Print folder contents with non-standard printing settings I want to print all files which are dragged to a folder. Easy to do with Automator.

But I want to specify more settings for the print, namely to print the items two times, to use paper tray 2 instead of 1 (standard); the file should be deleted afterwards (This would also be easy with Automator)

Is there a way to specify these special options? The process is all the time the same, so there should be no promt to ask me what options I want to choose; it should be a simple workflow: Drag files on folder, print with these settings.

Thanks for your help.

I was not able to find a way to do this in Automator.  My work around was as follows:

Use Automator to convert all documents to pdf
use CUPS to print from the terminal with non-standard settings, e.g.

$ for i in *pdf; do lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge $i; done


Is there an alternative client for Homebrew? Lately I've found myself increasingly frustrated with how long it takes for the standard brew client tool to do anything. I understand its being written in Ruby is the cause of most of its inefficiency. Are there any alternatives to the standard client? Has anyone written an alternative client in a faster language like C or Go?

As far as I know, there exist no other implementations of HomeBrew than the standard one.
I doubt that the main cause of any wait times is due to the fact that it is programmed in Ruby. Such a program does not "magically" become faster just by being implemented in C. It is of course fully possible for other implementations to be faster, however one could also fear that for example an implementation in C would be more prone to security bugs.


How to re-download Yosemite for creating second partition? I have a paid Apple Developer account, and want to create a Beta-Partition with Yosemite.

I thought the way is pretty straight forward:

Downloading Yosemite
Install it
Choose second partition

But I cannot even download it from the App Store. I am on OS X 10.10.2 and want to try 10.10.3.

How can I create a Beta Partition after already having 10.10.2 installed?

If I boot in recovery mode and re-download Yosemite, will it delete my hard drive? Can I re-download and then choose my second partition?

When you go to the purchases-tab OS X Yosemite should show up with a Download button. When you click it it asks you if you want to re-download it event though it is installed. (Downloading from the purchases tab is different from downloading from the product page I believe.)


My password is not working in System Preferences unlock prompt I keep getting this prompt when I try to install a app or anything:

Usually I just enter the password and everything is fine (before the username field would be filled). Now it is not accpeting my password. Since I use the same password for iCloud I changed the password and enter the new password but it is still not working.

You're not an administrator. In the list of accounts, your account shows as Managed, not Administrator. The credentials asked for in that prompt are that of an administrator, as asked for by ‘Enter an administrator's name and password’, which means you should enter the other user account's credentials. The username field is only autofilled when you are currently logged in as an administrator.


Disable opening tabs in iTerm2 on when the application starts? iTerm2, on startup, opens as many tabs as were opened in my previous session. How can I disable this behaviour? I don't need those empty tabs.

Close All windows and Tabs except only one(or arrange windows and tab you want), and then

Goto "Windows"->"Save windows Arrangement"
"Preferences"->"Arrangements" set this as default
"Preferences"->"General" and check open default window arrangement.

PS: iTerm restore all session when you disable the "Close windows when quit app" in System preferences


How to make the maximize button behave consistently across applications? So I'm a semi-new Mac user (loving it btw), but one thing I'm finding super annoying is that when I hit the "+" to maximize/minimize windows it doesn't behave like I think it should.

I see many threads on here about windows but what I am looking for is some level of consistency about how to minimize/maximize them.

For example, if my monitor is 1920x1080, and I manually sized the window to 800x600 and then I want to maximize the window so I can see more, I'll hit the "+" button to maximize and one of the following happens:

Instead of the window maximizing to full screen (e.g., 1920x1080) it will ONLY maximize vertically, so if the window was 800x600 when I press the "+" button, it'll maximize to 800x1080 (it maximized from top to bottom but not left to right).
Sometimes, if the window is already maximized, when I hit the "+" to un-maximize it, it doesnt do anything; it just stays maximized.
And, sometimes, it behaves like Windows does and takes full width/height after pressing the "+" button.

It becomes annoying because I'm working on a 13" MacBook Pro and an external 23" monitor at 1920x1080 that I use at work. When I want to bring a window over from the 23" monitor to the 13", I have to always manually re-size things.

How can I make the maximize button behave in a predictable way no matter what Application I'm using? Even better if that predictable way matches the way Windows does it.

If you want it to behave like Windows, the only real answer is to simply use Windows.  I know that sounds flippant, but you cannot use one operating system and expect to be able to pick and choose it's behaviour based on your personal preferences of other systems.

The maximise paradigm simply doesn't work on Macs, where the ideal is that the function is to set the window size to best fit the content rather than the screen.  The point being that the content is what is important, and that stays the same regardless of if you are on a 11" laptop screen or a 27" desktop behemoth.  Now we all know that this isn't always properly implemented, but we also know that it is the developers prerogative to do the implementation, it's not a failing in the OS, and given a choice of "one size fits all full screen" that always does the same thing, or intelligent (when the developer adds it) maximising to meet the needs of the content, then I prefer the existing system.

If maximise as per the Windows system makes sense for a given app (bearing in mind that for many, I would say most, it simply does not), then you really want to be looking into the Full Screen options that are provided from Lion onwards, which are further improved upon in Mountain Lion for external displays etc, as this will provide you with exactly what you need, you just have to use another icon.  If your app does not support this yet, then there are a number of workarounds like this one for the time being.


Are there good jailbreak apps that will improve the performance of iPhone 3G? I've an old iPhone 3G that I want to give it to my girl. She don't need it for play big games or stuff like that, but it's really slow in most of common tasks (access contacts, email, etc).

And since she isn't going to use many things the iPhone have, I was thinking in jailbreak it to see if there are apps that let you strip some of these things she wouldn't use.

Do you know jailbreak apps that strip functionality/features to iPhone 3G?

Or it'll going to be slower than now?

EDIT:
I expect something like remove unused characteristics like folders, or any stuff that make it slower. Kinda downgrading to 3.x but having compatibility with new apps.
Since overclocking is not safe for the phone (due to heat and functionality) I prefer to not consider it as an option, but thank you guys that suggested it!

Not a jailbreak solution, but... turn off SpotLight.

Go to Settings > General > Home > Search Results, and turn everything off.

This should result in a noticable speedup.


Is there a way to completely remove all data access, including WiFi, on iPhone 4? We want to give our teen a phone for talk and text only. She has to earn trust again before having access to anything online. We are upgrading and would like to hand down one of our old phones. Our plan is through Sprint if that makes a difference.

All iOS devices come with built-in "Restrictions" settings as a form of Parental Control. By enabling Restrictions, you can restrict access to certain functionality of the device, including web browsing and other capabilities.

To enable Restrictions:

Open "Settings"
Navigate to and tap "General"
Scroll down and tap "Restrictions"
Tap "Enable Restrictions" and enter a passcode. Make sure this is a passcode that only you and your partner will know. It will be used to deactivate restrictions once she has earned your trust, or to temporarily enable certain functionality.
Toggle off any functionality that you do not want your daughter to have access to (and toggle it back on if you want to incrementally allow her access again)
Browse through the extra settings and decide which you wish to restrict access to (Facebook and Twitter can come in useful here).
When you are done, simply tap out or close "Settings"

While this isn't a perfect solution, you will be able to prevent her from browsing the web, using FaceTime or installing any apps this way until she has redeemed herself.

To further restrict her, you can do as @Buscar has suggested above and contact Sprint to limit her cellular data access, and I would recommend either changing your WiFi password to something she can't guess (and thus input to connect when you aren't looking) or, even better, block the iPhone's MAC address from your WiFi router. You can find the MAC address in "Settings" -> "General" -> "About".

Doing all of the above will essentially limit her to simply phone calls and texts (she will be access any media such as music or photos loaded on to the device, however).


Where is X11's error log located in OSX Lion? I'm trying to run the Xmonad window manager in X11 on OSX lion, I load Xmonad at x11 startup, and X11 just crashes, sometimes it does not. I'm just wondering how I can view some kind of error log to ascertain why it is crashing.

Solution:

The log file I needed was system.log in /private/var/log/system.log

Thanks for the help

Fire up Terminal
cat /private/var/log/system.log

This will get up the System Log and let you see what is going on. You should be able to find the results you need in there.

If need be, pass that onto the grep command get it to find the strings you want.

cat /private/var/log/system.log | grep [string]

This will output the strings you requrie to the screen specifically.


How should I handle total freeze upon launching iPhone simulator? I updated Xcode (11.4.1) this afternoon and noticed the new iPhone SE 2 simulator option. Cool! My iOS app was running fine on my physical device and all simulator before this update, but now when I launch the simulator, it freezes my MBP (2019 16", Catalina 10.15.4) while attempting to run. I can still move the mouse, but nothing else responds, and I'm forced to do a hard reset. Anyone else having this issue? Any suggestions on how to approach fixing this? I don't particularly want to keep trying it, only to repeatedly force reset my Mac.

Turned out this was a pretty fundamental hardware issue related to the graphics card with new 16" MBP. Not sure how many machines are affected, but it's easy enough to find threads and forums with owners discussing this issue. I met with a Mac technician at an Apple store and fortunately, she had seen the issue and immediately agreed to replace the machine. The new machine they gave me has also had a handful of kernel panics, but of a different sort, and they seem to have stopped suddenly after a few days of use. Keeping Apple on speed dial though if more issues arise.


Fast external startup-disk for Macbook Air: SSD1 or Thunderbolt? I bought a MacBook Air 13.3″ i7 8 GB RAM 128 GB SSD (early 2014) some months ago and found out that the 128 GB are definitely not enough!

To somehow rectify my problem I though of buying a fast external HD, make it bootable and do everything from there (I need the space on my startup disk because of the big iTunes collection, at least 500 MB).

In order not to slow down the whole computer too much I’m not sure if I'd better buy an external SSD1 with USB3 or a Thunderbolt 1 disk (for some reasons there are no SSD1 with Thunderbolt). The transfer speed is faster on the Thunderbolt but there might be other problems involved with it, I don’t know, The original disk on the mac is a flash storage, so maybe SSD1 via USB3?

I add here two examples of these external HDs I’m talking about in order to make the comparison easier, maybe some of you might give me some good advice.

SSD1:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/portablessdt1/specifications.html

Thunderbolt:
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/portable-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/ministation-thunderbolt

My personal recommendation would be not to move the OS to external drive as you would have to carry it around just to make the computer run.

I recommend:

Move all the files that you only need slow access to but are GB-eating to iCloud or similar network location. (For example: iTunes Library, Photos, Movies…)
Get a Thunderbolt drive for applications that need speed. Thunderbolt drives are often faster then the internal SSD, the drawback is they would occupy your Thunderbolt port.

Use the About this Mac and take a look what I am talking about.

Also see http://www.cnet.com/topics/storage/best-hard-drives-and-storage/thunderbolt-drives/


Can I see how many times I reinstalled an app, after I delete it? After I deleted an application from my iPhone, is there a way to find how many times that application was deleted and reinstalled on my account?


iCloud Photo- How to save to the cloud but not share photos between devices I have 6 phones under the same Apple id.  I would like the photos on all phones to backup to the cloud, but not be shared between all devices.  How do I do that?

You can't do it permanently.

iCloud is a syncing system and not (primarily) a backup system.  It's main goal is to allow you to share your photos and documents between all devices signed-in with the same Apple ID.

You can either not sign-in to a device with the same Apple ID, create a new, different Apple ID for the device you don't want your photos (which create problems if you do want to share other documents), or not use iCloud for your photos.


Is there a way to clear update data from the Mac App Store? Recently I downloaded some updates from the Mac App Store including the macOS high Sierra update and a few other security and application updates. However, presumably because of a corrupted download, these applications fail their integrity checks and don't run on the system.

In addition, when I retry them, they begin downloading from some point midway. For example, the "iTunes + Remote Desktop Client + Safari + Security Patch 2018-001" for macOS Sierra, which measures 1.12 GB, always starts off downloading from the ~365MB point. After downloading again, the update fails.

Is there a way to clear the Mac App Store update data so that I can download everything afresh?

I'm on a MacBook Air 2017 edition, running macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

There certainly is.
I believe that I have worked out one of the best ways of going about such a task as I found myself having to do this frequently due to problems similar to those you are experiencing. I may just add that they stopped after the macOS High Sierra upgrade in September of 2017.
Go directly into the Mac AppStore's temporary files folder:

Quit the Mac AppStore completely (no updates running etc.)
Open Terminal and type: open $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/, hit the Return key.
A Finder window should have popped up with the files and folders in the "com.apple.appstore" location. Move (not copy) these to another folder (perhaps make one on the desktop) in case things go sideways, or (if you are confident), move them to the Trash right away.
Most importantly, do not delete or adjust any other files outside of this directory, when finished close the "com.apple.applestore" folder.
Relaunch the App Store.

Verification and several other download issues should be fixed with these steps and you may find that you are once again able to properly download and install the applications fully (i.e. not starting midway).
What next?
I would further suggest running one or two sweeps of CCleaner for Mac (a free, trusted software) with options to fine-tune specific types of files.

Open CCleaner

Go to Cleaner, select the Applications tab

Under Applications, check App Store
If CCleaner is run after completing clearing the AppStore temp files as described in the first set of steps, CCleaner will most likely remove any residual files and folders from the App Store that are only half downloaded or otherwise exhibit similar properties.
It just works!

For an additional read, this article explains my thinking behind the first suggestion, while this one may be a little more general.
Let me know how you make out or if there is anything you would like me to clarify. I'm always more than happy to do into further details.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to queue a selected song so that iTunes will play it next? Is there a keyboard shortcut to queue up a selected song to the "Up Next" playlist that was introduced in iTunes 11?

I like that new feature but having to alt-click or select from a panel isn't fast enough to queue up a few songs rapidly.

optionenter (shiftenter on Windows) will add the selected song to the Up Next list (in iTunes 11.0, this does not work in album view, but does in all other views). However, iTunes will always ask you if you want to clear the previous songs from the list, so an extra keystroke is needed.

There are one or two drawbacks to this method, firstly: It defaults to clear the previous songs so a simple enter will not suffice and a P keystroke is needed to add the song while keeping the existing list. Secondly: In addition the added song will default to the top of the 'Up Next' playlist as oppose to when you click to add a song (in this instance the added song will default to the bottom of the list).

I'm only running Windows so I can't say the same (or similar) is true for Macs.


Moving file between disks in Mac OS X? Is there any way so when I drag and drop a file from one disk(A) to another disk(B) the files are moved instead of copied? I have a mac book pro and a mac pro(old cool one) and when I drag and drop files they get copied instead of moved. So could I do some automate script or terminal command to enable move files from disk to disk instead of coping them?

On macOS Mojave 10.14:

To move files to a different disk: Press and hold the Command key, then drag the files to the disk.

To keep an item in its original location and put a copy in a folder: Press and hold the Option key, then drag the item to the folder.

In older macOS releases, you could press the option key to change the behaviour

move instead of copy between different volumes
copy instead of move on the same volume


Two monitors using Elgato dock and a thunderbolt device I'm using an Elgato Thunderbolt 2 Dock which has a second Thunderbolt port and a seperate HDMI port. I have an HDMI display connected to the HDMI port and a LaCie HDD connected to the second thunderbolt port.

On that LaCie HDD there is an LG ULTRAWIDE connected via MiniDisplayPort to DisplayPort.

If I only plug in the HDMI device it works. If I only connect the DisplayPort-Device to the LaCie HDD it works. If I connect both displays only the one connected first will work but whenever I connect one of the displays the MacBook goes black for a moment and comes back with only one monitor recognized.

The Elgato homepage states that there needs to be another Thunderbolt device between the dock and the DisplayPort Monitor but my LaCie IS that device.

Why don't I get a signal on the second monitor?

MacBook Pro Mid-2012
OS X 10.9.5

Connection Diagram:
MBP => Elgato Dock (with HDMI connected) => LaCie HDD => DisplayPort Monitor

This is a really interesting question that gets to the heart of how display signals travel over Thunderbolt.

Your mac is capable of driving two "Thunderbolt displays". The special thing about the thunderbolt display is that it is capable of "pulling" the display signal out of the thunderbolt signal. This specifically is called "demuxing" (de-multiplexing). So technically, thunderbolt is capable of carrying two multiplexed display signals.

In contrast, when you use a displayport adapter on a thunderbolt chain, the bus driving that port from your mac is only capable of sending that one display signal since it is not being multiplexed on the wire.

The Elgato dock (or OWC dock) is capable of doing the same thing as a thunderbolt display, in that it is demuxing a display signal from the thunderbolt wire to provide an HDMI port. If you are using the HDMI port, you can't plug a displayport display into the other end of the thunderbolt chain -- there is no component to demux the other display signal. You COULD use a thunderbolt display in this position.

But, you have one other option! If you buy a SECOND Elgato device and add it to the thunderbolt chain, you now have a component to demux a second display signal to another HDMI port. Then you can use the two HDMI ports to drive whatever displays you want!


Is it possible to send mail using Command + Enter in Mail? I can't think of any reason why Command ⌘ + Enter ↩ would not send a mail draft, instead of the current shortcut, which is Command ⌘ + Shift ⇧ + D Is there a way to change this?

You can look at this answer and apply accordingly to your case.

TL;DR version:


Add a new user with a specific uid and gid We have a mixed mac and linux environment at work, to make life easy we use the same uid, gid for each user both on the mac and linux side (I believe this is a standard practice).

The problem is, when you add a new user on a mac, there is no way to set the uid and gid "while" you are creating it, so you need to add the user then set the uid/gid and then go and execute a few find ... -exec ...{} ... commands to change the owner and permissions on the home directory for the user that you already made,

Is there a better solution for this?

One solution would be to write a simple script to do the whole job at once.

dscl . -create /Users/ali UniqueID 549 PrimaryGroupID 320 RealName "Ali Moeeny"

Or something like that.


Fixing two user groups with the same ID Suddenly, my home directory is in the group messagebus instead of the usual staff.(I blame texlive for this, but have no evidence.)

The problem is that both groups have the same ID:

$ dscl . -read /Groups/staff
AppleMetaNodeLocation: /Local/Default
GeneratedUID: ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEF00000014
GroupMembers: FFFFEEEE-DDDD-CCCC-BBBB-AAAA00000000
GroupMembership: root
Password: *
PrimaryGroupID: 20
RealName: Staff
RecordName: staff BUILTIN\Users
RecordType: dsRecTypeStandard:Groups
SMBSID: S-1-5-32-545

$ dscl . -read /Groups/messagebus
AppleMetaNodeLocation: /Local/Default
GeneratedUID: CF898A47-EA83-4E18-AE17-C05E56FBC550
Password: *
PrimaryGroupID: 20
RealName: messagebus
RecordName: messagebus
RecordType: dsRecTypeStandard:Groups

What is the safe way to get rid of the messagebus group (or give it a different ID)?
“Safe” here meaning of course that I don't damage my staffgroup.

Use the find command (and save the output listing. This may take a while)

find / -group messagebus -print

to ensure that ownership for files can be corrected later with a chgrp command.

The following be used

dscl . -change /Groups/messagebus PrimaryGroupID 20 10000


Can I connect my Mid 2011 Mac to a second monitor? How can I connect my mid 2011 iMac to a second monitor to extend my screen? The monitor is an HP L1950. The ports my mac has can be seen here:

Your iMac has a Thunderbolt 2 connector which also acts as a Mini DisplayPort.
Since your Monitor supports (15-Pin D-Sub) VGA or DVI-D you either need a Mini-DisplayPort to VGA or to DVI-D cable. I would recommend getting a DVI-D (e.g from Amazon, your local store might have one of the mentioned options as well), since it is the newer and slightly better standard, though VGA is (for old) equipment more common.

In general though, this is old Hardware and HDMI is more or less standard now.


iPhone 6 iOS 9.3.2 – How to change date years back? There are several recommendations to set back the date in order to delete some photos, but I can't find a way to do that.

Settings > General > Date & Time
Switch off Set Automatically, then tap on the date underneath.

You get a standard date/time scroller.


Run a command before launching an app I have a particular app that uses its own Ad Library aside from iAd. If I remove the correct folder prior to launching the app, No ads will be shown during that session. However, upon closing and relaunching the app, the folder is recreated and ads are shown. Trying to restrict access to the folder causes the app to crash upon launch. As such, my question is this:

Can I make my jailbroken iOS device run a command (in this case, rm -rf bla/bla/bla) and then launch an app, all from the touch of a homescreen icon?

You can replace the binary of the app with a .sh script. Pretend your app's binary is named App; rename it to something else like App.real, and then make an .sh script that's simply called App. Not App.sh, just App without any extension. Put your command in the .sh script, and then on the last line of the script, call ./App.real.

Edit: I tested this, but I never seemed to be able to make it do what I wanted. Maybe someone else can figure it out.


Missing "Use as Defaults" box in "Show View Options" I am trying to change the default size of my icons and their grid spacing as was asked in this question. For whatever reason, my Mac does not have a Use as Defaults box in Show View Options. Do you have any idea why it doesn't or what, if anything, I can do to make it so it does?

I checked the answer given to this similar question, but believe I am already in the correct view, as evidenced below. Any ideas on how I can fix this?

All My Files isn't a folder, it's a special view in Finder. Navigate to a real folder such as your Documents folder and the View Options window will show a Use as Defaults button then.


There's a hidden file with extension .padl in my home directory and I don't know what it's for I saw that someone else asked the same question at superuser: https://superuser.com/questions/1008170/whats-the-498731-padl-file-for but there was no helpful answer so I'm trying here hoping to have more luck.

Like my tag implies, I am not on Windows. I don't share directories over LDAP either.

Edit: Inspecting the file with plutil -p gives the following output:

{
  "$archiver" => "NSKeyedArchiver"
  "$objects" => [
    0 => "$null"
    1 => {
      "$class" => <CFKeyedArchiverUID 0x7febc05086e0 [0x7fff9011eb60]>{value = 4}
      "NS.keys" => [
        0 => <CFKeyedArchiverUID 0x7febc05085e0 [0x7fff9011eb60]>{value = 2}
      ]
      "NS.objects" => [
        0 => <CFKeyedArchiverUID 0x7febc0508680 [0x7fff9011eb60]>{value = 3}
      ]
    }
    2 => "PaddleT"
    3 => 1563322503.507701
    4 => {
      "$classes" => [
        0 => "NSDictionary"
        1 => "NSObject"
      ]
      "$classname" => "NSDictionary"
    }
  ]
  "$top" => {
    "root" => <CFKeyedArchiverUID 0x7febc05089c0 [0x7fff9011eb60]>{value = 1}
  }
  "$version" => 100000
}

Like any hidden files, it’s quite safe to do the following since if you don’t know what it does, the chance even a well intentioned person on the internet knows your setup or needs better than you are low. Better to be safe and free to experiment is my motto.

Make a second admin account (assuming you only have this one account). Log out of the current account and be sure you can log in as the new account and restart.
Back up the file (if you want)
Delete the file

Now you have a line in the sand, escape plan and will know if the file is recreated again the exact date/time it came into existence. What you’re seeing here is a data dump of ObjectiveC data from a program or script.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25397048/extract-cfkeyedarchiveruid-value#27338814


How to reset macOS v10.15 (Catalina) with apps that come from the store before I sell it I already tried Cmd + R. Then I went to Disk Utility to delete Macintosh[HD] and Macintosh data. Finally, I exited Disk Utility and with the Wi-Fi connection reinstalled macOS v10.15 (Catalina).

But I don't find the programs like iMovie, Garageband, Pages, and Keynote, that appeared when I first turned on the Mac. How can I get them back?

They belong to the owner of the Apple ID, so will be available to re-download once that ID is signed in. If you are wiping this to sell, then the new owner will be responsible for setting it up.

You shouldn't try to do it for them, or all the apps will again belong to your ID, not theirs.

See Apple KB - What to do before you sell, give away or trade in your Mac


Crawl computer for node_modules, add .nosync file Per https://medium.com/@isaiah.taylor/how-to-maintain-node-projects-with-icloud-drive-4c6549f7c806, I can prevent node_modules folders from syncing via iCloud Drive.

Trouble is: there's often a lot of node_modules folders. A lot, a lot. And I often forget before I start copying.

Questions
(1) Is there a way to crawl through my hard drive, find node_modules folders and add a .nosync file?

(2) Is there a way to keep this crawling going in the background? So that this crawling would happen for any new folders? Wonder if this is a Hammerspoon kind of thing maybe?

You can run the following to create a .nosync file in each node_modules folder
find ~ -type d -name node_modules -exec touch {}/.nosync \;

This will look through everything in your home directory. You can limit it to the Desktop folder by replacing ~ with ~/Desktop.
To have the command run regularly you can create a crontab entry:

Run EDITOR=nano crontab -e to start editing. If you haven't created another entry before the file will be empty
Add
0 * * * * find $HOME -type d -name node_modules -exec touch {}/.nosync \;

to have it run every full hour, or
0 */3 * * * find $HOME -type d -name node_modules -exec touch {}/.nosync \;

to run it every three hours
Type Ctrl-X and answer "Y" on the save prompt


Dock icons not showing correct application icon Randomly my dock icons will show the default application icon. Sometimes they return again. I have previously reset the dock and deleted the .plist, which temporarily corrects the problem, but it returns soon enough. Removing and adding the app to the dock again also restores the icon, until the next time. It's tiresome to do this all the time, obviously.

The apps usually affected are the default Mac OS ones. The above screenshot shows my current situation: Mail, Safari, Reminders, iTunes and Terminal are not showing their icons.
I didn't find much on Google by way of people complaining about similar behaviour. Is anyone else suffering, and can anyone suggest a more "permanent" solution?
Thanks in advance.

My most recent attempt seems to have worked, or at least several weeks have passed without the issue repeating, which it previously did within hours, or days at best.

Try these steps:

Reset PRAM and VRAM
Reset SMC
Restart in Safe Mode
Restart normally
Issue fixed? If not, go back to Step #3.

The restarting in Safe Mode is the key here. Resetting PRAM and VRAM is not enough; I had tried that previously multiple times, along with deleting various preference files and caches from ~/Library/ApplicationSupport etc. It didn't work. You may even need to repeat the Safe Mode boot more than once, but ultimately Safe Mode will hopefully sort you out if you are facing the same issue.


iMessage to Android phones over WiFi What free WiFi app can I download onto my iPhone 7 so I can text Android phones and call them using iMessage over WiFi with no cell phone service? For can someone tell me how to do be able to call and text Android phones using iMessage

iMessage is Apple’s proprietary messaging service. There is no other cross-platform app that supports it. iMessage does not support calling as it is only a text messaging service. It provides its own peer-to-peer messaging that is available only to users of macOS, iOS (and by extension to watchOS). It also supports SMS for communication with non-Apple devices. Cellular calls can made using the iPhone’s phone app and calls to Macs and other iOS devices can be made with FaceTime app. iMessage is integrated with both, but does not do the actual calling.

If you have no cellular service, it is not possible to contact an Android device with iMessage, as it can only contact Android devices using SMS. (iMessage can text and call iOS devices with just Wi-Fi however).

You could choose other services that are available on both iOS and Android such as WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, or Google Allo. Generally, both devices must have the same app installed for communication between them.


Lost first backups - time machine I seem to have lost my first backups, they disappeared from time machine!....
Is there a way to get back to them?

I think your first backups are most probably auto purged by Time Machine.

Time Machine automatically remove oldest backups when your backup disk is full. And Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups until your backup drive is full.

Therefore there's no guarantee that your first backup(s) will be preserved.

You may try data recovery softwares on the Time Machine drive, but quite likely it won't help as Time Machine make new backup hourly and overwritten the old data.


Driving down the road and GPS works on iPod? I was riding in the car today and the as I was traveling home, decided to pull up maps on the iPod.  I know that GPS isn't used by iPod and uses wifi to triangulate it's position.  However I wasn't connected to any wifi as I was traveling through town and my iPod kept up with my position?  How?

I'm guessing, since I couldn't find any confirmation, but the iPods use the Skyhook network, which is basically a big database of wifi access points and their approximate location. Since you wouldn't have been connected to a network, (here's the guess) the geolocation service must've cached some amount of the database for your general area.


Multiple "copies" of audiobooks in iTunes I am using iTunes on Windows 10.

There are multiple "copies" (air quotes) of most (not all) audiobooks in iTunes. I used air quotes because when I search the PC for the books, there are only single instances.

Another post (Why does iTunes create multiple exact copies of my music files and hide them from view in Finder?) asked a similar question about music files. The answer for that post alluded to a playlist problem.

But (a) I do NOT have any playlists for my audiobooks, and (b) that post is old, dating to Sept. 2012. I am running version 12.7.2.

When I select a copy of a book and drag it to my iphone, I can see that the copies are numbered 1, 2, 3, ...

When I try to delete any one of those copies, then all copies are deleted.

What can I do clean up the lists so that I only see one copy of the book?

Through trial and error, found the source of the problem and a solution that consistently works for me. Explanation and screenshot follows.

Source of the Problem

The Sorting tab has three groups you can sort on: title, chapter, author. If the text in the specific field is disabled, then there will be duplicate copies of a given audiobook.

Note: The words "disabled" (for gray text) and "enabled" (for black text) in this context are my own and may or may not be the same terms used by Apple devos.

Solution

Simply retype the disabled (gray) text.

The screenshot shows an example where the "chapter" field was disabled. When I retyped "Mixed," the text changed to black. Clicked OK, and the duplicate audiobooks disappeared.

The same solution worked for me when title or author were disabled. Note that the "sort as" field is ok in gray.


Great Apple (first and third-party) accessories or peripherals List your favorite accessory (or peripheral) for your Apple hardware.

Rules

Limit to one accessory per answer.
Add a short description for the accessory.
Add a link to the website in the name of the accessory if possible .
Use ## accessoryName (price) for citing the accessory name.
Check for dupes.

Only Mac OS X and iOS compatible accessories.

Some people don't like these questions. If you are one of them please look the other way. These types of questions have been successful in the past.

Smart Cover
Apple's Smart Cover for iPad 2 ($39 for Polyurethane, $69 for leather)

The Smart Cover and iPad 2 were made for each other. Literally. Built-in magnets draw the Smart Cover to iPad for a perfect fit that not only protects, but also wakes up, stands up, and brightens up your iPad. That’s not just smart. It’s genius.


Should I have turned off Legacy FileVault before using FileVault 2 on Lion? I've been happily using Legacy FileVault on my Macbook since I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion. Today, I decided to switch to FileVault 2 and went ahead and clicked the "Turn On FileVault" button. Everything progressed as described in the Apple OS X Lion: About FileVault 2 support document.

However, I didn't turn off Legacy FileVault before doing this and was never prompted to do so by the FileVault 2 process.

Having let the process complete, all seems well. However, Legacy FileVault is still enabled for my home folder as confirmed by the fact that its still turned on in System Preferences ➔ Security and its also still pointing to /Users/.binarybob/binarybob.sparsebundle. I'm assuming there's now a double-encryption in effect for both the entire disk and also my home folder.

So, is it safe to turn off Legacy FileVault now?

You are correct with your assumption that there is a "double-encryption" occurring. This of course has the result of causing a lot of drive thrashing to occur. Having previously had to fix numerous corrupt FileVaults, I would first back up the sparsebundle. Once that is complete, I would then disable Legacy FileVault.

Ultimately, the only real reason to maintain this setup is if there is reason to suspect there are others who possess login credentials (especially admin credentials) and are capable of mischievous behavior. Even under that scenario, my recommendation would be to encrypt the files which need to be kept secret using TrueCrypt and disable Legacy FileVault.


MacBook Air keeps crashing due to memory problem After I installed the new macOS Catalina update, every time I finish working on a project on Eclipse, my Macbook Air crashes. The message I get after it restarts is that it is a memory problem. If I restart my Mac after using eclipse it works fine. Is there a way I can clear the memory or downgrade the OS without wiping my data? The solutions I have seen so far weren't helpful.

"sfree on invalid allocation at 0xffffff80334f36b0"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/

* Panic Report *

  panic(cpu 4 caller 0xffffff800b29d6ed): "a freed zone element has been modified in zone kalloc.16: expected 0xc0ffee9ce1a653e1 but found 0, bits changed 0xc0ffee9ce1a653e1, at offset 0 of 16 in element 0xffffff8058162cf0, cookies 0x3f00111cbfb07c00 0x53521385e1ae743"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-4570 .41.2/osfmk/kern/zalloc.c:1120

Perhaps you should upgrade to a later version of Eclipse. It may be a legitimate issue that they haven't fixed yet.


How to share entire address book? Only after setting up my girlfriend's and my own Lion user account to sync with iCloud did I discover that the address book still doesn't lend itself to sharing in the way that calendar does :-(

We currently use a single iTunes library on my user account for syncing both of our iPhones to a single address book, where all her contacts are in a folder called "girlfriend's contacts". This allows us to share our contacts but still (in a way) keep them separate.

What I'd like is for her to keep all of her contacts in her own, separate address book in her existing user account on my computer. We would then share our address books with one another (read-only or not).

Is there a work-around using iCloud or any other service? I guess we could continue syncing our contacts in the old way via my iTunes library (effectively mirroring our combined contacts in two separate iCloud accounts), but that's not very elegant...

You can set up multiple different iCloud accounts in the "Mail, Contacts, and Calendars" preference panel, and also on your iPhone and iPads.

I have accomplished a shared address book with my partner by each of us having a primary iCloud account (me@us.com, her@us.com) - and then a shared iCould account us@us.com.

One annoying downside is that the Lion Address Book app labels both address books as "iCloud" making it a bit hard to distinguish what contacts are where.  We solve this by having different contact lists in each address book, so they are distinct.

It seems with just a little bit of work Apple could make this MUCH better, but this is the best solution I have seen so far.


Getting Perl DBD::mysql working on OS X 10.7? I can't seem to get Perl & MySQL to talk to each other on OS X 10.7 Lion.

I did all the installs by the book, I used Oracle's PKG installer for the latest MySQL Community Server, and I installed DBI and DBD::mysql via CPAN. There were not problems at all during the install, but, when I try to USE DBD::mysql to connect to my local DB server I get the following error:

install_driver(mysql) failed: Can't load '/Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.bundle' for module DBD::mysql: dlopen(/Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.bundle, 1): Library not loaded: /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.16.dylib
  Referenced from: /Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.bundle
  Reason: image not found at /System/Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level/DynaLoader.pm line 204.
 at (eval 3) line 3
Compilation failed in require at (eval 3) line 3.
Perhaps a required shared library or dll isn't installed where expected

After a lot of googling all I could find were suggested hacks, so I gave this one a go: http://arkoftech.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/fixing-dbdmysql-for-mysql-5-5-89-under-macos-10-6-x/

I had to update some of the paths in the instructions since on Lion it's Perl 5.12 not 5.10.

After doing that I got a new error:

dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found: _mysql_init
  Referenced from: /Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.bundle
  Expected in: flat namespace

dyld: Symbol not found: _mysql_init
  Referenced from: /Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.bundle
  Expected in: flat namespace

Trace/BPT trap: 5

There must be a simple way to get MySQL & Perl working on OS X? - HELP!

After quite a bit of frustration, I eventually found a simple solution that works.

The salient details are that you need to update the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH to include /usr/local/mysql/lib. The easiest way of doing that is to add the following to your ~/.bashrc file:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/mysql/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"

I went into a little more detail in a blog post here: http://www.bartbusschots.ie/blog/?p=2186


Shut down system without superuser permission The following command causes an immediate system sleep

pmset sleepnow

Trying to shutdown system with pmset

$ pmset shutdown
Usage: pmset <options>
See pmset(1) for details: 'man pmset'

Experiment with shutdown command

$ shutdown -h now
shutdown: NOT super-user
$ sudo shutdown -h now
Password:

So each time to shutdown system, I should enter a password to use the superuser.

Could it be possible to shut down with ‘pmset’?

Using pmset or any system tools to perform shutdown requires sudo.

You can ask macOS to shut down from the user's account by telling System Events using AppleScript. You can run AppleScript from the command line by using osascript.

osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to shut down'

This will fail if another user is logged in since this always requires authentication, matching what occurs if the user chooses Shut Down from the Apple menu.

For commands to perform other power-related actions, see

Using The Terminal Command to Shutdown, Restart and Sleep My Mac?


Cydia on refurbished iPhone 3 I bought a refurbished iPhone that has the Cydia icon on it. Does that mean it is already jailbroken? If so, can I just go ahead and use the apps? Do I have to jailbreak to use it?
Also the iPhone is used on my Tmobile provider and I was told not to update the iOS on iTunes or it will get locked to ATT and I will not be able to use it.

It certainly sounds like it's been jailbroken, and unlocked with one of the tools rather than by authorised means.

If Cydia works, then it's been jailbroken and there's nothing you need to do.

The downside is that if you're not aware of the unlocking tools, or how to jailbreak in the first place, you either need to start researching these, or avoid doing any official software updates.

There are a great many sites which have guides, some good some bad, and some downright dangerous. I'd recommend http://osxdaily.com and http://blog.iphone-dev.org as the most reliable of sources. The former being a site which reports on developments, and the latter being the people who release most of the tools.


Lost ability to choose 3440x1440 resolution after Yosemite upgrade I have an LG 34UM95 connected via TB on a Late 2012 mac mini.

After the Yosemite install, I no longer have the option of choosing 3440x1440 resolution in the Displays preferences.  It worked just fine prior to the upgrade.

I did do the Option->Scaled bit to see the extended list of  choices, but nothing higher than 2560x1080 shows up.

Can I get my 3440x1440 resolution back?

EDIT: my colorsync profile...

EDIT 2
I just upgraded from 10.10 to 10.10.2.  Resolution stayed the same! Woot!!  So, either the new update fixed the issue, or it  didn't touch the graphics extension.

A bit of a late answer, but this issue is now fixed in Yosemite 10.10.2 - full 3440x1400 (on a macbook air you have to close the lid of your laptop, but it works without hacks!)


Git clone fails with "fatal: multiple updates for ref 'refs/tags/v1.0.0' not allowed" on MacOS Mojave I did a lot of operations on my computer last night, basically updating/upgrading(?) brew, which installed a new git version, updated python, lots of stuff and today I figured I couldn't clone a repository anymore.

git clone git@github.com:UnlyEd/serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups.git
Cloning into 'serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 589, done.
remote: Total 589 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 589
Receiving objects: 100% (589/589), 304.18 KiB | 862.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (333/333), done.
fatal: multiple updates for ref 'refs/tags/v1.0.0' not allowed

I tried different repo, I get the same error every time, so it's my installation that is broken somehow.

I tried uninstalling/reinstalling git (with brew) but it didn't change anything.

I checked other git commands and I'm still able to pull/commit

I'm using git 2.21.0

I don't really know what to do to fix it and I don't know what caused this. Also, I don't use the git clone command on a daily basis so it could have broken before, but I feel like it's related to upgrading homebrew.

Adding more details based on comments/questions:

type git
git is an alias for LANG=en_GB git

mkdir ~/gitclone && cd ~/gitclone && git clone git@github.com:UnlyEd/serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups.git
Cloning into 'serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 589, done.
remote: Total 589 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 589
Receiving objects: 100% (589/589), 304.18 KiB | 828.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (333/333), done.
fatal: multiple updates for ref 'refs/tags/v1.0.0' not allowed

Do you have a custom .gitconfig? I had to remove the following parameter from mine in order for cloning to work again:

[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

git v2.21.0 was released a few days ago, so perhaps something changed under the hood. I need to go check out the release notes.

Anyways, hope this helps!

Adding a bit more background context, this line was very common to fetch the tags by default. It allowed to do git fetch which would also do a git fetch --tags equivalent under the hood.

Basically, if you want to fetch tags when you do a git fetch with this v2.21 git version, you can create an alias in your .gitconfig as follow:

[alias]
    fetch = git fetch --tags

Doing this and removing the fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* will result in the same behaviour, but compatible with git v2.21

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1204190/does-git-fetch-tags-include-git-fetch/20608181#20608181 for in-depth explanation and history changes.


Managed Software Center - update not updating I have a Brother printer (model: Brother MFC-J475DW) which works fine. However, I keep getting a pop-up from "Managed Software Center" (pictured below).
I press "Update" and it says it's "Finishing..." but it just goes back to the same screen.
Is there any way to block this window from appearing? Currently, I just keep it minimized.

Managed Software Center would only be installed if this is your work computer. A lot of organisations would have things set up so you can only install updates when you are either at your workplace, or connected to their network via VPN.


Loading packages into Julia does not work I installed Julia 1.0 on my iMac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6. I installed Julia and when I double click on it in my Applications folder, I get the expected screen shown below.

But now that it's loaded it doesn't respond to commands as expected. In the instructions to set up Julia, I was instructed to load IJulia using the command Pkg.add("IJulia"). When I type this command I get the following message:

ERROR: UndefVarError: Pkg not defined

Stacktrace:
 [1] top-level scope at none:0

I've tried other commands to add packages and I get same error messages. Does anyone know why I can not load packages into Julia?

Pkg.add not working #627

  You need import Pkg first. Or use the repl mode with ] and then add IJulia.

Running import Pkg should resolve the issue.


Auto configuration of mail/calendar/contacts? First day when I launched my Mac mini (OS X Lion) and started to use Safari - at some point it asked me (during the login procedure to the Gmail account) if I want to auto configure mail/calendar/contacts for this gmail account.

I think that I clicked "no".

I am curious about this feature and I would like to use it (detection of Gmail by Safari? I don't know what to call it) but I am not able to get it back to work.

This feature basically adds an account to your system (in this case a Gmail Account). It is the equivalent of opening System Preferences > Mail, Contacts & Calendars and adding said account there.

(On the screenshot I have only one account added: iCloud, but you can add as many as you want, from whichever services listed. Also note, I'm using Mountain Lion, which added support for more sites like Twitter and Vimeo).

Safari offers to auto add your accounts whenever you sign in for the first time, as I'm guessing many users don't know this preference pane is available.

Basically what adding an account will do is allow you to sync your information to the apps on your Mac. In this case, your Gmail emails would be downloaded automatically by Mail, your Google Calendar would be synced to iCal and you will be able to use Google Talk with iChat, if so you choose.

If you click "no" on the dialog box, it wont re-appear (as to not annoy users every time they want to log in) but there is nothing special about the dialog itself, it just saves you opening System Preferences and adding the accounts yourself.

Hope it helps!


Monitor with MacBook Pro Retina I'm planning to buy a Samsung Monitor. If I'm planning to play games on it, will it decrease my fps? Also, can I run window games on the monitor?

When playing games, there are two things which determine your "real" fps, i.e., the number of unique or distinct frames you actually see.

Firstly, the monitor has a built in "refresh rate," which is the fastest speed at which the pixels may change color. The refresh rate never changes, no matter what your computer is doing. For most monitors this is 60hz, although high end "gaming" monitors may have refresh rates as high as 144Hz.

The second thing you have to consider, is how many FPS your computer is able to send to the monitor. This is determined by your graphics card (GPU), CPU, RAM, and Hard Drive in that order. Depending on how demanding the game is, the number of FPS your computer will send to the monitor will change. The more demanding the game the less FPS. For example Battlefield 1 and Ashes of the Singularity are very demanding games, Overwatch is semi demanding, and angry birds or candy crush, are not demanding. Macs tend to have very weak GPUs

The number of FPS you actually see is whichever is less, the Refresh Rate, or the FPS output by the computer. For example, if your monitor is 60Hz, but your computer is only outputting 25FPS, you only really get 25FPS.

Finally, the monitor only displays the images your computer sends to it. So in a sense, you can't play any games "on it." However, if you connect a windows computer to the Samsung monitor, or install a Windows partition on your Mac via Bootcamp and connect it to the monitor, then you can view your Windows games on the monitor.


How do I prevent Terminal.app from capturing Cmd/Ctrl/L? Following the instructions at http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/handy-screen-locking-tips-for-mac/ I've set up a keyboard shortcut to lock my screen by hitting  Cmd ⌘   Ctrl ⌃   L  . It works when the active window is Finder, or Notes, or Thunderbird, or ... well, most stuff.

There are a few applications where it doesn't though, Terminal being the most annoying. Terminal seems to capture it and treat it as ... well, I'm not sure what. It's not treating it the same as  Ctrl ⌃   L , or the same as  Cmd ⌘   L .

It also happens in Chrome, although only on some pages - this 'ere page being one of them.

It worked just fine before I upgraded to El Capitan.

Any suggestions for how to fix this?

The trick, really, is to avoid common key-commands - which is why the article you refer to uses  Ctrl ⌃   Opt ⌥   L , as no OS X command would normally use only  Ctrl ⌃  &  Opt ⌥  - they would always add  Cmd ⌘  too, leaving you free to use  Ctrl ⌃   Opt ⌥  for anything you like.

If you insist on using  Cmd ⌘   Ctrl ⌃   L  then you would have to add, for each application that already uses it, a new custom command so it will no longer trigger in preference to your own.

For example, for Terminal, where  Cmd ⌘   Ctrl ⌃   L  is Clear Screen

you would need to replace that in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts

and add a different, non-conflicting shortcut.


How can I forward email as nice readable attachment? I'm writing a new email, and in that email I'm referring to a couple of other emails. In Outlook or Thunderbird I used to just drag and drop mails to my new mail and they appeared as attachments.

In OS X Mail, some icon appears in the mail but when I double click on it, it shows plain text with headers, and not a nice HTML mail.

How can I attach it properly?

OS X 10.9, Mail 7.0 (1816)

Use Mail -> Message -> Forward as Attachment to send the selected mail messages on as an attachment.


What is the way to copy text from Windows to iOS and vice-versa? What is the way to copy text from Windows to iOS and vice-versa without using iTunes?

Dropbox, Box, email, email attachment, or one of the hundreds of other cloud services.


What is the difference between add to library and add to playlist? On my iPod Touch I can add an album to my library or to my playlist. What is the difference? The iPod also asked if tracks I add to a playlist should be added to my library. What does this mean?

Your library is all the media you own or have access to.  A playlist is just a group of media that you put together in a custom order; a subset of all that media.  The songs in a playlist don't necessarily have to be in your library (i.e. songs you access on Apple Music)

When you play songs on shuffle, the iPod will skip any songs that are in a playlist but not included in your library.

Apple explains it like this:

  With Apple Music, when you add a song to a playlist from the Apple Music catalog, you can turn off the option for it to automatically add to your Library. For example, if you create a playlist for holiday music, you can add songs to that playlist without the chance that they'll play when you listen to your Library on shuffle in July.

  After you update to the latest software on all of your devices (iOS 9.3 or later, iTunes 12.3.3 or later, tvOS 9.2 or later, and Apple Music 0.9.7 or later on Android), when you try to add a song from the Apple Music catalog to your Library, you'll see a message that asks if you want to add the song to your Library or only to a playlist.

  You can change the setting to add songs to your Library at any time. When you change this setting on one device, the change applies to all other devices on which you're signed in with the same Apple ID.

  Go to Settings > Music.
  Turn off Add Playlist Songs.


Overlaying/combining screenshots I have sets of MacBook screenshots with essentially one changing element that I want to combine/overlay on top of one another to create ONE image (not combine into one PDF with multiple pages or stitch images together like a panorama).
I've searched and only found solutions using Photoshop and Lightroom Enfuse (don't have either).

Any suggestions?

Image editing software is the only way to go here. You'll have to determine which you want to use if you want us to be able to help you out how to do it. If it's a usual window, the easy route would be to only screenshot that window (cmd+shift+4, then hit the space bar and click the window). That will be easy to fill in.


How can I export Aperture projects to folders that are named according to library project names? I want to upload an Aperture library to a FTP/SFTP server for use with Zenphoto. Since Aperture doesn't have it built in, and since uberupload doesn't appear to exist any longer, I figured it would be fairly straightforward -- install sshfs and Fuse4X, export the Aperture library to a folder, and then drag the folder into the SSH mount.

The problem is, it appears that Aperture doesn't have a built-in function to export a library to a folder (i.e. if the library contains the projects "Hiking" "Biking" and "Fishing", there should be three folders created with the respective names and all the photos should be dumped in each). But apparently, you can only export a project to a .aplibrary file. Granted, this is really just a folder, and you can find the folders inside, but I'd have to manually rename every folder -- not optimal, since there are a ton of projects.

Short of writing an AppleScript (which I'm somewhat resigned to doing), is there any solution? Literally all I need to do is to export the library to a folder structure.

Found the solution: just go into the Photos sidebar item and export from there. All the projects will be put in their appropriate folders.


How to make Alt+delete delete word in Mac Powerpoint? Unlike just about every other Mac Program, Alt+delete does not delete the preceding word in Mac Powerpoint 2011. I find this unnecessary inconsistency very annoying.

Is there any way of making Alt+Delete delete a word in Mac Powerpoint?

Using KeyRemap4MacBook, you could add this to private.xml:

<item>
<name>Powerpoint</name>
<identifier>private.powerpoint</identifier>
<only>POWERPOINT</only>
<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::DELETE, VK_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::DELETE</autogen>
</item>

Further details:

Open KeyRemap4MacBook - Mis & Uninstall - Open private.xml
Edit private.xml and Add the above snippet between <root> and </root>
Go to the change key tab in the KeyRemap4MacBook and press ReloadXML
Then select the "Powerpoint" box under remapping


MacBook Pro USB Ports Only Work With External Hard Drive I have a 2012 Macbook Pro. In January 2014 (9 months ago), both USB ports stopped functioning--except that both still recognize my Seagate Backup Plus portable drive. I have continued to back up my computer, and have successfully used the time machine function over this time period.

However, the USB ports will recognize nothing else that I have found. Devices do recognize the computer (i.e. the USB drive and my graphics tablet will light up when plugged in, but never seem to get a computer response).

I have reset the PRAM and the SMC. I have reinstalled the OS, and have restarted the computer many many times. Under the hardware portion of the System Update, both USB ports are visible (and show the external drive when it is connected). When I went to the apple store, they said I needed an expensive new logic board. But that is what I have been told every time I have taken a computer to the apple store and then I usually find a solution on my own.

Console report:

10/20/14 6:05:30.000 PM kernel[0]: USBF: 3171.995 The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in. It will keep retrying. (Port 1 of Hub at 0x14000000)
10/20/14 6:05:30.000 PM kernel[0]: USBF: 3172.296 The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device.

0/20/14 6:05:31.000 PM kernel[0]: USBF: 3173.306 The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in. It will keep retrying. (Port 1 of Hub at 0x14000000)
10/20/14 6:05:31.000 PM kernel[0]: USBF: 3173.306 The IOUSBFamily gave up enumerating a USB device after 10 retries. (Port 1 of Hub at 0x14000000) 10/20/14 6:05:31.000 PM kernel[0]: USBF: 3173.306 The IOUSBFamily was not able to enumerate a device.

And with Seagate drive:

10/20/14 6:05:37.000 PM kernel[0]: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 0x00000000 0xbc2 0xa013 0x100, 3
10/20/14 6:05:44.000 PM kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Seagate Backup Plus Drive on device disk3s3

Any suggestions or thoughts would be a thousand times appreciated, as I'm a poor student trying to get by without getting a new computer so soon. Thanks!

It's been super long since this has been attended, but I had an issue where my USB mouse would disconnect and then reconnect rapidly during tasking gaming operation or when I moved the mouse rapidly. I reset my nvram by shutting down and holding command altPR upon the sounding of the Mac on sound until it played a second time. So far has worked.


Is there any way to disable the tone when changing the volume on Mac On my MacBook Pro, when I hit the F11 or F12 to change the volume, a tone is played I presume to preview the volume.

That tone can be rather intrusive when watching a movie or listening to music.
You can hold the shift key down to surpress that tone.
But is there any way to just disable it permanently?

Yes. If you open System Preferences (found in /Applications/Utilities, or select it from the  Menu) and choose the Sound pane, there is a checkbox at the bottom of the Sound Effects tab which controls the default behavior (content edited out of image). The shift key overrides this, so if you uncheck the box holding shift will play the sound instead.


MXL USB Mic on an iPad 2? I am considering getting an iPad 2 because of the support for inputting an electric guitar in via an Apogee JAM device. However, part of my bigger picture is to take an MXL .009 USB Condensor Mic into the Garageband app. But I just read that the iPad 2 does not have a USB port on it.

Is there a way to take the audio from a MXL .009 USB mic into the iPad 2 similar to the way the Apogee jam works via the dock connection?

My concern would be if the MXL USB mic expects to draw electrical power through the USB port. In that case the iPad 2 and the iPad Camera Connector Kit certainly would not provide enough power for the microphone. You should go to the MXL web site and check their support information.

The Alesis IO Dock Pro, US$200.00, provides professional-quality audio and MIDI interfaces to the iPad 2, but only interfaces MIDI over USB, not audio over USB like with the MXL microphone you describe. The Alesis is designed to work with conventional condenser microphones with an XLR audio cable, and it provides phantom power.


network preferences shows self-assigned ip but macbook pro connects to internet As stated, the network preferences control panel shows a yellow icon next to Wi-Fi connection. However, the laptop connects fine. This condition exists whether DHCP or a manually entered ip address is used.
Turning wi-fi on and off makes no difference.I can see the little text label on the network preferences control panel change (the words under the button turn wifi off). They always come back

Wi-Fi has the self-assigned IP address 192.168.1.46 and will not be able to connect to the Internet.

'Forgetting' the network and reconnecting makes no difference.
Connecting to other wifi networks makes no difference.
Rebooting makes no difference.

ifconfig gives this:

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether b8:e8:56:44:9e:3e
    inet6 xxxx::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
    inet 192.168.1.46 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
en1: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether yy:yy:yy:yy:yy:yy
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
en2: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether zz:zz:zz:zz:zz:zz
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6>
    ether aa:aa:aa:aa:a7:aa
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en1 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 5 priority 0 path cost 0
    member: en2 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 6 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: <unknown type>
    status: inactive
p2p0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2304
    ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
    media: autoselect
    status: inactive

Obviously I have vmware fusion player installed on this machine but it is not running. As you can see all those connections are inactive and there are no vmware processes running. MAC addresses have been changed to protect the innocent.

removing these files and rebooting solved the problem

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist


Boot Camp / Partitioning Weirdness I have a MacBook Pro, running 10.8.2. I'd like to give Windows 8 a go, using Boot Camp. Now, I've probably done a b Boot Camp install of Windows close to 10 times, on multiple Macs, but I'm stumped right now.

This computer previously had full disk encryption on, which I disabled last night.

Now, it seems as though a lot of the free space needs to be... defragmented.

Following are 3 screenshots, the first of Boot Camp, complaining of no free space, the second of all of my free space, and the last of the disk's partition map:

I Googled a bit, and have tried repairing the disk and permissions, and both found a few issues, but still the disk appears to be fragmented.

EDIT: For @pmjordan

Josh-Work-MacBook-Pro:~ josh.oneal$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
Josh-Work-MacBook-Pro:~ josh.oneal$ sudo gpt -r show disk0
Password:
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  488555536      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  488965176    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  490234712          7
  490234719         32         Sec GPT table
  490234751          1         Sec GPT header

Thanks for the update, your partition table looks fine.

One more thing to try would be to boot from the recovery system or installation media, or access the drive from another Mac via Target Disk mode and try to resize the partition from a Disk Utility instance that isn't booted off the partition you're trying to resize. Unfortunately, it's fairly unlikely this will help - I've seen more instances where it didn't than where it did.

If Disk Utility can't help you, the only solutions are:

Back up, erase and restore
Try your luck with something else. In the past, resizing via parted (an open source Linux utility) has worked for me in such cases. I'm writing this on a MacBook Air with an OSX installation that survived the procedure unharmed. There's a bootable Live CD/DVD distribution of this available, called "Parted Magic"; "GParted Live" is another, which seems to be a bit more user friendly. You can burn either to disc and boot into it by holding the option key during the boot chime, as usual. Then shrink your main partition - this will take a while, as it needs to move the data to free up the space at the end of the partition. There is of course a certain risk associated with this, so make sure you've backed up and are prepared to go through with option 1 instead. Make sure to unplug your backup disk during any such procedure. One issue with using another tool is that unlike Disk Utility or Boot Camp, this won't move the Recovery HD. So your best bet is usually to shrink by the required amount, then grow it again to the original size. Doing this will then "unstick" Boot Camp/Disk Utility, and they'll be able to proceed with the shrinking as normal.


Setting up iCloud results in cloudd error messages I am trying to set up iCloud on my work laptop (profile managed in an active directory domain from what I can tell).

It seems to be mostly going fine, but all of the icons stay grayed out:

Re-entering the password doesn't change this.

The console log is filled with these (about every minute or so):

10/9/15 9:04:28.985 AM cloudd[714]: Couldn't create a PCS identity: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-25300 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -25300 - SecItem failed to fetch ProtectedCloudStorage: keychain status: 0x7 auditInfo: asid=0x000186a5 auid=65655  flags=0x00006030 paths: 0:/Users/mseeger/Library/Keychains/login.keychain 1:/Library/Keychains/System.keychain )" (errKCItemNotFound / errSecItemNotFound:  / The item cannot be found.) UserInfo=0x7f9221ecd9a0 {NSDescription=SecItem failed to fetch ProtectedCloudStorage: keychain status: 0x7 auditInfo: asid=0x000186a5 auid=65655  flags=0x00006030 paths: 0:/Users/mseeger/Library/Keychains/login.keychain 1:/Library/Keychains/System.keychain }
10/9/15 9:04:28.985 AM cloudd[714]: Error creating zone PCS: <CKError 0x7f9221e111c0: "Unknown Error" (5000/-25300)>.
Identity (null)
PEM data was -----BEGIN PCS SHARE PROTECTION-----
YYIBTjCCAUowgYMCAQAxfjB8MCUCAQAEIFtrX73tnBmSvMRPWobn3YV8xaC9wB4M
IVfY0oKQ1vTpBFMBABI890SLKuN2fXUHvP9X4ABr3XUMeXGnvGsTmiaevdF6MEcr
0l9H6f/U2AXcoQ5OJYES0suH7ooOFFc/hdYn/iB/z69HFBp5obhKbwojoCD/7qCB
…=
-----END PCS SHARE PROTECTION-----
Zone PCS data <6182014e 3082014a 30818302 0100317e 307c3025 02010004 205b6b5f bded9c19 92bcc44f 5a86e7dd 857cc5a0 bdc01e0c 2157d8d2 8290d6f4 e9045301 00123cf7 448b2ae3 767d7507 bcff57e0 006bdd75 0c7971a7 bc6b139a 269ebdd1 7a30472b d25f47e9 ffd4d805 …>.
10/9/15 9:04:28.986 AM cloudd[714]: Error creating zone PCS for zone <CKRecordZoneID: 0x7f9221d8d6c0; com.apple.ScriptEditor2:__defaultOwner__>: <CKError 0x7f9221e111c0: "Unknown Error" (5000/-25300)>

Any idea what could be happening here?
I tried repairing permissions and rebooting in single user mode already.

I too am experiencing this problem. It seems to be user-specific; i.e., not related to the iCloud account as the same iCloud account used under a different (system) user will not experience the problem and a different iCloud account used under the same (system) user will experience the problem.

I'm getting slightly different console messages, but yeah, they're all about PCS identity creation failures, keyset decoding failures & blah blah blah.

I had a bit of a brain-wave & just checked under ~/Library/Logs in Console and lo & behold, there are a heap of ProtectedCloudStorage-SignIn logs. Here's the contents of the latest of them with redacted hostname & AppleID values:

Oct 17 00:38:17 hostname.local com.apple.iCloudHelper[1284] <Debug>: PCSIdentityCollectionSetup: <CFBasicHash 0x7f86a17330c0 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{type = mutable dict, count = 3,
    entries =>
        0 : <CFString 0x7fff77f7e1e0 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{contents = "kPCSSetupUsername"} = <CFString 0x7f86a1461cf0 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{contents = "appleID"}
        1 : <CFString 0x7fff77f7e2c0 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{contents = "kPCSSetupDSID"} = <CFString 0x7fff77f7e800 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{contents = "<<VALUE>>"}
        2 : <CFString 0x7fff77f7e240 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{contents = "kPCSSetupPassword"} = <CFString 0x7fff77f7e800 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{contents = "<<VALUE>>"}
    }
Oct 17 00:38:17 hostname.local com.apple.iCloudHelper[1284] <Debug>: __PCSAccountHasStingrayIdentities
Oct 17 00:38:19 hostname.local com.apple.iCloudHelper[1284] <Error>: PCSHasStingrayIdentities: YES
Oct 17 00:38:21 hostname.local com.apple.iCloudHelper[1284] <Error>: PCSCopyStingrayIdentity: <CFData 0x7f86a300c000 [0x7fff7953fed0]>{length = 1845, capacity = 1845, bytes = 0x628207313082072d0c0f67616d63616c ... ab42b25d58020101} (error: (null))
Oct 17 00:38:21 hostname.local com.apple.iCloudHelper[1284] <Error>: PCSIdentityCollectionSetup failed The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -25244 - SecItem failed to delete on private identity)

It looks like iCloudHelper is having trouble with the PCS Identity for some reason. Hopefully someone who knows a bit more about these things may shed some more light on this.


SSL error with mbsync I installed isync[1] on my personal Macbook, which runs OSX 10.11. I used the exact same .mbsyncrc file I wrote for my Macbook at work.

The setup works fine on my work machine. However when using the mbsync command on the personal machine, I get the following output:

  SSL error connecting imap.gmail.com (74.125.133.109:993):
  error:00000014:lib(0):func(0):SSL lib

The work macbook runs a fresh install of OSX 10.11 and Homebrew. The personal one also runs OSX 10.11 and Homebrew, but has known several upgrades since 2013 (it was mountain lion at the time).

Are you aware of any difference between fresh installs and upgrades, that could lead to this kind of error?

Links

http://isync.sourceforge.net/

This is a certificate issue. In my .mbsyncrc, I included as CertificateFile the entire certificate chain (Gmail -> Google, Google -> GeoTrust, GeoTrust -> Equifax). This started intermittently throwing the error you're describing around the time I fixed the curl SSL issue.

To fix it, use only the Gmail certificate in your .mbsyncrc. If you're unsure which of the certificates is the Gmail one, run:

openssl s_client -connect imap.gmail.com:993 -showcerts 2>&1 < /dev/null | sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' | head -n 27 > gmail.crt

and use the resulting gmail.crt file.


How to change finder search criteria defaults? In my MacBook if I add the search criteria System Files the default is aren't included, how can I change the default permanently to are included?

A possible alternative would be EasyFind - freeware on the App Store - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/easyfind/id411673888?mt=12


Do two (or more) apps using GPS share the same location data stream? When an app calls for GPS data, does it activate the GPS call itself and then when another app simultaneously running calls it does it make a separate call? Or when the second app accesses the GPS does it get the data that's already there (or something similar, like a channel is opened in both apps which the GPS system sends all data to each channel when data is available)?

I'm wondering, because if each app only gets control of the GPS half the time it could certainly result in a less effective GPS. So I'm guessing that the iPhone was built with this in mind and the same GPS data would be available to each app, but I don't know if that's what's being done.

Does anyone know the internal workings of GPS on iOS?

In iOS, Location Services sits between all the location radios (cellular tower info, nearest wifi, GPS) and the apps, and caches the fused results between getting new information from those radios at a rate determined by the OS for decent battery life versus requested accuracy.  Apps never "control" or talk to the GPS hardware or OS driver directly.  The location information an app gets is time-stamped, so an app can check to see if it's old info or not.


Does lossless audio over Apple AirPlay have preserved audio quality? AirPlay is very convenient to bring up the sound on my big stereo speakers, but I am wondering whether the AirPlay protocol preserves audio quality, e.g. bitrate?

I understand that if the WiFi is poor, audio may be interrupted, but when it is good, shouldn't it be possible to transfer the exact copy, considering the relative low bitrate of e.g. Apple Lossless? The other possible option is that Apple transcodes audio before it goes over AirPlay, e.g. to AAC.

Anyone got a clue?

I always thought that the Express had a decoder inside, so it could just receive the digital data. Much more robust against bad connectivity.

Also, from Wikipedia:

  An often-overlooked feature of the AirPort Express is that it uses an audio connector that combines a 3.5 mm jack socket and a mini-TOSLINK optical digital transmitter, allowing connection to an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) or amplifier with internal DAC. This allows iTunes (and other applications which can stream to the device, such as Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil) to output a bitstream instead of analog audio. DTS-encoded CDs ripped to Apple Lossless audio files which decode as digital noise in iTunes will play back correctly when the AirPort Express is connected via TOSLINK to a DTS-compatible amplifier–Decoder.


Use external hard drive to install applications to it I have a 120 GB SSD on my Mac and it is almost 90% full. I have another 500 GB external hard drive and I want to install some big applications to that hard drive so it does not occupy space of SSD.

I tried to move apps directly from Application to the external drive but I think some files remain on the SSD.

You can use an external HDD to install and run applications there. Make sure they support USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. I use Mathematica on mine and it works fine. The preferences files will remain on your internal disk but they are very small.


Make filename extensions hidden in specific folder (Desktop) or file (.jar) I want to make all filename extensions visible (which I did in Finder -> Preferences -> Show All Filename Extensions = true) except the ones in a specific folder (Desktop), or a specific .jar file.
Now, I can just hide all extensions and then just unhide the .jar file but I am afraid it will take too long if I can't select all the documents and Get Info but as far as I know, it will bring multiple Get Info windows as they do not have things in common?
What can I do?
I do not have Xcode installed by the way.
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012), macOS Catalina 10.15.7

You can write an AppleScript that uses Finder’s extension hidden property to do this. See the accepted answer here:
https://superuser.com/questions/399899/show-hide-extension-of-a-file-through-os-x-command-line


Changing Bootcamp Partition ID on Terminal in Recovery Mode I have an iMac 5K 2017 running MacOS Big Sur and Windows 10 and the problem is a little bit tricky:
After I resized my Bootcamp with AOMEI Partition Assistance and restarted it, it couldn't run MacOS(it showed prohibitory sign) and needed to be recovered.
In Disk Utility on Recovery Mode, the Fusion Drive had been separated into HDD and SSD. Except Bootcamp partition, the other partitions are gone and cannot be erased or splited.
Therefore I restarted to Windows and tried to fix it with gdisk, but I accidentally changed the partition ID on wrong disk(I changed Bootcamp partition ID into APFS as shown in fig.1)

fig.1 Weird partitions
Now I am not albe to boot both systems, only Recovery Mode. I am trying to change APFS back to Microsoft Basic Data of the Bootcamp partition on Terminal in it, but it always shows "command not found."REF1 REF2
Is there any way to fix it? Because I didn't backup my Windows(Mac is OK to be erased)

The commands given in this answer should be entered while booted to macOS Recovery. Older versions of macOS (OS X) may require booting macOS Recovery from the Internet or a macOS installation USB flash drive. Also, some commands may need to be preceded by a sudo. The instructions given below will probably fail when hybrid partitioning is being used.

The command provided by macOS to change a partition type GUID is gpt. However, this command works differently from gdisk in that gdisk is interactive and gpt is not. Also, the gpt command requires removal of the partition from the GPT in order to change the partition type GUID. Once removed, the partition can be added back to the GPT with the correct partition type GUID. This removal and addition does not alter the contents of the partition.
The command below can be used to partially view the current contents of the GPT for the drive with the identifier disk0.
gpt -r show /dev/disk0

The commands below can be used to remove from the GPT the partition with the identifier disk0s2.
diskutil unmountdisk disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0

The commands below can be used to add to the GPT the previously removed partition. This partition will be given the Windows GUID type. Replace <start> and <size> with the integer values shown in the output of the command gpt -r show /dev/disk0 for the row with an index of 2.
diskutil unmountdisk disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b <start> -s <size> -t windows /dev/disk0

Note: The integers used in identifiers do not have to match the index values used by the GPT and gpt command. In this case, the 2 used in disk0s2 probably refers to the partition with index value of 2 in the GPT.


Setting JAVA_HOME not working in Sierra I have following versions of Java:

$ /usr/libexec/java_home -V
Matching Java Virtual Machines (4):
    9.0.1, x86_64:  "Java SE 9.0.1" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-9.0.1.jdk/Contents/Home
    1.8.0_131, x86_64:  "Java SE 8" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_131.jdk/Contents/Home
    1.8.0_121, x86_64:  "Java SE 8" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_121.jdk/Contents/Home
    1.7.0_80, x86_64:   "Java SE 7" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-9.0.1.jdk/Contents/Home

Then I want to set Java version to 1.7:

$ JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home
$ echo $JAVA_HOME
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home

Seems OK, but:

$ java -version
java version "9.0.1"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 9.0.1+11)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 9.0.1+11, mixed mode)

Why?

To set JAVA_HOME, you should use

export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v "1.7*"`

or

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home

currently you  did not use export on the variable. Environment variables that are set without the export command will not be inherited in the environment of the commands you are calling, so it would not be read by Java.


Signing up to iTunes Match in a country that doesn't have it I am really digging Apple's iTunes Match and would love to get it. However, I am living in Sweden where you can´t subscribe to it at the moment. I have found that there is a workaround for it, by buying a US gift card and singing up with a US iTunes Store account.

My question is simply how will this affect how I use my iPhone and Mac? For example, will I end up with a US account with no money on it so I can't buy any music or apps?

Could I change store location of my current Swedish account, get iTunes Match for a year and then switch back?

Lastly, what would happen if iTunes Match becomes available in Sweden a couple of months after I have signed up using a US account? I wouldn't mind paying for it twice, but I am thinking there might be other complications. Thoughts, anyone?

You can switch your store location to US or create a new US iTunes account without providing a credit card number but you have to provide a valid US address. Since the address isn't used for anything you can just use any address. Many people have used the address of the White House, for example. I used my old address from when I lived in the US. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but some people recommend using an address in a state that has no sales tax (such as Oregon).

However, as you don't have a valid US credit card, the only way to fund your account for buying apps, music, books etc is using iTunes Gift Cards for the US Store, which you'll have to buy on eBay, for slightly more than their face value.

I did this for a while (created a separate, gift card funded, US iTunes account) so that I could buy/rent movies and TV Shows on my AppleTV as neither of these were available in the Portuguese iTunes store (where I live). I found that the hassle of having to load up my iTunes account with gift cards bought on eBay just wasn't worth it in the end. The other problem was having to constantly switch between my Portuguese and US iTunes accounts both on iTunes and on AppleTV.

As a result I haven't used my US account for quite a while now. The Portuguese store now has movies, but still no TV Shows or iTunes Match which I'd really like to have but I've decided just to wait.

Also, the automatic downloads feature of iTunes (for apps etc) is limited to one iTunes account per 90 days.

As to whether you could change back, when iTunes Match becomes available in Sweden? I don't see any reason why not. However, you almost certainly would have to re-'match' or upload your music again.


How to indent a block of text on a MacBook Pro? In Mathematica, if I put the marker right next to a line of text and press Tab, the line indents, but if I mark a block of text and press Tab the whole text is replaces with an indent.

I've tried different combinations like shift + Tab, option + Tab, none of them work.

It's up to the app to support this. Pressing tab inserts a tab character, so if you have text selected, it will be replaced by the tab. The app must intercept the tab key and perform a special action of adding the tab to the start of each selected line.

You can quickly add a tab to the start of a line by moving the cursor to the start using ⌘← then pressing ⇥ to add the tab.

You can use a Keyboard Maestro macro to add block indent functionality to apps:


In Calendar, what does "turn of shared calendar messages in notification center" mean? What defines a "shared" calendar?  I have a bunch of iCloud calendars, and a Google one, and I share them all with my wife.   Does that make them shared?

Yes, that makes them shared.

My wife and I have a few iCloud calendars that we share. With this option not checked (as it is in your screen shot), if she made an adjustment to one of them on her iOS device or Mac, I would have a new notification on my iMac notifying me of the change.

Similar to this screen shot, but instead of saying 'Coffee in 24 minutes', it said '[other persons name] changed [event name]' or something similar.

If you check that box, these notifications would be suppressed. This feature was annoying me (because of another bug, many of our events had alerts put on them that we didn't want, so I checked this box so we didn't go crazy trying to fix them). Something similar may show up in iOS 6 as well.

Finally, I have only used iCloud calendars with this, so I am unsure if it works exactly the same when using a shared Google calendar. I would assume it would since its still going to the same store, but have no way to test.


Make Preview automatically reload PDF without switching to it If I change the contents of a PDF file that is open in Preview, it automatically reloads it when I switch to the program.  Is there a way to make it do this without explicitly switching to the program?

The reason is that I am writing LaTeX, and I would like to see the updated PDF, but switching between Preview and back is a little annoying each time.  For now, I have a line in my Makefile that just does

open $(FILEPREFIX).pdf
open -a iTerm

every time it builds the document (I use emacs in the terminal as my text editor), but even this is a little annoying, especially since I would like to write a hook in emacs that automatically builds the document at regular intervals, and this would cause it to jump away from the editor.

P.S. I know that Skim can do this.  But I've found its autoupdating to be unreliable (i.e., sometimes it just stops doing it altogether, and I have to manually reload the document; if someone knows how to fix that, I would appreciate that as well).

I have never had problems with Skim not being able to keep up, but I use latex-makefile which generates temporary PDFs under other names until the very last pass. Perhaps you could try using that and see if it works, or adjusting your own Makefile similarly?


My email is gone and my daughters is there instead My daughter used my phone for a day and now her email address is on my phone and mine has vanished. How do I get mine back?

I am assuming you're using an iPhone.

First go into Settings, scroll down and you should see "Mail, Contacts, Calendars". Tap on this item and you will see all the accounts that has been added to the phone.
From there you can go to your daughter's account, disable her email, and go to your account and enable your email. That should solve the problem.

Here's a screenshot of the Mail item.


How to play Apple Music and Radio (Beats 1) on iTunes? I've updated to Yosemite 10.10.4 but I can't find a way to listen Beats 1 on my Mac...

You need iTunes 12.2 - presumably will be out any minute now…

Update 07:30 GMT 1st July.
OS X 10.10.4 iTunes 12.2 & iOS 8.4 all now available & successfully installed here.


Disable saving to iCloud in Mountain Lion Mountain Lion introduced a feature where you can save your documents to iCloud instead of local storage.

I don't ever see myself using it, is there a way to disable this (but I don't want to disable iCloud entirely)?

Actually I found there's a switch in System Preferences > iCloud > Documents & Data


Wrong Keymap on Mac Keyboard - "<" and "^" are switched Since upgrading to El Capitan my Keyboard layout has changed and is driving me crazy:

The key "<" which should be right beside the Left Shift Key is now switched with the "^" key.

Is there a way to fix this?

I know this will not help you but maybe others (worked for me for german layout on external keyboard):

If "<" and "^" are switched on an external keyboard, the easiest way to "switch" them back is: if you are asked to press the button right to the left shift key (on german layout "<") you simply press the button it is switched with, afterwards everything will work as normal.


What is iLifeAssetManagement, and can I delete it? I have 5 GB of stuff in ~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement and I'd like the space back. What is this stuff and how can I reduce its footprint?

Yes you can delete it. I would make a backup of your Mac before deleting anything in ~/Library just in case you run into corruption.

This folder contains iCloud synced photos from your PhotoStream, so you might just have the folder fill up again unless you want to poke at that folder and make sure you turn off iCloud syncing before you do the pruning.

Does PhotoStream sync to my Mac when iPhoto is not open?

Deleting things from the iCloud photo stream directly will reduce the size footprint on all your devices so that's what I'd recommend in this particular case. You can sort things by size in Finder, so that might help you see if just a few large videos are responsible or if you instead have hundreds of small photos all adding up.


How to best move / import my previously received email from Outlook Express into Mail.app? This is a question often asked by switchers (Windows PC -> Mac)

On the Windows

Download Eudora for Windows and install it if it's not already on your computer. Eudora can be used for free in sponsored or light mode.

If you see the New Account Wizard when you open Eudora, click Cancel. Go to the File menu and choose Import. It should automatically detect any Outlook or Outlook Express accounts.

Check the box next to the account(s) you wish to import.
If present, check the boxes next to Import Mail and Import Address Book Entries.
Click OK.

Your Outlook or Outlook Express mailboxes should now appear in Eudora's mailbox list. Close Eudora. If prompted to save changes to the Address Book, click Yes.

Locate the newly created Eudora mailboxes and address book so they can be transferred to the Macintosh.

Use the Search or Find option in the Start menu to locate "Outlook Express.fol" or "Microsoft Outlook.fol" (depending on which program you are importing from). You may need select Search hidden files and folders under More advanced options.
Right-click the .fol folder in the search results and choose Open Containing Folder.
Transfer the .fol folder and the folders called "attach", "Embedded", and "Nickname" (all in the same location) to the Mac (e.g., via recordable CD, USB flash memory drive).

On the Mac

Download Eudora Mailbox Cleaner.

To properly import all messages, attachments, and address book entries, the files copied from the Windows computer must be arranged in a specific manner.
Create a new folder and call it "Eudora Folder". The Desktop is a good place to create the folder.
Inside this folder, create three more folders named "Mail Folder", "Attachments Folder", and "Parts Folder".
Move the "Microsoft Outlook.fol" or "Outlook Express.fol" folder into the "Mail Folder".
Move the contents of the "attach" folder into "Attachments Folder".
Move the contents of the "Embedded" folder into "Parts Folder".
Move the "Nickname" folder into "Eudora Folder".
Make sure Mail.app is not running, then drag the "Eudora Folder" and drop it on the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner icon.
Leave all the boxes checked and click OK. (Filters will not be imported because Eudora cannot import the original filters from Outlook or Outlook Express.)

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner will display the results of the import. If the import was successful, the number of imported messages, recovered attachments, and imported nicknames should all be greater than zero.

Your messages should now appear in Mail.app in a folder called Import. Address book entries should appear in the OS X Address Book application.

NOTE: If you are unable to open the imported files, you may need to rebuild them. Select each folder, then go to Mailbox > Rebuild.


AppleTV makes horrible noise on startup and when waking up from standby I have an Insignia 25" LCD TV and an Apple TV Gen 2 connected to it via HDMI. When I wake the AppleTV up from sleep mode or boot it up from being turned off, it makes a loud, white noise-y sound. You can listen to the noise here.

The noise is most likely from the AppleTV, since the TV doesn't make the noise when it is on the DVD player input, and the noise starts exactly when the AppleTV light turns on.

Has anyone had this problem? If so, are there any known solutions or workarounds?

This is as you correctly described static.

This will be due to the connection, not the Apple TV its self. You will need to confirm this by.

using the Apple TV with another television
use another HDMI cable (go for one with gold connectors)

I would check the cable first as it sounds like something is interfering with the signal.


Free .CSV text file editor for Mac OS X? I am looking for a free editor to edit comma-delimited text files, or .csv format.

Table Tool

Free and Open Source (MIT License).

Table Tool opens CSV files. It auto-detects character encoding and record separator (comma/semicolon/tab), and supports basic editing operations (like add row, delete row, add column delete column etc).

Table Tool can convert files to a different format.

Table Tool is also available on the Mac App Store.


Can I edit the Info.plist of an App so that is always starts hidden? Well, the title says it all:

Can I edit the Info.plist of an App so that is always starts hidden?

Open the info.plist in textedit and check if the key "LSUIElement" exist.  If not, then add the following piece of code.

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

If it does, then just change the key from <true/> to <false/>.