Interesting partition Map with missing HD space I have the latest generation Macbook Pro running Yosemite, I bought this computer used I don't know if the last person attempted to install linux or what the story is but I believe my partition map is a little weird.

Here it is First off I expected to have only a disk0 I don't know what the disk1 is.  I expected the drive name "Apple_CoreStorage" to be called "Apple_HFS Macintosh HD" like it is on disk1 both of these disks also say that they are 320GB in size although my HD is only 500GB.

There are also 2 recovery drives but when I boot into recovery mode it says that it is loading it from the internet.  I don't know if that is how it works or if it is not recognizing either of these.

My Final problem is with disk0s5  There are 180GB that I cannot access it is partitioned as disk0s5 I can remove the partition but then it is just mapped as free space.  I try to increase the size of my "Macintosh HD" after removing the 180GB partition but I am not able to.

I feel like both of these problems are deeply intertwined, maybe my map is fine I am unsure but it doesn't look right to me.  Any ideas would be appreciated thank you.

Disk1 is a "virtual device" which resides in disk0s2 (the Apple_CoreStorage Volume Group which actually contains a FileVault volume). You have only one 'physical device' indeed.

Disk0s5 is probably an old Bootcamp installation.

The clean way (get rid of the 2 Recovery HDs):

Make a complete Time Machine backup of Macintosh HD.
Start to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing  alt cmd R
Start  Terminal and enter following command at the Terminal prompt:
diskutil cs list. The output will look like this:

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 5B8350BF-20EF-4199-82E6-129EFF19E9EB
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         319640592384 B (319.4 GB)
    Free Space:   6111232 B (6.1 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 907FCDE2-0C62-4951-A39E-36F19244FDB7
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     319640592384 B (319.4 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 2FA7892F-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 7BF42B7B-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk1
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          319282155520 B (319.0 GB)
            Conversion Progress:   -none-
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Copy the Logical Volume Group (LVG) alphanumeric UUID of your CoreStorage volume. The LVG should be the first UUID listed and it’s the one you want to delete.
Next, run the following command:
diskutil cs delete UUID
In the above example: diskutil cs delete 5B8350BF-20EF-4199-82E6-129EFF19E9EB
This will delete your CoreStorage volume and reformat it as an unencrypted HFS+ volume.
Quit Terminal
In the now opening window choose Disk Utility and erase/partition the internal drive.

Choose your physical device in the left pane enter a name and format it Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If this isn't possible partition your physical device: 1 Partition Mac OS Extended (Journaled) click the Options... button and choose GUID Partition Table enter OK and Apply. Quit Disk Utility.
Plug in your Time Machine backup drive.
Start Restore from Time Machine Backup and recover your old system

The dirty and risky way (no Time Machine backup):

Turn off File Vault 2. This may take several hours.
Use Boot Camp Assistant to remove the Windows installation. If this doesn't work continue with a reboot:
Start to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing  alt cmd R
In the now opening window choose Disk Utility
Remove disk0s5 by choosing it and clicking on -

Try also to remove Recovery HD
Try to expand Macintosh HD to full size

If the last two steps don't work give me a comment


How can I view the time of a text message in iOS 7? In iOS 7, I've noticed that some SMS/MMS messages have a date and time stamp displayed above the message.  Although this is useful, not all text's in the list receive such a date and time stamp.

Is there a way that I can view the date and time for ever text message?

There is and, in fact, I stumbled upon this the other day.  Both my wife and I rejoiced!

To view the time of your texts, simply swipe your finger gently to the left.  While you hold down your finger, your texts will shift to the left, and time stamps will be revealed on the right.


Does Apple still support 10.5.8? Have a friend that's running OSX 10.5.8 and claims it's still supported by Apple and has the same security patches as needed as any other version of OSX. Does Apple still support 10.5.8? What if any know security holes are there? Does Apple have a public statement on which OSX versions are supported, how, and what this means to the user, in the context of  OSX 10.5.8?

You can see the complete list of Apple security patches at this page: http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht1222

You can see for yourself that the last security patch for OS X 10.5.8 was "Leopard Security Update 2012-003" that was released in May 2012.

There is likely to be a large number of unpatched security holes in Leopard at this point. However it is unlikely that Apple would publish such a list and I'm not aware of anyone else who maintains such a list.

Another issue is that third party software developers may not support Leopard anymore. For example, the current versions of Chrome and Firefox both require a minimum version of 10.6, while the latest version of Safari that runs on Leopard is v5 while the current version is v8. And the last time Safari 5 saw a patch on Leopard was also May 2012 according to the Apple support document above.


Mac "other" storage super hidden I've looked through quite a few other posts about this issue and they always seem to get resolved by some iTunes or document storage that the Mac is accidentally tracking as part of the "other" storage. But my Mac has no files on it except for System files and Steam.
I used it a long time ago but wiped everything clean, now there's 87GB of other files somewhere? I don't see them in any directory, DiskDaisy shows them as in hidden hidden space, but I don't have the money to pay for DiskDaisy to do Admin Scan. I just want to be able to use my Mac again lol.
No TimeMachine, no caches that I can find, I've tried quite a few things so far

I'll continue looking while I wait to see if this gets any responses, getting frustrated here :/

Try Omni Disk Sweeper which will tell you exactly what files, even hidden ones, are taking up extra storage on your Mac


What are the different internet connection types used by ifconfig and ipconfig? Typing ifconfig on the command line gives me listings for several devices. I've seen at least the following ones:

lo0
gif0
stf0
en0
en1
en2
en3
p2p0
awdl0
bridge0

What specifically do each of them refer to? I know en0 is a wireless connection, en3 is a connection using a Thunderbolt-to-ethernet adapter, and en1 is an ordinary ethernet connection. What about the rest?

These are properly known as BSD names, so you can look at the BSD / Darwin source code to see what these mean.

en is Ethernet
lo is loop back or local host
awdl is air drop peer to peer (a type of mesh network)
bridge is a connection between networks
p2p is sometimes a virtualization link and also some people have reported it being used with AirDrop before that changed to be awdl0

The numbers added to the end just increment as you add a second interface of the same type. The rest are tunneling interfaces for VPN and bridging between IPv4 and IPv6:

see Ian's answer on question Unexpected interfaces in ifconfig


Home network with wired and wifi, force local data over wired How to connect three machines (Mini, 10.11; laptop, 10.12; iMac, 10.13) on two local networks, one wired and one WiFi, where local traffic is over wired connections and (external) Internet traffic is over WiFi? For context, assume the WiFi router is in another part of the building, wired connections to it are not an option and it is not under my control. The primary motivation is to do all file sharing among the three machines (TimeMachine backups and other networked file sharing) on higher bandwidth connections. What are the essential details of this configuration?

The Mini has 1 Ethernet port and 1 Thunderbolt port. The iMac has 1 Ethernet and 2 Thunderbolt ports. The laptop has only Thunderbolt ports (but one could always get a dongle). (All have Wifi.) The interface priority on all machines is set to: Thunderbolt, then (if on the machine) Ethernet, and then WiFi. Is this interface priority scheme helpful or counterproductive?

IP addresses for Thunderbolt and Ethernet are manually set to a subnet different than that of the the WiFi router (10.0.10.x, masked with 255.255.255.0, for wired local connections and 10.0.0.x for WiFi).

Option 1. Thunderbolt daisy chain. Can I daisy chain the local wired network and expect the endpoints to communicate via Thunderbolt cables: Mini (10.0.10.1) <-> iMac (10.0.10.2) and iMac (10.0.10.2) <-> laptop (10.0.10.3)? If yes, do I need to do anything specific to make this happen? For instance, on the laptop (and Mini) would I need to add something in the routing table (or other file) that says something like, "for all packets going to 10.0.10.x, use interface bridge0"?

Option 2. Direct connections for each pairing of machines. The machines could be connected in a triangular configuration: Mini (10.0.10.1) <-> iMac (10.0.10.2), iMac (10.0.10.2) <-> laptop (10.0.10.3), and Mini (10.0.10.1) <-> laptop (10.0.10.3). Given the available ports (see above), the model would then be to connect the Mini and iMac via Ethernet and connect the laptop to each other machine via Thunderbolt. Under this scenario, would the Ethernet and Thunderbolt interfaces need to be on separate subnets, i.e., : Mini (10.0.11.1) <-> iMac (10.0.11.2), iMac (10.0.10.2) <-> laptop (10.0.10.3), and Mini (10.0.10.1) <-> laptop (10.0.10.3)?

Note:  Answer not complete....
"Local" Data

Home network with wired and WiFi, force local data over wired

There's a bit of a rhetorical question here - what's local data?  The answers will vary depending on how you see this whole thing configured however, we have to step away from that and look at from the perspective of the network.
In other words, "local data" is data that resides (is local to) that particular network.  Let's look at your two networks: 10.0.10.0 and 10.0.11.0.  We'll call them 10.0 and 11.0, respectively for the sake of brevity.
Traffic sent on 10.0 to a particular node, say 10.25 is local to that network.  Likewise, traffic sent on 11.0 on the same network is considered local to it.  This is all traffic - web, ssh, ftp, smb, etc.
Multiple Networks, Multiple Adapters
Can a node (computer) have two or more network adapters to connect to multiple networks?  Sure!
You don't even need multiple adapters if your equipment makes use of 802.1Q VLAN (Virtual LAN) specification (we'll save that for another day).  However, you can attach multiple network interfaces to a single node to access more than one network.

In this scenario, we have a single node with two network adapters connected to two different networks, 10.0 and 11.0.


Why is my "Encrypt backups" option greyed out for local (USB) time machine disc? I'm using Mountain Lion on a new MacBook Pro (retina) with a local USB drive for backup. From what I've read searching around (including other questions on here) I should be able to encrypt my time machine backup on this local USB drive, but the option is greyed out.

The USB drive is 500.11 GB in two partitions of 251.33 and 248.77 GB - the first partition is the time machine backup drive, formatted as Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled). My Mac's hard drive is internal SSD 250.14 GB formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I don't know what this means, but the internal SSD and the first partition of the USB drive (time machine backup) both say YES for Owners Enabled and the second partition on the USB drive says NO.

Does any of this explain why "Encrypted backups" would be greyed out?

What would I need to do to fix it?

Make sure that your partition scheme is GUID, not Master Boot Record (MBR) or Apple Partition Map.

To enable encryption, the partition map must be changed to GUID. Note that this will make your drive invisible to older PCs and will wipe all of the data on the drive.


Can anyone confirm whether MacRuby framework shipped with Lion? Somewhere I read that Apple wants to include macruby framework in OS X Lion.

Did they include it?

Macruby is there as a private framework, and you can call it as such using code. For more elaboration, you should ask your question again on Stackoverflow.

http://redwoodapp.posterous.com/macruby-for-the-desktop-six-reasons


Navigate Finder Sidebar using arrow keys Yosemite Is there a way I can navigate the sidebar items using arrow keys? I am using Yosemite.

There is no way of navigate that way. You can only use the following shortcuts to navigate through finder:


Putting in place PLC between time capsule and airport base station? Here is my configuration:

Living Room

MacBook Pro
NAS
Network printer
All connected to Time Capsule

Bedroom

Hifi System (with line-in)
Laptop, iPod touch (any wireless device)

As of today, the connection between the two locations is too weak (see this question) for me to use devices wirelessly in the bedroom.

What I would like to do is to add a PLC connection between the two rooms and place an airport base station in the bedroom to extend the wireless network.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so check below my existing configuration and the things I want to add (green bullets and green arrows):

I then have a lot of questions...

Will the wireless network created in the bedroom by the airport base station be an extension of the one in the living room or a new one? (first option would be easier to wander in the apartment without having to switch from one network to the other).
Will it still be possible to connect the other devices (printer, NAS) to the time capsule and would they be accessible from the bedroom (I suppose yes if wireless network is the same) and still from the living room wired network (I don't see why it would not be the case).
Do I have to connect the PCL as on the drawing or do I have to connect it between the modem and the time capsule? (edit: yes, replied to this one by myself)

I also then plan to connect the Hifi system line in to the jack connection of the airport base station.

Will it allow me to output on the hifi system songs from my iTunes library stored on MBP?
Will I be able to control it with Remote from the iPod Touch?

You can also propose other solutions which could work in my situation.
My first need was the network connection in the bedroom. The iTunes songs on the Hifi system was a bonus when I thought about Airport Base Station.

Yes, assuming the express (and the PLC link) is in bridge mode, you will have one network so AirPlay, AirPrint and Bonjour will work like you have one router and everyone is in range or plugged in to the ethernet.

You can use the same SSID on both wireless networks, but then you can't choose which network you are joining if you start on one and the connection is simply better.

The big downside of PLC or ethernet link is you don't get automatic switching of the base stations if a device starts on the main and doesn't leave the signal range. You can remedy this by reducing the transmit power on the main station to ensure that by the time you get to the bedroom, the existing link is lost and the device has to join the express.

Making two SSID networks allows you to know which base station you connect - not leaving it to the software to determine based on a short measurement of the two signal strengths when you "join" the network.

Whether you have one SSID or two, I would recommend selecting different channels for both transmitters as far apart as practical or consider reducing the transmit power on one if you find bad interference in between the two wireless transmitters.

Use the logs and statistics graphs in Airport Utility to see the transmit speeds and which base station your devices are connected when you choose where to place the devices and what channels to use.


I have a two mouses: one for each hand. How can I set the primary mouse button separately for each mouse? I would like the mouse I am using for my left hand to use the right button as the primary button.  However, it appears that this setting is global so that it impacts the setting for my right handed mouse as well.  Is there a way to set this up so that I don't need to order special left-handed hardware?

Use ControllerMate

You can reprogram virtually any button (keyboard, MIDI key, mouse key, etc.) to carry out any number of pre-defined actions.

  Reconfigure drivers

  Driver configurations can be used to change the default behavior of a
  keyboard or mouse that uses ControllerMate's driver.

  All buttons on a keyboard have some default function or another. Most
  are useful, some are not. A driver configuration allows one button on
  a keyboard act like another, or can turn a button off completely.
  Buttons that have been turned off can still be used to trigger
  building blocks.

  A driver configuration for a mouse can include a custom acceleration
  curve. This curve can be one of the standard curves, a standard curve
  with an adjusted speed or sensitivity, or an entirely custom curve
  created point by point.

  Multiple configurations can be created for the same keyboard or mouse
  — use building blocks to control when a configuration is active.


Why did iOS 11.0.1 delete a year worth of photos? I was really enjoying the smooth UI improvements in iOS 11.0.1, until I realized something: after the update, all my photos from October 2016 to the present are gone.

Today I tried the 11.0.2 update, optimistic after reading a note that it fixes a problem where "some" photos may be "hidden" (haha on both counts--good joke, Apple!), but this did nothing--all these photos are deleted from my phone.

I did backup the phone a couple of months ago, which I try to do fairly regularly, and thus have most of the photos on my laptop, but still lost 2 months' worth of pics.

I can't imagine why Apple would allow an update like this into the wild. Do they not test for this scenario? Behind completely bricking someone's device, this has to be up there as one of the top things not to do when delivering a software upgrade.

Looking at free space on the device, it's about ~5.5GB now, whereas before it couldn't have been more than 1-2GB.

That space had to have been my photos, so it would seem like they're simply gone.

Does anybody know if there's some trick setting or solution I need to use here?

Apple didn't delete the photos, it may have optimized your phone's storage to free up space for the update.

Those photos should still be on http://www.iCloud.com under your Apple ID account if everything in your iPhone's iCloud settings was setup properly.


LuaRocks default installation location in macOS By default, where is the LuaRocks package installed in macOS? I am looking in the following directories, but I couldn't find it:

usr/local
usr/lib
opt/local

What am I missing?

If you have installed LuaRocks via Homebrew by following the installation instructions by running

brew install luarocks

the install location can be determined by running

`brew info luarocks

Homebrew installs it in a directory under

/usr/local/Cellar/luarocks/

directory.

The rocks themselves are installed in the following directory:

/usr/local/lib/luarocks/


Can I make double clicking a word to highlight it ignore trailing commas? For example in Adobe Reader I'd like to double click a word to highlight it, but not have it include the trailing comma if there is one.

This appears to be how Adobe Acrobat / Adobe Reader handles PDF text selection. Apple's Preview app handles double click text selection as you would want. If using Adobe Reader isn't critical to your workflow for this document, I would consider using Preview for it.


IPhone Set up for small to medium size business to be used by employees Been looking at answers related to business giving IPhone to it's employees for business usage and related problems (e.g. Small-Business iPhone Deployment), it seems the simplest way is to just hand them the phone to be set up by the user themselves.

The only problem would be if the phone becomes connected to personal apple id rather than an apple id of the enterprise owning the phone then there might be problems when the phone is being retested and passed on to the next employee. Or is this completely false?

Sorry I am a windows user.

You should consider using an MDM solution for managing the enterprise devices.

If you simply hand out devices to users to set them up themselves, and they log in with their Apple ID, the devices remains associated with their Apple ID unless the user explicitly removes it or log out of it.

This may be cumbersome and difficult to manage. Using an MDM solution to centrally manage and pre-configure the devices for employees would be the recommended approach. The MDM solution also makes it possible and easy to manage usage policies. It would also make it easy to pass around the device to a different employee.


Time Machine Consolidation Schedule So Time Machine keeps hourly backups for a day and dailies for a week and weeks until disk full. The problem is that I am paranoid and concerned about discovering that I made changes to a file over time in the past and that I want the version that disappeared between weekly backups. (Yes, yes, I use git and other version control solutions for many things but I like to be paranoid and hate things I can't configure myself).

Is it possible to change how long hourly and daily backups are kept for and if so where?

If you want control over the retention policy, Time Machine isn't really the right tool for you; it's really designed to avoid requiring the user make decisions, and as a result it's not a good choice for someone who wants to be able to make decisions. The retention policy definitely follows this principle; there's no way (at least as far as I've ever seen) to adjust its retention policy.

In fact, there's not even any way to guarantee snapshots will be retained at all. If Time Machine decides it needs the entire backup capacity for the current backup (say, because you just connected your big external disk full of videos and it wants to back that up -- this happened to a friend of mine), it'll actually remove all old snapshots to make room. Note that there is an option in the preference pane to notify you after old backups are deleted.

Basically, Time Machine places priority on getting the current data backed up vs. retaining old data, and there's no way to change this. (It is, after all, a backup system, not an archiving system.) If your priorities differ, you really should find another archiving tool.

(BTW, you did misread its normal policy slightly: it keeps the daily snapshots for a month, and only after a month does it thin them down to one a week.)


Change Application folder presentation w/out disabling SIP I keep my apps organized in the /Application folder by arranging their icon manually.
But in El Capitan, SIP prevents the modification of this folder privileges so I cannot set it to read and write for my user and change the presentation options nor arrange icons manually.

I do not really want to disable SIP because of all bugs that seems to happen by doing it (even if I quite manage OS X since a while).

How can I manage to arrange my Apps icons without having to disable SIP?
Thanks

You don't. That's what System Integrity Protection is all about. But keep in mind you can disable it, do your changes and reenable it again. Both steps are described in How do I disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) AKA “rootless” on OS X 10.11, El Capitan?


Apple iPhone 5s 2 Apple IDs When you set up your Apple ID when you first get your phone can you set up another once you have signed in on that account?

Short answer, yes, long answer, it's going to be a lot more trouble than it's worth. You'll have to constantly swap between them to get downloads/updates etc.

Each app/book/tune etc, even the iOS itself belongs to the account that purchased it.

If you really must have 2 IDs on one phone, the best solution is probably to set up Family Sharing & join both IDs to the same 'family'.


Macbook boot problems - 1 long beep, then nothing, then it's fine My girlfriend's Macbook (white unibody 2010) is having some problems booting.

It can be erratic, but it generally seems to follow this pattern:

Turn it on, 1 long deep beep, and then nothing (light stays on), turn it off
Turn it on, nothing (light stays on), turn it off
Turn it on, boots up as per normal.

Apparently the 1 long beep signifies a RAM issue, but when it finally boots up all of the RAM is present, and there is absolutely no problem at all with the Macbook - it will run for an entire day without a single crash or problem.

I've also tried this from the official Apple forum with no joy:

  with the unit plugged into power, hold the power button for 10 seconds. While still holding it, press the left hand shift, control, and option keys for 10 seconds. Let go of those three keys while still holding the power button for 10 more seconds.

Any suggestions on a possible fix please? Thank you.

I once had a similar issue with my Mac Mini. Swapping the two RAM Modules seemed to help temporarily, but the issue came back and got more frequent over the next weeks/months. At the end replacing the RAM with another brand fixed it persistently. (It was "third-party" RAM from Amazon.)


Disable chat room notifications for OSX Messages? In the Mountain Lion Messages app, is there a way to disable notifications for chat room messages, but still have notifications for private messages? (this is the default behavior in Adium)

With the chatroom thread selected, uncheck Use Alerts in this Conversation from the View menu.

The is the best solution I've found (only disables notifications on a per thread basis).  I haven't found a global setting that disables notifications for all chatrooms.

I found the solution from this answer on "How do I temporarily disable or mute Messages (iMessage) on OS X?"


Can the GPU issue in 2011 Macbook Pros be latent? How permanent is the GPU defect in 2011-2013 MacBook Pros? Suppose one tests a used Macbook Pro by running a few random programs for ten minutes. Is it possible that the seller would have experienced the problem and not have declared it, and that the buyer would see no symptom, perhaps until the machine gets really warm? The problem is supposedly a heat dissipation problem. Could it be latent—in the sense that it would appear and disappear—or does it become always visible once it manifests?

In particular, it appears that the user can switch from the AMD to the Intel GPU. If that's the case, how can I guard against a seller having activated the Intel GPU to conceal a problem with the AMD GPU?

Notes:

Apple's repair program lapsed.
A.S.E. Q&As on the issue in question: 1, 2

The failing GPUs in these units are all subject to failure in a timeframe most would call premature. This is because the the cooling system and the generation of and the vulnerability to heat of the AMD chips are mismatched. All official Apple repairs were nothing more than swapping out the entire logic board and replacing it with the exact same thing, spec wise. Above normal room temperature and really stressing the GPU with 3D rendering while a second monitor is plugged in (getting even more heat from the thunderbolt chips) is a surefire way to further shorten the lifetime of the AMD chips.

Investing into a used machine from 2011 with AMD chips inside is a bad idea unless it is really cheap. That is because the issues can be indeed latent in the early stages. The problem starts with different symptoms and in different stages, some of them might be gone for a while, especially if everything else is unplugged, the fan speed upped to ~2500–3000 (almost inaudible for most people over 19 or so), air conditioned room, etc. [To use a AMD chip in this generation of MBPs the chip itself has to replaced with a more robust, later, cooler revision and ideally the cooling system improved (better thermal compound better applied and additional holes for the airflow)] For an example of latent issues in the early stages see this post.

But most frustrating would be a common practice popularised on youtube and other sides: reflowing/baking the logic board. That is a failed AMD chip is heated to 120–200 degrees Celsius and thereafter shown off as a re-animated corpse. But only for a short time compared to the time it was running before with no apparent problems. This procedure has a kind of half-life until the problems come back, and worse that time, breaking even sooner than before and eventually failing completely with no amount of baking doing any good any more.

That means that a self-sourced OS is of only limited value to protect against a rogue seller. A GPU treated in this way is dying soon but likely not in the time it usually takes to make a quick test of basic function in a typical sales situation. This is a latent problem in my definition.

Nevertheless it is not really possible to protect yourself from a rebaked chip. But it is possible – in a limited way – to guard against someone showing off a GPU-switching Mac with only intel GPU active (like certain hacks):

Boot your own OS. That is: macOS from an external drive. Then go into Apple Menu>About This Mac>System Report and check what is listed there. Since your own OS will contain the drivers but not the hacks: Manipulated to iGPU-only Macs will only list the IntelHD3000 chip there. (But also very likely hang on boot with your stick/drive) If you see trouble on boot in this configuration: reset the SMC/PRAM/NVRAM, reboot again and if there are immediately visible artefacts: then confront the seller!
Boot your own OS. That is: try a LiveLinux like Ubuntu. Problems already manifest show up quicker there since even the basic acceleration there (without the proprietary drvers) stress the chip too much. Also check the hardware from your chosen Linux distribution.


Why does my MacBook Air (almost) always lock when I shut the lid? In system preferences, under Security and Privacy, the "Require Password" box is not checked. Interestingly, even when I have entered my password and the lock icon is open, I cannot check this box - I click on it, and the checkmark briefly appears and then goes away.

Despite the box not being checked, my computer almost always makes me type in a password when I open it or after it goes into the screen saver.

Occasionally, it does unlock automatically, but when it does so, I cannot click or interact with any windows, and I have to shut and open my screen again and type the password in order to actually use my computer.

I am using a MacBook Air running macOS High Sierra.

If you close your laptop then immediately reopen it does it lock itself? also in the settings it specifies that it will not lock after "sleep or screen saver begins." Which means what may be happening is that your MacBook is passed a sleep state and has entered standby mode and locked itself.

Side Note: Why would you want your mac not to lock itself. Closing the lid does not protect against potential attackers if you have this setting disabled. It also makes it harder to lock you computer when you want to.


What is a neat way to delete a stale amavisd pid_file on first boot after panic or power failure? Lion Mail Server component postfix/smtp 100% reproducible blocks inbound smtp mail delivery on first boot after a panic or power failure.

Error messages from mail.log are like:

postfix/smtp[45785]: connect to 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024: Connection refused
postfix/smtp[45785]: 2F7131F9A97: to=<user@host.tld>, relay=none, delay=76041, delays=76040/0.36/0.05/0, dsn=4.4.1, status=deferred (connect to 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024: Connection refused)
postfix/error[45790]: 550D61F9A99: to=<user@host.tld>, relay=none, delay=76040, delays=76040/0.39/0/0, dsn=4.4.1, status=deferred (delivery temporarily suspended: connect to 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024: Connection refused)
postfix/postscreen[45872]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from [100.200.100.159]:65392: 450 4.3.2 Service currently unavailable; from=<user2@host2.tld>, to=<user@host.tld>, proto=ESMTP, helo=<host.domain.tld>
/usr/libexec/postfix/greylist.pl[45885]: Temporary message rejection to: <user@host.tld> from: <user2@host2.tld> sent from: [100.200.100.159] for: 60 seconds due to greylisting
postfix/smtpd[45879]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from host.domain.tld[100.200.100.159]: 450 4.7.1 <user@host.tld>: Recipient address rejected: Service is unavailable; from=<user2@domain2.tld> to=<user@domain.tld> proto=ESMTP helo=<host.domain.tld>

The issue seems to be related to the amavis content filter due to the connection to port number 10024 and amavisd being configured on that port. Amavis.log:

/usr/bin/amavisd[236]: (!)Net::Server: 2012/07/25-13:38:49 Pid_file already exists for running process (88)... aborting\n\n  at line 277 in file /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.12/Net/Server.pm
...
/usr/bin/amavisd[236]: Net::Server: 2012/07/25-13:38:49 Server closing!
...repeating roughly every 10 seconds...

The workaround is to reboot the machine, after the second boot the inbound smtp mail delivery is no longer stuck.

The issue seems to be related to https://serverfault.com/questions/138690/amavisd-net-server-pid-file-already-exists-after-system-crash-and-startup

How to permanently fix Apple Mail Server to accept smtp inbound messages on first boot, by removing the left over amavis pid_file from the previous unclean shutdown?

Create a launchd item that runs on boot (system startup before amavisd is started) executing the command to test that /private/var/run/amavisd.pid exists and then delete it:

if test -f /private/var/run/amavisd.pid; then rm /private/var/run/amavisd.pid

<?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>amavisd_delete_pid</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>if</string>
        <string>test</string>
        <string>-f</string>
        <string>/private/var/run/amavisd.pid;</string>
        <string>then</string>
        <string>rm</string>
        <string>/private/var/run/amavisd.pid</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Nice</key>
    <integer>10</integer>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>


Why is it called MagSafe? I still get confused sometimes at the name MagSafe. Has it anything to do with the magnet in it? Why MagSafe? is it safer than other adapters?

The magnet can save your computer.

Let's suppose it's on a table connected to AC. If someone pull the cable with his foot by just walking by, the MacBook won't fall on the floor, the magsafe will just pop.


How to troubleshoot macbook's failing parts Not sure if its a software or hardware problem. When I turn on my macbook pro (2011) it asks me for a password, shows some progress bar after (it fills up to like 30%) and then it just reboots and starts the whole process again.

I tried all kinds of recovery methods (USB stick with repair tools, another USB stick with a fresh version of Yosemite, Internet recovery...) but I always end up at a grey screen and nothing is happening.

p.s. Apple hardware test says that everything is ok and no errors have been found.

Try resetting the SMC and resetting the PRAM.

It's also possible that your hard drive is failing in such a way that the computer can't boot. I haven't seen that often but it can happen (if you hear weird clicking sounds on boot, that increases the likelihood of this being the case).

It's pretty easy to take the hard drive out of your computer (all you need is a a phillips-head #00), it may be worth removing the hard drive, then trying to boot to an external disk.

MacBook Pro take-apart guides.


How to transfer screenshots from iPhone to OS X? I dont' want it done automatically, I just want to get a bunch of screenshots from the phone to the Mac (OS X El Capitan). I plug in the phone but only iTunes starts up and I can't find any photos in it.

Connect your iPhone to your Mac via with the lightning cable
Open Image Capture app
Select your iPhone under on the left sidebar

You can now select all the screenshots taken on your iPhone and import to your Mac.


Prevent web browser renaming downloaded files with dot I'm new to macOS and trying to set it up. I have my config files in Google Drive, whose names start with dot.

When I download it either with Safari or with Firefox the dot is removed from the file name. I set up to always show dot-files with defaults write -g AppleShowAllFiles -bool true, but that didn't help, the file with dot is downloaded at all.

Is there a way to prevent web browsers from renaming my files completely?

There are several issues with you problem.

First: Downloading a File via a Webbrowser is bound to naming conventions and recommendations which are based on the recommendations from the W3C and RFC's from the IETF, probably RFC3986. There is a Recommendation for URI's from the W3C which include "Reserved Characters". As you can probably guess by that point the dot, as well as double-dot, are reserved characters. In your case the Webbrowsers are automatically renaming the Files with a preceding dot. There is probably no way around that.

Second: Filenames in OSX follow the Unix Schemes in which a preceding dot is marking a file to be hidden (see an interesting explanation to the history here). The Terminal Command you entered is only displaying all files in the Finder, which is irrelevant in you case since you cannot download the File with the preceding dot in the Filename in the first place.

Possible Solution:

1) Try different Browsers, but i doubt that you will find one which doesn't adhere to the naming Conventions

2) you could try the 'Google Drive Sync App'. Perhaps it will sync the files in questions. Since you already displaying invisible files they should show up.


How to prevent dictation from accessing/sending your contacts? I have just read this article about the privacy concerns when using dictation in Mountain Lion. The article points out part of the disclaimer:

  “When you dictate text, what you say is sent to Apple to be converted
  to text. To help your Mac recognize what you’re saying, other
  information is sent as well, such as your contacts.”

The Apple site also states:

  Just say your friend’s name, and Dictation knows who you mean. It
  works with information in the Contacts app to recognize and spell
  names accurately, even if they have unusual spellings.

So I understand that it's not necessarily for nefarious purposes and I'd like to continue to use dictation, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable knowing my contacts' information is being sent away from my computer.

As far as I've found, there is no way to officially disable the sending of contact information. I'm wondering if it's possible to block/disable dictation from sending my contacts using another method?

This is just a work around and I don't own Mountain Lion yet, so I can't test it myself, but I bet it will work. In all likelihood, each user on a given computer can turn Dictation on or off independent of the other users and Dictation only sends information from whichever user account is currently active.

When I get Mountain Lion, I will set up a second "dummy" user, that will only be used for dictation/transcription. I won't use any user info-based applications (iCal, Address Book, etc.) in this secondary account. When I want to dictate something, I'll use the handy fast user switching command to jump over to my dummy account (also copying over any needed information or documents pertinent to the dictation), dictate the content, and when it comes back from Apple I'll copy the transcription back to my main account. Hypothetically, then, the only info Apple will get from me will be fairly standard hardware/OS stats, my Apple ID (which they, of course, already have), and the contents of the dictation/transcription.


How do I find files with no extension in Finder? I'm trying to find all files that have no extension in a Finder folder.  I know how to search by extension and exclude a specific extension but what do I type in the box if I want no extension at all?

You can set up a Finder search like this:

- None of the following is true:
- - Filename contains .
- - Kind is Folder

The Finder does however exclude some system items from search results. The same search criteria produced 19'077 search results in Finder and 131'666 in HoudahSpot.


Watch PBS videos while in Spain using Proxy First of all sorry if this was asked and answered already.

I am currently on a trip in Spain (but originally from USA), and would like to watch some PBS videos, but it tells me

  We're sorry, but this video is not available in your region due to
  right restrictions.

OK, I get it, so let me tell PBS I am in their region by changing my Proxy!

I tried the:
FoxyProxy add on in Firefox with no success.

My question is:

There is a setting in the System Preferances-Network-Advaced-Proxy!

I am not sure how to use it to get the PBS to play the video.
I tried with a proxy from USA CA and still the same error message!

PS: yes, I did sign in in to PBS :(

It appears that the PBS video is transported via http, but there are other resources on that page that connect via https. You may also need to establish an https proxy as well. In your screenshot, you only have an http proxy set up.


PowerBook G4 cannot boot up and doesn't install any versions My school IT guy tried helping me with an issue with my old PowerBook G4. I just got it from my friend because he had no use for it and he didn't know the password. I tried resetting the password and it wouldn't boot up and I have no idea why. The IT guy tried reinstalling every version of OS X. Every time he tried installing a new version. Starting from 10.5 to 10.2 everything failed and wouldn't work at all. There was some luck with 10.4 and it started installing but then crashed in the middle of installation about 4 times.

It could be a hardware issue, but is there anything that I could do without changing the hard drive? I tried clearing PRAM and going to Safe Mode/Verbose mode, and nothing worked.

Actually we need a little more info.

When you turn it on do you get the Mac startup "bong?"

Does the screen light up? What color is it (black, gray, etc?)

Does anything appear on the screen? EG an Apple logo, flashing question mark, drive icon with a slash through it, etc...

If it is asking for a password there is a utility on the install DVD that can reset the password. You can also reset the password by (if memory serves me...) by just removing one of the DIMMs, turning it on. Turn it back off and put the DIMM back in.


Is there a way to turn off notifications automatically when I connect to AirPlay? If I'm AirPlaying my screen, I likely don't want the room to see my notifications. Is there a way to automatically kill notifs when I connect besides manually option+clicking the icon in the upper-right corner each time?

Open System Preferences → Notifications, select Do Not Disturb in the sidebar and enable ‘Turn on Do Not Disturb: When mirroring to TVs and projectors’.

If you enable AirPlay without mirroring, then Do Not Disturb is not activated, but the notifications only appear on your primary monitor anyway.


How to change the cursor hotspot in OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion? The hotspot of the cursor is on the tip of the internal, black part.

When I enlarge the cursor, the white outline is enlarged as well, so the tip of the white outline and the inner tip of the black body get pretty far from one another. I keep clicking on the white tip (as it's the outermost tip, the "absolute" tip of the arrow).

I know it has always been like that on Macs, I know many of you love it that way. To me it's counter-intuitive (please don't debate this, it's my personal preference and I have found on a few forums that I'm not alone in this, so the answer could be useful to a number of people).

Is there a way to change the cursor hotspot? For example by editing the cursor file and replacing the original one? Where is the cursor file in OS X 10.8.5? Is there any (file as such), or is the cursor some OS method or whatever?

Or, as an alternative, to just download a different cursor (with the hotspot on the outermost tip) and replace the original system one?

I'll give you an answer you'll hate. You would have to batch change the .png of the all OS cursors in:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HiServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/cursors

In the neighbourhood of a 100 pngs and adjusting singular pixels is what I see as the only option because there is no other way I can think of to adjust the 'active hotspot'


How can I easily add a batch of files to the HandBrake queue? How do I add multiple files into the queue at once in HandBrake?

I heard that multiple files can be added to the queue by selecting the folder. But when I select the folder as source, only the first file is added, rather than all the files.

Am I missing something?

After adding the folder as the source, File>Add All Titles To Queue


Is it safe to chown /opt/local? Is it safe (no security implications) to chown -R user /opt/local/, so that I don't sudo port install with MacPorts?

I don't like the idea of sudoing with MacPorts as it can write things in /Library, for example, without my permission. I know I could use homebrew instead of MacPorts but I had problems with third-party software writing in /usr/local. I could also compile MacPorts with a custom prefix in my home directory but I guess that is the same with /opt/local/, as /opt/local/ is not a system directory.

If you want to use a non-root MacPorts installation you will have to configure your installation to do that by installing from source and specifying --with-no-root-privileges as argument to ./configure. Note that you might have to set --prefix, too, if you want to do that.

I would encourage you not to do that, for a couple of reasons, though:

Directories listed in multiple users' $PATH that are writable without superuser privileges can be used for attacks (e.g., by placing a sudo binary that will log the password there). The same can be done by malicious software running as your user in order to get your password – although one might argue it's already too late when this happens.
MacPorts can not use privilege separation without root privileges. Normally, MacPorts will drop privileges to an unprivileged "macports" user while building software to avoid rogue Makefiles to wreak havoc (or even read files) in your $HOME.
MacPorts as of version 2.2 uses OS X sandboxing capabilities to prevent ports from installing files outside of the locations MacPorts encourages. These default locations are:

/opt/local
/Applications/MacPorts
/Library/LaunchDaemons/
some locations necessary for some special ports to work, e.g., /usr/lib/pam for PAM modules.

So, in conclusion, I think a MacPorts installing using root privileges is actually safer and more secure than one not using them.

Disclaimer: Since I'm a MacPorts Developer, I might be biased.


Ignore "prevent sleep" request from a specific app I sometimes have the problem that my macbook won't sleep, even with the lid closed.
After some investigation I tracked the problem down to Spotify app; when the app is open, even if no song is playing, my macbook won't go to sleep and eventually go out of battery power.
I don't have need of spotify keeping my mac awake (for obvious reason I'm ok with a video player or a game instead); is there a way to ignore its request for preventing sleep without affecting other applications?
I know I could quit spotify when not using it, but I am prone to forget it and it's very annoying to find my mac completely drained...

EDIT: to be clearer, I am not looking for a solution about Spotify specifically (I could simply uninstall it and forget about it), I am just looking for an option which is the default in both Linux and Windows, that is that the user always overrides any setting when he/she closes the lid.

Your MacBook should always sleep when the lid is closed. If your Mac is not sleeping with the lid closed, this suggests a problem.

There are exceptions:

Some MacBooks can be plugged into external displays and, once connected, the MacBook's lid can be safely closed without triggering system wide sleep.
Previously it has been possible to install a third party kernel extension to override macOS's behaviour and stop sleep with the lid closed. Doing this carries risk and should be avoided.

Blocking Sleep

It is difficult for user space processes to block sleep. Sleep assertions should never block a user initiated sleep, either via closing the lid or requesting sleep from the Finder. Use pmset to view current power assertions:

pmset -g assertions


How do you restart/force quit the notification center in mavericks I am referring to the upper right corner (beside spotlight). Somehow my notification center crashed while I was typing a message and it has been broken for a couple of days now. Is there a way besides restarting my machine? (just curious, i can easily restart it but if there's a way for it to go away without restarting then I'd like that)

Open the Activity Monitor, kill Notification Center and it'll reload automatically !


iTerm Double Click Text Selection I recently installed iTerm on both my Mac Pro & MacBook Pro and the text selection behavior is different on both the machines.

Consider the following line in terminal:

/Users/user/basic/Libraries/A/B/c.h:282:17:  .fish = @"FISH",

Double clicking on "Users" can result in the two possible behaviors:

selects "/Users/user/basic/Libraries/A/B/c.h"
selects "Users"

The behavior is as follows:

Terminal: 2 (both Mac Pro & MacBook Pro)
iTerm: 1 (MacBook Pro), 2 (Mac Pro)

I am not sure what I am doing on the two different machines. All my configuration files are the same. The actual iTerm configuration is practically untouched.

What setting is responsible for this? I really want behavior #1 on my Mac Pro as well.

Edit 1: I have already looked at Smart Selection and I don't see any difference in settings.

Alright I solved this. Somehow, this setting was missing in iTerm on my MacBook Pro.


Cannot Share Screen with MBA which is behind Airport Extreme I'm trying to connect from iMac mid 2010 (10.8.3) to my MBA 2011 (10.8.3) using the Share Screen button in Finder.

I'm able to connect, but unfortunately the connection is closed in a minute and it's not possible to reconnect.

My MBA is behind Airport Extreme and my iMac is behind some 3rd party router.

Interesting that while I'm unable to connect to MBA, I can still mount the disk connected to the Airport.

How can I fix that?

EDIT

It appears that issue is only reproducible when clamshell of MBA is closed and system is asleep. That is, "Share Screen" works just fine if I ask someone to open clamshell and wake up the system. But if clamshell is closed, the issue I described above is always reproducible.

A little bit of info: I have File Vault enabled on MBA.

I am missing one critical detail in your description: How are you connecting?

VPN
iCloud / Back-to-my-Mac
LAN

Meanwhile - assuming it's either 1. or 2 - these are the quick check's I would perform initially and one-at-a-time.

Check if it works the other way around: MBA -> iMac
If you connect via VPN, try Back-to-my-Mac instead
Make sure all routers run with current firmware
Both routers should have UPnP (non-Apple) and NAT-PMP (Apple) enabled.
Some 3rd party routers allow more fine-tuning with UPnP. While this basically opens up your network (and makes it more insecure), I would go and open up for now, just to see if this solves the problem.
(temporarily) disable your firewall on both Macs. If you are running any 3rd party firewall app (such as LittleSnitch), switch if off for now.

Glad to hear if any of this opened your door again.


Changing the default contact group when using Exchange ActiveSync I have an iPhone 3GS (with the latest iOS version). It syncs with the corporate Exchange server.

But when I am saving contacts (from the recent calls list for example), there is no way to set where the contact is saved. (I have a couple of Contacts folders in the Exchange account).

Is there a way to tell the iPhone where to save new contacts either when I save the new contact or just to set the default contact group?

In iOS 5.1, you can define a "Default Account" for Contacts in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Scroll down until you see a Contacts heading; Default Account is at the bottom of that section. This setting will affect where new Contacts created on the iPhone are placed.


How do I undo "export PATH='/usr/local/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile" I was trying to install homebrew, which wasn't working. It told me to do echo export PATH='/usr/local/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile. However this wasn't having any affect, and I thought maybe it was because of echo (I don't know any Bash), so I removed the Echo, ran brew doctor and it spat this out, which concerned me:

/usr/local/bin/brew: line 2: dirname: command not found
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 5: basename: command not found
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 8: readlink: command not found
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 16: cd: /Users/howard/../Library: No such file or directory
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 23: tr: command not found
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 23: uname: command not found
/usr/local/bin/brew: line 28: exec: ruby: not found

Is there any way to undo what I just did? Also, can someone please explain to me what I just did? I am never going to make the stupid mistake of copying and pasting commands I don't understand. I feel like a total moron right now.

I worry that I may have overriden /usr/bin/ with stuff? I can't run most of the basic commands like man, ls, and a few others. cd still works though. Is there any hope for me, or do I need to reinstall my OS?

You certainly don't need to reinstall - just remove the offending last line of the file and restart terminal to see the effects.

If you don't know how to edit the file from terminal, you can open the file in your system's default plain text editor:

/usr/bin/open ~/.bash_profile

Just delete the last line and save the file. (The >> tacks the output of the echo on to the end of the file)  At that point, quit terminal, reopen terminal and test brew doctor again.

Apple has an overview of editors you can use in terminal if you want to edit files more regularly.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4850

For beginners, the nano editor is perhaps the easiest since it has visible help for basic commands. You can get some more guided help on nano from the web by opening the URL in your preferred browser (or having terminal do that for you open http://www.nano-editor.org/).


Switch Cmd and Control keys for one app only I use a mac at work and a home. However, at work I need to log into a Windows virtual machine (using either CoRD or MS RDC) several times each day to do some work. Switching between using control instead of command for common keyboard shortcuts is driving me mad, so I was hoping there was a way to switch these keys only when I am in Windows. That way I wouldn't have to fight my muscle memory for tasks such as cut, copy and paste. (Permanently switching my mac to use a Windows layout is not a solution btw. I like my mac keyboard layout)

I have looked at Ukulele, but it doesn't allow rearranging of modifier keys.

It's a common issue and it looks like it was answered on superuser side of this web site - Assuming you are happy with a solution for Remote Desktop, this looks to be a duplicate of https://superuser.com/q/263647/76395

Have you had a chance to see if that program will help remap the keys as desired?


My external monitor doesn't work at full resolution with my MacBook I've got a MacBook Pro (Early 2015, OS 10.11.2) and I've also got a Dell 2209WAf monitor, which I'm using with a VGA cable and this adaptor.

The monitor's optimum resolution is 1680x1050 @ 60Hz and RDM shows this as an option. However, when I try to use that resolution, my screen looks like this  which is clearly not right (it looks impossibly pixellated and really hurts my eyes, you can barely see anything on the screen).

On the monitor, it says it's displaying 800x600 when my Mac says it's displaying 1680x1050.

I've seen questions about VGA cables/adaptors etc. asked before, but they all said it was to do with the resolution being too high. My monitor (and adaptor) can display 1920x1080 so that would appear to not be the case here.

The options for the resolution in Displays all work perfectly (various ones from 800x600 up to 1400x1050 when Alt-Scaled) but then it jumps up to 1920x1080. How can I add 1680x1050 to this list, as presumably that would display clearly? SwitchResX doesn't fix this and neither does RDM, I've seen stuff about editing .plist files but that was all for Yosemite, apparently it's different for El Capitan.

Any help is massively appreciated!

You can go to System Preferences > Displays, then option-click (press option key while left-clicking) on Scaled to expose additional resolutions that aren't exposed with a normal left-click.

Otherwise, you have a great choice of software for that, like switchResX:

  Why hassling with Apple's inbuilt screen settings, when there is so
  much more to get and much easier, too?

  With SwitchResX you get back control on your screen – or screens even!
  There are plenty of inbuilt options...


Yosemite window close button off center? I just updated my 13" MacBook Air (early 2014) to OS X Yosemite. The close button on the semaphore buttons at the top-left of the window has the x in it off center! That's not something I expect from Apple! It looked fine in Mavericks. I don't have this issue with my MacBook Pro at work, since that one has a Retina display. I Googled for it and some people report the same thing, but nobody says anything about fixing it. Has Apple acknowledged this and plans to fix it? I used Linux in the past and I'm seriously considering installing Linux on this machine due to this.

Changing the colors to graphite centers the x, but I don't like graphite. Please help

Your display is made up of pixels which are each made up of 3 subpixels, red, green, and blue. (This is the LCD part in the picture below.) Unfortunately, since red is on the left, it may look a little off center.

Here's a screenshot of the button:

and here's what it looks like on my display:

It would have been difficult for Apple to avoid this issue while still having the close button red. Graphite fixes this because the button is no longer red, and each of the subpixels is equal, so it doesn't look like it's shifted to the left.

In Mavericks, the button was a bit less saturated and a bit subtler, so that may be the reason why it seems to be a problem in Yosemite.


imac mid 2011 - GPU dead, need to replace, can i swap my 2gb for a 1gb? new to the forum and fixing my own imac.

My mid 2011 - recently crapped out, suspect it's the video after much reading online.

I'm running a 3.4ghz, i7, 16 gb 1333 mhz ddr3 / Amd radeon HD 6970M 2048mb

So looking around to replace the 6970m, (the 2gbs are pretty pricey) so if i dropped in a 1024 or 1gb version would it just run a bit slower or would it have other issue?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thank you in advance
John

Short answer

Yes, you can swap the 2GB Radeon HD 6970M for the 1Gb version and will probably not even notice the difference (depending on what you're using your iMac for).

Long answer

Since you're comfortable enough fixing your own iMac, and you'd have to get to the GPU anyway to replace it, I wouldn't replace the GPU at all. Instead I'd try fixing it by reflowing the solder. To do this, you need to:

Disassemble the iMac enough to remove the GPU
Set your home oven to 205℃ (400℉)
Place a sheet of baking paper on an oven tray and place the GPU (only the GPU itself) on the oven tray
Place it in the oven for 8 minutes
Remove the tray and let it cool
Remove any old heatsink compound from the chips and replace with new compound
Reassemble everything

Depending on how familiar you are with disassembly/assembly, I'd allow anywhere between 3hrs to most of the day for doing this. Also, you will require some tools, but if you don't have these you can easily purchase them online.


Macbook resetting itself when playing a game I have a problem with my MacBook Air 2017 and I need help.
I was playing Heart of Iron 4 on my Macbook Air and all of sudden, my Macbook Air restarted itself.
I restarted it and now I have this annoying fan sound running all the time and my battery percentage disappeared, I went through the setting to enable "Show battery percentage" but it keeps disappearing after enabling it.
Can I fix it myself or do I have to go in-store to fix it?

I figured it out, just do an SMC reset on your MacBook Air.


How to force a Mac to restart without pressing the power key? The Finder was not responding, so I control+click'd the Finder icon on the Dock and chose Relaunch… except that it didn't relaunch.
Activity Monitor happened to be visible and I could see that it listed Finder (including the PID) and showed it as "Not Responding."
I was in iTerm, so I tried killall Finder and was told "No processes belonging to you were found" (or words to that effect).
I tried to send "kill" to the PID I could see for Finder, and was told there was no such PID. This led me to assume that the WindowServer was not showing accurate information anymore.
I tried sudo killall -HUP WindowServer which made the entire GUI go away, and left me with a black screen and some white letters on it (not the panic screen, more like console log messages).
The message was:

Sep 27 17:17:23 Pro kernel[0]: V1.4.0: TrustedData_driver_VendorSpecificType00::vendorSpecificPassThroughIn(): SendCommand failed, task not complete, serviceResponse = 1, TaskStatus: 2
Sep 27 17:17:23 Pro kernel[0]: V1.4.0: TrustedData_UserClient_SCSIType00::vendorSpecificPassThroughIn() returning failure from driver: 3758097084

So now I have a black screen, but and I can type but it has no effect (the letters appear on the screen, but don't actually execute. I've tried control-C and control-Z to no avail.
I can ssh into it from my other Mac.
Of course my first step was sudo shutdown -r now which sent out the notice that the system was going to shutdown, but didn't.
I have also tried sudo shutdown -ro now and sudo /sbin/reboot and sudo reboot -q to no avail.

Aside: (On a Windows PC, I would have pressed CTRLALTDEL but there is no corresponding Mac keyboard shortcut… not that it would have necessarily worked anyway.)

I am out of ideas.
I ran ps and put the output here if anyone wants to see what is still running.
What else would you try?
(Other than simply holding down the power button until it shuts off.)

ssh onto your Mac
Type sudo su -l to switch to superuser mode
Enter your admin password
type halt and hit enter

This sends SIGTERM (and subsequently SIGKILL) to all running processes and powers the system off.

Note: Type man halt for other options.

EDIT: You could also try launchctl shutdown


Pausing Calendar notifications during presentations While giving a talk (PDF file rendered by Preview) from my MacBook, I'd like to make sure that my upcoming appointments do not show up during the talk.

Is it possible to pause these notifications? How?

Using another account on my machine is not an option. I need to be able to give live code demos from my main account.

You can enable Do Not Disturb from the top of Notification Center. Open Notification Center using the button on the menu bar or swiping in from the right side of the trackpad with two fingers, then scroll up and turn the switch on.

You can also ⌥-click on the Notification Center menu bar item to quickly toggle Do Not Disturb. The icon will turn grey to indicate the change in state.


Is there a way to turn off iOS 9 update reminders? The answers to this question imply that the reminders do not recur... but that's for versions prior to iOS 9.

Much like with newer versions of OSX, iOS 9 will remind you every other day or so to update giving only the options to "update now", "remind me later", "view details". The third option is the only way to avoid "scheduling" a reminder later and it's my go-to option in OSX to shut the reminders off for a bit... but I don't want to stop in the middle of what I'm doing to switch over to the Settings app and then go right back to the app I was actually using.

This is very annoying to me, particularly as I intentionally skip updates. Is there a way to turn this "feature" off?

TLDR - Go to General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage (under Storage) > Select the update item (should have the settings icon and named iOS 9.x.x) > Delete Update

There is a much easier solution to the nagging reminders explained in the following link.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/29004014#29004014

  Yes there is a way to disable it. First let me explain why you are getting that notification. Even if you have automatic updates turned off, the new IOS update still downloads to your phone and iPad. It is already in your phone and iPad right now waiting for you to completely install it. It is not installed but it is sitting there in your phone and iPad waiting for you to click on it to install. So what you must do is the following:

  Click on the Setting icon. Then click on General. click on Storage & iCloud  usage. It might just say Storage on your device. When the next page pops up you will see at the top the word Storage. Under it you will see Manage Storage. Click on it and wait till the list is fully populated. Depending on how many apps you have this can take a couple of seconds to about half a minute. Look through this list till you see the new iOS update. Delete it. Then your pop up notice should go away. Don't worry about loosing the update. You can always get it later in the future. If in the future you get the pop up again, then that means Apple has again downloaded it to your phone or iPad without your permission. Simply do the above all over again to delete it and get rid of the new pop up. This is the only way to get rid of the pop up without installing it.


How to customize Finder's Share menu? Is there a way to add custom services to Finder's Share menu?

I have created an automator service to copy selected files to my Dropbox directory (similar to this).

I enabled this service in the keyboard preferences.

Now I want to add this service in the Share menu rather than having it in the general contextual menu.

I haven't tried it but I would suggestion following :

Copy your automator service in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ShareKit.framework/Versions/A/PlugIns/
rename it Servicename.sharingservice
Now edit /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ShareKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/SHKServicesOrder.plist by adding your service. (CFBundleIdentifier in Info.plist + function name)


Why do Twitter notifications in Notification Center open in Safari? Is it possible to load Twitter.app instead of opening Safari when clicking Twitter notifications in the Notification Center?

The current behaviour really annoys me because it keeps making me sign in and I don't want it to remember my credentials.

Indeed, the Twitter notifications will always redirect you to the web application, even if you have a native Twitter client installed. In fact, Twitter notifications also work without Twitter.app as long as you have your Twitter account configured.

There currently is no way to change this behaviour.


How can I simulate having a slow CPU? I am almost done coding my webapp-game. It runs on all modern browsers. However, I want to establish some minimum requirements for it.

Thus, I need a slow Mac. However, I don't have access to a slow Mac that has a modern browser (IE 9+, Safari 5+, Opera 11+, Chrome, Firefox 4+).

Using the tool mentioned in this question, I can simulate a slow Internet connection. I can use up plenty of memory easily. However, I have no clue how to simulate a slow CPU without resorting to underclocking.

Is there any way I can make my Mac's CPU slower temporarily without underclocking?

One solution is to use virtualization to have another instance of Mac OS X running on your computer. Many virtualization applications (such as Parallels Desktop) let you decide how much resources an instance can have (e.g. memory or cpu). Lion increased its support of virtualizing Mac OS X.

If you do decide to go with Parallels, there's a useful how to article describing how to set up an instance of another Mac OS X Lion.


What's the best setting of iPad for senior grandma? I know the question might be a bit subjective, but I'm really facing the problem and hopefully someone can help.

I'm buying an iPad for my grandma. She is 80 years old, living in a rural area in China. She has very little knowledge of computers (but she has seen us using iPad and liked the look of it immediately), and she can't read that much Chinese (she never went to school). We want to connect her with video call (e.g. FaceTime, WeChat) regularly. I've tried to change the font size as large as possible, but it's still not large enough for her. Also, I tried to find a way to enlarge the icon size, but cannot find it. I'm wondering if there is a setting or theme special designed for a senior person like my grandma (that changes the iPad to have larger icons and text).

Siri is not an option as my grandma only speaks a local dialect (not Chinese), a language Siri doesn't work in.

Wish someone with similar experience can help.

There is a maximum text size when changing the text size from Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size, however larger text sizes are available. To enable these larger sizes, go to Settings → General → Accessibility → Larger Text and enable Larger Accessibility Sizes, then increase the text size even further using the slider.

To increase the contrast of certain elements which may make the text easier to read further, go to Settings → General → Accessibility → Increase Contrast and enable Reduce Transparency and Darken Colors.

You can also enable the Zoom function (also under Accessibility) which enables a three-finger double-tap for zooming in on the screen.

Furthermore, the Colour Filters allow for further customisation of the colours displayed. Accessible from Settings → General → Accessibility → Display Accommodations → Colour Filters, they "can be used to … aid users who have difficulty reading text on the display".

Screenshots ignore colour filters so the effect is not displayed above.

A good way to find such settings is by using the search functionality in the Settings app.


How can I make compiled applescripts on $PATH be found and executed? I have some short applescripts that I want to use as utility functions inside shell scripts-- for example, one returns the name of the frontmost application.  The scripts reside in a personal scripts directory that is on my $path.  When in another directory, I can just run

$myscript.applescript

And, because the scripts directory is on the path, this file will be found and executed (at the top is #!/usr/bin/env osascript).  However, when I run

$myscript.scpt

To try and run the compiled version, I get:

  zsh: exec format error: get_front_app_name.scpt

I would like to use the compiled version but would also like to be able to run these like any executable on my $path, that is, without having to specify the interpreter name (osacompile) or the path to the file.  As of now, the only way I can see to execute the compiled .scpt applescript is to do both:

$osascript path/to/myscript.scpt

Is it possible to run the compiled form without this baggage?

Since .scpt are not executable you won't be able to do this.

The shebang (!#) is not in the AppleScript syntax and therefore it won't do anything.


MacBook Pro screen resolution confiusion I noticed something weird on my mac:

The resolution in specs is 2560x1600 (13" MBP). In System Preferences, It says that the resolution "looks like 1440x900", but does not mention the actual resolution.

When I take a screenshot, the resolution is 2880x1800 (in the screenshot file's metadata)

The screenshot.app in CMD+Shift+4 mode shows a crossbow with coordinates, the coordinates say 1439, 899 when moved to the bottom-right corner.

And third-party apps (like OBS) show 1440x900 as the resolution.

Why is that happening and what's the "actual" resolution of my screen?

Edit output of system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType as requested by @ankii:

Graphics/Displays:

    Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650:

      Chipset Model: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650
      Type: GPU
      Bus: Built-In
      VRAM (Dynamic, Max): 1536 MB
      Vendor: Intel
      Device ID: 0x5927
      Revision ID: 0x0006
      Metal: Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily2 v1
      Displays:
        Color LCD:
          Display Type: Built-In Retina LCD
          Resolution: 2560 x 1600 Retina
          Framebuffer Depth: 24-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
          Main Display: Yes
          Mirror: Off
          Online: Yes
          Automatically Adjust Brightness: No
          Connection Type: Internal

Many many OS X versions ago, Apple rolled out "Resolution Independent UI" in order to ensure that UI elements were rendered consistently regardless of the DPI of the display. Prior to this, all displays were assumed to operate at 72 pixels per inch (ppi). Prior to that, if you wanted the main Mac menu bar to be 3/8" high, you would simply multiply 3/8 by 72 to set how tall the element is.

Why do I bring this up? Because with this foundation in place, Apple rolled out retina displays with DPIs approaching 300 ppi. Your display is one of these and indeed has a Fixed dpi of 2560x1600 (per specs). The underlying resolution independence ensures that the UI elements display at a consistent size across resolutions, screen sizes, and pixel densities.

In summary, from my understanding:

Your Screen's resolution is fixed at 2560x1600px (see note below)
Your "virtual" resolution is set in displays preferences, and you have it set to "look like" 1400x900
"Full Screen" screenshots (⌘-⇪-3) appear to capture in "native" display resolution. (see note below)
"Marquee" screenshots (⌘-⇪-4) appear to capture in "virtual" display resolution.

note: I cannot say where the 2880x1800 resolution comes from in your screenshot


In the Terminal preferences, what does the "Use Style for "Copy" Command" option do? Sorry if this is a bit of a newbie question, but I couldn't find it by googling.

It's for the visualization purposes. For example here are two different paste styles form my Terminal:

As You see, they look differently when pasted into for example TextEdit app.


How the iOS can access to apple watch and airpod at the same time? I thought the Bluetooth module can connect to only one another device, but iPhone(or any iOS device) can be connected with Apple Watch and AirPod at the same time. How can it be possible? Is there any additional module in iOS device? If yes, why can't i make another double connection except Apple Watch or AirPods?

Bluetooth can only connect to 1 device of a type at a time.

For example, you can only connect to 1 pair of headphones (AirPods) or 1 mouse at a time.  You can connect to multiple devices (AirPods and a mouse) at the same time because these are different devices.

You didn't provide enough info on the devices you can't connect to, the errors you received (if any), or the troubleshooting steps you've already taken, for me to assist you with the "double connection" in your question.  Please see Help and then edit your question to include all relevant info.


User Authentication in Microsoft Document Connection How can I change the username that is used to connect to a SharePoint site in Microsoft Document Connection. When I try to connect to a site, it's showing the authentication screen, but only allows me to enter the password. The username is defaulted to my Mac login user, but I can't change it (it's greyed out). Connecting using these credentials does not work, it always displays "You do not have permission to connect".

For a successful connection, I think I have to prefix my username with the name of our Windows domain, e.g. DOMAIN\username. Unfortunately, Microsoft Document Connection does not allow me to do that.

Any ideas on how I can change the username?

I had this same problem, and found the fix.

Our problem was that the company had migrated to a new domain, with all our usernames etc intact. So our old username (without a domain specified) was in the MDC Preferences, but it wouldn't let me change the username to domain\username. And the old username couldn't be entered either.

So the solution was to enter the new domain in the Preferences.

For future reference, here's the procedure:

Quit Microsoft Document Connection.app if it's running.
Go to a Finder window, pull down the Go menu, then "Go to folder" and paste in

~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/14.0/Document Connection/
Edit the file Document Connection.xml with your favorite reliable text editor.
Find the line containing authkey, there should be only one. The line should look like this:

<attribute name="authkey" type="string">myusername</attribute>
Add NEWDOMAIN\\ right before myusername (make sure to use TWO backslashes, otherwise it just escapes the first letter in your username).

<attribute name="authkey" type="string">NEWDOMAIN\\myusername</attribute>
Save, close, and reopen Microsoft Document Connection. You should see your NEWDOMAIN\myusername (but still gray'ed out) when you add or select an existing Sharepoint site. Enter your new password and optionally save to keychain.

Now you should be cookin' with gas!


Can I connect to any AirPlay device from the WatchOS 3 Control Center? In WatchOS 3, there is an AirPlay button at the very bottom of the control center.

When I press it, the only option I see is Apple Watch.

But on my iPhone, I'm playing audio from SoundCloud. I'm there able to assign the audio playback to AirPlay devices:

As noted in the image, I'm not using a real AirPlay device but a virtual one, via Airfoil playing on my Mac. But it should still behave like a real AirPlay device.

So, is this new button in the WatchOS 3 control center just for "AirPods" and the like?

On the Apple Watch, go to the Settings app, go to Bluetooth, and pair each of the devices you want to use.

The Apple Watch is connecting directly to the device by Bluetooth, not using your iPhone's connection.


Mac iTunes keeps adding the wrong files to my playlist 2011 iMac, OSX Mavericks, iTunes 12.6.1.125

I'm a musician and am working on finalizing my new EP.  I have the master .wav files in iTunes, which I then convert to .mp3 to send to some people for feedback etc.  I have two playlists, one which contains the .wav files and one which is supposed to contain the .mp3 files, but that's where I run into trouble.

I can select the .mp3s and add them to the playlist in question via any means - drag & drop, right click, etc.  Regardless, what actually ends up in the playlist, is the .wav files.

Obviously these files have the same names except for the extension, since iTunes created the .mp3s from the .wavs.

Why on earth does iTunes insist on adding the .wavs to the playlist instead of the .mp3s I have selected?  And how can I fix this?

While not answering the why part of my question, I was able to solve the problem by deleting the .mp3 playlist entirely, selecting the tracks in question, and adding them to a new playlist again.  Now the correct files are in the correct playlist.


Will OS X ever install anything suspicious without my express permission? I clicked a link (turned out to be Breitbart) that said "your Flash is not updated", despite the fact that I just installed it yesterday. The two choices were "Update" and "Ok". Strangely, there was no ability to simply dismiss the popup without clicking one of those buttons. I should have force quit Safari, but instead I clicked "Ok". Then it tried to download something! I immediately dragged it to the trash, but when I tried to empty the trash it said that file was in use! I don't recall clicking on it or giving it any instructions to open so I immediately pulled the plug on the computer. I was able to delete it once I restarted.

Three questions:

1) Why did the computer download software from a random site without being given permission?

2) Why did it say the file was in use when I very clearly did not open it up?

3) Can the Mac actually install this kind of garbage without my permission?

It will download anything if you told it to do so.

It will obey your commands, down to self destruct (kill it self) if you ask it to do it.

There are some preventative measures in place (but at your control) to make it safer (from you).

For example the Downloads:

In order to change this setting you would have to enter a Password. In your case it is probably set (by you) to Anywhere, and that is fine if you know what are the risks.

Hopefully you learned a lesson, and in the future close the web site asking you to Update or OK (they mean the same). Anytime you get a pop up asking you to download something that you did not ask for, shall be killed instantly.

Now without further beating the bushes, tell us what site did that and what file did you trash so we can do some surgery.


iTunes column for file location? I'm using the latest version of iTunes (11.0.2) and would like to sort my tracks by their location on my harddrives however I think there is no column for that.

Am I right?

Yes, there is no column for that. And most files are in the iTunes library itself - as it copies them by default.


Why can't I paste an image into a PDF Doc in Preview? (need to insert wet signature) If Preview allows entering textboxes and drawing shapes and lines and even coloring them, why is it impossible to paste an image onto the PDF document? Isn't it exactly the same concept? Why does one work but not the other?

Edit: what I want to do is add a wet signature (signed with ink). So I have my ink written signature as a JPEG file of a scan I took of it. But no way to port it into the PDF document directly (work around would be to convert PDF to PNG and back to PDF).

Preview allows for a digital signature. But I'm not looking for digital.

It's not the same concept.  There's annotating a PDF and then there's editing a PDF.

Annotating is also known as "marking up" a document.  Inserting an image is editing it.  Preview isn't a PDF editor.

Think of it as a written document submitted to a teacher, professor, or a manager at work.  They may take a red pen and write comments in the margin, make several comments and circle it or box it in, strike out portions, correct spelling, etc.  However, inserting an image would change the whole document.  The reviewer isn't going to rewrite/reformat your document so that the image would fit.

To get another perspective of this, consider the two PDF products from Adobe are:

Acrobat Reader (Free)
Acrobat Pro ($12.99/mo)

Reader allows you to do everything that Preview does from marking up, signing and even filling out and collecting responses from PDF forms.  However, you can't edit the document (which includes inserting graphics).  For that, you need the Pro version (if using Adobe; there are other editors available on the market).

Signatures

Preview allows for the capture of signatures via the following methods:

Sign on your trackpad.
Capture with your camera
Capture by using your finger or Apple Pencil with your iPhone or iPad

You’ll find this on the Markup Toolbar and then selecting Sign.  You can find full details on how to do this on Apple’s support document Fill out and sign PDF forms in Preview on Mac.

Acrobat Reader allows you to use a graphic image as your signature.

  To sign a PDF document or form, you can type, draw, or insert an image of your handwritten signature. You can also add text, such as your name, company, title, or the date. When you save the document, the signature and text become part of the PDF.

(Emphasis mine).


Ways to make Big Sur run faster? Some users report Chrome and Firefox being slower on Big Sur

On a 2019 MBP 13 (16GB) ... everything is noticeably slower ... even native apps like Preview

This reflects my experience.
Other than waiting for updates to Big Sur, what settings can I adjust in the mean time to help mitigate any jankiness Big Sur introduces?
Some solutions/ideas found so far:

Downgrade to older macOS versions

References:

Google search for big sur stuttery

Update
This is embarrassing but I now think Big Sur wasn't responsible for the choppiness on my machine at all. I had installed Adobe Creative Cloud shortly after updating to Big Sur. When I uninstalled Adobe Creative Cloud 7 days ago the choppiness completely vanished.
Previous answer
This is not an answer, but may help someone else. For about 3-4 days after updating to Big Sur, the cursor lurched across the screen, keyboard inputs took hundreds of milliseconds to appear on the screen (meaning I'd sometimes hit the key twice because I thought the first didn't register).
Approximately 4-7 days after the update, the behaviour disappeared entirely. I have not been able to explain why it happened (it never happened in Catalina, and it started immediately after updating to Big Sur, so I presume the update had something to do with it). And I also cannot explain why it stopped, except that it ceased 4-7 days after the update to Big Sur, without me doing anything.


No SIM Card installed error in iPhone 3g My iPhone 3G is showing

  No SIM Card installed
  Insert a valid SIM With no PIN lock to activate iPhone

It is in Emergency mode so please give me a solution if there is..?

It happened when I am tried to update the from iOS 4.1 to 4.2.

This is actually a pretty complicated problem with not enough detail to know which one of many things is causing the failure so I'll go over some basics:

Your phone needs to be activated
through iTunes after a restore - so
something in that restore process
didn't work.
The sim and phone have three components - any of which can fail.
The activation process is complicated and has a lot of checks to be sure the image you are installing is not modified so that the phone will work as designed. This activation needs to connect to the internet so even when everything under your control is correct, it still fails from time to time. Problems on your computer with iTunes or the system itself can cause this to happen on an otherwise working phone.

I'm also going to assume the phone is locked to AT&T to keep things simple. If the phone is unlocked legitimately through the carrier and officially recognized by iTunes' activation process this is much more complicated. If it's otherwise modified, the complication is really much more involved so I'll leave those out of the discussion.

Looking at #1 above - the best advice is to reseat the SIM card and then try again to make sure it wasn't a timing or contact alignment issue. Considering #3 above - it's simplest to take your device to a totally different computer and try the restore there - you can always take it back to your computer to put the backup on it once it's working.

Let's look at #2 in more depth - sim and phone. A bad sim will cause this - you'll need to get another SIM to test this and replace the SIM with one active from your carrier if it's the cause.

Have you tried another SIM from your carrier - it doesn't have to be attached to an active contract or active line - it just has to be working. Try to rule out that the sim itself is bad or has failed. A good SIM will get you to "waiting for activation" and a full restore so you can copy apps to the phone and otherwise use it on WiFi. Putting your SIM in another phone can help know that your SIM is not bad, but it has to work in your phone, so you may need to get another SIM even if yours works in another device.

Once you rule out the SIM - you'll need to rule out software. Do another restore of the phone following this knowledge base article. If that doesn't work, force the device into restore mode to get the software loaded properly. Be sure there's not a failure in the restore process or you'll be wasting time on SIM olympics or getting your phone swapped.

That's the third part of #2 - if your phone has a failure (dust or dirt, contact problems, moisture or corrosion on the inside that is causing the circuitry to break, or just a random electrical failure) you will need to get it in for service. There a technician will have the tools (otoscope, test rig, test SIM, good software to restore your device) and the training to know what worn contacts look like to know if it's a cleaning/reseat issue or a hardware repair is needed.


ZTE USB Modem not working in Yosemite I have updated my MacBook Pro 15″ late-2011 to OS X Yosemite from Mavericks and now my ZTE USB Modem (unclear model) for the internet will not work.

How can I get the hardware to work with 10.10?

I found a solution from web and it works on my ZTE-MF667 with no problem.

Go to System Preferences → Network
If you see your USB connection on the left side go to step 5.
If not, select the "+" icon like this.

Select your Interface and set your Service Name like this, then select Create:

Select ZTEUSBModem and set Configuration-Default, Telephone Number: #99*

Account Name and Password must be blank.Then select Advanced

Set Vendor: Generic and Model: GPRS(GSM/3G)

Click OK and Connect.


Does app will be removed in installed phones if the app unpublished from AppStore? I have an app which is in live (Published in AppStore). Now if I would removed that app from AppStore ,can that app still able to use in already installed phones?

Or is there anyway to do the same by other way? I wanted that my app cant used by anyone even they have installed it.

No, removing your app from the App Store won't remove it from other people's devices (iPhones/iPads).

Yes, an app that was removed from the App Store but is still installed on a user's device. If the app relies on data from another server (getting data from a database or a news source) an this data cannot be accessed anymore at least parts of the app won'be functional anymore.


Get contacts from broken iPhone 4S My phone was knocked out of my hand and fell screen side on the ground. I have an off-brand case and my screen will not show anything except for a flash when I press the home button. My phone is currently not connected to an iCloud account and My lock button is broken, how to get my contacts off of my phone?

If your phone is linked to an iCloud account, try surfing to https://www.icloud.com and login with your credentials.  Once logged in there is a Contacts app which should contain your address book.

If you don't have iCloud you could use iTunes as stated above, but it won't let you access your contacts directly.  Try alternative applications such as Syncios, Appandora or iTools.

If that's not an option you could try to backup your old iPhone with iTunes and restore it to another iPhone.

Another option is to replace the screen and hope for the best.  While repairing a 4S might not make sense, there's cheap refurbished or OEM screens available.  If you don't want to use it afterwards, it till makes a great gift for any kid.  Replacing a screen on a newer iPhone (5 and above) is dirt easy, but replacing one on a 4 or 4S is absolutely not for the faint of heart.

If none of the above work out for you I'm afraid it's a lost case.


How can I have unlimited keyboard shortcuts? There's only so many keys in a keyboard, I want limitless
possibilities with key bindings by being able to bind key sequences
to actions.

How can I bind an action to an extended shortcut?

Let's say

Control-x-k to    'open textedit'

I know there's no hardware limitation preventing long keyboard shortcuts, because with emacs you can do

(global-set-key (kbd "C-x k") 'open-something)

ref

I don't believe that macOS will let you add key sequences in System Preference -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts. However, you should be able to do it, but you will most likely have to manually add shortcuts in plist files.

I think the answer provided here, as well as this repository, will help you create custom keyboard shortcuts.

You can also check out Keyboard Maestro's FAQ on their workarounds to key sequence shortcuts.


Will Game Data be Erased from iOS Restore if Connected to Game Center? After forgetting my passcode for my iPad, I have decided that I need to restore my iPad through recovery mode (which I am aware that it will completely erase everything else). However, will that erase my Apple ID and Game Center data? In other words, if I restore and wipe my iPad clean, then enter again and download my game and sign in to Game Center, will all that game progress still be saved somewhere online or something via Game Center or Apple ID, or is all that information only stored in the iPad itself and not online/in a cloud/etc and will be lost?

I have done this before and no, it does not erase your Apple ID or Game Center data. However, not all applications and games use Game Center or iCloud to store data so keep that in mind.


Does icloud storage get freed up automatically after 30 days? I just bought an iphone a day before and started turned on icloud.
Although I am using a mac since 4 years but never considered using icloud.

I wanted to know if icloud storage gets cleared up on its own after 30 days?
In any case I would want to do it if possible.

I did search settings in my phone and it has some options like download originals. I am unsure about these.

What I want is that the photos I click in get automatically saved to my mac aswell. I just want to use icloud for a 30 day backup.

Welcome to Ask Different.

iCloud doesn't get cleared after 30 days, or ever (unless done manually). As for saving photos to your mac, that can be done manually from icloud.com. You can also access them from the Photos app on your mac by enabling iCloud Photos Library from System Preferences.


Securing Mac Server after Server Admin got fired Recently our Network and Server Administrator got let go. We are a small organization and she was alone looking after Windows and Mac Servers. We have tried to secure the network by changing the firewall password and disabling her Windows account.

My question here is more about securing our Mac server. She built The Mac server on a Mac Mini running OS X 10.11 and we use it to enroll Mac devices and push apps via profile manager.

Now the challenge is I have never used Macs before and I don't have have any experience of managing or administering server. I tried to secure the Mac server by changing her account password which she gave before leaving. I don't want to disable her account on mac mini because there were loads of passwords saved in her keychain which we don't know and right now we are using the saved passwords.

Could anyone please guide me how can we secure our Mac server in case any sabotage attempt is made by her since she can still access our server via iCloud and can remotely wipe the server.

There's basically two things you need to do to secure your Mac from a (involuntarily) separated employee:

Secure from outside access
Change all passwords

This is an overlapping approach because neither are 100% foolproof.  However, if you remove as many of the access paths from outside the organization, whatever is missed will be covered by the changed account credentials; and vice versa.
Secure from Outside Access
It sounds like you have the Admin credentials required to change/lock out her account and from accessing the firewall.  So, what you need to check is:

iCloud and AppleID.  Get these changed right away.
Any open ports on the firewall like SSH and VNC.  You don't need a password for these as she can "tunnel" right through. (You will also want to close of Windows RDP (Remote Desktop, port 3389) since you said you had Windows servers.
Turn off SSH and VNC on the Mac Mini for the time being until you can get everything locked down
Remote control software should be removed/disabled (TeamViewer, GoToMyPC, LogMeIn, etc)

Change all Passwords
This one comes down to how "malicious" you think this person is or can be.  You disabled her password, but did she have other accounts or know other people's passwords?
I run into this scenario all the time, small business customers tend to do things that larger organizations have policies against.  For example, someone may be having an issue with their device and instead of remoting in, they will bring their laptop and when asked for the password by the Computer Admin, the user will write it down.
It happens because there is a higher level of trust in a smaller organization.  It's usually not a problem until you have to fire the Computer Admin.  That's just one example.
If you believe the person is malicious enough to do something, have all passwords changed.
Finally, as someone who does this for a living, I can't tell you how important it is to hire an outside consultant who can help mitigate these risks for you.  This is a 3rd party, impartial person (company) who has a financial stake in securing your IT assets will (and should) have the same access as your admin(s).  This way, should something happen, there is a person you can call that is familiar with your network and has the expertise to keep you running.
Best of all, a signed contract (SLA - Service Level Agreement) between you and a vendor is a wonderful thing for end user;  they hold up very well in court.