).

Now I wish to consolidate all the changes in one big base tree so I can put it in my drawer. In the past I used to work with arRsync but it makes actual copies of the files; and at this point I don't have the space (or time) to spare for all the files to be duplicated. It needs to be done by moving the files.

I've tried rsync, ditto, and the Finder on Sierra (with the alt key pressed), but all of them end up actually duplicating the files! Not sure if I missed something, but since I'm a bit stuck and afraid to mess up I thought of asking here for help!

Anybody who could point me to a safe direction on how to merge these trees without copying but moving the folders/files?

PS. I don't mind if the files with the same name get overwritten unintelligently - as long as no folder gets replaced, and all unique files come together it is good for me. The files that have the same name on both trees, are few and can be easily recovered. However it would be nice if the answer made mention on how to perform intelligently these overwrites for the sake of completeness (and future reference)

Have you tried DiffMerge ? Its an application that is used to merge and compare files and folders.

It updates the content of respective folders by comparing and merging contents graphically.

Product Features

DiffMerge is an application to visually compare and merge files on Windows, OS X and Linux.

Graphically shows the changes between two files. Includes intra-line highlighting and full support for editing.

Graphically shows the changes between 3 files. Allows automatic merging (when safe to do so) and full control over editing the resulting file.

Performs a side-by-side comparison of 2 folders, showing which files are only present in one file or the other, as well as file pairs which are identical or different.

Right-click on any two files in Windows Explorer to diff them immediately.

Rulesets and options provide for customized appearance and behavior.

Identical feature set on Windows, OS X, and Linux.


How can I keep a Java-based pop-up open even when its parent page is closed? I'd like to run the Java client for Runescape but want to quit Safari while the Java pop-up is open. How can I do this?
My idea was finding out the URL of the client and running it through the java terminal command, but I'm having huge difficulty location the URL. =/

I tried looking a the source, but the website developer has embedded the applet information inside a bunch of JavaScript.  Also, even if you had the jar(s), if the applet requires communication back to the server, it would be a real pain to get it running.

  For future reference, if they hadn't gotten all creative with the applet code, you could have simply run this command line:

$ appletviewer http://world87.runescape.com/

What I recommend is to create a dedicated Fluid App for the website.  It's super easy, just point Fluid at the base URL, and it creates a dedicated application wrapped around the website.  The coolest thing is that you can then simply launch your game directly from Applications.

Fluid is 100% free, and I am not affiliated with them in any way.


u flag with ps command According to the Mac man page for ps it says for the -u flag:

-u      Display the processes belonging to the specified usernames.

However, it seems to display different information rather than just being attached to usernames. E.g. here's the headers for ax:

PID   TT  STAT      TIME COMMAND

and here are the headers for aux:

USER              PID  %CPU %MEM      VSZ    RSS   TT  STAT STARTED      TIME COMMAND

Any idea why? Is the man page incorrect?

They're both sort of correct. There's a difference between ps u and ps -u. Consider:

$ ps -u blm
  UID   PID TTY           TIME CMD
  502  4278 ??         0:00.04 sshd: blm@ttys000
  ...

$ ps u blm
ps: illegal argument: blm
usage: ps [-AaCcEefhjlMmrSTvwXx] [-O fmt | -o fmt] [-G gid[,gid...]]
          [-u]
          [-p pid[,pid...]] [-t tty[,tty...]] [-U user[,user...]]
       ps [-L]

Also:

$ ps aux
USER              PID  %CPU %MEM      VSZ    RSS   TT  STAT STARTED      TIME COMMAND
root                1   1.9  0.1  2455856   4648   ??  Ss   Wed05PM   2:52.80 /
...

$ ps -aux
ps: No user named 'x'

The man page documents the options preceded by -, but ps (for compatibility with other Unix flavors) also takes options without a preceding -, with often completely different meanings.

In the manual page, go down to LEGACY DESCRIPTION for more information.


Yosemite auto creates multiple desktops (spaces) on main monitor Since upgrading to Yosemite I've been having issue with OS X creating additional desktops on my main monitor for no apparent reason. I usually have 3 different desktops setup on my main monitor and just one on my second monitor. By the end of the day, OS X will usually have created 2-3 extra desktops automatically.

I can't find any setting or shortcut that might be causing this to happen. There also doesn't seem to be any reason for it since it can happen as soon as I boot up my computer.

Is there a way to set a maximum number of desktops so I can prevent this from happening?

Image from related question - Why does Mac Yosemite open dozens and dozens of empty desktops?

It has to do with the 'separate space' feature for external displays Apple introduced in OS X 10.10 Yosemite: If the setting "Displays have separate Spaces" in System Preferences -> Mission Control is activated (see https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18809?locale=en_US), every time you hook up a display a new space will be created for that display. After you pull the plug, OS X will not delete that created space, hence accumulating lots of spaces over time.

If you don't activate the option, you're external display will behave like before 10.10: only one menu bar on the main screen etc.


Cannot partition w/ Boot Camp Assistant on macOS Mojave Late 2016 Macbook Pro running Mojave 10.14.3, APFS-formatted (ugh).

I have run Disk Utility to verify my disk, and I've run fsck -fy from single-user mode several times. Both of these have reported absolutely no errors.

And yet, whenever I try to run Boot Camp Assistant to dual-boot with Windows 10, I get an error that says: "An error occurred while partitioning the disk."

Thinking I'd be clever, I also tried to create a partition manually through Disk Utility, but that didn't work either. I also reinstalled macOS in Recovery Mode.

I am starting to suspect that this is a problem with APFS. What other commands could I run to receive more information as to why Boot Camp Assistant won't let me create a partition to run Windows? Thanks in advance.

The secret trick was running fsck_apfs -o -y. ♂


How to accommodate changed yahoo mail password on iPad? My friend has an iPad. I have never used an iPad, but am trying to help her set things up better -- so it's definitely a case of the blind leading the blind.

My friend reads her yahoo mail on her iPad.  Her iPad remembers the password.  However, she herself has forgotten her yahoo mail password, which makes life difficult -- she cannot read her yahoo mail on her phone or on her laptop.

How can she change her yahoo password?
Once she has changed her yahoo password, how can she teach her iPad the new password, so she can still read her email on the iPad without having to type in her password?

As @Tyson mentioned, your friend will obviously need to reset her Yahoo password through Yahoo directly. Once that's done:

If she's pulling her email in the Apple Mail app, she can update the password in Settings (the gear-like icon) > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Once she navigates there, she needs to select Yahoo under the account list, then select the top "Account - (email address) >" option which will then give her the opportunity to enter her new password.

If she's using Yahoo's own "Yahoo Mail" iOS app, I'd imagine that the settings are within the app itself (sorry, I don't use Yahoo Mail anymore).


How can I prevent my Library and Playlists from interfering with each other in Apple Music? I'm looking for a way to prevent my Library and Playlists from interfering with each other, or at least maybe they could play well together.

Currently, I've erased everything from my Library in an attempt to solve this problem. I've got about 20 Apple Music Playlists. Currently, I've made all these playlists available for offline use.

I keep attempting different solutions to this problem:

If I choose to either + or ‘Make available offline’ any particular song from a playlist that is available offline, it goes into my Library.

However, when I remove any of these songs from my Library by ‘Remove from My Music’, playlists that contain these songs are no longer available offline. To make things worse, if I try to ‘Make available offline’ again, nothing happens. The playlist will not download again.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if I'm doing something wrong.

I've found another unexpected behavior, if I add a song to my Library by clicking + on a song in a downloaded Playlist, it will appear in my Library. By all appearances, the song is available offline, but the context menu still gives me the option to ‘Make available offline’. I don't understand why this option is available to me, when the songs are already downloaded.

Here's an Imgur album I created to show how reproducible the problem is.

I am also a little confused but I think this information is correct:

A song that is in one of YOUR playlists must also be in your library
Therefore...if you add a song to a playlist, it will be added to your library
Therefore...if you remove a song from your library, it will be removed from any of your playlists that it was included in.
However...if  you delete a playlist it does NOT delete the songs from your library

Also note that adding Apple Music playlists (i.e. not created by you) do NOT add songs to  your library.

In my experience, this leads to my Library becoming unusable because it is a very long list of artists that only have 1 or 2 songs.  I'm never sure if I can delete the songs from my library because I don't know whether the song is part of a playlist that I want to keep.


How to migrate from 13 inch MBP to 15 inch with 13 inch's SSD? I am in this unusual scenario. I have a Mid 2010 13in MacBook Pro and I am trying to make my family's 15inch Mid 2012 MacBook Pro my new personal laptop. However this 15 inch model has a crappy hard disk drive which is beyond slow and makes the laptop unusable for me. How would I migrate to this 15 inch laptop and use the SSD from the 13 inch one?

What is the most efficient way of going about this?

Right now, I cannot think of any other solution but to  use Migration Assistant to transfer data from SSD to the HDD in the 15 inch and then taking out the SSD in the 13 inch MBP and cloning it with the HDD that just got all the data from the 13 inch. I am hoping there is a better way than this.

In the past, I have just swapped the drives in the two machines, and everything just worked fine.

Take the SSD from the 13" MBP and put it in the 15" MBP.

In the unlikely event that there are any problems, you can always swap the drives back.

EDIT: You might want to boot into recovery mode, and do a 'Verify Disk' in the Disk Utility, to make sure that everything is fine. As suggested in a comment above, consider a PRAM reset and an SMC reset, to make sure everything is on the same page.


Docs needed to read before submitting app to App Store What are the documents one has to read before submitting an app to the App Store?

I guess these are the two:

App review guidelines
iOS human interface guidelines

Are there others?

Since Apple has a review process, you might just submit your app and react if there are problems in review. Also, you might want to be sure you've read all the terms and conditions of the NDA / legal agreement that was signed to become a developer in addition to the links you provide.


Accessory Thunderbolt ports on Thunderbolt monitor not working I have some Thunderbolt drives that I connect to the back of my monitor.  Now the drives only work when plugged directly into the Mac.

Is there any way I can reset the Thunderbolt monitor in a way that will permit me to see the drives?

There are 5 different things you can try to to reset your TB Display

Make sure you have the latest macOS update.  Click on the Apple logo in the upper right corner of your screen.  Select "About this Mac" then click on "Software Update."
Power Cycle for 30 seconds.  Unplug your all of your peripherials and Mac from the TB Display and then unplug it from AC power for at least 30 seconds.  Reconnect your devices starting with your Mac.
Reset your SMC(Differs by Model)
Reset your NVRAM.  Starting with your Mac off with AC adapter plugged in, hold down CommandOptionPR while turning on your Mac.  Hold it until it chimes 3 times at which point, release the keys.
Try a standalone TB cable.  Use just a plain TB cable to connect your Mac to your TB Display and/or your peripherals.  If things start to work then your dual Mag Safe cable may be bad.

If all of the above fail, then you probably need to take it in for service as the TB Display logic board has failed.

Source:  MacRoumors.com


Is there anyway to set up more than one do not disturb schedule on iPhone? I would like to have it so my phone has do not disturb on at night, and then have it turn on later in the day as well. As far as I know, you can only set up one schedule in settings. Is there an app/something else that would allow me to do this?

You could use bedtime in DND for night and the scheduled DND for the daytime. See in Do Not Disturb settings -> Scheduled for enabling Bedtime and then go to clock app for setting its time. This solves night. For day, use the scheduled feature.


Sidebar icons from non-system volume disappears after restart in Finder of Mac OSX 10.8.2 I dragged folders in finder to Favorite in sidebar. Folders from system volume survived after system restarts but folders from non-system volume are gone. This problem happens since I upgraded from Lion. Any idea? Thanks.

If the disk/share isn't mounted, the favorite is removed from the sidebar.  If you want to keep favorites to network shares, removable disks, or files in disk images, there is a workaround.

Create a new folder named "Remote Favorites".  This can be anywhere on your local disk (Home folder, Documents, etc)
Drag the Remote Favorites folder to your sidebar
Add aliases of the remote file/folder into the Remote Favorites folder.  (hold option+command while dragging the source file)

The Remote Favorites folder is local so it won't disappear from your Sidebar.
Now when you need to get to one of these remote files, open the Remote Favorites folder and double click the alias of the remote file.

Another benefit of using aliases is that if the network share or disk image isn't mounted, it will automatically mount it first.


Wi-Fi says connected, but my internet does not work until I turn it on and off I just got my first macbook, an used early 2014 14-inch macbook air, with Mac OS Mojave. And everything works fine but when im connected to the wifi, after like about 20-30 minutes it just stops working. and it always starts working back up when I turn wifi on and off, or when I disconnect off the network, and connect back up.
It says I am still connected to the network, but there is no internet.
I already tried doing a wireless diagnosis and tried contacting apple support multiple times.

UPDATE:

Unused argument: –
Too many arguments to 'show' verb
usage: log show [options] <archive>
   or: log show [options]

description:
    Show the contents of the system log datastore or a log archive.
    Output contains only default level messages unless --info and/or
    --debug are specified.

options:
    --[no-]backtrace              Control whether backtraces are shown
    --[no-]debug                  Control whether "Debug" events are shown
    --[no-]info                   Control whether "Info" events are shown
    --[no-]loss                   Control whether message loss events are shown
    --[no-]signpost               Control whether signposts are shown
    --color <mode>                Control color output (valid: auto, always, none)
    --end <date>                  Display events up to the given end date
    --last <num>[m|h|d]           Display recent events up to the given limit
    --predicate <predicate>       Filter events using the given predicate
    --source                      Annotate output with source file and line-number
    --start <date>                Display events from the given start date
    --style <style>               Output format (valid: syslog, json, compact)
    --timezone local | <tz>       Use the given timezone when displaying event timestamps
    --mach-continuous-time        Print mach continuous time timestamps rather than walltime

valid time formats:
    'Y-M-D H:m:s+zzzz', 'Y-M-D H:m:s', 'Y-M-D', '@unixtime'

predicate usage:
    Filter predicates follow the NSPredicate format described at:
    https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Predicates/AdditionalChapters/Introduction.html

    For predicate field/type details, see `log help predicates`.

This is what showed up after the last step I was told.

Please help me out if somebody knows what is going on

The Terminal command to show WiFi disconnects for last 24 hours is:

log show --predicate '(processImagePath contains "kernel") && (eventMessage contains "AirPort: Link Down")' --style syslog --last 1d

and the output looks like this


How do I stop my iPhone camera automatically recording my location when I take photos? I already know I can go into my iPhone’s Privacy settings and select what apps can use my camera. My question is not about stopping apps from using my camera. It is about not allowing photos and videos taken by any app to also capture my location when taking them. How do I do this?

Actually you’re already on the right track, as you also do this within your iPhone’s Privacy settings. More specifically:

Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services
To the right of each app that is listed you’ll see an indication of when it accesses your location
Now tap on any of the apps you’d like to change the location settings of (Hint: you can also select the default Camera app to change its settings)
Exit Settings

Any photos/videos you now take with an app that you've chosen to 'Never' allow access to your location, will not be able to record your location.


How do I edit Managed Client preferences without them getting replaced? Specifically I would like to edit com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist. (Which is in /Library/Managed Preferences/[username]/), but when I restart the computer my edited preferences are replaced with the old version.

How do I go about editing them for good? I only have command line access via SSH.

Turns out that the master copy of com.apple.applicationaccess is kept in /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/[user].plist. Editing that solved the problem for me. Thanks to Lyken for helping me find this on this question.


Can I tell itunes to download a specific podcast on Saturdays only? So there is this one podcast I like but I only want to get the episodes published on Saturdays. Is it possible? They publish a podcast everyday but I am only interested in the ones that are on Saturdays.

You can use the following AppleScript:

tell application "iTunes"
    set aList to every track of playlist "Podcasts" whose album is "podcast_name"
    repeat with aTrack in aList
        set aDate to release date of aTrack
        set aWeekday to weekday of aDate as string
        if aWeekday is equal to "Saturday" then
            updatePodcast aTrack
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

I would save this AppleScript as application and execute it whenever you want:

Open the application "AppleScript Editor" in the Utility folder.
Paste the code above.
Set "podcast_name" to the name of the podcast
you want to update.
Save the Apple Script as application.

To schedule this AppleScript, you can get hints at the tutorial I found.


Ipod touch blink/flash white Hi my ipod touch (about 1.5 years old) recently started to blink/flash white when I use it. (Never completely white)
I tried restoring/updating the software, didn't work; tried pressing power+home button, also didn't work. Anything else I can try, or do I need to bring it in?

inverter for lcd-display is likely going (which is part of the logic-board).  Or the backlight (part of the lcd-assembly).  Bring it in.


How to stream Spotify from iPad to receiver? I would like to get some answers on how I can stream music from Spotify on my iPad to my home-cinema receiver.

Exactly what hardware do I need to invest in?

You can use an Airport Express router or an Apple TV:

  Play iTunes music on your speakers. Wirelessly.
  AirPlay takes the music from the iTunes library on your computer, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and sends it wirelessly to any stereo or speakers in your home. Simply connect your speakers to AirPort Express using an audio cable (sold separately). Then, using iTunes on your computer or the Music app on your iOS device, choose which speakers you want your music to play on. If you have more than one AirPort Express connected to speakers, you can play the same music from iTunes on your Mac or PC on all your speakers at the same time. Already have a Wi-Fi network in place? Use AirPort Express to add music streaming to its capabilities and create a whole-house musical experience.

Basically, play your track on Spotify, go full screen which reveals the sharing options, and from there you can pick your Airport Express which should be cabled to whatever AUX-in inputs your amp/receiver has.

The following pic' shows me doing something similar to an AppleTV (I don't own an airport express but the process is is essentially the same thing).

In fact for audio there isn't much difference between the an Apple TV and an Airport Express, and the choice of Apple TV or Airport Express is whether you want TV functions or Network functions as extra functionality over and above the audio.  The only difference for audio is that the Apple TV has an optical out port (& HDMI), and the Airport Express has a 3.5mm Analogue/Optical output,

The iPhone version of Spotify doesn't have a full screen mode, but hit the i for info screen and it's next to the volume slider in the bottom right - easy to miss.


Disabling Java / Enabling it only on a case by case basis I seem to have Java installed on my MacBook Pro running 10.10.5. My default browser is Chrome (latest) but I also sometimes use Firefox and Safari.

As i understand in an ideal world Java would be disabled as it can pose a security risk, how can I disable it or only enable it on a case by case basis?

Disabling the Java plugin can be done on a browser-by-browser basis:
https://java.com/en/download/help/enable_browser.xml

As macOS 10.10.5 does NOT ship with java installed, an Oracle install must have been done, you can un-install it using their docs:
https://www.java.com/en/download/help/mac_uninstall_java.xml

sudo rm -fr /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
sudo rm -fr /Library/PreferencePanes/JavaControlPanel.prefPane
sudo rm -fr ~/Library/Application\ Support/Java


Why doesn't iPhoto open automatically upon SD card insertion? Inserting a SD card no longer opens iPhoto.  When I open iPhoto, it does not show the SD card in the left pane.  This program has done this without a problem until recently.  The preference under iPhoto is set to SD cards to open iPhoto.  I have also gone to Utilities/Photo Capture and ensured that iPhoto was selected in the lower left corner.  I am at wits ends because this should work automatically but is no longer doing so.  Any answers out there?

A common fix for these type of issues is to reformatting the card with the camera and try inserting it again. Make sure you copy the photos from the SD Card to your computer first.


Prevent iTerm2 from opening new terminal from dock I just switched from TotalTerminal to iTerm2, and the feature I used the most was the visor. When I used my shortcut key (option + `), it'd drop a terminal from the top of the screen that i could tuck away with the visor shortcut again. Alternatively, if I clicked the terminal button in the dock, I could pull down the visor (or if I had other terminals open, I could go to those).

Is there a way I can have iTerm2 not open a new terminal when I click on it in the dock, but to just go to the most recent active terminal (which may be the visor)?

I'm running Mac OS Sierra (10.12.5).

I found it! I'm using Iterm 3 and found the following setting under "Advanced":


Customize control strip in Keynote I'd like to add the View->Light Table button on the touch bar.  Is this possible?
I've been trying to find a way, but no success until now.

Keynote doesn't have a "Customize Touch Bar" option in the menu bar under "View", so it looks there is no way to customize it (macOS Mojave).


Use internal speakers with others plugged into headphones jack I have a set of surround speakers, connected to my iMac through the headphone jack. I use a switch to control what goes to the speaker set (iMac, iPod, or MacBook/aux). So that I don't have to be constantly unplugging and replugging, I leave the audio cable in the iMac's audio port. This means that when I'm listening to something from another source, I can't hear anything from the iMac unless I unplug the cable.

Is there a way to force sound to come out of the internal speakers, even if there's something in the audio out port?

Pretty sure it can't be done with the built-in headphone jack. What you could try is getting a USB soundcard (one example, but there are lots out there for $20 or so) to plug your headphones into. That should give you two options in the sound preferences.

PS, if you option-click the speaker icon in the menu bar, you get a quicker way to swap inputs/outputs than going to the sound preference pane every time.


How can I diagnose random restarts? My Macbook Air is randomly restarting — a real problem when I have it set up to give a presentation, and walk to the stage to find it back at the login screen. How can I diagnose the cause?

Console.app located in Applications/Utilities will display the logs of the system. Inspecting might point you to the reason of the reboots.


What is this annoying popup when I try to edit text: Recently in some apps when I select a word to edit it, I sometimes (not always) get this annoying popup:

Once this popup appears, I cannot edit the text selected, and have to click away from it and start again. Where does this come from, and can I suppress it?

The exact behaviour is: I select text by sweeping with the mouse. Then I move the cursor back into the selected text without touching any mouse button. As soon as the cursor is in the selection and before I can click a button, the popup appears. The same thing happens using my trackpad

This appears to be coming from the productivity app Things 3.  You may have this in your login items (Settings → Users & Groups → User → Login Items).  Disable it there to prevent it from automatically starting.

Their support site has a great deal of info on how to use the product, but I was unable to find anything on preferences/settings.  There should be something in their settings that enables/disables actions when you select text.

If you have further difficulty, you may wish to contact that developer directly through their website: https://culturedcode.com/things/support/


Install OS again without mouse I have to install my OS again from scratch but the mouse/trackpad doesn't work in Recovery mode (I can't access a session to edit anything as the computer has no OS at all right now).

I managed to moved through the MacOS Utilities windows using cmd + F5 (voice control) and using Control + Cmd + arrows. The problem is that when I want to Reinstall a new copy of macOS after selecting the disc to use it pops a new window to fill the ID and Password of my Apple account, but I cannot access to this window using the commands shown before as it is not the currently selected window, so its impossible to write them.

What can I do?

I have a Macbook Pro 2008, in which I want to install el Capitan OSX

You may want to try to use the Tab key, and the Ctrl+F5, Ctrl+` etc., as advertised here:


Screen rotation problem I have a new iPad (iOS 11.3) and the control center does not contain anything related to screen orientation or lock rotation. I tried to ask Siri about this and got gibberish. Does anyone have a suggestion? I am starting to think it just might not be an option with the new iPad though that seems crazy.

Side key button which is used for Mute/Unmute in iPhone. That key is used in iPad for orientation Lock/Unlock. Try it once.


white screen on macbook pro noise when keys are pressed my macsbooks screen turned white yesterday, the keys were making sounds when pressed. I have plugged my mac in to my tv and the screen comes up on my tv, but the laptop screen is still blank. please help

You might have the display brightness completely turned off, so press whatever key increases brightness, like F2 on my mid-2009 MacBook Pro.

If that doesn't work, it sounds like a bad display to me. Find a professional electronic repair technician in your area to fix, and be prepared to spend $200-$300+ on the repair as the display assembly isn't cheap.


Macbook Pro with abnormal CPU usage and unrecognised battery. How to alternative SMC reset This Macbook Pro (15" circa 2012) is giving me trouble. After a slight water spill incident, I removed and replaced the hard drive, optical drive and battery (warning sticker ignored). After another day drying I turned it on. However, the battery is not recognised, everything's happening slower and the mouse is really jumpy. I've also noticed the CPU load from the Activity Monitor remains steady at 80%-90% for the System (kernel_task). I'd like to reset the SMC to see what happens, but it doesn't seem to be resetting. The PRAM/NVRAM reset is working, just not the SMC reset (I'm using shift-control-option + power). Is there another way to do the SMC reset? Maybe open it up and poke around some more?

In the Apple Support article on SMC reset it reads "On MagSafe power adapters, the LED might change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.". Other than that SMC reset does nothing visible. So probably the reset is working.

It seems like the battery is dead. In that case the Mac will throttle the CPU to reduce power consumption. This explains also the high load. Since the battery is necessary to buffers peak loads, the MacBook relies on it to operate properly.

You must replace your battery.


Endianness of iPhones? I know iPhones (and iPads) run on ARM processors, which are little-endian by default (and iOS on itself is little-endian according to the Wikipedia page); however, ARM processors supposedly have the ability to switch between little-endian and big-endian. How possible is this and how does it work?

even if you think you do not need to know the endianness someone might do. No need to explain why someone does not need it because you may do not know the context. The question is not "do I need to know endianness" but rather "is it big- or little endian". So concentrate on the subject please!

Having said that probably it is the best practice if we do not re-invent the wheel and just rely on the macros Apple provides for this. The reason is because they have spend quite some time to optimize these macros and made sure that works well with the simulator as well as on Mac, iPhone and all of their OS' and hardware.

If you dig down what is happening when you invoke CFSwapInt16BigToHost you may can see comments that suggests these macros are producing probably the best machine code you can get with the help of the compiler optimization:

OS_INLINE
uint16_t
_OSSwapInt16(
    uint16_t        data
)
{
  /* Reduces to 'rev16' with clang */
  return (uint16_t)(data << 8 | data >> 8);
}

OS_INLINE
uint32_t
_OSSwapInt32(
    uint32_t        data
)
{
#if defined(__llvm__)
  data = __builtin_bswap32(data);
#else
  /* This actually generates the best code */
  data = (((data ^ (data >> 16 | (data << 16))) & 0xFF00FFFF) >> 8) ^ (data >> 8 | data << 24);
#endif

  return data;
}