Macbook Pro extremely slow when using video chat My Macbook Pro, running on High Sierra, gets extremely slow whenever I'm using video chat. It happens both when using Skype and Zoom. Under normal conditions it's fast and smooth, but as soon as I use video chat things go south and the computer becomes unresponsive and sluggish.

I think what may be related to it is that I'm using both an external monitor and an iMac (via thunderbolt). But it's strange to me that it all functions correctly when I'm not on video chat, even when I have the laptop screen open as well.

Any ideas what could cause this?

The specs of my computer are:

Macbook Pro (retina, mid 2012) running on OSX 10.13.5
2.3 GHz i7
16GB RAM
256GB SSD
GeForce GT 650M

It is more than likely that the increased demand on the GPU (processing and RAM) by supporting both the external monitor and the MacBook Pro screen while using Skype or Zoom causes the MacBook Pro to lag. Since you mention that the GPU is rather old and has only 1 GB of RAM, this is probably the problem.

Skype may give you the ability to lower the video quality and resolution, putting less demand on the GPU. If you can still Skype with the external monitor disconnected, this may be the best solution.


Open Preview for iPhone and SD card Is there a way to automatically open Preview whenever I plug my iPhone in my Mac to import the photos? Also want to do this when connecting my Nikon SD card. I just hate this new Photos app, I prefer to use Preview to import.

Connect your phone.
Open Image Capture from your Applications folder.
In the bottom-left corner of the Image Capture window, select "Preview" where it says "Connecting this iPhone opens:"
Repeat while your Nikon SD card is connected.


How can I look at Airport logs? I have a VirginMedia connection using one of their "Super Hub"'s, their wireless configuration is turned off and I connect my Airport Extreme via RJ45 cable.
I connect my iMac from the Extreme via RJ45, and it is configured for wireless also.
Connected to the Airport Extreme extending my wireless network is an Airport Express.
My internet connection is over 60 meg and that's all ok, but the other devices using the Airport and the Extreme run very slow , so much so that it is impossible to watch streamed TV to any device.

I would like to look at any logs that the devices create to see if I can see a problem??

Open Console

Type Airport in Search (for all messages)

Or Scroll all the way down to wifi


After update OS X EI Capitan, external hard disk format changed I always use the same external hard disk on my Mac formatted as OS X Extended (Journaled). After upgrading my OS, it's recognized as NTFS volume now.

What should I do?

If what you say is true (and I must say, it sounds extremely unlikely), then your only options really are:

EITHER Copy all the data from the external drives, and then reformat them as HFS+ (journaled) and copy the data back.
OR Leave them as they are.

There really is not much else you can do with them.


Apple Account Verification Last week I attempted to log into my apple@me.com account and it stated that my account needed verification and is locked.  To verify, I can have an e-mail sent or answer security questions.  The address that the e-mail is being sent to is the very account that I am locked out of.  There are 3 security questions, of which I need two correct.  I only have one correct (it won't tell me which one) and I've exhausted all possible options.  Apple support is telling me that my only option is to figure out the security questions.  Why I appreciate the security, this is an account used for gaming and I refuse to believe that there is no other way I can verify my identity.  I have other accounts linked to this one and they are telling me that that doesn't matter either.  Any options or specific contacts I can reach out to would be greatly appreciated.

First, check and see if you can log in to your account at appleid.apple.com. Support can help you a lot more if you can log in here, since you can get a support PIN (which acts as a password).
Tell them your support PIN (found at the very bottom of the page) and they will know that it's you and can fix your account with only one security question.

Your Apple ID should also be set up with a non-apple email address, and that should be where you are getting your codes. Check all of you emails, spam folders and all, to make sure you didn't miss an account reset email. Good luck!


What features of Mavericks are beneficial to you? This question serves to share and collect the enhancements that make a large difference to how you use your Mac.

Please post one feature per answer. Please also check to see if your answer has already been posted - duplicate answers will be deleted. To search answers for this question use inquestion:this (directly from the question page) in addition to your search terms in the search box in the upper right hand corner of this page.

The best answers will not only list a feature, but provide details on how to configure that feature, and provide an image of how to use the feature to be more efficient or effective with Mavericks.

The overhaul of the virtual memory system makes it clear that memory pressure is the primary factor to track and not how many free pages, inactive pages or overall virtual memory is allocated.

The bottom panel is invaluable for diagnosing a slow machine and knowing whether to rule out memory contention as a cause of the slowness. After running your Mac for a week, you should reach a nice steady state like shown above and can know if adding more RAM or adjusting the programs you run will affect performance.


iTerm2 does not kill processes when tab is closed If I work in terminal, and, say run rails server in it attached to the current terminal and then close the tab it will not terminate the process making it hang around indefinitely without ability to bring it. Is it possible to fix it?

Steps to reproduce:

Open new terminal tab (cmd + t);
Run a process in it (e.g. irb);
Close the tab (cmd + w);
List processes to see that irb is still running (ps ax|grep irb).

Quitting iTerm doesn't finish these processes either.

I think it is supposed to be a feature instead of a problem.

Generally, to kill a process or just exit the current shell session, you should not use "cmd+w" or click the close button of the window. Instead, you should use "ctrl-c" and "ctrl-d" respectively.

Besides, the following facts may help you,

You can use "cmd+z" to fully restore a tab right after it is closed
The attached session and tasks keep run in background right after you close a tab. You can restore the tab at this point. But if you open a new tab using "cmd+t" now, the background session in the previously closed tab will be killed.

So the "restorable tab closing" is a feature of iterm2, though quite confusing.


Launch Dictation With Applescript I would have thought this would be easy to find, but thus far it has not been for me.

Is there a way to launch dictation (fn, fn) with applescript or from the terminal?

You can just simulate pressing fn twice:

delay 0.3 -- time to release modifier keys if for example the script is run with command-R
tell application "System Events"
    key code 63
    key code 63
end tell

Or from a terminal:

osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to key code {63,63}'

The osascript command worked for me in Terminal but not in iTerm 2. The Start Dictation menu item also just plays the lower pitch sound without showing the popover in iTerm 2 though.


Can't click on MacOS Utilities I'm in recovery-mode ... MacBook Pro (Catalina) ... I wanna get into Terminal-window to run a command, and I can use the trackpad to move the cursor around ... but I can't select an option in the Utilities menu? Why is that?
I tried to move around using the tab key and then selecting using space-bar ... but the menu is not selectable using the tab-button

While in Recovery mode, the trackpad works in press to click mode. If you're used to tap to click, this might come as a surprise and make you think it's not working properly. Try pressing down on the trackpad to actually get the feedback of a click and see if that works.


Does macOS ship with software developed by third parties? I know in the days of Classic Mac OS, Apple had a habit of shipping the OS with pieces of software, often useful little utilities, that while on the face of it look like any other piece of bundled software, are actually written by third parties and simply paid for by Apple to be able to be included with every installation.

Is this practice still followed? To clarify, I don't mean software written by a company which is then bought out by Apple and their software shipped; but software written by a company which remains independent, but is shipped with Mac OS.

In short, yes.

Apple is built upon Open Source technologies.

Familiar projects like Apache, Bash, CUPS, PostgreSQL, OpenSSH, Python, Xorg, and Zlib are all parts that make up macOS. For a full list, see the link above.

  Open Source software is at the heart of Apple platforms and developer
  tools, and Apple continues to both lead and make significant
  contributions to many Open Source projects. Major components of Mac OS
  X, including the UNIX core, are made available under Apple’s Open
  Source license, allowing developers and students to view source code,
  learn from it and submit suggestions and modifications. In addition,
  Apple uses software created by the Open Source community, such as the
  HTML rendering engine for Safari, and returns its enhancements to the
  community.

Even the underlying core OS is comprised of third party technologies - FreeBSD for the kernel, filesystem, and networking.

(This is one of the reasons, I left Linux and went FreeBSD - there's a great deal of portability between macOS and BSD)


Syncing Aperture between Macs I recently started dividing my Aperture work between my home iMac, and my MacBook Pro. The problem here is that, whenever I want to do a makeshift sync, I export the edited photos from one Mac as an Aperture library (to keep all adjustments, as well as the original image format), and then import the library into the second computer. This is slow, inefficient, and needlessly cumbersome.

I considered using Photo Stream, but the 25 GB I have on my iCloud (which will shrink  to 5 a year from now) is nowhere near enough to house my colossal Aperture library, which should break the 100 GB milestone in a month or two; not to mention, using Photo Stream uses up Internet bandwidth, and flattens the images (merges the adjustments, instead of preserving them as editable ones).

Has anyone else had this kind of problem? Can anyone think of a solution?

RSync the library from the one system to the other when you're at home. It's network efficient, only transfers updated files, and is designed with exactly this sort of thing in mind. It's also free, and installed by default on OSX. It's a command-line tool, as long as you're happy with that sort of thing. It'll keep the libraries in sync quite happily, and syncs both ways.

You'll want something like:

rsync -avh --progress --delete /path/to/source /path/to/target

Depends on whether you mount the remote drive locally, or use an rsync daemon.

Nice instructions here: Software to synchronize two directories (local/remote)


bash not finding executables on Catalina: why & how to fix? As I was typing the title, I saw a suggestion that this might be a duplicate of.  But the suggestion vanished before I could click on it.

'sh' is actually bash

sh: sleep: command not found
sh: dirname: command not found
sh: dirname: command not found
sh: sleep: command not found
sh: dirname: command not found
^C
sh-3.2# echo $path
/usr/local/bin /usr/bin /bin /usr/sbin /sbin
sh-3.2# echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
sh-3.2# which dirname
/usr/bin/dirname
sh-3.2# which sleep
/bin/sleep
# the command that got those error messages was:
sh-3.2# grep -v copy /tmp/tmp | while read PATH; do dirname "$(dirname "$PATH")"; sleep 1; done

All available updates installed. 10.15.2

This is due to use of the special variable PATH (in while read PATH). PATH is used by they system as a list of directories to find command executables; if it doesn't point to the usual binaries directories, the OS won't be able to find commands any more.

Solution: use a different (preferably lower- or mixed-case) name for the variable.

There are quite a few all-caps variable names with some sort of special meaning to the shell, operating system, or various commands themselves. To avoid stumbling into conflicts and unintended consequences like this, it's generally best to avoid all-caps variable names in shell scripts (unless you want the special meaning). In fact, according to the POSIX standard for environment variables:

  The name space of environment variable names containing lowercase
  letters is reserved for applications. Applications can define any
  environment variables with names from this name space without
  modifying the behavior of the standard utilities.


Word crashes with documents with "track changes" on Word suddenly started crashing every time either

a document with «track changes» is opened
«track changes» is activated in a document and the document is changed

This behaviour started without an update of the OS or Office.

Edit This also happens activating the tracking on a new empty document. The behaviour is reproducible with each and every document with «track changes» activated.

The problem is not with the track changes and comments but how Word tries to display them: in a Balloon...

Luckily there is a simple solution:

Word -> Preferences -> Track Changes -> "Use balloons to display changes"

remove the tickmark from here.

You can still see the changes inside text by checking the colors and use

Review tab -> Comments -> Previous, Next

to step through comments (the list will be opened at a left side sidebar). Convinient way although not so fancy, but at least: it works!


Remote control from one iDevice to another iDevice So what I'm trying to achieve is using my iPad 2 as a media player and I want to be able to control it from my iPhone so I can leave it playing music/movies and I can control the volume, play and pause it without having to manipulate the iPad.
Is this possible? Is there any app that allows to control an iDevice from another iDevice? Please advise. Thanks in advance.

I found Tunes Remote which looks like it fits perfectly and it can be downloaded from the App Store. Does anybody know it?


How can I get rid of duplicate TV shows in my iPad’s list of Home Sharing shows on my Mac? I’ve got a Mac mini running as a media server-type thingy. It’s running Mac OS X 10.6.8 and iTunes 10.5. I access TV shows on it via my iPad (running iOS 5.0) using Home Sharing.

(The Mac mini is plugged into an Airport Extreme via ethernet, and the iPad accesses it over wifi.)

A little while ago, the list of shared TV shows on my iPad seemed to get a bit screwed up. Several seasons of one show were listed several times, and seasons of shows sorted after that show don’t appear.

I’ve disabled and enabled Home Sharing on the Mac and the iPad, restarted iTunes and the Mac, killed the Video app on the iPad, and restarted the iPad. Still, the list is screwed up.

However, the list of shows is fine on the Mac mini, and on my primary Mac when accessing the TV shows via iTunes. So I’m assuming it’s an iPad problem.

Has anyone else come across, and found a fix for, this problem?

Unfortunately Home Sharing videos on iOS has had some issues for a while now - TV shows out of order and in some cases duplicates. To my knowledge there isn't a proper fix, but some people have suggested that signing out of Home Sharing then back in again on the iPad (i.e. removing your username and password) can fix it some of the time.


Does Console.app also log passwords? I'm a newb of OS X (or any flavor of *Nix for that matter) so this came to mind lately.. As the Console.app logs every single process that's running, does to also mean passwords & such are also logged aside from Keychain?

I noticed for example, when creating a Workflow in Automator and telling it to follow your moves; it will also log any password you enter along the way in plaintext..

Is this the case, and if so, isn't this a security risk?

Thx in advance!

No, Console won’t log any of your passwords. It only logs normal process activity like load, errors, warnings, etc.

Certain user activity that can causes a major change in the program’s behaviour will also be logged. Opening and saving documents is one such activity.

Automator logs your password because it doesn’t know you are entering your password; it only knows that keyboard input is being received. Recording actions in Automator is very literal. It records the points being clicked, not the buttons. It records the delay between two actions; it does not detect if a previous action has completed or not. Similarly, it records the buttons being pressed, not what those buttons do or even if the key presses are for a text field or a game.


How secure are iCloud backups? Are iCloud backups encrypted, both when transmitted and stored?
Is it possible for someone at Apple to access any backup made to the data enter?

I have heard that when apps have been pulled from the app store they have also been removed iCloud backups, so if they can be modified by apple then surely they aren't stored securely?

I have a lot of my passwords for websites and apps saved, so I assume these are stored in the backups as well?

The good news.  Data is encrypted using SSL while it is transferred between your computer and the iCloud servers.  Also, data is encrypted while it is "at rest", stored on the iCloud servers (with some exceptions; see below).  Encryption is invisible, easy to use, and automatic (on by default).

The less-good news. iCloud uses server-side encryption, not client-side encryption.  When sending data to the cloud, it gets encrypted on your machine with SSL, then decrypted at the iCloud servers, then re-encrypted using an encryption key that Apple knows for storage.  This means that Apple employees have the technical ability to read your data.  There may be procedural, technical, or policy controls to make this unlikely, but the capability is there.  That means that if Apple's cloud ever gets compromised by a sophisticated attacker, the attacker could potentially access all your data.  In other words, any data breach or accident on Apple's part could potentially expose your data.  This may not be too likely, but given that even respected companies like Google have been breached, a breach or other exposure of the iCloud servers is not unthinkable.

Email and notes are not stored in encrypted form, while on Apple's servers.  Email often contains sensitive information -- e.g., account passwords, reset links -- so this is a bit dangerous.

If law enforcement asks Apple for a copy of your data, Apple will share it with them.  Apple won't necessarily require a warrant.  EFF gives Apple only one out of four stars for protecting user data in its report, When Government Comes Knocking, Who Has Your Back?, and dings Apple for not being transparent about government requests for access to your data and not telling users when their data has been disclosed to the government.

The risks are not limited to government requests.  If you get sued, or end up in a contentious divorce, the opposing party's lawyers could subpoena your data from Apple, and Apple would be required to disclose it to them.  Note that the threshold for a subpoena is relatively low: primarily, that the data has a likelihood of being relevant to the case.

The security of your data on iCloud is only as good as the passphrase on your Apple ID.  Therefore, if you want your data to be secure, you need to choose a long and strong passphrase.  Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the current systems that tend to nudge users towards choosing short, weak passphrases.  The OS refuses to store this passphrase in the keychain, requiring you to type it in frequently.  If you use an iOS device, you will frequently need to type in your Apple ID passphrase (e.g., every time you install or update an app).  Because entering a long and strong passphrase is a major pain on an iPhone, many users may end up choosing a short, poor passphrase just for convenience sake -- which unfortunately leaves their iCloud data poorly secured.  So, the current design may tend to encourage many users to use a weak password, leaving their data at risk.

Further reading. The Economist has an excellent argument summarizing the security implications of storing your data on the cloud, and the different levels of security afforded by different providers; for comparison, iCloud is similar to DropBox in its security properties, and weaker than SpiderOak.  To help understand why Apple might have chosen the particular architecture it did, you might enjoy Ben Adida's blog article: Encryption is not gravy; it has significant implications for usability..

Summary. iCloud's security practices are largely in line with mainstream practice in this area.  iCloud appears to have a reasonable and professionally designed security architecture.  While there are some security risks, for most people, iCloud's security is likely to be good enough, and the convenience benefits of iCloud will likely outweigh any risks for most folks.

However, storing your data in the cloud does increase the risk.  For some particularly-sensitive users -- e.g., health records, financial institutions, or other companies with sensitive data -- it might be prudent to avoid storing the most sensitive data in the cloud.


MacBook Pro Mid 2012 (MD101) makes weird sound on wake up/start up I have this weird sound when I open up MacBook or when I run it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIUVbq25uvY

What is the problem and how to solve it?

There is no problem as that is the sound the SuperDrive makes when power is applied to it. I found it quite annoying on my first MacBook Pro however my current MacBook Pro doesn't have an internal SuperDrive although the external one make the same sound.

There is nothing you can do to solve it as it's that way by design.


Is texting required for Apple Watch fall detection? The Apple Watch Series 4 and above fall detection function transmits your location after a fall.  Is this information sent as a text?  If I have a talk-only phone plan without texting, for example, would the location still be transmitted as part of the emergency call?

None of this data is sent as an iMessage or SMS.

If I have a talk-only phone plan without texting, for example, would the location still be transmitted as part of the emergency call?

If you have a talk only plan with no texting (do those still exist?), it won't be able to send GPS location data at all.  How would it? "Talk Only" means just that - talk - there's no data whatsoever so it couldn't send location data.  It's a moot point anyway.
The way fall detection works is that after a fall has been detected and you haven't responded, it makes a voice call to the programmed emergency number and plays an audio message that includes latitude and longitudinal data.
From Apple Support Use fall detection with Apple Watch

When the call connects, your Apple Watch plays an audio message that informs emergency services that your Apple Watch detected a hard fall and then it shares your current location as latitude and longitude coordinates.

So, to answer your question, yes, the location would be transmitted, as audio as part of the emergency call.


Ipad multi network chat and SMS app Is there an ipad app for various Instant message networks and SMS? Please recommend something that's as minimalist as the iMessage app, not a big flashy mess.

There is no app that can manage SMS/MMS as well as your other instant messaging networks. You will need to use Messages app for iMessage & SMS/MMS, and a third-party app for any other IM networks (such as AOL, Google Talk, Yahoo!, etc.).


Not able to login using network account after upgrade to High Sierra I just upgraded to macOS High Sierra and now I am not able to login using network account. However, I am able to unlock the FileVault2 volume using the old credentials but then it asks for credentials again. On login screen, I see a red dot beside username saying network accounts are unavailable

I have two accounts on my machine. One network account with admin privileges and a local account with standard privileges. I am able to login using local account but not with the network account.

I have FileVault recovery keys, will it help?

I am using MacBook Pro mid 2015 series.

You will still need local and Active Directory administrator account for this to work, but here's the exact steps I took to fix this issue.

Login with local administrator account
Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups
Press Login Options > Unlock > Press Edit near Network Account Server > Open Directory Utility > Unlock > Select Active Directory and press "Edit settings for the selected service" button at the bottom > Unbind > Enter Active Directory administrator credentials and finish the unbinding process
Close Directory Utility and reboot the computer
Repeat steps 1 and 2
Press Join near Network Account Server
Enter your domain (ad.example.com) and Active Directory administrator credentials.

Assuming your AD account is not entirely network account (created on your local system and you can use it without network access) you should also set settings in 8-10 steps.

Optional Step - Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups
Optional Step - Login Options > Unlock > Press Edit on Network Account Server > Open Directory Utility > Unlock > Select Active Directory and press "Edit settings for the selected service" button at the bottom
Optional Step - Press Show more > Check "Create mobile login at login" > Uncheck "Require confirmation before creating a mobile account"
Log out (may need another reboot)
Login with network account by selecting the user from the list or using your name on password (depends on "Display login windows as" setting)


Chrome for macOS shows raw HTML for gmail.com I posted this question in the google communities forum here but did not receive a response so I thought I'd ask here. I'm not sure if it's specific to apple but I thought it could be worth a shot trying this here first, over stack overflow.

When I visit gmail, Chrome doesn't render the HTML but just displays it raw, similar to if I had right-clicked and then regular clicked View Page Source. And it's just the source code and not an working HTML-only render.

Visiting the same URL with a different browser, on the same machine with the same OS, does render the HTML in the typical fashion.

How can I get Chrome to render the HTML rather than just print it out?

I've tried resetting Chrome to default settings, and uninstalling and re-installing Chrome. The problem still persists. I did just upgrade to Mojave but Chrome worked normally after the upgrade for awhile before it started behaving strangely.

Shot of how it appears.

This was solved thanks to a solution posted in the Google forum. It was solved but hitting command-shift-R. I have no idea why.

Link to forum post.


Is it possible to automatically switch between scrolling? So I have this logitech mouse that I use with my Macbook Pro.
I've been using it for a week now and I just CAN'T get used to the inverse scrolling direction on the mouse wheel.
So I decided to change it in my System Preferences, since I can't automatically change it in the Logitech mouse software.
But sometimes when I can't use my mouse I have to use my trackpad, and getting used to the "natural" scrolling is annoying.

So, is there a way to make my macbook automatically change the scrolling direction depending if I'm using my trackpad and my mouse?
Or does anyone know if theres a script that I can use, I'm ok with just using it on my Dock. I already have a script for clearing my clipboard

When I can, I prefer my own home-rolled solution to adding more third party software and if you want to toggle the state of the Scroll direction: natural checkbox, which is a global setting and found under both the Mouse and the Trackpad preference panes, under Point & Click, in System Preferences, you can use the following AppleScript code saved as an application and then place it in the Dock via drag and drop.

Note that because this is a global setting, it doesn't matter whether you check/uncheck from either the Mouse or the Trackpad preference panes and as such I've coded this to target the Mouse preference pane as it should have the checkbox even when a Trackpad isn't present.

I saved the following AppleScript code in Script Editor as an application named: Toggle Natural Scrolling

on run
    try
        tell application "System Preferences"
            set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.mouse"
            activate
        end tell
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"
            tell radio button 1 of tab group 1 of window 1 to if value is 0 then click
            set cbValue to value of (click checkbox 1 of tab group 1 of window 1)
        end tell
        tell application "System Preferences" to quit
        tell me
            activate
            if cbValue is equal to 1 then
                -- display dialog "Natural scrolling is now active." buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "Toggle Natural Scrolling" giving up after 3
                display notification "Natural scrolling is now active."
            else
                -- display dialog "Natural scrolling is no longer active." buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "Toggle Natural Scrolling" giving up after 3
                display notification "Natural scrolling is no longer active."
            end if
        end tell
    on error eStr number eNum
        activate
        display dialog eStr & " number " & eNum buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "Toggle Natural Scrolling" with icon caution
    end try
end run

As presently coded the display dialog commands are commented out and are there because I originally wrote this under OS X 10.8.5, which doesn't support the display notification command, however I've also tested (some of the code) under macOS 10.12 and why the display notification command is being used. I've left both in the code since I do not know which version you're running and you can comment/uncomment accordingly.

Under OS X 10.9 and later, you will need to add the Toggle Natural Scrolling to Accessibility, under Privacy, under Security & Privacy preferences, in System Preferences. If you don’t, you’ll get the following error when running it:

  Toggle Natural Scrolling is not allowed assistive access. number -1719


Will Keynote Remote work with a MacBook in closed clamshell mode? For my next presentation, I plan to use Keynote Remote so I can control a Keynote presentation with my iPhone. Will this work while the MacBook Air is in 'closed clamshell' mode? If yes, are there any caveats?

Yes it will. Since the MacBook is essentially still on with just the display deactivated, Keynote Remote will be fully-functional.


How to fix my Applescript plugins for the Contacts application that are no longer available since 10.9 Mavericks upgrade? I have got 5 scripts listed in ~/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/

SkypeABDialer.bundle
SkypeABSMS.bundle
TelephoneAddressBookPhonePlugIn.bundle
TelephoneAddressBookSIPAddressPlugIn.bundle
Dial with Snom VoIP phone.scpt

Since the OS upgrade from 10.7 (Lion) to 10.9 (Mavericks) the .bundle plug-ins are still available within the "Contacts" application, however the AppleScript (.scpt) version is no longer listed at the former entry points.

How to fix this?

1. The launch services database is screwed up
This Contacts.app launch services problem/issue might appear again after each Mac OS X update, like the 10.9.2 combo updater according to http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/2NbVio0gzU3nWMhAxfsk
1a. Command line fix
$ /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -all l,s,u

In case of error messages like no such file or directory you can find the location of your lsregister with the command $ locate lsregister.
1b. OnyX fix
Or, you can run the OnyX application (version 2.8.7),
go to tab "Automation".
Disable each check mark,
except for section "Rebuilding",
and make sure that item "LaunchServices" is checked.
Finally hit the [ Execute ] button.
2. Move to new folder
You need to move your Address Book Plug-In AppleScript(s) from the old
~/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/
/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/

to a new location:
~/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.AddressBook/


How to install older Xcode version from the App Store I want to install Xcode 6 or 7 but I don't have a stable internet connection so installing the .dmg file with around 2-4GB file size will probably end badly. I was thinking of a way where I can install it safely where if I lose my internet or receive slow connection, I can automatically resume it normally without failing the download. This would be possible if I install it through the App Store but I can't seem to find how I can get specific versions.

Is there a way to do this or another method that would suit my situation?

if you have previously purchased the xcode version you are interested in, you can download it again from the purchased tab in the app store

and

"There are older versions of Xcode available at the Apple Developer website, but as long as you just use the latest non-beta version of the SDK, you should be fine. E.g. just use Xcode 3.2.5 and iOS 4.2 SDK. The NDA only covers the pre-release versions"

from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4839526/where-to-download-older-xcode-versions


50Hz hum from macbook air headphone port I bought a pair of Brainwavz M1 headphones today and when using them with my Macbook air there is an intermittent buzz regardless of whether or not there's sound playing and irrespective of the volume of the air.

I'm fairly sure that it's 50 Hz noise from the power but curiously when I unplug the charging cable the noise is still there but not quite as loud.

If I touch the body of the laptop the humming stops whether plugged into power or not.

The headphones have a rated impedance of 32 ohms.

Is there anything I can do to stop it?

Most of the Macintoshes I've had over the years have had a buzz in the headphone port. It is especially noticeable with low impedance headphones. Some have even had a click when the sound is turned on (i.e. when an alert sound plays, or a song is started in iTunes).

You could try taking it to the Genius bar, they might replace it if it is still under warranty. There could be a short somewhere, or it could just be considered "normal" which is why audiophiles use digital output.


Applescript to create outgoing message in Mail.app with specified sender I have a lot of accounts in Mail.  I use KeyboardMaestro to automate much of what I do, but I haven't found a way to reliably get it to choose a given account in a new message window.  I'm wondering if I can get applescript to do it for me.

I have the following:

tell application "Mail" to make new outgoing message with properties {sender:"my@email.address"}

and Mail obediently opens a new message window...but doesn't bother to set the sender correctly :-(

I've also tried using the entire string which appears in the Sender popup menu in the window (which seems to be the Alias, in the Accounts pane of Mail's prefs window), plus just the substring before the hyphen (which seems to be the Full Name in Mail's prefs).  Nothing works.

Has anyone managed to get this to work?

From here

Slightly different format for the sender property.

tell application "Mail"
  set theOutMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {visible:true}
  tell theOutMessage
      make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:"first@mail.com"}
      set sender to "FirstN LastN <josh.stackexchange@gmail.com>"
      set subject to "Message Subject"
      set content to "Message Text"
  end tell
end tell

So yours would be...

tell application "Mail" to make new outgoing message with properties {sender:"FirstN LastN <my@email.address>"}

You can find and edit the FirstN and LastN in System Preferences>Internet Accounts>[Email Name]>Details>Name


Is a "Not Charging" iPad still drawing power when not sleeping When an iPad is "not charging" and is not sleeping, is it still drawing power from the USB port so it doesn't drain or at least drain slower?

Yes.  It's just that the power it's drawing is not enough to both run the device and charge the battery at the same time.


Isn't Inactive memory a waste of resources? I'm looking for explanation of memory usage on my machine especially in light of the example in this screenshot below:

I understand what is Free and Active means
But what are the meanings of Wired and Inactive?

Especially inactive, why does it use so much memory for something that we do not use?

Inactive memory got a horrible rap due to a crappy name. It should have been called something like "make your Mac really fast the second, third, and fourth time it does the same task" memory except that's an awful name, too.

Apple re-wrote the activity monitor when it introduced several new features and added compressed memory, so some of this no longer applies to macOS that don’t show “Inactive Memory” but this still applies to Mac OS X memory management as documented against this version of Activity Monitor: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201538

Here's how I explained things to someone new to the concept of virtual memory on OS X:

Wired: The system cannot run without this amount of RAM (never swapped)
Active: Programs are really using this memory now or in the last few seconds
Inactive: Things that programs have read from the slow disk or elsewhere and said they never need again. Engineers know better, you will go back to Facebook in a few minutes or re-launch Word after quitting it. The same things happen again and again on computers.
Free: Totally Wasted RAM - the system only needs one or two MB free to cover short term allocation requests. For largest allocations, it simply uses some of the Inactive RAM by allocating it to active/wired and removing the information on what it used to hold.

The problem arises when Free+Inactive is less than roughly 1/3 of the total and then things can really get slow.

Inactive memory is bonus speed / double duty RAM. It serves as free at a moment's notice, but also makes repeated tasks much, much faster if the system guessed correctly and kept something in RAM that you will do again. It's faster than swapped memory since it's already loaded in RAM and accelerates things when the virtual memory system makes good guesses.

When you are wondering if RAM is a problem, rather than looking at each of the 4 categories (5 if you count active swap), you can couple W+A as slowing down a new program/task and F+I as speeding up a new program/task. The more F+I you have, the more new programs you can launch before the RAM needs to rely on swapping to juggle the memory that has been allocated.

You don't really need to know how swap works since I mentioned it above. Basically, when a program is sitting idle and hasn't been used for days (or hours) the system will write that RAM to the hard drive rather than kill the program. This lets the system shuffle and handle all sorts of things relating to memory management and keeps each program from needing to talk amongst themselves to agree who will use less memory when the system runs out.

Here is a real world example of how inactive RAM is used.

Quit all apps and make sure the two Apps we are testing are not set to auto start when you log in
Reboot your Mac
Fire up your Activity Monitor and watch the RAM throughout
Time how long it takes to start Application A (MS Word would be a good choice)
Quit A
Time how long it takes to start Application B (Adobe something would also be good)
Quit B
Time how long the second launch of A takes
Quit A
Time B's second launch.
Time A's start the third time with B running.

You should see dramatic speedups for the second / third launch as the system learns to keep in inactive RAM the things these two apps need to run.

In your case - the total of Wired and Active means that some swapping to disk is likely happening and your Mac isn't as fast as it could be since your inactive RAM isn't large enough to store all the things you might need to reuse. If you have a fast SSD drive, this RAM allocation is OK and instead of starting to slow down once less than 1/2 of your RAM is F+I, you can cut things closer to like 1/4 of the total RAM for F+I before seeing noticeable slowness. These guidelines are general, and you'll want to watch vm_stat 15 or some similar interval to ensure continual and medium volume swapping isn't making your Mac slow.


Why did apache move config, and how do I move it back? I just installed PHP 7, and suddenly localhost is no longer accessible.

Investigating, apachectl determined that it changed from reading /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, to now be reading /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf. This means that the local folder that I put in /Library/WebServer/Documents/ are no longer accessible; it's not even listening on port 80 anymore!

What caused it to change, and how do I change it back?

What caused it to change, and how do I change it back?

In short, SIP.

The directory /usr/local/ is one of the directories that's not covered by SIP so applications and users are allowed to modify files there.  Obviously httpd.conf can be modified so it needs to be located in a non-SIP secured location.

Further, /Library/WebServer/Documents/ is now in a SIP protected directory so it's advisable that you move it from there.

Even though you're using Yosemite, PHP 7 made the change to comply with newer systems.  Instead of changing it back, it would be beneficial to make the change in your system now because once you upgrade to El Capitan or higher, it will be required.


Error opening a zip file: No such file or directory? After 25 years on PCs I am delighting in learning all I can about working with my new Mac and OS X Mavericks.

I tried just now to open a zip file but was interrupted with an Archive Utility dialog:

  Unable to expand "filename.zip" into "Downloads".
  (Error 2 - No such file or directory.)

What to do? How can I access the contents of the zip file?

It's likely that filename.zip is either not actually a .zip file, or is corrupted.

Open up Terminal. You can access it by typing "Terminal" into Spotlight.

Enter the command(s) in the steps below into your command line prompt (triple click the line, copy it, and paste it into your prompt). Replace filename.zip with the actual name of the zip file.

If the name of the file contains spaces, you need to enter it differently using the escape \ character. For example, if the file is named compressed crap.zip, you'd type compressed\ crap.zip in the command line.

Step 1:

Repair disk permissions. Once done, attempt to open the .zip file again. If you wish, you can do this from the command line.

diskutil repairPermissions /

Step 2:

Use file to confirm it's actually a zip file:

file ~/Downloads/filename.zip

The output should be:
Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract

If you don't receive this output, post the output as a comment before proceeding.

Step 3:

After confirming it's actually a zip file, attempt to unzip it directly from the command line:

unzip ~/Downloads/filename.zip -d ~/Downloads

Step 4:

Step 3 will likely fail. Run the zip command to attempt to repair any corruption and salvage the contents of the archive (again, replace filename.zip with actualname.zip):

zip -FF ~/Downloads/filename.zip --out ~/Downloads/Repairedversion.zip

If it executes cleanly, you'll be directly returned to your prompt. Quit Terminal. Navigate to your Downloads folder and double click Repairedversion.zip- it should unzip without issue.

Alternatively, it may not exit cleanly. If you're presented with

Is this a single-disk archive?  (y/n):

Hit the y key. After you're returned to the prompt, again attempt to open Repairedversion.zip from your Downloads folder. If you're still unable to open it,  comment below with the warning(s) received from the command. If you've reached this point though, it's likely that the file is irreparably damaged.


Script to raise a single window to the front In a script I'm trying to find the Terminal.app window containing a specific tty device and raise that window to the top. Here's what I have in Applescript so far:

tell application "System Events"
  set foundWin to false
  if (name of processes) contains "Terminal" then
    tell application "Terminal"
      set theTabs to first tab of every window where tty is "$(tty)"
      repeat with theTab in theTabs
        if class of theTab is tab then
          set theWin to (first window whose tabs contains theTab)
          set selected tab of theWin to theTab
          set foundWin to true
        end if
      end repeat
    end tell
  end if
  if foundWin then
    --RAISE THE WINDOW?!
  end if
end tell

Where I'm getting stuck is the "raising the window" part.

Here are some things that are not quite what I want:

set frontmost of theWin to true -- this brings the window to the front of the group of Terminal.app windows but doesn't raise it above any other windows.

tell application "Terminal" to activate -- this brings every Terminal window to the front in a big stack. I just want the one window.

tell application "System Events"
    set theSysWin to first window of process "Terminal" whose name is (name of theWin)
    perform action "AXRaise" of theSysWin
end tell

This almost does it, but what it does is to raise the terminal window to the #2 position, still underneath the active window (if the active app is something other than Terminal.app.)

click theSysWin at {10,50} -- doesn't seem to do anything.

click first static text of theSysWin -- doesn't seem to do anything.

Is there a way to do this? It doesn't have to be in Applescript.

EDIT I did find this web page ( http://blog.coriolis.ch/2008/03/04/bring-any-window-to-the-front/ ) quoting an Obj-C/Cocoa call:

SetFrontProcessWithOptions(&psn, kSetFrontProcessFrontWindowOnly);

I'm not familiar with either ObjC or Cocoa, and this is (ultimately) getting invoked from a shell script, so not sure where to go from there.

open only raises a single window:

do shell script "open -a Terminal"

Another way to raise a window is to set its index to 1 and then use AXRaise:

tell application "Terminal"
    set index of window 2 to 1
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal"
    perform action "AXRaise" of window 1
end tell


How do I add the chapters title in Pages (Mac)? I can add date, links, page numbers, but I would like to display as well the chapter titles in the header and it should be updated automatically when a chapter's title changes. Any ideas?
I'm using pages 10.2 (7028.0.88)

Sorry for the bad news but there is no way to automater this in Pages. The best you can do is to edit the header or footer and to copy and paste the chapter title.  But if you change the chapter title you will have to redo the process.


How do I determine where a process is being started from, and disable it? When I start OS X (Mavericks) and run ps aux | grep postgres from Terminal, I have a process that was automatically started:

postgres          132   0.0  0.1  2526456   7936   ??  Ss   10:04PM   0:00.07 /Library/PostgreSQL/9.2/bin/postmaster -D/Library/PostgreSQL/9.2/data

This is a problem because I recently installed HomeBrew's version of Postgres and want that to be the postgres that is always running.  However, I can't figure out how to disable the old one (above) and it is driving me crazy! I've looked for launch agents in:

~/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchAgents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons

and can't seem to find one matching the above... any ideas?

The related launchd job ticket was found in /Library/LaunchDaemons.

Answering to mark question as successfully resolved.


Is it possible to use the Magic trackpad on Windows? Is this possible to use the Apple Magic Trackpad on a Windows Computer ?

The bootcamp FAQ is helpful for these sorts of questions

http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4273


Is there a way to disable all notifications on the iPhone in one step? Is there a way, when doing screen recording (for online gameplay, for example), to disable all notifications in one step, so that it won't interfere with the screen recording?

Details: It can be done by turning off all notifications for 35 apps one by one, and when done with screen recording, turn them on one by one again -- but it will be 70 steps total this way.

I want to disable any notification at all, including the one that slide down showing "no preview" content -- I want to disable those as well -- everything.

Do Not Disturb does also hide notifications and you can customize it like allow incoming calls from favorites or everyone.

When the device is locked, it won't light up the screen when receiving a message. But by enabling 'Always' on the bottom of the Do Not Disturb setting page, it will also block the notifications when your device is unlocked.

So they won't pop up on your screen, you can only see them by opening the notification center.


how to show all boot options and then hide them from rEFInd? I believe I have rEFInd running
When it’s active, refit and a duplicate windows partition show up.  (i have kali, windows 10, and OS X catalina) and then choose JUST those three to boot from, but there's two extra. a extra windows boot option, and the rEFIt
I don't want them there.
I cannot find rEFIt in libraries/startupitems there is NOTHING there, and don't know if its in EFI because nothing in there is names rEFIt, windows
Is there a way to see all bootable drives?

If you have the current version of rEFInd installed, then you should be able to hide the undesired menu items by highlighting the icon and pressing the - key. This assumes hidden_tags appears as a showtools option parameter in the refind.conf file. See Hiding and Displaying EFI Boot Loaders for more information.
If you have Hidden Tags enabled, then the following icon will appear on the tools line of rEFInd.

The default location for a rEFInd installation is the EFI/refind folder in the hidden EFI volume (disk0s1). You can mount this volume by using the command given below.
sudo diskutil mount disk0s1

You can unmount by using the command given below.
diskutil unmount disk0s1

Note: You mention rEFIt  in your question. You should not be using rEFIt with Catalina. The rEFIt Project is depreciated and has been replaced with rEFInd.


MacBook Pro and air logic boards interchange? Can I interchange my logic boards from MacBook Pro  a1502 to a MacBook Air a 1466?

This is not possible.

Not only are the logic board shapes and sizes entirely different, the display connectors are in a different location, the CPU and GPUs are in different locations necessitating different cooling pipes; even the I/O connectors are different (meaning the holes in the top case wouldn't match with the connectors).

MacBook Air Logic Board

MacBook Pro Logic Board


iPhoto update seems to be 2G and two attempts to run it failed. It used half my monthly data My iMac is only a few weeks old.  Just after i bought it, it started to automatically run an update for iPhoto.  This went on for several hours and used 2G of data but the update failed.  It tried again with the same result.  I rang Apple and was talked through the process of selecting when I wanted to update and was told that option would show me how big the update file was.  (it doesn't  until it starts to download).  My monthly data of 8G has always been more than I needed, however because of this update failure I used half of it in one day.  Any suggestions on how I can update or why it is failing?  Thanks.

No suggestions as to why it is failing, but I have a suggestion re the update.

Don't.

No update to iPhoto is going to be urgent. Leave it until it is convenient to take the iMac to somewhere with fast internet access, then hit "Software Update" and let it run its hardest.


App Store on MacOS Lion doesnt load Since a while now, I can't use the app store anymore on my MacOS Lion.
It just keeps the screen "One Moment Please. Connecting to the iTunes Store.".

I tried a couple of things ... rebootet ... waitet for days and tried it again ... cleared the cache, as described here: Mountain Lion Doesn't Download from Store and some more stuff.

Nothing shows up in the Console.app ... iTunes works just fine ...

The only thing that's curiouse is, that if I click on the link "To download iTunes, please click here.", the page shown is in swedish ... I've never chosen that as language on this system.

EDIT:
The login doesn't work. The credentials are correct, because I can log in at apples developers area and download stuff like xcode from there.

EDIT: Since you made your edit my answer is not valid.

In Apple store click on Store + View my Account

Sign in.

Bottom right just below the DONE click on the globe flag icon, and change to your country.


How do you set the TCP congestion control algorithm on OS X? I would like to set the TCP congestion control algorithm to Westwood+. Is this possible in OS X?

According to http://www.macgeekery.com/gspot/2006-03/mac_os_x_network_tuning_guide you can actually modify the algorthims used by Mac OS X by using  the sysctl command, but you cannot use anything but the New Reno algorithm:

  net.inet.tcp.newreno implements the New Reno modification to the TCP Fast Recovery Protocol (RFC 2582). New Reno is the name given to an enhancement to TCP partial acknowledgments that is used in the absence of a stack that supports SACKs. Keep in mind that while this shouldn’t cause problems in the normal case, it’s only really useful over a congested link like, say, checking mail while streaming NPR or similar. Even then, it’s not a magic bullet. No harm in turning it on, but understand what it is and isn’t, first. It’s off by default.

The command is
sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.newreno=1
which you could reverse with sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.newreno=0 if you had issues with it.


Do Time Capsules still work with macOS 10.14 (Mojave) Do Apple Time Capsules still work with macOS 10.14 (Mojave).

More specific: Can I use them for wireless Time Machine backups without jumping through hoops I would not have to with Mac OS X 10.6 (the last OS I used with a Time Capsule).

If not all of them work, which do?

I have an old Time Capsule that I’ve had for years.  Recently, I updated my laptop to Mojave and my Time machine backups still continue to work with the Time Capsule.  So the answer is, yes Mojave works with Time Capsules.  One thing to note is that Time Machine can only backup to HFS+ formatted disks.  So make sure that the Time Capsule disk is formatted as HFS+.  Which, I think, is its default format.


If I symlink an iCloud folder to my OS X drive, will the files only be accessible while I'm online? I was thinking of moving my documents folder to iCloud then just creating a symlink to them on my computer (is this a bad idea in the first place, is there a more elegant solution?) However I would like to know if I would not have access to my documents if I have no internet connection?

Any alias needs the real data available in order to work with it.  There are two aliases available in Mac OS X:

Finder alias
Symbolic link

FINDER ALIAS
A Finder alias stores some information, like where a file is to be found and what login information is required to access the file share that file is located on. It does not store the login information, but knows which they use (in case it is stored in your keychain). If it is opened, a Finder alias will see, if the file is already available and if not will try to establish the connection of the remote drive, if possible, then open the file.

SYMBOLIC LINK
A symbolic link is simply a link information on where a file is to be looked for. If that file is moved, renamed or the remote share is disconnected a symbolic link becomes broken. A broken symbolic link can be "repaired" by moving that file back into place, renaming it back to how it was named before or reconnecting the remote share again. Otherwise, you would need to delete and recreate the symbolic link with the new location or name.

At any rate, for working with a file's information offline, you would need to have that information available offline and not just a link.


Major difficulty restoring Time Machine backups/accessing .sparsebundle on newer Mac Mini Alright so here's my issue.  I've searched the web for quite some time and hopefully I can find some better info here.

I used to have a Time Machine that was set to backup an older Macbook Pro.  The Macbook Pro and TM both are dead, but I have saved the hard drive out of the TM.  I now have a newer Mac Mini.

So I'm attempting to somehow access the files located on the old TM drive by connecting it through a dock to my Mac Mini, but can't seem to get that to work.  The .sparsebundle file located on the drive is shown with a red circle with white bar icon, and I have no access or ability to double click and open the sparse bundle.

Is there a way I can change the permissions on this file to be able to open it? I'm completely at a loss here of what to do.

I'm fairly confident all of my data is located in the .sparsebundle.  Finder shows the 2TB drive has over 1.3TB used.  I also tried to verify disk in disk utility and it said the drive was fine.

Update
So I managed to just right click the lock icon on this sparsebundle file and change permissions to read only.  Now when I try to double click the .sparsebundle, it tells "Image not recognized".  In disk utility, this sparsebundle appears in the left, with a volume underneath it called "Time Machine 3".  I cannot run verify/repair on the .sparsebundle itself, but I can on the Time Machine 3 after mounting it, and it runs and says the disk is ok.  The disk pops up and I can navigate to it in Finder, but this still doesn't allow me to access my files and folders saved on it. -__-

It seems like all of the actual data is stored in some cryptic "bands" folder.

Time Machine backups cannot be browsed in Finder. You must view them through Time Machine.
If you are using a computer that is different from the one where the backup was made, there are additional steps. The Time Machine - Troubleshooting page explains further.

Time Machine keeps the backups for each Mac separate, and normally only shows the ones for the Mac it's running on (selected in the Time Machine Preferences window), even if there are other backups of the same or a different Mac on the same or different disk/partition.
To see these "other" backups, you need the Browse Other Backup Disks or (Browse Other Time Machine Disks on Snow Leopard or Leopard) option.  It's available by Alt/Option-clicking the Time Machine icon in your Menubar, or by control-clicking (right-clicking) the Time Machine icon in your Dock.
You'll see a selection screen showing all the mounted disks/partitions that have Time Machine backups on them.  Select the one you want, click Use Selected Disk, and you'll be taken to the normal "Star Wars" display, where you should see all the backups on that disk/partition.
You may not be able to restore such items normally (to their original location);  if not, you'll need to restore them to an alternate location per Frequently Asked Question #16.


How to remove incompatible software flagged during 10.10.3 upgrade? I just updated to 10.10.3 today and got this warning about incompatible software:

I got the same warning during the 10.10.2 upgrade.

I once had Trim Enabler installed and got a failure during upgrading to Yosemite, so I disabled it rather than deal with the kext signing issue. So I keep getting this message during upgrades, but can't find any info about where this is coming from.

The Qmaster preference is a total mystery, I don't know where that came from. I used to have Logic Pro a few major versions ago, but uninstalled it a while ago, is that the source? How do I locate the source of this warning?

Most importantly, how do I eliminate whatever is causing the warnings? I comprehend that they have not been migrated and just want to get rid of them as I don't need them.

Qmaster is the Apple Qmaster.

  Apple Qmaster is a system made by Apple Inc. that provides automated
  work distribution and processing for high-volume projects....

It is a 32 bit version and the 10.10 does not like it.

I use AppCleaner app to remove apps from my system since it will also find all associated parts of that app.


How do I transfer a photo in Preview to iPhoto? I have a Photo in Preview.  How do I move it to iPhoto?

There's numerous methods:

Drag the photo from Preview (press ⌥⌘2 to show thumbnails) to iPhoto's main window, or on the Dock.
Drag the photo from its location to iPhoto's main window, or on the Dock.
Go to iPhoto and select File → Import to Library and select the location of the photo.


Apple Watch pairing prompts for old Apple ID password When I paired my Apple Watch with my iPhone it asked for me to login to my Apple ID.

Later while configuring Messages on the watch it asks for my password again.

However, the Apple ID in each is different, none of my current or previous Apple ID passwords succeeds at this prompt, and I am forced to hit Cancel to proceed.

Several months ago I changed my Apple ID from cory@coryklein.com to coryfklein@gmail.com and I assume Apple has retained the older ID somewhere in association with Messages.

Messages on my MacBook is using the correct ID.

My iPhone is using the correct ID as well.

Unfortunately, this appears to be causing the Messages app on the Watch not to sync with my phone. I can't send or receive messages on my Watch.

Has anybody else encountered this and succeeded in resolving it?

I don't have Two-Factor authentication enabled on my Apple ID, but I have started the process and am waiting the mandatory 3-day period for it to activate.

Login with your Apple ID at Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > Apple ID


How do I speed up the animation time for switching between desktop spaces? Is there a way to speed up the animation time for switching between spaces? (Or maybe turning them off?). Preferably without buying a third party app. Maybe there's an option defaults.

I'm on Sierra 10.12.6.

Thanks

This looks like a duplicate of Speed up Mission Control animations in macOS Sierra

Here's the short answer. If you want extremely fast animations, this is your defaults write command:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.1


How can I block a given DNS from being used? When I get a list of DNSs that OS X is using, it shows 3:
Two from my ISP, and one is 192.168.1.1.

Is it possible to prevent OS X from using the third one?

Since you have two other DNS addresses listed, you can click on the entry for 192.168.1.1 and click the "-" (minus) button to remove it (although it may not have any practical effect on connecting to sites).

The IP address 192.168.1.1 is your default gateway and is the address of your router or modem that you connect to for Internet access. By default, this address will be added in the DNS list in OS X, and the DNS lookups will be done based on the DNS servers configured within the router/modem (where again, the default would be what your ISP provides).

The order of the DNS server entries matters for how DNS lookups are performed. So OS X would anyway try the first two that you have from your ISP before going with the third one.

If you wish to check and find the fastest DNS provider for your connection, you can use the free namebench tool and reconfigure your DNS accordingly.

You can also check your router/modem configuration and configure it to use specific DNS servers if needed (note that any settings in OS X will override these settings):

Open a browser window and go to http://192.168.1.1
Type in the administrator credentials (check your router/modem manual or with your ISP for the credentials if you don't know)
Navigate through the settings, check and/or reconfigure DNS


Automated screensaver configuration in command line/shell script So I'm configuring some Default User Template LaunchAgents to configure a default screensaver for some of my company's most popular fan art. (It's actually been really well received by the team). They're designed as first-run images when they log into their forced-Local Active Directory users.

However, I'm getting very inconsistent results now...namely it's not working at all.

The .plist launches a Shell Script located in the /sbin/ folder. The odd thing is that it mostly works in an existing user.

The screensaver is meant to use "Flipup" with a specific folder of images, shuffle the pictures and set a start time of 5 minutes.

For example, I intentionally set my "default configuration user" screensaver first to the "Holiday Mobile," set the picture selection to "Cosmos" (one of the defaults) with a start time of 20 minutes and unchecked "shuffle images." Then I changed it to "Arabesque."

When I logged out and logged back in to kick in the script, the result was me getting "Holiday Mobile." However, when I went to "Desktop and Screensaver Settings," "Arabesque" was actually selected though the "Holiday Mobile" preview was showing with a grayed out "Screen Saver Options" below. (However, the start time did change to 5 minutes and when I did click on "Holiday Mobile," "Shuffle Slide Order" was checked properly.)

So in the test user, it's goes to Fan Art, activating Shuffle and changing the time.

But when I create a new user after adding the LaunchAgent .plist to the Default User Template, I get nothing but the standard "Computer Name" screensaver on a black background.

I am totally confused on why this is occurring. Any suggestions?

Here's the shell script:

```

#!/bin/sh

## Set Screensaver to Photo Slideshow
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver 'CleanExit' -string "YES"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver 'PrefsVersion' -int "100"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver 'idleTime' -int "300"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver "moduleDict" -dict-add "path" -string "/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/iLifeSlideshows.saver"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver "moduleDict" -dict-add "type" -int "0"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver 'ShowClock' -bool "false"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver 'tokenRemovalAction' -int "0"

## Set Type of Slideshow to "Flipup" (Results inconsistent)
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaver.iLifeSlideshows 'styleKey' -string "Flipup"

## Set location of photos to Fan Art
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedSource' -int "4"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Manehattan Files/Manehattan Backgrounds/Fan Art"
/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'ShufflesPhotos' -bool "true"

## Removes the .plist LaunchAgent from inside the User Launch Agent Folder.
rm -f ~/Library/LaunchAgents/set-screensaver.plist

exit

```

So through JAMF, a very wise man showed me a very simple thing I needed to add to the end of my script:

killall cfprefsd

Solved the problem entirely. While if you go into System Preferences, it still shows the old screensaver being selected, it works.


Accessing OS X built in dictionary lookup in Firefox I am really frustrated that Firefox does not provide the three-finger-tap lookup operation is in built in OS X. What is baffling me is that it supports other gestures such as two finger swipes and taps. So why not the 3 finger tap dictionary ?

Is this possible to actually implement ? Or is it because access to in built dictionary and trackpad is blocked by OS ? How can I start looking at this problem ?

As of now (Dec 1 2014), although the option is not present in right-click menu, three-finger dictionary lookup works perfectly fine in my Firefox (Developer Edition 35)

Also there have been certain plugins which help you look up words in dictionary through right click. For example https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/look-up-in-dictionary-7261/

EDIT (Oct 2017): I'm now using the new e10s Firefox and the dictionary lookup still works. You don't need any plugin, just tap with three fingers or press Control + Cmd + D.


Type of SSD for iMac 21.5" (mid 2011) I have heard that a specific type of SSD is required if you want to use an SSD in an iMac 21.5" (mid 2011). Which type of SSD would this be?

The iMac 21.5" Mid 2011 shipped with "500 GB, 1, or 2 TB (7200-rpm SATA) and/or 256 GB (SSD)" Storage and its Hard Drive Interface is "6.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)".  So any normal 6.0 Gbps SATA SSD should work.

As an example, from Crucial, Apple iMac (21.5 and 27-inch, Mid 2011) compatible upgrades


com.apache.httpd.plist missing file need help creating new one I installed Apache recently and tried to set it up to use launchctl to start it. At first it was giving me an option error code and than all of a sudden it said that the file was missing can anyone help me create a new file for the launch daemon.
i am running 10.10.5 and apache version 2.4.16

The first measure is to reinstall Apache or at least unzip (untar, ungzip etc) or decompose the installer package to get hold of the file.

If you can't find it: here is a generic com.apache.httpd.plist file from GitHub:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.apache.httpd</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/usr/local/httpd/bin/apachectl</string>
    <string>start</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Depending on your system version and the flavor (server/client) several different Apple "generated" plists exist. Usually the name is org.apache.httpd.plist.

Example:

Mac OS X Server 10.7.5

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.apache.httpd</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <false/>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/sbin/httpd</string>
        <string>-D</string>
        <string>FOREGROUND</string>
        <string>-D</string>
        <string>MACOSXSERVER</string>
    </array>
    <key>SHAuthorizationRight</key>
    <string>system.preferences</string>
</dict>
</plist>

The original (unmodified) org.apache.httpd.plist of OS X 10.10.5 Client

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <true/>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
        <key>XPC_SERVICES_UNAVAILABLE</key>
        <string>1</string>
    </dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.apache.httpd</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <false/>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/sbin/httpd-wrapper</string>
        <string>-D</string>
        <string>FOREGROUND</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Please copy & paste it into text file a and safe it with admin rights to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ with the name org.apache.httpd.plist.
Afterwards you may have to change the permissions/ownership to 644/root:wheel.


How are Parental Restrictions Implemented? I'm going to be repurposing my laptop as a media center in the near future and I was planning on using a non-admin account for day-to-day usage.  I was thinking of enabling parental controls so I can lockdown what applications are allowed to run but parental controls can be a PITA so I would like to know how it works under-the-hood.

Is it using seatbelt to implement some form of MAC or does it just make it difficult to launch applications through the UI?

The restrictions are a multitude of features and MDM/MCX controls that apple has for a long time delivered for corporate users and managers to control the OS. Since so many different restrictions can be configured, there is no one implementation. The code that enforces bed times and limits is implemented differently than changing finder to work in a restricted manner.


Disk space not freed after deleting files, unable to save things, unable to delete things, unable to update things Recently my Macbook Air has been saying "The disk you are attempting to use is full. Removing files and emptying the Trash will free up additional space."

I have deleted everything in the trash, many other files, and 52 GB of photos. The only photos I have in my library now are 4.53 GB worth. When I click go to About This Mac it says I have 46 GB which is impossible. My computer is supposed to have a 121 GB Flash Storage with a 4 GB memory.

In the past two days after deleting all my photos the computer isn't letting me save, delete, or update anything. Right now I have OS X 10.9.5.

What can I do to fix this problem?

If you've "upgraded" to the Photo app from iPhoto or Aperture, your photos would have been imported as hard links. Basically this means that each photo is represented by both programmes and deleting from just one has no effect on the actual photo file. You'd need to delete from both.

Check to see if you have another album in your Pictures folder (or other folder if you manually placed it somewhere else) and delete the photos (hard links) there.


OS X not bootable after full restore on Macbook 12" just got usb->usbC cable and was able to do a full restore of my backup from MBA13" (2011)

Everything was OK, until reboot after recovery - recovered partition was not just bootable :(

Before the backup I fully updated MBA13 to OS X 10.10.3 (14D136) which was the final release until yesterday

I cannot find any info on this in the internet, but I have no errors, no any issues - just not bootable recovered partition

PS. on Option-key boot to select partition there is no main hdd in the list (only recovery partition is available)

Also, when open Select Boot utility from recovery menu - there is no available options at all, the same time Disk Utility shows partition like full of data, from Terminal I can see files

The MacBook 12" uses hardware that hasn't been used in other Macs so far. Therefor the drivers are not yet included in the "latest" OS X which you can get via the App Store on your Macbook Air.

Your options

Format & Reinstall the MacBook, use the migration assistant to "clone" data.
Try reinstalling the MacBook via internet-recovery, this might work with your data still in place, however, some apps might break due to the reinstall.
Wait for a OS X release that includes the drivers, update your old MacBook, then clone again.


How can I get rid of a stuck folder in the Finder's toolbar? I was trying to reorganize my desktop and had a folder dragging into another folder.

When I did this, the folder just got stuck in the toolbar and didn't copy over to the new location...

It's not a clickable button as if it were a favorites in the toolbar itself.

When I try to drag and drop it away from the toolbar, it doesn't work.

I then right clicked and went into "Customize Toolbar" and it wasn't in any of the lists for me to take it off.

Obviously its a 'favorites' feature, but how do I get the thing to get off all my finder toolbars now?

Well I don't know if this is what you mean, but I accidentally dragged a folder into the Finder, and when I removed it a question mark appeared.

How to delete an accidentally-dragged-in folder in the Finder toolbar:

Just hold Command ⌘ and drag the folder out of the Finder window and whoosh it's gone.


Increase volume of alarm in countdown timer? iPhone's "Clock App" has a countdown timer which sounds an alarm when the countdown is down.

Is there a way to make the alarm significantly louder?

There are three avenues to this:

get a soft toothbrush and make sure the speaker grill is clean and free of debris
position the phone so the speaker echoes/reverberates from a hard reflective surface that channels the sound to your ears.
choose custom alarm tones that are audio compressed and recorded "hot" and perhaps alternate loud/soft as your brain will hear the changes as more relevant than a flat loud monotone


Is there an adapter to connect a Macbook Pro to a DVI splitter? I don't think any of the previous questions on this topic cover this particular nuance, but please edify me if I'm mistaken.

I have a Macbook Pro 15" (the model that was released around March 2011) with Thunderbolt port. My office has two Dell monitors joined with a DVI splitter (which were originally connected to a Dell desktop). I have a Thunderbolt to DVI adapter that I was hoping to connect to the DVI splitter. However, the connector on the end of the splitter is different from the connector for a single-monitor DVI cable, so I can't plug the output of the splitter into the DVI end of the Thunderbolt-to-DVI adapter.

Does this mean I need either (1) an adapter to connect a "standard" DVI connector to a "splitter" DVI connector, or (2) a thunderbolt adapter that will plug directly into a splitter DVI connector? If so, do either of these items exist or am I out of luck?

There are many types of DVI adapter, I could type a load of stuff or just point you at Wikipedia.

The key point is that there is no such thing as a DVI adapter.  It's just a generic term that covers the overall outline of the cable end, but what you really have is either a DVI-I or DVI-D adapter, in either Single or Dual link capability.  Or it may be a DVI-A.  Or there are others...!

It's possible that your splitter cable must be of the dual link types, characterised by the longer horizontal bar pin, and your Thunderbolt adapter may or may not be.  Shouldn't matter which type, either I (Integrated with analogue signal in the pins above/below the horizontal bar in addition to digital) or D (Digital only) as I imagine you are not subsequently adapting them down to DSUB further down the line, the only thing that matters is if they are both dual link.

So it looks like you need a Thunderbolt/MiniDisplayPort to DVI Dual link - the official apple one is the digital only one without the analogue pins (DVI-D Dual Link), and thus should work, if you are worrying that you do not have the same pinout (i.e. you have DVI-I Dual Link on your splitter, and it looks as though the analogue ones have nothing to connect to) then don't worry, it won't need them.

EDIT - Additional Info

After the comments, I have decided that you have a DMS-59 connector that looks like this:

So what you really need is a MiniDisplay > DMS-59 adapter, and my google-fu suggests that this is not looking like a possibility, I think you would be better served abandoning this cable, and looking for a total replacement, Mini Display Port > 2 x DVI (Single is fine, I or D if you have 2 ports).  This may also be a pain to find, and you may end up needing a MDP/Thunderbolt to Dual Link DVI, followed by a Dual Link DVI > 2 X Single Link DVI splitter cable!


Mac Book Pro 2013 battery I got a new Mac Book Pro, (not retina) and the battery indicator is only showing 98%.

Is this something of concern?

I have found this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4228218?start=0&tstart=0

  Sit and watch it constantly, this will take some hours, it will charge to 100% from time to time, usually just a little less (like 98, or 96) in order to protect the battery from overcharging.

But I was looking for something official, but couldn't find it.
And the official "battery link" doesn't say anything about this:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

I haven't found "official" information on this, both my 2007 Macbook and my 2011 Macbook Pro will rarely show a 100% charge, I assume it's normal behaviour.

Take into account that the battery measurement is only an estimate so even if it shows 100% it does not mean that the battery has reached exactly full charge.


How do I get the English United States international keyboard layout on my MacBook? I'm used to using Microsoft's US International keyboard layout on Windows :

Is there a way I can get the same keyboard layout on macOS?

Go to system preferences/keyboard/input sources and use the plus and add buttons to activate the keyboard called US International PC.  Then select that in the "flag" menu at the top right corner of the screen.

If you must have the Windows version of what the Option/Alt key does, try this custom layout.


Why does Chrome have much better performance in rendering 3D graphics than Safari? I used the models in this website to test the performance of my computer to render 3D graphics, and I found that dragging a 3D model is very choppy in Safari, while in Chrome it’s much more fluid. I know little about how a computer works, but I’m curious about the reason for this difference.

Device information: MacBook Pro 15" Retina, 2015

macOS version: 10.13.1

Edits:
It turns out that the low performance of Safari in rendering 3D graphics has to do with the computer not being shut down for a long time. And suggested by Jake3231 in the comments, I used EtreCheck to check my computer. Here is the report:

Overall, the Etrecheck report looks pretty good. I would suggest that you remove the adware it found, as that can sometimes affect performance. You could click the red "remove" button next to items that are labeled as adware.

An alternative way to remove adware is by downloading Malwarebytes for Mac. After you do that, I would also suggest you update Flash Player just to protect against malware that may reduce browsing performance, among other things.

I would suggest that after this you also boot your Mac in Safe Mode. Once your system boots and displays a red "Safe Mode" label at the top right of the login screen, you can shut down and power on the machine. After that, hopefully things run a bit better. You can learn more about safe mode here: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac


Mac Book Pro - Logic board stopped working I Had purchased Mac Book Pro before around 14 month from one of the apple store. It just blinking and doesn't start. As per customer service they ask to replace logic board and It costs almost around $650 (38500 Rupee). And my warranty is just expired before two month. I believe that I got defective model of Mac Book Pro, As In My warranty period also there were such issues and it was issue of hard disk.

I am a normal user regarding to use Mac Book. I don't do gaming and etc.I just use it for my professional purpose.

I can't pay this much amount again in around one year duration. Please suggest what is alternative or what can I do As warranty is expired.

Thanks.

Have you checked to see if it is under recall?

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/


iPhone on silent except for calls When I sleep, I don't want to hear any notifications from my phone, unless I get a phone call. In case it's an emergency from a family member, etc.

Is there a way to set it to silent on every app but phone calls easily?

Put the contacts you want to allow to call you when you are sleeping to a group an give that group a name.
Then: Settings > Do not Disturb > Allow Calls From > select group of contacts that you created.

Additionally you may select to allow repeated calls (if someone will call you second time within 3 minutes - you will hear it) and choose Scheduled if you want to schedule your Do Not Disturb to switch on automatically.


Is there a way to generate random passwords in Safari, without iCloud? I know that iCloud Keychain has a feature where it offers to generate strong, random passwords directly in Safari. Some third-party password managers allow it, but I'd prefer to store the password in the OS X keychain, so I'm really just looking for a password generator, not full-blown manager. For other browsers there is addons that offer similar functionality. It's possible to do it in the regular non-iCloud Keychain Access app, but this is a bit cumbersome.

Is there any way of generating a random password directly in Safari, but without using iCloud keychain?

No there is no way in Safari directly,

You can only go directly to the Keychain
(Spotlight -> Keychain // or via the Finder -> /Applications/Utilities/Keychain.app)

and create a new Key (CMD+N).

You will get the window with the little key icon and when you click on it, it will show you a little popup with the Password Assistant.


How can I find out which Mac apps are 32-bit? On June 28, 2017, Apple announced that

  macOS High Sierra will be the last macOS release to support 32-bit apps without compromise.

How can I find out which apps on my Mac are 32-bit so that I can see if I need to upgrade them?

In the Finder hit cmdF to get a search window.

Choose Search: This Mac
Hit the first search criterion and choose "Other..." and here "Executable Architectures" "Is" "i386"
Hit the + button and add a second criterion "Executable Architectures" "Is not" "x86_64"

and you will get a list of all i386 only (i.e. 32-bit) apps.

In Terminal this is done with:

mdfind "(kMDItemExecutableArchitectures == 'i386') && (kMDItemExecutableArchitectures != 'x86_64')"


MacOS Catalina keyboard layout After Catalina upgrade I have noticed my keyboard layout is different. I was using Croatian (e.g. Y was Z, @ was opt+shift+2).

Now it is switched to "Croatian - PC" which resembles Windows keyboard layout (Y is still Z, @ is opt+v).

There is another option, which is "Croatian" and is similar to what I had before, but with some changes (Y is Y, @ is opt+2).

Is there a way without some external tool and re-mappings to revert my keyboard to what it was before?

I have put of copy of the Croatian layout from an earlier MacOS, named "Old Croatian", here and a copy of the Croatian PC layout here. Hopefully one of them will help.


Why does Mac OS overwrite whole folders rather than merging their contents? I’ve noticed that if I have two folders of the same name but different files in each, copying one on top of the other (eg: from different parent locations) will cause the contents of the first folder to be wiped out by the second. Windows does not do this; It merges the contents of the two folders, making the operation far less destructive. On Mac it feels very risky.

Why is this?
Is it an option which can be changed?

Merge two folders with the same name

If you have two folders with identical names at two different locations, you can merge them into a single folder.

Press and hold the Option key, then drag one folder to the location that contains a folder with the same name. In the dialog that appears, click Merge.

The Merge option appears only if one of the folders contains items that are not in the other folder. If the folders contain different versions of identically named files, the only options are Stop or Replace.


Refresh Calendar.app with correct Exchange-account data In the Calendar.app on OS X I sync some calendars with an Exchange-account. When I look at the same calendar in Outlook all calendar items seems to be correct, but in the Calendar.app some items has the wrong date. I would like the Calendar.app to refresh so that it is equal to what I can see in the Outlook calendar, but normal Refresh does not help.

Are there any workaround that could fix such an issue?

For me the solution was:

Open in Finder by running open ~/Library/Calendars in Terminal
Look for a folder that ends with .exchange. Open it.
Find the correct Exchange calendar by looking at the Info.plist files in each of the .calendar folders. Open the Events folder.
If you know that the problem is recent, sort all files by Date Modified. Set Cover Flow mode for showing the files in Finder
By looking at the items in Finder, Skip through the ics-files to search for the item that has the wrong date.
"Move to Trash" the incorrect item
Start the Calendar.app

I guess that it might be possible to "Move to trash" the .calendar folder for a full refresh of everything, but for me it was not necessary.


How to flush the DNS cache on macOS? I've read that sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder;sudo killall mDNSResponderHelper;sudo dscacheutil -flushcache should flush the DNS cache on OSX (macOS Mojave).

However, this command kills processes without restarting them, and is both hard to remember and cumbersome. Also, AFAIK dscacheutil applies only to the directory service.

Doesn't OSX provide a command like Windows' ipconfig /flushdns to flush the system's DNS cache?

mDNSResponder is started by launchd whenever a DNS query is performed in the system. So it will restart the next time some process performs a DNS query.
Killing this process is not required though, sending the HUP signal with
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
already flushes the cache. This hasn't change up to 10.15.
dscacheutil is only for 10.6 and you need a different command from 10.10.0 to 10.10.3, that's because Apple wanted to replace mDNSResponder with 10.10, yet the replacement had so many problems that they reverted back in 10.10.4 and stayed with  mDNSResponder ever since.


Some apps don't open even if deleted and reinstalled! I have a problem here. Some apps I have installed don't even open and have this icon on my Springboard.

My iOS version is 7.0.1. Jailbroken.

Two of my Applications have ended like this. I tried reinstalling the Apps, but nothing.

I haven't installed any tweaks recently and it just happened.
I also disabled some tweaks that could be suspicious and I reinstalled the App, but after 2 days, the app did the same thing.

I can confirm that 8/10 of my last automatically Updated Apps crash on launch and some icons don't show (as in the Screenshot).

Any tips?

Install a tweak called iWipe cache, it will respring your Spring board and will do the deal.


Lock down OSX 10.7.5 app into kiosk mode? I want to run an app in 'kiosk' mode for public unattended access via touch screen (no mouse or keyboard attached). I can already automate a network user logon and then the app launches (but only in last state - not necessarily full screen - which I want) I know with Workgroup Manager you can hide the dock, use simple Finder etc...but need something more powerful. Ideally it needs to monitor if the app crashes out and restart it / log limited user off and back on again.

Thanks

Phil

You could enable the Guest account along with Simple Finder, then write a launchctl to watch for the front-most app and re-open it if necessary.

There are also a number of 3rd party products, such as eCrisper:

  eCrisper makes it easy to turn a Mac into a secure public access Internet kiosk. It is used by schools, museums, hotels, churches, and libraries to reliably and elegantly give access to web content.

xStand:

  xStand allows you to setup a full internet kiosk in a public space in a couple of minutes.

Also found this question which mentions both Opera and Chrome.


Mac App Store - how to check which account was used to buy app I'm trying to update Growl, however App store says "To update this application, log in with account which was used to buy this application". The thing is that i don't have any other Apple ID. Is it possible to find out what account was used to bought this app?

All app downloaded from Mac AppStore(MAS) contain a receipt inside their app bundle (example: appname.app/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt). MAS will scan this file to check whether the new version is available.

You can use this application (Find Any File) to search any receipt on your drive: http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

Launch 'Find Any File' and search for: _MASReceipt
Go through each result that you think could be the culprit, copy the receipt to your
desktop as a backup, and after that delete the receipt inside _MASReceipt folder.
Open MAS and let it scan for software update. If it's still showing the wrong ID, it means that you've deleted the
wrong receipt. Restore the receipt backup from your desktop to
it's previous location.
Repeat the process until you've found the problem receipt.


Snow Leopard on a mid-2011 Macbook Air I know Apple doesn't officially support installing operating systems that predate the one that ships with the hardware, but is it possible (perhaps through adding drivers?) to run Snow Leopard on a mid-2011 Macbook Air?

Currently no. There are known issues with the graphics drivers and glitches in the software as a result. You can get SL to install, but the performance and stability are lacklustre at best. And Apple is unlikely to add driver support for SL in future revisions of that operating system.

Additionally, you cannot manually add drivers for core components to OS X. You may be able to modify kernel extensions, but not at the level required to get the old OS operational. You may be able to port the graphics driver from Lion, but that is certainly a long-shot.

You can follow a discussion over the the Apple Forums for additional information, where it has been reported that the new Air installs a special build of Lion that carries with it a unique graphics driver. One user claims they got SL installed, but it does not recognize the internal display. That's a pretty big show-stopper, unless you want your new Air to be a desktop.


What is com.DesignScience.DSMTTool Among my list of scheduled tasks is something called "com.DesignScience.DSMTTool" located at

/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.DesignScience.DSMTTool

What is this? Do I need it?

DesignScience are the ones making MathType – an application used by Microsoft Word to be able to type out complex math formulas and display them easily. If you have Microsoft Word installed on your Mac, I think that's what it is. I can't confirm this though, as I don't have MathType installed.

Edit: I'm trying to get someone from Mathematics to confirm it.
Edit 2: I was unable to get a confirmation for this, but I'm still pretty certain it belongs to MathType. Check in Word if you have MathType installed!


How can I set up a local mail server on Lion? I am developing a site with django (email registration) and for testing purposes I would like to set up a local smtp server on my MBA. This has to be local because my main work location does not have an active internet connection. So does anyone know how to do this? Would I have to buy Lion Server or can I just do it through the terminal or some other program?

Any help or questions please let me know.

Lion Server isn't released as a separate OS anymore, so if you're concerned about having to upgrade your entire OS, that isn't necessary. The server programs are distributed as an add-on to a regular Lion install, for $50, through the App Store.

There are also ways to do this for free. Being somewhat unfamiliar with running email services on MacOS myself, I would probably just configure a Linux VM and run it in Parallels (or Virtualbox if you don't have it already). A quick google search also reveals that there are a bunch of other options too, such as http://cutedgesystems.com/software/MailServeForLion/


How can I force Mountain Lion's Messages app to refresh a conversation? Sometimes when an iMessage comes in and I switch to the Messages app, the conversation doesn't contain the new message.

I know the message was received because an alert banner popped up with the correct message text, but it doesn't show up in Messages. It also doesn't seem to be present in Notification Center, despite being set to show 5 recent items.

Sometimes if I quit and reopen Messages it will refresh the conversation with the new message included, but sometimes not. And they still don't show up in Notification Center.

Is there any reliable way to force Messages to refresh or reload the current conversation? Or make it receive messages reliably in the first place?

Is there any reliable way to force Messages to refresh or reload the current conversation? Or make it receive messages reliably in the first place?

No. Messages is very buggy for many users and there is not a known fix at this time. I believe the most prominent client-side issues are resolved in Mavericks, but I am not running the it yet so perhaps not.

As far as I know, the best solution is to sign out of your account, log back in, and then restart Messages. For me, this fixes the ordering of messages (so they are sorted by timestamp) and generally keeps Messages running smoothly for a little while. However, the fix doesn't seem to last longer than a few days.


Can I charge the 12" macbook with Nintendo switch charger? Just wondering if I could charge my 12inch macbook with the type-c adopter that came with the Nintendo switch

https://store.nintendo.co.uk/nintendo-switch-accessory/nintendo-switch-power-adapter/11396099.html

I have tested on the 2015 MacBook 12". Works perfectly. Charges at 15.3V @ 1,9A = 28,7W. The MacBook 12" charger also works on the Switch.

USB-C and recent USB Power Delivery standards make this a fairly safe bet in terms of cross platform interoperability. As long as the charger or cable aren't knockoff, you should expect reasonable results mixing vendors.

Reasonable is a 15 inch MacBook Pro clearly won't run and charge from a 30 watt adapter (whether Apple or Nintendo), but if powered off, it will slowly and safely charge itself at the rate the connected adapter provides.