Mosquitto link troubleshooting brew install mosquito

Returns:

Warning: mosquitto 1.6.8 is already installed, it's just not linked
You can use `brew link mosquitto` to link this version.

Link attempt:

Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ brew link mosquitto
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/mosquitto/1.6.8...
Error: Could not symlink sbin/mosquitto
/usr/local/sbin is not writable.
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ ls /usr/local/sbin
ls: /usr/local/sbin: No such file or directory
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ sudo brew link mosquitto
Password:
Error: Running Homebrew as root is extremely dangerous and no longer supported.
As Homebrew does not drop privileges on installation you would be giving all
build scripts full access to your system.
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ mkdir /usr/local/sbin
mkdir: /usr/local/sbin: Permission denied

The goal is to invoke mosquitto_sub.   What must be done to enable mosquito_sub?

Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ brew upgrade mosquito
Warning: mosquitto 1.6.8 already installed
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ mosquitto_sub -h test.mosquitto.org -t "#" -v
-bash: mosquitto_sub: command not found

UPDATES \ RESPONSES

CREATE DIRECTORY: sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin

Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ mosquitto_sub -h test.mosquitto.org -t "#" -v
-bash: mosquitto_sub: command not found
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin
Password:
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ ls -l  /usr/local/ |  grep sbin
drwxr-xr-x    2 root  wheel     64 Dec 15 14:00 sbin
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ ls -l  /usr/local/sbin
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ chmod 777 /usr/local/sbin
chmod: Unable to change file mode on /usr/local/sbin: Operation not permitted
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/sbin
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ ls -l  /usr/local/ |  grep sbin
drwxrwxrwx    2 root  wheel     64 Dec 15 14:00 sbin
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ brew link mosquitto
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/mosquitto/1.6.8... 30 symlinks created
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ mosquitto_sub -h test.mosquitto.org -t "#" -v
owntracks/busware/iPhone {"t":"t","tst":1576424485,"acc":65,"_type":"location","alt":17,"lon":10.67649557998085,"vac":10,"lat":54.04553

Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/sbin
Password:
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ ls -l  /usr/local/ |  grep sbin
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  wheel     96 Dec 15 14:02 sbin

PATH MODIFICATION TEST

Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ echo $PATH
/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/Cellar/mosquitto/
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ echo $PATH
/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/Cellar/mosquitto/
Users-MacBook-Air:~ user$ mosquitto_sub -h test.mosquitto.org -t "#" -v
-bash: mosquitto_sub: command not found

Run

sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin
sudo chown $(whoami) /usr/local/sbin
brew link mosquitto


Swipe up/down on window top to maximize/resize to default size I upgraded my Mac's OS from macOS Sierra to macOS High Sierra today and found one feature disappeared: I used to swipe up on top empty area of a window to maximize the window to "fill" the full screen (not the natural full screen, ie, a new desktop space, just making the window as large as possible in the same space); also, by swiping down when the mouse position is on the window top I could resize the window to default size, in the center of the screen.

I can't remember if it is a feature enabled by a util app (like Hyperdock) or can be configured in System Preferences. I googled around but cannot find it.

Update: I find the app! It is HyperDock. There is a feature in the window management: Scroll a window's title to snap & change space and that's it!

An alternative way is using Better Touch Tool:
I set Command as the modifier key and touch gestures same as the question description. As Better Touch Tool doesn't seem to have the option like "triggering the gesture when the cursor touches the empty spot of the window", it will conflict with the default scrolling up and down easily if you don't add a modifier key...


Licensing around running VMWare ESX on a mac mini hosting multiple OS X guests The OS X Mavericks EULA grants the rights

  B.
  Mac App Store License

  ...

  (iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use.

By my reading, this implies that I can't use VMWare ESX as the base-level OS hosting OS X guests, as then it wouldn't be "already running the Apple Software". However, VMWare definitely support running OS X as a guest under VMWare ESX. Presumably VMWare wouldn't support something that violates the OS X EULA, or they would have continued the support for OS X guests running under VMware workstation on windows that they had for a short time.

How does this add up?

Also, If we assume that it is OK, what happens if I want to run 3 or 4 guest copies of OS X on my mac mini? The EULA implies that it's not, however the EULA also contains this clause

  C.
  Volume or Maintenance License.
  If you obtained the Apple Software under a volume or maintenance license program with Apple, the terms of your volume or maintenance license will determine the number of copies of the Apple Software you are permitted to download, install, use and run on Apple-branded computers you own or control. Except as agreed to in writing by Apple, all other terms and conditions of this License shall apply to your use of the Apple Software obtained under a volume or maintenance license

This seems like it would provide a solution to both of the above, but I can't figure out if it's possible to purchase a "Volume or Maintenance License" for OS X, as nothing I've been able to find on their website has any information related to it.

Thanks

The OS X EULA does allow for OS X to be virtualized on Apple hardware as both host and guest.  This is why (as you note) VMware Workstation does not support OS X virtualization, but Fusion, ESXi, and vSphere do.  All versions of VMware's apps check to ensure that you are running on Apple hardware and you are running a supported OS (as not all versions of OS X allow virtualization).

Apple doesn't make it easy to purchase a Volume License.  You either need to buy it directly from Apple (it's not on their website, you have to call them) or through a third-party reseller.

You are completely correct that the EULAs are unclear about the question of running 3+ OS X VMs on a single OS X host.  This is a legal question, and not a technical one.  For that matter, so is the limitation about which versions of OS X can be virtualized (ex: 10.6 virtualization requires the Server edition, and all VMware applications block you from virtualizing the Standard edition).  If the EULA were clear that you could not virtualize 3+ OS X VMs, or if Apple had said anything to VMware about it, VMware could limit you to 2 OS X guests per OS X host.

If virtualizing OS X is your goal, you should talk with someone who is in Apple Enterprise Sales about what you want to do.  EULA questions really can't be answered in any meaningful way by anyone else.


Transform old iphone entry into new one for docking station I have a docking station that works that plays music by connecting an (old) iPhone 3. Since I don't want do throw away a working music station, I was wondering if there exist a cable that would allow me to connect instead my new iPhone 5 to it.

This Lightning to 30-pin adapter from Apple should work just fine.


Webpage Login Issues — How to Diagnose I have two Macs: a 2015 iMac that lives on my desk, and a 2013 MacBook Air. I have accounts at usaa.com, and like to use Safari. While I can log into USAA's webpage easily on the Air, I'm not able to do so on the iMac...unless I switch to Chrome, which logs in correctly.

Both Macs run macOS 10.14.6 (18G87), and both run  Safari 12.1.2 (14607.3.9); all software is up to date. Wondering if there was a corrupted cache on the iMac, I restarted in Safe Mode; in Safe Mode, and again after rebooting in regular mode, I was unable to log in using Safari on the iMac. I enabled the Develop Menu (Safari > Preferences > Advanced > "Show Develop Menu"), then chose Develop > Empty Caches to clear Safari's caches. No improvement. I trashed the Keychain entries for this webpage, and entered my login and password manually. Still no go with Safari on the iMac.

The login process is to enter my ID and password on a single page, then hit "Enter." The next page asks for my PIN, a 4-numeral number. The page after that asks for me to choose email or a text number to receive a login code. Choosing one option and hitting "Enter" modifies the screen to receive the email address or text number. Hitting "enter" then either presents a screen in which to enter the login code (Safari on the MBA, Chrome on either machine), or a screen that again asks me to choose email or a text number (Safari on the iMac).

This is perplexing, especially since the iMac's Safari began misbehaving only two days ago, after being able to fully log in with this user ID and password and PIN for a bit more than two years and several macOS updates. No changes of any kind (updates, new extensions) have been made in the last month on either machine. EDIT: a similar but not identical misbehavior has also now appeared in a second, unrelated restaurant reservation page. Safari returns only a placeholder red dot, presumably indicating a page loading (or failing to load); in any event, the next screen (picking a date) never loads. As before, Chrome works correctly, and Safari on the MBP also works correctly and loads the page.

I see no other misbehaviors or oddities in the iMac's or Safari's operation.

Something is awry in the iMac's Safari. How might I further diagnose the issue? Am I stuck with trying a reinstall of macOS?

@Tetsujin earns the garland.

The iMac's Safari had uBlock Origin 1.16.0 installed. When deactivated in Safari > Preferences > Extensions, Safari now loads the two problematic webpages correctly.

I'll guess that one of uBlock's data streams (it was subscribed to several, in aid of my trying to block persistent cookie-approval popups) was changed sometime last week, and began hobbling Safari. The cookie-popup blocking was very effective, but the impaired usability turned out to be a cure worse than the disease.


How much is should pay and from where I can find tools to develop for IPhone and IPad I am new to mac dev world. every where i try to download or do something i find "you should pay $99".

I want xcode to develop these apps, and test them before putting on the market place.

how much i should pay in total and from where I can download this xcode to start programming?

please provide me with links.

Well... it's not really $99. It is $99 per year.

To start programming for the iPhone you need to :

Get a Mac (if you don't have one)
Download Xcode

You can use Xcode to develop your application and test it on the iPhone and iPad simulator which comes with Xcode.

If you want to be able to download the documentation and developer resources you need to:

register for an Apple Developer ID (free).

To be able to test your applications directly on physical iPhones/iPads and be able to publish them on the App Store you need to:

enroll into the iOS developer program ($99/year).

You can wait to enroll only when you are ready to properly test your application on the devices.


Can I have /Users as my home folder? My home directory location is set to /Users, so whole /Users folder. I know that each user normally has their own folder in the /Users folder, but would it be ok if I'm using my MacBook alone?

Also, is there any problem if my account name and the home folder name are not same?

There is no problem with this. Account name and home folder name can be different.

It’s okay even if you are using your MacBook alone.


Can I downgrade to Mavericks after installing Yosemite (beta/developer preview)? I have installed the developer preview for Yosemite.

Huge mistake. Everything in my workspace is broken.

I don't have any sort of backup image. I was wondering if I could re-download Mavericks and run the installer - would that effectively downgrade me back to Mavericks?

To downgrade, boot into Internet Recovery with ⌥⌘R and select Reinstall OS X.

With regard to the original question for Yosemite Developer Previews, yes you can, but note that Yosemite DPs so far do seem to break most of the App Store. If you are still running an early Yosemite Developer Preview, you can downgrade using the Recovery HD (⌘R) as the Recovery HD was not upgraded. For later DPs, including GM and public beta, see above.


Blurry/aliased text on external LCD in Lion I have an external LCD hooked up to my MacBook Pro 5,5 running Lion. I have major aliasing on the external monitor in every application. Using the commonly recommended defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int x (with any value 0-4) has no effect on restarting applications or rebooting. The monitor is running at its native resolution, 1440x900, although I had to use SwitchResX to get OS X to recognize this resolution.

Any suggestions?

As its on a VGA connection, it may not be aliasing or the resolution, but could be the phase of the monitor. It should have settings on he monitor itself to auto configure or manually adjust things like this. Do you have the ability to reset the monitor via an OSD?


How do I enable CTRL + Scroll zooming? My colleague just did CTRL + Mouse Scroll scrolling to zoom his screen and is telling me it's a default setting, but it doesn't work for me. Where do I enable that?

That would be under System Prefs>Trackpad (or mouse, if you use that instead)>Screen Zoom options:


What is the `installd` process, and why is it eating my CPU? My MacBook is frying my lap, and the CPU monitor is going crazy: over 200% CPU being used by a process named installd.
What is it?  Can I kill it?

This is a daemon which is part of PackageKit framework and it's usually running as a background process for the "Software Update" GUI application.
For example, if you open the Software Update application and check for updates, take a look at the Activity Monitor--you'll see the "installd" process doing a bunch of work.

The reason it pegs your CPU is because it must compile the current list of software installed on your computer, and compare with the current version list received from Apple's servers.

You can set the frequency of Software Update checks in System Preferences and Software Update.

The default settings are both to "Check for updates" and "Download updates automatically".
You may adjust either setting, but I would not recommend turning it off altogether.

There's nothing wicked about this process - it's just set to download updates.

You can solve your CPU problem by lowering the priority of the process or by just killing the process in Activity Monitor.

Technical information:

The location in Lion OSX is in:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PackageKit.framework/Resources/installd

(if you have locate configured correctly, run: locate installd to find the right location).


How to figure out what app is beeping at me? Every now and then, on my Mac, I hear a bell.  I have no idea what app it is, or why it's beeping at me.

My first thought was that it's coming from the Notification System in OS X 10.8 (I never heard such a thing on 10.7), but I turned off the sound notifications for every app listed in the Notification preferences.

Is there any way to tell what app is doing this to me?

UPDATE: I think it might have been Mail -- it has its own sound notification preferences, apparently.  But I'm not certain, and the question as written still stands: how do you know where sound comes from?

I don't believe there's an easy, general way to determine exactly what process is making a sound, but if I had to track it down, I'd use an "audio router" (E.G., http://jackosx.com/about.html) and reroute each process/application one at a time until I figured out which was causing the sound.


Setting Romanian diacritics using AltGr on El Capitan I'm a Linux user, using Ubuntu for few years. Recently I bought a Macbook and I'm trying to understand how to set up my Romanian language layout.

My mac has a Romanian keyboard, but since I am a programmer I want to use all the characters (including [, ], {etc). Currently if I set up the keyboard layout to be Romanian on my macbook, if I press [ I get ă, which is expected, but it's not something I'm used to.

I would like to use AltGr + a to get the Romanian diacritic letter that looks like a, but is ă and when pressing [ to get [.

In fact, I need the following combinations:

AltGr + a => ă
AltGr + q => â
AltGr + i => î
AltGr + s => ș
AltGr + t => ț
AltGr + Shift + a => Ă
AltGr + Shift + - => long dash

How to set up this?

On Ubuntu this was activated as default thing. I read a little bit how to do it on OS X and found that Ukelele could help. Isn't there a more native way (e.g. just importing a preset keyboard layout)?

Bit of a shameless plug: https://github.com/SaltwaterC/romanian-programmers-mac

I've created this keyboard layout as none I could find were actually following the standard for Romanian Pro. I may jump across platforms during a normal day, therefore the layout was an important thing for my use case. Works without changes since 10.8. Now I'm on 10.11.

Bear in mind there's no AltGr on Apple's keyboard. Both Alt/Option keys produce the same keycode. Using the right Option key on Apple's hardware is a matter of convention rather than a necessity.


No sound from internal speakers on a Macbook? I'm afraid I may have irreversibly harmed my internal speakers, or sound system in general.

Yesterday, I was trying to find a way to hook up my electric guitar to the computer. I, logically, thought that going through my amp and running the amp to the macbook line-in was the best course of action.

What came through my external speakers was just muffle-ly cracked noise that were very unstable sounding. After failing to get a decent sound, I found that my sound in general sounded really weird.

Now I get sound through the headphone jack, but it has odd sound artifacts around any sounds that are played, and when removed the internal speakers do not make any sound at all (but APPEAR available on the system and I can still adjust the volume). Here's what I've tried so far:

Tickling the sensor in the phone jack, managed to turn the red light on and off several times. No effect.
Hardware reset (by holding the power button for a while... could not hear the system "dings" though, due to the absence of sound)
Logging in to Linux partition. Same problem there.
Changing sound inputs a couple times and starting up and shutting down garageband with new and old projects.

Any other ideas? Or have I permanently harmed my sound system?

EDIT: Wanted to add that this macbook is past warranty and there's no apple stores nearby anyway. So I won't be taking it to a retailer.

Given that you changed OS's -- to the linux partition -- and still had the same problem, it sounds like a hardware problem.

If you did damage the hardware, don't worry -- you're not completely screwed.  This may be the best excuse to upgrade your audio hardware with an external sound card.

Creative has some great ones that I have used along with Adobe Audition.  However most of them are PC only... but in their professional brand (E-MU), they have some great ones for mac.

Creative's professional brand, E-MU is what I currently use.
Details here:

http://us.store.creative.com/0404-USB-2.0/M/B000IXNE3E.htm

Amazon link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Professional-0404-USB-2-0/dp/B000IXNE3E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1295028320&sr=8-1


How can I recalibrate the touchscreen on my iPhone? When I tap on the bottom of my iPhone's screen it actually acts as if I tapped in another section higher up. It may be a calibration problem. How can I recalibrate the touchscreen?

The iPhone's capacitive touch screen doesn't have the concept of calibration.

To fix the problem you're experiencing, I suggest trying each of the following options:

Hard reset of the phone by holding the Home and Sleep buttons for 10 seconds.
"Reset All Settings" from Settings → General → Reset.
"Erase All Content and Settings" from Settings → General → Reset.
If your phone is still under warranty or covered by AppleCare, bring it to Apple and they will repair or replace it for you.
If not covered, then there are guides for replacing the front panel (first-gen iPhone), which contains the digitizer.


Can I be on bluetooth tethering + wifi, and select which traffic goes through each? I have found some wifi networks have 'overly-aggressive' firewalls.  E.G. many will block SSH traffic.  The wifi signal is otherwise strong and good, and I'd like to use it for most of my internet work.

I would like to direct all SSH connections to go through the bluetooth tethering.  I think this might involve some command-line config that specifies the bluetooth hardware device.  Maybe a SOCK5 setup?  I'm not too familiar.

I occasionally see general issues when running both bluetooth tethering + wifi.  Not sure if others see / experience the same.   Thanks for any any all insights toward an answer.

edit 1: I have considered a solution by connecting to bluetooth tethering and wifi, and then changing the network order, when needed.  This post taught me the networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder and networksetup -ordernetworkservices commands to do it.  Still, I'd prefer a savvy, real, solution!

You need to use what is known as "policy-based routing". I.e. you route the network packets not based on the IP address of the destination, but on different criteria.

On macOS this is done using pf (see the man pages for pf.conf and pfctl).

In your case you need to create a policy rule that specifies that packets with destination port 22 will be routed over the tethering interface.


Install a lot of fonts at once I have a collection of free fonts that I want to install on my Mac. But it is too tedious to double click every one of them and then click "Install font". Is there a quick way to do this? Like a certain context menu to "install all the fonts selected" or a terminal command.

Depending on your OS X version, it should be possible to open Font Book and then drag the entire collection of fonts you wish to install from Finder onto the Font Book window.


Is it possible to change the "Quick Look" zoom modifier key? On a Mac, while using Quick Look to briefly view the contents of a file (by pressing the space bar while the file is selected in Finder), one can use the option ⌥ key to achieve two results, depending on the file type:

Convert the scroll gesture into a convenient zoom. The user custom sets the zoom amount.

For example, if the file is a PDF.

The option ⌥ key instantly triggers a fixed zoom. Scrolling only affects the coordinates of the displayed area, and does not affect the zoom amount.

For example, if the file is a JPEG.

Is it possible to change this key, from option ⌥ to, for example, control ⌃?

The hotkey for Quick Look zoom is mysteriously absent from the "Zoom" sub-category within the "Accessibility" menu in System Preferences:

To have System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom use e.g. ^⌘8, instead of ⌥⌘8 as shown in the image below:

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Accessibility > Zoom and change the keyboard shortcuts from the default, as shown in the image below:

To as shown in this image below:


Adobe CS6 problems after installing MacOS 10.12.5 After installing the newest version of Mac OS, I can't open Illustrator at all, and InDesign and Photoshop are giving me a notification that "The Universal Type Client application that is currently running is incompatible with the Universal Type plug-in". I don't know what that means but I guess its related to the fact that Illustrator suddenly isn't working either? I tried updating my version of Java but that didn't help. Does anyone know what I can do?

Looks like you need to update your type management software from Extensis.


Is there a log-in log on macOS? I'm suspecting a roommate somehow got my password, and I want to confirm this hypothesis. Is there a log that keeps track of successful and failed log-ins?

PS: I tried using the wake reasons log, but it's not accurate.

I'd use the Terminal command last for a more complete list of logins.

Execute the command last [yourusername] will generate a list of tty and console logins.

Ex: last icondaemon generates:

icondaemon     ttys000                   Wed Feb 21 08:12   still logged in
icondaemon     console                   Wed Feb 21 07:57   still logged in
icondaemon     console                   Tue Feb 20 07:52 - 15:24  (07:31)
icondaemon     console                   Fri Feb 16 07:16 - 16:03  (08:46)
icondaemon     console                   Thu Feb 15 07:33 - 16:25  (08:51)
icondaemon     ttys000                   Wed Feb 14 09:34 - 09:34  (00:00)
icondaemon     ttys000                   Wed Feb 14 09:34 - 09:34  (00:00)
icondaemon     console                   Wed Feb 14 07:36 - 16:19  (08:42)
icondaemon     console                   Tue Feb 13 07:31 - 15:57  (08:25)
icondaemon     console                   Mon Feb 12 07:32 - 16:30  (08:57)
icondaemon     console                   Fri Feb  9 08:51 - 15:48  (06:57)

...

icondaemon     ttys000                   Wed Nov  1 15:22 - 15:22  (00:00)
icondaemon     ttys000                   Wed Nov  1 15:21 - 15:21  (00:00)
icondaemon     console                   Wed Nov  1 11:36 - 15:53  (04:16)

I'm not sure what happened on November 1st to rollover the log.


What are "stackshots" for mac? Ive recently noticed that from one of my keynote presentations it creates a ".spin" log whenever i close the presentations without saving or view previous versions of the presentation with the 'Revert to' option. I believe this is due to two things: the spinning wheel showing up before it closes(as it is a large presentation and could take about 3-4 seconds to revert changes) and/or when i go to view previous versions of the presentation sometimes the spinning beachball could briefly appear.

While looking in the Console app i saw the "Keynote. . .Macbook-Air.spin" logs and under 'Data Source' it displayed "Stackshots". Ive tried researching on what a stackshot is but came up short.

I am using MacOS 10.13.4 High Sierra.

What exactly is a stackshot? What are ".spin" logs and are they correlated to the spinning beachball?

You're pretty close. A "stackshot" is a recording of the call stack trace of processes on the system (including kernel threads), which is useful for debugging purposes as it provides insight into what the application is doing at the time that the stackshot was taken. macOS captures these automatically when the system detects certain types of hangs using a utility called spindump(8) (recently, it seems the original data source is tailspin(8)). Depending on your privacy settings, these get uploaded periodically for Apple to aggregate and analyze hangs across the system.


Continuing pages in Page Layout Document in Pages I have a Page Layout document in Pages currently. Is there a way to convert part of the document into "word processing" mode where when you run out of room on one page, it automatically creates a new page?

Someone has to give you the bad news:

You can't. You have to copy/paste and re-edit again in the other mode. When you create a new pages document, you have to wisely chose the one that suits you best. You can’t go back and forth between them nor mix the types in the same document.

Sad but true. ;)


How do I correct settings for Collapse Blast to access Facebook? I installed Collapse Blast on my iPhone 4 and I can't log in to play. I get an error message that the game can't access Facebook and to change it in settings.

I have changed everything, uninstalled and reinstalled and still won't work.

The best place for support for Collapse Blast will be the creator's GameHouse Support site. GameHouse are best placed to answer this question.


Applescript refer a link to a file in current finder window Edited.

Where is my current script :

set plistfile_path to POSIX file "/users/moi/Desktop/Time/"

choose file with prompt "Please choose a file:" of type {"plist"} ¬
    default location plistfile_path

##set the plistfile_path to "~/Desktop/myTime.plist"
tell application "System Events"
    set p_list to property list file (plistfile_path)
    -- read the plist data
    set startTimeValue to value of property list item "startTime" of p_list
end tell

I don't manage to get it work using the choose file dialog.

I'm having this error :

"error "System Events got an error: Can’t make file \"Macintosh HD:Users:nadjarian:Desktop:Time:\" into type integer." number -1700 from file "Macintosh HD:Users:moi:Desktop:Time:" to integer
"

if I get script of the dialog, it's work fine with this list instead :

set the plistfile_path to "~/Desktop/myTime.plist"

any idea how to fix the error?

This seems to work for me,

I'm setting the patch with the variable P and set a to POSIX file p

Then I create a dialog with the default location of the variable A

set p to "/Users/usernmaHere/Desktop/Time"
set a to POSIX file p

set config_file to choose file with prompt "Locate your .plist config file and click OK" of type "plist" default location a

I added file limitation with " type "plist"


XQuartz: Enable ‘Allow connections from network clients’ via command line I'd like to write a shell script that uses xquartz.

Specifically the ‘Allow connections from network clients’ checkbox at Settings/Security has to be checked. Is there a way to do this programmatically ?

Thanks @nohillside♦ and @dan for your answers.
In my case the command defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11.plist nolisten_tcp 0 had had no effect. After some investigation I've figured out that the plist filename is a bit different in my system. So the command that ultimately worked for me is:
defaults write org.xquartz.X11.plist nolisten_tcp -bool false

Note that macosforge has been shutdown and projects moved to other places - so removing macosforge from the default name makes sense.


How to not compress inserted pictures in Powerpoint 2011 for Mac? I am trying to make a presentation for a conference, and am facing a problem that I cannot solve. I have a powerpoint presentation initially created with Powerpoint 2010 for Windows. I am facing picture compression issues as described here. In addition to this saving problem, that pictures become worse quality every time I save the file, I am experiencing problems while trying to insert files. All pictures are inserted blurry. This applies for emf, png and, pdf. The solution here does not work as pictures are still inserted in lower quality

I see that it is possible to disable the feature in Advanced settings under Windows, but I cannot find these advanced settings from Powerpoint for Mac 2011. How can I import/insert pictures to Powerpoint in their original quality? How can I control the picture compression?

I am working on Powerpoint version 14.3.2 and OS X 10.8.3

In Word and PowerPoint for Mac 2011, you can change the compression behaviour for a placed bitmap image via the Format Picture ribbon. Double-click the image to bring that ribbon to the front, then click the Compress button and choose the option Keep Current Resolution. Or, choose File > Reduce Size to bring up the dialog box. This needs to be done before the presentation is saved with the newly placed image.

It's different for vector graphics from PDF files, which PowerPoint will simply convert into bitmap graphics and compress as soon as the presentation is saved with the newly placed PDF file. This can be avoided in MS Office by using vector graphics in the .EPS file format or in Microsoft's own .EMF format, which can be exported from most vector graphics editors, e.g., Inkscape, OpenOffice Draw, Adobe Illustrator, etc. (Beware: PDFs exported from bitmap editors like GIMP, Photoshop, or Pixelmator are not vector graphics images.)


Mac Mini running El Capitan Server unresponsive I have a Mac mini (Late 2012),  2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 Processor, 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 Memory that runs OS X Server 5.1.7.

Three times recently (I think since the upgrade to Server 5.1.7), the machine has become completely unresponsive and I have had to reboot it. On both occasions the fan was blowing full blast.

Given the complete lack of response I get the impression the CPU is completely tied up, but I can't see what process/es is/are causing it.

After the second occurrence I poked around in the log files a bit. In system.log I found the following, which had been repeating for hours:

 Aug  4 10:06:11 s-mx-01 configd[88]: could not allocate mach port: (os/kern) no space available

I went back and tried to find out when it had started and found this:

 Aug  3 18:05:44 s-mx-01 configd[88]: BUG in libdispatch: 15G31 - 384 - 0x1000600c
 Aug  3 18:05:44 s-mx-01 configd[88]: could not allocate mach port: (os/kern) no space available

Does anyone have any idea what this might mean? And how to fix it?

I managed to get into the system while it was manifesting the above symptoms. configd itself was consuming around 140% CPU; and there were 10 (!) instances of smtpd, each consuming around 40% CPU. Killing configd restored sanity (including removal of all the smtpd processes).

To find out what configd was up to I executed sudo configd -v and the system seized up and had to be rebooted. So it seems to be a configd problem.

The call of configd -vdeposited the following in system.log:

Aug 22 09:29:53 s-mx-01 sudo[26480]: macowner : TTY=ttys000 ; PWD=/Users/macowner ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/libexec/configd -v
Aug 22 09:29:53 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: pthread_set_qos_class_self_np() failed: Operation not permitted
Aug 22 09:29:54 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: SCDynamicStoreCreate() failed: Permission denied
Aug 22 09:29:54 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: kernel event monitor disabled
Aug 22 09:29:54 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: SCPreferencesScheduleWithRunLoop() failed: Permission denied
Aug 22 09:29:54 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: SCDynamicStoreCreate() failed: Permission denied
Aug 22 09:29:54 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: Network information server: Connection invalid
Aug 22 09:29:54 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: DNS configuration server: Connection invalid
Aug 22 09:29:54 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: Connection invalid
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: flush_routes: removing route for 169.254.101.43 failed: No such process
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: flush_routes: removing route for 169.254.173.101 failed: No such process
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: flush_routes: removing route for 169.254.221.184 failed: No such process
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: flush_routes: removing route for 169.254.224.132 failed: No such process
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: IPMonitor ip_plugin_init SCDynamicStoreCreate failed: Permission denied
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: SCDynamicStoreCreate() failed: Permission denied
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: SCNC Controller: notify_register_check failed, status = 1000000
Aug 22 09:29:55 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: EAPOLController: SCDynamicStoreCreate() failed, Permission denied
Aug 22 09:29:56 s-mx-01 configd[26484]: IPConfigurationSCPreferencesSetCallback failed: Permission denied`

My current theory is that there is a configuration problem in the mailing system which unhinges configd.


Slow indexing and/or hashing in nearly low memory in OSX I have observed slow indexing and/or hashing in OSX which are expressed in the SSD disc which is nearly full (about 5% free space).
This bug has been reported to me to exist in earlier OSXs too so not only OSX Yosemite.
The system is Macbook Air 2013-mid.
This bug may be related to the similar bug with long filenames which indexing and/or hashing takes much time in the same system and settings, here discussion.

I notice slow indexing and/or hashing in installing basic commands through homebrew and just doing basic search in Finder with long filenames:

Slow rehashing (reported to me no indexing necessary) in nearly low SSD-memory system of Macbook air 2013-mid; I have reproduced it in OSX Yosemite 10.10.2
See this post here where patrix deleted my notice about slow indexing.
Slow indexing and/or hashing also occurs in searching long filenames, discussion here.

To reproduce it, you need

nearly low SSD memory

This indexing problem may be caused by handling of SSD memories and temporary memory.

How have you resolved the challenge of memory management in OSX?
I do not know the level of memory when the problems starts to occur.

This is a history note for a bug report to Apple, made here.
As discussed earlier with admins, this is ok, since this is one attempt for solution.
Apple does not keep public those reports and does not send any documentation to users so we must keep them public, since they do not do it.


Macbook Pro 2016, shuts down when moved This started today, and it scares the hell out of me. I thought the shutdowns were random, but I can easily trigger one by just moving the macbook.
They aren't quite shutdowns: the screen goes black, sometimes the leyboard backlight is still on, and the fans sometimes spin up in the dark state. It happened with a video in the background, which stopped.
I had this macbook in repair last year (liquid damage) and they replaced the entire top cover + fan. It wasn't cheap. Does anyone know if there is anything that can be causing this, that does not require an apple "genius" to fix.
P.S. I'm stuck in Armenia, which is at war, and it doesn't have a single AASP. I can't leave the country, I have to work, and I need this machine to work, so in a bit of a pickle.
P. P. S. Resetting the PRAM and SMC (in any conceivable order several times) did not seem to work.

It turned out to be a hardware issue. One of the connectors was loose. It’s the  rossmann group details what exactly happens: briefly it’s the connector near the hinge of the laptop that causes a BSOD, by (I think) sending the LCD power rail straight to the CPU and tripping the protection features. I strongly advise anyone with this issue to promptly fix it, possibly by sending it for service (they won’t replace the LB, just the cable and that’s reasonably priced).
After fixing - no issues whatsoever.


Can I set a delay on Mission Control Hot Corners? Or maybe change how they’re triggered? I love using Hot Corners, but I regularly trigger them by mistake when performing other tasks, so I disabled them for a while and found I couldn’t live without this functionality.

This got me to thinking - what if I could set a delay (0.5 secs) before the Hot Corners get triggered, or maybe set it so it’s triggered by a right-click action?

I had a look at the Mission Control system preferences but didn’t see any way to do this instead of just accidentally moving the mouse..

Can I do this? Maybe a terminal command? Other suggestions welcome too.

Yes! When setting up your Hot Corners in System Preferences, just hold down a modifier key.  For example, pressing the ⌘ key while clicking on a corner means you’ll configure it so it’s only triggered while also holding down the ⌘ key.


Remove graphic from background of PowerPoint slides I have an old slide deck and can not discover where a graphic "lives" in it. In the screenshot here we can see the Slide Master being edited - and specifically the Footer area.  The scala logo graphic is presently selected. That is a graphic I do want.

But the 10 Silicon Valley Code Camp should be removed.

I can not select that second graphic (in order to delete it): in what layer or layout element should I look?

Update I had actually also checked the Format Background from theSlide Master`: here that is shown having only a gradient and not an image:

Another update Apparently the "bonus" graphic only shows up on the first five slides. So then I will look to see what is "special" about those first slides vs the rest..

Me again.. Selecting Hide Background Graphics does do exactly that - but it is an "equal opportunity" option- it also hides the (desired) scala graphic.

It's possible the image is part of the slide background.

From the Slide Master, choose Background Styles → Format Background….

See if a picture has been inserted and replace it or change to another fill type.


iPad (12.3.1) not trusting certificate even after root cert has been added I have an iPad using software version 12.3.1 that doesn't seem to be accepting the certs that I install.

In the Certificate Trust Settings I've enabled my root certificate.
Then when I open the ip in safari which has that cert I get a this cert is not trusted error and it says i can proceed or view the cert.

If i view the cert i can see that it is indeed the correct one and the same as installed on the ipad. how do i get rid of this error any help would be great.

EDIT
Stupid me had the wrong CN, if you are using an ip address make sure you do not add the port to the CN as this will cause an error.

iOS 13 have increased the security regarding both CA (i.e. what you call root) and server certificates:

You must ensure that your root certificate satisfies the following requirements:

If you're using RSA, the key size must be at least 2048 bites.
The hash algorithm must be SHA-2, and not SHA-1.

In addition to the two requirements above, your server certificate must also satisfy the following requirement:

When used for TLS (as you do in Safari), the DNS name of the server must be in the Subject Alternative Name field

Note that this requirement also means that if you're requesting your web page using an IP-address instead of a name, then the IP address (without port number) should be listed in the SAN field.

And if the server was issued after the 1st of July 2019, also the following two requirements:

When used for TLS, the certificate must contain an ExtendedKeyUsage field with the id-kp-serverAuth OID (i.e. don't use a certificate listed as a client certificate, code signing certificate, email or VPN certificate, etc)
When used for TLS, the certificate must be valid for 825 days or fewer

You can read Apple's explanation of these new requirements here.


Is it possible to update from 6.0.1 to 6.1.3 instead of 7.0.4? I have iOS 6.0.1 on iPhone 4s. I would like to upgrade to iOS 6.1.3 (afaik latest 6.x for iPhone 4s?) and not to 7.x as software updater suggests.
Is there any way to do so?

In iTunes, on the Summary tab for your device, hold Shift, then click the Update button. This will allow you to manually specify an IPSW file to update your device with.

As for obtaining said IPSW file, there are various links around the web to get the version you want. This article has some links to various IPSW files for various iDevices, as well as additional information on this process.

Note: You cannot downgrade to a prior iOS version using this process.


How to revert to iOS 4.2 from iOS 4.3 beta? Hello all
I just installed iOS 4.3 beta version available for developers on my iPhone4. Now I want to go back to version 4.2. But iTunes displays the version 4.3 installed. How can I do this?

Can somebody throw some light on this?

Thanks

It seems you missed the "Read Me Before Downloading" section at the top of the 4.3 beta page:

  Devices updated to iOS 4.3 beta can not be restored to earlier versions of iOS. Devices will be able to upgrade to future beta releases and the final iOS 4.3 software.

According to Apple, anyway, no, you can't revert to 4.2.


Youtube on AppleTV, continuously? Is there a way, with the current AppleTV, to watch a bunch of Youtube videos without having to select each one by hand?

That is, either by entering some keywords to search for, or by providing it with a 'playlist' somehow.

Order isn't important.  Exact matching isn't important.

A method for doing this that involved streaming from a Mac would be fine, too, though I don't have a Mac capable of Airplay Mirroring, so that specific feature won't help me.

I asked at an Apple store, and basically the answer is "no".

The best workaround we could come up with is creating a Youtube account, making a playlist on Youtube, adding all the videos I want to that, and then playing them through AppleTV.  It's not exactly convenient, though.


MacBook Pro keyboard replacement: Refurbished or new components? I'm about to send my 2016 MacBook Pro for a top case replacement due to a failing keyboard. Since the battery will also be replaced as a part of the top case, I'm wondering if Apple installs a refurbished battery or a brand new one? And for that matter, is there any way to really tell?

Batteries are never refurbished and installed brand new. The usage status of a battery can be determined by looking at the consumed charge cycles (1 full charge and discharge constitute 1 charge cycle).

You can easily determine the battery charge cycles consumed by going to  → About This Mac → System Report... → Hardware → Power → Battery Information → Health Information → Cycle Count. It should look something like this:

There's also an excellent 3rd party tool called coconutBattery which is very easy to use.


Mac Pro in reboot loop after installing NVIDIA Display Driver in Windows 8.1 Boot Camp I'm running into a strange problem. I have a Mac Pro with a Kingston Predator PCIe SSD card, and a GeForce GT 120 card. I can install Windows 8.1 on the SSD after creating a dedicated partition without Boot Camp, but when I try to install the Boot Camp software and when it gets to the NVIDIA display driver step, the machine reboots. I tried:

Removing the old driver and installing the NVIDIA driver from the Boot Camp NVIDIA folder.
Downloading the official NVIDIA driver from the GeForce.com website.

In both cases, the same problem occurs.

So I removed the SSD and put a regular SATA driver in Bay 1 and reinstalled macOS and ran through the Boot Camp process. After Windows 8.1 installed successfully, it started the Boot Camp setup where it completed with no issues and Windows 8.1 is working flawlessly.

I tried both the SSD and HDD setups at least twice each and each time I got identical results:

If you install Windows 8.1 on the PCIe SSD and Boot Camp drivers, machine reboots on NVIDIA driver setup.
If you install Windows 8.1 on the standard HDD and Boot Camp drivers, NVIDIA driver setup works fine and Boot Camp finishes completely.

It seems that either the presence of the PCIe Flash SSD card only in Windows (works great in macOS) or the NVIDIA drivers (I tried several) has an issue installing on Windows 8.1 installed on a PCIe Flash SSD.

Any one why I might be running into this problem and how I can get around it?

Since posting this question, I tried using WinClone to migrate the working Windows 8.1 with Boot Camp drivers from the same machine into an empty FAT formatted partition on the SSD. The migration looked like it work perfectly, however when I boot into Boot Camp (Windows) I get a message from Windows that installation needs to be repaired. Obviously doing this would wipe out the NVIDIA driver and the machine will probably boot fine, and then when I try to install the NVIDIA driver again, I'll be back right back at the beginning.

Since the last update, I called Kingston support and the rep claims there should be no conflicts between the video card (and/or driver) and the PCIe flash card. They are PnP devices, and the PCIe flash driver requires no drivers. He is baffled as to why this happening.

As it turns out, once I replaced the GT 120 video card with the GTX 980, I was able to install Boot Camp software with no problems whatsoever. For some reason, there was a compatibility issue with the Predator and GT 120 in Windows.


Can't delete one event from series in calendar.app from a google calendar I have a series of events in a Google calendar that's connected to Calendar.app. When I try to delete one event (I confirm in the prompt that I want to delete the one event) in the series it reappears immediately.

How can I remove just one instance without it reincarnating?

Did you create the account using CalDAV, as Google recommends? It could of course be a bug in Calendar.app, but I would make sure that the recommended settings are used. See here:
https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/99358?hl=en

Indeed, as rob speculated, Google doesn't provide Exchange ActiveSync any more for new devices:
https://support.google.com/a/answer/2716936?hl=en

However, that doesn't seem to be the reason for the problem in question. For me nothing was synced an a new iPhone with an Exchange type Google account, and thus, there were no events to be deleted either. I switched to using CalDAV, which works fine.


How to keep Messages chats sorted manually It is possible to keep opened chats in Messages in order i sort it manually? Because it always resorts it chronologically, so it's changing all the time and it's kind of confusig to me.

I don't know if I was so blind or It was added in some patch, but it's in menu View -> Sort Conversations -> Manually.. obviously :)


How to correctly share a folder? I would like to share a folder within a small lan (5 client mac).
I have a partition with a folder 'Office' inside. I would like to assign to all folders and files the same ownership ('UserOffice') and use the same username for all my colluges.

I've shared the folder with the following permisions:

UserOffice read/write
Administrator read/write
Everyone  read/write

The problem is that a user can connect as 'guest' making it so, the permission doesn't work.

Is it necessary to remove 'Everyone read/write', or am I missing something else?

You have just identified why directories were invented to allow one server to define for a group of computers what users belong to which groups so that when sharing files, the permissions match so that computer Y will see the restrictions hosted from computer Z properly.

The first step is to decide how and where you will enforce the mapping of users to groups so that you can then set up sharing in a way that will work for you.

You'll want to decide if unix permissions (number based users and groups) is workable or if you need real ACL. Nothing prevents you from setting up each computer to mirror the others, but this doesn't scale well as you add people and computers.


Extract photo from Live Photo I recently backed up all my iPhone 6s photos to my media server (running Linux).  All of the Live Photo files are in a ".mov" format.  They play fine as videos, but I'd like to extract the high quality photo from each file.  I tried inspecting the file with ffprobe but that didn't give me much to go on

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'IMG_1419.MOV':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : qt
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: qt
    creation_time   : 2016-02-10 22:27:35
  Duration: 00:00:01.47, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 9355 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuvj420p(pc, smpte170m/bt709/bt709), 1440x1080, 8637 kb/s, 11.59 fps, 15 tbr, 600 tbn, 1200 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2016-02-10 22:27:35
      handler_name    : Core Media Data Handler
      encoder         : H.264
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: pcm_s16le (lpcm / 0x6D63706C), 44100 Hz, 1 channels, s16, 705 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2016-02-10 22:27:35
      handler_name    : Core Media Data Handler
    Stream #0:2(und): Data: none (mebx / 0x7862656D), 43 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2016-02-10 22:27:35
      handler_name    : Core Media Data Handler
Unsupported codec with id 0 for input stream 2

Is it possible for me to extract the photo on Windows or Linux?

The photo isn't stored within the video. The phone creates a photo and video separately which can be pulled separately off the device using Image Capture's equivalent on Windows or Linux.


Does sound check on the iPhone have album mode I know that iTunes sound check on the Mac has album mode, but does sound check on the iPhone have album mode as well?

Answer

Yes, I am pleased to tell you that Sound Check respects both the track gain as well as the album gain (album mode).

How to use it

Go to Settings > Music > Playback and enable Sound Check.

Please be aware that Sound Check's Album Gain it only works if you

play an album directly

(Library > Artist > 'Album Title' > Play)

play an album directly

(Library > Artist > 'Album Title')

play all albums by an artist

(Library > Artist > Play)

play all albums by an artist shuffled

(Library > Artist > Shuffle)

This enables Sound Check's Track Gain:

the song appears in a playlist

even if you exclusively add all tracks of an album a play it in the correct order

you play a single song using (Spotlight) Search

Validation

To understand the algorithm in iOS' Music.app I have tested it with an iPhone 6s running iOS 10.3.3 and iOS 11 beta 5 and two albums from the iTunes Music Store (iTMS):

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (I) (1969)

SC = Sound Check

Examples:

Led Zeppelin's song Communication Breakdown (track 7)

Library > Artist > 'Album Title' > Play SC on: Volume is higher
Library > Artist > 'Album Title' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is higher

Library > Playlist> 'SC test LZ' > Play SC on: Volume is lower
Library > Playlist> 'SC test LZ' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is lower
Library > Playlist> 'Sound Check test' > Play SC on: Volume is lower
Library > Playlist> 'Sound Check test' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is lower

Pink Floyd's song Money (track 5)

Library > Artist > 'Album Title' > Play SC on: Volume is higher
Library > Artist > 'Album Title' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is higher

Library > Playlist> 'SC test LZ' > Play SC on: Volume is lower
Library > Playlist> 'SC test LZ' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is lower
Library > Playlist> 'Sound Check test' > Play SC on: Volume is lower
Library > Playlist> 'Sound Check test' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is lower

Pink Floyd's song Brain Damage (track 8)

Library > Artist > 'Album Title' > Play SC on: Volume is higher
Library > Artist > 'Album Title' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is higher

Library > Playlist> 'SC test LZ' > Play SC on: Volume is higher
Library > Playlist> 'SC test LZ' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is higher
Library > Playlist> 'Sound Check test' > Play SC on: Volume is higher
Library > Playlist> 'Sound Check test' > Shuffle SC on: Volume is higher

Note:

The playlist called 'SC test LZ' only contains Led Zeppelin's 1969 album.
The playlist called 'SC test PF' only contains Pink Floyd's 1973 album.
The playlist called 'Sound Check test' contains Led Zeppelin's and Pink Floyd's album.

Additional resources:

iTunes' behavior with Sound Check turned on explained by Bob Katz (Hydrogenaudio forums)
Apple's documentation for 'Mastered for iTunes' (2012) (PDF)


lightweight SVG viewer Sometimes I want to look quickly at a large number of SVG files.  My options seem to be Inkscape, which is rather ponderous and slow to open, or a browser, which is unsatisfactory for other reasons.  Is there a tool that does nothing but display (not edit) SVG images?

You have quite the diverse range of options:

Free:

Gapplin (AppStore) 14MB

macSVG 9MB

  macSVG is a MIT-licensed open-source macOS application for designing and editing Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) content for HTML5 web pages, mobile apps, animation design, and general graphics usage.

SVGViewer

  Fast, Free and Simple SVGViewer file Viewer
  Open and export SVG files on Mac, send to friends. Download SVGViewer for Mac. It’s free!

And with an additional footprint of 0 bytes:

your favourite browser!


How can I access the keychain remotely from the command line? I am storing various passwords (e.g. for remote email servers) in my keychain.
From the command line, when logged in locally, I can retrieve these via:

security unlock-keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
<enter password>
security find-internet-password -s smtp.gmail.com -a foo@gmail.com
<dumps keychain attributes, not including password>
security find-internet-password -s smtp.gmail.com -a foo@gmail.com -g
<dumps keychain attributes, including password>

However, the results cannot be achieved when run remotely (ssh'ing in to the
box from somewhere else):

security unlock-keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
<enter password>
security find-internet-password -s smtp.gmail.com -a foo@gmail.com
<dumps keychain attributes, not including password>
security find-internet-password -s smtp.gmail.com -a foo@gmail.com -g
<nothing printed, to stdout or stderr>

Moreover, the return value of the final command (using -g) is 36.

I've dumped the output of set from a local login and compared it to a remote
one, and the missing environment variables are:

Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render
GPG_AGENT_INFO
SECURITYSESSIONID
TERM_PROGRAM
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION
TERM_SESSION_ID
XPC_FLAGS
XPC_SERVICE_NAME

What am I missing?  I do have SSH_AUTH_SOCK set to a valid value (returned
from ssh-agent).

In reproducing this to investigate, I notice that I have my keychain configured to “Confirm before allowing access.” So when I perform the find-internet-password locally with the -g flag, I get a dialog box stating security wants to use your confidential information stored in “smtp.gmail.com” in your keychain. If I click “Allow” then it works, if I click “Deny” it fails similarly to the ssh case, with a return code of 51.

When I try the command remotely via ssh, the -g immediately results in failure, with the status of 36 that you are reporting.

I suspect that this is because, when you ssh in, there is no way for the system to pop up a dialog box allowing you to confirm that you want to allow the security command to access this information.

I was able to get the command to work while connected by ssh by first clicking the “Always Allow” option when running the command locally. This updates the permissions in Keychain so that I no longer need to respond to the dialog (even locally), which allows it to work remotely too.

I don’t know if this will be entirely helpful to you, however, as I think it means you will need to preemptively grant the security program access to any keychain items you may want to access remotely. It may be possible to write a script to do this?

If you are experimenting with this manually and later want to revoke this access, you can go to the affected item in Keychain Access, choose Get Info and look at the Access Control tab. You will see an entry for security there, which you can delete:


How to permanently block all incoming connections in the macOS firewall? I have the default macOS firewall enabled with stealth mode and block all incoming connections option set. And I have it locked. But after a while, the firewall is in green state with selective blocking and not block all connections.

How to identify which application is changing the firewall state? I have another admin user in my system, but I have remote login option disabled. I think this user is responsible for system change. I have removed that account meanwhile, but still want to know how to identify firewall state changes.

Is it possible to get an alert or something when the state changes?

Edit: It is not related to the admin account. After removing it, still this senario happens.

Figured. It is the policy applied. JAMF.

You might want to install Little Snitch, a tool that helps you to identify and control any incoming and outgoing traffic and what it was initiated from.

Note that I assume it is not advisable to completely block any incoming traffic.


How can I install Windows 7 on a Retina MBP with no optical drive? I'd like to install Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro via Boot Camp.

However, the only distribution of Windows I'm aware of is on a physical disk, like this one here sold on Amazon.

My MBP doesn't have an optical drive. It can't read disks like that.

Does Microsoft offer an way to buy Windows 7 via a download?

And if so, can I then copy the downloaded installer that onto an external USB hard drive and install from there?

Or is the only option to buy an external optical drive? (If that's the case, any guidance on which one to buy -- can I get away with a generic one or do I need to shell out $80 for Apple's "Superdrive?")

I'm hoping there's some kind of workaround here, because I'd hate to spend money on a drive I'm only going to use once.

I actually have another Mac that does have an optical drive. Could that help me out somehow?

Any advice, help, or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Here are the 32 bit and 64 bit ISO files that you would download for Windows 7 since Microsoft only supports digital downloads of Windows 8.
You could also look at this Windows 7 forum for more download links.

You would use Disk Utility to restore the ISO file to a USB Flash Drive (4 GB) (See picture below, but ignore the error :) )

In Boot Camp Assistant, you would then select this ISO file in the USB Flash Drive, assign how much space you would like, and it should complete it for you.


How do I switch between corresponding .h or .c/.m files in Xcode 4? In Xcode 3 I could click a button in the top-right corner of the code editor to switch between header and implementation (.c or .m) files. Now in Xcode 4 there is no button like this around the editor. This would be even more useful now than it was with Xcode 3, because I'd like to click a class in the Symbol view to pull up the relevant .h file, then click a button or keyboard shortcut and get to the .m file.

See this Stack Overflow answer.

"Ctrl+Cmd+Up or Down, but the shortcut seems a bit finicky and sometimes stops working, not yet sure when and why."


Mail.app is pushing all my mails to junk mail Mail.app puts all of my mail into the junk mail folder. Junk mail filtering is turned off. I have also turned off junk mail filtering on the server side and turned off all sorting rules. This only happens on one user account on my computer, Mail.app behaves normally in the other user. Every day I have to select all junk mail and drag it to my inbox and then waste my time manually sorting.

How can I completely reinstall Mail.app and still retain my accounts and mailboxes? mail app version 10.3 osx 10.12.6

Difference compared to the link being mentioned:
my mails are getting that brown colour clearly telling that they have been considered as junks, without my consent.

used Mail Backup X to backup those mails to my external drive. drained out every single bit from the Mail application. Rebooted the system, and reconfigured the mail application with the same credentials. now that is doing totally fine.
I had downloaded it from here:http://www.mailbackupx.com/download.html


Compatible RAM and SSD drive for macbook pro 2012 MD101 I want to help a friend upgrading her macbook pro macbook 2012 MD101 from 4GB RAM and HDD to 8GB RAM and SSD.

Since I am not a mac guy myself, I need to ask you guys what is the compatible RAM modules for this particular mac model. Further more. As far as I know RAM modules should be 204pin SODIMM 1.5 volt?

Also does any kind of SSD drive would work (I assume so but again please confirm).

As long as you can confirm the laptop is indeed from mid-2012 (later models have the memory soldered in), then these specs should work for you with either a 13" or 15" laptop (Apple started soldering memory in 17" laptops after 2011):

204-pin
PC3-12800 DDr3 1600 MHz type RAM

(Found at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1270)

As far as hard drives go, I'd personally recommend a Crucial SSD, but yes, any solid state drive will work.

Hope this helps!


does command-option-click on app icon in dock still hide all open windows? This apple article explains it.

But it no longer hides all open windows for me under 10.7.4. What could be causing this?

Command-option-click does not hide all open windows. As stated in the linked Apple article, this command hides all other open items leaving the clicked item visible. It is possible to hide all other items and minimize your most recently item with command+option+h+m. This is a combination of command+option+h - Hide Others and command+option+m - Minimize.


MBP with Serial ATA hard drive vs PCIe-based flash storage I am not sure how much logical my question is but I am planing to purchase MBP for the first time and looking at the options I have in place, I am all confused.

I am looking at these 2 options

MacBook Pro with 1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm and 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
MacBook Pro 8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 memory 128GB PCIe-based flash storage

there is some difference between the processor, but I am not much concerned with that.

I will be using the MBP for the development which includes a development editor (Eclipse), a tomcat server and some other tools.

My only concern is about the Storage as with the second option, it seems to be quite on the lower side.

Can any one suggest me what is the other difference between these 2 MBP (other than Retina display) which  can be critical in taking the decision (with the fact that I will be using it for development most of the time).

MacBook Pro 13-inch

2.5GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM — 2x4GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide

13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display

2.7GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
128GB PCIe-based Flash Storage
Intel Iris Graphics 6100
Force Touch trackpad
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide

The only measurable difference aside from storage space is that the SSD version will be slightly more secure from data loss from the occasional fall. SSDs don't suffer from disk drive failures of scratched disks. But if your not clumsy, that's not a problem. Go with the 1TB drive. 128gb is pitiful in this day and age.


Coreaudiod spams system log: Enabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is inactive I'm getting my system log virtually spammed with:

May 13 23:56:36 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Enabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is inactive
May 13 23:56:37 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Disabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is active
May 13 23:56:38 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Enabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is inactive
May 13 23:56:39 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Disabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is active
May 13 23:56:39 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Enabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is inactive
May 13 23:56:39 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Disabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is active
May 13 23:56:39 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Enabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is inactive
May 13 23:56:41 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Disabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is active
May 13 23:56:41 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Enabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is inactive
May 13 23:56:42 alluminium coreaudiod[238]: Disabled automatic stack shots because audio IO is active

Googling yields no useful results. Any ideas what this is and how to alleviate it?

Now that 10.8.4 is released (build 12E55), it is still there. I've gotten a response from Apple Engineering that this is logged by design.


Keyboard shortcut (App Shortcut) taken? Cannot use "^Z" When I try to add a Shortcut like this

System Preferences->Keyboard->Shortcuts->App Shortcuts->+->Some title->

I cannot use ^Z as Keyboard Shortcut.
It is automatically replaced by

Shift (illustrated as arrow-up)
followed by
Command (illustrated by the Command key symbol)
followed by a
Y

I guess this is because the shortcut is taken. But I couldn't find where. I checked all the other item above "App Shortcuts", i.e. "Accessibility", "Spotlight", ...

How can I check which app is using it and how can I force the system to use my shortcut?

just a guess… but sounds like something might have a custom map to "Undo" because Cmd/z & Cmd/shift/Y are alternates for Undo.

For it to be auto-replacing inside system prefs would make me think it is not a system key command, but a third party, Karabiner, TypeIt4Me etc


Bootcamp isn't allowing me to install Windows 7 How can I hack the Bootcamp plist (or other) so it will allow me to select and install a Windows 7 ISO.

Currently it's minimum Win OS is set at Windows 8 + but my DVDs, licence and backups are essentially all Win 7.

El Capitan 10.11.6

Thanks

These types .plist hacks are pointless. Usually, the OP wants to create a USB Windows installer, but the Mac requiring the hack can not boot and install Windows from the created USB installer. This is why Apple normally prevents the user from creating the USB installer in the first place.

Furthermore starting in 2015, Apple starting shipping Macs with the BIOS removed from the firmware. Windows 7 require a BIOS boot method. So, if you have 2015 or newer Mac, you probably will not be able to install Windows 7.

If the minimum Windows is 8+, then Apple has not provided the necessary drivers for Windows 7. In other words, you usually can use the Windows 7 drivers to install Widows 10, but the Widows 10 drivers probably will not work with Windows 7.


How to block from sideloading apps (ipa) in iOS devices.? I want to block sideloading the apps (ipa) to my iOS devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad). I googled about it and to my surprise, everyone was asking questions on how to sideload the apps.

So, if anyone could help me in identifying this, it would really be a great help.

Thanks.

Without the device being jailbroken or having a development provisioning profile installed, there's absolutely no difference between an app installed via the App Store or via "sideloading", except that one might be able to install an old version of an App Store app. Or possibly an app which the developer removed from the app store by choice. It's simply not possible to install any app that's not originally from the app store via "sideloading" without it being configured for development as all applications must have a valid App Store code signature. If you want to block installation of all apps, you can create a MDM profile with Apple Configurator with this restriction.


Is it possible to bounce or redirect an email using Outlook 2016 for Mac or OWA? Is there a way to replicate an email bounce / redirect using Office 365 hosted email using either the OWA web app or Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac?

Basically, some subset of emails that get sent to me need to be sent to another distribution list. I want to be able to automate sending some of my mail (but not all of it) to another address. When outlook forwards the message, it's now from me instead of from the sender which messes up replies and actions based on who sent the mail.

Eudora used to tack on "via person who redirected" to the subject line and Apple's Mail app has a Redirect menu option that is disabled when connected to Office365 mail servers so I'm guessing this might be a configuration issue or banned by Outlook entirely.

Is there any sort of rule or workaround that would enable me to redirect some messages when needed?

You should be able to create a rule in the Outlook 2016 for the Mac.  In Outlook's menu select

Tools --> Rules

Use the + button near the bottom of the pop-up to add a new rule.  Give the rule a name (Shunt-Foo-List-To-Bar-List).  For the condition, select something that will uniquely identify the message that needs to be bounced.  This could be the To: address if messages to the list are consistently addressed to the list's address, or if the list uses a [tag] in the subject line you could match on that instead.  Then under Do the following:, select  Redirect To and set the address where you want it to go.

There are times I would like to be able to interactively redirect an individual message to a different address, but I've yet to find a way to do this in Mac/Outlook.  But at least this works for cases you can easily identify ahead of time.


Buying English edition of iWork in France I live in France and have just bought a MacBook Pro. I want to by the boxed edition of iWork.  But they only sell the French version, and as I do not speak the language and am English, I want the English version.  Is this possible?

iWork has multi language support. If you buy iWork in a French packaging, you can still use a different language on your Mac.
The language used in any iWork program will be the same as in your System Preferences set in OS X.
Advantages of the Mac App Store version

There is no disadvantage (besides no install DVD) when buying the iWork suite from the Mac App Store. You can download it again and again, because the purchase is linked to your ID.

You can also install it on up to ten computers if they are linked to your Apple ID. The iWork with packaging may only be installed on one computer (single licence) or up to five (family licence).

You don't have to buy the whole iWork suite at once in the Mac App Store. E.g. It's up to you to only buy keynote, if that's all you need.

Supported Languages
English, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish


How can I use command+tab to switch between windows of the same app in addition to all the other apps? Possible Duplicate:
  Best app to switch between all open windows (alternatives to Witch)

I would like to see all the windows, including from the same app, when I switch between them (command+tab). See an example from Ubuntu (image attached).

I know this may raise an issue of distinguishing between the same app windows. For that, there is a solution - a preview and the title of the window - see Ubuntu's static switcher (image attached).

I know the preview feature (F3 or fn+F3) but I can't continue choosing the right app using the keyboard and it's way slower than command+tab.

Thanks.

What you are trying to achieve is not provided by OS X and I don't know if a third-party application would be able to interfere this deeply in the window management.

You have two options:

(⇧ +) ⌘+→ to switch between apps
(⇧ +) ⌘+` to switch between windows of one app in one desktop

Option two is configurable in System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard & Text Input → Move focus to next Window.

You can still achieve something similar to what you have in Ubuntu by using Mission Control and not choosing the option Group windows by applications in: System Preferences → Mission Control → Group windows by applications

Then define a gesture to use initiate Mission Control for all individual Windows in:
System Preferences → Trackpad → More Gestures → Mission Control

Note that there is also an option for App Exposé which is like Mission Control for just one application.


Can I connect to a specific access point by BSSID? Is there any way to get Mac OS X to connect to a specific access point by BSSID? I have a network with the same SSID for multiple access points, and I would sometimes like to specify which specific access point to connect to. Is this something Mac OS X can do natively, or is there a third party tool that can do this?

What OS X version do you have?

In older versions this is possible:

  /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Resources/airport -A'NETWORKNAME' BSSID='00:11:22:33:44:55' password='PASSWORD'

But on OS X 10.6 it doesn't work anymore.

I've searched high and low for a solution for this, but haven't found anything yet. The only solution is going closer to your base station. So that the n -signal is stronger.


iPhoto iPhone photo import cache folder? If I connect an iPhone to my Mac (any iPhone, whether one that is synced with my library or not), iPhoto will open and directly show the photos stored on this iPhone and allows to "Import Selected".

Without selecting any of the pictures, does iPhoto somewhere store the thumbnails that it displays on this screen?

If so, where is this cache folder on OS X?

The reason I'm asking is that I connected a foreign iPhone and iPhoto popped up displaying the photos stored on the device and I want to erase any image data that potentially got transferred to my Mac.

Inside your iPhoto Library is a folder named Caches. This folder contains temporary thumbnails generated in circumstances such as a pending import. You can delete the contents of this directory, although iPhoto should manage it itself.


How to install homebrew on Lion I tried install homebrew on my Lion, and got this

remote: Counting objects: 77394, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (37271/37271), done.
remote: Total 77394 (delta 52745), reused 61413 (delta 39308)
Receiving objects: 100% (77394/77394), 10.96 MiB | 1.87 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (52745/52745), done.
From https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
error: Untracked working tree file '.gitignore' would be overwritten by merge.
Failed during: git pull origin master

What is this? How to get this working?

Open your terminal app and paste in the following code:

ruby <(curl -fsSkL raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)


Copy URL from Google in Safari I do a lot of research using web sources found almost always in Google, which I then refer to in my writing.

When the link points to a web page I can click it and then copy the URL from Safari's nav bar.

But when the link is to a document like a PDF or Word, it downloads the file when you click.

The URL is shown in green, but is invariably "shorted" by adding /.../ somewhere in it.

If you Copy URL in Safari, you don't get the URL because Google munges it. For instance, here's what I got for a PDF:

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwjZ5ZHlqJvYAhWJxIMKHS3ADgsQFggvMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dnudd.co.uk%2Fapp%2Fdownload%2F1002149%2FWO%2B291-303%2BAORG%2BUnseen%2BHAA%2BFC.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0jjWgdxl622runkpZhDjoM

So does anyone know how to get the URL for one of these items?

If you don't already have the Develop menu enabled, enable it from Safari Preferences → Advanced.
Press shift-cmd-C and click on the link to the site.
Copy the href attribute of the link element.

Examining the href works for all types of links. As you already established, you can copy the link from the location for links to pages, but not for downloads. However, you can still copy the link for downloads: from the Downloads list (click the Downloads button in the Safari toolbar), you can right-click on a download and choose Copy Address.


How to play AAC 5.1 audio through S/PDIF on Mac OSX? I've gone through a bunch of tutorials as well as video players (QuickTime, mplayer, VLC, MPlayerX, Movist) and haven't been able to figure out how to get AAC 5.1 to play correctly on my Mac mini or MBP to my receiver.

By default AC3 and DTS are the only formats that gets passed through to my receiver. Everything else seems to get down-sampled to stereo.

Here's some test files:

6ch aac test video: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26249587/6ch_aac.mp4
6ch ac3 test video: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26249587/6ch_ac3.avi

Windows and Linux both have ways to encode AAC 5.1 to AC3 on the fly so it gets passed through to my receiver, but I have not found a way to do it on my Macs. See:

https://superuser.com/questions/390367/how-to-play-mp4-file-with-aac-5-1-through-s-pdif/
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1394553/how-to-play-mp4-file-with-aac-5-1-through-s-pdif
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=160955
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-816278-start-0.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=934833

I've confirmed there's nothing wrong with my AAC file. Playback on a Windows machine works and if I use ffmpeg to convert the audio from AAC to AC3, my Mac plays the audio correctly.

I did find this tutorial on macworld:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090215033647292

But it's from 2009 and rather involved (I haven't actually tried it yet), using multiple pieces of software to get ac3 encoding on the fly. Given that it's over 4 years later, I was hoping a better solution has come about.

Apparently Plex can do this according to this forum post

  "Posted 06 March 2013 - 02:28 PM
  I recently discovered that Plex now are able to do transcode AAC to AC3 on the fly - "under preferences for system" audio, select audio output to "digital" and of course highlight AC3 and DTS capable receiver. If you select HDMI if doesn't transcode AAC to AC3. "

I don't have the hardware to test it out though


What options are there for dealing with MacBook Pro palm rejection problem? The trackpad in relation to the keyboard on all recent MacBook Pros (at least 2019 on) is either misplaced or too large (or both), creating a lot of palm-rejection problems.

Background: When placing your hands over the keyboard in the standard finger position (fingers on the "a","s","d" and "f" keys on the left hand and "j", "k", "l", ";" on the right hand) the palm covers the right 1/3 of the trackpad. For those who rest their palms of their hands on the laptop while they type, palm-rejection on the trackpad is necessary because the pad below the right thumb will hit the trackpad. palm-rejection will necessarily mis-identify some touches as finger strokes, creating a lot of trackpad noise while typing. (yes, the palm rejection is very good, but there are always going to be plenty of touches that misidentify because everyone is a little different).  The trackpad looks nice, but its placement is impractical (see Seagram Building)

What options are available in software or hardware for altering the palm rejection or blocking the right 1/3 of the trackpad other than a piece of tape?

Try turning off “tap to click”. It doesn’t solve palm rejection entirely, but at least your palm will stop clicking elsewhere in the document causing your input to be out of order etc.


How to connect Macbook Pro 2015 and 2 x Dell U2518D monitors I bought 2 x  Dell U2518D monitors to use with my 2015 Macbook pro 13". This is a 2560x1440 1440p monitor.  All the forums said this could be done and that they were compatible, but I didn't check the dell driver page.  When I did check the page, there were no macbook drivers.

When I plugged the firs monitor in, nothing happened. It just went to sleep, said no HDMI input found.   This has never happened before with any other external monitor.

Do I need mac drivers?

I have the USB cable plugged into a USB port.

I have the HDMI cable plugged into the mDP.

I also bought the DELl 6000 universal docking station.  Not yet tried this, I thought I should be able to plug the monitor straight into the macbook.

I'm not really very techy, clearly. Please be helpful.

Thanks.

No, you do not need Mac drivers for this monitor to function.

I think the problem is your cable. I would suggest using the cable that came with the monitor to connect the laptop and the display. That cable is a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable. If this is actually the cable you've used (and not HDMI as you mention), then try getting an alternative cable to test with.

All you need to do is to plug that cable into the laptop and the monitor, and you should get a picture. You might need to set the input on the monitor to Mini DisplayPort if you have disabled the auto function.

If that fails to work with a good cable, try rebooting the laptop with the cable plugged in. That should definitely not be necessary, but just to test out every option.


iCloud won't let me in using a third party app I don't know what I am doing. I don't have access to my iPad at the moment because it won't charge so I don't have an apple device to fix this.

Just today I go to retrieve some important emails and I have a notification that my account has incorrect username or password info. I can't imagine since I have had the same one for 10 years so I reentered it. Same message.

I have a windows and 2 Android devices all of which have this account on it and is set to open without a password because my devices have passwords.

The same on all of them so I didn't enter an incorrect password. Help!!!

Apple send this email to all iCloud users:

  Beginning on 15 June, app-specific passwords will be required to
  access your iCloud data using third-party apps such as Microsoft
  Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or other mail, contacts and calendar
  services not provided by Apple.

  If you are already signed in to a third-party app using your primary
  Apple ID password, you will be signed out automatically when this
  change takes effect. You will need to generate an app-specific
  password and sign in again.

From 2017-06-15 you are required to use app-specific passwords for third party apps.

Generate an app-specific password

Sign in to your Apple ID account page. https://appleid.apple.com
In the Security section, click Generate Password below App-Specific Passwords.
Follow the steps on your screen.

After you generate your app-specific password, enter or paste it into the password field of the app as you would normally.

Manage app-specific passwords

You can have up to 25 active app-specific passwords at any given time. If you need to, you can revoke passwords individually or all at once.

Sign in to your Apple ID account page. https://appleid.apple.com
In the Security section, click Edit.
In the App Specific Passwords section, click View History.
Click   next to a password you want to delete, or Revoke All.

After you revoke a password, the app using that password will be signed out of your account until you generate a new password and sign in again.

Any time you change or reset your primary Apple ID password, all of your app-specific passwords are revoked automatically to protect the security of your account. You'll need to generate new app-specific passwords for any apps that you want to continue using.


Where can I find this iPad mini wallpaper used in Apple's advert? Can somebody help me find this wallpaper (image taken from http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/). I've looked all over the internet but couldn't find it.

Apple sourced this image from Robbie George Photography. It's called "Lake Mattamuskeet", you'll find it on his page.


How to modify a Launch Daemon permanently under OS X El Capitan? I modified the default org.postfix.master.plist of postfix to run as a daemon, so it can send me e-mail whenever a local user receives a mail.

Default:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.postfix.master</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/libexec/postfix/master</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>master</string>
        <string>-e</string>
        <string>60</string>
    </array>
    <key>QueueDirectories</key>
    <array>
        <string>/var/spool/postfix/maildrop</string>
    </array>
    <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Modified:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>org.postfix.master</string>
        <key>Program</key>
        <string>/usr/libexec/postfix/master</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>master</string>
        </array>
        <key>QueueDirectories</key>
        <array>
                <string>/var/spool/postfix/maildrop</string>
        </array>
        <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
        <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

However this file is under /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ so I had to disable SIP temporarily to modify the file. I read that after the next OS Update all my changes will be gone because of SIP. What can I do to make this permanent? Can I put my Launch Daemon under /Library/LaunchDaemons as a second one?

I haven't had to deal with this "for real" yet, but I think the best solution is to:

Copy the .plist file into /Library/LaunchDaemons.
Rename it (e.g. by adding "local." to the beginning of the filename), and edit its Label value to match. If you don't change this, launchd is likely to get confused between this and the original.
Make whatever other edits you need
Make sure the ownership is set to root:wheel, and permissions to 644.
Deactivate the original item with e.g. sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist (the -w makes this permanent).
Load your customized replacement with e.g. sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.org.postfix.master.plist (or just reboot).

BTW, if you do just disable SIP and modify the existing file, it won't necessarily be reverted by an OS update. But it might, and you'd have to check after every update (including security updates, etc), which is a pain.


Why is iTunes not syncing photos from library after a certain date into my iOS device? I have an iPad mini (1st gen) I want to give it to a family member, so I operated a full system backup and reset. I have all the photos from the iPad inside of my library on OSX (in the Photos app).

I now want to put all these photos back into the iPad, so I did this (selected "Copy photos from photos" and checked "all the photos" with "include video") and synced:

However, there are more than 1.808 photos/videos in my library. Indeed, this is what my library looks like on Mac OSX. Please note the presence of items after the date "21 set 2015":

All the items after "21 set 2015" are not synced. This is what the photos app looks like on the iPad:

Why is this happening? What can I do to automatically sync photos which are newer than 21 september 2015?

Simply restarting iTunes made it work. Somehow, he didn't see the newly imported photos and had to be restarted. Not very intuitive, but it works:


Sign flat package with non-Apple certificate I have a program that I ported from the Windows environment to macOS. I would like to sign the flat installer .pkg with the same certificate I used on Windows, which is valid and granted by DigiCert.

I created a keychain in Keychain Access, imported the certificate and saved it locally as company.keychain. I looked in the informations and saw that the Common Name of the Subject is, say, 'Company & Co'. When I try to sign with:

productsign --sign "Company & Co" --keychain company.keychain --timestamp=none unsigned.pkg signed.pkg

The following error occurs:

productsign: error: Could not find appropriate signing identity for "Company & Co" in keychain at company.keychain.
An installer signing identity (not an application signing identity) is required for signing flat-style products.

I looked it up and, even if the productsign man page does not suggest it, it seems that in order to sign a flat package the certificate should be an Apple Developer ID Installer: Company name certificate issued by Apple itself. Since every post about the subject on StackExchange is pretty old I ask it again: is it so? If not, how do I understand if the certificate I have available can sign the flat package?

Notes:

If I open the keychain, the "Company & Co" entry has the extension triangle which shows the relevant private key, so it is actually a "complete" certificate.
I do not need to distribute the app on the Apple App Store, my goal is just to prevent Gatekeeper from complaining about the app not being trusted.
The package was created with packagebuild and productbuild.
If I manage to sign the package, do I also need to sign the application and the dynamic libraries shipped within?

Thank you for your attention.

Yes, it is so. The certificate must be a Developer ID Installer certificate from Apple. You cannot use the same code signing certificate you have been using for your Windows application previously.

You can read the instructions on how to properly sign flat installer packages here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/DistributingApplicationsOutside/DistributingApplicationsOutside.html


What is the difference between cron and lauchd? What is the difference between cron and lauchd? I have always used cron, but I have recently heard that launchd is better. Why? In what ways is cron better? In what ways is launchd better?

launchd does a lot more than cron.  In addition to running programs at certain times, it can also run them based on other triggers: incoming network connection, when a file is added to a certain folder, etc.  It can also relaunch a program if it crashes.

If you're interested in it specifically as a replacement for cron, the main difference is how it handles being asleep or shut down when a job is scheduled to run.  In this case, cron simply doesn't run the job, but launchd will notice that a scheduled run has been missed, and run it at the next opportunity (although if it's missed multiple scheduled runs, it'll only run it once).

Edit: I should also point out some things that cron can do that launchd cannot: automatic emailing of failure reports (you'd have to write a wrapper script to do this with launchd) and user-defined jobs that run even when the user isn't logged in (a user can define launchd items in ~/Library/LaunchAgents, but they only run inside a login session).


Tell if screen is original or replacement on iPhone 5 I recently bought a iPhone 5 on eBay. Now I'm suspicious if the screen is the original one or a replacement.
Is there a way I can clarify my concernings?

The screen has problems to recognize my touches and sometimes doesn't work at all.

Here are a few pics of the "suspicious-looking" Screen

You can see the different colors on the screen AFTER I cleaned the whole screen with a special display cleaner.

Can someone explain this ?

I am not sure what those marks you are showing are, but I am slightly concerned by the colour of the proximity sensor on the left of the ear piece in photo 1...

Have a look at my previous answer to a similar question:
How to check if the screen replacement part for iPhone 5s is an original one?

This might help also.


How to automatically open files downloaded from Safari? When I download mp4 files from Safari, I'd like them to open automatically once they have been downloaded. How can this be done?

Safari Preferences->General->Open "safe" files after downloading is checked.

I want to automatically open file that might not be "safe".

You can add a file extension to the list of "safe" extensions. Once that is done, safari will launch whatever application is associated with that file type.

This is done by creating the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.DownloadAssessment.plist containing the file extension you want opened.

Here is an example, which solves the problem for .torrent files:

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com-PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
 <key>LSRiskCategorySafe</key>
<dict>
 <key>LSRiskCategoryExtensions</key>
<array>
 <string>torrent</string>
 </array>
 </dict>
 </dict>
</plist>

More info here.

If the file exists already, edit it and add the <string>torrent</string> line under the <array>tag