Finder rejecting/renaming file extension? I was just attempting to set up a local web project, and came across a peculiar behavior. If I try to change an existing filetype from anything to .scss, Finder ends up rejecting the new filetype and appending the old one to it.

Renaming styles.css > styles.scss becomes styles.scss.css

Renaming blank.txt > blank.scss becomes blank.scss.txt

If I use terminal or a text editor to rename and save the file as styles.scss, finder just leaves off the extension and shows it as styles.

This doesn't happen with a .sass extension, so I can just use that for now - but I have other projects that use .scss so I'd like to be able to get around this if possible. Has anyone run into this issue, or found a way to resolve it?

Found the answer in a related question here: Prevent automatically appending file extension when renaming file

The solution was to turn on the Show all filename extensions option in the Finder preferences; for some reason having it disabled forces Finder to append a "sensible" extension to files. This also solved a problem where my .gitignore and .htaccess files were being appended with an invisible .txt


Where do Folders Removed from the Finder Sidebar end up? I just removed two document folders from my Sidebar in Finder, and now I can't find them! Any ideas on where they could have ended up?

Thanks!

Emma

The folders/documents in the sidebar are just shortcuts to the given folders/documents.

So if you just removed them from the sidebar they still are where they've been.


Delete or Update Swift Book in iBooks I had downloaded the Swift Book 4.0, it updated successfully on my iPhone but not on my Mac.

It did not even open the book. I followed the solution here, after I deleted the folder, I opened iBooks and it prompted me to update.

It then saved the updated book in updates folder but it still showed version 4 in iBooks. So I deleted the book again.

Now iBooks shows the book is updated, but it does not open. How do I fix this?

Solved: Put mouse cursor on the book and it should highlight cloud symbol on top right corner. Download the book and it works.


Why does my iPhone make calls to my emergency contacts on its own? Sometimes when carrying my iPhone X in my pocket, it starts making calls on its own. It calls the same person every time (my father).

The phone is configured as such:

Phone locked
Face ID activated
Emergency contacts are set up in Health app - my father is one of them, but there are a few others, both before and after him on the list
In Settings → Emergency SOS I have:
Call with side button: Off and
Call automatically: Off
"Today" screen: I do not have the Favorites widget or any other widget for making calls.

I have tried reproducing the problem by holding the right and top left side buttons pressed, but this only gives me the screen with a Swipe to turn off, Emergency info and Emergency SOS. No matter what I do, it does not just set up a call.

I read a Reddit post, where a user experiencing this problem when walking up stairs, describes how the problem is triggered:

  After doing some experimentation, I think I figured it out.

  If your iPhone is in your pocket and the screen is facing your body,
  the motion that your legs make when walking up a set of stairs "taps"
  the bottom left corner of the screen (at least for me).

  the first tap registers as a swipe up, which, because FaceID is not
  recognizing a face (because it's in your pocket), goes to the passcode
  entry screen

  2) the second tap clicks the Emergency text in the bottom left of the
  unlock screen

  3) the third tap clicks the Medical ID text in the bottom left of the
  Emergency screen

  4) the fourth tap clicks the phone number of the second emergency contact at the very bottom

These symptoms match pretty well with what I'm seeing. I have experimented with adding/removing/sorting emergency contacts, and it does seem like it is the second emergency contact, sometimes the first, that gets called.

Another user in the Reddit thread suggests a solution:

  Go to Settings > Accessibility and turn off Tap to Wake

However, in my case, I've already disabled Tap to Wake.

What makes my phone want to call my father seemingly randomly, and what can I do to make it stop?

Following hints from the Reddit post:

  If your iPhone is in your pocket and the screen is facing your body,
  the motion that your legs make when walking up a set of stairs "taps"
  the bottom left corner of the screen (at least for me).

  the first tap registers as a swipe up, which, because FaceID is not
  recognizing a face (because it's in your pocket), goes to the passcode
  entry screen

  2) the second tap clicks the Emergency text in the bottom left of the
  unlock screen

  3) the third tap clicks the Medical ID text in the bottom left of the
  Emergency screen

  4) the fourth tap clicks the phone number of the second emergency
  contact at the very bottom

... I found a solution that at in most cases prevents accidentally calling my emergency contacts:

Create a new contact called "Dummy" or similar, with an invalid phone number (e.g. 12345678). Make sure you have at least one other emergency contact.
Go to the Settings app → Health → Emergency info, and find the Emergency contacts list
Reorder your emergency contacts so that "Dummy" is number 2 from the top

This setup will cause your Dummy contact, and not a real contact, to be called when the bottom part of your screen is tapped in your pocket.


When using my Apple ID, how can I sign out from within an app? I have successfully managed to log into an app using the Apple Authentication functionality.
I am now trying to log out, and the only way I have found is through the Settings → Apple ID → Password & Security → Apps Using Your Apple ID.
I would be very surprised if there is no other way to do this from within the application, as it would make more sense. Most common users don't even know they can do this from within their settings.

Unfortunately, Apple does not have a sign out function available to use for the "Sign in with Apple". Currently, the user must go into the Settings application and revoke permission.


Download Over Cellular? I have set up several alarms that use songs on my iPhone (iOS 6).

Whenever I modify one of those alarms (or create a new one with the now default setting of one of those songs) the phone asks me

Download Over Cellular?
Additional fees may apply when downloading songs over cellular.
(Cancel) (Download)

What does it want to download? The songs are on the phone.

Try:

Settings->General->Cellular scroll down and set

Use Cellular Data for: iTunes = ON

This doesn't mean it's going to re-download anything for the alarm, just gets rid of the stupid warning.

Also you can check
Settings->Itunes & App Stores
Use Cellular Data = ON

If that doesn't make it go away, try resyncing library with itunes also.


How do I confirm that my Mac has hibernated? I believe I've correctly configured my MacBook Pro to hibernate (after a delay) when I close the lid, with the following settings

 standbydelay         900
 standby              1
 halfdim              1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 powernap             0
 disksleep            0
 sleep                1
 autopoweroffdelay    28800
 hibernatemode        25
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        0
 displaysleep         2
 acwake               0
 lidwake              1

However I'm not sure that my machine is actually hibernating as expected and would like to be able to confirm that it has.

Is there a way to do this?

I've tried things like

pmset -g log|grep -e " Sleep  " -e " Wake  "  -e " DarkWake " | tail -n 5

which gives, for example

2016-11-17 08:39:03 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Standby [CDNVA] due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using BATT (Charge:93%) 1630 secs
2016-11-17 09:06:13 -0500 Sleep                 Entering Sleep state due to 'Idle Sleep': Using Batt (Charge:83%) 868 secs
2016-11-17 09:20:41 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Standby [CDNVA] due to EC.PME/User: Using BATT (Charge:83%) 462 secs
2016-11-17 09:28:23 -0500 Sleep                 Entering Sleep state due to 'Clamshell Sleep': Using Batt (Charge:80%) 4586 secs
2016-11-17 10:44:49 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Standby [CDNVA] due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using BATT (Charge:79%)

and

pmset -g log | grep LidOpen | tail -n 5

which gives

2016-11-16 18:10:07 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Deep Idle [CDNVA] due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using AC (Charge:35%) 95 secs
2016-11-16 18:27:04 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Deep Idle [CDNVA] due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using AC (Charge:53%) 675 secs
2016-11-17 07:50:59 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Deep Idle [CDNVA] due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using AC (Charge:100%) 174 secs
2016-11-17 08:39:03 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Standby [CDNVA] due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using BATT (Charge:93%) 1630 secs
2016-11-17 10:44:49 -0500 Wake                  Wake from Standby [CDNVA] due to EC.LidOpen/Lid Open: Using BATT (Charge:79%)

or

pmset -g log | grep sleep | tail -n 5

which gives

2016-11-17 09:28:10 -0500 Assertions            PID 198(coreaudiod) Released PreventUserIdleSystemSleep "com.apple.audio.context2626.preventuseridlesleep" 00:01:46  id:0x0x1000087fe [System: DeclUser SRPrevSleep kCPU kDisp]
2016-11-17 10:44:24 -0500 Assertions            Kernel Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler
2016-11-17 10:54:12 -0500 Assertions            PID 198(coreaudiod) Released PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep "com.apple.audio.context2629.preventuseridledisplaysleep" 00:09:04  id:0x0x500008862 [System: DeclUser kDisp]
2016-11-17 10:54:12 -0500 Assertions            PID 198(coreaudiod) Released PreventUserIdleSystemSleep "com.apple.audio.context2629.preventuseridlesleep" 00:09:04  id:0x0x100008861 [System: DeclUser kDisp]
Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler

but I'm not sure any of these are the right commands, or how to interpret their results.

How do I confirm (ideally from the command line) that my Mac has hibernated?

Use the following command to check:

pmset -g log | grep -i "wake from"

If the latest entry says: "Wake from Hibernate", the Mac was hibernated when you last woke it up (for example opened the lid).

If it says for example "Wake from Standby" it was not hibernated.


Network scan shows several linux-related security vulnerabilities on a Mac. Do I need to wory? One of my company computers - a Macbook Air, was shown to have security vulnerability as part of a recent external network scan.
The issues are related to Linux 4.0. Mac OS is a UNIX flavor, not Linux (FYI - I'm not an expert at all!!). I'm wondering if these vulnerabilities are perhaps related to the router connecting the computer to the internet? Maybe the router is running on Linux?
These are the issues:

CVE-2015-8830: https://linux.oracle.com/cve/CVE-2015-8830.html
CVE-2018-10938: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-10938
CVE-2017-7273: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-7273

Is there a way to patch/fix these issues? I upgraded to Big Sur, yet the vulnerabilities remain.

Rather than fight your security team or do their job I suggest you turn on your firewall and block all traffic, and ask them to rescan. That should fix their bad detection problem. Unless you’re running docker or another actual Linux VM, their fingerprint detection is incorrect or the scan isn’t of your machine. I would even offer to connect to their network with VPN so they can be sure they are scanning your hardware directly and not some NAT device or router between you and them.

How do I close a port on a Mac?

Also, don’t blame security too hard - this security theater happens in most organizations. They likely didn’t even bother to check your network address and could be blaming you for the last person to be assigned that DHCP address on your network. They are likely as under funded, over worked as you are. However, security is something you’d hate to not do your part so engage them to be sure they are correctly mitigating the threats they received - if it’s not you, they need to focus their efforts eleswhere as something they scanned needs patching.
Also, if they continue to pester you, figure out how much you value your time and buy this firewall so you can confirm they are scanning your device.

https://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

I think just running little snitch is one of the most effective deterrents in a corporate setting as much malware checks for it. They won’t even install or run since they don’t want to get caught by the snitch.


Intermittent WI-FI connection issues I'm experiencing a very weird network issue on my newish (2014) macbook pro. I've noticed it the last few weeks, but it could have been around longer, perhaps dating back to the Yosemite upgrade. I'm only getting to look at it now.

Mostly macbook works fine, but every now and again it stops talking to the internet. It seems to happen every 15-20 minutes, for a duration ranging from 30 seconds up to 5 minutes. It's mainly an issue for Skype, where I experience occasional disconnections.

I have run ping youtube.com and it reports Request timeout for <ip-address> at times corresponding to my outages. Note that it does not say No route to host.

I have also run ping against my router IP-address and this always works without fault. thus issues on wireless interface can be ruled out.

I have run ping on my actual router too, against the youtube IP-adress, and this reports no fault. this rules out actual service-provider network issues.

I have run ping from my iPhone, and this reports no problems so the issue is almost certainly something to do with macbook, rather than wifi devices in general.

Apple's wireless diagnostics utilities do detect the outages, but provide no solutions. The tools it provides also show no wireless congestion issues, and no problems with signal.

I've tried a whole slew of fixes:

disabling bluetooth
changing from 802.11g to 802.11n between 2.4GHz and 5 GHz and changing channels.
setting IPv6 to link-only
disabling handoff

I'm going to have a go at the PRAM reset thing if the issue becomes chronic again, and I really don't think I should have to resort to an O/S reinstall.

I would like to understand though, even theoretically what is going on here. It's driving me bananas!

I discovered that bouncing airport (Disable/Enable on Air Port Icon in the top right) resolved the issue temporarily.

Eventually I tried a PRAM reset and that seems to have fixed the problem for good.

Would have loved to understand the root cause though ...

There is a collection of fixes on reddit here, that people with similar issues might like to try: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2jwah7/psa_yosemite_wifi_issues_list_of_possible_fixes/


Can I Airplay from one mac to another? (or from iOS to Mac) I have a Mac connected to a large 27 inch monitor. I want to be able to remotely push audio and video to it. The source device can be an iPhone, iPad, or another Mac.

(Imagine a dorm room situation, where I want to play Netflix, or other media on the big screen, from my phone, and use that phone as a remote)

As a developer, I've come across some bugs in the past that make it appear that an OSX could act as an Airplay Target.

Is there any way I can make this happen?

You can AirPlay from your iOS device to your Mac using Reflector 2. This works on macOS Sierra.


Turn on iTunes EQ via AppleScript Can I turn the iTunes EQ on/off using AppleScript?

I found a way to change the preset, but not turn the EQ on or off.

Here's an iTunes Equalizer ON-OFF Script that toggles, so you can turn on/off just with the call of one script

tell application "iTunes"
    if EQ enabled is false then
        set EQ enabled to true
    else if EQ enabled is true then
        set EQ enabled to false
    end if
end tell


How can I move fast in CLI in Mac? In linux in CLI I can press ALT + F or ALT + B to move back and forth in terms of words and not one character at a time.
Is this available in Mac?
There is no ALT and I tried Control + F, Fn + F, Command + F  but it does not work.
BTW I am using the default console installed.

There are a number of ways to skin this cat.

Firstly, there is an ALT key, but depending on the age of your Mac/keyboard is may be called Option or look like ⌥.  Using ALT+◀ or ▶ will move a word at a time using a default shell in the default terminal app.

Secondly, you can tell your shell of choice to use alternate methods.  If you have ever used vi and are used to its weird methods of navigation w to move forward a word, b to go back,W to move forward a sentence and so on, then you can tell it to use those instead by typing set -o vi into your shell, now the first method doesn't work, and the weirdy vi method is used instead.

In addition, in Settings > Settings > Keyboard (on Mavericks at least) you can tick this little fella to bring back your ALT+F behaviour:

There are probably way more methods too, it depends on your shell and your shell options basically.


Can OS X play AMR files? I have an AMR-format audio file which I recorded with my HTC Desire. I would like to send it to somebody who has a Macbook Pro. Will he be able to play it without jumping through hoops?

QuickTime Player claims to open AMR files.  I don't have any AMR files to test it, though.


Is there an attention-free way to reboot from MacOS into Bootcamp/Windows? The standard way to reboot from MacOS into a Bootcamp Windows partition is to restart, hold Option, then manually select the Windows partition. Is there a single Terminal command or menubar application that can do this as well? I'm looking for some kind of single action I can fire off to handle the entire booting-into-Windows scheme.

With System Integrity Protection enabled, this is difficult to accomplish. However, this is not impossible. For example, you can install a third party Boot Manager such as rEFInd. You can then install scripts which can configure rEFInd to instruct the firmware to boot Windows after restarting the Mac.

  Note: I do not know how the new T2 Security Chip will restrict the capabilities of rEFInd.

The idea is simple. The process takes place in the following steps.

rEFInd is installed on the Mac in either an EFI, FAT32 or ExFAT partition.
The rEFInd is set to be the default for the firmware to boot.
The rEFInd plain text configuration files are setup to instruct the firmware to boot macOS.
The BASH script command or AppleScript application is installed in macOS.
When this script or application executes, the rEFInd configuration files are modified so Windows will be booted instead of macOS.
You can either restart the Mac or have the script or application do so.


Make trackpad quiet in Yosemite In El Capitan there is a setting that allows you to make the click of force touch trackpads (2015 MB. 2015 MBP) silent.

I have tried this out in El Capitan public beta and liked it, however since I use my Yosemite drive as my main partition (because it's not buggy) is it possible to enable this feature on OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 such as a defaults write terminal command?

I don't believe it is possible. Settings for the new trackpads don't exist in Yosemite. And the packaging for the new trackpad specifically states that it requires 10.11 (El Capitan).


How do you change colour scheme between *panes* inside iTerm2 + oh-my-zsh? I have seen a lot of solutions that allow changing of tab colour upon remote accessing into a server (see for example: https://gist.github.com/wadey/1140259 and many more).

What I want is to change the colour of the split pane. The workflow that I normally follow is:

Open iTerm2
Split panes and remote the right half into another server
While keeping the left half on my local machine

I don't have quite the background of bash/zsh, is there a way to achieve this?

The easiest way of doing this is to install the "Shell Integration" tools, using this menu in iTerm:

Once you've done that you will have access to several iTerm-specific tools, including it2setcolor which lets you easily change the colors.

For example, I use this as part of my ssh alias for connecting to a remote server:

it2setcolor preset 'Solarized Light'

so whenever I ssh somewhere, iTerm automatically changes the 'Theme' to 'Solarized Light'.

(Run it2setcolor with no args to get a usage summary.)


OS X installation duration? I bought a 2012 Macbook Pro and wanted a fresh install, So I booted while holding Command + R and did a fresh install after clearing the HDD via the setup. After the install I gave my credentials. Now I've been stuck for 80 minutes at a screen saying "Configuring your Mac". It has a HDD so I understand it's not as fast as an SSD. This is my first time on OS X setup.

Is considered normal and should I just continue to wait?

I did a hard power off (holding the power down button for a few secondss) and powered it on again. It all works fine now.


An app that can give me the amount of time using an app? I need an app that tracks automatically every time I use Final Cut X or another app and gives me the total usage time. Any ideas?

I use RescueTime. It's quite cool + for free you get a lot of features


Open new Chrome window with different profile from command line I want to run a command line that opens a new chrome window with another profile.
I tested the following commands:
Preconditions:

I have two profiles: Profile 1 and Profile 2

Chrome is already running with Profile 1

open -a "Google Chrome.app" --args --profile-directory="Profile 2"
The above command does nothing other than bringing focus to the currently running chrome with Profile 1
I also tried:
open -a "Google Chrome.app" --args --profile-directory="Profile 2" --new-window
The effect is the same.
I want to run a command line that opens a new chrome window with Profile 2 while there is already a Chrome window running with Profile 1

Pass the arguments to the  Google Chrome's executable directly, instead of routing them via open --args.
Set an alias to the executable inside Chrome app. (right click > show package contents)
alias chrome_cli="/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"
chrome_cli --profile-directory="Profile 1" --new-window
chrome_cli --profile-directory="Profile 2" --new-window

Even append --new-window to the alias if that's used a lot.
For more help, run
chrome_cli --help

To remove alias,
unalias chrome_cli

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/3773/how-to-pass-parameters-to-an-alias


Running Sierra and Leopard on MacBook Air I just bought a new MacBook Air and want to know if I can partition the drive and add Leopard (10.5.8) so I can run my older music software.

The issue for me both the cost and I like the older versions interface better.  I still have an old PowerPC G5 which would service the Leopard software, but no current printer will support the older G5, hence my thought I could use older software, make doc PDF, then print with new OS.

Is this realistic?

If the machine is newer than Leopard, then it's not possible.

No Mac can run an OS older than itself - the drivers for it simply weren't invented.

Your only option would be to set up a VM, using Parallels or similar; but you'd have to use Lion - the oldest user version of OS X licensed for virtualisation.
Snow Leopard Server was the first ever version you can virtualise.


Can I have a stable IP address for a virtual machine under VMWare? I'm using VMWare to emulate Ubuntu on my Leopard Mac OS X.

The IP address changes everytime I put the Mac to sleep.

I was wondering if I can avoid that.

You can do this -- just configure the Ubuntu virtual machine with a static IP. The choice of IP will depend on the network you're connecting to... You didn't mention if you were using a NAT or Bridged connection, and the choice of IP will different based on that. I can provide specific instructions if you like, but, they'll be all things you do within the Ubuntu VM, not within the Mac environment. (So you may find better luck asking on http://askubuntu.com or https://unix.stackexchange.com/)

You could also install the "avahi-daemon" package in Ubuntu and then you won't need to remember the VM's IP address, you can use vm-hostname.local as if it were a Mac with Bonjour.

EDIT: I see you're using a NAT interface. I typed up a long list of instructions only got get stuck on the final step. I'll do more research into this, but in the meantime, here's some instructions which I have not tested, but might work on the Mac side...

Here's incomplete instructions, I will finish them up shortly:

VMware Susion starts assigning IPs via DHCP at .128 (at least on my machine). The first three octets of the IPs are defined by a network probe which happened when you installed VMware, so you'll want to determine what network VMware chose for you, and then choose an IP underneath the range VMware assigns via DHCP to avoid conflicts:

Determine what network VMware chose: In the Ubuntu Virtual Machine, choose System > Administration > Network Tools. In the window that appears, under "Network Device", choose "Ethernet Interface (eth0)". In the list below, look for "IPv4". Look at the IP address in the right hand column, and make note of the first three octets (numbers between the dots). On my machine, this is: 172.16.1
Choose a new static IP: You can make up any number from 2 to 127 which will be appended to the network from step 1, as long as it doesn't conflict with any other static IPs you have assigned. Let's say you choose 15, because I like the number 15. In my example your static IP would then be 172.16.1.15.
Configure Ubuntu to use a static IP: Go to System > Preferences > Network Connections in the Ubuntu VM.  Under "Wired" choose "Auto eth0" and click "edit". Go to "IPv4 Settings" and set "Method:" to "Manual". Next to "Addresses", click the "Add" button. In the new row that appears, under "Address", enter the IP you close (172.16.1.15 in my example). Under Netmask, enter 255.255.255.0. Under gateway, enter the first three octets of your IP, followed by .1. (In my example, the gateway would be 172.16.1.1). Under DNS Servers, enter... oh, crap, this is being provided by DHCP. Let me figure out a way to make this work :-/


Distinguishing iPad with Retina Display and iPad2 Tomorrow I will buy a 2nd hand iPad with Retina Display. But I do not have an idea how I can distinguish it from ipad 2. I know retina display is a very significant difference for experienced users. However I have never used an ipad 2 or ipad 1 so I cannot understand the difference.

What is the best way to distinguish two of them? It seems like there does not exist any logo like ipad 2 or ipad with retina display on the back of the device. Is there a way to understand it from settings menu or somewhere else?

Regards

The serial numbers (on the back in small print, near the bottom) will be different depending on the model. If you check this post you can write down the model number for the version you're buying, in case you're worried about getting scammed. The iPad 3 model numbers all begin with A14.


How to fix screwed font display in password entry dialog? I don't have a single clue how my Mac OS comes to be like this..

Whenever I'm prompted to enter my password for admin rights to make changes to the system, my Mac OS seems to have a hard time finding the correct characters to represent the Roman alphabets it wants to display. Here are some screenshots regarding what it shows:

I suppose there is some bug (it is a Mac OS X version 10.7.5) or maybe I've accidentally deleted some system files required for the encoding..

This isn't really a big problem (since everything else works well), but as time goes by I feel the need to fix it.

I would appreciate if someone can provide me a solution.

So apparently it was solved by removing the fontd databases and deleting the files of conflicting fonts. (I guess the conflicting fonts were shown in Font Book?)

sudo atsutil databases -remove; atsutil server -shutdown

The password dialogs and force quit window are shown by processes owned by the root, so -removeUser might not work. launchd starts a new fontd process automatically, so atsutil server -ping is not needed.


Automator Eject Action - OSStatus error -36 Hopefully quick question:

I've made an automator quick action to eject all BUT the disks that are always hanging around my computer. It uses an AppleScript to get the list of disks, strip it of the local HD, "VM", "Home", and "Google Drive", since I don't need to eject those. I pass those to a shell script that just outputs each item after prepending "/Volumes/" to the name. This goes to an "Eject Disk" action, which is followed by a notification. The disks eject properly, but I get the OSStatus error -36, which causes it to stop after the eject action rather than display the notification and pop up an error. I can't find that error code via a google search - any ideas?

Error dialog:

Automator Script:

If you are going use AppleScript to get a list of disks you want ejected, then simply use, e.g.:

tell application "Finder" to eject cleanListOfDisks

Then there is no need to pass cleanListOfDisks to a Run Shell Script action to then pass it to a Eject Disk action.

Here is how I'd code the Run AppleScript action  and not use any other actions:

set listOfDisks to list disks
set doNotEjectDiskList to {"Macintosh HD", "VM", "home", "net", "Google Drive"}
set listOfDisksToEject to {}

repeat with thisDisk in listOfDisks
    if thisDisk is not in doNotEjectDiskList then
        copy contents of thisDisk to end of listOfDisksToEject
    end if
end repeat

tell application "Finder" to eject listOfDisksToEject


iOS Mail app archive button sometimes goes back to inbox view? Normally pressing "archive" brings me to the next email but occasionally it brings me back to the inbox. Is this just a bug?

I'm using my gmail account and I'm in the "all inboxes" view. My OS is up to date.


2016 MacBook Pro won't get past the Login Screen My laptop running 10.13.6, has been working great without any issues until I restarted it on Monday. After I logged in, it got stuck on the loading screen and displaying a loading icon for over an hour.

Over the past couple of days, the only way I can get past logging in, is from restoring from a time machine backup. I have tried the following without any luck:

Boot in Safe Mode - this freezes like this every time
Repair the Disk
Reset NVRAM and PRAM
Reinstalling the OS

I have seen that running diagnostics on restart might let me know what is going on if it is a hardware issue, I am just afraid to restart my computer because it takes all day to restore. Can this be run from terminal without restarting? Is there anything else I should be trying before I go into the Apple store?

On a hunch

repair your disk

Boot in Single user Mode "CMD S"

As the Mac boots in this mode, the screen reports each step of the process. Wait until the scrolling white text stops. The last line should end in root#.

Right after the root# prompt, enter the following:

/sbin/fsck -fy

Press the Return key.

You’ll see the prompts in the picture above as each part of the hard drive’s directory is checked. (Checking extents overflow file, Checking catalog file, Checking multi-linked files, etc.) It will take a few minutes. At the end, if your drive was OK, the screen will say “The volume (name of your hard drive) appears to be OK”. If any repair was made, you’ll see the prompt, “FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED”. Then, you’ll see the root# prompt again.

Right after the root# prompt, enter the following:

reboot

Press the Return key. Your Mac should restart normally.


iMac external projector limits screen resolution to 800x600 I try to use an external projector on an mid 2011 iMac running Snow Leopard. The iMac is connected to the projector using a VGA adapter. DVI is out of the question as the beamer supports VGA only.

When I configure the screen resolution using display preferences I always see "Usable resolution 800x600" regardless of the configured resolution. 800x600 is not really useful for me as I need to display detailed information.

The projector is definitely able to display higher resolutions using a Windows Box or a MacBook Pro on either Snow Leopard or Lion.

I even switched to another projector model, this worked for a while. At one point in time things changed and I am limited to 800x600 again.

Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated

It sounds like OS X isn't properly detecting the resolutions your projector can support.

The best workaround would probably be SwitchResX. It's a shareware app (from what I can tell, no functionality restrictions) that allows you to set custom resolutions (and other display options). Set up one that you've confirmed your projector can support and give it a try.


Reinstallation OSX Mavericks on Mac Mini via WiFi Fails Tried to upgrade to OSX Yosemite on my Mac Mini bought this year running OSX Mavericks. It failed. When I checked for issues using Disk Utility I saw:

  Disk Utility stopped repairing "Macintosh HD" Disk Utility can't repair
  this disk. Backup as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk
  and restore your backed-up files

This was due to the error unable to bootstrap transaction group 259092 invalid field value

So I erased all and tried an internet recovery with recovery partition. I made my wifi connection open to all, but I still get

  OSX cannot be reinstalled because you are not connected to the
  internet. If you connect to the internet via Wifi use the menu with
  the wifi icon to select the network. Otherwise plug in an ethernet
  cable.

I could plug into my wireless router I guess, but as I do not have a mobile screen for my Mac Mini I cannot see what I am doing.

Why does OSX not just connect to the wireless network as it is open? Any way to make it work? Is there an option to start with the basic OSX Recovery Package and activate wifi and then start the upgrade to the full package?

In the end it was a loose cable to my fusion hard disk. Apple Care fixed it. They re-attached it and now we are all good.


How to improve my mac mini performance I'am have a Mac Mini with 2.5GHz Intel Core i5. I'am a iOS developer, while doing development my mac mini becomes very slow and hand.

How can I speed up my mac mini.

Thanks in advance

I am surprised the suggestions have not piled up in the hour since you posted...
1-Best answer: Put an SSD on the Mini, it will feel way better than even maxing out RAM (I assume you already have a decent amount of RAM to start with, i.e., not less than 8GB and are running Mavericks)
If you've already done all of the above then anything else you might do will probably give you less of a performance jump.


How can I list all the installed printer drivers on Mac OS 10.6? I am trying to troubleshoot printer issues and I figured it would be best to see all the printer drivers (and versions thereof) as a starting point, before I try reinstalling said drivers.

I would like to see all the printer drivers I have installed on my Mac. Where are they installed? What directory? What is the best way to uninstall them, if I so wished?

Since Mac OS 10.2, printing is handled by the CUPS system. While drivers are typically found in /Library/Printers, the folder can contain support files and many other things which are not themselves print drivers, and in the real world there is no canonical location within the folder where the actual driver files are stored.

The only authoritative list of available print drivers on OS X is that returned by lpinfo -m (specifying the host is not necessary for the local machine). CUPS specifies that drivers can consist of an arbitrary number of files, but they must all be declared in a central PPD file. lpinfo -m will parse any valid PPDs found; if it doesn't have a PPD that CUPS can parse, then it isn't a valid print driver. A sample of the output:

MacBook-Pro:~ user$ lpinfo -m
Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CNPZUD450ZU.ppd.gz Canon D400-450
Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CNPZUD490ZU.ppd.gz Canon D460-490
Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CN6300.ppd.gz Canon iPF6300(CUPS)
Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CN6300S.ppd.gz Canon iPF6300S(CUPS)
Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CN6350.ppd.gz Canon iPF6350(CUPS)
Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CN8300.ppd.gz Canon iPF8300(CUPS)
Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CN8300S.ppd.gz Canon iPF8300S(CUPS)
[...]
drv:///sample.drv/okidata9.ppd Oki 9-Pin Series
drv:///sample.drv/okidat24.ppd Oki 24-Pin Series
raw Raw Queue
[...]

Each line specifies the path to that driver's PPD file, followed by the display name of the printer as declared in the PPD. As you can see, some drivers are internal to CUPS and do not even have a PPD file in /Library/Printers, so lpinfo -m is the only way to be certain of everything available to the printing system.

There doesn't seem to be much consistency regarding version numbers; I've seen some vendors include the version in the make-and-model string that's returned by lpinfo -m (Xerox, for example), but it's certainly not universal. However, the PPD file is just plaintext (optionally compressed). If you open the PPD in a text editor you should find a *FileVersion line that lists the driver version.

Deleting a printer using the 'minus' button in System Preferences does not delete/uninstall the driver, it just deletes the queue that has been created for the printer in question. (Technically, when you create a printer queue, a copy of the PPD is created for that printer, which will be deleted when deleting the queue.) The 'Reset printing system...' option will also not remove any drivers; it will only delete all configured print queues and reset some CUPs configuration to defaults.

Deleting a PPD file listed by lpinfo will effectively delete the driver, as it will no longer be loaded by the CUPS system, though as explained above there may be additional support files left behind. There is no standard way to remove these because each driver can include support files in different places, but there is no cause to delete them unless you are intending to reinstall the driver. In that case, the original installer package from the manufacturer should handle re-installation of all relevant files.

I have sometimes seen people manually copying PPD files as a means of installing printers; do not rely on this! Some drivers require only a PPD but others may need support files as well. The only way to be sure all necessary files are installed is to use the original installer package.


Double click in AppleScript How do you write the command to carry out a double click with a mouse at a specific location in AppleScript?

You can use AppleScript to click twice using click at and a delay.

tell application "System Events"
  click at {10, 10}
  delay 0.1
  click at {10, 10}
end tell


Is there any way to have macOS Photos bulk convert all of my past JPEG images to HEIC format? I’ve seen lots of tutorials online explaining how to convert iOS HEIC files to JPEGs but I can’t seem to find any easy way to bulk convert existing JPEG photos to HEIC?
The reason being is I really like HEIC as a storage format: It easily makes image file sizes 5x to 10x smaller than JPEG equivalents which not only saves space but makes syncing the library to other devices quicker as well.
So I would like to convert all past images in my macOS Photo library to HEIC two take advantage of these benefits. Do any such tools exist?
While I understand how to bulk convert images outside of macOS Photos using ImageMagick and simple Bash scripting, I would like to avoid doing a bulk export, conversion via non-Photos tools and then reimport because that seems messy at best.
I mean Apple is really promoting the use of HEIC within their apps nowadays; why not have some way to easily do that within the macOS Photos application itself?

Unless somebody writes a plugin to manipulate photos in place, converting all the JPGs outside of Photos, deleting them from the library and then reimporting seems to be the only way. Which of course means that you loose all the albums etc.
As for a plugin, I wouln't be surprised if this is nearly impossible to do as plugins usually manipulate just the content of a photo, they change neither file type nor file name. And with the in-place editing Photos provides (and the versioning/edit history this requires) even a hack accessing photos.db directly will be challenging to do.


Internet keeps timing out on Yosemite 10.10.5 I have really strange WiFi issues on my early 2015 MBP. I'm running Yosemite 10.10.5 and for some strange reason wifi/internet stops working for up to a minute and then starts working again. In the meantime I am not disconnected. I say wifi/internet because I'm not sure where the root cause is. All my other equipment still works when my MBP decides to stop working. Even my old 2009 MBP still works fine when my MBP drops out. Since I haven no clue where to start looking to fix this problem, I was hoping to find some guidance here.

It was a strange issue with my configuration as far as I know. I ended up simply moving /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ to another location (or just renaming/deleting) and rebooting my MBP. Everything has worked fine ever since.


Can Preview on Mountain Lion make animated pictures from a sequence of PNG? I seem to recall making animated GIF from Preview.app on earlier OS, but can't find the options to make a GIF on the latest version of the app.

Can I use 10.8 Preview to make animated PNG or GIF?

If you hold down alt/option when you click the format dropdown in the export menu, you can still select GIF in Mountain Lion. Once you have done this, you can continue with the normal animated gif creation process:

Save your image as a GIF
Show the sidebar
Drag additional frames on top of the thumbnail


Can’t increase partition size of cloned volume in Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) I have a MacBook with a 120 GB SSD. I bought a new one with 240 GB. I cloned the content from the old one over with an ICY BOX cloning device. I inserted new SSD in the MacBook and everything is fine and works. But I then noticed in the disk utility that the size of the partition is still the old one (120 GB).

So here is what I have tried so far:

I dragged the partition in the pie chart to use all unlocated available space. But then I get the error from MediaKit: "Error: -5341: MediaKit reports partition (map) too small".
I ran GParted on a USB flash drive, mounted it and gparted noticed some errors with the partition. it immediatly repaired it. Then I tried to increase the partition within GParted. But this was not possible. GParted can't increase HFS+ format. But after repairing it with GParted, disk utility does not show free space any longer.

I ran Terminal and diskutil resizeVolume. But it breaks up with an error message: "Error obtaining partition map size information"

And now I am completely lost. What’s wrong and what can I do to reclaim the additional space?

In general, when you use those hardware-only cloning devices—like that ICY BOX you mention—you end up in situations like this. Perhaps there is a cleaner way to recover from a situation like this, but in my experience what you are attempting to do just won’t work; hardware cloning like that is strictly one-to-one as far as volume size goes. And if the target volume size is larger than the source size, the situation that you are in happens; the volume is cloned but the maximum destination volume size becomes exactly the same as the source volume size.

What I always do for cases like this—cloning smaller drive to larger drive—is to hook up the new drive to the machine in some way (such as an external USB enclosure) and then clone it via rsync or Carbon Copy Cloner. This strictly copies OS level data from one device to another; not partition data/info so this always works right off the bat.


Bootcamp - show bootloader by default I have MacOS Catalina and Windows 10 Enterprise installed using Bootcamp, but it's a bit finicky getting the bootloader to show up (I know it's the option key, but it doesn't always work). Is there a way to get the Bootloader to display by default, and just boot into the default operating system after n seconds if no action is taken?

There is no such native feature. You can use a third-party bootloader like rEFInd to achieve what you want.

P.S. If holding Alt/Option on boot genuinely doesn't reliably show the Startup Manager for you, you should probably get that checked out.


Shortcut key for fullscreen mode I am new to Mac OS (2014 Macbook Air).
I am looking at the arrow on top right corner of windows, when I click it, it maximizes window over the top menu and in order to switch back I need to hold mouse in top right corner in order for menu to appear and the button with arrows appears again to [kind of] minimize back as it was.

Is there a shortcut key to switch between these modes ? I could only find the Command+M shortcut which completely minimizes the window.

The button in the top right of each window is not for minimizing and maximizing the window, but for putting it in and out of fullscreen mode (which is why it covers the menu bar, as you said).

The keyboard shortcut to toggle fullscreen depends on the application.

Most applications that I use on a daily basis (such as Google Chrome, Terminal, Mail, and Safari) use ^+⌘+F (Control+Cmd+F) to toggle fullscreen mode.

Unfortunately, not all developers use this shortcut in their applications. iTerm, for example, uses ⌘+Enter to toggle fullscreen mode. If the application you refer to does not use either of these shortcuts, you should look for the fullscreen option in the View menu or by searching for "fullscreen" in the Help menu.


Weird bug: Cmd+Tab sticks in Mavericks I am experiencing an odd bug that I haven't seen anywhere else.

When I use Cmd+Tab, it seems to stick on whatever application it lands on when I release Tab. It should open that application, but instead the app switcher remains active.

Then, I can either hit Enter and it will open that app (like it should have when I released Tab), or I can press Tab once more and it will move to the next app then open that app.

This happen every single time, UNLESS I perform the keystroke VERY quickly.

I submitted a bug report to Apple a couple months ago, and (to no surprise) I haven't heard back.

This has happened since I upgraded to Mavericks on release day.

I have tried various third-party applications, but Apple has made it impossible now to relinquish the keystroke from the system.

I'm at my wit's end, any ideas would be appreciated.

The command ⌘+tab ⇥ app switcher lives in Dock.app, as many other things do, like the desktop background, menu bar, Spaces, Exposé, and most obviously the Dock. So to fix this the easiest way would be to simply clear the Dock preferences using this Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) command:

defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock

For anyone not familiar with the defaults command, it is used to set or remove preferences, most of the time hidden ones. This line simply uses the defaults command to delete the preferences associated with the bundle ID of com.apple.dock, which is just a unique identifier for Dock.app. If you want to be a little more technical and see if you can salvage your Dock's app order and Stacks, try running

defaults read com.apple.dock

and looking for anything suspicious or corrupted, and then use defaults delete on the offending key.


Lost admin privileges on user account during rename, trying to access data from that user account I wanted to rename my user account and followed the following Apple support directions: https://support.apple.com/hr-hr/HT201548

Per the instructions, I created a new user account with admin privileges, and while logged in under the new account, I first renamed my original user folder (under /Users/ (via Finder > Go To Folder)). Next, under System Prefs > Users & Groups, I right clicked on my original account and clicked advanced options. I changed the account name field to match what I had just renamed the user folder. The “Full name” field was my full name. Notably, I did not edit the “Home directory” field (I believe this is what caused my problem). I hit OK and restarted, and when I logged in as the original user, whose name I had just tried to change, my data was gone, I got all the prompts to set up my Mac, etc. Under System Prefs > Users & Groups, I noticed that both the account I was logged into and the admin account I’d just created to do the name change had lost admin privileges (both were “Standard”). When I tried to unlock and access advanced settings, none of my previous admin username/password combos worked.

I read this thread: < Renaming user failed, lost admin rights> and ended up booting up in single user mode to create a new user with admin privileges. I was able to grant admin rights back to my original user account. However, this account still had none of my data. Under Advanced Options in System Pref, the "Account Name" field for the original user had not changed -- it was still the original account name which I had tried to get rid of.

Under /Users/ I can see that my data is still there a user folder -- its name is the name I had tried to change in the "Account Name" field for the original user, yet it isn’t associated with any of the users listed under Users & Groups. It’s in limbo.

How can I regain access to this user account and it’s data? I thought about simply changing the "Account Name" field of one of the users with admin privileges which I can access in Users & Groups match the user folder name, but I don’t want to overwrite the data in that folder.

Thanks!

I was able to associate my original User with the user data lost in limbo under /Users/[new Account Name]. While logged in as another user with admin privileges, go to System Prefs > Users & Groups. Right click to go to Advanced Options on the user you'd like to associate with the folder /Users/[new Account Name]. Under the "Home Directory" field, click "Choose" and select [new Account Name], confirm that the path in the field reads /Users/[new AccountName]. Important: Don't change the "Account Name" field. Click OK, restart, log in under the User whose home directory you just changed and verify that the user data is present. Once verified, you can change the "Account Name" associated with that user by following the same procedure (log in as another user with admin privileges, right-click to Advanced Options, change the "Account Name" field, click OK and restart. For some reason, when I tried to change both the home directory and the account name, this did not work, but when I did it step-wise it did. Hope this helps others.


How does software updates work in OS X? I just switched from Linux to OS X and I am still getting used to it.

I know I'll need to use Homebrew, as I rely on many CLI tools. Also, I just read about Cask, what make me wonder about one thing. How does software (not from the App Store) get updates? Windows-like, i.e. a message notifying about a new version so I can download it, or somehow integrated with the system, so that I don't need to download a new .dmg every time I want to update an app?

If it's "Windows-like", is it better to use Cask for things like Firefox, VirtualBox, VLC, LibreOffice...?

With cask, upgrading all of your installed applications (that installed with cask) is done with a single command:

brew cask update

This is an unofficial (community based) way to upgrade applications and only has free softwares on its repository (there is no way to purchase). Advantages of this mechanism are:

It's scriptable
It separates system applications from user applications (your installed applications are placed in ~/Applications/ instead of /Applications/) so it's per user.
Installation of packaged installers is in the background so it doesn't need user interactions.
Uninstallation of applications is programmed by its community so there is no worry about remaining files after uninstallation.
It's possible to have multiple versions of applications systematically because the mechanism uses symbolic links for the latest or selected version of applications.
The source of applications is kept in the cache so you can install and uninstall them without additional downloads.

Disadvantages of this mechanism are:

There is no differential upgrade. It downloads the whole application image (.dmg) or package (.pkg) and stores in the cache.
Installation of applications is relied on symbolic links that may be not ideal (There are two copies of an application and may be repeated in "Open with" list)

There is also official App Store mechanism (the default) for upgrading applications that are installed with itself and it supports differential upgrade and can upgrade all of it's installed application with a single click; but unlike Cask it's not scriptable to run upgrade, installation, etc and does not keep the sources.
Another mechanism is in-app upgrade check that occurs when application starts. It is different from App Store upgrade and also supports differential upgrade.

I think it's up to you to choose which mechanism to use for which kind of applications, this comparison may help you.

I use the Cask for applications that is not provided in the App Store (like VLC, OS X FUSE, OwnCloud, Weka, etc.) and App Store for non-free applications i purchased. In-app upgrades are not suitable for me because it does not keep the source of downloaded data.


How to prevent my iPhone from downloading music when using cellular data? My iPhone 5s CONTINUALLY downloads songs I've previously purchased, then deleted.  I've resolved the issue on how to delete songs that appear un-deletable.  Now I need to stop the songs from downloading.  The other day, it wasted my entire month's data by downloading 350 songs while I was listening at work.

Here's my info:

1) I don't use iCloud for music.

2) "Show All Music" option is off.

3) I don't subscribe to iTunes Match.

4) I sync only one (1) playlist, with 1061 songs, the other day it jumped to 1405 songs.

5) "Automatically fill free space with songs" has NEVER been on.

6) "Automatic Downloads" is turned off for music.

7) I have deleted the library through Settings, and re-synced several times.

8) I have 7.1.2 on my phone and 10.9.4 on my iMac.

9) Songs appear while I'm listening to music.

10) I don't manually manage songs.

Go to Settings → Cellular (Mobile) and switch Music off.


Disable Little Snitch in Guest account It seems that Little Snitch 3.4.1 is a rehaul of the old version and this solution to disabling it in the guest account posted here Disable Little Snitch in guest account? doesn't work anymore.

When I get to step 4, there is no at.obdev.LittleSnitch.plist file. Additionally, it seems that when I disable LS in the guest account temporarily and then log out and log back into my regular account, it disables it for my own (admin) account as well. Everything I've tried isn't working and it's so annoying to be bombarded with little snitch prompts on the guest account. Does anyone have a solution?

You can limit access to specific apps via the Parental Controls in:

System Prefs > Users & Groups > Guest User

then click the Open Parental Controls. It may take some configuration to get all the services working. But I've logged into guest having disabled Little Snitch and it hasn't opened. It worked fine when I logged back into my account.


Configuring Time Capsule to distribute ISP given DHCP address I am using tikona broadband internet and they usually have a 5 IP address restriction. I managed to by pass that by using a linksys router WRT120N . I setup the router to distribute IP addresses as 192.168.1.2-20.

However, when i am connecting my new time capsule, it seems to distribute IPs from DHCP as 10.x.x.2 onwards only.

How do i set up the time capsule so that it takes 10.x.x.x a its IP from DHCP and distributes over the network IPs as 192.168.1.X onwards?

That is also needed so that i will not have to login on each individual device with the ISP username and password on their website.

BTW, the router should be doing NAT, so your ISP won't see the local addresses at all.

To change the address range… source AirPort Utility 6.x: Set DHCP options for your base station or your AirPort Time Capsule

  If you’ve set up your base station or your AirPort Time Capsule to use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to provide IP addresses to computers and devices on your wireless network, you can choose the range of IP addresses a device uses, determine the amount of time a computer will have a valid IP address, enter a welcome message, and reserve specific IP addresses to assign to specific computers that join your network.

  Open AirPort Utility, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. Select the device you want to set up, then click Edit. Enter the password if necessary.
  Click Network, and then choose either DHCP and NAT or DHCP Only from the Router Mode pop-up menu, depending on how you want to use DHCP.
  Choose a range of IP addresses from the DHCP Range pop-up menu. Choose 10.0, 172.16, or 192.168, and then enter a beginning and ending address in the beginning and ending fields, depending on which addresses you want the device to provide.
  If you set up a guest network, you can choose the address range for the guest network as well.
  Enter a number in the DHCP Lease field, and then choose minutes, hours, or days from the pop-up menu.
  To provide specific IP addresses to specific computers on your wireless network, click Add (+) below the DHCP Reservations list, and then follow the onscreen instructions to name the reservation. Reserve the address by MAC address or DHCP client ID. If you choose MAC address, click Continue and enter the MAC address and specific IP address.

It would be unwise to have the actual ranges overlapping. Set one to e.g. 1.92.168.1.2-10 & the other to .11-20

& don't have 2 devices both trying to do NAT, leave that to the main router.
Also, make sure the main router is only handing out addresses for wired devices & the TC for wireless, or they'll fight.


Annotate/Highlight Safari webpages, and preserve highlights forever I am looking for a Safari extension or a built-in tool to highlight or annotate webpages. I want to be able to add notes and shapes that are preserved forever.

I've already tried Liner and Highlight to share, but couldn't find other tools.

Edit:

I found an extension called Highlighter for Safari, I bought it and refunded it right away, because it access the following permissions:

Use the Print command

then Select Save as PDF

Now you can use Adobe for Highlights and Notes


Where can I see all the learned/ignored spelling in Pages 5.5? I've added some words that are not in the standard Apple dictionary in Pages 5.5 via the 'learn'/'ignore spelling' function.

Is there any way where I can see a comprehensive list of the words that I have added to the 'learn'/'ignore' list?

Thanks.

Your custom words spelling are stored in this plain-text file:
~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary

You can view it from your terminal using:
cat ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary

Or open in a text editor of your choice by using its Open menu item then:

Press Cmd+Shift+G to open the Go to folder dialogue
Paste ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary into the box
Press enter


Permanently set Startup Disk to Windows without Boot Camp utility? I have a 2011 Mac mini that I have completely removed OS X from and installed Windows 10 instead.

Since Boot Camp only supports Windows 7 for this Mac, I did not use it. I just formatted the drive, stuck the Windows 10 DVD in and installed it directly. Then I grabbed the drivers from Boot Camp and manually installed each one.

My problem is the computer does not have a Startup Disk set. I have to hold option and choose Windows everytime I boot the machine up. Is there a way to permanently set the Startup Disk to Windows without OS X available and without using the Windows Boot Camp utility? The utility will not install, as it detects I'm not using Windows 7 and bails.

You should not of had to install the drivers manually. If you right click on setup.exe from the "Boot Camp Support Software", you should be able to select compatibility mode. You say you formatted the drive. It would help if you explained what utility you used to do this. My concern is for how Windows determines the drive partitioning. For your model/year Mac, Windows should be installed in MBR/BIOS mode.

If the "Boot Camp Support Software" is installed correctly, then you can select the startup disk from the Boot Camp pane on the Control Panel.

Another option which works on most later Macs, is to hold down the alt/option key on startup. When the icon labeled Windows appears, hold down the control key and select Windows. This will make Windows the default operation system.

Here Is Some Advice on the Boot Camp Support Software.

According to the Apple web site "Install Windows 7 and earlier on your Mac using Boot Camp", the proper "Boot Camp Support Software" (BCSS) for installing 64 bit Windows 7 on your model Mac is "Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621". According to the Apple web site "Use Windows 8.1 on your Mac with Boot Camp", your model also supports 64 bit Windows 8.1. For this version of Windows, Apple requires you to use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the BCSS to a flash drive. You can download this software without installing Windows 8.1 to your Mac.

One of the machines, I have access to, is a 2011 iMac. It uses the same version of BCSS as your Mac mini for the installation of 64 bit Windows 7. I verified that the BCSS for installing 64 bit Windows 8.1 on this iMac is exactly the same as for installing 64 bit Windows 7. I have no way of verifying if is this is also true for your Mac mini.

  I thought I used the procedure given in the comments below to run the BCSS on the 2011 iMac with 64 bit Windows 10 installed. Now that I think about it, I may not of had to.

Eventually, the BCSS is released in sets of versions. As far as I can tell, only version sets 4, 5 and 6 can be downloaded from an Apple web site and/or through the Boot Camp Assistant. Older sets exist on the Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) or older DVDs. Some (if not all) of the version 4 BCSS downloads contain a Bootcamp64.msi file. I know this to be true for 4.0.4033 and 4.0.4255. Most (if not all) of the version 5 BCSS downloads do not contain a Bootcamp64.msi file. I know this to be true for 5.1.5621 and 5.1.5640. The version 6 set is irrelevant, since Apple does not officially support Windows 10 on 2011 Macs.

  This leads me to the conclusion that you are using the wrong BCSS.

You should probably install El Capitan (OS X 10.11) and download the BCSS using the Boot Camp Assistant. Or at least, you should be download "Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621".


Do I need to go through all Mac OS upgrades? I right now have macOS Sierra, and want to upgrade to the latest Mac OS. Do I need to install high Sierra first?

Also, how do I get the upgrade offline files? And how do I install these?

The latest macOS is High Sierra. You can directly upgrade to High Sierra from Sierra with few steps. Follow the steps below:

Open the App Store app on your Mac.
Search the App Store for macOS High Sierra, or go directly to the macOS High Sierra page.
Click the Download button on the High Sierra page. If your Mac is compatible with High Sierra, a file named Install macOS High Sierra downloads to your Applications folder. (It's the offline installer file)
After download is complete, the installer opens automatically. Click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.

If you are asking about Mojave, it's a beta and now available only to Developers now.

Source: How to download macOS High Sierra


Insert GRIDLINES in PowerPoint 2011 Is it possible to insert GRIDLINES (not guidelines) in PowerPoint 2011? If so, how can this be done?
Edit:
I'm looking for gridlines, as outlined in this post.

Table Layout > New [choose range]
Table Style: No Style_Table Grid

Then stretch the table to fit your slide


Deleted all certificates by mistake. How to recreate? I started seeing an issue in Chrome (38 on OSX 10.7.5) accessing GitHub. I got a Privacy error. One of the recommendations on SuperUser, and the reply I got from GitHub support, was to delete all expired certificates in Keychain Access, close the browser, and reboot the machine. I followed the advice.

Now, I cannot access many other sites: LinkedIn, StackExchange sites etc. - all with the same error. I'm forced to use another browser (which btw, shows an error next to the HTTPS lock icon). The Keychain Access certificates view does not repopulate. I might have deleted something I shouldn't, but shouldn't new certificates be downloaded as needed? What do I need to do to gain access to all the HTTPS sites again?

Restore the contents of these three directories from a recent backup:

~/Library/Keychains
/Library/Keychains
/System/Library/Keychains

On my system this comprises 18 files and a subdirectory in the user folder ~/Library/Keychains


How do you prevent a process from automatically restarting? (specifically, sophos antivirus) I am required by my VPN software to have Sophos anti-virus installed and running.  However, when I'm NOT on VPN, I don't want it running at all - I want it dead.

However, killing the tasks is ineffective:

ps -ax | grep -i soph
40972 ??         0:07.34 /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/SophosAutoUpdate.app/Contents/MacOS/SophosAutoUpdate -d
41069 ??        28:08.48 /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/InterCheck.app/Contents/MacOS/InterCheck -d
41078 ??         0:02.42 /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/SophosAntiVirus.app/Contents/MacOS/SophosAntiVirus -d
$ sudo kill 40972 41069 41078 41084
$ ps -ax | grep -i soph
44344 ??         0:00.03 /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/SophosAutoUpdate.app/Contents/MacOS/SophosAutoUpdate -d
44345 ??         0:00.02 /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/SophosAntiVirus.app/Contents/MacOS/SophosAntiVirus -d
44347 ??         0:03.03 /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/InterCheck.app/Contents/MacOS/InterCheck -d

It just automatically restarts.  What do I need to do to prevent that?

This means that there is another monitor process which relaunches it.

You can check out who is the parent process: select the process in activity monitor and use the Info button, or via terminal with ps -ax -O ppid if I recall correctly.

It might be another process by Sophos but with a stealth name, or maybe even your VPN software. In that case you can just kill'em all.
The other possibility is that the process is being kept alive by the launch daemon launchd. In this case you will find an entry (a plist XML file) for your antivirus in either ~/Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchAgents (likely) or /System/Library/LaunchAgents (I dearly hope not).

If the second is the case, you can either:

Edit the file, and change the KeepAlive parameter, either removing or changing it (you can do nifty things, see the docs for more).
Just ask launchd to do the stopping for you. Unfortunately you can't just tell to launchtl stop since the process would just respawn. You'll have to use  sudo launchctl unload /path/to/the/plist file


Rearrange fullscreen windows in macOS I have a few fullscreen windows opened. I can use a trackpad gesture to navigate through them. But to rearrange them, I have to exit fullscreen on some windows and enter fullscreen on them again, but this can take a long time. Is there a short or easy way to do this?

Slide up on your trackpad with three fingers. On the top, you should see a bar containing Desktop and any other fullscreen windows you have opened. Drag those to rearrange them.
If you go back by sliding down with three fingers, you should find that the windows have been rearranged.


Can't uncheck "disable extensions" in Safari Develop menu After upgrading to macOS 10.13.4 my extensions in Safari were disabled. Safari Preferences Extensions tab says "Extensions can be enabled in the Develop Menu". However when I try to uncheck "disable extensions" in the Developer menu nothing happens and it stays checked.

This worked for me on Safari 11--> bottom of developer menu there is "allow unsigned extensions" click that;  Now go back to the developer menu and click disable extensions...


Setting for iOS device type (Jailbreak) I've read that there is a settings file (/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist) that stores the value of the iOS version which can be changed (at least on Jailbroken iOS devices) temporarily to fool apps (or the app store) into thinking a device is running a different version than it actually is. (There even is/was a tweak that changed this for you, FWChanger.)

Is the device type/model (iPad, iPhone, etc. and generation) also stored in a way that can be temporarily changed? (The reason is to just quickly test out an app, I'm not expecting a long-term, stable solution here. And yes, I know about the potential dangers of changing such values in regards to stability, etc.)

As for the first paragraph: Yes, the OS version can be changed (at your own risk) by opening said file (/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist) with a plist editor of your choice and then changing the version from 5.1 to 6.0.1 or whatever you intend.

The device type can’t – and even if it could, shouldn’t – be changed, though, as there are versions for each and every device and while the OS version might change over time, the device itself obviously won’t automagically transform into another device. There is a file called after the device you’re using in many of the subfolders of /CoreServices/, though. In case of an iPod touch 4th gen, the name would be N81ap.plist. In there, you find the capabilities of the device.

EDIT:

I just spoke with a friend of mine. He told me that yes, you could modify the version. But you would also have to change the ProductBuildVersion – for example from 9B208 (iOS 5.1.1) to 10A523 (iOS 6.0.1). But this, of course, might lead to failure because the app might try to use methods not available in the OS version you pretend to be using.
By copying the values of (for example) N81ap.plist to #yourDevice.plist, your device (theoratically) gets the features of n81.ap. This could also lead to failure, because Springboard (or others) might need functions not available to the device you are actually using.

For some apps, it is quite easy to set the required phone/device, though. In that case you would have to search for a value like “requires telephony” or alike.


When pairing a bluetooth keyboard(-like) device with Yosemite, can the pin number be skipped? I ordered one of these Vicro Technilogy Ltd. Bluetooth Mini GamePad (PA-BK11) ’s off of Amazon.

It shows up as “Bluetooth Gamepad” in the Bluetooth system preferences panel, with a keyboard icon. I can click “pair,” at which point it asks me to type in a 6 digit number.

Is there a trick to making it pair without entering the requested PIN number? Having no luck Googling this one. There are one or two articles on accomplishing the same in Linux, but nothing for Mac.

The controller is not anything special, but it’s small enough to fit in my kids’ hands when they play Nintendo games, something that none of the other controllers can do even if they do pair correctly.

[edit] I've since tried this with a newer (2014) iMac at work. Though both it and my own computer (2009 model) use Yosemite, the 2014 iMac doesn't require a pin to be typed in. According to Apple.com, my Mac has Bluetooth 2.1.

You mention a “6 digit number” but from what I understand about how Bluetooth gamepads pair in Mac OS X it should be a 4 digit PIN.

Regardless, you can enter any series of digits from your main system keyboard and it should work. Try something like 0000/000000 or 1234/123456 and it should be able to pair without issue.


Can someone describe how to encrypt a message using someone else's PGP public key on an iPad or iPhone? Can someone describe how to encrypt a message which isn't an email using someone else's pgp public key on iPad or iPhone?

iPGMail is not just for email and will do what you want.

Its web page, https://ipgmail.com, includes this sentence:

The app supports key generation, public and private key import and
export, and both encryption and decryption of files or email messages.


OSX bluetooth private network between 2 macs Does anyone know how to create a private network over bluetooth that a couple of macs could use for screen sharing?  Our wifi router doesn't seem to like screen sharing (kicks us off after a few minutes and we need to get a new address - weird). We currently use firewire but would love a wireless solution.  Suggestions?  The docs on google are mostly about connecting to your phone.

Thanks

Bluetooth is PAINFULLY SLOW… maybe 80-100 KB/s if you're lucky. It really isn't suitable for this sort of use.

Perhaps you could create a network on a host machine, and use a client mac to connect to it for screen sharing. An ethernet connection to the host machine would also allow for internet sharing to both macs (since you'd no longer be connected to your router.)


Network Diagnostics Replacement Network Diagnostics was removed from Mojave. The replacement does not tell you if the failure to connect issue is with the Internet, or your own WiFi. The program could often fix connections where the replacement can only give a report.

Is there a (3rd party) replacement for Network Diagnostics?

The first party tools are listed here:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-network-utility-on-mac-ntutl001/10.15/mac/10.15

Most of the data is now in the network preference pane.


MacBook Pro Lion Recovery Cannot Reinstall I am a programmer and more active on Stack Overflow. Anyways, I am clean-reinstalling my mum's MacBook Pro and I came across a problem. First, I went into recovery mode (Command-R at startup) then erased the Macintosh HD drive. After have had with my computer previously:

Date being set to 2001. (As a programmer I know this is a default NSDate.)
Microsoft Word keeps on bringing up random popups.
Warning that apps may behave erratically because of the date (maybe why Word does that).
Safari always needs to confirm some Facebook certificate keychain signing thing.
Quite slow/buggy
And also, the back of the MacBook screen has a problem that when I press on it the screen gets blurry at that part. (Like strongly touching the screen)

So then when I try to reinstall, the Macbook needs to check its authenticity with Apple, where it needs to gather some installation information. It just gets stuck here, nothing happens; I left it for 2 hours and it is still trying to gather information.

So, what do you think is generally wrong with this computer and how can I fix this problem? Do you think the only way out is to arrange an appointment with Apple?

Most of the problems seem to be coming from having the wrong date (and possibly not having internet access).

You might as well zap the PRAM. If you have problems, see here.  Then be sure you are connected to both power and internet when you reboot.  If necessary, set the clock manually.

The issue with the screen, well, it depends on how hard you're pressing and which model MacBook you're using, but it is not necessarily unusual.

UPDATE: I've been reminded that one cause of computer slowness is a failing hard drive.  Sadly, despite S.M.A.R.T status reporting, it's very hard to be sure if a drive is failing until it has completely failed.  See if you can boot off an external drive and compare the performance.


AppleCare on the prizes from the new iPad contest? This question could technically go on meta, but I think it makes more sense here on AskDifferent proper. So the new iPad contest was awesome. I even won something.

Here's the question: When I go to an Apple Store for a Genius Bar appointment, they often will look up the device's serial number and match it to my Apple account. Since the prizes were purchased by a StackExchange employee, ware the devices attached to his or her Apple ID? Can I go to an Apple store and add AppleCare, or do I need to transfer ownership, or are the devices registered to the winners individually by virtue of the fact that it was shipped as a gift, with a gift message?

Apple will register a device to anyone who presents it for service. It doesn't mean some database doesn't still remember to whom it was sold or registered in the past, but in practice it doesn't matter since possession is all that matters.

As to paying for AppleCare, you should get it in the country where you live if at all possible. That ensures you don't have to ship the device elsewhere if asked to do so. The plans are customized for the laws of each country - and in some cases, customized for states or provinces as needed within a country.

Assuming the device was purchased from the US - you should also be fine buying AppleCare from the US store. Again, the warranty and service are valid worldwide, but in some cases, you will be responsible for shipping it to the country of purchase / AppleCare in cases where local service is not readily available.


How can I prevent iTunes from automatically downloading podcasts? I listen to podcasts, but almost always on my iPhone (by downloading them on the iPhone directly) and almost never on my computer through iTunes. I do sync my iPhone with iTunes. However, any time I open iTunes, it tries to automatically download new podcast episodes. Is there a way to prevent this?

I tried plugging in my iPhone, going to the Podcasts tab, and unchecking Sync Podcasts, but this resulted in a dialog box asking if I'm sure I do not want to sync podcasts, and informing me that if I continue, all existing podcasts on my iPhone will be deleted. That's not my desired result, of course.

For anyone coming across this now, in the latest version of iTunes (~v12.5.1) it's much easier to prevent downloads for all podcasts you're subscribed to.

Steps:

Go to "Podcasts" in the menubar dropdown.
In the second column of your subscribed podcasts, at the bottom there's two buttons, "Refresh" and "Defaults...", click "Defaults..."
In the popup, set "Download Episodes" to "Off".


PC keyboard inccorect mapping I've recently been forced to work on a mac book for work. Since I'm a dev I bring my own keyboard rather than just using the macbook one, I had no problem with plugin my keyboard but the mapping are still those of a mac keyboard ( I'm using a french layout ).

A short example to make myself clear, when I press the key labelled 8 / _ on my keyboard the input is ! which is the mac binding on not my keyboard binding.

Is there any simple way to have a standard pc keyboard working on a mac the same way it work on a PC ( I'm not talking about inverting command and control key, just mapping as the keys are labelled )

Thanks in advance

Some refs :
- Keyboard -> 7G steelseries
- Layout -> Standard french AZERTY layout

If you can consider switching to the U.S layout, it's identical on Mac and Windows in terms of the positions of ASCII characters.

I don't know if there's a premade French PC layout, but you can also use Ukelele to create your own one:

Select File > New From Current Input Source
Change the keys
Save as bundle to /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ (the popovers shown when holding keys don't work with normal .keylayout files, and keyboard layouts in ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts/ can't be selected in password dialogs or the login window)
Log out and back in and enable the input source in System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources

To apply changes to a keylayout, you have to run sudo touch /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ (or modify the folder some other way) and log out and back in. You can disable the default French input source by editing the com.apple.HIToolbox plist.

Another option would be to use KeyRemap4MacBook:

You can customize the setting group by copying it from the source to private.xml.


automating OSX 10.9.2 http://youtu.be/xi5UuemkYd0 is a video that kinda shows what I need to do.
I have two things i need. The first is software that can control the mouse on osx 10.9.2. What needs to happen is it needs to go up and click aux 1 and go down and click say ProPresenter. Then it would do the same for aux 2 and 3.

The second thing i need is a way to make sure any key presses do not interact with the ATEM software. I was thinking about some sort of say 10-15 key external keyboard that did not map to normal keys. Not sure though.

A bit more info on what I am doing here. This software controls a video switcher board at our church. Auxes 1,2,3 and 4 are respectively front screen, back screen, choir screens and a screen in front of stage.

At different time during the service I have to switch between sources. At the moment I am rapidly clicking each aux but when you are switching 4 sources at once it gets a hair too slow. So I want to set up a way to hit a single button to do what i need. I am not sure but I figure I could get away with about 5-10 different scenes set up.

The other issue is that the ATEM software also controls the main video switcher as well as the aux screens and I really do not need to hit any keys that make it do anything because we are live on TV at this point and I do not need to be messing up the rest of the team.

See if this AppleScript code does what you want. It should click the menu item "ProPresenter" of the menus "Aux1", "Aux2" and "Aux3" as you requested:

tell application "System Events" to tell menu bar 1 of application process "ATEM Software Control"
    click menu item "ProPresenter" of menu "Aux1" of menu bar item "Aux1"
    click menu item "ProPresenter" of menu "Aux2" of menu bar item "Aux2"
    click menu item "ProPresenter" of menu "Aux3" of menu bar item "Aux3"
end tell

To set this up as a keyboard shortcut, use the following steps:

Open Automator
Create a new Service

Add a single Run AppleScript action to your Service with the following code:

tell application "System Events" to tell menu bar 1 of application process "ATEM Software Control"
    click menu item "ProPresenter" of menu "Aux1" of menu bar item "Aux1"
end tell

Make sure it's set to receive "no input" and work in "ATEM Software Control". Click on "any application", then "other", and navigate to the app.
Save it with a name of your choosing.
Now, go into Keyboard preferences, click on the "Shortcuts" tab, then click on "Services". Your newly created service should be at the bottom. Click on it, and click on "add shortcut" and specify a shortcut to your liking.

Lastly, go into "Security and Privacy" settings, click on the "Privacy" tab, and then "Accessibility". Make sure you see Automator in the list. If not, click on the lock on the bottom left and enter your password, then click on the "+" and add Automator to the list.

Repeat this with modified AppleScript code for each camera you need to switch between, with a different shortcut for each.


Can't install matlab 2011a on Yosemite I cannot install matlab 2011a student on yosemite. I click on the OSX installer, a matlab screen pops up then goes away.

Has anyone install 2011a on OSX Yosemite ?

No, you can't. MALAB R2014b is the only version that officially supports Yosemite. That said, I do have seen several workarounds that enable you to temporarily use the older-version MATLAB.


Mount volume over a not-previously-existing folder mount always requires an existing folder path as destination mounting directory.

But on macOS the /Volumes folder doesn't have most od the mountpoints and they are created at plug/mount time.

What makes this possible?

I put an entry in /etc/fstab (sudo vifs) but I'd like the specified non-existing mount folder to be created at mount, and be removed after the umount; the same way it usually happens with all the automatically mounted volumes on macOS.

Technically you can only mount a volume on an existing folder. The trick that nevertheless makes this possible for macOS in general is that a program makes sure to create the folder before performing the mount.

This kind of functionality is generally known (across operating systems) as an "auto mounter". And indeed macOS contains a program named automount that automatically creates folders and mounts according to the map setup in /etc/auto_master. This is mainly used with certain types of network shares.

The main automounter that most users will interact with is named diskarbitrationd. This program listens for events such as USB drives being connected, DVDs inserted, etc. and mounts any mountable file system on them.

diskarbitrationd uses information in /etc/fstab to determine any special options or mount point configuration that the user has set for a specific drive. Those mount points needs to exist in advance however, and they won't automatically be deleted after the file system is unmounted.

If you just want to chose a different folder name within /Volumes, you can simply open Disk Utility and right-click on the volume to choose "Rename". The next time you insert the drive, it will be mounted in a folder with that name.

If you want to do something completely different than the manual behavior, you could disable diskarbitrationd entirely, and create your own program for mounting drives automaticallly. Note however that it is a lot of work for something that sounds like it could be solved in a better wa.y

Finally a work around could be that you create a program (i.e. a small script) that is run whenever something is mounted. When your special drive is mounted, it could automatically unmount it, create the custom mount point and mount it there. You would need special handling to also delete the folder when the disk is unmounted again. If you can create small scripts, the trick to getting this working is to create a launchd daemon definition file for the script, and use the StartOnMount key. This makes launchd run your script every time something is mounted.


AppleScript: "tell me to quit" - conditional on the environment? The "tell me to quit" statement is very useful when you run an applescript as an applet or from the script menu, however when developing or debugging scripts in Script Editor it is very annoying since it quits Script Editor rather than just stopping the execution of the script.

Two questions:

Is it possible from within a script to check what environment it runs in, something like

if environment is applet then tell me to quit
else display notification "Done"
How do I exit just the script when it is run in Script Editor? That is, the same result as when you click the stop button in the toolbar.

Current Application

You can get the name of the current application. If the name is Script Editor, then your AppleScript is being run within the editor:

display dialog (name of current application as text)

Detecting the Environment

Alternatively, your AppleScript can access environment variables through the system attribute command. You should be able to determine your process through this information. To see the HOME path environment, use:

display dialog (system attribute "HOME")

Stopping an AppleScript

To stop the script use the return command. In the AppleScript snippet below, the dialog is never displayed:

return
display dialog "Hello World"

return exits the current routine within AppleScript; much like return in other languages such as c. Called within the context of the main AppleScript routine, there is nothing to return to, so the script finishes.

Compare this to tell me to quit, where the snippet causes a quit AppleEvent to be issued to the current process.


Viewing external video input over mini displayport I use an iMac as a nice large external display for a laptop on occasion. However swapping between the external input and the OSX desktop view means I can't view both at the same time (Cmd+F2).

I wonder if it is possible to have that external display viewed inside an app's window (sort of picture in picture, with the normal OSX desktop displayed at the same time).

Any ideas if this is even feasible, and if so, what solutions may exist?

Late 2009 27" iMac

Screen sharing https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh14066/mac or you could use a VNC solution. Have a look at Real VNC: https://www.realvnc.com/en/


Is there a plugin to create a folder and a file in it at the same time it terminal? At the moment this is what I need to do

mkdir someFolder
touch someFolder/file.md

Is there a way to create both in one go (not using &). I'm thinking

mkTouch folder/file.md

If you are using bash, add the following function to your .bash_profile:

mkTouch() {
    mkdir -p "$(dirname "$1")" && touch "$1"
}

Then, you can use mkTouch folder/file.md.


OS X Color matching on dual displays I have an iMac and a second display - an LG 24" panel.

Using any colour picker (eg Digital Color Meter) on exactly the same colour gives a different result depending on which screen I pick the colour from.

As an example - on a web page, the body colour is defined as #c00202.

On the iMac's display, the colour picker gives me the expected value of #c00202, but on my other display, I get a different value - in this case #bc0007. If I change the display profile. I get a different value.

I get what's going on, but is there any way of just making the colour picker return the defined colour - it seems crazy that I'll get a different value depending on which screen I'm using.

When selecting "Display native values", the actual value depends on the color profile of the monitor, which explains the difference.

Forcing a single profile, like sRGB, should give the same result across different screens.


Why do I need to press C twice to copy in Mac MS Word 2011 and 2016? I have had this issue for years with MS Word 2011. I upgraded to MS Word 2016 and am still having the same problem. I can only copy if I press command, then double press C while holding down command. Just pressing command-C does not add anything to my clipboard.

How can I fix this? This problem has continued to haunt me for years, even after I did a factory reset on my Macbook, have upgraded Mac OS X several times and also upgraded MS Office. Thanks for the help.

If I hold down command-C for a second, I only have to press it once. Regardless of how long I hold it down, I see the Edit menu in the filebar flash blue... even if it doesn't copy anything to the clipboard after the first (or sometimes even the second) button press.

Please loot at this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_mac/often-have-to-cmd-c-twice-to-copy-mac-office/0a3060eb-d185-46df-943d-3ed89f447d25?auth=1

When I disabled the three fingers drag, the problem have solved.


Why isn't my auto proxy setting working for Safari 5.1 in Lion? I have a SOCKS proxy listening on 7070 at localhost.

Here is what my proxy.pac file looks like (to keep the test simple, I just return SOCKS proxy for all urls):

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
   return "SOCKS 127.0.0.1:7070";
}

This doesn't work in Safari or Chrome. However, for other native apps like Twitter for Mac and Dropbox, this works fine.

I'm getting around it by using Firefox with the Autoproxy plugin, but I would like to use Safari. Why isn't it working?

Setting the file again under Automatic Proxy Configuration after entering any junk URL seems to re-read the file for me.


What's a good "todo" widget for Mac OS X 10.6? I'm considering small widgets like QuickCal, Anxiety, DoBeDo, etc.  Integration with Mail/iCal would be great.  What's your favorite?

Lately, I've became really passionate about Alarms.

It transforms your entire menu bar into a drop-area for whatever file, email, shortcut you want to handle later.

Plus, it syncs with iCal, so you may use it in combination with another full-featured app (like TheHitList).

Just watch the introductory video!


Is it possible to restore an iPhone to a newer version of iOS that is not the latest? I would like to install iOS 11 on my iPhone 6 that has iOS 10, but the only possible update that I can see is directly to iOS 12.4.6. Can I update to a newer version that is not the latest?

The way I found is:

Download the desired image from https://ipsw.me/
Put the iPhone in recovery mode.
Open iTunes and Option + click (or Shift + click on Windows) on Update.
Locate the image and follow the instructions.


Does the Adult Swim iOS app support Chromecast? I want to stream Rick and Morty to my Chromecast from the Adult Swim iOS app. However, unlike most media apps, the Adult Swim app doesn't seem to be detecting my Chromecast automatically.

Is it possible to stream Adult Swim shows to a Chromecast from an iPhone?

Note: I am aware that developers need to manually add Chromecast support to an app for it to be streamed. However, it seems like an odd omission when Adult Swim's sister app Cartoon Network was recently updated to add Chromecast support.

iOS developers have to manually add support for Chromecast streaming (video/audio).

If you want to stream the content of this app to a Chromecast, please let the developers know. Only they are able to add support for it.

Did this answer your question?


Removing computer name from terminal Right now, this is what my Terminal shows:

MyName's-MacBookPro:location MyName$

I'd like for it to only show my name, so something like this:

MyName$

When I browsed online for a solution, they said to edit my .bashrc file. I added the following line to my .bashrc:

export PS1="\u$ "

but there hasn't been any change, even after restarting Terminal.

This is the current contents of my .bashrc file:

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.rvm/bin" # Add RVM to PATH for scripting
export PS1="\u$ "

Two easy options:

Move your changes from .bashrc to .bash_profile (and delete .bashrc)
Add a line source ~/.bashrc to ~/.bash_profile to make sure .bashrc is read during shell startup


Why is it taking so long to upload photos to icloud from iPhone/iPad? If I want to sell something online and create an ad on my Macbook, then snap a picture with my iPhone/iPad and both are connected to my home wifi, I kind of expect the photo to be uploaded instantly so I can use it on my Macbook. It's taking forever though. Could there be some kind of setting I have to change or some other problem?

If you want it right now, why not plug the phone into the Mac & use Image Capture, in the Applications folder - which is the importer 'behind' Photos.app.

You can also set it to auto-launch any capable app, including itself, when a device is connected [or do nothing] & set exactly where your imports should be saved. You can also dictate whether it should auto-delete from the device afterwards, or alternatively you can manually delete any selected pictures.


Unable to change volume size on WD My Passport Wireless I have been trying to partion my WD My Passport External harddrive that has already got data on it. All of the guides I see on the internet tell you to resize the current volume to do so. I don't have the tab to do this in disk utilities.

Using the Disk Utility you should see something like this

Select the external disk (called Hitachi in this example)

Click on the partition you want to work on, and resize it


How can I change the IMEI number on my iPhone 6? How do I change the IMEI number of my iPhone?

sorry, but changing of the phone's IMEI number is not possible.


iPhone 6 dropped on my sink no cracks but broken inside When I dropped my iPhone on the sink it didn't crack but it did break inside.

I can't use my iPhone. I can turn it on but it isn't fully functional. There are lines and white blocks on the screen.

I am wondering, if I have a warranty, can I get it repaired for free?

Ouch! There's two ways you can possibly save your phone here.

Accidental damage is covered under AppleCare+, which is a separate purchase. If you don't know you have this, you probably don't.

(But try calling Apple support at 800-275-2273 and give them the serial number)

You may also have insurance through your carrier (commonly called Asurion, TEC, or something else similar), if you have this, it's a separate line item on your phone bill.

If not, I'm afraid you're out of luck :(


Not getting new voice mail after switched iphones/sim card I switched iphones from a 5c to a 5s - both on AT&T. Got a new SIM card from AT&T store.  The Contacts and old voicemails are all there and I can dial out as well as receive calls.

However new voicemails are nowhere to be seen.  How can this be corrected?  The phone is on ios 10.2 .

Ring your provider - sounds like something needs to be switched over from their end.
[I've had similar happen with an updated SIM, same phone, same number.]


Are there leftover files when I uninstall an iPhone app? If I remove an app then will the preferences/caches/logs be deleted as wel?

No, no files are leftover when deleting an app. iOS apps (and now  OS X  apps too), are Sandboxed. This means that each App has its own space in disk, with its own directories, which act as the home for the app and its data.

Deleting an app from the iPhone deletes this sandbox, deleting all data associated with the app.


How do I locate spouse's misplaced iPhone 6S? My husband and I have iPhone6 but his is a 6S.  He misplaced his iPhone and I want to help him locate it.  How do I do that?  With my iPad & iPhone I can go to find iPhone and see my devices.  How do I add his iPhone to my devices?

You cannot simply add a device to Find My iPhone - though Family Sharing will enable that automatically. Think of find my device like data backups, you need to set them up before you lose the item in question.

Unless you are already set up for Family Sharing, which would allow you to see the location of all the family's devices, then from an iPhone using Find My iPhone, or a web browser using https://www.icloud.com/#find , sign into his Apple ID.

Otherwise, check with your cellular carrier or check wireless networks to see if the phone is joined to any known networks.


Using one old fusion drive as two separate external drives Recently my old fusion drive (1T HHD + 128G SSD) on my 2012 late Mac mini might have issues. The OS is very slow and has some read errors when I tried to use CCC to clone it. Anyways, I managed to copy some necessary files to another external drive and am trying to replace this fusion drive with one 2TB SSD and do a clean install. Do I need to split the fusion drive before I take them out of Macmini if I want to use them as two separate external drives later or I could just remove them without the split and format them later as two external drives? Thanks.

You can remove them without any fuss or erase. Fusion is a software layer, not something that changes on the hardware side.
You can remove and erase / format them in any order you like. If you haven’t formatted then yet, maybe try that unless you’re sure you want an SSD even if they work, but I’m guessing you know they still work since you plan on reusing them.