Yahoo Search has hijacked all my internet browsers (Safari, Firefox). How to remove the adware/malware? Today I installed a program that I'm familiar with and that I have used before called Filezilla using SourceForge. I've never had a problem with it before, and I only uninstalled it because I had no need for it. So I moved to install it again and thought it was strange it kept asking for key permission (so I said no). All the sudden my fireox browser disappeared I had some crapware installed I had no interest in, plus another unpleasant surprise: whenever I load firefox OR Safari Yahoo search comes up even though my default for Safari is google search. How do I fix this? I'm trying to delete the program it came from but it says that it's 'in use', but when I pull up the task manager all that shows up are finder and Microsoft Word. Any word on how I can delete the covert adware/malware?

So after downloading Vuze a while back, I wound up with api.mybrowserbar redirects and a bunch of stuff pointing at some thing called Spigot, deterministically finger banging my bandwidth and internet experience in general.

Sorry, this assumes some knowledge of the command line and file structures.

The solution, grep is your friend.

Open Terminal and navigate to /Users/YOUR_COMPUTER_USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome

YOUR_COMPUTER_USERNAME must of course be replaced with your computer username, you can retrieve it by running the whoami command in your terminal.

grep -rnw '.' -e 'spigot'
and
grep -rnw '.' -e 'api.mybrowserbar'

get in there and remove that shit.

In the most annoying case, their genius software made itself the default restart page for whenever chrome unexpectedly crashes. This little tidbit is located deep inside a sort of huge JSON blob at

/Users/YOUR_COMPUTER_USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Preferences


Making apple account without credit card How do I make an apple account without a credit card. I've tried everything!!! I do not have a credit card to make an account but i need to make one to download apps.

You haven't tried everything.

Chose none in payment information section.

Source: Create an iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store account without a credit card or other payment method


MacOS Catalina terminal tab doesn't remember its own previous commands I upgraded from El Capitan to Catalina recently; when I click ↑ in any terminal tab it used to toggle previous commands executed within that specific tab only, but now it will show commands for all tabs which is very annoying
Is there any setting to fix that?

Your question regards how the shell maintains its command history. In switching from El Capitan, to Catalina, you may have also switched your default shell from bash to zsh, and these shells have different defaults for maintaining their command history. This answer assumes your question is for altering the behavior of the zsh command history.
You have at least two choices:

Restore bash as your shell:
% chsh -s /bin/bash

This is easily changed if you decide to return to zsh:
chsh -s /bin/zsh

Configure zsh to disable the "aggregation" of command histories see APPEND_HISTORY
From man zshoptions:

APPEND_HISTORY
If this is set, zsh sessions will append their history list to  the  history  file,  rather than replace it. Thus, multiple parallel zsh sessions
will all have the new entries from their history lists added to the  history  file, in the order that they exit.  The file will still be periodically re-written to trim it when the number of lines grows 20% beyond the value specified by $SAVEHIST (see also the HIST_SAVE_BY_COPY option).

Accordingly, if you wish to continue using zsh as your shell, you can un-set the APPEND_HISTORY option, and the command histories from your various terminals/shells will not be aggregated into a single history.
You can check to see which options are set or unset as follows:
% setopt
...
# lists options that are set

% unsetopt
...
# lists options that are unset

% set -o
...
# lists all options w/ off/on status

NOTE: setopt only prints the options not enabled by default. The APPEND_HISTORY option is set by default - as designated by the <D> seen in the man page excerpt above.
Now, this is a bit obtuse (IMO at least), but notice that there is an option appearing in the unsetopt output named noappendhistory. This is explained in the zsh Options documentation as follows:

In the following list, options set by default in all emulations are marked ; those set by default only in csh, ksh, sh, or zsh emulations are marked , , ,  as appropriate. When listing options (by ‘setopt’, ‘unsetopt’, ‘set -o’ or ‘set +o’), those turned on by default appear in the list prefixed with ‘no’. Hence (unless KSH_OPTION_PRINT is set), ‘setopt’ shows all options whose settings are changed from the default.

(emphasis mine)
It comes down to this: the option to give you the behavior you want is set as follows:
setopt noappendhistory

Add this command to your ~/.zshrc file using your favorite editor. Once you've done that, source this file as follows:
% . ~/.zshrc
-- OR --
% source ~/.zshrc


Where do my notes written in the Notes application on my Mac get saved? I'm using the Notes app that comes with my Mac, but I can't find where the notes are getting saved in the Finder.

Where can I find these files?

For 10.11 (El Capitan), look in:

~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/


"Put Display to Sleep" with no fade out time I've just upgraded from Mavericks to ElCaptain (yes, I'll avoid entering in details why…). Either way, in mavericks the "Put Display to Sleep" hot corner would sleep the display immediately, however now it fades smoothly during about 2 to 3 seconds and this is really slow process.

Do you know how to remove the fade out time? I have tried searching all corners of the internet with no success.

I use a shell script: do shell script "pmset displaysleepnow"

This is in an AppleScript App wrapper.
you can also send the command pmset displaysleepnow straight from terminal.

Works on several of my Macs. Yours nmay differ.


Best approach for enterprise integration I found information from Apple regarding managing a business with a large number of iPhones and iPads. It looks to me like Apple just builds the libraries, and expects vendors to build applications that actually manage these devices. Of course all of the options that Apple mentions are the typical "call us for a price" places.

Any advice on a simple way to manage iPhones within an enterprise? Recommendations on reasonably priced software? I want to do the standard stuff. Deploy applications, create restrictions, etc.

Just looking for someone with experience that can point me in the right direction.

While Apple puts their iOS Enterprise Deployment documentation in their developer area, it doesn't mean that you need custom software to handle iPhones and iPads. It's all pretty much what I think of as standard sysadmin-type work, so while it does require some knowledge of XML files and scripting, it's fairly well documented.

Here are some places to start:

iPhone Configuration Utility
Distributing Enterprise Apps for iOS 4 Devices
Over-the-Air Profile Delivery and Configuration
iPhone Configuration Profile Key Reference


Separate environment for personal and development use under macOS How can I separate my professional use of Apple computer from the personal use?

I am about to get a new Apple computer soon. I am a developer (actually .NET developer ^___^) and would like to have my personal and professional use separated under the same machine.

I know there is the possibility to use Bootcamp to install Windows, probably the cleanest approach, but I am learning .NET Core and other frameworks available in macOS that I like to work with.

Which approach would you try to keep both personal and developers use away from each other?

There are multiple options:

The simplest would be to create two user accounts. Your first account is created during the first use of the Mac. Create a second account by clicking the Apple-menu in the top left corner, select System Preferences, Users & Groups, open the lock and click + to add a new user.

This way you can login to either a personal or professional account. In the same place you add accounts, you can click "Login Options" where you can enble "Fast User Switching". This allows you to easily switch between the personal and private account (both can be logged in at the same time).

Other options for seperating personal and professional use are:

1) BootCamp Windows installation for professional use, macOS installation for personal use. Major drawbacks are that it requires a full reboot every time you want to switch between the two, and it is a hassle to ensure that disk space is available according to where you need it.

2) Virtual Machine with Windows (or macOS) for professional use, and the macOS native system for personal use. Can be done with for example VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop or free alternatives such as VirtualBox. You can run the two environments simultaneously and share files, clipboard, etc. However allocating storage correctly can still be a nuisance.

3) Spaces. You can divide your open application windows in different "spaces" on the Mac. When you change "spaces" a whole set of windows are exchanged, such that you can keep a virtual desktop with all your professional stuff seperated from the private stuff. It is however up to yourself to organize windows between the two spaces, and there's no seperation of files, etc. on the disk.


Recommended disk format for external SSD running as system drive for a 2019 iMac I'm setting up a new 2019 iMac with an internal Fusion drive. I have an external 1TB Samsung T5 SSD drive that I'd like to use velcroed to the back of the iMac as the main system drive in order to improve performance.

Should I format the SSD to APFS or HFS+?

The iMac has MacOS 10.15 Catalina installed by default.

(I've read some stories of 2 minute wait times after restarts using APFS on external system drives, but I'd like to use the most up to date system if it's right to do so).

Only APFS is supported for running Catalina. There may be some weird workaround for running Catalina on HFS+, but I don't know of any.


Unable to login after accidentally powering down laptop as FileVault decryption of HDD was running I had turned off FileVault on my FileVault-encrypted HDD. While the HDD was decrypted, I accidentally powered down my laptop interrupting that decryption process. When I subsequently rebooted, I am able to click on my username and enter my password, but then instead of displaying the Apple logo, my laptop displays the "No entry" traffic sign and proceeds no further.

Now my OS X Lion 10.7.6 system (on MacBook pro 13" 2011) no longer boots after a restart.

I have booted into Lion Recovery to repair permission but Disk Utility will not mount my HDD and instead reports error (-69846). I have also tried using diskutil without success.
An output from diskutil list recognizes my partition (/dev/disk0s2) as having the type FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF.

How do I make my FileVault encrypted (partially decrypted?) partition mount so I can log in?

Sorry but I don't have good news for you. The "home solution" is to erase and reinstall with DU. The good news might be if you had up to date backup to restore your system from.


Failing Microphone in iPhone 7 No app requiring microphone works on my iPhone 7, including calls. Strange thing is that calls fail with call fail message, not just have bad connections or other end complaining about not being able to hear. Other apps also refuse to work. For example ‘Voice notes’ state ‘no audio devices found’.

You can try Phone diagnostics (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/phone-diagnostics/id1171677218) to check all microphones on your iPhone.


iTunes: move location of imported items I have about 23,000 MP3 files which I have imported into iTunes with the "Copy files to iTunes media folder when importing" setting unchecked.

Now I need to move the location of these files - just moving the whole parent folder onto a new drive.  Is there a way I can update the location of the existing library items in bulk?

Go to iTunes Menu > Preferences > Advanced (Tab).

In there you can change the iTunes Media folder location. Make sure you have your new drive connected first and select the location on the new drive you want to move it to. Press OK.

IIRC it tries to move your files immediately. If not, after clicking OK in the Preferences window, go to File > Library > Organize Library. In here, check "Consolidate files". Then hit OK to start the process. It will start moving all your files from ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media to the new location you selected. Even if it does something after you change the location, you might want to consolidate just to be safe.

This process will keep your library intact, and relink all the items in your library to the new copies of the files. However, keep in mind that the iTunes library file itself (very small) will still be stored at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl. You DO NOT want to delete that.

It leaves behind the original media files at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media. After verifying that the copy was successful, you'll want to delete that folder, not the entire ~/Music/iTunes folder.

Good luck!


Will the iPhone X be innoculated against Blueborne? I will definitely be purchasing an iPhone X when it is released, it looks like the greatest iPhone ever invented, however some folks I've talked to who really dislike Macs have stated that all iOS devices are affected by Blueborne if they have Bluetooth, and that it's essentially impossible to be protected against without shutting off Bluetooth completely.

How true is this? Are all Apple devices at risk?

After a quick Google, I found a few articles. To sum up. If you run anything higher than iOS 10.0, you're fine. If you run anything lower than iOS 10, you should upgrade. iPhone X is running iOS 11, so it will have all the latest security updates.

This is a good example why you always need to update to the latest iOS version. Yes, it is okay to wait a few days and see if there are any bugs. There are updates for a reason. You do not always see any change. But boy a lot happens under the hood.

  Apple fans will be delighted to hear that the current
  versions of its software are not vulnerable. That means anything more
  recent than iOS 9.3.5 or, for Apple TV users, version 7.2.2 of the
  software for that device. iOS 10 is definitely OK, Armis said.

Source: fortune.com

  Any iPhones running iOS 10 are immune to the attack

Source: theverge.com

  Apple mitigated the flaw in iOS 10, but all iPhones, iPads, and iPod
  touch devices with iOS 9.3.5 or lower, and Apple TV devices with
  version 7.2.2 or lower are at risk.

Source: pcmag.com


Where is file metadata stored in Mac OS X? It used to be stored in a resource fork, but I've tried listing the resource forks for files on my computer, and they don't seem to have resource forks.

Where is the metadata stored now?  Like where is it in the filesystem?

How can I access it so I can perform a backup and restore of just the metadata or part of the metadata?

Extended file attributes
File metadata is stored in extended file attributes (EA) in macOS.
You can see them when listing files in Terminal using command:
ls -la@

For example if your file has a custom Finder icon, you could see listing similar to this one:
-rw-r--r--@ 1 user  staff  168142 Oct  1 23:02 file.ext
    com.apple.FinderInfo        32
    com.apple.ResourceFork  548373
    com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags     42

This means that file has 3 attributes (metadata), including resource fork holding the icon data.
Resource fork
To print resource fork contents of a file, you can use xattr command that allows you to access extended file attributes:
xattr -p com.apple.ResourceFork

however that might not be as useful because resource forks have only binary representation.
You can access that data in different way, through a dedicated filepath filename/..namedfork/rsrc. Using the example above to copy resource fork into a resource file (data fork):
cp file.ext/..namedfork/rsrc file.rsrc

Many commands have support for handling extended file attributes, for example cp -p will copy files including access control lists and extended attributes. If you want to copy resource forks separately, then you need to access them individually through ../namedfork/rsrc path.


How to open files via Terminal I want to open videos and pictures from Terminal. Is there any way to do this?

To open any file from the command line with the default application, just type open followed by the filename/path.

Example:

open ~/Desktop/filename.mp4

Edit: as per Johnny Drama's comment below, if you want to be able to open files in a certain application, put -a followed by the application's name in quotes between open and the file.

Example:

open -a "QuickTime Player" ~/Desktop/filename.mp4

If you need further information about the open command, type man open.


How to remove an iPhone from the device list in Console.app Today I opened Console.app and I found that my Mac can read logs from an iPhone which I connected to build an app quite a long time ago. The problem is that I now cannot find a way to remove this iPhone from this list.

I checked Window -> Devices & Simulators in XCode, it is not there. I also checked in iTunes, found nothing

I have no clue how to get completely disconnected from this iPhone. Do you have any solution?

You have to "untrust" the Mac from the iPhone.

On the iPhone go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Location & Privacy
On the Mac, restart the Console


How to rename multiple files at once? I want to rename multiple files at once. For example:

Picture1.jpg
Picture2.jpg
Picture3.jpg
Picture4.jpg

into

Vacation-Picture1.jpg
Vacation-Picture2.jpg
Vacation-Picture3.jpg
Vacation-Picture4.jpg

I am quite familiar with the terminal, if there is no app which is quite good in renaming files.

No need for command line...

Add all the images to be renamed into a folder.
Select all files, right click mouse and select "Rename x items"
Select "Add text" from first drop down menu
Select "Before name" from the second drop down menu
Enter "Vacation_" into the text box (without the quotation marks)
Press Enter.


Pressing Shift triggers Expose I don't know how I got my computer like this, but somehow pressing either shift button causes Expose to open. What might be the cause of this and how can I fix it?

Go to System Preferences / Keyboard and there is a tab near the top that says 'shortcuts', click on that. Now you see all the keyboard shortcuts. Find one for Expose and change it.


What happens if I delete an icloud backup? Ok so, I currently have filled up 2 tb of icloud storage. If I delete an iphone’s backup from icloud, will that also delete all the data that is stored in icloud for that iphone? What I mean by this is, all of the old data that may not be on my iphone now will be gone? Or is a backup just a copy of the data on the iphone? If I delete the backup from icloud to make more space for a new backup will I still have all my data on my iphone?

A backup is just a copy of data on your iPhone, yes. However some types of data on your phone are not stored in iCloud Backup, but rather in other parts of iCloud or similar services. This includes for example photos in iCloud Photos, files in iCloud Drive, and Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Mail, Notes, Health Data and Voice Memos in iCloud.

Deleting a backup from iCloud will not delete the data on your iPhone.

If you delete all the backups of your phone, you'll only have the data on your phone. Data that was previously stored only in the backups, and that is not stored on your phone or in other cloud services, will now be gone.


iPhone 4 signing in issues So I just got my iPhone and I made a new Apple iTunes account and I verified my account through email then I tried to download a game and it says please sign in so I tried signing it and it said I need to complete my registration and to put in bank details , which I already did signing up... so I put them in again and this time it came back with " card declined, payment method didn't work" blah blah blah..

I cannot download games and I cannot access my emails or apples iTunes I cannot sign in it wot let me can someone help?

The best way to solve this is to call Apple Care (http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201232). They would be able to solve this if you want to download an app.

When you want to download a free app, you could also try on iTunes for a Mac of windows pc. When you're asked to enter your payment credentials, there should be an option to choose "none". I would try this first before calling Apple Care.


iPhone 5 changes itself to a black theme with white and blue writing My iPhone 5 keeps changing itself to a black theme with white and blue fonts but then defaults back to white. I want the black them but have no idea where that is and how to turn on as the phone just does it itself.

It's the whole OS. Not safari. I have have screen shots of my contact list, missed calls and a full contact.

This would be explained entirely by a change to your accessibility settings to "Invert Colors".

You can change that back in Settings->General->Accessibility.


Mac boot menu not showing recently installed Linux OS I installed GNU/Linux Kali on my Early-2015 MacBook Pro (Mojave) by following the instructions on the Kali official website for dual boot.  Linux runs fine but it boots by default.  When I went to boot into Macintosh HD from the boot menu, I noticed my new Linux OS was not showing, so I held off on changing macOS to default.
The steps I followed for the installation were:

Resize 500 GB partition to 450 GB with diskutil apfs resizeContainer
Download contents of kali-linux-2020.4-live-amd64.iso and burn into USB drive with dd
Boot into boot menu (hold down option key during power-on)
Boot from USB
Follow installation instructions (Guided - use the largest continuous free space)

Any ideas what could be wrong?
Listed disks in case that helps:
~$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         450.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:           Linux Filesystem                         48.9 GB    disk0s3
   4:                 Linux Swap                         1.0 GB     disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +450.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            268.7 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 46.0 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.4 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

There are two methods which can be used when an installed Linux does not appear in the Mac Startup Manager. (The OP refers to the Mac Startup Manager as the "boot menu".)

Method 1: Create folders, copy files and rename files from the linux installation so the Linux will appear in the Mac Startup Manager.  This may not be possible will all Linux installations. The main problem with this method is that the Linux installation does not know of these changes. So future updates to Linux may cause an unstable boot environment.
Method 2: Basically this is the same as Method 1 except instead of harvesting files from the Linux installation, the necessary files are taken from the download of the rEFInd Boot Manger.

In the case of Kali Linux, the steps to implement Method 1 are given below.

Boot to macOS.

Mount the EFI volume. Open a Terminal application window and enter the command given below.
sudo diskutil mount disk0s1

Create folders, copy files and rename files. Enter the following commands in the Terminal application window.
mkdir -p /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT
cp /Volumes/EFI/EFI/kali/grubx64.efi /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi

Unmount the EFI volume. Enter the command given below.
diskutil unmount disk0s1

The steps to implement Method 2 are given below.

Boot to macOS.

Use Safari to download rEFInd. Be default, the download should automatically unzip to the ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.12.0 folder.

Mount the EFI volume. Open a Terminal application window and enter the command given below.
sudo diskutil mount disk0s1

Create folders, copy files and rename files. Enter the following commands in the Terminal application window.
cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.12.0/refind
mkdir -p /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT
cp refind_x64.efi /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/boot_x64.efi
cp refind.conf-sample /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/refind.conf

Edit rEFInd configuration file. Enter the following command in the Terminal application window.
nano /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/refind.conf

Add the following text to the end of the file. When finished press control+X key combination to save the modified buffer and exit the editor.
timeout -1
hideui all
scanfor manual
menuentry Kali {
loader /EFI/kali/grubx64.efi
}

Change the label which will appear on the Mac Startup Manager display. Enter the command given below.
bless --folder /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT --label Kali

(Optional.) Install a Kali icon to appear on the Mac Startup Manager display. Use Safari to download Mac icns. Enter the following commands to install the icon.
hdiutil attach ~/Downloads/mac-icns.dmg
cp /Volumes/mac-icns/OSX10.11.6/os_kali.icns /Volumes/EFI/.VolumeIcon.icns
diskutil eject mac-icns

Remove the ._* files.  Enter the command given below.
dot_clean /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT

Unmount the EFI volume. Enter the command given below.
diskutil unmount disk0s1

I should point out that the Offensive Security macOS/Kali dual boot installation instructions replaced the Mac Startup Manager with the rEFInd Startup Manager. The installation procedure outlined by the OP seems to followed those of Offensive Security, but did not finish with the installation of rEFInd. The OP might consider continuing the installation by starting with the instructions in the section titled "Installing rEFInd using Kali Linux".


Automator AppleScript: Only Click Checkbox if Unchecked I'm creating an Automator workflow to click the Enable This Account checkbox in the Contacts preferences pane. I used Watch Me Work in Automator to make most of it easy. The automation runs fine, but I want to add code to only check the box if it's unchecked. I searched a similar question, but the code in the example isn't structured anything like the code I'm seeing in Automator. I'm a very beginner programmer, so any help would be much appreciated.
on run {input, parameters}
-- Click the “Enable this account” checkbox.
delay 0.441495
set timeoutSeconds to 2.000000
set uiScript to "click checkbox \"Enable this account\" of tab group 1 of group 1 of group 1 of window \"Accounts\" of application process \"Contacts\""
my doWithTimeout( uiScript, timeoutSeconds )
return input
end run

on doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)
    set endDate to (current date) + timeoutSeconds
    repeat
        try
            run script "tell application \"System Events\"
" & uiScript & "
end tell"
            exit repeat
        on error errorMessage
            if ((current date) > endDate) then
                error "Can not " & uiScript
            end if
        end try
    end repeat
end doWithTimeout

The following example AppleScript code assumes there is only one account in Contacts > Preferences… > Accounts and will only click the Enable this account checkbox if it's not checked, and then closes the preferences window:
Note:  The example AppleScript code was tested under macOS High Sierra and may need to be modified for earlier/later versions of macOS.
tell application "Contacts" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    repeat while not (exists window 1 of application process "Contacts")
        delay 0.1
    end repeat
    tell application process "Contacts"
        click menu item "Preferences…" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Contacts" of menu bar 1
        repeat until (exists button "Accounts" of toolbar 1 of window 1)
            delay 0.1
        end repeat
        click button "Accounts" of toolbar 1 of window 1
        repeat while not (exists checkbox "Enable this account" of tab group 1 of group 1 of group 1 of window 1)
            delay 0.1
        end repeat
        if not (value of checkbox "Enable this account" of tab group 1 of group 1 of group 1 of window 1 as boolean) then
            click checkbox "Enable this account" of tab group 1 of group 1 of group 1 of window 1
        end if
        keystroke "w" using command down
    end tell
end tell


Are there any iPhone push apps that sound on silent? Are there any iPhone push apps that will still sound when the phone is set to silent/vibrate?

I've tried Prowl but it gets silenced. I'd like to have a way to find my phone more easily when I can't find it and it's on silent, and if I can send it a push notify that always sound it will solve my problem.

Yes - Apple's find my iPhone app / service will sound the device despite mute, volume and do-not-disturb settings.


move pdf through clipboard $ cat scaswd.pdf| pbcopy
$ pbpaste > astasd.pdf
$ open astasd.pdf

astasd.pdf cannot be opened, but scaswd.pdf is a valid pdf file.

Is there a way I can stick a pdf onto my clipboard and paste it somewhere else?

I want to copy a file from my local computer to a remote one I can only access with ssh, without using intermediary file-hosting servers.

(I can't scp)

For text files copy and pasting between terminals works.

For binary files, like a pdf, I need another solution.

From the man page of pbcopy

  pbcopy  takes the standard input and places it in the specified
  pasteboard. If no pasteboard is specified, the general pasteboard will
  be used by
         default.  The input is placed in the pasteboard as plain text data unless it begins with the Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)  file
  header  or  the
         Rich Text Format (RTF) file header, in which case it is placed in the pasteboard as one of those data types.

So from this it would seem that only documents with RTF format or EPS format can be copied and pasted from these commands.

Finder does support copy and pasting files however, so cmd c, and cmd v, will copy and paste files in finder.


Natively written packet sniffer / inspector for OS X I am looking for a packet sniffer / inspector which runs natively on OS X (Cocoa) and not with some sort of compatibility layer like X.

Ideally I am looking for an application with the following qualities:

native (Cocoa) interface
ability to inspect packet data
inspect packet data as XML, or RAW formats
free

Packet Peeper is a free, native OS X application for packet sniffing. Not quite as robust as Wireshark (but what is really).

There's also Cocoa Packet Analyzer, which appears to have a nifty plugin framework for extending its capabilities, but I've never used it. It's donation-ware.

KisMAC may also be of interest. Not so much a sniffer as a wireless stumbling tool. I've used it successfully to tune my wireless network in a congested neighbourhood.

Edit: based on your updated desired features I'd say try Packet Peeper. It fulfills both your requirements.


Considerations for granting read and write privileges to MacHD for "everyone"? What are the potential dangers to be wary of when changing the root drives read/write permission? Specifically, granting "everyone" read/write access?

E.g. will I be opening up my computer to potential malware attacks/viruses and such? Will I be compromising my system integrity? Will it be easier for me to catastrophically damage or erase my entire system? Am I just being paranoid?

Use case: I've recently installed Avid's Media Composer | First and while I can use external drives (and likely a partition of my internal SSD), as is I am unable to use the internal drive for writing media files (like renders and when ingesting files.) Of note, I can "link" to files just fine, but importing to Avid codecs requires a drive the app can write to. When I launch the application without any external drives mounted, I get this warning:

Per the Avid Knowledge Base a solution involves changing the write protection for the drive's root folder so as to allow Media Composer | First to create and populate its "Avid Media Files" folder:

  Solution:

  If you do need to use the system drive as a media drive, take the following steps to change permissions

  Click on your system (Macintosh HD in most cases) drive to highlight
  From the File menu select Get Info (cmd+I)
  Click the lock icon in the bottom right to make changes
  Click on the “Read only” text in the Privilege column next to Everyone and set the privilege to “Read & Write”
  You should now be able to see the system drive as a valid media drive.

  Note: If you repair permissions on the system drive, they will reset and you will have to repeat this procedure.

For whatever it is worth, I am the only user of this particular computer and I do have it backed up regularly with Time Machine. Partly I am asking for my own understanding, but also, if I were trying to set up a family member with this free editing software and they also let their kids use the laptop, it seems like granting everyone read/write might be make for more of a potential problem or accidents? Am I being overly cautious, or perhaps, by making the change, eagerly risky?

"Everyone" means all users, so yes, there is a risk, but only if someone already got into your system, and at that point they might already be brute-forcing your root password(when they've got it they're almost unstoppable). So as long as nothing bad gets into your system everything's fine and opening up your hard drive for everyone to edit doesn't rise the risk of that happening.


What is hiutil and why is it sucking up my cpu? What is hiutil?
Why is it sucking up my cpu?
How long will this go for?
When will it happen again?

It's indexing your computer drive(s).

Per the man page hiutil (help index utility) is used for creating and examining .helpindex files (Help Viewer.app indices) & is used for the Help menu searches as well as for Spotlight. You can use sudo find / -name "*.helpindex" to display all of them. See here for some description from the developers site about Apple Help concepts.

Per this answer on Apple's discussion forum hiutil is indexing your hard drive to make using the Help and Spotlight features snappier. You may also have a process running called mdutil (meta data utility).

You can kill the process - it may run for a half hour depending on system changes (note the Activity Monitor syntax for time is d:h:5m:17.85s and it is reporting accumulated time with the processor actually used - not total time since the process first started). If you want it to not run at all, you could also remove the executable file from /usr/bin/ and restart - tho I'd suggest moving it somewhere so you can restore it to that location instead of deleting it.

If the process is running in conjunction with mdutil then you can check the status of the volume being scanned with mdutil -s <volumename>. You may want to open Activity Monitor as root so you can see everything going on (along with - as i see in your picture -selecting "All Processes" from the View menu):

sudo "/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Activity Monitor"

...double click or select and Cmd+i on a process to get more info about it and related processes.

When this process is running, you might - depending on your OS - see an index progression bar in your spotlight window if you start to enter text (or enter "indexing").

You can adjust your System Preferences >> Spotlight::Search Results and ::Privacy panes to alter the scanning behaviour. As changes are made to actively scanned directories, the indexer is invoked.

If your computer is continually indexing and won't stop, you could add your internal drive to the "Private" list and see if it the indexing finishes.

Another option if you determine that the hdutil process is working with mdutil is to enter sudo mdutil -E / . to force Spotlight to create a new index file.


Maximize current window completely to hide background in Macbook While working on chrome/firefox/finder, I open several windows. Each window has some leftover blank space on right side. This is a huge problem while panning the page using the blue scroll bar. Often I click outside the scroll bar and inadvertently switch to background window. To overcome this, I have to manually drag the current window as right as possible to remove blank space.

Is there a more elegant way to do this?

I found this app BetterTouchTool. It lets me define a keyboard shortcut to maximize a window fully, without leaving black spaces on either sides.

Download app and open preferences by clicking its icon (boxed index finger) in the menu bar at the top of your screen.
Select 'Keyboard' tab
Select 'Global' in Applications on right
Finally choose Keyboard shortcut and Predefined Action.

I chose the following keyboard shortcuts, which I found safest and non overlapping:

Control ↑ Maximize Window
Control ← Maximize Window Left
Control → Maximize Window Right
Control ↓ Maximize window to bottom half


What's the easiest way to get contact info from gmail into Mac's Address Book? Do you know how mail.app makes it easy to add address info from an email sig into the Mac's Address Book?

Well, I don't use mail.app, but I'd like to find a similar way to do that with gmail.

Basically, when someone sends me an email with their name, address, phone number, etc, I want to easily add that info to my address book.

This may be broader than what you are looking for, but in gmail you can go to Contacts -> More -> Export and make sure you select vCard Format.
 Then just open the file that downloads to your computer and it should add the contacts to your address book!


macbook doesn't recognize internal HDD, only when connected via USB yesterday something weird happened. After my 13' macbook pro ( early 2011 ) was running all night while playing music, in the morning I just closed it and went home from my friends house. When I got home and opened it, it just froze completely, so had to shut it down with the power button. After turning it back on, it just showed me this folder with a question mark. When I tried to do internet recovery, I couldn't, because no HDD was visible. So I couldn't do anything at all, even in DISK UTILITY computer wouldn't show any disk at all. So I took the lid off and disconnected my HDD and put it in enclosure and connected it to my macbook via USB and booted from there. It booted perfectly fine, as nothing happened.I did time machine back up just in case something will go wrong again. SO, basicly it will boot from USB but not when the HDD is actually inside my macbook. Any advice ? I read some forums and it looks like it could be HDD's controller that failed, disconnected HDD's power source, disconnected HDD's date cable,SMC, NVRAM, or PRAM need to be reset, the drive's indices are corrupt, a logic board problem exists .. Just wondering if anybody had similar problem and could give me some advice. Another thing, my macbook was overheating a lot and after I opened it, there was quite a lot of dust.
Also I want to ask, if I will buy a new HDD ( looking at Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB ), can I get it all look like my old system. Do I just plug in my time machine disk ? Sorry I am not very good at this technical stuff. Thanks a lot for any help.

It's probably the flex cable that connects the hard drive to the logic board. Some of the cables inexplicably went bad in 13" MacBook Pros--happened in my 2009 model. A new cable for my model was $9-$11 for the part at an Apple Store, and I got the tech to waive the labor charge since the part was so cheap. Looks like the cable for the 2011 models is $50 on ifixit (http://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Model-A1278-Early-2011-Late-2011-Hard-Drive-Cable/IF163-026). Not a difficult repair at all if you're already out of warranty and would rather do it yourself, but use a nylon probe tool (black stick, can also be purchased from ifixit or elsewhere) to disconnect the battery from the logic board first and then carefully remove the cable connector from the logic board--don't want to break the logic board side.

As far as overheating goes, the system will shut itself off or put itself to sleep if it gets above a safe operating temperature. If fans are running all the time, it could be something software related (runaway process, web video, CPU/graphically intensive app). If the fan and outtake vents are blocked with dust, could also be a lack of airflow. You can use compressed air (only hold the can upright) to blast out the dust when the bottom cover is off. Or if you take it to an Apple Store just ask the tech to clean up the dust.


Cannot initiate Windows 7 install on MacBook Air bootcamp I use the latest Yosemite version on MacBook Air, I am trying to install Windows 7...

I start bootcamp, I select the first two checkboxes

[X] create windows 7 install disk

[X] download support software

[  ] remove windows 7 or later version

The windows partition already exists from previous similar attempts.

Asks me for path to Windows 7 ISO and the USB stick to use.
After I wait a few hours to setup the stick, it tells me that it installed the support software and that I should use this software after I install windows.
The only button now is [QUIT]. I press quit and it exists, it never starts the windows 7 install as I expect.

If I reboot and hold option button pressed, the "windows" stick doesn't start, it complains about missing bootable disk or something similar.
What am I doing wrong ? This newly created Win7 USB stick works to boot on other PCs, I tried it.

I got it sorted, it was probably my fault not understanding the options properly.
The actual install can only be started by that last option that says eider:

remove windows 7 or later version

OR

install windows 7 or later version

So if you already have a Windows partition created you will see remove windows 7 or later version, you need to remove it and then it will change into install windows 7 or later version, after creating the partition again, it will restart and the install will begin.

If you already have the bootable stick previously created by these steps, just plug it without checking first two boxes (create boot stick, download support software), creating that stick would take hours.

I think Apple could make it more clear (the re-install part).


Safari + webGL problem I have MacBook Pro 15" late 2016 w/ AMD r460, and I just found that
Safari does not enable r460 hardware acceleration when viewing webGL sites.

For example, I cannot play this site with Safari.
https://wizgrav.github.io/clubber/index.html

If I check this page with Firefox or Chrome, they play this site just fine enabling dedicated Radeon r460 card. However, Safari never turned on the dedicated r460 card, no matter what sites I was seeing.

Can any body please confirm that the site below is not playable using Safari, and how I can solve this problem?

Thanks,

I can confirm that this site does not work in Safari, Safari Technical Preview, or the latest WebKit nightly, as of the 5th of March 2017.

The issue is not with your specific hardware (r460), this runs in Chrome on far older hardware. I tested it on a 2009 iMac w/ Nvidia GeForce 9400, it worked in Chrome but ran very slowly, it did not work in Safari. I saw the same behaviour on the 13" 2016 MacBook Pro with 2 thunderbolt ports.

The root cause of the issue seems to be Safari being more picky than Chrome or Firefox. I don't know if this is an issue with the page author's code, or with Safari, but if you open up the Web Inspector's Console tab you'll see that there are a couple of logged errors; an IndexSizeError, and a TypeError. Either way I expect this issue is limited to this site unless you can find additional examples of this.

Your options for solving this are probably quite limited. You could raise an issue on GitHub on the linked repo, or submit a pull request if you can work out how to fix the issue manually.

If you try out other WebGL (v1) examples you shouldn't see this issue, check out a few at this link: http://webglsamples.org

Edit: I have raised this as an issue on the GitHub repo, I'll update this answer accordingly.

Edit 2: It's been fixed, although the performance in Safari is quite poor compared to Chrome.

Edit 3: Safari doesn't support hardware acceleration with WebGL according to the OP's comment from a phone call with Apple Support. This is also demonstrable when comparing the example website mentioned in the question, https://wizgrav.github.io/clubber/index.html , in Chrome and Safari.


MacBook currently has quiet SSD, will adding extra HDD cause constant noise? My MacBook Pro has an SSD drive that runs silent, which is really great.

I am considering removing the SuperDrive, moving the SSD to the optical bay, and adding a 7200-RPM regular HDD in the main compartment.

I would install OS X on the SSD, and keep large files I seldom need on the HDD.

Will there be a (new) constant spinning noise, or will the HDD be silent when not in use?

Certainly it depends on the drive.  From my experience using Apple laptops that contained HDD's, there was NO noise unless the drive was failing (an unfortunately common occurrence).  But some HDD's are definitely louder than others.

One thing to clarify though: you will not hear the drive "spinning".  You may hear the drive being accessed. The primary source of noise is the actuator arm, not the spindle/platters.  When idle the drive should be silent.


Make Cmd+C do both Copy and Stop in the terminal Left control Key located in a very unpleasant place on my Mac keyboard.
It's hard to reach in the terminal.
Luckily, I don't need it very often: I have Cmd for most of the things.
There are few cases, where I need it:

Ctrl+R for reverse history search
Ctrl+C to kill a process or discard a line

I found Karabiner and it helped with reverse history search remapping.
But Ctrl+C puzzles me.

I know that on unix I can use Ctrl+C for both Stop and Copy in the terminal. And it determines what to do from the context: if there is anything selected, copy it. Otherwise, stop command or discard the user input line.

How I can achieve it on OS X with Cmd key?

The temporary workaround to this

It is possible to remap keys on any program in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts. Click the plus icon, and select terminal in the application drop down. Then type the name of the function (Copy in this case), and then highlight the shortcut box, and press a desired combination. The window should look something like so:

The above is just an example. This can be applied to virtually any situation and application


Can I change my music location for itunes to external hard drive on my mac book pro? I have itunes setup with my music in the Music folder on my mac book pro.  I am now realizing that i am going to run out of space soon so i would like to change this to point to an external hard drive.

First question is what is the best way of doing this?

Second question is does this cause a full resync or does it realize that i just moved from one place to another without a required wipe and download?

Apple has a support document for this, there isn't very much to add to it...


How to create a Windows 10 bootable USB on a Mac for PC without Bootcamp, when install.wim is too large My Boot Camp assistant seems to be having problems (first I get not enough space, 40 GB, etc.) which I fixed by making a partition using Disk Utility, but then I didn't get an option that others seem to get to Create a usb bootable drive for windows 7 or later. It right away asked for the ISO and started downloading Windows support software, took forever, and then said there wasn't enough space on the partition (there was).

Without Boot Camp, I tried using dd and that didn't work and just reformatting the USB drive to exFAT (FAT32 didn't seem to work, because the October 2018 update has a file over 4 GB, meanwhile I'm downloading April 2018). What happens is that once I boot up the PC, change the boot order and then select the drive, it just goes back to some VMware kernel OS that was still on it when I got the PC. I've tried running in legacy mode, secure boot is disabled.

Does anyone have any alternatives I could use?

Also I tried plugging the usb (formatted exFAT in to my mac and it seems to recognize it  in the  boot menu, so I'm starting to think it's something with my motherboard/bios settings).

The open-source package called wimlib, can also "optimize" a wim file.
I managed to reduce the size bellow 4Go, my FAT32 usb thumb accepted it, and booted with success
Install wimlib via brew
brew install wimlib
Copie the bigfile from the iso volume to your HD Disk (Download example by example)
cp /Volumes/CCC.../sources/install.wim install.wim
Compress the file
wimlib-imagex optimize install.wim --solid
"install.wim" original size: 4463411 KiB
Using LZMS compression with 8 threads
Archiving file data: 9 GiB of 9 GiB (100%) done
"install.wim" optimized size: 3311533 KiB
Space saved: 1151878 KiB

You may need sudo, because you could encounter an error like this:
[ERROR] Can't modify "/home/roger/win/sources/install.wim": Permission denied
ERROR: Exiting with error code 71:
The WIM is read-only (file permissions, header flag, or split WIM).

Copy the reduced file to your usb drive
cp install.wim /Volumes/MYUSB/sources/install.wim
Boot up !


Does Apple offer fanless macs or imacs? Does Apple offer fanless desktop machines in its current lineup? I could not find any information searching for this.

No, all current Macs have fans. At low load, most Mac fans are very quiet though.


Can a 2018 MacBook Pro run macOS High Sierra 10.13 natively? I really need to run macOS High Sierra 10.13 as my primary OS natively (not via virtualisation etc).

Is it possible to downgrade a 2018 MacBookPro using a USB installer to macOS High Sierra 10.13 ?

Would it have the required drivers etc?

2018 MacBook Pro originally shipped with macOS High Sierra 10.13.6.

It is possible to downgrade it to run the said release of macOS High Sierra on your MacBook Pro.

You can install macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 by downloading it from the Mac App Store, creating, booting and installing it via a USB installer. Alternatively, you can also use Internet recovery to directly download and install it natively.


Make shortcuts to directories via terminal My problem is: whenever I'm coding, I work inside folders that are inside other folders and it's a long way to type:

cd /folder1/folder2/.../folderN

I know it's possible to make a shortcut to the folder using alias. So it would be:

alias ep="cd /Users/thi/Dropbox/CurrentProject"

My question is, where should I put this alias? Inside /etc/bashrc? Or should I create a file called ~/.profile and place it there? Where should I put it?

I keep aliases in ~/.bash_profile.

Terminal and iTerm 2 open new shells as login shells by default. When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, it reads ~/.bash_profile but not ~/.bashrc. The terminal emulators on other platforms often open new shells as non-login shells, so for example bash reads ~/.bashrc but not ~/.bash_profile. OS X users often use ~/.bash_profile as the personal configuration file corresponding to ~/.bashrc on other platforms, but it is also possible to source ~/.bashrc from ~/.bash_profile or to tell Terminal or iTerm 2 to open new shells as non-login shells.

If both ~/.profile and ~/.bash_profile exist, bash only reads ~/.bash_profile when it is invoked as an interactive login shell. ~/.profile is also used by other shells and programs that might not understand the same configuration options as bash.

/etc/bashrc is owned by root, and it might get replaced when you upgrade OS X.

See man bash|less +^INVOCATION or https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Startup-Files.html for more information.


iPassword backup through unsecured network I am using the iPassword app on iPhone to store some less and medium important passwords to websites and emails.

I have made probably a silly mistake. I was in the hotel and was using an unsecured public network. I forgot about it and backed up all password content via iCloud and I am worried that this could be visible to someone!

I have a question: When the network is still unsecured, is there a chance that a transfer between a device and iCloud would still be encrypted?

Yes, its secure.

Note: The following is  way more info then anyone needs but I thought why not.

A while back, around when the internet was created, HTTP, or the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, was created to transfer website data. -- Wait I've seen that before -- Yes you have. In a URL the first section specifies the protocol so when connecting to http://example.com you are using the HTTP protocol. When connecting to ftp://example.com you are using, yes you guessed it, the FTP protocol, or File Transfer Protocol. HTTP is an insecure protocol that send data over plain text. Meaning anyone connected to (or not connected to) the WiFi network can snoop on all passwords, credit cards, addresses, etc. sent over the internet.

More Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol

iCloud, Google, StackExchange, Yahoo, Chase Bank, Twitter, Spotify, and basically every website (hopefully) that requires you to login or submit information uses an addition to the HTTP protocol called HTTPS, or HTTP + SSL, or secure sockets layer (Yes, us computer people like to shorten things). (In fact, you're using it right now. Look at the URL in on your browser. See the HTTPS?)  SSL Encryption is EXTREMELY secure (How Secure?, you ask).  This prevents any data from being snooped on by other people. It encrypts all data sent between the client (you) and the server (the server the website is hosted on).

So, since iCloud uses HTTPS all the information is secure even if you are on an insecure network.


Booting from USB to install Windows 7 on Macbook Pro, Early 2011 I used Bootcamp (5.0) to create a Windows 7 install USB. It successfully created the install USB but when I reboot the system and hold down the option-key to boot from the USB drive, the boot-loader doesn't give me the option of booting from USB.

I also tried recreating the install USB from another Windows 7 machine using Microsoft's own Windows 7 USB creation tool but I still don't get the option of booting from USB on my mac.
What am I doing wrong here? Any Ideas?

You need to format the USB drive to use the GUID partition type -- use the Disk Utility on your Mac.

source Apple support docs


Using an iMac 27" as an external monitor for a PC I have a Dell computer running Windows 10 and it have 3x DisplayPort and 1x vga outputs. I want to connect my iMac Core i5 27-Inch (Late 2013) as an external monitor to the dell pc. Can I buy a Mini DisplayPort -> DisplayPort (Male-Male) and connect the cable between the iMac and the PC and then use Target Mode to start seeing Windows on the iMac?

If that's not possible, is there any way to hook this up? I know of software solutions but I'm trying to do it physically unless I run out of options.

According to Apple KB : Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode you could use Mini Display Port cables for the 2009 & 2010 models, but later models would appear to require Thunderbolt.


Why can't I fav, heart, or like some songs on Beats 1 radio? The heart button isn't tappable sometimes while listening to Beats 1 radio on Apple Music. Why is that?

Well, since Music just came out a couple of hours ago, there is probably a lot of people checking it out and lagging the servers. It could also be that you have an older device and Apple hasn't optimized Apple Music for your device yet so its lagging. I had the same problem and I have the iPhone 4s.


Excel Formula on : How to compare multiple columns in excel I am trying to compare multiple columns in excel like below

A          B          C          D         E            F
HN_1     1.1.1.1     Comp_1    HN_1     1.1.1.1       Comp_1
HN_2     2.2.2.2     Comp_1    HN_2     3.3.3.3       Comp_2
HN_3     3.3.3.3     Comp_2    HN_3       N/A         Comp_3
HN_4     4.4.4.4     Comp_3
HN_5     3.3.3.3     Comp_2    HN_4     4.4.4.4       Comp_3

a. Compare A & D (if true return "Same Name Only")

b. IF A = D then compare B = E (return "Same Name, IP ")

c. IF A = D && B = E then compare C = F  (return "Same Name, IP, Comp")

I'll do the first one, then you can use and() to sort the other two:

=IF(A1=D1,"Same Name Only","")

Hint:

AND(A1+D1,B1+E1)

Well, see


Why does the fan speed up like they do when there's a firmware update? This is purely a question that will only sate my curiosity.

In other systems, when there's a firmware update going on, there is no fan speedup (or none as intense as in the MacBooks). Now, in the case of MacBooks, no matter how fast it is, it just briefly speeds up the fans then when it's done, the fans reduce their speed to their normal level.

Does anyone know why this happens?

The fan speedup happens because normally the fan speeds are controlled dynamically in response to CPU temperature by the firmware (and as the CPUs are typically underutilized, there is rarely or never any need to run the fans at anything like the maximum speed).

However, when the firmware is being updated, that dynamic temperature control is not possible - for safety the speed is just set to the maximum and left there until the update is complete.

This is true for all systems (even PCs - you will often notice a high fan speed for a moment when booting them as well)

So the real question is why is the difference between normal and maximum fan speeds is so great in the laptop (MacBook) systems as opposed to Mac desktop/tower/mini systems - and the answer to that is simply that the laptop hardware has much smaller clearances and therefore poor airflow without fans running.  So for safety and increased CPU speeds on laptop systems, more powerful (louder, faster) fans are needed (although they will eat your battery, as much or more than the increased CPU power consumption itself when the CPUs are fully utilized).


How do I build a charging station for 12 iPads? I need to charge, overnight, about 12 ipads in 1 location. Are there pre-made charging stations? Should I just buy a surge protector with a ton of plugs? Do you have any other idea or advice?

I wanted to have a single computer to synchronize all the iPads. Will I have to synchronize them individually? If not, how many iPods can be synchronized at the same time?

I have 12 iPads I need to charge and synchronize. How can I do this efficiently and attractively?

Datamation offers a multi-charge/sync setup now, and apparently Parat solutions has one in the works.

If you're looking to build your own, the Datamation unit uses a Cambrionix C3 board with 16 USB ports for charging and syncing. You could integrate it into your own solution.

You could also just get a 12+ port USB charger, however charging and syncing may take significantly longer this way. The Datamation site has some charge/sync time tech specs that support this.


upscaling videos on iMac 5k with VLC (or other player) - just enlarge the window? I have lots of old videos with low resolution. For example:

ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile                           : Simple@L4a
Format settings, BVOP                    : No
Format settings, QPel                    : No
Format settings, GMC                     : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default (H.263)
Codec ID                                 : 20
Duration                                 : 1 min 46 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 743 kb/s
Nominal bit rate                         : 4 000 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 3 000 kb/s
Width                                    : 640 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 28.508 FPS
Minimum frame rate                       : 2.097 FPS
Maximum frame rate                       : 40.816 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.313

I play them with VLC. To upscale the video I just make the window bigger. Is there any better way?
Is there any macOS Sierra software providing better upscaling experience of legacy videos?

The fundamental problem is that your sources are low quality and going to a larger, higher resolution screen is just going to make them look more crummy than on a lower res, smaller screen unless you actually process the videos.
You can try interpolating the sources but it's a long process and probably not worth it. The best option is XMedia Recode. You can thank me later ;)


Very difficult to drag image icons around the desktop in OS X 10.12.6 I have a OS X 10.12.6 recent MacBook Pro.  On a previous version of the OS, if I had an image file on the desktop, it was easy to grab the icon with the mouse and drag it onto another application.  Now (I think when I upgraded to 10.12.6), such a drag action is very difficult: it only occasionally works, and most of the time as I start to drag there is an additional trackpad-depress sensation and a quick preview pops out of the icon.  Here's a screenshot of such a preview:

Question: What is this new preview feature called, and is there a way to disable it?

The ‘preview’ is Quick Look, a feature released in 2007, originally activated through pressing space on the keyboard (not to be confused with preview the app). In addition to space, activating it through Force Touch on the trackpad has been around since the introduction of Force Touch. Not that I'm saying you haven't had this problem before, but the feature isn't new with 10.12.6.

It's possible you've stumbled on a bug with that version of macOS, where the Force Touch sensitivity or drag-detection is failing. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

You can completely disable Force Click in System Preferences → Trackpad → Point & Click by unchecking Force Click and haptic feedback.


Using the three finger tap Dictionary.app, is there a way to add an English to Chinese dictionary? As the topic states: Using the three finger tap word lookup, is there a way to add an English to Chinese dictionary? Or is there any available?

In MacOS, go to Applications/Dictionary/Preferences and check the box for the Chinese English item.


Configure HTTPS proxy on iPad I have a secure login page on my localhost. In my network settings on the iPad I can only change HTTP proxy setting to access insecure pages in localhost.

I have configured it this way:
Server: 192.168.1.5
Port: 80

but when I want access https://localhost/api, Safari warns:

  There was a problem communicating with the secure web proxy server (HTTPS).

How can I configure for HTTPS proxy?

to listen https request on your server,server need listening on port 443.for listening the traffic of 443 and 80 you need to perform routing and then for example listening on port 8080 after redirect all traffic on 8080.


Putting iPhone passcode into Xcode, so I wouldn't need to unlock my iPhone for every build? Is there a way that I could put my iPhone lock code into Xcode, so I wouldn't need to unlock my iPhone for every build?

It gets really frustrating that I need to physically unlock my iPhone before every build.

I know for developing on android they allow you to put the device in dev mode, which restricts the device from sleeping.

Could everyone please report this as a bug?

As it stands, you either put up with it, or much worse, turn off locking. Neither option is good.

If the iOS device is in developer mode, and connected to an active Xcode instance, Xcode should be able to keep the phone unlocked.

That way you not only can leave locking on, but it will re-lock the instant you disconnect.


Is it possible to upgrade a MacBook processor? I have a 2006 Dual core Duo MacBook. It is fast enough to do basic photo editing on the go, as my job requires, however I would like to install Lion, to bring it in line with my workstation and devices.

This would mean I need a new processor, minimum Dual Core 2 Duo (as required by Lion), although I would rather install an i3 or i5.

Is this at all possible?

Since the CPU and GPU are welded onto the logic board (Apple's term for motherboard) such a task would require you to replace the whole logic board!

I cannot name specific prices, but this is really expensive. After all, this is the most expensive part of a Macbook. Usually, it is recommended to buy a newer (second hand) computer instead.
An upgrade to the logicboard of a non-unibody Macbook with a Core 2 Duo might be possible with e.g. the generation of the Macbook 4,1 since both are build quite similar. You should verify this with the Apple support.
An upgrade to the logicboard of a unibody Macbook with i3/i7 is ruled out since the internal structure is totally different. The size and location of logic board, and battery have changed 'vastly' amongst other things.


Send mail from OS X without email account On linux, I use exim4 to send mail to a public email address. I don't have to authenticate or anything. It pretends its noreply@example.com and sends it to someone@example.com.  Is it possible to do the same on OS X?

I have a cron job, and I want to send mail from the root user as noreply@example.com like with my linux box. I looked up postfix configuration as it seems to be the method used, but all the examples require authentication. Is there anyway to avoid this?

Yes, there's no problem in sending emails like that from OS X.

First, you'll need to configure postfix to relay emails. Once you've done that, you'll need to create the script that sends the email. I'm not sure what method you're using to send email on the Linux system, but something very similar should work on OS X, for example, using mailx.

Assuming that your upstream mail provider (the system your OS X system is relaying mail through, ie the mail relay) doesn't require authentication, you won't need to configure mail authentication.


Is there a way to run a bash script everytime I print something? I wanted to run a script that changes my background image whenever use the printer.

Is it possible? Is there a way to know when OS X is printing something?

that might be very interesting, funny and useful ! I have not yet a complete answer but what i think could do the trick is to use a daemon that watch and act when something is printed.
You could use this documentation :
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html
And especially this example : "Monitoring a Directory"
The following example starts the job whenever any of the paths being watched have changed:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.example.watchhostconfig</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>syslog</string>
        <string>-s</string>
        <string>-l</string>
        <string>notice</string>
        <string>somebody touched /etc/hostconfig</string>
    </array>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/etc/hostconfig</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

You should monitor the directory "/var/spool/cups" as mentioned here
https://www.cups.org/doc/spec-design.html and do something when there is change.
So in your case, change the background image.
You could also see the command "lpstat -o" that could be useful for that task (cf https://www.computerhope.com/unix/ulpstat.htm)
To be continued...


How to execute an equivalent function of Xcode's Instruments > "File Activity" in shell? I need to be able to show and capture the same output that Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Instruments.app captures while in Terminal.app (in the shell).  Is there a dtrace function / script, or some such equivalent, that can be run in order to capture this data directly?

Have you tried fs_usage with -f filesys or diskio options?

  The fs_usage utility presents an ongoing display of system call usage information pertaining to filesystem activity.  It requires root privileges due to the kernel tracing facility it uses to operate.  By default, the activity monitored includes all system processes except the running fs_usage process, Terminal, telnetd, telnet, sshd, rlogind, tcsh, csh, sh, and zsh.  These defaults can be overridden such that output is limited to include or exclude a list of processes specified by the user.


How to restore Airport settings? I've just reverted from Lion to Snow Leopard while maintaining a time machine backup of Lion.
In Lion I used to 'remember' many wireless networks, and also have configuration for connecting from my phone. How can I recover all that using Time Machine?

The stored passwords for Wi-Fi networks (as well as many other things) are stored in your keychain file.  the easiest way to get stuff out of this is if you have a MobileMe account which has the option to synchronize the keychain, so it will appear automatically just by logging in to MobileMe.

There are 2 drawbacks to this:

You need network connectivity to login, and so if you don't have an available network because you don't have the key you are out of luck,
MobileMe is deprecated, and the functionality is not subsequently available through it's replacement iCloud.

You could always boot from your Time Machine backup, open up the Keychain Access command and export the keys you want.  They will be stored as files within the backup, but are encrypted so not a lot of use. It may be possible to import the keychain if you can find it (I'm not at a Mac right now so can't check for location) and you know the administrator password for the system is came from, but I'll leave that for another user to comment on or provide an answer for.


apple configurator 1.7 downgrade ios from 10 to 10 I am using apple configurator 1.7.2. Accidentally someone upgrade IOS to version 11 as image for every no ipod touch. Is any way I can go back to version 10? I need it for run older application which not support version 11 yet. Thanks for any help

Solved. After calling apple support this option is not allow in apple configurator.


How to remove the 10-minute delay for a scheduled Shut Down? When I set a Mac used as a public display (reminder: it turns on and off automatically during business hours) to shut down at a specific time (via Energy Saver), macOS will countdown 60 seconds then will add an additional countdown of 10 minutes.

What can I change in macOS so that there is no countdown at all for a scheduled Shut Down?

I found articles on the Net detailing commands for Terminal but they don't manage the 60 seconds/10 minutes countdown.

Somebody told me: "use this AppleScript

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

and that will work.

Here's the problem.
I paste that line of code that he gave me in AppleScript Editor, then save it as an AppleScript app (doing it in Automator and creating thus an app is the same).
Then I go to Apple's Calendar, create a daily repeating event and associate an action to open that app.

Now, here's the catch:
If I double-click the app, the Mac is shut down immediately. Fine. But that's not what I need.
If the event is triggered in the Calendar, each time when it opens the app, it says that this is the first time this app is run and if it is OK to open it. Despite the fact that I click on OPEN (or YES I don't remember), this warning appears each time the app is launched. It seems that the Shut Down process happens so fast that macOS does not have the time to put it in the registry of authorized apps.

So the question is: how to launch that line of code —without buying the $50 PowerManager— at a specific time? Because when that line of code is run not from an AppleScript or Automator app, it works (no warning about the app).

Thank you.

You don't need paid apps to do this as it's very simple using Bash (the default shell in Terminal).

You can have the computer shutdown by issuing the command in Terminal

$ sudo shutdown -h now

If you try it, it will shutdown your Mac immediately.

What each part does

sudo = run as the root user
shutdown = the command to shutdown the system
-h = halts the system
now = immediately

So, if you wanted to shut the computer down 5 minutes from now, your command would be:

$ sudo shutdown -h +5

You can even schedule it for a reboot (-r instead of -h) at a particular time (11:00pm every night)

$ sudo shutdown -r -h 23:00

While that command all by itself, would do what you want, it's limited because of sudo; you'll need to enter your password when it's run.  This means you'll have to be on-prem at each machine each time you want to issue the command (every day), so we need something that will run the command as root so it will be automatic.

Writing a Bash Script

The script for this is quite simple; it's a single line that calls the shutdown command:

#!/bin/bash

/sbin/shutdown -h now

Call it auto_shutdown.sh and save it to a convenient location.  Make it executable by issuing the command:

$ sudo chmod +x auto_shutdown.sh

This will set the execute bit and allow the system to process it as a program.  Now you have your script, you just need something to execute that script at a predetermined time.

Using Launchd to schedule your job

launchd is the service management framework that starts/stops/restarts processes, services, daemons, etc.    To set up a job to kick off with launchd you need two items:

type of job to be run; run as the user for one user, as the user for all users, or a job run by the system as root.  We want the last one.
plist (XML file) that describes the job.  The key elements that you need to focus on right now are the ProgramArguments that calls the script and the CalendarInterval which specifies when the jobs should be run.  For this example, call your plist  user.com.autoShutdown.plist (no other reason for that naming convention other than it follows Apple's conventions.)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
 <plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.autoShutdown</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Path_to_Script/auto_shutdown.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>21</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>30</integer>
    </dict>

</dict>

This plist is set to run the auto_shutdown.sh script every day at 11:30pm.

Since we want to run this as root, copy the plist to the /Library/LaunchDaemons directory.

$ sudo cp com.user.autoShutdown.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons

Finally, load the job into launchd:

$ sudo launchctl load com.user.autoShutdown.plist

That's it.  Every day at 11:30, the system will automatically shutdown.

Replicate across all your machines

Copy both the script and plist to each machine and load the job into launchd.  You have just set the shutdown time for all machines and it didn't require 3rd party ($$$) utilities.

You can find info on all the commands listed here by looking up their man page.  Type man <command> for the command you're interested in.

man shutdown
man launchd
man sudo
man launchctl


root entries in last command I ran the last command in my terminal on my macbook pro high sierra and in the output where entries for the root user. How is that possible? Should that user not be deactivated? Here are the entries for last root:

root      console                   Thu Nov 30 09:31 - shutdown  (00:00)
root      console                   Wed Nov 29 09:23 - shutdown  (00:02)
root      console                   Wed Nov 22 19:00 - shutdown  (00:00)
root      console                   Sat Oct  7 22:44 - shutdown  (00:00)

Thank you very much for your Help!

These entries are fully normal.

The shutdown needs root priviledges to run, most notably to be able to kill all processes.
This doesn't mean that the root user logged on your system, and is totally independant of the fact that the root user is activated.


Has iMessage changed anything about how texts are forwarded from iChat to offline users? For some time it has been possible to configure iChat accounts so that iChat messages sent when one is offline are forwarded to a mobile number. This conveniently allows iChat-to-moble conversations.

Has the deployment if iMessage changed any of this functionality?

No, iMessages has not changed any of these features. Forwarding to a cell phone is a feature that is handled via AIM rather than iChat.

Furthermore, the new Messages application has not changed any of this functionality either. It works exactly as it did before. It shows a little "wi-fi" symbol next to buddies that are offline, but have AIM Forwarding enabled. However, this symbol is only visible in the Buddies window, and not in the Messages window (the window where you chat). They appear like any other offline user in the Messages window. Therefore, it might help if you remember who does and who doesn't have this feature enabled.

When you send them a message, it goes to their cell phone, and when they reply, you see it in Messages. Note that if they are on invisible mode on AIM, it goes to their AIM rather than their cell phone. This provides further evidence that AIM is in charge of forwarding to the phone rather than iChat/Messages.


Macbook Pro boots successfully when using hard drive in USB enclosure but doesn't boot when connected internally Apologies for the long question. I will keep it as simple as I can.

Last week my Macbook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) started to act strange.

It started when I tried to open Skype and received an error complaining that the program could not start because Skype could not read (or lock, unfortunately I can't remember) it's skype.plist file.

I restarted my Macbook hoping that would fix the problem (and I hadn't restarted in a while so I figured it was overdue).

My Macbook restarted and played the startup chime but then hung at the grey startup screen  with the spinning wheel. I thought nothing of it and did a hard shutdown but no matter how many times I did, the Macbook never advanced past the grey startup screen.

I tried to boot using Safe and Verbose mode and got the following error in both cases:

BootCacheControl : Unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist: 22 invalid argument

I googled the error and tried various solutions with no luck.

The Macbook would boot to the built-in Mountain Lion recovery partition.

At this point I decided to backup my data so I could mess with the hard drive a bit more without fear of losing any data. I booted in to the recovery partition and cloned my hard drive onto another using a USB enclosure. It seemed to work OK and I verified all of my files were on the backup hard drive by plugging it into another Macbook.

After cloning my hard drive I verified and repaired the disk and disk permissions using the disk utility in the recovery partition but that had no effect.

At this point I decided to reinstall Mountain Lion. I tried numerous times to reinstall it with the hard drive inside the Macbook (both using the recovery partition and a bootable Mountain Lion SD card) but couldn't get it to install. Eventually I got it to install, but only when the hard drive was placed in a USB enclosure. I knew this probably indicated a bigger underlying problem but decided to go ahead anyway.

I installed Mountain Lion successfully but now it will not boot with the hard drive connected inside the Macbook, only when it is used in my USB enclosure. When the hard drive is placed in my USB enclosure it boots to Mountain Lion without any problem.

With the hard drive inside the Macbook:

If the Macbook is booted as standard, it hangs on the grey startup screen with spinning wheel
If it is booted in verbose mode, it seems to boot successfully (shows no errors when the white text show up) and then hangs on a black screen with a solid white cursor in the top left corner (I can type at this point but it does nothing, it doesn't appear to be a terminal window)
If it is booted in safe mode, the progress bar appears, progresses to the end and then hangs on the grey startup screen with spinning wheel

I noticed a lot of suggestions on the internet to replace the hard drive cable to the motherboard. I did and it had no effect.

I've tried using another hard drive running a brand new install of Mountain Lion and that behaves exactly the same (boots fine using a USB enclosure but doesn't boot when connected internally).

I've booked an appointment at the Apple store but figured it was worth posting the question anyway, in case anybody has a similar issue in the future (hopefully I'll be able to post the answer, if nobody else does, after a visit to the Genius bar).

Any suggestions?

Thanks for reading.

You have eliminated the possibility of a hardware issue on the hard drive by installing a new hard drive and also by installing the operating system on the previous hard drive via USB.
You have replaced the cable connecting the internal hard drive to the mother board, so it's not a cable problem.
The only thing left seems to be the hard drive controller on the motherboard. I expect the Genius bar will recommend replacing the motherboard.
For an older model Mac like yours, it might be worth searching for a replacement motherboard and having a local Mac repair shop swapping it in for you. It might cost less.


Can I use Adblock/Adblock Plus to block ads in games that are not in a browser? Occasionally, there are apps that embed little chunks of the Internet. In most cases, this is a good thing. However, occasionally they are used to display ads.

This is annoying, especially if I've contributed to the development of the software. As a software developer that uses ads to make money, I know that I'd be fine with someone contributing via PayPal and deciding not to view the ads.

This is my situation with quite a few apps: I've contributed to their development and I don't want to be nagged with ads or otherwise. One, in particular, embeds a mini-browser to display ads.

Is there any way I could block such ads using ABP or other OS X software?

You are going to want to use a hosts file to block all ads in all games. First you're going to have to find the domain name of the server that the ads are coming from. You can use a number of programs to monitor network traffic for this step. My favorite is ettercap-ng, but you might prefer Little Snitch (if you want to do this on a per-app per-port basis, then Little Snitch will be just right for you without having to modify your hosts file). Once you've determined the domain of the ad server you're wishing to block, open up /etc/hosts in your favorite terminal text editor with sudo permissions (sudo nano /etc/hosts) (the file has no extension; it's simply named hosts). Add this line to the end of the file after replacing "domain.com" with the domain you're trying to block:
127.0.0.1 domain.com
This will tell your Mac to loopback when it comes across "domain.com", thus returning nothing, which essentially gets rid of all ads from that server in every app/program/game on your Mac (keep adding more lines for each ad server, and make them all loopback to 127.0.0.1). This method will also work on JailBroken devices and Linux.
If you want to use my omnipotent hosts file that blocks nearly all ads (it was written primarily for my JailBroken iPod), knock yourself out by replacing yours with mine: http://ss.gy/u Mine works on both desktop computers and mobile devices in multiple countries/languages (primarily the United States and France).


Profiling code with XCode I am trying to use time profiler. It worked in the past with an older version of the same code but now it looks like it is not working anymore.

From Xcode, I go on profile and select time profiler and then start recording. The record stops after not even a second. I never really understood when time profiler decides to stop the recording but in the past it was long enough to get info of interest. The call tree looks like (let me know if you'd like me to zoom on any part)

As all symbols on the left of the call tree are yellow (don't exactly what it means), it seems like my code never really started doing anything. Of course, my code works fine and run without error in both regular and #define DEBUG mode whether on Xcode or through the command line.

You can set when the profiler stops by opening the Record Options dialog by choosing the File menu and then Record Options.

From there you can set to stop recording after either a time limit (i.e. specified number of seconds) or window limit (i.e. record the last x seconds before you pressed the stop button).

The yellow gear and other icons there are used for marking which type of method it is. For example the yellow gear are system methods such as for example malloc (i.e. not part of your own source code). Your own source code would be displayed with a dark avatar icon.


How to use unix find and exclude paths? I need to exclude Time Machine path /Volumes/somedrive/Backups.backupdb from the results of find.

I currently use the following code, but it generates massive logs as it finds and includes all files in the Time Machine folder:

do shell script "find -x " & from_path & " -print0 | xargs -0 ls -d -F -P -l -T -a -e -i -o -p -q " & from_path & " > " & to_path user name "name" password "pass" with administrator privileges

I tried some examples from this site but I can't figure it out.

How I can use find and exclude certain paths?

There's a great answer over on Stack Overflow covering this: Exclude directory from find . command
Essentially, the command to exclude directories from find is as follows:
find . -type d \( -path dir1 -o -path dir2 -o -path dir3 \) -prune -o -print

From the above example, you should be able to extrapolate excluding a single directory.
A brief explanation:
-type d        # type: directories
-path dir1     # your path
-o             # "or"
-prune         # skip the previous set
-print         # print results


How to disable the S key I need to completely disable the S key, as my keyboard keeps pressing (and spamming) it without any user input and it's very annoying while coding. I need to completely ignore it (but allow external keyboards to input it).

Please help.

I have fixed the issue by using Karabiner-Elements to disable my built-in keyboard when an external one is connected. Gotta love those mechanical keyboards.

I will also consider getting my keyboard fixed when I can afford it (in terms of both time & money).


iPad management in medium sized business Our developer is putting the finishing touches on an internal web application. We'll be using it on the internal network and through a series of iPads. The iPads will connect through our IPSec VPN to the web application. We'll have approximately 15 iPads when fully rolled out.

I fooled around with the iPhone Configuration Utility and set up the wireless credentials and VPN configuration, as well as locked down the music and video section.

There's a couple points that I'm not really that happy with. For example, I don't really want the Address Book or Calendar visible particularly. I've moved them onto a second page of Apps.

I also don't like that the VPN disconnects every time the device is put to sleep. I'd prefer if the VPN autoconnected like the Wifi does, but that's not so much of an issue as the automatic disconnection. I wouldn't even mind if the iPad remembered the VPN password, because the user has to type the iPad password, VPN password and then the application username and password, which makes for a bit of a tedious experience.

I don't see any configuration options on the device or the iPhone Configuration Utility.

My question is does anyone have any experience in the 3rd party vendors that use the additional enterprise APIs and if so, do any of these annoyances I've listed above possible could be handled using such a 3rd party company / software?

Cisco IPSec deployments can take advantage of certificate-based authentication via
industry-standard X.509 digital certificates. With certificate-based authentication, iPad supports VPN On Demand. VPN On Demand can establish a connection automatically
when accessing predefined domains, which would provide you with seamless VPN connectivity.

For two-factor token-based authentication, iPad supports RSA SecurID as well as
CRYPTOCard. Users enter a PIN and a token-generated, one-time password directly on
iPad when establishing a VPN connection.

Now without jailbreaking, you can't remove/hide the iBooks or any default icon. Unless someone knows otherwise.


Chrome back/forward gestures no longer working after Mavericks update Has anyone else noticed their 1 finger back/forward gestures no longer working in Chrome?
I have tried the gestures on other applications such as Safari and Mission Control, they are all still intact.

Make sure you enable: System preferences > Mouse > Swipe between pages
AND OPEN A NEW TAB in Chrome
If you had it working before but then it stopped working suddenly (usually after an OS / Application update) you might just have to uncheck / recheck the "Swipe between pages" option. That should solve it.


Can the SSD from a 2013 Macbook Air work with an adapter in a PC? I happen to have a spare SSD from a 2013 MBA and I'm wondering if anyone knows of an adapter card to use it in a PC? There are boards like this (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID) or this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249042) that superficially look like they're using the same type of slim SSD card. But on closer inspection, the connector is different.

Try to call or write OWC, I know thier SSD for macbook airs works good so I think thier adaptor work fine aswell. But you have a 2013 and they only sell SSD for pre-2012 Airs, so maybe there is a change in the newest SSD that they does not support yet.

My advice, contact OWC before ordering any.


How do I show the Dock in full-screen mode? This one took me awhile to discover, but you can show the Dock while in Lion's new full-screen mode:

Place your cursor to the side where you currently store your Dock (right, left, or bottom), so that it's sitting on the last pixel of that edge. Then lift your finger and push towards the edge again, holding it in the push. Voilà, the Dock appears.

Small thing, but I found this particular interface just brilliant. It prevents the Dock showing up accidentally, which could be a common problem in full-screen mode, given that, well, we're using the entire screen all the way up to that edge that normally triggers the Dock.

The answer you posted in the question (unorthodox, yes) is correct: you have to move the mouse toward the edge of the screen in a separate motion.

But also, note that you don't have to lift your finger. You can just move the mouse to the edge of the screen, pause, and give it a little extra nudge.


How to really really turn off system sounds in El Capitan On my old laptop, which ran Snow Leopard, I had it set to not play system sound effects. As far as I remember, all I did to achieve this was go to System Preferences -> Sound -> Sound Effects tab -> uncheck "play user interface sound effects". This worked well - my laptop never made a sound unless I explicitly told it to.

I have done the same thing on my new El Capitan laptop, and this does seem to have disabled some sound effects, but nevertheless my computer still makes a "bonk" sound in some situations. For example:

In XCode, it happens if I press Shift-CMD-Z when there is nothing left to redo.
In Finder, it happens if I try to paste a file into a folder for which I don't have write permissions, or if I press CMD-S while a Finder window has the focus.
A few times it's happened seemingly at random, probably due to me accidentally triggering a trackpad gesture.

This runs the risk of embarassing me in a meeting, giving me an unwelcome surprise if plugged into an amplifier, etc. Is there a way in El Capitan to completely disable all sound effects, except for the ones generated by games, music programmes etc. that I explicitly ask for?

Turn down the alert volume

System Preferences---> Sound---> Sound Effects

This should mute the "bonk" sound you get when you do the things you mentioned

I am on 10.10.5. I hope the setting haven't changed.


Should I reformat a disk if Disk Utility asks me to? I have a FAT32 external disc that was suddenly unmounted as I was using it. When I reconnected it and tried to Repair it in Disk Utility, I got the following messages:

Verify and Repair volume “COMMON”
Checking file system** /dev/disk3s1
Can't open (Resource busy)
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

I then tried to do only a Verify, which succeeded:

Verifying volume “COMMON”
Checking file system** /dev/disk3s1
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
** Phase 3 - Checking for Orphan Clusters
29576 files, 36220416 KiB free (1131888 clusters)

I then re-tried the Repair, which succeeded:

Verify and Repair volume “COMMON”
Checking file system** /dev/disk3s1
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
** Phase 3 - Checking for Orphan Clusters
29597 files, 36219680 KiB free (1131865 clusters)
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.

Does the fact that the Verify and the latter Repair succeeded mean that the filesystem is in a 100% good state? Or is the verification not exhaustive, which means that it's safer to reformat the disk?

Since the error that showed up the first time was just Can't open (Resource busy), I wouldn't worry about it. It didn't actually do anything the first time. I'm guessing you had a file open or something and it couldn't unmount the volume to repair. I think the reformat message shows up if a repair fails, for any reason, even if it has nothing to do with the filesystem.


How to change filepath structure using automator (windows to mac)? I use a mac at work and people send me windows file paths all day. Does anyone know how to convert the filepath using applescript in an automator so I can right click in an email and then open it?

Windows path: \\Sfa66\devmrkdt$\Donor Relations\FY14\Events\Invitation\Email

Mac path: smb://Sfa66\devmrkdt$/Donor Relations/FY14/Events/Invitation/Email

This answer was so close How to translate between Windows and Mac -style file locations? but it won't work when there are blank spaces in the file path.

Blank spaces have to be escaped. To escape a special character, like a blank space, you use a forward slash, so " " will become "\ ".

You can modify the script, https://gist.github.com/2211017, link to from the post you linked to by adding the following line set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, " ", "\ ") after line 16.

...
15. set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, ">.", "")
16. set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, ">", "")

17. set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, " ", "\ ")

18. set findIt to "\\"
19. set replaceIt to "/"
...