Is it safe to remove chess.app I was cleaning my MBP out the other day and found chess.app in my /applications folder. I tried deleting it and Yosemite gave me this error:

Is this safe to delete? I was able to delete the DVD Player application just fine. So why can't I delete chess.app? Does this have some system files hidden inside it? Could I simply delete it by doing sudo rm -rf /Applications/Chess.app? If it is safe to delete then why doesn't it let you do it by finder? I mean how many people who use OS X use chess.app?

I have deleted Chess.app from every version of Mac OS X and OS X that I've used starting with Mac OS X 10.4.x and have never had an issue from doing so.

You can use AppCleaner to do it, although you first need to uncheck [] Protect default apps in its General Preferences.

Note:  To all that have commented about not removing Chess.app, it is for each User to decide whether or not one wants to keep an app that is of no use to them and will have absolutely no side effect whatsoever in removing it, providing it's done in a safe manner.


Switching Keyboard Layout on Macbook on Lion Is it still possible to switch from the default (Macbook UK) keyboard to the US layout in Lion? Everything I've read says there should be an international option in System Preferences, but there isn't.

Preferences -> Language & Text -> Input Sources


Automated LDAP and Search setup on Catalina I'm looking for an automated way to set up LDAPv3 on OSx Catalina.

There is an additional level of complexity as we need to set a custom search base for the Automount, Groups, and Users.

Prior to catalina:

/Library/Preferences/OpenDirectory/Configurations/Search.plist
/Library/Preferences/OpenDirectory/Configurations/LDAPv3/my_ldap_server.plist

These files are now write-protected, yet the OS is still capable of writing to them it seems(or rather the /System/Volumes/Data/Library/... variant)

I can't understand why sudo/root can't write to these files as I can't find a firm link that would limit this in /usr/share/firmlinks

I'm also open to other automated ways of setting up LDAP connections by the way :)

EDIT: Please note that I'm not looking to edit the files mentioned above. I'm trying to automate LDAP setup! It can be done in the system preferences, and I'm just looking for a terminal way to do the same.

The easy way is to make a configuration profile and push it via MDM once you reach the break even point where you’re spending more time touching machines vs scripting solutions.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mdm/directory-mdm23422775/web

You don’t need an MDM to make these or could use server app as your MDM if you just want to manage a couple items past this, but most teams that have staff to run LDAP would want MDM as well.

You could script downloading your profile from any file share using curl but it’s also possible to just script your MDM enrollment and push the profile to the Macs that need it using APNS.


Do MacBook Pro compatible Thunderbolt external GPUs work with Boot Camp? Do MacBook Pro compatible Thunderbolt external GPUs work with Boot Camp?

Yes, in general, external GPUs work with Boot Camp just fine.

In the specific case, you need to ensure that you have Windows drivers for your eGPU and that your enclosure is supported by Boot Camp. Mostly this is not a problem in practice.

Note that it might require a bit of fiddling to get this working in some cases. For example note that it might not work if you plug in the eGPU on the left-hand-side Thunderbolt ports on the MBP, but work perfectly fine on when plugged in to the right-hand-side Thunderbolt ports (or vice versa).

You can find a list of user guides for setting this up with various GPUs and enclosures: eGPU.io - User Implementation Guides

Here's a nice guide that details some of the "fiddling" that may be necessary: eGPU.io - Boot Camp eGPU Setup Guide for Thunderbolt 3 MacBook Pro


Restore user data, settings and apps from hard-drive copy Here's the situation:

My GF's MacBook Pro broke, OS would not start at all
I inserted Knoppix Live CD, booted and just copied all of the files from her HD to folder on  external HD
I've reinstalled OS on MacBook pro

My questions is: how can I easily restore all of her settings from HD to new OS installation and user account? Will simple copying files do the job? And what kind of software you recommend for backups?

I'm coming from *NIX / PC background, and new to Mac OS X, so wanted make sure before proceeding.

When you say settings what do you mean?

What current version of MAC os will you be restoring too?

Migration Assistant will allow you to restore from an external drive, if the drive has been formatted in the OS X Journaled format with the proper GUID.


Can you use a USB Wireless mouse with an iPad through the lightning to USB adapter? just wondering, on my iPad Pro 9.7 running iPadOS 13.5, could I connect a usb wireless mouse using the lightning to USB adapter? And will the mouse provide the same functionality as a bluetooth mouse would?

Yes, it should definitely be possible - and it should work with the same functionality as a Bluetooth mouse.

The Logitech unifying receiver presents itself to the operating system essentially the same way a cabled mouse does. Therefore iOS works for that receiver without extra "drivers" or anything like that.

I have personally used a Logitech wireless mouse with an iPad before, but I can't say if it is the same exact model of mouse, you have. You might experience that extra buttons for example have no function or similar, but the basics of pointing and clicking should work.


How can I easily run multiple sites with PHP, Apache and mySQL for free on mac? How can I easily run multiple sites with PHP, Apache and mySQL for free on mac with OSX? I use XAMPP on Windows and it works really well. When I want to add a new site on XAMPP in windows, I only create a new folder in htdocs and visit http://localhost/newfoldername to visit the site.
I know mac OS already have PHP but missing mySQL. However, I thought it was messy when I tested it.
XAMPP - (https://www.apachefriends.org) is not the same on mac and Windows. On mac you need to mount a drive to access the htdocs folder and it was hard to have multiple sites.
MAMP free - (https://www.mamp.info/) can't find how I add multiple sites. I tested to create a new folder "test" with a php-file in htdocs but the webserver could not find the site when I visited http://localhost/test
MAMP PRO - I want to use a free solution (freeware or open source) and you need to pay to use MAMP PRO.
I can live with digging in configuration files once but do not want to do it every time I set up a new PHP site in localhost.

All of these options have a GUI which is helpful.  You could install Apache/MySQL/PHP with Homebrew or MacPorts, but you would be managing all of the settings manually. While this is the best way to get all of the options for free, this increases the difficulty curve.
As another option, I have Abyss Web Server running on my machine to act as a local dev server.  The free version allows for 1 site though, there are more features with the paid version.
As with any of these options, you will have to pay for the extra features when using a GUI.
I looked into this years ago when Apple Server abandoned web services. I hope you find something that will work for you.


TextMate recover after kernel panic I was working on an unsaved file when the kernel suddenly got a panic attack. I have the 'Save files when focus is lost" checkbox checked, and I frequently switched between textmate and the browser, so plenty of oppurtunities to autosave there. I don't see any autosaved documents in my 'recently opened documents'. Is there any chance I can get my work back?

The file was located in:
~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Session/

This is for the OpenSource version of TextMate 2.0-alpha-9487, on osx Mountain Lion 1.8.5


How do I save iBooks pdfs to an external hard drive? How do I save all of my iBooks pdfs, located on my iPad2, to an external hard drive?

I'm not going to post the church boy answer, but if you jailbreak your device, you will have full access to the file system.

There is probably a legitimate way to do this without jailbreaking, but having jailbroken devices myself, I would simply enable SSH (the root password is alpine, which you should change immediately) and either rsync or scp the files to your external hard drive volume (which in my case is mounted on a Mac Mini (also running sshd).  The hard drive will be mounted in /Volumes.

I forget the exact path to your Camera Roll, but the main directory you are looking for containing the photos and videos is DCIM.

If your external drive is a Windows computer, then there are also tools in Cydia that make file sharing with Windows a breeze.  Or if you're like me and have to run Cygwin with sshd on all of your Windows boxes, the same rules as above would apply, but the path to the external drive would be /cygdrive/[drive letter].

If you are on a Mac and enable SSH to your iPad, just do the following in Terminal on your Mac (if it is a Mac):

cd /Volumes/[external drive]/[folder to store images]
scp root@[iPad IP address]:/path/to/DCIM/* .

It would be a good idea to use screen for this job so that it doesn't fail from a broken pipe in case you have a lot of images.  If you want to go that route, you could do something like this screen -LS image.copy which would put you in a new shell session.  Then run the commands above, and detach from the session with Ctrl+A-D.  This lets the process run in the background.  If you want to come back later and check the progress, run screen -x image.copy.

If you are going to do something like this, you should make sure that you are hooked up to power and don't have auto-lock set, or else it will end your session prematurely.

This may be a horrible answer, but I always default to command line, because it never fails me.


why cannot I edit my `hosts` file? I'm trying to edit my hosts file, because doing ssh <some host in hosts> fails to translate to ip.

according to the Finder UI it is found under:

however when trying to run cat hosts from the terminal I get an error:

➜  /etc  cat hosts
cat: hosts: No such file or directory

I tried to create a new hosts file but then I see another one is created next to the first one

but when I try to edit the second hosts I need to duplicate to anther destination. I copy it to /etc and again the first problem occurs.

I have tried to change the permissions to everyone can read and write. But yet it didn't help.

Usually only the root user is allowed to modify the file hosts.

To do that and fix your hosts file or your /etc folder (depending where you applied your read/write permissions) follow these steps:

Throw away your newly created hosts file (but not the old one!)
Repair your permissions with Disk Utility.

Open Terminal and enter sudo nano /etc/hosts and hit ↵
Enter your password (it will not be shown!) and hit ↵
The standard hosts file in Yosemite looks like this:

Edit your hosts file.
The format for each line is IP-address, then a tab or a single space and the hostname(s). Terminate the file with an empty trailing line.
write the changes to disk with ctrlO followed by ↵
and exit nano with ctrlx
Enter exit, hit ↵ and quit Terminal.app

As an alternative for the steps 3-7 you may download and install hosts.prefpane and enter your additional hosts there.


Why do debuggers need an admin password? Why does running LLDB or instruments require elevated privilages?

Scanning protected memory is something only something authorized (in this case authenticated) sudoers are able to do.

Not requiring this would be a huge security risk and is part of the reason Windows from the 90's and early 00's was at higher risk of virus infection.  An application could easily dip into the memory partition of another application, viewing or modifying its contents or inserting arbitrary executable code.


OSX Photos is Forcing Me to Optimize Storage With Plenty of Free Space In order to free up space on my macbook air's internal SSD, I moved my photo library off to an external disk (actually a Transcend JetDrive installed into the SD Card reader port). I have the photo library on the extrnal disk set as the System Photo Library in Photos Preferences, and want to re-enable iCloud Photo Library (which I turned off while I moved the library to its new location). When I try to check the box for iCloud Photo Library, I get the error message "Your full-resolution photos and videos stored in iCloud may not fit on this Mac" and the only options are to cancel or Optimize Storage.

The library shows up as 60.59GB in Finder, and icloud.com says I have 44.99GB of Photos and Videos (which should be the exact same photos, plus or minus a few new iPhone photos taken in the past few days). The external drive is 128GB, and the Photo Library is the only thing on it.

What's going wrong? Why doesn't iCloud realize that it has all this free space to work with? How can I re-enable iCloud Photo Library without deleting photos from my macbook?

Two things to note:

the small print under "Optimize Mac Storage" states that "Originals will also be stored on this Mac if you have enough storage space", so hopefully the fact that you have plenty of space to spare will qualify as "enough storage space" and nothing will be deleted immediately (hopefully!)
even though you're not offered the option in the dialog, once you select "Optimize Storage", you can immediately switch the radio button back to "Download Originals to this Mac"

Neither of these things necessarily guarantees that the originals won't be removed and re-added, but at least you will end up with all the originals on your Mac once it has had a chance to synchronize everything to its satisfaction.


Should I install X11 on my Mac Book Pro? I have recently purchased a Mac Book Pro (Mavericks 10.9.3) and I'd like to run Inkscape.  After researching the subject I see that I need to install X11, however I don't want to do this if X11 is going to run continuously and chew up CPU resources.  (Inkscape is the only X11 app I am likely to use, I think).

So, if I install X11, will it run whenever the machine is in use?  Or only when an X11 app (such as Inkscape) is running.  And are there other downsides/complications to running X11?

If you install the X11 subsystem, it will only run when you have an X11 program running.

Much the same as when installing the JVM - that will only run when you run a Java program.


Making it so programs aren't restored after startup from a forced shutdown Whenever I boot up from a forced shutdown (aka holding down the power button), OSX restores all the programs I had open before the forced shutdown. Is there a way to disable this? If my computer turns off for whatever reason, I want it to boot up fresh.

Log out once and uncheck the Reopen windows when logging back in toggle.

It should stick and cover you next time you have to crash land your mac.
Do be sure to check this setting in the General preference.

Lastly, some more tacky per-app solutions are running around like locking the folders where state is saved. OS X Lion: App-Specific Resume


What would be the cleanest method of converting my APFS macOS partition back to HFS+? After installing High Sierra when it was released, I was initially happy with APFS and gave no care to its relative novelty. Recently I've been using Linux, macOS, and Windows, and having to reboot back into macOS just to grab a file and then copy it to my Windows or Linux partitions is becoming inconvenient and tedious, not to mention a waste of space. I decided that I'd make the attempt to convert my macOS partition back to HFS+. Here are the steps I've taken so far:

Made a full backup of my internal drive using gdd. I've tested this backup and am writing this booted off of it.
Installed macOS High Sierra onto a disk drive (thereby keeping it HFS+).
Copied all of my macOS files onto this drive using sudo cp -a (Target Disk Mode).
Written this HFS+ partition over my APFS partition (gparted-live).
Transferred the Apple_Boot partition to immediately after the HFS+ partition on my internal drive (Target Disk Mode).
Attempted to boot off of my internal drive.

The resulting HFS+ partition appears as a bootable drive in the hold-Option-at-boot menu, and when I attempt to boot it (verbosely), it throws tons of warnings/errors along the lines of kernel[0]: ... dyld_shared_cache_x86_64': owned by uid=89 instead of 0, then infinitely outputs Process[32] crashed: opendirectoryd. Too many corpses being created (number ranging from about 30 to about 150) and increments the number. After powercycling multiple times it now outputs Waiting for DSMOS before the infinite loop.

Here is a diskutil list of my internal drive:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS macOS                   169.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot                         600.8 MB   disk0s3
   4:           Linux Filesystem                         31.5 GB    disk0s4
   5:                 Linux Swap                         8.5 GB     disk0s5
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                40.8 GB    disk0s6

Given all this, what would be the cleanest way for me to accomplish converting my macOS partition to HFS+, keeping in mind I can start over if needed?

Once you formatted an HDD as an APFS volume it is not easy to get back to HFS+. I made the experience when I formatted an external 10 TB backup disk as APFS just to decide that maybe HFS+ would be better for my usage scenario. When I tried to reformat the HDD, the HFS+ version was gone from diskutil. I had to erase the complete volume structure and as soon as I did this, I was able to format as HFS+.

So I guess you will have to go through this too.

Full backup (time machine, carbon copy, ...)
Following my experience I would say to completely erase the volume structure of your internal HDD, through target disk mode or while booted into the recovery partition of an external USB drive.
Reinstall
Restore

Good luck!

With other words: I would say there is no way of avoiding a complete erase and reconfiguration of the whole volume structure + reinstall.

The “too many corpses” hinds at a corruption of your account/machine setting. If it is the user account you could try to create a new user:

Start with ⌘-S
Check the startup disk:/sbin/fsck -fy
Mount the startup disk using: /sbin/mount -uw /
Remove the setup complete flag using: rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
Install macOS and create a new user.
Copy your data to the new user.

If it is a machine setting related problem: erase, etc..


Did iTunes 12.7 drop support for older iPods like 2nd Gen iPod Nano? I suddenly am unable to connect to my 2nd Gen iPod Nano via iTunes.

Did they drop support for older iPods in iTunes 12.7?

No, iTunes 12.7 works just fine with older iPods.

I have just synchronized an iPod mini 1G (2004) with iTunes without any issues.


Did Oracle remove the Java System Preference in macOS? I recently updated my Java install on macOS 10.14.4 from Java 10 to Java 11, and the Java System Preference pane disappeared after Java updated. I updated Java again on a different Mac running the same macOS version (10.14.4), and again, the Java System Preference disappeared. I check to see if Java was still installed using $: java -version, and this is the output I get:

java version "11.0.2" 2019-01-15 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11.0.2+9-LTS)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11.0.2+9-LTS, mixed mode)

This tells me Java is still installed.

Did Oracle discontinue the use of the Java System Preference pane in macOS? I couldn't find anything in Oracle's documentation that would indicated they did.

It looks like the Java Control Panel was removed in Java 11.

  Please note that the Java Control Panel, which was used for configuring the deployment technologies, has also been removed along with the shared system JRE (but not the server JRE) and the JRE Auto Update mechanism

JDK 11 Release Notes

Check out the answer karma4917 provided on Stack Overflow:
MacOS Java Control Panel Missing on Mojave


Applescript or Automator service that automatically trusts certificates I would like to know, if there is a way to make an Automator service or an Applescript that automatically trusts a root certificate. If possible without a prompt for password or Admin privileges. Could it be possible to do that maybe with tell application "Keychain Access"

or

do shell script "sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain <certificate>"

If possible without the sudo.

Undesirable Behaviour

There is no intended way to add trusted root certificates without requiring authorisation from the user or an administrator.

Any method that manages to add a trusted root certificate without confirming, at some stage, the credentials of the user would be considered a serious security bug.

What is the Risk?

Once a root certificate is trusted, it provides an automatic degree of trust for other certificates, applications, and content.

If a script, process, or tool could add trusted root certificates without authorisation, then it opens the possibly to perform malicious actions on a Mac – without the user knowing.


Create a Clone of System HD My wife has a 13" Macbook Pro from around 2008. It's 250GB HD is full so I purchased a 500 GB drive, partitioned with GUID, erased with Journaled and cloned with CCC. I took out the old disk and put in the new and could not boot: just a folder with ? icon. Put old drive back and new drive on USB, held alt key and drive was there. Could boot from new drive when hooked up via USB.

Am I missing a step? I removed the old disk and put in the new disk, got the OSX install disk and did a fresh OS install onto the new disk, rebooted and it worked fine. So I don't think it's a hardware issue.

All I want to do is swap the old 250 with the new 500 without having to spend hours reinstalling her apps and data. Is there a way to do that?

I would do the following to avoid hassles.

Download the installer I want from a running OS and use it to make an official USB installer drive.
Make a Time Machine backup of the 250 GB drive to the drive you will use to back up the Mac once it's running from the 500 GB drive. If you plan on no backups, beg/borrow/buy a drive at least 500 GB to use temporarily.
Boot to the installer drive to test that it COULD install to the 250 or the 500 GB drive, but don't install yet.
Power off the Mac and put the 500 GB drive inside.
Boot to the installer with no other external drives connected. Use Disk Utility from the installer to wipe the 500 GB drive and repartition it as OS X Extended.
Once you install to the internal 500 drive, connect the Time Machine drive to restore the backup you made earlier.
Keep the 250 drive safe for a while. You can always connect it to recover files if you discover Time Machine skipped some data or files you need.

I know Carbon Copy Cloner has a way to make a clone bootable, but I don't use that tool, so perhaps my mentioning it will get someone to step forward with that experience.

Also, cloning the drive will carry forward disk errors so you really don't want to do that. Cloning also bypasses the new default settings. Why run in old crusty settings when you can choose what customizations you miss when they occur to you and make use of the new features fully.

There are a few cases where I clone a setup, but the drawbacks almost always make me wish I had started clean so I save little time if any by cloning these days.


How to securely erase/format an iPhone for resale? I've read a couple guides that talk about restoring the iPhone to it's base operating system, then syncing three different full playlists of music in order to overwrite any previous personal data that might be on the phone and recoverable via basic forensic methods.

I want to believe there is a better way, maybe a simple program that allows you to write zero byte files until the OS is full a couple times over.

What is the best way to format/erase an iPhone for resale?

The built in “Erase all Content and Settings” function (found in the Settings app, under General → Reset) should be sufficient in virtually all cases.

The 3GS and later iPhones, 3rd generation and later iPod Touches and all iPads use hardware encryption, where all data is stored encrypted in their flash memory. On these devices the wipe function simply deletes the encryption key, rendering the data not much more useful than random noise. On devices without hardware encryption, the wipe function overwrites the entire user partition with ones. This is more secure with flash memory than doing the same on a hard drive (where some residual magnetic field can be detected from the previous data, although the chances of that are likely very low) — it's theoretically possible someone could retrieve some data, but it would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming.

Unless you're keeping extremely sensitive data on there (i.e. state secrets or evidence of a massive criminal conspiracy), I wouldn't worry about it once it's wiped.

Source: Apple Article HT2110 — iOS: Understanding 'Erase All Content and Settings'


Max file limit conundrum Following this article I've adjusted my open file limits:

$ launchctl limit
    maxfiles    65536          65536

The trouble with this is that when I try to open Adobe applications I get this error:

  Unable to set maximum number of files to be opened.

I'm not sure how to solve this. I need to increase my file limit but I also need to use Adobe products.

There are a few ways to mitigate the file limit. We ran into the same issue at our company with our platform team and were able to resolve the issue using the information below. Source

Enter the following in Terminal:

$ echo kern.maxfiles=65536 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
$ echo kern.maxfilesperproc=65536 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
$ sudo sysctl -w kern.maxfiles=65536
$ sudo sysctl -w kern.maxfilesperproc=65536
$ ulimit -n 65536 65536
In $HOME/.bash_profile set the following: ulimit -n 65535 unlimited
Reboot system and try Photoshop again


How to get Apple certificate to sign files? I was tasked by my boss to handle new project at work - JAMF to manage our MacOS devices (we are mostly Windows corporation, so it isn't easy).

We bought it, had some training. I want now to use ProfileCreator i found to deploy some settings. Bad thing is, that I don't know, how to get a certificate? I think, I need to become a developer and confirm my identity with Apple, am I correct?

Anyone have a detailed instruction, how to proceed? Sorry, if this is a silly question, but after years with Microsoft OS, this is a little overwhelming.

Since your question involves support with a 3rd party product, it should typically be taken up with the concerned company. The information should ideally be available in their support document or you should be able to get the desired information via a customer support representative.

The following post on JAMF website should answer your concern:

Creating a Signing Certificate using Jamf Pro's Built-in Certificate Authority


Image dimension column in Finder? Is it possible to add a column in the list View in Finder, that displays the dimensions of image files ?

Just add the word Pictures (capital P) to the front of your folder name, and you will miraculously get Dimensions and Resolution as a column option.  Then just rename it back.

Note: You may need to right-click on the list view's header bar to see this option, rather than View > Show View Options (⌘ J).


Date trash was last emptied bash I'm trying to find out at what date and time the trash was last emptied. Would it be the date modified of the least recently modified file? Does moving it to the trash count as modifying it?

Whilst the last emptied date is not stored, it does update the last modification date. Therefore, providing you have not added anything to a trash since, the last modification date of each .Trashes will be the last time that trash was emptied.


Connection hangs with Fugu cannot connect I've seen Fugu questions asked on this site, but I haven't found an answer for this:

My sysadmin locked my account on the server side, due to unexpected activity from my account. My password is now reset, and I can log in to the remote server via ssh in Terminal.

When I try to log in to the same remote machine via Fugu, the connection hangs and after a few minutes, Fugu gives up trying. I never saved a password with Fugu - I enter it each time I connect.

Could the login problem be related to the password change? If not, what else could be the source of this problem?

Workaround more than answer:

I needed Fugu to copy files from the remote machine to my local machine. I can do that without Fugu using this:

scp username@remote_host:filename.ext path/to/local/dir


Image Uploading to Web Service from iOS I often want to make a picture available on the internet, without wanting it as part of my Twitter stream or Facebook account etc.  For example, posting a screenshot to a thread on a forum or just to include in an email without sending an attachment.

I'm happy for the pic to be public, but don't necessarily want it to be associated to me if people stumble across it, or have it included with photos I actually care about on services like Flickr etc.  I just want to throw it up to an image hosted and dump it without a trail, in the easiest and quickest way possible.

The closest I have found is an app called Picup, which throws a photo onto Imgur without any logging in and captioning etc etc.  If it also had the ability to scale it down to half sized it may be enough, but it doesn't, and as such pics are full sized which increases upload speed and makes the picture potentially too large for sensible linking to on sites that won't auto-scale it.

So, what I am after will ideally meet the following criteria:

Allow me to take a photo, or use a camera roll image
Resize it automatically via a preset preference (Say max 400 in largest dimension)
Upload it to am image hosting service that does not require me to have an account or log in
Present me with the resulting URL in a way that makes copying it simple, perhaps via a big fat COPY URL button, or automatically selecting the text etc
Optional - provide links for common uses of the URL - compose email, send tweet etc.

Imagine a scenario; I see a ridiculous haircut in Wallmart, I want to snap it, throw it up, send it to friends, then abandon it so I never have to care about who finds it by accident later with my name against it, and never need to go pruning such childish photos from my genuinely useful and wanted pics such as those in Instagram etc.

You could check out CloudApp. It started out on desktop but there are a couple good mobile clients as well, namely Stratus and Cloud2go.

These apps don't do any sort of editing. But CloudApp's backend automatically scales images when viewing on a screen that's too small to display them at their native size. Additionally, they provide a 'direct link' option for embedding images directly.


How to open an image file from bash in Mac? I am fairly new with a Mac (Mac from work), and get more and more disappointed. Now I am blocked again, because I did not find an EASY way to open an image from the command line...

Here is how it works in Linux (simple, no installation required):

eog test.jpg

How to achieve the similar thing on a Mac?

open test.jpg will open the image in the default application for JPEG files (on most Macs this will be Preview) and open -a Pixelmator test.jpg will open in the app Pixelmator if you have it installed. Obviously Pixelmator can be replaced with any application that can open the file.

The open command is quite powerful, it allows for opening files, directories and even URLs. I suggest you read the man page.


After upgrade to iOS11, Photo uploads files to icloud even though the phone is on mobile network Before iOS11, the photo app does not upload newly snapped photo to icloud if the phone is still on a mobile app. It will usually say, to the effect, "Upload paused while on mobile network" at the bottom of the 'Photos' section.

However since I upgraded to iOS 11, the photo will upload  regardless the type of network connection. It killed my mobile data! On one weekend, 1 Gb of data was sucked away because of the upload.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? If so, is there a solution?

This is the 'Mobile Data' settings of photo app:

This is an ios11 feature. (I think it is actually a bug because I did not observe this kind of behaviour before)

I find that I put the phone in 'Low Power' mode, the Photo will not attempt to upload the photo automatically.

Now I will turn it on before I take any photo while on mobile network.


Can I create a keyboard shortcut to lock a file in Finder? I'm constantly opening Info panes so that I can lock the currently selected files in Finder. Keeping the Info pane open is no longer good enough; it gets cumbersome to manage with multiple desktops and screens.

Can I assign a keyboard shortcut to do this?

Keyboard Maestro can do this with a macro such as this, which will run chflags uchg on every file in the current Finder selection:


How to get Internet Sharing (Ethernet to WiFi) with Server on OS X 10.10.5 I have a Mac mini (Mid 2011) (Macmini5,2) with OS X 10.10.5 and Server.app installed.  I would like to share internet from this machine's Ethernet port to my WiFi, so that other devices in my room can connect wirelessly to the wired connection coming into its Ethernet.  I have configured Internet Sharing on this machine to use WPA2 Personal.

When I was messing around with Server.app, I also configured one Network (192.168.1.0/24) for the DHCP service in Server.app (for the WiFi device), but the service is disabled.

When I connect a device to the Internet Sharing WiFi network, it takes a while, but eventually the device is assigned an IP along with other DHCP info.  But the device cannot reach any IP addresses (pinging local IPs on the network fails and navigating to a website via domain name or IP fails.)

How can I get Internet Sharing to work?

Check the IP address assigned to the device via DHCP.  Does it match the IP range for the DHCP Network configured in Server.app's (disabled) DHCP service?  I.e., is the IP address in the 192.168.1.0/24 range?)  Also, try ifconfig -a on the Mac mini and look for a bridge that contains your WiFi device as a member.  In the example below (MAC address obscured), I see that my WiFi device (en1) is in bridge100.  Does the inet range for the bridge differ from the IP range assigned to your device?

bridge100: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
    inet 192.168.2.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
    inet6 fe80::c82a:14ff:fe55:fc64%bridge100 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xa
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en1 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 5 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active

If so, try deleting the Network from the DHCP service in Server.app.  This fixed the problem for me.  After deleting the Network (I think I had to renew the DHCP lease, too), my devices are now assigned IPs in the range of the bridge.

I think that when Internet Sharing starts, it creates the bridge to support Internet Sharing.  So your devices should get IP addresses in its range.  I don't know why the Server.app's DHCP Networks interfere with Internet Sharing, since the service is off, but maybe because Internet Sharing forces DHCP on behind the scenes, and the Network settings are picked up regardless.  I'm also not sure why an IP in the DHCP service's Network doesn't allow for internet connectivity, but I guess it may have something to do with not matching the bridge's network mask and/or some configuration of pf that Internet Sharing does behind the scenes.

I hope this helps.


How can I avoid different windows of the same app get folded in at the dock? Some times I have apps opened with more than one windows, like Chrome. How can I see in the Dock one icon per each windows (even they are of the same app) that I have open?

Would be nice know how to switch using command+tab or something like that between all the windows opened.

The dock does not shows the windows but the applications.

But once you choose an application you can switch among windows with command+`

To see all the open windows you can use exposé: press F10 to show all the windows of the current application or F9 for all the windows. You can also configure a gesture in the system preferences.


Copying ssh private key with finder, but can't see it with console Background: I generated an additional ssh key-pair on my windows 7 workplace computer. I placed the corresponding public keys in my bitbucket.org and github.com account. I am using atlassian sourcetree as a git gui. I copied the private key into (my mac) the .ssh folder using the finder(drag and drop), and when I use the command ls -lah also ssh-add -l doesn't show the keys I copied.

I am using OSX v10.7.5

Also, I have heard of this thing called keychain access, but I am new to mac, and I don't know if this sort of thing is required to manage my ssh keys.

Question: What is the reason I cannot see my private keys in my ~/ssh directory? How do I fix it so that I can add the new private key.

From Terminal, type:

cd ~/.ssh
sudo ssh-add [keyname]

This will add the key to your computer for you.


Compilation error with Mojave: error: ‘_Atomic’ does not name a type After updating to Mojave 10.14.4 and Xcode 10.2, I fail to compile GCC 8.3.0. The error message is

In file included from /usr/include/sys/sysctl.h:83,
                 from ../../gcc-8.3.0/gcc/config/darwin-driver.c:30:
/usr/include/sys/ucred.h:94:2: error: ‘_Atomic’ does not name a type
  _Atomic u_long          cr_ref;  /* reference count */
  ^~~~~~~

I have not found any clue how this can be fixed. The header in question is

struct ucred {
    LIST_ENTRY(ucred)       cr_link; /* never modify this without KAUTH_CRED_HASH_LOCK */
#if defined(__STDC_VERSION__) && __STDC_VERSION__ >= 201112L && !defined(__STDC_NO_ATOMICS__)
    _Atomic u_long          cr_ref;  /* reference count */
#elif defined(__cplusplus) && __cplusplus >= 201103L
    _Atomic u_long          cr_ref;  /* reference count */   // <--- this line
#else
    volatile u_long         cr_ref;  /* reference count */
#endif

Any ideas are highly appreciated!

I encountered the same problem myself. The error is actually reported by g++, a C++ compiler. On MacOS 10.14.4, the header file <sys/ucred.h> uses the _Atomic keyword for C++, although it is only defined in the C standard. (I assume that Apple's compiler clang++ defines this keyword as extension to the C++ standard.)

The proper fix is to tell gcc to "fixinclude" the header file <sys/ucred.h>. This patch does this. This is a patch that needs to be applied to the source code of GCC 8.3.0 before building it.


How to replace retina MacBook Pro rubber feet? The rubber feet of my late 2013, 15" retina Macbook Pro are breaking and falling off. From what I’ve gathered, Apple doesn’t sell these feet and expects you to pay about $100 for a replacement of the bottom panel.

But I’ve found some feet online (last image) and was told I do not need to remove the bottom panel to replace them. I’m somewhat doubtful if this claim and want to make sure.

Is there a tutorial with video or step-by-step photos that replaces these (including documenting the removal of the old ones)?

You can follow the instructions in the Apple Support document, MacBook Pro: Bottom case foot replacement DIY instructions.

There is absolutely no need to shell out money to replace the entire bottom panel. However, the article explicitly mentions that the DIY replacement kit is not available for MacBook Pro with Retina display computers. The procedure shared appears quite straightforward.

As apparent from the article, glue can be used to stick the feet to the bottom panel. On the other hand, this Youtube video gives a good demonstration of how to remove the bottom panel and place the bottom feet the recommended way.

I have had a similar situation with my Late 2013 15" retina MacBook Pro. I have used glue to paste the falling off feet to the back panel.


How to test for a short to ground on a Macbook Air motherboard? I have an A1369 Macbook Air (mid 2011 13 inch model).

It appears that the backlight fuse is blown. I have some hypotheses as to why that happened, but before pluging a new fuse back in, I would like to make sure the short to ground is gone.

How can I test whether there is still a short to ground ? More specifically, where should I point the probes in my multimeter on the motherboard ?

Bring it to a repair shop. Poking a motherboard in general is extremely dangerous for the components. You may further break things in the process.

If you do accept this risk and wish to continue... It would seem to be pretty hard. Apple, being Apple, doesn't label anything on the board. Based on some motherboard pictures on eBay, you'd probably want to use the ground pin from one of the other peripheral connectors (which have good data sheets with pinouts) and hope that everything is on the same ground bus (which I think is true). If you know/suspect what caused the shortage, see if any of its pins beep the meter. There should be one (the ground pin). If any others do, that indicates a short (unless there are two+ ground connectors, like on Thunderbolt).

TL;DR: You should probably have a repair shop check, and it's pretty hard to check it yourself.


Can't download (update) files in iCloud Drive over Cellular I can't download (update) files in iCloud Drive on my iPhone 6 over 4G connection. It only works with WiFi. Can someone help me? Thanks.

Please see this image which shows you how to enable cellular data.

Source: http://www.imore.com/how-enable-or-disable-icloud-drive-syncing-over-cellular


Guarantee/force remote shutdown Situation: a mac running 10.14, accessed from a Windows laptop via TeamViewer remote desktop software.
Problem: sometimes apps will prevent shutdown. "Xcode interrupted shutdown" or similar. Once every 1-3 weeks.
Because the TeamViewer app on the mac quits successfully — terminating the network connection before the "$app interrupted shutdown" message is shown — I never see this message myself and only know about it because coworkers with physical access report it to me when I ask for their help.
When the mac fails to shut down, the automatic boot-up the next morning also never runs, therefore the TeamViewer app on the mac never re-opens, therefore I can't connect to it remotely the next day.
Question: Is there some way to force the mac to shutdown, no matter what state it is in, even when apps interrupt the process?
(Software solutions only — while a timer switch that periodically cuts power would work, I don't want to risk physical damage from regular power interruptions).

Have you tried to execute shutdown from Terminal:
sudo shutdown -h 2011032000 "Shutting down at 8:00pm tonight"

You can specify the precise time, using the yymmddhhmm format, and using a 24-hour clock for the time.
At least it doesn't ask me to quit or save any running program. It will simply quit anything running in.
You can make automator script to execute too if this helps for your requirement.


I can't trash files anymore, but only delete them directly When I want to delete a file in Finder or in the Desktop a popup appears and it says it will be deleted immediately, and I need to confirm.

The trash is always empty, and I can't use it anymore.

What's going on with Snow Leopard and not having a working trash can?

Check the ownership and permissions on ~/.Trash.

mress:10039 Z$ ls -ld ~/.Trash
drwx------  285 allbery  staff  9690 Jun 28 16:53 /Users/allbery/.Trash/

My guess is it somehow ended up being owned by root, but there are other possibilities.  If it's the owner, the fix is sudo chown $USER ~/.Trash ~/.Trash/.DS_Store.


Use Function Keys as Keyboard Shortcut I have a Macbook Pro 13" with Retina Display running OS X Mavericks 10.9.4

I use Code Editors like PHPStorm which Require me to use the Function Keys as Keyboard Shortcuts like Command+F6.

But F6 just increases my backlighting.

I want the function Keys to do this special stuff when used alone and behave as normal Function keys when I add something before it like Cmd.

For example :
F11 should decrease volume,
but Cmd+F11 should be a shortcut

I think you got two options:

Enable function keys to work like normal keys and to activate their special functions – like increasing volume etc. – when pressing fn beforehand.

Open System Preferences
Select preference pane Keyboard
Select Keyboard tab
Activate option Use all F1, F2, etc, keys as standard function keys

  Image taken from OSXDaily.com

Set custom app shortcuts for your programs that need function keys in their shortcuts.

Open System Preferences
Select preference pane Keyboard
Select Shortcuts tab
Select group App Shortcuts
Press + and add your needed shortcuts – those already existent in the editor. Just select the corresponding app, insert the shortcut name (name in the menu connected to the shortcut) and enter shortcut already set by the program.

  Image taken from Geeksays.com


is there a way to store mail on an external hard drive using apple mail? I've been trying to save up space and for this reason I'm using the "don't keep copies of any messages" option.

I was thinking though, can I instead choose to save all emails and attachments, but an external hard drive? I'd like the best of both options: when hard drive is not connected it behaves exactly as "don't keep copies of any messages", when connected it has the possibility to search all mail.

Apple seem to want me not to find where mail is stored, and does not have an option in the preferences to do what I want (that I'm aware of).

Any suggestions?

The answer by Zo219 is nice for having two copies, but my solution is to link the folders where Mail wants to store the files to the external drive and not have two copies.

Here are the folders you'll need to have located off the main drive:

~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/

Since the volumes are separate, you can't hard link and instead need to soft (sum) link the folders or use Finder's alias function once you've moved these folders to your second drive.

That is one way that works, but I think he wants something more seamless like a remapping of the Mail directory (~/Library/Mail) to a live clone on the external drive.  I've a relative small SSD on my air (128GB) so had used a simple alias to relocate my Mail library to an external HDD at my desk.  I used an alternate user "mobile" so I could check email Mail with ease when I was away from the home office.  This recently broke under my current version of Mountain Lion (10.8.2) and I am currently looking at a workaround.  To my knowledge, hard-linking under recent versions OS X is not for the faint of heart, as it may create difficulties with Time Machine et al.  Let me know in the comments if my solution is confusing.  As far as your concern about behaviour when the external drive is not connected and you launch Mail, it just quietly fails with a polite error message about no access to an unmounted target.


Software that is functionally similar to Deep Freeze for MacOS 10.13 Faronics, the developers of Deep Freeze have stated that they have no intention of supporting APFS, and by extension 10.13.

I know the Apple Stores used to use Deep Freeze and are now using a utility that is functionally similar to Deep Freeze on 10.13 on APFS, but definitely isn't Deep Freeze.

Does anyone know what this utility is, or any alternatives to Deep Freeze that supports APFS and MacOS 10.13?

This will be used in an enterprise environment, so something with proper support and licensing would be idea.

Thanks,

Nabeel

Edit: Yes, this is a recommendation request post, however there is no other way to reword this post, and Faronics basically built this industry, so it's a little tone deaf to not mention them in the post.

In terms of restore-on-reboot solutions it really boils down to Deep Freeze and Reboot Restore Rx. The latter of which doesn't support Mac's currently but will in the future from what I've hear.

What the Apple Store uses is akin to loading a disk image automatically. It's a bit more cumbersome than Deep Freeze or other similar solutions but at the very least it's compatible with APFS.


Dual boot with Windows 10 on 2011 Macbook Pro with APFS I have been able to successfully dual boot a 2011 Macbook Pro with Windows 10 before when OS X still used the HFS file system, but things have obviously changed with how the system boots with APFS.

I understand that Windows will not know what APFS is, and so Bootcamp will not work while using Windows if you want to switch over to OS X by using Bootcamp. However, I have another perplexing issue....or simply curiosity.

When you hold down the option key at bootup, I see a hard disk icon with “Macintosh SSD” - obviously that’s OS X. But I don’t see one for Windows (BOOTCAMP). I see “EFI Boot” instead. If I select that, I boot into Windows 10. So, ok, it works, but why does it not say “BOOTCAMP “ or “Windows”?

Also, if I’m in OS X and I go to the System Preferences and choose BOOTCAMP as my startup disk and restart the computer, it boots into nothing and says there’s no startup disk. So I have to power down and hold option again.

I suspect there’s a nuance or issue with the EFI partition or MBR now that APFS is involved, because I never had this issue before with fresh installs, which this was for both sides - OS X and Windows.

If anyone knows what’s going on, please let me know!

Thanks!!

You probably were suppose to install Windows to BIOS boot, instead of EFI boot. However, if all the hardware is working, there is no harm in EFI booting.

The fact that you do not see Windows label on the Start Menu is another indicator that you probably were suppose to BIOS boot Windows.

I am not sure why you can not properly select Windows from System Preferences. Again, this may be because you are EFI booting Windows. Or, there is something else wrong, but there is not enough information in your question to diagnose the problem. For example, you may have Windows boot files in the EFI/BOOT folder, but not the correct files in the EFI/Microsoft folder on volume labeled EFI in disk0s1.

BTW, you can select to the default operating system to boot from macOS and/or Windows by installing rEFInd on your Mac. This may also require installing an (script) application to select the default in both MacOS and/or Windows.

Adding an Windows Icon and Label to the Startup Manager Menu

Boot to macOS.
Download a collection of icons from the sourceforge web
site Mac icns. Use the Finder application to open the
downloaded file mac-icns.dmg.
Open a Terminal application window and enter the command given below to mount the EFI partition (/dev/disk0s1) containing the Windows boot files.

sudo diskutil mount disk0s1

Enter the command below to copy the Windows icon file os_win8.icns to the EFI volume.

cp /Volumes/mac-icns/os_win8.icns /Volumes/EFI/.VolumeIcon.icns

This will add the following Windows icon to the Startup Menu.

  Note: When finished, you can use the Finder application to eject the mac-icns volume.

Use the command shown below to change the label that will be shown below the Windows icon on the Startup Manager menu.

bless --folder /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT --label "Windows"

Use the Finder application or enter the command below to unmount
the EFI System partition labeled EFI.

diskutil unmount disk0s1


Why is iTunes displaying random junk characters when I try to verify my billing information? I get garbled/garbage characters (weird font?) when I try to manage payment methods (I can't get past this screen to purchase a song*):

I also got this screen at one point trying to open an apple music link:

Using latest iTunes app from Microsoft store on Windows 10.

"For you" | "Try it now" also shows junk.

(*) Eventually I was able to purchase a song by guessing what the various fields/buttons were supposed to be. But obviously something very wrong. And yes, have rebooted etc. etc.

At least one other user has reported this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8066958, however the suggestion (starting iTunes in safe mode) didn't help.

Found the answer: delete any font on your system based on "Helvetica"!
Definitely confirmed this caused the issue - moved HelveticaNeue_0.ttf from the Fonts directory, everything displayed fine, moved it back, display messed up again.


Final Cut Pro 10.4.3 Mojave Compatibility I'm having some compatibility issues in macOS Mojave.
I can't see the thumbnails preview of Titles, Effects, etc.

Is there any known fix for this?

UPDATE 1

Maybe it's something related with OpenGL: Some things that broke in Mojave OpenGL

I just upgraded to Mojave on the weekend and FCP works fine for me. I'm running FCP 10.4.4. Maybe you should update to that version?

I can't recall when I updated FCP, but it was before upgrading to Mojave. Good luck! :-)


Cannot launch Team Fortress 2 because of some OpenGL error I want to preface that I know next to nothing about computers, I watch youtube and search stuff on google, but other than that I am clueless. So I am trying to play Team Fortress 2 on my Apple PowerBook G4 550 on Steam. I launch the game and it gives me this message:

  Error Could not find required OpenGL entry point 'glGetError'! Either your video card in unsupported, or your OpenGL driver needs to be updated.

I haven't the foggiest idea what this means, so any help would be appreciated.

That's not going to happen. You'll need a newer computer to run games from Steam.

The Powerbook G4 you're trying to use was released in October 2001. Team Fortress 2 was released for macOS in 2010, nine years later. It never supported PowerPC systems, which had not been produced since late 2006.


How can I control my mac using only my keyboard? (e.g. macOS Catalina Voice Control with only the keyboard) Preface:
I am a fan of accessibility overlays, especially when they can be used to reduce the usage of the mouse pointer to control you computer.

Now with the release of macOS Catalina, I think the new "grid overlay" and "numbers overlay" should be mapped to the keyboard as well.
Imagine typing in Mail, then switching application and tabbing to the browser, and only with the keyboard, navigating the application!

How can I invoke macOS Catalina "Voice Control" features using only the keyboard?

How can I control my mac with keyboard only?

On controlling mac with only keyboard, I have a couple of really lame/impractical solutions that you probably already know about.

There is System Preferences->Keyboard->Shortcuts. There, you can use an unfriendly ui to configure a quite few undocumented options, mapping them to keyboards strokes that only sometimes work.  If you spend enough time memorizing shortcuts, you may get somewhere with mouseless use of your Mac.

Then there is System Prefs->accessibility->switch control.  Click enable switch control check box.  A black window will pop up.  Click on Pointer.  That gives you a bunch of options to simulate mouse use by pressing just space bar.  If you map turning this option to a keyboard shortcut -- BAM!  You can do anything without a mouse.  The downside is it takes like 30 seconds for every click.


How do I delete my number from iMessage on send and receive from my iMac? When I go to settings, iMessage does not show up under anything and I cannot access iMessage settings straight from the iMessage icon.

Open the Message app first before doing the following:

To remove your phone number from the Messages app in OSX, you need to change your Messages preferences: Command+,

In the Preferences box, click Accounts, select your iMessage account on the left, and uncheck your phone number on the right.


Dock throwing NSInvalidArgumentException trying to start Yesterday I noticed that I could no longer ⌘ + TAB, minimize/maximize windows and that the Dock was missing. I've tried numerous things to resolve it:

rebooting
reseting PRAM
killing Dock with killall -KILL Dock

That last one should restart the process, but it didn't appear to initially:

$ killall -KILL Dock
No matching processes belonging to you were found
$ ps -ef|grep -i Dock
  501  2145   826   0  7:50AM ttys000    0:00.00 grep -i Dock

I opened up the Activity Monitor and noticed that it was repeatedly trying to restart the process:

When I tried to restart it manually I noticed that a NSInvalidArgumentException was being thrown:

$ /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock
2015-01-27 07:30:34.441 Dock[1126:38505] -[__NSCFNumber stringByExpandingTildeInPath]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x537
2015-01-27 07:30:34.442 Dock[1126:38505] *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[__NSCFNumber stringByExpandingTildeInPath]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x537'
*** First throw call stack:
(
  0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8d6ec64c __exceptionPreprocess + 172
  1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff819096de objc_exception_throw + 43
  2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8d6ef6bd -[NSObject(NSObject) doesNotRecognizeSelector:] + 205
  3   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8d636a84 ___forwarding___ + 1028
  4   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8d6365f8 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 120
  5   Dock                                0x000000010907feca Dock + 61130
  6   Dock                                0x000000010907fd75 Dock + 60789
  7   Dock                                0x000000010907f780 Dock + 59264
  8   Dock                                0x000000010907cc70 Dock + 48240
  9   Dock                                0x000000010907be54 Dock + 44628
  10  Dock                                0x000000010907696c Dock + 22892
  11  libdyld.dylib                       0x00007fff837e95c9 start + 1
)
libc++abi.dylib: terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException
Abort trap: 6

Can anyone offer any suggestions? I miss my dock and my keyboard shortcuts...

I got the same problem and fixed it by removing desktoppicture.db:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db

Then Dock started automatically.


Efibootmgr command for OS X I have successfully been able to install Linux Mint on my Mac. The only issue is I cannot select the boot partition holding option. To fix it I booted into linux and ran sudo efibootmgr -o 1,80. This forced my Mac to boot into Linux. This now forces me into Linux but I have to old down option to boot back onto OS X.

Question is, is there a similar command to efibootmgr for OS X? This way I will be able to create a shortcut for booting into Linux and OS X. Currently the option key does not detect Linux but rEFInd does. Is there a command tool that allows be to boot into the other option like efibootmgr or not on OS X? I guess bless cannot do it otherwise we would see it on the boot screen.

The short answer to this is yes.

I answered a very similar question related to Ubuntu.  Your command set the boot order as Linux then (I am assuming here) Mac OS X.  What you have to do is set the boot order to boot the OS X partition first and you can do this in System Preferences.

Have a look at this post as it should be able to help you.


Pages ’09: How to write Nested SUM? I'm setting up a basic time registration form for declarable hours spent on a project.
The layout is easy: date — time from — time until — description.
I want a cell-value to contain the sum of hours worked on a project (time until - time from).

I would say the correct formula would be =SOM(SOM(D9-C9):SOM(D40-C40)) (I'm using the Dutch version). But this isn't working. My registration starts from row 9.

Figured it out.. : must be ;. My mistake..


Removing a Word From the Spellcheck Dictionary Somehow, the word procede has made its way into my OS X system as a correctly spelled word.  If I type it in Text Edit, BBEdit, or Mail, the spell checker will not mark it with red underlines.

How can I fix this?  That is, how can I have my system correctly flag this word as incorrect spelled? The word does not appear in my

~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary

file.  My system has no files in

/Library/Spelling

I've stared at the spelling and grammar options in multiple applications and don't see any obvious ways to tell the system to remove a word from the dictionary.

Whilst many words are in ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary, there's also words contained in the localisation that you are currently in, such as en or en_GB.

Try looking in such files for the word. You can find which file it's in using the following Terminal command:

grep -lr "procede" ~/Library/Spelling/


How can I mount a thumbdrive to my iPhone? I have a jailbroken iPhone 6s running iOS 10.3.3. I'd like to be able to connect a r/w thumbdrive to my phone, but I don't know what kind of adapter I'd have to buy/make. Does anyone have any suggestions how to do this?

I'll likely be able to mount it in a terminal GUI (NewTerm2 in this case) using fdisk and then mount, but if needed I can install other commands.

Lightning<-->USB (a)

SanDisk already make the iXpand thumbdrive series from small to damned big, which have USB 2-3 and lightning connectors on them from the manufacturer.

I use one routinely without issue.


How to configure $PATH (for LaTeX) and run commands in Terminal? After consulting the programming section of StackExchange, I have been referred to apple.stackexchange instead.

I am using the following template: http://www.latextemplates.com/template/masters-doctoral-thesis.

The associated forum (http://www.latextemplates.com/forums#/categories/masters-doctoral-thesis) suggests that I should run the following commands to solve a coding issue:

latex article.tex
bibtex article
latex article.tex
latex article.tex

I know I run commands with Terminal.app and I assume I can copy/paste the coding above into Terminal, given that LaTeX is in my $PATH. My questions are, (1) What is the $PATH and (2) how do I configure it to include LaTeX?

Thanks!

Best,

LJR

PS: I am using TeXShop.
PPS: I am new to coding and LaTeX.

The $PATH provides the shell (command line) a list of directories to look at for executables. So, when you type a command in the command line, the shell (the program running in the terminal) will look in the locations listed in your $ PATH for an executable matching the command. The first one it finds, it runs.

To see the information type echo $PATH on the command line. This should return something along the lines of:

/Users/name/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

To add a new location to your path (i.e. /opt/local/bin )you issue a command such as

PATH=/opt/local/bin:"${PATH}"

This adds /opt/local/bin to your $PATH

*Specifically it adds it first, so this will be the first place the shell will look for a command! This is important because if you have multiple copies of an executable you'll want to know which one is being executed.

BTW, Generally you will add your path command to your .bash_profile file (~/.bash_profile) that way it will set your $PATH as you desire overtime you laugh the  BASH shell (the default on OS X).


Pictures folder showing 39GB for 0 items! Please help? new here and hoping some wiz can point me in the right direction....

pictures folder showing 39Gb but there are no files in it
trash is empty
have tried rebooting
searched everywhere on the net, no one seems to know whats up
Mac OSX 10.6.8 on an old Macbook 13" 2007, 4Gb ram, 160gb HD
HD is pretty much FULL so need this sorted coz things are grinding to a halt!

any help appreciated :)

Since 10.6 doesn't have a Recovery HD you will want to install a second copy of the OS onto a USB drive and/or use the DVD install media to start the Mac and run Disk Utility to examine the filesystem.

Before that, make a backup of the Mac (or at least your critical files, photos, etc...) to be sure you don't make things worse. Disk Utility will sacrifice files to make the filesystem whole in some cases.

Also, you could boot into single user mode and run /sbin/fsck -fy without mounting the root filesystem as an alternative if you are comfortable with that level of sophistication with terminal.

Post back details if you get hung up or if these details aren't enough to go on.


Configuring Siri to tell me the things I want to know in the morning Is there a way for me to configure my MacBook or iPhone so that Siri will tell me my schedule for the day and other relevant information I want to know (like what the weather will be for the day) without having to ask multiple questions?

Ideally, I could just say "Siri, tell me the plan for the day" and she would respond with something like "You have a meeting from 2-3 and 4-4:15. It is going to be rainy today with highs in the upper 70s."

Welcome to iOS 12!

Once iOS 12 is released you will be able to use Siri shortcuts to add a phrase and have it do what you want for example.

"Good morning" could

Greet you
Tell you the weather
Tell you your schedule for the day
Send a good morning text to your family
etc.

all just with "Good morning".

I will edit this answer to include the step by step to achieve exactly what you want to do as soon as iOS 12 is released.

iOS 12 is planned to be released early fall).


Where can I find alternative alert sounds for my iPhone 4S? There is a very limited set of Alert sounds in Sounds > New Mail > Alert Tones.

Is there a way to add other sounds to this list? I would like something sort and subtle, not something that goes on for 2-3 seconds.

Your options are:

Purchase tones using iTunes (on Windows and Mac OS X)
Compose your own tone using Garagaband (Mac only) and export to iTunes (on
Windows and Mac OS X) for syncing with your iPhone.
Create your own tone using Ringer (Mac only) available from Mac AppStore.


Is there any software like 'Primo Cache'? I've used PrimoCache on Windows.
Specifically Defer Write feature not only for performance,

I've used it for drive endurance.

As a switcher from Windows to Mac, I can handle RamDisk thing now, but I can't find alternatives to this software or feature on OS X.

Apple's Fusion Drive technology encompasses some of what PrimoCache does, in addition to the design of the filesystem itself. Tetsujin's comment is right on. Apple's disk interface is well thought out, robustly designed, and doesn't need any external 'aids' to caching disks for performance sake.


MacBook Pro froze and rebooted into Recovery HD My MacBook Pro was working fine this afternoon and after I came back from class in the evening, when I on the laptop, the white page just froze there for around 2 mins and I'm directed to a page asking me to select language. I chose English and it came to the OS X Utilities page where I'm given option to choose to restore, reinstall new OS X Lion, Disc Utility, and search for help online.

I've tried to reinstall it but it showed that my hard drive is locked. Does anyone knows what happened? There's no nearby Apple Store for me to take my Mac to.

In my experience a locked (read-only) disk in OS X means one of two things: An incompatible filesystem (Like Windows NTFS) or a dying drive. Yours is certainly not the former and likely the latter.

First, see if it can be repaired because it's worth a shot. Open Disk Utility from within the Recovery partition that it boots you into. Highlight your drive on the left-side column (You should see two hard drive icons. The top one represents the physical device and the lower one, indented, represents the volume that the computer sees) and then click the "Repair Disk" button on the right-side panel. See what it spits out at you in the log. Basically red text bad, green text good.

If it tells you the disk was repaired (green text): Restart the Mac and see if it boots up correctly. If it doesn't try holding option on boot and selecting your hard drive as the boot device. If you get back into the system successfully, BACK UP YOUR FILES with Time Machine or your preferred method to another disk.

If it tells you the disk couldn't be repaired (red text): Your drive might be failing. If you plug an external drive into the computer, you can use Disk Utility's Restore tab to clone your hard drive to the external drive. Source = your drive and Destination = the external drive (You can drag and drop them from the left column. Note: Make sure the external drive is blank because restoring wipes the destination drive before copying.

Once you've restored you could try booting off the external drive (Option on startup, select external drive) and doing the restore process in reverse.


How should I install software from source so that I can make my configuration manageable and reproducible? Related question on Unix/Linux: How should I install software from source so that I can make my configuration manageable and reproducible?  However, I've tailored this question more towards the Mac OS X ecosystem.

I work with a lot of scientific software on Mac OS X (currently 10.7, but also 10.6). In order to maximize performance and get access to the latest features, it's often preferable to compile software from source.

However, doing so is messy, and can lead to configuration problems. Since I also develop in Linux, I looked at all of the suggestions in the Unix & Linux question "How to compile and install programs from source" and the Unix & Linux question Where should I put software I compile from source? for some guidance. These questions are a good place to start, but it's not clear to me how I can manage dependencies and the configuration easily. For example, if I build the development branch of NumPy from source, how should I detect, manage, and resolve dependencies so that I can manage my configuration? A package manager like MacPorts, Homebrew, or Fink is one option, but if I go that route to manage my configuration, how do I compile packages so that I can use those package managers to manage dependencies? Is there something like something like checkinstall for these package managers? My goal here is to make installing and uninstalling software relatively painless without cluttering my configuration.

I'd also like to make my configuration reproducible. By that, I mean I'd like to set up a workflow for installing software on my machine so that I could repeat it exactly on a fresh OS install. Is there a best practice for that? When it comes to standard packages in a Linux package manager, the simplest method for repeating a software install is to make a script containing the appropriate apt-get install <package> (or equivalents). However, when installing software from source, I could see this method getting very complicated. Is there a better way?

Furthermore, for Mac OS X, many applications are installed by copying a *.app file to /Applications, or by double-clicking on a *.pkg file. Can I install these from a command line and script the installation of these packages? Furthermore, is there a good way to uninstall these packages?

I think that a package manager will do most of what you need. I will show macports as that is the one I know but the others have similar functionality.

If you use the standard packages ie the up to date ones that have been packaged then macports will do all the dependencies for you. e.g. building scipy knows it has to build numpy first and will do it. You can also ninstall a port easily - macports will tell you if any ports depend on it. If a port is chnaged then macports will update the ports depending on it.

You can also manually chnage the port to deal with development versions of numpy for example. You will have to produce a copy of the port file and edit that see macports guide. The minimum would be to change the version and the rules for downloading so you get different code but can include many patches for OSX specific functions.

You can keep track of what you have installed by port list (also more advanced calls to minimise the number of commands you need. The changes you made will be in your local  Portfile repository  which will need to be backed up and a small change to the defualt macports config made.


Mac Pro on High Sierra doesn't wake up? My Mac Pro (late 2013, cylinder), doesn't want to wake from sleep. I have not a clue what is going on (worked all fine with Sierra).

Anybody?

Config:

MacPro 2013 (MacPro6,1) + 2x EIZO EV2450 (both via display-port)
Energy Settings: everything unchecked
Turn display of after 5 minutes

What I noticed:

Screens are in standby/sleep
I can hear the fan (still spinning)
Power button (on the back) is pulsating (yet fan is not silent?)

What I did:

Press power-button for 5 seconds
Start and try to zap PRAM
Shutdown
Pulled power cable for 15 seconds
Plug cable (wait 5 seconds)
Start Mac.

update:

check your power-management settings:

// terminal
pmset -g live

My settings are (and seem to work for now):

 standby              1
 Sleep On Power Button 1
 womp                 0
 autorestart          0
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 powernap             0
 gpuswitch            2
 networkoversleep     0
 disksleep            10
 sleep                5 (sleep prevented by sharingd)
 autopoweroffdelay    28800
 hibernatemode        0
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         5
 standbydelay         10800

update 2:

For those running into these issues. Two more things you could try.

connect your keyboard (if you use usb wired) direct to your mac. Not via a hub or monitor
connect each monitor with a usb cable to your mac (this could trigger the wake event)

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

fixed the problem in my case.


2017 Macbook Won't turn on - Displays battery icon My wife's 2017 macbook won't turn on/charge. It just displays this battery icon, with the red bar of the battery flashing intermittently. It's currently plugged into the charger but this doesn't seem to have any effect.

Does anyone know what this means? Time to take it to the apple store?

Turned out my problem was that I'd bought a cheap USB C cable on amazon that had shorted and fried the USB C input port on the mac.
Had to buy some new parts from iFixit and replace the USB C input.


List all devices connected, lsblk for Mac OS X In Linux if I want to see all the devices currently connected to my computer in the command-line, I run:

lsblk

or

blkid

What's the equivalent command under Mac OS X?

NOTE

The goal here is to be able to obtain information about a device based on its label or other uniquely identifying attributes, even if it hasn't been mounted, thus df is not a viable option.

Examples of the kind of info I'm looking for are:

/dev/<dev-name>
uuid
label (if any)
mount point

NOTE

I need to be able to see network-attached drives as well!

diskutil list will list all disks with their identifiers, even if unmounted.

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Mac SSD                 150.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data Windows 8               100.1 GB   disk0s4
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
   1:                  Apple_HFS George Garside          300.2 GB   disk1s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS GRGARSIDE               199.9 GB   disk1s2

For mounted disks only…

To find the raw device name (i.e. /dev/disk0s1) you can run df.

You can limit the results to locally-mounted filesystems, use df -Hl.
This results in a list of partitions and their raw device names, as shown below:

Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused    ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   150G   130G    20G    87% 31761475  4859615   87%   /
/dev/disk0s4   100G    83G    17G    83%   184667 17015601    1%   /Volumes/Windows 8
/dev/disk1s1   300G   282G    19G    94% 68771109  4529660   94%   /Volumes/George Garside
/dev/disk1s2   200G   172G    27G    87%   144125 26731127    1%   /Volumes/GRGARSIDE


Is there a way to force US keyboard layout in Safari address bar? I keep typing in Russian keyboard layout into Safari address bar by accident.
This drives me mad because I usually end up loading domain-for-sale pages.

Is there an extension or program to switch keyboard layout to US on ⌘+L before letting me enter the URL?

If you are using exactly two keyboard layouts, you can toggle between them with Command-Space if it is activated in the Language & Text System Preference. With that enabled, perhaps you could write a macro or Applescript to invoke that command along with Command-L.


Create PDF from tall images (Automator?) I have a number of images that are 8.5" wide, but very long (around 40" tall) and I want to create a standard multi-paged 8.5" x 11" PDF document from all of the images. The problem is that the PDF will resize the images to fit the height of the PDF page or each page will be one image, which looks horrible.

Is there a way to do slice each image after multiples of 11" and combine those slices into a single PDF? I looked at Automator, but I couldn't find what I needed. If it's an application or script and not Automator, that's fine, too.

Thanks!

PosteRazor is free, open source, and appears to do what you need. It takes a large image and splits it into a multi-page PDF.

As Nathan comments, the interface is pretty rough around the edges. Tiler and SplitPrint are paid alternatives if you prefer a little more flexibility and an interface that's easier on the eyes.


How to coerce Lion Time Machine into offering backup history migration? This article describes a feature I heard about from multiple sources about an automagic backup migration process that Lion will do for you. Essentially, when migrating to a new machine, you can maintain your backup history and use the same backup drive on your new machine.

I recently had to do a double migration (both a new machine and a larger backup hard drive), so maybe that's why this didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. I used the old backup drive to restore with migration assistant on first boot, then used Disk Utility to clone my old backup drive to my new one.

However, Lion would not present the "Use Previous Disk"/"Inherit Backup History" dialogs seen in the link above and below.

Instead, I was only presented with the prompt to use my new drive as a backup disk. I noted that it was creating a new entry in Backups.backupdb, since the computer name had changed, so I attempted to hack this by going into System Preferences/Sharing and renaming the new computer exactly the same as the previous one. (for some reason, the pre-Lion system had been named First Last’s Computer and the new system was named First's Computer Note the difference between ’ and '!)

Anyway, this is now backing up to the correct backupdb, but I don't believe it's hard linking properly as it would if "Inherit Backup History" had been executed; it's copying the whole drive's worth of data over instead. I suppose this means I will have the history at least, but it's not as seamless as it should be. (It hardly matters for the record; It was only about 60G worth of data now on a 1T drive.)

It also now occurs that the "right way" to do this would have been to clone my backup to my new backup drive BEFORE upgrading the computer and restoring from the backup.

Anyway, the answer to this question will dig into the nitty-gritty of how time machine keeps track of itself and explain how to force the daemon to present the dialog boxes above.

You can't get that dialog back, but you can inherit the backup manually via Terminal using the tmutil command. Do man tmutil for more information.

Example:

$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup "/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/iMac"

For more information, see the blue box here: http://Pondini.org/TM/B6.html and you would do well to read the whole page before starting the process.


Cannot add app in itunes connect While adding a new app on itunes connect I'm getting

  Try again. If the problem persists, contact us

Without any other details. I have tried different computers / browsers. If I open the chrome console I see that there is an internal server error on the http request.

I called Apple iTunes provider support - US  : 0014089744897 about this. They told me that they are aware of the problem, having had alot of calls about this today, and are looking at it


Install software from an unverified source I'm using a MacBook with the latest Yosemite update and I need to install a tool from a 3rd party website. (not from the Mac App Store)

I'm new to Mac OS X, can the tool access my files after I installed it?

I read that apps are sandboxed but does that mean that viruses, keyloggers and that stuff are not able to harm the MacBook?

Yes, the tool can access your files after you install and run it.

It is correct that sandboxing is a technique to limit an application's access to files and other resources in order to contain the effects of virusses, etc. However, only App Store apps are sandboxes by default. Apps downloaded from thirdparties are normally not sandboxed.

You can however create your own sandbox for a thirdparty application using the exact same sandbox, called SeatBelt, that is used for App Store apps. It is however not that easy to define a "good" sandbox profile that allows only what you want the app to access, and disallows the rest.

In general you can run your application sandboxed like this from Terminal.app:

sandbox-exec -f definition.sb /Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp

here definition.sb should be replaced with the name of a sandbox definition file, you have created for the app. Obviously MyApp.app should be replaced with the name of the app you're trying to sandbox.

You can inspect the system default sandbox definitions at /usr/share/sandbox to get inspiration. You can also find community-made definitions for popular apps such as Skype and Firefox, for example download from here:

https://github.com/pansen/macos-sandbox-profiles
https://github.com/s7ephen/OSX-Sandbox--Seatbelt--Profiles

You can also take a look at the developer oriented documentation that Apple provides for their SeatBelt sandbox:

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Security/Conceptual/AppSandboxDesignGuide/AboutAppSandbox/AboutAppSandbox.html

Also here's a link to a blog post / tutorial on how to create simple, but powerful definitions:

https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/how-to-run-your-applications-in-a-mac-os-x-sandbox-to-enhance-security/

Their example shows how to allow the reading or certain folders, but not other - and similar denying an application the right to write to specific files and folders.

A simple sandbox definition file could look like this:

(version 1)
(allow default)
(deny network*)

When you run your app with sandbox-exec using that .sb file, your app will run without access to the network.


iPad displays incorrect amount of free storage space My iPad Air 1 (8.4) displays wrong amounts of free space.
It displays 2-3 Gb less than my Mac does when connecting the iPad to it.
If my iPad states it has 0 bytes left. My MacBook then sometimes can install Apps on it, but sometimes it also can't.

Also the amount of space the iPad displays varies from time to time, without changing the individual amount assigned to each App. This is in a zone of 500 mb.

3 Gb is called others on my Mac.

I would suggest you do a backup of your iPad and restore, however it may be that what iTunes has access to makes it look that there is more storage than there is.

Apple seems to have issues calculating free space on iOS devices, they always have...

Instructions on Apple.com on how to backup and restore a device


How to change the default format in Numbers? When using Numbers and I want to underline a cell, the default format is outlining the whole cell.  I want the default format in Numbers to be only an underline not a box. Any way to do this?

If by "underline a cell" you mean just a bottom border, this is done in the Cell tab of the inspector.

Select the cell(s) you wish to apply the bottom border to.
In the Cell tab on the Inspector select the border formatting.
There are several dropdowns that allow you to choose the style and weight of the bottom border.  See screenshots below.
Once you get your sheet the way you like it, save it as a template for future use.  (This can be your 'default')

If, however, you want the data or content only underlined, this is in the Text tab of the Inspector

Select the cell with your data
Apply the underline either by selecting it or using keyboard ⌘+U


How do I find Authorised Devices I have an iPod and iPad which I sync with my Mac.
My wife has has an iPod, iPhone  and iPad which she syncs with her Mac.

These are all associated with the same Apple ID.

I am planning to buy an iPhone, basically to replace my iPod.

I understand there is a limit to the number of devices, although I have not been able to discover the devices associated with my Apple ID.

http://support.apple.com/en-au/ht4627 has instructions which I have followed.

There are 3 computer authorisations listed, but there seems to be no Manage Devices on the Account Information screen.

NOTE We do not use automatic downloads or iTunes Match. I am only interested in apps

These articles on https://www.apple.com/support/itunes/authorization/ should help with authorization needs. In my understanding, you must de-authorize all devices and not just one. The limit is 5, so you still have room.


Where are tex /mactex binaries after brew install mactex As can be seen: mactex was installed successfully:

==> Installing Cask mactex
==> Running installer for mactex; your password may be necessary.
==> Package installers may write to any location; options such as --appdir are ignored.
Password:

==> installer: Package name is MacTeX-2017
==> installer: Upgrading at base path /
==> installer: The upgrade was successful.
  mactex was successfully installed!

Where is it however..

21:22:37/hw6 $which tex
21:23:35/hw6 $which mactex

At the time of writing (June 17th, 2018) running:

brew cask install mactex

will install MacTeX-2018 and

which tex

gives

/Library/TeX/texbin/tex


How do I unfreeze my iPod Nano 4th Gen? tl;dr -- My iPod hangs on the boot screen (black background, silver apple logo). When I try to restore it (on both my Virtual Windows XP and on a Mac laptop), it'll restore fine, but when it reboots the iPod, the iPod'll hang on the apple logo screen, just like before.

Update: I've booted a Windows XP virtualbox, and have the latest iTunes running on it. Whenever I tell iTunes to restore it (while my iPod is in disk mode, since that's the only way it is recognized), it'll download the software, restore my iPod, then say that the iPod is rebooting and that I need to make sure it stays connected.

However, once it boots, it still hangs on the apple logo, and isn't recognized by the computer (host or guest). If I boot it into disk mode, it is recognized, and iTunes shows the "Welcome to your new iPod" screen; the iPod is wiped, and presumably installed the new software.

I've searched and searched for an answer, and although I've found numerous posts on other sites similar to my problem, most of them haven't worked for me.

Basically, what's happened is about half a year ago, my iPod would occasionally freeze, and I could solve the issue by restarting it (Menu+Select); about late November last year, however, my iPod froze on the boot screen (black screen with apple logo), and since then I haven't been able to do anything - it just hangs on that screen until it completely drains the battery. My problem is similar to the one in this video.

Is there a way I can fix my iPod Nano 4th Gen?

Also, I'd prefer if I could do it without iTunes, since I'm running Ubuntu and Wine has spotty iTunes support, but I can run a VirtualBox of Windows if need be.

For restoring, iTunes is the best option. Once you’ve determined if iTunes can restore the device - if not, you should have a specific error code from iTunes that explains precisely what’s not working (or have an error code to report here).

If iTunes can’t restore the device, a hardware repair may be in order as well.


How do I restore the previous "Command-Space" search? When I use "Command-Space" on my Mac I want it to search only my files, not the Internet or the galaxy at large. Yesterday when I tried to use it I was presented with an infinite variety of options, which I do not want!

To limit what Spotlight shows

Open System Preference > Spotlight

Disable Spotlight Suggestions..or anything you do not want to see.


Where is the forward delete button in iPhone’s keyboard? Where is the left-to-right delete button in iPhone’s keyboard? We have backspace but where is Delete?

There is no "forward delete" key (as it's often called) on the iPhone. The same is true on the Mac.

On the Mac you can hold down the Fn (Function) key and press the Delete key to get forward deletion, but there's nothing on the iPhone.


Remove shortcut for paste and match style Latest OSX update (10.13.3 (17D47)) added a shortcut cmd-shift-V for Edit -> Paste and Match Style globally. This interferes with my selected shortcut for ClipMenu paste https://github.com/naotaka/ClipMenu/issues/35

How do I remove a global shortcut like that?

Update:
Seems like the origin of my question is solved. Seems it was ClipMenu who's shortcut just stopped working after last OSX update. Changed it for Clipy which seems to be an alive fork that is working still. So the shortcut set in the app seems to override any system default.

However, I still don't understand how to actually remove a global OSX shortcut like that one which I would like to do. So I leave the question unanswered.

Go to App Shortcuts defined in System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → App Shortcuts and override the default shortcut.


Turn a Mac Mini into a public WiFi hotspot What I'd like to do, for an event, is use a Mac Mini to share a Internet connection via WiFi.  However, I'd like to put up a splash page to the joining device's browser. It would display the free WiFi is sponsored by blah, terms and conditions are blah, etc.

How would I force that redirect on joining?  I know plenty of companies do it but I can't find a solution that either isn't a Hotel level enterprise product or a hack to a existing router.  Any ideas?

You could do it with LinSpot. They take a 15% cut of for-pay access. You can install their software on your Mac. http://www.linspot.com/

As for doing it yourself, it's a bit trickier. You'd have to run your own DNS server, so when a user connects to your network, the first request would be redirected to your splash page. Then all subsequent DNS requests would pass through your server to a real DNS server. That type of policy may be possible with OSX Server or iDNS server, but I'm not 100% sure on how it's done. You will need server administration software, and you will need capture the DNS to create your own Captive Portal (as it's called).


Trying to update iPad 2 to iOS 6 I tried updating my iPad to iOS 6.  I plugged the iPad into my computer and it showed that is was backing up, however the update never showed up on iPad.  What do I need to do?

For updating a device using iTunes, you must, first, ensure that you're using the latests iTunes Version. Then just:

Connect your device the computer.
Select your device when it appears in iTunes under Devices.
Click Check for Update in the Summary pane.
If an update is available, iTunes prompts you to download and install the update.


How to make automator run an applescript that turns of mac? I want to make an applescript that taps the apple in the corner, taps shut down, and then taps shut down. I can't record it, since it actually involves shutting down the computer, making the script not being saved.

You can use the following in an AppleScript to shutdown the system:

tell application "System Events" to shut down

If you really want to click the menu items you can go straight to clicking the "Shut Down" button with the following:

tell application "System Events" to click menu item "Shut Down" of menu 1 ¬
    of menu bar item "Apple" of menu bar 1 of process "Finder"

Note: I've add the ¬ Line-Continuation Symbol to keep from having to horizontally scroll to see the entire line, just remove it and place it all on one line in the script if you want.  If you want to actually bring up the Shut Down message change "Shut Down" to "Shut Down…".


macOS Sierra: Pulse Secure Client client broken Upgraded to macOS Sierra and found that the Pulse Secure Client is broken on the new OS.

Exception Name: NSInvalidArgumentException
Description: *** -[NSThread initWithTarget:selector:object:]: target does not implement selector (*** -[ConsoleAppDelegate scriptRunningProc])
User Info: (null)

0   CoreFoundation                      0x9467521b __raiseError + 187
1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x9ed086e6 objc_exception_throw + 273
2   CoreFoundation                      0x94675135 +[NSException raise:format:] + 133
3   Foundation                          0x95c39441 -[NSThread initWithTarget:selector:object:] + 134
4   Foundation                          0x95c3938f +[NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:toTarget:withObject:] + 66
5   Junos Pulse                         0x000363b3 -[ConsoleAppDelegate applicationDidFinishLaunching:] + 182
6   Foundation                          0x95c53ad8 __57-[NSNotificationCenter addObserver:selector:name:object:]_block_invoke_2 + 32
7   CoreFoundation                      0x94576934 __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 20
8   CoreFoundation                      0x94576824 _CFXRegistrationPost + 452
9   CoreFoundation                      0x94576576 ___CFXNotificationPost_block_invoke + 54
10  CoreFoundation                      0x94534843 -[_CFXNotificationRegistrar find:object:observer:enumerator:] + 1699
11  CoreFoundation                      0x9453367d _CFXNotificationPost + 637
12  Foundation                          0x95c0e8e4 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 71
13  AppKit                              0x926ad513 -[NSApplication _postDidFinishNotification] + 336
14  AppKit                              0x926ad243 -[NSApplication _sendFinishLaunchingNotification] + 232
15  AppKit                              0x925788c2 _DPSNextEvent + 2268
16  AppKit                              0x92c76ce9 -[NSApplication(NSEvent) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 1423
17  AppKit                              0x92c76752 -[NSApplication(NSEvent) nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 132
18  AppKit                              0x9256d17a -[NSApplication run] + 943
19  AppKit                              0x9253a299 NSApplicationMain + 1368
20  libdyld.dylib                       0x9f55a3b5 start + 1

If you use Pulse Secure Client on a Mac let me know how can this be resolved on Sierra.

Install 5.2.5 and it should work again.  You can get it here: https://admin.kuleuven.be/icts/services/extranet/ps-pulse-mac-5-2r5-0-b869-installer.dmg

More info in Apple's discussion forum:  https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/49006


Installing iOS 9 public beta (pb) 3 with iTunes On OS X I run iTunes (12.2.1.16)

I keep going from iOS 9 beta 3 back to iOS 8.4 due to finding glitches. Because of this I have to keep waiting for ~20mins for iOS 9pb1 to download. Is there a way to download the IPSW so I can doit within iTunes to skip the waiting time?

To get iOS PBs I had to enrol my device by installing a profile. After I done that I then updated OTA via System > General > Software Update.

I would try again with the latest public beta - for many reasons in addition to being a more stable installation experience.

If you have access to a developer certificate/account, the quickest way forward is to log in to developer.apple.com and download the beta build 13A4325c then point iTunes to it for the restore.

Since you have the other method to install the beta - using a signed profile to change the provisioning of the device OTA, you have a longer road ahead.

Wait it out (bad advice, but if you have time...)
Wipe the device after backing it up, place it in recovery mode and restore from iTunes. Then re-enroll in betas and hope you are on a fast network next download. Also, be sure the date/time are correct on the device before enrolling the profile.


How To Convert a Terminal Command into an ".app" file? I want to run a command every-time I click an app icon. I want that app icon in my launcher or app drawer and dock.

The Command I wanna run is this (posted here)

open -na "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory="Guest Profile"

UPDATE 1:

I've created a "Chrome.sh" file on desktop with above command as content and running

sh chrome.sh

opens up the window that I want. now how do I convert that to an ".app" icon?

These steps are suitable for my use case only. depending on what you wanna do, Changes should be made to the sh file that you're going to create

1) Download the Script called "appify" from Here

2) copy that file to /usr/local/bin, which requires root privileges

3) Fire up Terminal.app and enter

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/appify

to make appify executable without root privileges.

3) make a chrome.sh file on desktop with content

#!/usr/bin/env bash
/Applications/"Google Chrome.app"/Contents/MacOS/"Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory="Guest Profile"&

4) make sure that the .sh files works by trying this command

sh chrome.sh

5) Run following Commands

cd desktop
appify chrome.sh "My Chrome"

Now this will Create a File called "My Chrome.app" which can be moved into the applications folder and can be used like a normal app.