After moving my home folder to different drive, Photos behavior broken I successfully moved my home folder to a different drive. All the special folders (Music, Pictures, Movies, etc.) have the correct icons. iTunes opens up and so does Photos. Etc. Life is good...almost.

But here's where things have gone south with Photos. Nothing catastrophic but certainly annoying. I believe the various incorrect behaviors I'm seeing with Photos are related.

New pics on my iPhone that used to sync automatically with Photos (via iCloud) no longer happen automatically. I can plug my iPhone in and import them into Photos, but this is annoying.
When I get the Finder window to choose a photo (say to upload to Reddit), I see Photos in the left panel, I can click it, and I see Photos library trying to populate, but it doesn't.

Another thing that isn't working is the Share menu option "Add to Photos". I can open something up in Preview, hit the share icon, and choose "Add to Photos" and it appears to succeed, but nothing shows up in my Photos library.

It really does sound like the system doesn't really know where my Photos library is even though it's a subdirectory of my new (but correctly configured) home directory.

Make sure the system photo library path is configured correctly. Open Photos with the photo library, then choose Photos → Preferences, double-check the path displayed for the photo library is correct and press Use as System Photo Library.


iPhone Wi-Fi disconnecting when I watch YouTube I have an iPhone 4S which works perfectly fine in all aspects… except one. Whenever I'm watching a video on YouTube, especially one with movement (not so much on videos that show one background with a song playing), the Wi-Fi connection completely cuts out. I have to manually go to settings and reconnect. This can happen multiple times per video. I've watched videos on other sites and they didn't appear to have this problem, although it's worth noting that none of them use the same player as YouTube. This has happened ever since I got the phone and has really been annoying me. How do I stop this?
Additional information: I always run the most recent update to IOS, so I'm currently on 9.3.

Try to troubleshoot, it sounds like you have some problems, which are not related to the application itself.

Some ideas to check:

check the WiFi signal, how many bars do you see in the place where you normally watch it, it could be you covering the signal with someting (phone stand, hands, walls, furniture, etc), and signal goes weaker, until totally lost;
try to connect to another WiFi access point, with the same video application or even the same video clip, and check if you experiencing the same issues;
check the settings on your WiFi router (or data plan limitations with your provider), may be it has some bandwidth limitation, and when you watch videos which are heavy on traffic - it just cuts the bandwidth, or something;
connect another phone of your friend, preferably with the same phone model to the same WiFi access point, to understand if the issue is connected to specific phone, or to specific access point.
try to reboot WiFI router, and the Iphone, to see if this will help as well, it could be some temporary hardware/software glitch.
if your WiFi router has several WiFi bandwidths: 5GHz and standard - try switching to one mode, without 5GHz, sometimes it helps, as phone is shifting between them and might loose the connection.

Hope this helps you to troubleshoot!


Can I jailbreak a 3G iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.5? I have a 3G iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.5. I wanted to jailbreak it but most articles point to 4.3.3 and the downgrade isn't applicable to my model .

I wanted to know if it is possible to jailbreak my device?

They point to 4.3.3 because that's the last version that supported an untethered jailbreak. Any version after 4.3.3 cannot be jailbroken: http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Jailbreak


Boot Camp "Can't install the software" error I'm getting the following nondescript error whenever I try to use Boot Camp assistant under 10.11.1 to setup a Windows 10 install.

This happens while (or possibly right after) the process is downloading the Windows support software. I've tried the process about 10 times now with the same result every time.

Anyone have any idea what could be going wrong or how I get a more descriptive error out of the Boot Camp process?

I'm on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) and my Boot Camp version is 6.0.0. I'm using a Windows 10 ISO downloaded directly from Microsoft and I've tried downloading multiple times and comparing the file hash to confirm that the ISO isn't getting corrupted.

I was getting this error as well. In my case the initial download was completing, and then the supremely unhelpful "Can't install the software" error was popping up. There was nothing in system.log to indicate why.

I eventually figured out that it was due to the fact that I was running Boot Camp Assistant as a non-administrative user (for security reasons my day-to-day user is non-admin). Even though, as with most apps that require admin privileges, it asks for an admin password when run as a non-admin user, in the case of this particular app it doesn't work. You must actually be logged in as an admin user.

Also, make sure you don't have any other users logged in or any other apps running while you are doing the Boot Camp setup, or it may hang at the last minute.

Overall this is a flaky bit of software. When it works it's great, but it copes spectacularly badly with failure. The fact that it insists on re-downloading the support software every time is particularly galling (have these people never heard of rsync?) when you end up running it dozens of times trying to get it to work...


How long does it take to decrypt a hard drive with FileVault? I'm decrypting my hard drive with sudo fdesetup disable (because system Preferences would stop responding when I clicked "Decrypt"), and it doesn't show the progress.

So I left my iMac on sleep mode overnight, and it's still not done. Is it even doing anything or does it just take a while to decrypt a 1TB hard drive?

Also, is there a way to see how long it takes until it's done?

It depends.

There's several factors that go into decrypting a drive:

The CPU - how quickly it can "crunch" the numbers to encrypt/decrypt
Whether or not your have a T2 chip
Drive size - bigger means more things to process
Type of drive - SSDs are fairly quick whereas mechanical drives are much, much slower.
How it's connected - USB 2.0 (480Mb/s) versus USB 3.0 (5Gb/s) versus SATA II (3Gb/s) versus SATA III (6Gb/s).  All these different speeds factor in how quickly the decryption process goes.

When I had to do DoD wipes of mechanical drives, many of them were only 250GB, it could take up to 48 hours and it was just a "3 pass of writing zeros".

  So I left my iMac on sleep mode overnight,

When you put your Mac to sleep, it stops the processes.  Don't put it to sleep while decrypting.


Adding SSH private key gives error that 0644 permissions are too open I have a generated a ssh private key .key. I want to add it into my ssh in Mac to connect to a remote server, I have only known_hosts file in ~/.ssh directory.

When I try to add it using this command:

ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/myKey.ppk

I get this error:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@         WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!          @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Permissions 0644 for '/Users/username/.ssh/myKey.ppk' are too open.
It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others.
This private key will be ignored.

The error message is displayed because the file permission are set such that it is readable by other users apart from the logged-in user. To overcome the error message, you will need to change the file permissions for the private key such that it is readable only by you.

To do that, run the following command in Terminal:

cd ~/.ssh ; chmod 400 myKey.ppk

This will allow only your user to read (and not write and execute) the private key file and prevent everyone else from reading, writing and executing the file.

This will take care of the error message shown to you and you should be able to add the private key file all right.


MacBook Pro not charging under heavy load My MacBook Pro (2017, 15 inch, Touch Bar) is not charging under heavy load (full load on CPU + GPU when working with 3D programs in VM):

When I close the processes that consume system resources, it starts charging normally again. Is it a normal behavior?

This behaviour is perfectly normal.

On all of Apple's Intel-based laptops, the battery-pack is the power source 100% of the time, even when connected to a charging supply. The battery-pack is comprised of two circuits of cells, each circuit is capable of providing the maximum current demand of the laptop whilst the other circuit gets a recharge, with the two circuits changing roles every few minutes.

Whilst your MacBook Pro shipped with an 87W charger, the actual maximum draw of the computer itself is 121W - display on, WiFi/BT enabled and communicating, CPU & GPU both at full workload. Under that level of power use, the battery is having more power go out than what is coming in, so you will lose charge under maximum load even when connected to a charge source, albeit at a slower rate than if it were running on battery alone.


iPhone backup restore SMS I have had to restore my iPhone 4S to factory settings - wiping everything on the device. Fortunately I have frequent backups so I was able to restore most of the settings and stuff.

However, is there a way (on mac) to restore SMS messages from the backups. I just don't know how to get them back on the device. The back ups are all encrypted.

If you used the iTunes backup restore process or the iCloud backup restore process, then your messages should have been transferred automatically back to your phone as these are included with the iTunes/iCloud backup.

If for some reason this did not happen, you might want to try restoring again or restoring from a different backup (if available).

Reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4946

Note the mention of Messages in the list of data that is backed up.

iTunes will back up the following information
    - Messages (iMessage and carrier SMS or MMS pictures and videos).


The iTunes Store has no record of past Audiobook purchases Two or three years ago, I purchased four audio books. I recently was forced to restore my iPod, losing all content. When I went to my computer to restore the content, I found that, although the book artwork was there, the audio was missing. I work in Afghanistan and have limited internet access. I am now in Dubai, UAE on vacation and when I went online to the iTunes store there is nothing in my purchase history. How do I get those books back?

I would advise you to take your question directly to the iTunes Store personnel, they are the ones who keep track of user accounts and purchases made.

You will want to be able to provide them the billing address and payment method you used for those purchases. Also, if you can find any of the invoices that Apple emails between a few hours to a few days after each purchase - you can also let the Apple Store support person you contact that email in case your Apple ID is different than the email on file.


Ubuntu not booting after cloning (OSX and Kali) the task was too simple - I had a 256gb ssd with OSX (apfs) and Kali (osx booted with Alt pressing and Kali booting on default - I suspect GRUB was operating). I think there was a problem after upgrading to ubuntu 16 so rEFInd menu just disappeared.

I bought a new 512GB ssd and tried to clone OSX partition - it was fine but i had to tackle problem with containers, recovery hd, hidden partition and so on.

Now OSX is booting and I successfully cloned ext4 partition (Kali) with GParted and installed rEFInd via recovery hd. Now rEFInd is working but there's no option for my Kali partition.

I understand there should be a shortcut with bootloader\grub conf without Kali reinstall Kali and cloning partition once again (if ever it boots).

How do I make this ext4 partition boot (supposing cloning was successful)?

Thanks a lot!

OK, after searching for 2 days I finally got the answer.

So I had a bootable apfs OSX partition with rEFInd installed from OSX. rEFIND couldn't find ext4 partition from OSX natively. That was the problem. ext4 partition was cloned from source later on.

Download Kali live-USB, mount it using dd or rufus or any other software.
Reboot, Hold alt to boot from Kali USB, then follow the instructons from here https://medium.freecodecamp.org/kali-installation-on-usb-stick-with-pure-efi-boot-on-a-mac-37585b7698e2 section "Boot from Live GRUB".
After you log in (here's the main trick): download a debian version of rEFInd (.deb)
and install it:

sudo dpkg -i DEB_PACKAGE

Reboot. Your Kali partition should appear on rEFInd boot menu together with OSX.


All my devices lose Internet connection I'm from Switzerland with a FTTH connection. The ISP gave me an Icotera IGW3000 router. The problem is: all my Macs and iOS devices lose internet connection every x minutes.

On my Macs, I have to run Network Diagnostics:

iMac 27'' 2013
MacBook Pro 2016

On my iOS devices, I have to turn off/on wifi:

iPhone 6s
iPad Air 2

On macOS, I see first Dropbox going offline. In my system log I see these lines:

Oct 22 12:06:48 Micheles-iMac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.quicklook[1464]): Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.quicklook

Oct 22 11:58:51 Micheles-iMac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent): Unknown key for integer: _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit

Oct 22 11:48:11 Micheles-iMac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.501): Service "com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics.7436" tried to hijack endpoint "com.apple.NetworkDiagnostic.agent" from owner: com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics

Note:  This answer can be applied to any ISP supplied router; it's not limited to the model identified in the question.

The fact that all your devices are losing Internet at the same time narrows the potential failures down significantly and rules out a problem with your Macs and iOS devices.

The issue is down to the "router" that your provider issued you and there are two potential issues:

The WiFi radio could be faulty
The router is faulty

To test out which is the issue, connect your iMac or MacBook Pro directly to the router via Ethernet cable into one of the LAN ports (see below).  Make sure you turn off your wireless on that device.

If the problem remains, it's with the router's connection to your service provider.

If the problem goes away on the Ethernet connected device, the WiFi radio is at fault and the router needs to be replaced.  However, I personally, wouldn't depend on a service provider supplied router.  I would get one that I have control over and just put their router in "bridge mode."


is the keyboard layout for all macbook pro the same? I have never used a MacBook for professional use and I find myself on a position I might acquire one over the next 6 to 12 months. Though I understand all it's benefits from a technical point of view, I never actually needed one. For all intended purposes, I still don't, as a matter of fact!

My current work laptop is a 3 1/2 year old Dell and I'm running Linux on it and from a professional point of view it suits me just fine.

Right now I live in Brazil and am moving to Europe. So I'd like to know if the keyboard layout is localized (i.e. en_US, en_UK, pt_PT) or it comes only in en_US layout?

Apple provides a list of available keyboards here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201794

Which ones are available depends on where you are located.


Find which Chrome Tab is using Significant Energy Under the Energy Monitor in Yosemite, it shows Chrome having the highest energy impact. Is it possible to figure out which Chrome tab is the one that is consuming the most energy?

Right click the table headers (App Name, Energy Impact, etc.) and check Process ID. Now you can see the PIDs associated with that Energy Impact values.

Next, click the 'customize/options' button in Chrome (it's the triple horizontal stripes button next to the URL bar) and go to More Tools > Task Manager, which brings up Chrome's internal task manager. In there you'll find the different Chrome threads (including running extensions and open tabs) with their names and PIDs.

You can then cross reference the PIDs between Chrome's task manager and Yosemite's Activity Monitor.


Getting "Missing Security Answer" when changing Game Centre nickname When I go into settings>gamecentre>profile to change my nickname, a box pops up when I click Done saying, "Missing Security Answer Please enter the answer to your security question."
I've tried everything from logging into my apple ID and changing the security question and answer to restarting the ipod. I'm not sure what's going on or how to troubleshoot this.

Apple's troubleshooting article has details on how to proceed with troubleshooting Game Center.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS3970

Why not start there and ask a second, more detailed question if one of the steps has you confused or stuck. Without more details edited in to your question, it's hard to guess where you are stuck in the process.

It might be as simple as you following the steps above and then entering the correct "answer" to your changed security question from https://appleid.apple.com


How do I delete pictures of my iPhone which wont delete? My iPhone 5 has an album which has been saved onto it through iTunes from another laptop, when I try and delete the album through iTunes it doesn't seem to give me the option to do so. If anyone could be able to inform me on how to complete the action of deleting the album I would appreciate it, Thank you.

Temporarily enabling icloud photo sync deletes all the itunes-sync'd photos.

Tried all these solutions, nothing worked. However, toggling icloud photo sync worked for me, because iOS won't let you sync both ways (itunes and icloud).

If you don't want your camera roll going to icloud, import all of your photos first with image capture, then delete your camera roll so it doesn't upload anything.
Settings > iCloud > Photos > Enable iCloud Photos
Prompts: "Syncing photos ... is not supported ... Remove Photos and Videos"?
Click ok. Important: I had 20,000+ sync'd photos and I had to re-do this about every 7000 photos or so.
Go over to your photos app and watch the numbers drop on "selfies", "videos", etc
Turn iCloud photo sync back off Settings > iCloud > Photos > Disable iCloud Photos
The folders will remain (but no pictures in them)
Plug the phone in via usb, launch itunes, sync one small pictures folder. This will remove all the remaining empty folders from the previous sync.


What happens if I unsubscribe from Apple Music, then resubscribe at a later date? I want to cancel my apple music subscription for now, but may want to bring it back this summer. Will all the music I added be permanently removed when I unsubscribe, or will re-subscribing retrieve all my previous music?

When you unsubscribe from Apple Music, all your playlists, downloaded songs/videos will be removed from your devices. If you want to resubscribe at a later date, then you have to start from scratch. You have to find songs, create playlists and so on.


Why iAd not displaying in Dubai? In my iPhone Application iAd displaying in many countries but not in Dubai, why its happening?

Apple only delivers add to a few countries. Not Many.(U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K) Most likely, ad sales as low there or they do not have sales people there. So, if you plan to monetize your app, I'd suggest using a secondary ad network for the countries where iAd is not delivering ads.


How to move control strip on mac touchbar Is there a way to mirror the control strip on the touch-bar to have the volume controls on the left instead of the right?

In order to change Touch Bar icons press commandspace and type keyboard then press  enter. It will open to the Keyboard pane in System Preferences.
Then click the Customize Control Strip… button and from there and you can drag icons down or move down your mouse pointer to select and drag icons from or to elsewhere on the Touch Bar.
Note that if your Touch Bar is collapsed, touch the < on it to expand it before modifying it.


Safari in Windows 7 64-bit won't start When I go to start Safari on Windows 7 64-bit, I get an error dialog box:

Your copy of Safari is missing important software resources. Please reinstall Safari.

I deleted the Apple Application Support and the Apple Software Update.  I refuse to have these two pieces installed. I do not need any program giving me support or auto updates.  Safari works just fine without them in XP.

Any way around this?

Are you sure you can get by without the Application Support app? Try reinstalling Safari and see if you still have the issue with Application Support installed. (Then, if you want, uninstall that and see if Safari still works.)

Since you don't have the updater installed, you should check regularly to see if there are new versions of Safari so you don't get hit with some known exploit.


iPhone rings once and phone is open to caller My iPhone rings once and the caller is there. How do I make it ring until I answer it?
I’ve tried looking for a solution in settings.

There is an "Auto-Answer Calls" setting in:

Settings > General > Accessibility > Call Audio Routing

Navigate there and turn it off if it is enabled.


macOS Catalina doesn't allow MAMP permission to certain folders (Documents, Downloads, Desktop) I have been using MAMP for a few years now, I just updated to macOS Catalina, it seems that macOS Catalina is blocking permissions to the Documents folder among a few others (such as Downloads and Desktop).

I have already checked the permissions on these files with terminal and that doesn't seem to be the issue.

Additionally I have

The server gives me this error:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /Users/xxx/Downloads/index.html on this server.

The Apache log gives me this error:

[Wed Oct 09 12:31:30 2019] [error] [client ::1] (1)Operation not permitted: file permissions deny server access: /Users/xxx/Downloads/index.html, referer: http://localhost/Users/xxx/

It seems to be an issue with the way macOS is restricting permissions to certain directories. In the settings panel under Security and Privacy there are additional settings for file access, I have granted MAMP those permissions, in addition I have also went inside the MAMP folder and granted Apache's httpd the same permissions, still no luck.

Does anyone have a work around? This is causing me such a headache in development.

Catalina has more restrictions on system folders which we can apply an exception:

Open System Preferences -> Security and Privacy -> Privacy tab -> Full Disk Access -> Press 'Unlock to make changes' padlock
Open Finder Window -> "Go" menu -> "Go to folder" -> type "/usr/sbin/"
Drag the file "httpd" to the list inside the Full Disk Access settings.
Restart Mamp servers


Filevault or Truecrypt? I'm currently using Filevault on Mountain Lion on one of my machines and on Mavericks on another one. Recently, I discovered Truecrypt, which does similar work to Filevault.

Does anyone know what's the difference between those two and which one is better?

Does Truecrypt decrease the performance of the OS comparing to Filevault?

Truecrypt's main selling point is that it runs on windows, various flavours of linux and  OSX, too. From their website, it says that they offer many encryption techniques each with a minimum of 256-bit encryption.

FileVault uses XTS-AES 128-bit encryption, which is a different form of encryption, but despite it's misnomer actually has 256 bits of encryption.

FileVault is tightly integrated into the OS, so it's probably easier to use. If your use case is over many computers with different OS's on them (windows, linux, as well as mac) then I'd go for Truecrypt for continuity.

It's important to remember that the security of these drives is limited by the length of your password. This article has an interesting discussion for further reading.

  Does Truecrypt decrease the performance of the OS comparing to Filevault?

Without any testing whatsoever, I would guess that they're comparable in speed, since they are both on-the-fly encryption techniques, and perform as normal drives once unlocked.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention that TrueCrypt also supports encrypting just a portion of your hard drive, say a folder or a group of folders.

Filevault doesn't support encryption of individual files/folders. However, Disk Utility will allow you to create an encrypted image. (which can use either 128-bit OR 256-bit AES encryption)


How can I change the title of a Safari shortcut or app on iOS? I would like to be able to change the title of a shortcut (especially web shortcuts set as icons). Is this possible?

For example, I have a Safari shortcut for Facebook. As an icon, it's labeled "Facebook". Can I change that to "m.facebook" or something else?

If so, how?

Names of apps cannot be changed on iOS unless you jailbreak and use some tweak. Although shortcuts made from Safari using "Add to homescreen" option can have custom titles. The title cannot be changed once it's been  added to the homescreen.


iMac retina 27" with Mac OS X Yosemite. Reduce space between lines in Pages When using the Pages app, how can I reduce the space between lines of text to
LESS than single spacing?

Select Format on the icon menu bar, and then under Spacing Lines adjust the distance to your requirements.

This is an example:


How do I prevent iOS devices from being backed up in iTunes when plugging into a friend’s computer? Say you plug your iPhone or iPad into a friend’s computer. If iTunes is installed on this computer (which it will be on every Mac, for instance) it will automatically open and take a full backup snapshot of the device onto the computer.

The backup will be obfuscated but everything will still be totally accessible on that computer.

How do I prevent this from happening from the iOS device side? (As I do not control the computer in this scenario.)

There are two viable options to prevent backing up to any computer.

Turn on iCloud backup and any iTunes will know not to make a duplicate back up and just get on with syncing.
Lock your device with a passcode so that no matter what the computer asks, the device won't enable a sync/backup session until the passcode has been entered.

You can also set a "don't sync" bit on a per iOS device, but that may not be respected by some computers and also won't help if the operator of the computer wants to try to save any information it can access. I'm fairly certain your photo roll is safe if you use the passcode option, but you might want to test that if you have any sensitive photos in the camera roll.


How do I make my iPhone ring for phone calls but be silent for email? As a newbie on an iPhone 5, please how do I set up my phone to give an audible ringtone when I get a phone call, but remain silent when I get an email?

Open up Settings > Notification Center > Mail, then change the Alert Sound to None. This will silence any sounds when you get an email.

By default phone calls make a sound, so there is nothing you need to change for that.


How can I fix the GPS problem that occured after jailbreaking iPhone 3GS 4.2.1? I have an iPhone 3GS (old bootrom) and updated to 4.2.1 via iTunes a few days ago. Then I jailbreaked it via redsn0w 0.9.6b6. I only marked the option to install Cydia, nothing else (i.e. I didn't updated the baseband to 6.15.00; in settings on the iPhone, it says I have 5.15.04).

Now, it seems that GPS is not working anymore. Why? How can I fix it?

If there is not really a way to fix it, what are the options? In any case, I must have GPS working and I must have the jailbreak.

Downgrade to 4.2 somehow? Or reset it somehow?

You'll need a copy of your old SHSH blobs. If you don't have it, I don't believe you will be able to downgrade.

If you have your old blobs, grab a copy of the older firmware and follow various guides


Is there any way I can backup a raw partition to disk in multiple parts and update the parts only as needed? I have an external drive for my iMac with a Windows-to-go and Linux system installed on it. It took an awful lot of work to get this set up just the way I needed, and am trying to find a way to back up the drive so that I can restore either system if things go wrong, especially given that Windows-to-go has no recovery environment. My main OS is macOS so I'd like to do the backup in that.

So far, I am doing the backups by dumping the contents of each partition to disk, e.g.:

dd if=/dev/rdisk2s2 of=/Volumes/Backups/external_drive_partition2 bs=1m

That works great, and I've already used it to restore my Windows partition after accidentally blowing it away. However, it causes real problems if I want this file to be backed up via an online backup service like CrashPlan or Backblaze, or even using Time Machine.

The problem, of course, is that these partitions are each 200 GB in size. Every time I update their respective backup, the whole file has been modified, and any of those services will now try to upload 200-400 GB of data, which will take weeks on my internet connection. Furthermore, Time Machine would quickly fill up my entire backup drive with multiple iterative backups of this file.

What I'd like to do is backup the raw partitions in multiple parts, say 50 MB chunks for example. Then each time I update the backup, each part is only overwritten if the data from that part of the partition has changed. That way, any online backup service will only upload the chunks that need to be uploaded.

Is there any software or method that can do this? I'm aware of a few programs in Windows that can do this sort of thing, but not in macOS.

I'm also open to alternative methods of backing up these partitions. If there's a better way, I'm all ears!

After some time, I eventually decided that the method I outlined was probably the best way to do this. So I wrote a piece of software that allows me to make backups the way I want: multipart-backup.

Perhaps someone else will eventually find it useful too!


Mavericks Server: DNS: Increase forwarder timeout The question:

How can I increase the timeout for querying the forwarder DNS on OS X Server 3.1.2 ?

I get DNS errors, which I believe could be solved by increasing the timeout for querying the forwarder DNS server.

My environment:

I'm using Mac OS X 10.9.5 with the OS X Server 3.1.2. I use the DNS service in the OS X Server. A forwarder has been set to my internet gateway (a FritzBox, which is a DSL modem plus tons of other features including a DNS server.)
EDIT: I set a second forwarder to 8.8.8.8 .

Consider this collection of things:

[MacBook Air] <--> [Mac Mini Server] <--> [Fritz!Box] <--> internet

The symptom:

I open github.com in the browser, it obviously cannot resolve the host immediately and waits... and waits... and finally shows the error that the host cannot be resolved.

The wireshark info:

On the MacMiniServer I ran Wireshark and could basically see this flow of packets:

[MacBookAir]    -> [MacMiniServer] : #1 : Ask for github.com
[MacMiniServer] -> [Fritz!Box]     : #2 : Ask for github.com
[MacMiniServer] -> [OtherDNS]      : #3 : Ask for github.com
[MacMiniServer] <- [Fritz!Box]     : #2 : reply with github.com IP
...

The fourth line occurred about 1.5 sec after the second line. So I assume that the DNS server saw the first query time out (#2) and asked another server. After 1.5 sec the FritzBox answered, but the MacMiniServer doesn't care any more and waits for the OtherDNS to answer. This repeats with many other DNS servers, and finally leads to a failed lookup.

Our connection quality is currently very bad at our place and things get worse, when I am downloading something. This seems to make the DNS roundtrip take longer than 1 sec and trigger lookup failures in many clients (computers, iPhones, etc.).

EDIT: After I added 8.8.8.8 as another forwarder in the OS X Server DNS, the following behaviour can be seen: The server forwards to the FritzBox. After a certain time, it forwards to 8.8.8.8. Then the responses come in from both FritzBox and 8.8.8.8 . However, the problem persists and from time to time, the system fails with name resolution. The problems mostly occur during times, when I assume that many households in the neighbourhood use IP-based TV.

How to fix?

I'd like to stay with the OS X Server solution and adjust the settings there. If this is not possible, I am willing to set up my own DNS server. (I did it on my FreeBSD server before switching to the Mac Mini Server, so that's an option, but I'd like to keep the "customization" of the server as low as possible.)

EDIT: I am a bit confused, as to why I am having these problems after switching over to a Mac Server (never occurred with the FreeBSD box). However, I could also imagine, that the region with its poor DSL quality is getting no attention by the ISP and things are just getting worse with increasing age of the cables and the switch to Mac is just a coincidence...

A DNS server that is configured to use a forwarder behaves as follows:

When the DNS server receives a query, it attempts to resolve this query by using the zones that it hosts and by using its cache.
If the query cannot be resolved using local data, the DNS server forwards the query to the DNS server that is designated as a forwarder.
If forwarders are unavailable, the DNS server attempts to use its root hints to resolve the query

I doubt such timeout setting exists. Any timeout setting would just slow down the query forwarding to the forwarders. Additionally both forwarders (Fritz!Box/OtherDNS) you define in the Mac Server settings would suffer from a timeout.

Skip the Fritz!Box and add one or two reliable & fast DNS servers (OpenDNS/Google).

You may check namebench to get some other fast and reliable forwarders.

I use the same setup (Server/Fritz!Box) and i get 50 ms from localhost and 77 ms from dnscache.berlin.ccc.de.


Can I keep my iPhone screen off during voice navigation with Apple's Maps app? I have been using voice navigation in Apple's Maps app for iOS 6. I keep the phone in one of my car's cup holders because I am mostly using it in my home area where the maps on the screen aren't necessary. But when each navigation instruction is announced, I see the screen come back on. Sometimes I have my car charger, and sometimes I don't. But regardless of that, the screen coming on when I don't want to or can't look at it is just wrong for this usage scenario. Can I do something to keep the screen off and only use voice navigation?

EDIT: I reported this to Apple through bugreport.apple.com .

I know this doesn't solve the Apple Maps portion of the question but Google Maps does not behave like this and IMHO is better than Apple maps.


Syncing Safari bookmarks across multiple Apple devices (iMac, Macbook pro and iPad) I was a Microsoft Windows (98 to 8.1) user up until now , and I have recently made the switch to Mac OSX completely. While I have managed to familiarize myself with quite a few things so far, there is a complicated issue which I haven't been able to deal with, yet.

Up until the switch to Mac OSX, I have been using Google Chrome for all my online work. I frequently tend to bookmark web-sites and over the long period, I have accumulated many bookmarks which are neatly organized into folders on the Google Chrome bookmark bar. I feel a screenshot would make it absolutely clear in case of any confusion, so here's one:

The interesting point to note here is: the iMac is not my own, it is my work computer, and yet by logging into Google Chrome on this iMac (refer next screenshot), I can access all my bookmarks, saved passwords (and what not) in a matter of seconds.

So, my question is:

  How do I get to perform the same sync in Safari, as is possible
  through Google and Google Chrome?

I do have an Apple iCloud account, but I don't see how I can replicate the syncing on Safari via iCloud, the way it can be done through my Google account and Google Chrome. I also have a personal Macbook Pro and an iPad, and I need to sync the iMac safari bookmarks with those on the Pro and the iPad.

The only thing which I can think of is: Exporting Google Chrome bookmarks into an HTML file and importing them back into Safari, each time both on the iMac and the Macbook.

Not only is this tedious, but it's also extremely clumsy. If there is a way iCloud can be used to do the sync on Safari, I'm not yet aware of it. External sync apps (Evernote and the like) might not work because they have limited storage.

I would also like for Keychain to be enabled across all my Apple devices via the sync, so I do not need to remember passwords.

Any suggestions/help would be highly appreciated.

iCloud syncs Safari bookmarks as well as Keychain passwords across your Macs and iOS device today. Simply sign into iCloud on your Macs, and configure both "Safari" and "Keychain" in iCloud settings in System Settings.  If you are having trouble getting this to work, check here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4001

In my experience, iCloud is not as quick, nor as persistent as is Google Sync. It can often take many minutes to get updates, and sometimes it seems to fail outright. This has been improving for sometime now, but IMHO, its not as good as Google.

Alternatives include Xmarks and LastPass.  XMarks syncs bookmarks across everything, whether you use Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Mac or Windows. Highly recommended. The Safari support is a little odd, due to Safari not having a similar plugin capability. Lastpass manages passwords for websites, recommended as well.

For your use case, of syncing across Chrome and Safari, ipad, etc: XMarks doesn't work on iPad Safari. You can use Chrome on iPad, and get your bookmarks synced from Chrome, but this doesnt work for Safari. To get Safari to share the same bookmarks:

On your Mac, Install XMarks for Chrome
Create XMarks account, and sync your
bookmarks
Install XMarks for Safari on Mac
Sign into your account, and
allow XMarks to overwrite your Safari bookmarks
Make sure iCloud is
syncing Safari Bookmarks
Ipad/iPhone Safari will now contain same
bookmarks as Chrome.


Trackpad Gestures - Three-finger swipe unresponsive until I use two-finger scroll (OS X Lion) Sometime within the last week or so, I noticed this really weird glitch with my trackpad. I have always used the three-finger swipe to navigate forwards and backwards on web browsers, between tabs in my terminal, from the album view to the main iTunes display, etc. However, for some reason my trackpad is not responding to this gesture when I first select a given window, but as soon as I use the two-finger scroll in any direction, it suddenly starts working as normal.

I've tested it in every application I use the gesture for, and it's the same in all of them. It was definitely not doing this a few weeks ago, and I haven't changed any system preferences since then. It's also incredibly annoying and slowing down my workflow, so I'm trying to troubleshoot the issue.

I've tried changing the swipe from three finger to two finger, but the problem persisted. Google has turned up nothing, so I'm just hoping someone might have an idea what could be causing it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm not sure that this really counts as an answer, but in my case the problem went away after I did two things:

1) installed the most recent update from apple, and

2) manually closed all my programs and restarted them (I usually just have them reopen automatically when logging back in)


Trigger Automator workflow on HDD mount I want to know if there is some way to trigger a workflow when an external HDD is plugged.

I want to mirror one folder in my local machine to backup it. Target folder will be in the external HDD and I would like it to trigger everytime the HDD is mounted.

Any ideas?

I just popped open Automator to see if any actions are available that could be strung together to do this. It looks to me like this is something that you would need to create using Apple Script.

Take a look at the this forum thread:
http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=115494

The post by rccharles has example apple script that could be used to accomplish this. The other posts above this one also have some alternate suggestions that could do what you're looking for.


Impossible deactivate the disk Some time ago I split the hard drive (500gb) in two partitions (250 each), now I have first successfully erased one partition but I still have the second one (Mac HD 2, which runs Mavericks) but I can not deactivate to erase it.

Anytime I try to remove it or deactivate it, this is the message:

"Deactivation failed, make sure that all the files and applications are closed"

I am working on an other Hard Disk SSD 250 gigabyte which runs Yosemite, and I want to use the other 2 partitions for storage.

I assume that I am still using some applications and files coming from that partition and that's why I cannot proceed with the erase?

What you recommend for me to in this case? Deleting all the applications manually in the Hard Disk to make sure I am not running any of them? Is there any way to check which application(s) or file(s) are in use which causes the problem?

By typing the command lsof /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ 2 into the terminal, you can get a list of which apps are using that volume. The output looks like this:

The COMMAND column should tell you what's using your disk, and what you have to quit.

Based on your comment, it looks like the GitHub application is using your disk. Try quitting it first, then you should be able to do it.

In general, you can also use Recovery HD to safely perform disk operations without having open files spoil the fun. It has Disk Utility and you can eject the partitions that normally run OS X and have your way with them.


Getting text boxes to move with text I have added a number of text boxes to an iWork Pages document. When I want to paste in additional text -- i.e. a methodology section at the beginning -- the text boxes do not move with the text, rather stay on the same page where they were inserted. How can I get them to move with the text?

Open the Inspector and select the textbox whose behavior you want to alter. Go to the Object placement tab (third icon from left on the top icon row in the Inspector) and choose Inline (moves with text).


Permanently route an host to VPN in OS X I need VPN from the university to ssh to my office computer. But each time I start the VPN, I have to route the host to ppp0 manually to use it,

sudo route add lab_computer.foo ppp0

because my previous attempt of rerouting was lost. And frankly it's a pain. I wonder if it's possible to use some script to automatically reroute it every time I successfully establish the vpn connection.

PS1. I am using OS X. But I think for both unix and linux system they should be similar?

PS2. I don't want to route all connection to vpn because in that way, the connection to other hosts will be unnecessarily slowed down.

You can put extra configuration in /etc/ppp/ip-up file, which is described in man pppd, and which is a standard shell script file that will be fired when the pppd establishes a connection.

I don't use the VPN anymore and unfortunately it seems I don't have a copy of my ip-up file anymore, but the way I used to do it is something similar to below (you'll need to verify this with the aforementioned man page).

Once pppd establishes the connection, it will call /etc/ppp/ip-up with the following arguments:

ip-up interface-name tty-device speed local-IP-address remote-IP-address ipparam

Your ip-up script could therefore look something like:

#!/bin/bash

IFNAME="${1}"
LOCALIP="${4}"
REMOTEIP="${5}"

if [[ "${REMOTEIP}" == "192.0.2.1" ]]; then
  /sbin/route add -host lab_computer.foo -interface "${IFNAME}"
fi

Please note the following:

I'm assuming that the IP address of the VPN gateway you connect to
is always the same and never changes, and in the example above I'm
assuming it's 192.0.2.1 (RFC5737 address range specified to use
as Documentation Examples - PLEASE CHANGE IT). The comparison here
is used to only add the route when you're connected via the VPN to
your office, and not any other VPN or PPP connection.
It's also better to use an IP address instead of the hostname for
the computer you want to add a static route to. Instead of using
lab_computer.foo I would use an IP address in the route command.
I'm using the -interface ${IFNAME} as opposed to hard-coding
ppp0, which should make this work even if you have two VPN
connections established at the same time (or a VPN and another form
of PPP, e.g. a 3G modem)


Batch-processing Image Files in a Folder using a folder action with Automator I'm trying to resize new image files in a folder using a folder action so the files that were already resized to 300x250 don't get resized again.  The thing is I'm having issues getting the resizing to happen at all..

Here is my current Automator Workflow:

It works when I test it by adding "Get Selected Finder Items" but when I close automator and I add new files to the folder nothing happens.  I'm using Hazel to move jpgs to the folder, but nothing is happening to the files after they are moved into the folder to be resized

As you already have Hazel installed anyway, it might be easier to use it to trigger the image resizing as well. Create a new rule in Hazel to watch the folder and execute the command:


How do I import Notes from my iMac to my iPad? Notes from my iMac do not appear on my iPad or iPhone, what could be wrong?

This is most easily done through iCloud, which should be the same account you sign in to the App Store with.

Go to System Preferences > iCloud. If you haven't already set up your iCloud account on your Mac, simply click on iCloud, and enter the username and password.

In the right side field, scroll down to "Notes" and tick the checkbox next to it. You may need to wait 5 or so minutes for iCloud to update.

On your iPad and iPhone, go to Settings > iCloud, scroll down to Notes and turn on the slider.

For additional setup info:
https://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/mac.html


"Send as Text Message" not available on iMessage for one contact only I am currently having issues with iMessage. I cannot text my friend for some reason (iPhone user as well). When I hold the iMessage to send it as a text, it says "Send as Email" instead. However, I can send texts to other people with iPhones as well. I have checked my "Send & Receive" and my number and email are checked. I have also tried deleting my friend's email on my contacts but no difference, only the email registers to my phone when that person tries to contact me via facetime, iMessage, etc.

On the other hand, my friend can be texted by other iPhone users except me. She can text me, but I cannot reply as a text message. On her "Send & Receive" there is no "check" on her phone number but rather a loading sign beside it that doesn't seem to go away.

Create a new message from your iPhone and pick his phone number as the receiver (do not use the existing conversation).
Then when you send him a message the option should become available.

The reason you cannot send your messages as text messages is because he probably messaged you with his email-address as the sender, not his phone number.


How do I set an animated desktop background without OnyX? In OnyX, there is a setting in Parameters > General > Animated desktop background: where animated wallpapers can be set. While this doesn't seem to work very seamlessly (moving between spaces displays old wallpaper briefly etc.) and doesn't persist over restarts, I wonder how OnyX does this.

Is there some hidden setting where one can do this without OnyX?

Note that my question is not about how to set gifs as wallpapers (although maybe this is what OnyX does?).

System: 10.11.5

Yes, this can be done without OnyX.

  First head to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Screen
  Saver and select one of the screen savers included in OS X, or a
  third party screen saver that you’ve previously installed. Whichever
  one you choose, just make sure it’s selected as the active screen
  saver, even if you have it set to never start in the “Start After”
  duration drop-down menu.

  Next, launch Terminal (located in the Applications > Utilities
  folder), copy and paste the following command, and press the Return
  key on your keyboard to execute it:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

Source: How to Set a Screen Saver as the Desktop Background in Mac OS X


Will my photos still be saved on icloud if I turn off 'find my iphone' from the icloud? Will I still be able to access my photos, contacts, etc by logging into my icloud if I turn off 'find my iphone'?

Yes. There is no impact from turning off "Find my iPhone" besides you losing the ability to track your phone should it be misplaced/lost/stolen/etc. To prevent syncing of all items, you would need to turn off iCloud altogether on your phone (or its individual services).


Lion Mail.app messages marking themselves as read My boss is accessing his emails via the MAPI (Exchange) protocol using:

The mail app on his iPhone 4S
Mail.app version 5.3 on an iMac running OS X 10.7

For the most part everything works as expected: if he reads a message on his iPhone, the message turns to "read" on his iMac and vice versa. However, sometimes messages appear to automatically mark themselves as read after a time period of approximately one hour. I understand that messages in the Mail.app will turn to "read" the instant they are highlighted or clicked on, but that is not the situation I'm describing here. I can't find any settings in either application that would automatically mark a message as read after a certain time period.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

This is strange. Are you sure he is not clicking on those mails in his phone? Or somebody else having access to it. Change the password for the email and check again, if this continues then the problem would be either in his phone or imac.

Try with password change and we will see how it goes.


Backup Mac and IOS devices locally I have a friend who lives where there isn't very fast Internet connectivity. He has a Mac Book, an iPad, and some iPhones. He has a decent WiFi hotspot. He wants to back up everything, possibly to a disk drive also connected to his home router - either WiFi or wired. He would also like to be able to restore things, should the need arise. Any suggestions?

Connect the device to iTunes (over Wi-Fi or USB), then select to backup the device. This will backup the contents of the device to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ which can be copied to an external drive. To restore from backup, copy the folder back and restore from this backup.


Restoring all contacts from Time Machine My contacts on my iMac, OS 10.11.3 and iPad and iPhone are presently messed up beyond repair.  There are hundred of duplicated contacts and a number of duplicate groups.  I'd like to go back in my TIME MACHINE and restore all of my contacts for both my Mac and iCloud.   I can see 2 weeks back everything was good.  I do not know what to do from there.   RESTORE?

You have a backup - that's good, and it's got valid data which is even better.

First, I suggest taking a quick backup of your contacts as they stand right now.  It might not be required, but in case you mess up the restore, or even if you subsequently realise you now have recent updates missing, it's wise to have a safe copy.

Firstly, take a fresh Time Machine backup, and then we will make a local extra backup archive just of your contacts:

Contacts Menu > File > Export > Export Contacts Archive - stick the backup file whateveryoucallit.abbu anywhere, like your desktop for now

Now you have multiple safe copies, you can go into Contacts, and just delete everyone.  All your groups, all your contacts.  You can get them all back from your export you just made.

To restore your contacts, you need to follow these steps:

1 Open Contacts
2 Enter Time Machine
3 Go back in time to find your good data

You've already got this far, now you need to actually perform the restore...  The remaining steps are:

4 Select what you want to restore, there are various ways to do this, one at a time (no thanks, or click on the top entry, then shift click on the bottom entry in a list to select the whole list etc.  Try it a group at a time perhaps, and then go back onto Contacts to show it has arrived.
5 Click the restore button


Is it possible to run os x 10.8 on a modern mac? I would like to get a new computer, but I have a lot of software that I use which is discontinued and requires OS X 10.8.  Is there a way on a modern mac to have a dual-boot situation so that I can have the latest OS, but also have the option to boot into 10.8 without any performance issues?

Dual booting is likely out, the older OS won't have the drivers for newer hardware.  What you could do is run the older OS in a virtual machine.  There's VMWare Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox, and maybe more I'm missing.
I run virtual machines routinely and don't experience performance issues so long as there is enough RAM.  As I plan to run virtual machines I buy computers with plenty of RAM from the start.  After that the performance is limited like it was installed "on the metal".  There's some quirks with virtual machines that may or may not be problematic and they generally have workarounds.  One issue that comes up is the guest OS is effectively behind a NAT internet sharing from the host, if this is a problem then it can be rectified with a USB network adapter.


How to disable Wifi Password Sharing My MacBook connects automatically to the WiFi of the hotel I am in using a shared password from my iPhone (apparently and without any request) and so does my iPad.
I need to stop this behavior and use different passwords on each device as I am in a hotel room and only 1 device can use the same password. How do I prevent the MacBook from logging in without asking a password?
I already cancelled the network from the list of preferred, after turning off wifi on all devices, but as soon as I select the incriminated network it logs in automatically anyway..

You may have enabled iCloud Keychain on your devices. If enabled, WiFi networks and the passwords associated with them are shared:

What information does iCloud Keychain store?

iCloud Keychain stores credit card numbers and expiration dates—without storing or autofilling the security code—and passwords and usernames, Wi-Fi passwords, Internet accounts, and more. Developers can also update their apps to use keychain, if the app is on a device that uses iOS 7.0.3 or later, or OS X Mavericks 10.9 and later. If you don't see items stored in iCloud Keychain, learn what to do.

From: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204085


MacBook Pro fans are loud after partitioning disk for Boot Camp use After installing Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro 14,1 the fans in my computer started to make loud sounds like squeezing a plastic bottle every time when it runs at high speed.

After sending it to a service center, an engineer told me it is because I partitioned my disk for Boot Camp and because of that it makes it harder for the computer to read the disk, so it needs more energy and this causes the fans to run at higher speeds.

My question is here: Is it safe to install Boot Camp (dual boot or triple boot) on my MacBook?

Is it safe? Yes.

The 2017 MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2 x Thunderbolt 3 ports) is more than capable of running the latest 64-bit versions of Windows 10 installed with Boot Camp.

Unfortunately it's difficult for anyone here to speculate on what the Engineer meant, except to say that it seems something has been lost in how they've explained it to you.

However, since Boot Camp is provided by Apple and Boot Camp Assistant software is included with macOS, you know it's safe to use.

As for your description of the loud sound the fans are making, it's not clear from your question whether your fans are always loud or only when you're trying to do certain things. However, the first thing I'd try is resetting the System Management Controller (SMC).

How to reset the SMC on your particular MacBook Pro

Shut down your MacBook Pro
For 10 seconds, press and hold at the same time the shiftcontroloption keys (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
After 10 seconds let go of all keys and the power button
Turn your MacBook Pro back on with the power button

After your MBP reboots, test to see if the fans are still making the same sound.


Pay for Apple Developer Program from account money I'm member of the iOS developer program. During this month it will expire. I have about $200 on account. Is it possible to pay from this money without cashing out for the developer program?

Developer account credit, Apple ID account money or any local way to add money to those accounts (like Paypal etc) are invalid for the Developer Program.

The one and only way to pay is by credit card.

UPDATE: digged our mail archive and found a reference to this:

  Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:17:48 -0700 (PDT)

  From: devprograms@apple.com

  Subject: Re: Other

  Re: Other

  Hello ****,

  This is Jacob with Apple Developer Program Support.  Thank you for contacting us regarding payments of the iOS Developer Program.

  We only accept credit card payments for Apple Developer products.  I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.>

  For more information, you can refer to the Developer Support Center, which I have included at the link below for your convenience.

  https://developer.apple.com/support/ios/purchase-and-next-steps.html

  I hope that this information has been helpful to you, but if you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.  You can contact us by phone at 1 (800) 633-2152 from Monday through Friday from 9:00AM to 7:00PM CST.

  Best Regards,

  Jacob
  Apple Developer Program Support


Problem preparing '08 iMac for resale My wife owns an early 2008 iMac.  She is the third owner, having bought it from her brother, who bought it from a previous employer.  It had Yosemite on it when she bought it, but presumably it originally shipped with Leopard, judging by the OS X timeline.

She now wants to sell it so I am trying to prepare it for that, but I'm having difficulties reinstalling a pristine copy of OS X that isn't associated with her or my Apple ID, probably due to my ill-advised meddling with it.

Here's what I did after she got it:

Upgraded Yosemite to El Capitan
Realised that the Recovery partition would install a much older version, so thought it would be a good idea to update that as well, so:
Made an El Capitan USB installer using the official method, completely erased the hard disk (including the Recovery partition) and installed the system afresh from the USB.

Now, when I attempt to use Internet Recovery, it runs the El Capitan installation, but prompts for my Apple ID before it will proceed.  This is not a satisfactory state to leave it in; we can't sell it to someone with the ability to use Internet Recovery dependant on knowing the previous owner's Apple ID.

I suspect I need to downgrade the system (including the Recovery partition) to an older version of OS X that isn't linked to my Apple ID, maybe all the way back to Leopard.  Then, the new owner can upgrade it to El Capitan again using their own Apple ID.  However, the Leopard DVD originally shipped with the machine is long since lost.

So I have two questions:

Is attempting to downgrade back to an older version the right approach here?
How might I obtain an older version of OS X, preferably without needing to purchase it?

You should install the latest compatible Mac OS release available for your iMac.

It is correct that you need an Apple ID to download a version of Mac OS using Internet Recovery.

The installation of Mac OS, however, will not be linked to your Apple ID if you just run the setup.

As soon as the new owner starts the machine and creates a user account Mac OS will ask him/her to create a new Apple ID or to use an existing one.

Please let me know if this helps.


Remotely accessing Time Machine folder structure using Back To My Mac I'm in Japan, and I have a Time Machine backup on a disk that's hooked up to my AirPort Extreme in New York. I can connect to the disk using Back To My Mac. The disk is quite old, and I have no backup of that backup, so I'd like to at least backup the Documents folder that's on it. While I can dig into the folder structure of the backup when accessing it from Japan, I can't get to the Documents folder itself. There are several Time Machine backup instances, and from what I gather about how Time Machine works, the folders within these instances are aliased to their corresponding folders in previous instances when data hasn't changed between backups.

My problem is that when I click on one of these aliased folders, I get a message about the alias being broken. I can't find the actual Documents folder itself. I know it has to be there because the drive size is given as 25 GB. Unfortunately, I have nobody in New York who is competent enough to help me. The disk was previously used to backup an iMac that died. Does anybody here have any advice?

Connect and mount the Time Machine volume in Finder.
Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar.
Hold ⌥ and choose Browse Other Backup Disks….
Select your mounted Time Machine backup volume to browse its contents.


Where is the Xcode installer located? When I browse the Mac App Store, the buy button of the Xcode app is shown as "installed" so that I can't buy it. But I can't find it in my Applications folder either.

How can I locate the app? Or how can I change the "installed" button to "buy" button?

FYI, I had a similar problem but eventually noticed (via spotlight search for 'xcode') that rather than installing the actual app, it had downloaded an app in /Applications called, "Install XCode" which was 4.58 GB.

Running that does the actual install of XCode 4.


iTerm2 settings are reset upon app close If I change a setting within iTerm2, using the Preferences panel ex. under Window i set transparency and blur. This works as long as I do not close iTerm. Once I close the app and reopen, everything is reset to as it were before.

Also the Theme i am using is not showing properly. Some of the colors wont change even if I change to different themes.

I am using oh-my-zsh. as well!

This problem has persisted in all versions of OS X I have tried.

When I transferred my iTerm2 profiles over from Mavericks to Yosemite I ran into the same problem. I found that apple caches application preferences so after you make the changes try running sudo killall cfprefsd to clear to preference cache. This seemed to do the trick for me.


Is it possible to install my iPhone's WhatsApp on Mac? I'm using iOS 8 with jailbreak on iPhone and Yosemite on Mac.

Can I install WhatsApp on my Mac?

No ,whatsapp did not create any software for the mac, so you cant install whatsapp on your system .Currently they only have developed the software for mobile devices.


iPhone 7 never shows "LTE" even on LTE network I have an iPhone 7 which I bought directly from Apple, and my SIM contract is with Three here in the UK. I have been using this phone happily since September, I had noticed the mobile data connection flips between 3G and 4G which I thought little of at first. I figured 3G = HSPA/+ and 4G = LTE.

However, the other week I was with a friend in the US who had recently got a 7 plus. She is with AT&T and I noticed that her phone was most often displaying LTE as the connection type. I thought this was odd as I had never seen this on my own iPhone 7 and had presumed that 4G meant LTE. I did a little googling and found some discussions which claimed that on iOS the 4G mean HSPA+ and 3G means regular old 3G. In this case I was double confused as my carrier, Three, supposedly has a 4G LTE network and so I should see LTE from time to time.

I understand that Three does not have an LTE-Advanced network, only regular LTE. So is this perhaps the distinction and confusion? 4G = LTE and LTE = LTE-Advanced?

Could somebody perhaps clear up what is going on? Do I need to contact my carrier to change the network connection settings on my phone? If I can make use of the iPhone 7's faster mobile data tech then I would like to as I am a very heavy data user. The reason I went with Three was for their unlimited data tariff.

EDIT:

As requested by owlswipe. A photo showing Speedtest saying the network is "Three  LTE" with the network icon at the top left saying "4G" which it did throughout the test. I am on 40th floor of a tower here so speeds aren't fantastic...

Most carriers support LTE on just about any modern smartphone, including iPhones going back to the iPhone 5. Indeed, Three rolled out LTE back in 2014.

Your friend is correct that 4G (HSPA+) is not the same as LTE. In general, LTE has shorter range but enables significantly faster data speeds than plain old 4G (hence its name, Long Term Evolution).

To enable LTE, go to Settings -> Cellular Data Options -> Enable LTE and choose either Data Only or Voice and Data.

More information:

Manually Enabling LTE on iPhone (cult of mac)
Difference Between 4G and LTE (nyt gadgetwise)
Picture Evidence of 3 LTE (three support)

Edit: Based on OP's evidence, it seems that on 3 UK, LTE is referred to as 4G, so indeed the status bar will never show "LTE", just "4G", even while on a 4G-LTE network. As long as the speeds hold up to LTE-quality, you're probably getting LTE. This is likely a regional difference, determined by the language on your phone.


Cannot read internal hard drive My MacBook Pro (Mac OS X Snow Leopard) would not start up and the apple service guy suggest me to take the internal hard drive and back up the data to another computer using an external hard drive adaptor.

I did that and connect the "Externalized internal hard drive" to another PC. The hard disk is named "Macintosh HD" and I can only see system and application files but not any other directories or folders.

Is there some special way to read data off a Macbook pro hard disk?

Spinrite (www.grc.com) is awesome at repairing hard disks. The only caveat is you have to take it out and plug it into a PC as a drive. The PC won't read it, but Spinrite will.


Is there a way to make the Function keys act as standard keys with a Logitech K811 keyboard? I changed the Fn key on my Macbook Pro to actually work in the reverse way (so, just hitting the F1 key actually sends the "Function 1" signal, rather than the brightness decrease signal when the Fn key is not pressed, and the brightness decrease signal if the Fn key is pressed). I did this because, as a developer, it's much more useful to me to be able to utilize the function keys than the other (what I consider auxiliary) functions.

However, when I'm at home, I use an external keyboard (a Logitech K811). It's a great keyboard, but it doesn't seem to sense the preference change I made with the Fn key. That is, on my macbook keyboard, I don't have to hold Fn to activate the function keys, but on my Logitech keyboard, I do.

Is there a way to make the Logitech keyboard also act the way I have it setup in my System Preferences?

According to Logitech you need they Preferences Manger download and installed.

Make sure you pick the right OS X and follow the instructions.


macOS - Safari function to prevent website appearing in history? I'm looking for a solution in order to prevent certain website to appear in the Safari (macOS) history (no suggestion visibility, history appearance, …).

Using Private browsing, is not an option due to the usage of cookie in order to authenticate the user against the website which should not appear in the history.

The main reason is not privacy, but preventing passive information disclosure, i.e. an IT consultant browses the internet at company A and Safari shows suggestion (URL autocompletion) & history of company B intranet which is a direct competitor of company B.

Is there a way to configure such a blacklist of domains/url in Safari. Or using an extension?

UPDATE: Manually editing/deleting the history to get rid of the websites/domains is not an option. The goal is to define a configuration with domain/websites/rules which will prevent the incriminated website to never appear in the history or autocompletion.

Since you do not wish to opt for Private browsing mode, you can choose to selective delete your browsing history. There are two approaches that you can take:

Clear only the recent browsing history instead of clearing all history. When you select Safari → Clear History... in the Menu bar, along with the option to clear all history you also get options to clear history for the last hour or for the current day.

You can select History → Show All History in the Menu bar, or press Command + y and selectively remove the websites by right clicking and selecting delete. This way, the website will no longer appear in history suggestion when someone else attempts to visit the same website.

However, unlike the former approach, this doesn't get rid of the cookies or login session of the website, but simply removes it from the recently visited list of websites. If you logged into a website that you removed from History, you'll still remain logged in.

Looking at your use-case, the latter option better suits your requirements. The website will not appear in history suggestion and your login session will persist. The only con is that you will have to repeatedly open History and manually remove the website(s).

Disclaimer: Do note that using these approaches may help in removing traces of browsing from your computer, but your employer/network administrator may still be logging data, recording your browsing activity. If such measures are in place in your company network, your browsing history may still be accessible to your employer (even if you browse in Private mode).


How to stop downloads from being organized by date? Many moons ago I installed an application that moves downloads into a desktop folder with today's date as the title. I would like to stop this behavior.

However, I cannot remember what I did to cause this behavior.

Specs:

10.7.x
Mac Pro.

Things I've tried:

I checked System Preferences and Activity Monitor, and see nothing
obvious.
I made a separate test user account, and this behavior does not occur
in this account.

Any other ideas what to look for to get rid of this, would be most welcome.

So, the answer should be the Glims.  Either uninstall the Glims, or config the GLims not to organize the downloading into dated folder.


Attach 15-inch Macbook pro screen (with broken logic board) to 21-inch iMac (with broken screen)? I am curious to know if I can take the screen from my Macbook Pro (15-inch, 2010) and somehow use it as a display for an iMac (21-inch, 2012) either through a direct connection to the logic board's display pins or via the mini display port.  The logic board is dead on the laptop and the screen is dead on the desktop, so between them, maybe I can have one functional computer.

No. The internal connectors are incompatible between the two; different size and different pin-outs. And there is no functional way to route the display signal through the mini Displayport from one to the other.


Speaker Icon grayed out and sound doesn't work I have Yosemite 10.10.3 installed on my MacBookPro circa 2011.  At some point, my Speaker icon went gray.  If I go into Settings/Sound/Output, all I see is Digital Out entry and it says The selected device has no output controls as per screenshot below.

If I hold down the Option key (as in this answer) and click on the Speaker icon, I get the following list of devices.  As you can see, there are no Internal Speakers, as one would expect.

So, what am I missing?  I've tried sudo killall coreaudiod as per this question.  It just restarts everything, but changes nothing.

What else can I try?

Thank you for displaying the audio output settings in System Preferences.
This is very likely physical issue with your MacBook Pro (MBP). Your MBP supports three outputs:

speakers
headphone jack
optical/digital output (using your headphone jack)

When the optical output is activate there is no way to change it to speakers using a macOS setting. As this output doesn't support volume changes your speaker icon is grayed out.
Please check with a flashlight if there is something stuck in your MBP's headphone jack (debris, dust or similar). The optical output setting is triggered using a physical
Carefully try to remove it with a toothpick.

Please report back if you

can see a red light coming out of the headphone jack when playing a song
could solve the issue with a toothpick
used wired headphone with your MBP in the last few weeks.

edit:
I've taken a picture to show how the port can determine whether it's a headphone plug or an optical cable. The optical cable is just a tad longer and triggers the optical output in macOS.:


Correct way to 'dd' an entire APFS disk The question has been answered but it's unclear.
Why can't I just dd an entire APFS disk?
The original question posts the dd command that was used to perform a byte-for-byte copy of a block device.  As pointed out, that command resulted in a incorrect clone.  The accepted answer explains why it failed but doesn't provide the correct dd command.
If I understand the explanation correctly, I should use the following dd command:
dd if=/dev/rdisk0 of=/dev/rdiskX bs=4096 obs=512

Or should I first re-initialize the target block device with a GPT partition scheme, create an APFS partition, and then perform a dd?
The goal is to take /dev/rdisk0 (source block device) and perform a byte-for-byte copy to a brand new external SSD (target block device).
Related Questions:

I haven't been able to find a clear answer as to whether or not using dd is possible if the source block device has encrypted APFS partitions.

Should I be using rdiskX or just diskX?

Neither is actually correct.
The problem has nothing at all to do with APFS. As the linked answer describes, it has to do with the location of the partitioning tables.
If your source and destination drives have the same sector sizes, you can just copy using ordinary dd without any special parameters.
If they do not have the same sector size (as in the linked example with an old traditional hard drive and a newer flash-based drive), the partitioning table needs to moved.
Essentially the computer will try to read the GPT partitioning table at the location of the second sector. For some drives that will be at byte 512 on the drive, for others it will be at byte 4096 on the drive.
The dd command you suggest with two different block sizes won’t here. It means that dd will read in data in blocks of 4096 bytes, and write them out in blocks of 512 bytes - thus performing 4 writes for each read. However that still places all the data as the exact same byte indices on the target drive as they had on the source drive.
For your purpose you need to move the data that was previously at index 4096 to be at index 512.
Regarding your other questions:
Yes, encrypted partitions can be cloned with dd.
For this type of work you want to use rdisk instead of disk. The r means “raw” meaning that you’re bypassing the disk cache. You’ll end up with the same result, but it will go quicker that way.


How to repair a drive after accidentally changing the partition scheme? I was using the Boot Camp. Somehow I managed to change the GPT partition scheme on my external hard drive to a MBR partition scheme. Below is the output from the command sudo gpt -r -vvv show /dev/disk1.

gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Bad CRC in GPT table at sector 2
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         MBR
           1      409639
      409640  1829583888      2  MBR part 175
  1829993528     1531680      3  MBR part 171
  1831525208   121999927
  1953525135          32         Sec GPT table
  1953525167           1         Sec GPT header

I was booting OS X from this external drive. I am trying to make this drive functional without losing all the data on it.

The output from the gpt command indicates the following.

While there is no indication that there is a problem with the primary
GUID Partition Table (GPT) header, the entries appear to have been
corrupted.
The secondary (backup) GPT header and entries are intact.
The MBR tables contains at least two partition entries. One entry is
a OS X partition (type 175=0xAF). Another entry is an OS X recovery
partition (type 171=0xAB).

Under normal circumstances, the following is true.

The gpt command does not display MBR partition entry for partitions
of type 0xEE.
Some of the primary and secondary GPT headers values differ,
therefore the headers not identical.
The primary and secondary GPT entries themselves are actually
identical.

Therefore, copying the entries, from the secondary GPT to the primary GPT, should fix the partition table errors. The commands give below will do this. (I assume the external drive is still disk1).

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
sudo dd if=/dev/disk1 of=/dev/disk1 count=32 conv=notrunc seek=2 skip=1953525135

  Even if the above commands fix the partition table errors, there is no guarantee the data, stored in the partitions, has not been corrupted.


What are the blue dots next to App names in iOS and macOS? They disappear once you open the apps and then return to the home screen, but I can't tell what they indicate.

Are they apps that haven't been opened since an app update? Or that it thinks have never been opened (not accurate in my case, but that could be a function of a "restore" confusing the phone).

The blue dot is the replacement to the banner that iOS 6 had for a new app.

There are two conditions for a banner being shown:

an app has been downloaded from the App Store but has not been opened yet

(a restore from iTunes/iCloud will also cause an app to be classed as 'New')
an app has been updated but has not been opened since it has been updated

(this counts for manually updated apps or apps that have been automatically updated by iOS 7's new background app updater).

As soon as the app is opened, the dot is removed.


Mac Mail.app accounts offline after working hours The Mac I use for my business is the same Mac I use for personal stuff. That's why I want certain accounts (the work related ones, not my personal ones) to go offline after working hours. My mail accounts are configured in Apple mail.app under the same user account.

How can I achieve this?

Couldn't you just set Mail.app to check only specific accounts, then re-enable them when you want to check them? In the Advanced options under Accounts, you can uncheck the box to Include when automatically checking for new messages. If this box is unchecked, this account will be ignored when Mail.app checks for new email.

The checking/unchecking of this box can be scripted using AppleScript.

tell application "Mail"
   set enabled of account "NameOfAccount" to false
end tell

This script can then be tied to a macro in an application such as Keyboard Maestro.


Error in Virtual Box: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine I want to install Ubuntu 20.10 on Virtual Box 6.1.18, when I create the virtual machine is okay so I press start but when I want to search the ISO file this error appears to me.

I saw different solutions in the terminal for Windows, but any for Mac helped me. Downgrade Virtual Box isn't an option because my professor requires this version.

The solution is just choose your ISO file not from start button, instead choose from Settings/Storage/Controller: IDE


Is there any way to turn off the "Finish Setting Up Your iPad" nag in iOS 11? iOS 11 will nag you to "Finish Setting Up Your iPad" with notifications and a badge on the settings app if you don't have a passcode. Is there any way to turn this off?

(Just so someone doesn't tell me that I really should set up a passcode: I am setting up the iPad in question for a stubborn older person who uses the iPad at home exclusively and hates the minor inconvenience of having to type in a passcode or use TouchID. I would like to upgrade because software updates are important for security but the person in question refused to upgrade once they learned they needed to set up a passcode.)

Click on the ‘Finish setting up iPad’ notification and then instead of entering a passcode choose ‘other options’ and select ‘Don’t use a passcode ‘


How do I sync Gmail contacts with my iMac's address book and my iPhone? I enable the sync with Google inside the preferences of address book on snow leopard but I don't know how to set the time between the syncing and how to force to update. I added a new contact to gmail from the web browser now I eed this contact in the iPhone and on the iMac too.
Before Lion there was iSync which stay in the status bar and keep update my contacts every time I wanted, but now with Lion it's gone!

How do I do that?

When I had Snow Leopard I had the Google address book sync enabled and I somehow managed to put a 'sync' icon in the menu bar.

If I remember correctly I added it from the "old" iSync application (unsuccessfully trying to sync with a Samsung phone).

Now in Lion I still have it and it allows me to manually force the update of my Google address book, but I can't find how to obtain it as the iSync app seems to have disappeared.

This article here describes the situation of iSync in more details


Can't see the User on the login screen My user name does not appear on the login screen. There are two users and only one is shown.

Is there any way to see the other user or some user name input box instead of selection?

Try this:

Press the Down arrow on the keyboard to highlight any user (make sure the password entry box is NOT open.)

Press Option + Return on the keyboard.

This should bring up the username and password fields on the login screen.


How do I retrieve stats about my iTunes Match account? I wonder how I can get details on my iTunes Match account. Especially I am interested in how many songs were uploaded to the cloud. Even better: which songs are uploaded, wich ones were matched with iTune songs.

EDIT: I just found out that a smart playlist would help for that. But then I noticed that I really am interested in "how many songs can I still add to my iCloud until I reach the 25,000 songs limit"?

You could create a smartlist that only includes songs with the status Matched, Uploaded and Purchased.


What camera does the 6th-generation iPod touch have? Given that the 6th-generation iPod touch gets its A8 processor from 2014's iPhone 6, it seems likely that other components were improved as well.  Was the camera upgraded to the component used in the iPhone 6 (including the sapphire lens, even?), or is it carry-over from the 5th generation (released in 2012 with components from the iPhone 5)?

I looked at Wikipedia and the iFixit teardowns and I'm having a hard time reconciling the apparently contradictory information.  Anybody able to make some sense of this?

5th-generation iFixit teardown
6th-generation iFixit teardown

iPod touch (Wikipedia)

It is simply neither the iPhone 6 camera nor the 5th generation iPod Touch camera.

The 6th generation iPod Touch has a camera of its own. Some specs are similar to the iPhone 6 camera, but not all. The camera was upgraded from 5 Mpixel on the 5th Gen to 8 Mpixel on the 6th gen - similar to the iPhone 6. On the other hand, the camera does not have the sapphire crystal lens cover and auto image stabilization features that the iPhone 6 has.


Using the option key in Apple Script. I am working on a script that puts in strings of text into a document, and I was wondering how you would have apple script input the keystroke "Option-Return"

keycode 58 + 36

tell application "System Events" to key code 36 using {option down}

a handy link on applescripty
 - http://eastmanreference.com/complete-list-of-applescript-key-codes/


How are brew services different from launchctl services? On MacOS, how are brew services different from launchctl services? is there a way to use snap on a Mac to run services instead of brew?

Brew handles the complexity of parsing each package and then issues the appropriate launchctl commands for you. So in the end, launchctl and launchd do the lifting, brew just is an intermediary to make it easier for you to get going.

% brew services -help

  Usage: brew services subcommand

  Manage background services with macOS' launchctl(1) daemon manager.

  If sudo is passed, operate on /Library/LaunchDaemons (started at
  boot). Otherwise, operate on ~/Library/LaunchAgents (started at
  login).

This is all covered well in the first 6 lines of the help and you can inspect the code in github if you are curious how this actually works behind the scenes.


Interstitial screen/marketing layer on Airport guest wifi Is there a way I can add an interstitial screen when a user first logs in to my Airport Extreme's guest network whereby I can make a marketing ask (like, "Like us on Facebook!") and require them to check a box and click a button ("I accept the terms of service," etc.) before continuing to browse the web?

What you're looking for is a Captive Portal.

You can't create captive portals solely with an AirPort Extreme—you need at least a computer behind the network set up as DCHP/DNS/etc. You're going to need to configure a Mac to provide DNS to redirect the first visit from a device to a hosted site.

For more information about creating a captive portal yourself, see:

http://brewstersoft.com/blog/setting-up-a-captive-portal.html

Commercial software is available which can set this up for you:

http://patronsoft.com/firstspot/


Are there any wireless hard drives work well with Lion or newer Macs? Are there any wireless hard drives to use with a mac?

I need to copy paste files from and to this hard drive, when the disk on my mac is full. Do I need to look for a specific Apple drive or will any network writable drive work for basic file storage?

There are a couple of good options, depending on what you are looking for.

The most obvious option is to use an Apple AirPort WiFi router to provide NAS:

The AirPort extreme supports attaching an external USB drive
TimeCapsule devices combine WiFi and an internal drive.  TimeCapsule is intended to be used for backup with TimeMachine, but you can use all or part of your drive as a mountable volume (just like any NAS solution).  TimeCapsules also have a USB port so you can add an external drive if desired.

Many other vendors sell Mac compatible NAS drives, but the reason I'm partial to Apple's drives is that there were driver compatibility issues when OS/X Lion first came out.  Apple's drive were and are the most compatible (even if they are not the most cost-effective in $/GB).

If you are looking for a portable solution, you may be out of luck.  The portable Wi-Fi drives, which are becoming popular nowadays, are intended as media "servers" for smart phones and tablets; they are read-only over Wi-Fi and require a USB connection to "load" music, movies, etcetera.


Should this hardware piece look like this? In the image you can see the hardware part of the battery (I think) and it looks weird with all the white things. Is this normal, because the Mac was recently bought. This is a MacBook Air 2019.

Would be interesting to know what this is.

EDIT:

Added an image with circles to see the white things I am talking about. Also on those "bloated" metal things is some thin white layer, seems like the same thing like the other white stuff.

This looks normal.

The circular white spots are moisture indicators, which turn red on contact with water. This is to inform a technician if the logic board has been in contact with water to possibly decline warranty cover for repairs.
The ‘white dust’ on the edges are part of the production process.


Mac goes unexpected to sleep After upgrading to MacOS Catalina (10.15.1) I have had troubles with the mac going to sleep mode when i close the lid while having external monitors connected. It used to be working like this:

What happens when the lid are closed?

When no external monitor are connected: Go to sleep.
When external monitor are connected: Display content on the external monitors.

Now it just goes into sleep mode no matter which setup is used.

Can you help getting the right configuration back?

pmset is the terminal command to display all things sleep on OSX. man pmset shows you how to use the binary, pmset -g shows you the current settings.
It is possible to restore pmset to defaults by using the following commands (whilst sleep setting defaults differ from Mac to Mac, but apparently Apple have usefully made the numerical value that refers to the various profiles relatively the same.)
sudo pmset -c 2 -b 1 -u 1; pmset -g
[Sudo will require your password]
This last command from here: Default settings for pmset -g?
Another suggestion is to reset PRAM and SMC:

How to reset PRAM
1.Shut down your computer

Press the Power key
Immediately press Command + Option + P + R keys
Hold down the keys until your Mac reboots
Let go of the keys

To reset SMC

Turn off your Mac
Hold down Control + Shift + Option and press power
Hold the buttons for 10-15 sec
Release the keys and restart your Mac


How to stop taskgated on Sierra? When I just sudo pkill it:

sudo pkill taskgated

In syslog:

Apr 17 12:08:46 genesis com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.taskgated[88619]) <Notice>: Service exited due to signal: Terminated: 15 sent by pkill[90814]

However it automatically restarts:

ps aux | grep taskgated
root             90981   0.0  0.0  2462316   1668   ??  Ss   12:08PM   0:00.01 /usr/libexec/taskgated -s

Also note, that using launchctl is also not the way to do it:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.taskgated*.plist
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.taskgated-helper.plist: Operation not permitted while System Integrity Protection is engaged
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.taskgated.plist: Operation not permitted while System Integrity Protection is engaged

Launchd is keeping the process alive. You need to run

$ sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.taskgated*.plist

to unload the daemon. To load it again, run:

$ sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.taskgated*.plist


How do I get the XFX R6770 Core Edition video card to work with my Mac Pro? I just bought a used Mac Pro (Mac Pro 1,1). The former user had bought an XFX R6770 replacement card for the NVIDIA 7300 (original) card. He hadn't installed it yet, but assured me that this was the recommended card from a Genius Bar employee.

However, I installed the card, plugged in the PCI-E power cable, and...nothing. When I open up the Expansion Slot Utility (/System/Library/CoreServices/Expansion Slot Utility.app), it shows that in the first PCI slot, there is an "ATI VGA-Compatible Controller Card."

I'm really not a hardware person at all. I'm completely lost. Any suggestions on how to get this card working?

Unfortunately, OS X Lion does not have driver support for the XFX R6770 Core Edition video card. You will have to upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion for the graphics card to work.
Since your MacPro (1,1) is "officially" unable to upgrade to Mountain Lion, you will have to "trick" your MacPro into thinking it is actually a MacPro(2,1). The reason for this is because a MacPro(2,1) can have Mountain Lion on it.
To do this, you will have to follow this guide to change the kernel of your MacPro. I have summarized the procedure of the guide if you prefer, so continue reading.
Before Reading: Please look to the links at the bottom, which are links on how to do some of the things mentioned in this guide
Explanation
The first issue (lack of EFI64 on MacPro(1,1)) can be dealt with by using the Chameleon bootloader. Chameleon will emulate EFI64 and therefore load 10.8. Chameleon has to be booted by your Mac as if it were Windows. Apple calls this BIOS emulation “Legacy Boot”. Legacy boot will only boot from internal connectors like the SATA, so no USB or Firewire drives.
Requirements
This will require a spare HDD in addition to the drive that your OS is on.

Download 10.8 From the app store. (you will need to do this on a supported mac)
Download Xcode from Apple.
Download Chameleon-2.1svn-r192
Go into Disk Utility and partition your spare HDD. Click the options button and choose Master Boot Record. Choose two partitions, the first 1GB (named BOOT) and the second can use the remainder of the disk (named Installer). Both partitions are formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled.
Run the Chameleon installer.
Change the install location to the BOOT that you created earlier.
Click Customize here and choose Standard under the Chameleon Bootloader package.
In Terminal: run sudo bless --folder /Volumes/BOOT --file /Volumes/BOOT/boot --setBoot --legacy
Download this folder and place it in the root of BOOT.
Inside, add your serial to the SMBIOS.plist and in org.chamleleon.boot.plist set the default partition to 0,2 which is the installer partition.

Now to the installer.

Locate your 10.8 installer. Right-click and chose ‘show package contents’. Locate InstallESD.DMG in the SharedSupport folder. Double ckick on InstallESD.DMG to mount it.
Open Terminal and navigate to the Mac OS Install ESD drive. cd /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/ should do it.
Still in terminal, you need to mount the hidden BaseSystem.DMG type open BaseSystem.DMG and hit enter.
Now open Disk Utility. Click on BaseSystem.DMG on the left, then click restore, then drag your installer partition into the destination field.
Click Restore. This will put everything but the packages and kernel on the installer partition. (You may need to rename your installer partition back to “installer” as it may now be called MacOS BaseSystem.)

Next steps are to copy mach_kernel from MacOSInstallESD to the Installer partition.

In Terminal navigate to the Installer ESD with: cd /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD then copy mach_kernel to the installer partition with cp mach_kernel /Volumes/Installer/mach_kernel. Have a quick look in terminal to see that it’s there with: cd /Volumes/Installer/ then ls. You should see it there.
Now in your installer partition there is a system folder, and in that is an installation folder, in there is a packages symlink. Delete it and the copy the packages folder from the MAC OS Install ESD.
Finally you need to open OSinstall.mpkg with flat package editor which is part of the XCode install.
Drag Distribution to your desktop and open it in text edit.
There is a section headed var PlatformSupportValues there is a list of board IDs in speech-marks and separated with commas. like Mac-F42D88C8,Mac-F2218EA9,Mac-F42D86A9 you need to add your mac’s board it to it. This is specified in the smbios.plist in the Extra as Mac-F4208DC8 so if you’re using that smbios.plist then add that value. close TextEdit and go back to the flat package editor. delete Distribution from the package and then drag the one you edited from desktop into flat package editor, then save the package.

The Ultimate Moment

Now re-boot and hold down Option to bring up the list of drives, choose boot, then franticly tap the up or down arrow key until the Chameleon list of bootable drives appears. Choose Installer.
(The disk with osx on should be the GUID partition scheme). When the installer has completed, Chameleon will keep trying to boot the installer so edit org.chamleleon.boot.plist.
Set the default partition  to your Mountain Lion partition. It will probably be 1,2 or 2,2.
After the installation had completed, I used nano to create an fstab file in /etc. This has two entries in it which stop the boot and Installer mounting when OSX boots so they dont appear in Finder.
The entries look like this for each Partition you want to hide:
UUID=39C933A6-E5A4-3CFB-8841-21C89B0EDF77 none hfs rw,noauto change UUID to the appropriate one. The UUID of a partition can be found in system report under Serial ATA.

Links and Resources

Create entries in fstab to prevent volumes mounting
Editing OSInstall.MPKG with Flat Package Editor
Copying mach_kernel
Mounting BaseSystem.dmg
Finding InstallESD inside Install Mountain Lion


Why won't my iPad 2 let me turn bluetooth on? This issue is about an interstate family member's iPad 2, so I'm afraid my knowledge of the issue and ability to troubleshoot are rather limited, but I'd appreciate any general help available.

The iPad is (or was) connected to an Apple bluetooth keyboard. It has been working up until today when, apparently, each time the bluetooth is turned on in the settings, it immediately reverts to being off. Is there a known or common reason for this to occur? Is there any solution?

I thought that it might be a power-saving thing, but apparently the iPad had near to full charge, and I can't think of much else.

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

No loss of data, you'll just have re-enter wifi passwords and re-pair Bluetooth devices.

If this fails then Restore.


Restore/synchronize Messages history Is there a good way to "force-synchronize" the Messages history between two Apple devices?  My iPhone was stolen, so I had to restore from an out-of-date backup (I know, I know), and this means there are text messages in the history on my computer that aren't on my phone.  Is there a good way to copy the text messages from the intervening period from my laptop to my phone?

On your iPhone:

Open settings
At the top tap your name/Apple ID
Tap iCloud
Make sure the switch next to messages is on

On your Mac:

Open Messages on from your Dock or Applications folder.
Click Messages in the Menu bar.
Click Preferences.
Click Accounts.
Click the checkbox next to Enable Messages in iCloud.
Click Sync Now to begin syncing your messages.

Your messages should now begin syncing.