Symlink Google Drive I want to sync folders that are on my Mac to Google Drive, without having to drag the folders to the Google Drive folder and preserving my folder structure on my Mac.

I assumed you would have to have a symbolic link (symlink) for this to work.

So I tried in Terminal:

cd /path/to/google/drive
ln -s /path/to/folder/

The folder appeared on my Google Drive folder, but it did not want to sync.

So I then tried

ln -s “/path/to/folder”  “/path/to/google/drive/”

Still did not work. So I referred to this  HowToGeek article about this topic and it said that you must move the original folder to the Google Drive folder and make a symbolic like to the original parent folder.

I'd like to have the original not in the Google Drive folder. Is there a free alternative to the symlink? I have looked at jdrivesync but had failed to install (that'll be another problem in another discussion).

Thanks for your help!

You can use a directory hard link, but only on HFS+ file system. You'll need GNU ln to use the -d option. This can be installed using Homebrew: brew install coreutils, then run:

sudo gln -d "/path/to/original" "/path/to/drive/folder"

You will be asked for your password. This command creates a hard link to the file/folder itself rather than how a symlink links to a pointer to a file/dir. As the link folder is essentially the same as the original folder, Google Drive syncs it correctly.

To unlink a hard link, use unlink "/path/to/drive/folder".

WARNING: APFS (Apple File System) does not support hard links. If you plan on installing macOS High Sierra or later and want to continue using directory hard links, you will need to maintain your HFS+ file system. By default macOS High Sierra intaller on a mac with SSD (e.g. without HDD or Fusion Drive) automatically converts HFS+ filesystem to APFS. To skip conversion during upgrade you will need to run the macOS installer as follows:

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/*/R*/startosinstall --converttoapfs NO

If you avoid the last option you will end up with mess of hard linked dirs in /.HFS+ Private Directory Data after the the upgrade.


Mac App Store Update issue in Yosemite I have a big problem with updating my apps in the App Store. When I install an application, it doesn't appear as installed as you can see here:

I have all of these apps installed on my computer, and I installed Telegram for example just right now and even that is does not appear as installed.

So I can't update any of my applications, and this forced me to install all of them again!

As you can see, it always shows "No Updates Available":

I'm sure something is wrong with my Mac App Store, I tried to delete the App Store caches but that doesn't work. How can I fix this?

When I have had problems with the App Store, I have found that the boot volume was entered in the System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy pane.  If the boot volume is included, it is EXCLUDED from the Spotlight indices, and the App Store uses those indices to determine what applications are installed.

Once the volume is removed, and the indices updated (you have to wait...), the App Store started finding updates.


Is the Verizon iPhone 4 susceptible to the 'grip of death'? Of course, it's possible to get any phone to lose a bit of signal if you cover the antenna with your hands, but I'm wondering if the Verizon iPhone 4 also suffers from the attenuation issues that the AT&T iPhone 4 famously suffered from last summer:

ArsTechnica notes that there is no  noticeable signal loss when gripping it with the 'death grip'. Though due to the way smart phone antennas are designed, it still may be possible


Make old snow Leopard MacBook safer I have an old MacBook running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. Specs are 2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM. I bought it for my gf (now wife) around 2008 and we have not used it in the last couple of years.

The OS and the software as a whole are rather outdated and I am most concerned about safety issues. So I would like to upgrade it and use it for some specific tasks.

Problem is: the link from the App Store to upgrade to El Capitan fails because I cannot upgrade but it doesn't tell me the reason. Space on disk is plenty (just above 36 GB).

What can I do? It would be a shame to be unable to use it. Is there some other upgrade path? Is there some other solution to make this box as usable (safely!) as possible?

Do you have another Mac that you can use to download the El Capitan installer (you should be able to access the link from any Mac running High Sierra or below). Then you can just install it on the old MacBook from there, or from an external drive. Sometimes you have to find ways to work around the roadblocks Apple puts up. But you should have no problem upgrading that machine to at least El Capitan (my 2008 MacBook unibody is currently running Mojave, thanks to a patched version of macOS, but El Cap is the last officially support version for those machines).

To answer your security question, according to Apple’s security updates page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222 they are still issuing security updates to El Capitan and to the version of Safari running on it, so you should be in good shape as long as you can get your Mac upgraded.

p.s. I’d recommend maxing out the RAM and swapping out the slow spinning HDD for an SSD to breathe new life into the machine. Whatever you choose to run will work a whole lot better with an SSD especially.


Safari Bookmarks not syncing via iCloud issue I am frustrated by this issue that just appeared recently.

No matter what I do, any modification (rearranging, deletion) to the bookmarks are soon reverted.

the bookmarks are now totally out of sync with my iOS devices.

OS X version 10.11.3 (15D21)
Safari Version 9.0.3 (11601.4.4)

Pls see my youtube vid for demo of the issue:
https://youtu.be/ktxo1VVEwBI

You need to reset your Safari Bookmark. See this:

How can I reset the Safari bookmarks in iCloud?

Simplified steps:

 Turn off iCloud Safari sync on all devices
 Backup current bookmarks on Mac
 Delete bookmarks on all devices
 Turn on Safari syncing on Mac
 Restore bookmark backup file to ~/Library/Safari folder
 Turn on bookmark syncing on all iOS devices

The original author of these suggestions noted the following: "Once I turned syncing back on each device remained blank for quite some time. I’m not sure why but I was able to prod the system along by adding a fake bookmark on another device. This seemed to kick everything into gear and I was able to delete that fake bookmark on different device – which eventually deleted it across all devices."


APFS - how do I enable transparent compression How do i enable transparent filesystem compression on any APFS volume?
Or check if it is already enabled?

I am expecting something similiar to NTFS compressed attribute.
According to Wiki it should be supported.

Is it per file or volume ?

I am using Mojave 10.14.0, volumes without encryption.

The standard Mojave setup does have APFS compression implemented, but there's no user visible tools that allows you yourself to select files/folders for compression.

It seems that the "ditto" command supplied with macOS is supposed to be able to employ compression on APFS, but it only actually works with HFS+ file systems.

However, even though no user visible tools comes with Mojave - the developer level APIs are actually there. A third party utility exists that uses these APIs to provide a user tool for compressing files/folders:

https://github.com/RJVB/afsctool

You refer to the wikipedia page for your statement that APFS compression is supported. The wikipedia page actually refers to the above mentioned tool for that support.

You can install afsctool from Homebrew by this command:

brew install afsctool

And you can install afsctool from MacPorts by this command:

sudo port install afsctool

You can compress a file or folder like this:

afsctool -c filename

where filename can be the name of a file or a folder.

You can check if a file is compressed, and how much, by this command:

afsctool -v filename

The built-in compression feature of APFS is implemented in the same way as it was on HFS+. That support was introduced with OS X 10.6. Even though it has thus been a part of the macOS system for almost 10 years, it is not really widely used.

In my own experience it just works (HFS+ or APFS - doesn't matter). However, you might run into an edge case where some program reports the file size incorrectly or something like that. I haven't seen any such misbehavior yet. The whole idea with transparent compression is that user programs do not need to know that compression is used at all.


How to enable shortcuts through Siri on Apple Watch? OK, so I've installed iOS 12 on my iPhone 8, and watchOS 5 on my Apple Watch series 3, everything is paired and set up.

I have created a custom shortcut on my iPhone with the new Shortcuts app. If I hold the Home button on my iPhone and speak my custom phrase, the shortcut runs successfully.

However, if I hold the crown on my Apple Watch, and speak the same custom phrase, Siri just says it doesn't know this command.

Did I forget to configure support for this? I can't seem to find any settings for this, nor does it seem that I should install Shortcuts on the watch itself.

I've checked in the shortcuts app itself, in settings, in the watch app with the settings for the watch, etc.

Or perhaps Apple did not implement support for this (yet)?

I just tried some of my shortcuts, and they work perfectly fine on my Apple Watch.

However according to Apple:

  Shortcuts that require an app to open on your iOS device might not
  work on HomePod and Apple Watch.
  (Source: Use Siri Shortcuts)

So maybe that is the reason your shortcut works on you iPhone, but not on your Apple Watch.


Get rid of dead keys I am using a normal german keyboard and am well aware of the different keystrokes, to insert different diacritic characters as œ or Á.  But being a programmer, I desire to be able to insert some diacritic characters directly, instead of using that key as dead key.  For example, I would love to insert ^ by only tying the ^ once.

How to get rid of those dead keys?

One way is to create a custom layout with Ukelele


MacBook Pro suddenly not connecting to HDMI I have a MacBook Pro and regularly connect it to a Samsung TV via HDMI.

Suddenly, it has stopped working - when I connect the cable the screen looks like it is about to share, then comes back.
To my knowledge, I did not run a software update.

I have tried 2 different cables (one with, one without USB-C multi adaptor [not apple], both which worked in the past
(and the multi adaptor is recognised when external hardrives plugged in instead) . Tried both thunderbolt ports.

This is clearly a Mac issue. I tried resetting the NVRAM - all that happens is the screen intermittently turns on and off whilst I hold down the keys (is this correct?)

Anyone know how I could fix this issue??
Many thanks!

In System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement > turn Mirroring on or off, whichever it wasn't set at.

Then resetting the NVRAM again https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

and the last opportunity is to change the Mirroring back to what is was before and reset after that the NVRAM again.

I hope I could help you..


Linux VM installation on MacBook Pro with macOS Sierra 10.12 Using MacBook 13" Retina display with macOS Sierra 10.12.

I already have Boot Camp option along with Windows.

Will it be possible for me to use VM on the same machine for Linux?

I prefer VirtualBox (free), but any works. Some other virtualization software are VMware Fusion for Mac (paid), Parallels Desktop
for Mac (paid), QEMU (free, bit more complicated install process, see below). Just make sure you have enough RAM, CPU power, and disk space.

Links for how to install QEMU: Quora (easiest process), The Intobooks, Official QEMU instructions for Mac hosts, and Installing QEMU on OS X.


What python editors have syntax coloring and don't need much training to learn? I have a friend who is trying to learn Python on Mac OS X. She does not have prior experience with programming. I am looking for an editor that is:

Free and easy to get started with
Support at least for Python syntax highlighting

What are her options? Anything available in the App Store?

My favorite editor for writing any scripting language, not just Python but Ruby, perl, etc… is Textmate. Since I do this for a living I am still using TextMate version 1 that I paid for ages ago.  Textmate version 2 is now open source software and as such is free to download and even change. Both versions can be downloaded from the Macromates Download page.

I prefer Textmate to BBEdit for writing in scripting languages because BBEdit doesn't allow editing while it is running a script. For all of my other text editing needs I prefer BBEdit and it is set as my system default for most types of text files. Every Mac I have owned has had a copy of BBEdit, since about 1989.

If you want to get a taste of what BBEdit is like, your friend can try BBEdit's little brother, TextWrangler. This works the same way, and for scripting languages, has the same shortcomings as BBEdit. TextWrangler is available on the Mac App Store for free.


How to update iOS5 beta 7? I've got iOS 5 beta 7 on my device (I installed the first beta in June and then updated it a few times wirelessly without any problems) and now, when the final version of the iOS was released, if I'm checking for software update in the device setting it says that my version is up to date which doesn't look as true.
Thus I'm wondering if I can update my device without resetting OS version?

Thanks in advance.

You can't upgrade a beta device to the final GM release. You need to restore the device with final public iOS 5 release.


Setup wireless iPad - iTunes connection without connecting via USB first? If a user plugs in an iPad into the USB port of a computer which is running iTunes, iTunes recognises iPad, and allows the user to manage apps or media files on the iPad from iTunes.

I know iTunes allows users to do that wirelessly (meaning that the iPad is not connected to the USB port of the computer running iTunes) if the iPad and the computer are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, but it seems that one must first connect the iPad to the computer at least once to make the iTunes recognise the iPad.

Is there any way to set up the wireless connection between an iPad and an iTunes (computer) without the initial USB connection?

No, they have to the 'paired' via USB first.


Can I change an application's listed category in the Finder? In the Finder, the Applications directory has an option to sort by "Application Category," which splits apps into groups like Productivity, Social Networking, Music, etc.

I have a number of apps listed under "Other" which I would like to assign to one of these other less-generic categories. Is it possible to change this? I looked in the Get Info window and don't see anything about the category listed.

The answer is posted here:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20111017134102735

  To add or modify a category, you have to open the application bundle
  ('Show Package Contents', the under the folder Contents open the file
  'Info.plist').

  You then can change the existing category by changing the key called
  'LSApplicationCategoryType' (or create the category by adding a child
  named accordingly).

A list of possible categories is listed here:

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#releasenotes/General/SubmittingToMacAppStore/_index.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010572-CH16-SW8


How to terminate multiple applications via Activity Monitor I'm looking at Activity Monitor showing me multiple running processes. I want to terminate multiple processes from the list in one go.

I've tried highlighting the processes but nothing shows up when I double click the highlighted block.

Is there another way to terminate a highlighted block of processes via Activity Monitor?

I would suggest you to:

Launch Terminal
When Terminal has launched, type "top" into the Terminal window. You'll see a list of currently running processes. At the top of the list is an overview of the processes that are running and the resources they're consuming.
When you identify a process that's causing a problem or consuming too many resources, take note of the number in the PID column next to the name of the process. To kill the process, type "kill -9" followed by the PID number. Press Enter. The problem process will now quit.


Is there such an app or script that automatically logs off a user after a given number of minutes of activity? I am looking for information on either an app or script that logs off an account after a certain number of minutes. I know this can be done by default after X amount of inactivity. However, I am using a Mac as "Quick Print" Station and wish to run some sort of program to log the user out the computer whether they are active or not. Does someone have any knowledge of scripts or programs that enables a person to do this?

Thanks in advance!

The computer is running Snow Leopard OSX.

You could try using an Apple Script, something like;

tell application "System Events"
    log out
end tell

Then schedule it using launchd.  I've used this as a nice GUI front-end to launchd in the past;

http://www.peterborgapps.com/lingon/

launchd can be a little frustrating to use as you have be very exact with your syntax and naming, however if you don't want to spring the $5 for Lingon, there is a Ruby Gem on GitHub I found called lunchy

https://github.com/mperham/lunchy

The downside with this is that you're running to a schedule rather than only running the script when a user has logged in.


Time Capsule multiple IP addresses I have two 2TB Time Capsules attached to a network through a Netgear router. Each Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet with the WiFi set to "off".

Each Time Capsule is assigned a unique static IP address; all devices connected to the network are assigned unique static IP addresses.

The Time Capsules randomly add IP addresses. Often the Time Capsule will have the assigned static IP address and two other unique IP addresses. It is truly a random occurrence. Sometimes there is only the assigned static IP address and then one or two additional IP addresses will be discovered to have been taken by the Time Capsule. Sometimes this occurs on only one unit and then it will occur on both. When the random IP address duplicates an assigned IP address for another device on the network, then the inevitable network address conflict error causes problems for the device operation.

I have reset each unit in an attempt to solve the problem, but the random attaching of IP addresses continues.

Here you can find the solution:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4890670?tstart=0


Streaming protocoll for HTML5-video Is there a universal streaming protocoll that both, Android and iOS devices can play, within HTML5 video objects?

It looks like even HTML5 could not "force" a universal solution to simplify publisher's work.

Extracted from here and supported by the W3 Wiki:

  Currently iOS is the only platform with adaptive streaming, supporting Apple's own HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) protocol. Android 4 introduced HLS support too, but its market share is still low.


Magic Mouse Gesture not working OS X Mavericks I am using Magic Mouse with my iMac having OS X Mavericks 10.9.

Everything was working fine since today morning, I realized that my Magic Mouse is only responding to scrolling and primary, secondary click. All other gestures of Magic Mouse were not working.

And another issue which I don't know it is related or not is that Google Chrome does not scroll. Restarting Chrome fixes problem for 2-5 minutes but not permanently.

I use all gestures frequently for spaces, zooming, swapping, navigating, etc and I am having very difficulty without these features.

Things I have tried:

Checking/Resetting Magic Mouse settings from system preferences
Turn Magic Mouse on and off
Disconnect/Connect Magic Mouse
Restart iMac, press power button and "command+shift+p+r" and from troubleshoot screen, verify/repair Disk Utility (OS Disk)
Connect mouse with other iMac (mouse is fine)

After all these things, problem still exists. I have searched it in Google and I have found out that many people have received this problem but I couldn't find any solution.

Does anyone here know about this issue and have some solution??

I solved the same problem by going to mouse in preference and unblocking the gesture the second and third gesture leaving only the "Swipe between pages" enabled.


Can I avoid adding "security" questions? So I just learned of these security questions, I canceled out of the prompt yesterday and I managed to download some apps.

Do I absolutely have to add these? If I don't add them is it just going to keep nagging me every time?

Should you want to continue to use Apple services such as the App Store and iTunes then the questions will need to be answered, this prompt will appear periodically until you do so for information this prompt is usually triggered by an OS upgrade or on occasion when Apple changes the terms and conditions in the App, iTunes or iBooks stores.


How to change the order of my Favorites in the Special Characters palette? I've added special characters that I frequently use to my favorites, but I'd like to group them more logically than simply the order in which I "favorite" them.  Is this possible?

Yes - they are drag and drop in the palette itself on Lion (so that's the easiest for me to get them in order).

If that doesn't work for you, you can also edit the plist when the Special Characters picker isn't running.

The favorites are (hopefully for your OS level) stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.CharacterPaletteIM.plist

If your editor lets you drag "Item 2" up to "CVFavorites" it will be the new first item. You can open the triangles to see what the favorites are and reorder them fairly painlessly and then save your work.


Is it possible to create an invisible rule in Mail? I'd like to apply a mail filtering rule within Mail without it appearing in the rules list. Is there any way to make this happen, either from within, or from outside the app?

No you cannot do that within Mail.app.

However you can add for example a mail filtering proxy that sits between your mail provider and Mail.app. This proxy will be able to filter away mail without Mail.app displaying that it does so. Depending on your mail provider it might also be able to move mail into subfolders, etc. (for example this is possible on IMAP).


Why is my Finder Blue now instead of the dark gray? My Mac finder color is now dark blue/purple instead of the new gray nightmode color. I'm on the latest update of Mojave.

It's probably because the Finder has some transparency to it. It'll blend in the gray color with whatever is under it, so you probably have a background (or something else) under the Finder window with that blue/purple color
macOS Big Sur (11.0) adds an option to toggle this setting in System Preferences > Allow wallpaper tinting in windows, so you can turn it off now if you want to (provided you update, of course)
Here’s the control to change the color of Finder’s tabs:


Tips on avoiding "Could not activate cellular data network" with New iPad So I bought a new iPad, 64GB + 4G. And since then it seems like every time I pick it up and go to use a network feature (Hero Academy, Tweetbot, Safari etc.) I get this message "Could not activate cellular data network".

If I reset it then everything will work OK until after I put it away for a while. There's no definite time period for the network failing but it always seems to happen after I have been home or at work (inside a WiFi coverage area) and then I go to use 3G again. The fact that it does work fine after a reset says to me that this is not a signal strength issue, this happens repeatedly at the train station and will always work right after reset. Before reset the network indicator shows full bars and 3G indicator.

Has anyone else experienced this and improved this by changing anything in Settings, by talking to their carrier or anything else? I am thinking this has to be an iOS bug. I should not have to do a white apple reset to use network services!

If it matters I am using a prepaid Optus 3G sim in Melbourne, Australia. My only APN setting is the APN field which is "connectme", correct according to the Optus guide I got with my sim. (new iPad cannot use the 4G networks available in Australia: Australian Competition & Consumer Commission)

I have had exactly the same issues with my New Ipad 16Gb 4G.
The only way I have found that really gets round it, is to manually select the Network provider, insteady of leaving it set to the 'Automatic' setting.
Come on Optus sort this out !!


1920 x 1200 resolution monitor with VGA not detected by Mac OS X 10.7.2 I recently got a Dell 2412m monitor with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200.  But in system preferences it only shows 1920 x 1080.  I had it connected, beautifully, to my spare linux machine, so that's not the issue.

How can I get the correct resolution on my display?

Specs:
Dell 2412m
Mac OS X 10.7.2
Connecting with MiniDisplay Port to VGA

You are unlikely to be able use the VGA input to go above 1080p

But just to make sure follow this answer how to view more Resolutions to try with.

MacBook Pro with Retina display (Late 2012) not outputting anything above 1080p

Select the monitor in System Preferences:

System Preferences -> Displays -> Monitor(not Built-in Display) -> Display Tab -> Resolution

Change from 'Best for Display' to 'Scaled' whilst holding the 'alt' key, more resolutions will be listed for you to select,

As noted in the comments, you have to start in the default mode 'Best for Display', and move into 'Scaled' whilst holding the alt/option ⎇ key, not the other way round


Where do Macs from before 2011 store their recovery and startup disk menu? To give some background, the reason I want to know this information is because, I recently bought a brand new SSD to place into a 2009 Mac mini, where I want to install Kubuntu. I know that PCs store their BIOS in the motherboard ROM, but not entirely sure for Macs.
The problem I have is that if I swap the internal HDD (without copying data to the new SSD) in the Mac, will it mean I can't boot from USB when I have swapped out the hard drive, as the USB boot menu will be wiped, or is this menu stored somewhere else, meaning that I can still access it without copying my hard drive data to the new SSD?

There really isn’t any difference between where the EFI holds the boot info from pre 2009 and post 2009 Macs
Basically, the boot manager resides in the EFI which of similar to the BIOS in a PC. It’s just the bootable part that loads the kernel is located on the drive itself.  So, you can put a blank SSD into a Mac and the boot loader will work, it just won’t find anything to load.
Now the difference in pre and post 2011 Macs (generally speaking) is if the Mac supported Internet Recovery or not. If it did, you could load an operating system (Recovery) off the Internet even with a blank SSD. If you can’t use Internet Recovery, you’ll need bootable media like a DVD or USB stick to install the OS. Once the OS is installed, you’ll her a boot partition and a Recovery partition that you’ll be able to see and select with the boot manager (by holding Option  when booting).
So bottom line, even if you have a blank SSD in your Mac, if you have a bootable volume attached (like to USB) the boot manager will find it and boot from it or display it as an option (holding Option when booting )


Photos on Mac not syncing with iCloud – ThermalPolicy: Must not proceed The Photos app on my Macbook hasn't been syncing for a while, ~6 months. I just came from holidays and added photos from my camera to it and again, nothing. Photos is stuck at "Uploading..." but there is no network activity.

Some facts:

I have a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro
battery health: 82%, cycles: 209, condition: normal
MacOS High-Sierra 10.13.4 (updates in the past didn't help)
I'm on a wired 1gb fiber connection (8ms ping, down: 880, up: 470)
Fully working iCloud photo library across my iOS devices with more than enough free space

What I have tried:

deleting ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd/Data/Library/Application Support/com.apple.cloudphotosd/ and killing cloudphotosd

It does rebuild the index and re-syncs shared albums, those always work

Resetting the Macbook SMC & PRAM
Fresh install of MacOS, reimport photos from scratch

The actual problem:

The console logs the following which seems highly relevant:

502:com.apple.cloudphotosd.pending-work:509E84:[
    {name: ThermalPolicy, policyWeight: 1.000, response: {Decision: Must Not Proceed, Score: 0.00, Rationale: [{thermalLevel >= 1}]}}
 ], FinalDecision: Must Not Proceed}

Since I have tried so many different software things this makes me think that the system thinks the battery is bust (or some other thermal thing, like CPU temp, which is actually normal ~140F).

Can anyone think of anything else that I should try? Apart from replacing the battery / taking the laptop for service.

The short answer is you want your Mac to get out of CPU use so that iCloud photos will resume. Thermally cooling the case and/or quitting all other processes that use CPU would be warranted.

Since you're technical minded - you can dump the thermal stats to see if you feel you have a hardware issue or can shape the workload to relieve a proper thermal pressure warning:

 pmset -g thermlog

The long answer is there are many throttles and other things that could go wrong with iCloud upload. Look at this reverse engineering of things in the plain files portion of iCloud file upload - let alone the more detailed Photos use that does face, moment, web app and more features in play like daily upload caps, uploads to shared storage being different than your iCloud storage and optimizing the versions when you run low on storage space.

Diagram from the amazing article by Howard Oakley - https://eclecticlight.co/2018/03/30/inside-icloud-drive-uploading-a-file/


Webpage bookmark on desktop I'd like to have a bookmark for a webpage, shown on my desktop that, when clicked, opens that page. I know there are workarounds (applescript etc.) but is there a direct approach?

I'm using Google Chrome on OSX 10.9.4

Open the webpage in your preferred browser, then click on the website's icon on the left of the URL bar and drag it to your Desktop.   This creates a shortcut.

Applescript to create a webpage shortcut seems like the hard way.


Different owners of apps in /Applications depending on installation technique I have noticed that pre-installed as well as apps installed from the App Store located in /Applications show permissions like this:

drwxr-xr-x+  3 root     wheel  102 Jan  1  2014 Mail.app

whereas apps installed by drag-and-drop into the same folder look like this:

drwxr-xr-x@  3 johndoe  admin  102 Jan  1 15:55 Steam.app

Why do these apps depending on the installation technique get assigned different owners and groups? I am using a standard user account for installation (johndoe) if that's important. Also, why would it be a bad idea to change the owner of every app to root as is mentioned for example in Homebrew's FAQs:

  Did you chown root /Applications/TextMate.app? Probably not.

-- Homebrew FAQs

If an app is digitally signed, then the owner will be assigned to the System. As this is a requirement for apps distributed through the Mac App Store, then the apps that you see from there will likely be owned by the system and not you.

With apps that you download directly from a vendor, then they may or may not digitally sign their apps, in which case upon installation, you may or may not be the owner. Digital signing provides different privileges to how the app can interact with parts of the OS, like getting beyond the firewall without an annoying popup to the user every time, so you may see even developer downloaded apps signed.

Be careful of taking ownerships of signed apps, as this can corrupt the digital signature and you may be force to reinstall the app.


Open .pdf's inside chrome using SKIM The built in pdf viewer of chrome is rather nice, but I like (and more used to) skim. My ultimate goal would be to click on a pdf file and to have it opened in the tab (within chrome) using skim as the backbone.

I managed to disable the built in viewer (chrome://plugins/); then, clicking on a pdf simply downloads it, and I can open it with skim. This is cumbersome, and the file is saved locally on my ~/Downloads. Is there a way to make it flow nicer? Is there a way to automatically open the file once downloaded (skim is my default viewer anyway)?

If you download a pdf then click on the arrow on the downloaded file button at the bottom of the browser window and select "Always open files of this type", then pdf files will be automatically opened by the default application on download - in your case skim.

They will still be in the download folder however.

To undo this behaviour go into chrome advanced settings and under Download click "Clear auto-opening sett


Terminal commands in Automator for Profile Manager maintenance I am using macOS Server to manage our iPads and the Profile Manager is constantly having problems requiring me to stop the service and reboot the server. I also clean out the completed and non-completed tasks (this sometimes helps). I would like to use Automator to run a daily task to clear the completed tasks from the database and one to clear the non-completed tasks weekly.

Here is the code I have, can someone help me configure this for Automator?

Clear completed tasks:

sudo -u _devicemgr psql -U _devicemgr -d devicemgr_v2m0 -h /Library/Server/ProfileManager/Config/var/PostgreSQL -c "DELETE FROM library_item_tasks WHERE completed_at IS NOT NULL"

Clear non-completed:

sudo -u _devicemgr psql -U _devicemgr -d devicemgr_v2m0 -h /Library/Server/ProfileManager/Config/var/PostgreSQL -c "DELETE FROM library_item_tasks WHERE completed_at IS NULL"

Google: bash script how to - A bash script is nothing more then a plain text file that starts with the appropriate shebang and has the commands you want to execute, one line at at time. Then made executable with chmod and if not placed in a directory in the PATH use ./filename to execute it.

The ./filename method requires it in the PWD in Terminal, otherwise use the fully qualified pathname. Placing it in a directory in the PATH is typically easiest to then subsequently execute as needed just by filename.

Example:

In Terminal:

touch cleartasks
open cleartasks

Add to opened file:

#!/bin/bash
sudo -u _devicemgr psql -U _devicemgr -d devicemgr_v2m0 -h /Library/Server/ProfileManager/Config/var/PostgreSQL -c "DELETE FROM library_item_tasks WHERE completed_at IS NOT NULL"
sudo -u _devicemgr psql -U _devicemgr -d devicemgr_v2m0 -h /Library/Server/ProfileManager/Config/var/PostgreSQL -c "DELETE FROM library_item_tasks WHERE completed_at IS NULL"

Save the file.

Back in Terminal, make it executable:

chmod u+x cleartasks

To execute:

./cleartasks


Preserving an iPhone in factory state for long term I have an iPhone 5 that's still running factory installed iOS 6.
I want to preserve it long term for the future; possibly over the next 10 years, or more.
How can I best preserve the iPhone so it will still work in the future?

One of the primary things you need to be concerned about is battery. As you wish to maintain the device in a usable state, it's recommended to keep the battery in as healthy state as possible. Refer to the Apples's webpage dedicated to Batteries here and follow the recommended storage guidelines:

https://www.apple.com/in/batteries/

Specifically:
From, https://www.apple.com/in/batteries/maximizing-performance/

Avoid extreme ambient temperatures
Your device is designed to perform well in a wide range of ambient temperatures, with 16° to 22° C (62° to 72° F) as the ideal comfort zone.

Even when storing, make sure to keep the device in the given temperature range.

Store it half-charged when you store it long term
If you want to store your device long term, two key factors will affect the overall health of your battery: the environmental temperature and the percentage of charge on the battery when it’s powered down for storage. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Do not fully charge or fully discharge your device’s battery — charge it to around 50 per cent. If you store a device when its battery is fully discharged, the battery could fall into a deep discharge state, which renders it incapable of holding a charge. Conversely, if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may lose some capacity, leading to shorter battery life.

Power down the device to avoid additional battery use.

Place your device in a cool, moisture-free environment that’s less than 32° C (90° F).

If you plan to store your device for longer than six months, charge it to 50 per cent every six months.

Depending on how long you store your device, it may be in a low-battery state when you remove it from long-term storage. After it’s removed from storage, it may require 20 minutes of charging with the original adapter before you can use it.

The website also recommends to update your device to the latest available version of iOS to benefit from software optimizations. However, if you wish to preserve the factory installed version of iOS, refrain from upgrading the iOS (which can be ensured by not letting the device connect to data network).

For my own devices that I have stored for long term, I generally power them on once every couple months and make sure to keep the battery charge at recommended 50%.
It would be a good idea to fully charge, then discharge, then charge the battery to 50% to store it again for long term. This would ensure that the electrons get a chance to move.


Finder window background colour or image for USB Drive I would like to know how to add an image (if that's not possible then a colour) to the Finder window of my USB stick - just the stick not every window.
I have seen it on various .DMG installers (the ones which require the app to be moved into the applications folder often have an image with an arrow and a text telling the user to drag and drop) and now wonder how this is done for the window of a USB drive.

I have an application which runs straight from the stick itself without wanting to move it to the apps directory of the Mac. Every time I click on the USB drive I would like to see a custom image background (much like on those DMGs).

Search results returned old and obsolete ways or partial answers no longer supported by macOS Sierra.

Only works in icon view & as far as I'm aware only on HFS drives.
I quickly tested with a FAT32 drive which appeared to work, but didn't survive eject/insert]

Open your folder or entire disk & set view to Icon [ Cmd ⌘   1  ]
Show view options [right click or  Cmd ⌘   J  ]
Select Colour or Picture [for picture you then drag & drop an image to the box on the panel.


Large amount of data in backups after update to Sierra I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) with a SSD drive and 4GB of RAM.

I perform Time Machine backups about every day, and since I have upgraded to the new OS Sierra I have notice that every day, I have around 10 GB of data to save. Before the upgrade, the backups were small only related to the real files that changed.

Is this related to some kind of swap space for the RAM or other? Is it normal that I have all that amount of data that changes in my SSD everyday? Should I manage something?

Any suggestion, someone else have notice the same thing? Is it a problem?

tmutil offers a compare option which list the changes between two TM backups.

 compare [-@acdefglmnstuEUX] [-D depth] [-I name] [snapshot_path | path1 path2]
         Perform a backup diff.

         If no arguments are provided, tmutil will compare the computer to the latest
         snapshot. If a snapshot path is provided as the sole argument, tmutil will compare
         the computer to the specified snapshot. If two path arguments are provided, tmutil
         will compare those two items to each other. tmutil will attempt to inform you
         when you have asked it to do something that doesn't make sense or isn't supported.

To get a list of snapshots use tmutil listbackups.


3ds Max alternative for Mac Is there a good alternative to Autodesk's 3D modeling software 3ds Max that works on a Mac?

I like 3ds Max because it's very powerful and easy to use for someone who is not an expert in 3D modeling.

I tried Blender, but it was really hard to understand and control, and I found its commands to be very counter-intuitive.

Autodesk's Maya has a Mac version.

I can't say I've used it, but it's quite popular.


Replacing MacBook Pro Hard Drive? I need to replace the SSD on my MacBook Pro (13" Early 2015) but I can’t afford to get it done at the moment. I’ll need to try it myself. The model number for my MacBook Pro MF843LL/A and it says the drive is 512 GB flash_memory_solid_state. Can someone send me a link to the exact hard drive I need to get? I’ve never done this before and want to make sure I get the right one.

See https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pro-retina-display-faq/macbook-pro-retina-display-13-how-to-upgrade-ssd-storage.html for a lot of  details about how to upgrade the internal disk of a MacBook Pro, including information about compatible drive models and instruction on how to actually replace the drive.

It probably goes without saying, but make sure you have a good backup before you start.


Cydia Impactor won't sideload When I try to sign/resign (sideload) H3lix-RC5.ipa (iPhone 5C w/ iOS 10.3.3 x32) or g0blin_rc2.ipa (iPhone 6S w/ iOS 10.3.3 x64) I get:

Error:
file: installation.cpp; line: 42; what:

Failed to verify code signature of /private/var/installd/Library/Caches/com.apple.mobile.installd.staging/temp.xVJ2U0/extracted/Payload/g0blin.app : 0xe8008016 (The executable was signed with invalid entitlements.)

or:

Error:
file: installation.cpp; line: 42; what:

Failed to verify code signature of /private/var/installd/Library/Caches/com.apple.mobile.installd.staging/temp.cW2DjU/extracted/Payload/h3lix.app : 0xe8008016 (The executable was signed with invalid entitlements.)

I have tried revoking all Xcode certificates and changing Info.plist's MinimumOSVersion value.

I originally revoked all certificates because I was getting You already have a current iOS Development certificate or a pending certificate request when attempting to sideload.

The iPhone 6S is semi-jailbroken, and sideloading g0blin is the only way to semi-jailbreak it, where with the iPhone 5C the only way of jailbreaking it is by sideloading H3lix

There’s bug in the Apple’s servers so you could use totally not spyware jailbreak.

g0blin is not the only way to jailbreak at iOS 10.3.3. There are doubleH3lix which is developed by tihmstar (same person made H3lix too).

Also there is website called https://totally-not.spyware.lol/ can enable you to jailbreak without sideloading app.


How to fix iPhone X iOS 11.4 cellular data enabling issue? It’s random but I’ve been having issues with enabling cellular data on some apps I’ve downloaded.

When I first start the app and it asks to use data I choose WiFi and cellular data. It’ll then warn me that there is no internet connection. I’ll then proceed to settings/cellular data and find the app, it’s in the off state. Once I go into it and choose either WLAN or WLAN & Cellular Data and go back it remains in the off state.

I’ve tried reinstalling the apps and it seems this setting is saved in the phone. Again, it is random which apps this happens to but when it does it’s not fixable.

I contacted Apple support and found a solution. I attempted to reset network settings and privacy settings but those didn’t work. After I “Reset All Settings” it set every app to have enabled WLAN & Cellular data and everything is now working properly.


Send batch emails from terminal with attachments I would like to write a bash script that does the following:

Read from an excel file a column of email addresses
For each email address (say person1@wherever) attach an associated file (say person1.xlsx) and send email with standard body.

In parts I have most of what I need except the mail bit doesn't seem to work for me. I tried the following:
echo "hello world" | mail -s "test email" geoff@here.com

Yet the email doesn't arrive. In the terminal under mail I see:
N  1 MAILER-DAEMON@Name  Sat Jun 27 12:02  72/2630  "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender"

I have Mac OSX Catalina.

curl
You can bypass setting up mail and use curl to talk directly to your SMTP server. See using curl to send email for more details:
curl --ssl-reqd \
  --url 'smtps://smtp.gmail.com:465' \
  --user 'username@gmail.com:password' \
  --mail-from 'username@gmail.com' \
  --mail-rcpt 'john@example.com' \
  --upload-file mail.txt

mail.txt file contents:
From: "User Name" <username@gmail.com>
To: "John Smith" <john@example.com>
Subject: This is a test

Hi John,
I’m sending this mail with curl thru my gmail account.
Bye!

To attach a file, see the link recommended by lhs, curl : send html email with embedded image and attachment.


OSX Server: failed to connect to the IGD Until recently I had an airport extreme as my router that I managed with Server.app for external NAT for server services in Mavericks/Server 3.1.1. However since I got a new router, server system log is filling up with the error below:

  servermgrd[2594]: Failed to connect to the IGD, no status info
  available, error is Error Domain=com.apple.ACPDevice Code=-6753 "The
  operation couldn\u2019t be completed. (com.apple.ACPDevice error
  -6753.)"

Any idea how I can disable this feature so it doesn't keep trying to connect to the IGD?

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "delete :managedIGD" /Library/Server/Network/Config/autoportmap.plist
sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "delete :lastIGD" /Library/Server/Network/Config/autoportmap.plist

These commands are from
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT200038?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US which explains how to remove an Airport Base Station from Server in Mountain Lion. They also apply to Mavericks.


identifying the network activity of a process - Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 Is there a way to identify the network activity for running processes ?  I'm seeing some unusual activity on my computer (late 2008 MacBook Pro )

Yes, quite a few - ranging from the simple to the more complex. Depends on what you're after in terms of detail, but if you want a nice, easy GUI frontend (that ties up process names with activity) then you could use something like Little Snitch or Hands Off!. They are actually firewalls, which have their own network monitors. So if you find something you don't like, you can always block it.

I also use iStat Menus or iStat Pro (free) which can give you differing view of process and network activity (but not combined like Little Snitch can).

Or for something more detailed you could investigate the terminal netstat command.


iOS using wrong public key to encrypt mail I've recently updated most of my certificates as they've expired at similar times.

It appears that iOS mail is encrypting mail to one of my recipients using their old certificate, as such they cannot decrypt it when they receive it.

I checked in the one profile that is installed and it only contains my own certificate and key. Where are my recipients public keys kept? I need to check them and delete the old ones. Otherwise how do you tell iOS which public key to use when encrypting mail?

There is no list, you can scroll through to edit the public keys of the emails you received.
The only way is to open an old mail (signed with the old public key), hit the certificate and manually uninstall it.
It seems that iOS on iPhone has a bug since version 9.x that causes that new public keys of certs can not overwrite the old versions automatically.
See the discussion here:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/29015875?start=0&tstart=0

Do NOT follow Apple's advice in the support document "Send an encrypted message to someone outside your Exchange environment". Specifically, do NOT manually trust the certificate by hitting View Certificate>Install because (I believe) this will keep a trusted certificate in your keychain after this certificate expires and is replaced. iOS will not let you install an updated certificate with the same RFC 822 Name (email address), and will continue to encrypt using the same trusted-but-expired certificate. After hitting Install, you'll have to Reset All Settings to get rid of it (bad).
Rather, View Certificate, then request a copy of the Root Certificate Authority (.cer) and, if necessary, the Intermediate CA (.cer) that signs the sender's cert. Install these .cer certificates in your System Profiles. In my experience, I need both the Root and Intermediate CAs for iOS.

(btw: I had exactly the same problem)


iPod touch (iOS4) doesn't sync AddressBook after moving to iCloud I moved from MobileMe to iCloud. So my iPod2gn blocked in iOS4 is not part of the sync anymore. Well, it's a technical and commercial shame, but well, ok, enough said.

I wanted to be able to have my Calendar and Address book sync by iTunes when I plug my iPod to my iMac.

It works for emails, photos, calendars BUT not the AddressBook.

Is this a known issue or am I missing some basic stuff here?

Apparently, after moving to iCloud, iTunes won't sync Address Book with an iOS4 device, as there is some sort of issue with folder paths.

This is the only thing I could find addressing your problem.


Can I use the new Apple TV without a TV to play my Mac's audio to my stereo? I currently have an AirPort Express (Newest N version) that is connected to my AirPort Extreme Base Station via ethernet. I have no other use for it (printer, wifi extender, etc.) other than it being a conduit for my MacBook Pro's iTunes library to be streamed to my stereo and controlled by my iPhone, my wife's iPhone or any guests with iOS devices.

I was thinking about selling my AirPort Express and getting a new Apple TV if I can get the same functionality as my current setup. In addition to this potential setup, I don't lose anything, but actually gain all the features of the Apple TV (Netflix, iTunes Rentals, etc.) and the possibility of jailbreaking it to run XBMC or Plex.

I know the Apple TV can be controlled via the Remote app on my iPhone, but will I have to turn on the TV and wake up the Apple TV? If so, this is a small step, but annoying.

I stream music to my stereo via my AppleTV all the time without needing to turn on the TV, and control it via iOS devices. My current setup is AppleTV -> stereo via HDMI, and stereo -> tv via HDMI. The stereo turning on wakes up the AppleTV, but if the stereo is left on, starting to stream something via AirPlay also wakes up the AppleTV.


Poor Diablo III: Reaper of Souls performance on a rMBP late 2013 I just got a new rMBP (with dedicated video-card) and as a test I decided to run Diablo III: Reaper of Souls on Ultra settings.  It looks absolutely gorgeous but its 10-17 fps frame-rate is very disappointing.

Are there any settings I can adjust to improve this performance? In Windows it can be "tuned" to max performance or battery saving; is there a similar setting in OS X?

Right now it's on AC power (plugged on the wall), Activity Monitor is reporting that the video-card is being used for D3, is there anything else that I'm forgetting to check?

I'm assuming you have the 15" rMBP with the NVidia GT 750M. If you're trying to run at native resolution, 2880 x 1800, with full effects, that card is likely inadequate.

The GT 750M I would estimate is roughly equivalent with a Radeon HD 6850, 6770, or even lower, placing it fairly low on this benchmark chart for the original Diablo III.  The frame-rates there get down into the 20's, and you have a) 25% more pixels then their highest tested resolution, and b) the expansion which likely has had graphical updates in the intervening two years.

If you want better frame-rate, you must trade off fidelity.  Lower the resolution, lower graphical settings until you find something you're happy with.


Run a Windows Virtual Machine on Mac OS X 10.8 with a real Hard Drive partition I have dual-boot setup on my MacBook using bootcamp.  I have 2 partitions: 1 is Windows 7 and the other is Mac OS X 10.8.  I have all of my stuff personal stuff setup for the Mac side.  I have programming things that are only compatible with Windows.  I want to make it so I can do things on my Mac computer and have a way to switch to the Windows side without quitting running applications (and being able to switch back)

I would prefer if the software is free, but if you can assure me that it will work flawlessly, I will be willing to pay for software to make this work.

Both the paid virtualization apps, VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop for Mac, allow you to boot the Windows partition from within OS X. You could also do this manually with the free Virtualbox solution, but it's a bit tedious and I'm not sure if it works reliably.

For instructions on VMWare Fusion and Parallels, see the below, respectively:
Launching your Boot Camp partition in VMware Fusion
Can I run my Boot Camp partition with Parallels?


Are there any audiobook apps that will remember where you last left off? As the title suggests are there any apps that will remember where in the audiobook you last left off and pick up from there when you play it?

Also I use the term audiobook here loosely, my books are just mp3 files not ones purchased through itunes or anything. Some of them don't even have meta data that breaks the file into chapters, etc.

So really I just need a simple app that will pick up any mp3 file where you last left off and you should be able to play several mp3 files it will remember where you left off on all of them.

I'm using an iPhone 6S running IOS version 10.3.1

You can use Apple's iBooks app for iPhone/iPad to playback audio books and mp3 files and resume playback. With mp3s you may need to change the "media kind" option from Music to Audiobook in iTunes.

Import your audiobooks or mp3s to iTunes. Select your mp3 file in iTunes, right click and select Get Info from the pop up menu (or just press Command I) to get into the file's properties window. Click on the Options tab then change media kind from Music to Audiobook.

You can then sync your mp3/audiobooks from iTunes to your iPhone if you select to sync manually or sync everything


How can I enable Trackpad tap-to-click for the login window in OS X 10.8? In older OS X versions, this used to work just fine:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1

It would enable tap to click for built-in MacBook Trackpads for the root user, which would also affect the login screen. There are similar commands to enable it for Bluetooth-based Magic Trackpads as well.

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work in OS X 10.8 anymore. Is there some other way of doing this in Mountain Lion?

Turns out you can add this as a function in the Terminal:

sudo defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -int 1

That worked for me, thanks to these guys - http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1218257


Way to determine most popular Homebrew packages? Is there a way to determine which Homebrew packages have been installed the most times, either in the recent past or all-time? It would make it easier to determine which formulae are the most useful, and to discover new software I may not have heard of. Currently, I just use homebrew when I find out "I need to install this" for some dependency.

Homebrew has been collecting anonymized analytics data and is sharing it at https://brew.sh/analytics

Here is a list of the most popular packages that people explicitly install (not as a dependency of something else):
https://brew.sh/analytics/install-on-request/

Here is a list of most frequently installed packages, which may include dependencies:
https://brew.sh/analytics/install/


Preferred Order of NVRAM/PRAM, SMC, and OS resets Is there a preferred order in which I should reset the NVRAM/PRAM, SMC, and OS on my MBP?

If so, what is this order (and why)?

Edit: I intend to do all of them to completely reset my computer. No need to explain what each does, I know what they do.

Yes, don’t do any of these until you have a very specific reason to do each. They handle entirely different functions so cycling through each of them would be equivalent to not even refining what you want to handle.

Take a medical analogy:

bandages are for cuts
anti-inflammatory is for swelling
anti-pyretic is for fever
rest and liquids are for colds
antiboitics are for infections

Prescribing the wrong treatment just wastes time and can cause further injury if you’re not treating the actual problem at hand.


AirDrop for iPhone SE and MacBook Air I'm trying to set up AirDrop to send files between my macbook and my iPhone.

For some reason it doesn't work at all. I turned it on both on the macbook and my iPhone SE and my iPhone is not shown in the Finder nor my macbook on iPhone's screen.

How to set this up?

First, make sure your Mac is able to use AirDrop. The following Macs are able to use AirDrop:

MacBook Pro (Late 2008) or later, excluding the MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2008)
MacBook Air (Late 2010) or later
MacBook (Late 2008) or later, excluding the white MacBook (Late 2008)
iMac (Early 2009) or later
Mac Mini (Mid 2010) or later
Mac Pro (Early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010)

However, AirDropping files between iOS devices and Macs requires a 2012 model Mac or later.

If your Mac does work with AirDrop and AirDrop still doesn't work, here are several fixes:

Reactivate Airdrop (on iPhone)

Go to Control Center on your iPhone (accomplished by swiping up from the bottom of your screen).
Disable Airdrop and then enable it again. Make sure your phone is discoverable to all devices.
Make sure Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are enabled. If it still doesn't work, try toggling the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi button.

Restart your iPhone and Mac

Restart your iPhone by pressing and holding the power button and home button at the same time.
And you probably know how to restart your Mac.

Reset Wi-Fi
Let both your Mac and iPhone forget your Wi-Fi network and/or password and reconnect to your Wi-Fi
Confirm AirDrop is enabled

Go to Finder and click on AirDrop in the sidebar.

Update

Update both your Mac and iPhone to the newest version of OS X and iOS, respectively.

Searching for older Macs?

Make sure your Mac isn't searching for older Macs. Go to the AirDrop page in Finder and make sure it's searching for newer devices (including the iPhone).

Confirm Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are enabled on the Mac

Turn on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on the Mac. People often forget to turn on Bluetooth on their Mac in addition to their iPhone.

Hopefully, these tips will help you!


HDMI Input onto a MacBook Air I have a Canon DSLR camera and I am trying to get the output from the camera onto a MacBook Air so I can then AirPlay the MacBook to a different Room.  The other room is on the other side of a school campus so running a cable would not work.

The Canon has an HDMI output and if it is plugged into a TV or monitor it will display fine, as expected.  However I am trying to get the feed from the camera onto a MacBook Air.  I know desktop computers back in the day had TV tuner cards for a similar function, but I am not sure about the MacBooks.

The MacBook Air and similar MacBooks do not provide HDMI inputs, only outputs. Although there is a device that will allow you input HDMI if you are willing to pay for it. (Usually fairly expensive) Something like this is what you are looking for: www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html


Sync Notes on iphone with a txt file on windows PC Is there any way to sync a txt file on the windows filesystem with a Notes file on the iOS device- iphone or ipad. I regularly take my notes on my PC but want them to be viewable on my iPhone. Could be through a cloud technology such as iCloud/dropbox. Any suggestions?

You have two options:

Using Dropbox, save your files on your Dropbox folder and access them on your iPhone through:

The Dropbox app, tap on a file. I think Dropbox has a built in text editor, or you can select any text-editing app on your device to view/edit it.
Any of the many dedicated text editing apps with built in Dropbox support, such as Elements, Droptext, etc. Look around a bit.

Using iCloud, create notes using the native app. They will be accessible on your PC through:

iCloud.com. Click on mail and select the folder
called "Notes". Note though, you wont be able to edit them just now on this site.
Nonetheless, Apple is supposed to be releasing an update to their
iCloud.com website during the next month or two and give it a
dedicated notes application, which will likely allow for editing
within the web interface.
Outlook. Install the iCloud Control Panel for windows, and check the box that allows you to syinc notes. Note though, you need a compatible version of Outlook.


Finder always jumps to top of window in list view When I expand or collapse directories in list view in a Finder window (every time i click on the expansion triangle), the window jumps to the top (with nothing selected).

I found this article: Finder jumping to currently selected item, and after pushing escape (the solution to that issue), my window jumps to the top of the window, instead of to the currently selected item.

Also tried the solution here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2577564?start=0&tstart=0 (unchecking 'spring loaded folders'), but the problem still persists.

Tried sorting by name/kind/date/size (only columns I have visible), problem still persists.

What can I do to fix this?

Running:
OSX version 10.8.2
everything is up to date except a Java update that came out today March 13, 2013.

It's possible that there has been some corruption to that folder's .DS_Store file, which the Finder uses to remember it displayed that folder last time.

You'll probably want to check out Consequences of deleting .DS_Store before you actually delete it so you know what to expect.

Make sure the Finder doesn't have the relevant folder open.
Open Terminal.app in /Applications/Utilities.
Type cd followed by a space.
Drag the icon for the folder with the issues into the Terminal to automatically fill in the full path to that folder, and press enter.
Enter rm .DS_Store.
You might need to Relaunch the Finder.


How to Sync Books from Mac on Catalina I upgraded to macOS 10.15.3 and am having trouble syncing books from my Mac to iPad.

In the documentation I only see reference to iCloud. This would not be satisfactory to me.

Is there a way to sync my books like it was done through iTunes/Music?

You can directly access the sync settings by opening Finder, then selecting the mobile device.

Additionally, the Books sync page is in iTunes/Music under sync settings.


iPad Charging USB Hub? Possible Duplicate:
  When I plug my iPad into my computer USB ports, iPad displays “Not Charging”.  What can I do?

Newer MacBooks provide enough juice through the built-in USB ports for the iPad to charge quickly, and one can use the wall outlet to get the job done as well. However, there don't seem to be any hubs out there that do anything but trickle-charge...

Is anyone aware of a USB hub that can charge an iPad? I'd really like to be able to sync & charge at the same time without having to plug in directly into the MacBook.

Apple's online store sells two Belkin USB hubs with support for "high-power devices":

  Power: Max. power output per port: 500mAh

Belkin USB 4-port Hub * Stellar
Belkin USB 7-port Hub * Stellar


When is the locate database updated? I use the locate command in Terminal regularly. When does its database get updated? On other systems, I could run updatedb as root to force it to update.

Note: I know using mdfind to search with spotlight is another option

The locate database is updated by the following cronjob:

/private/etc/periodic/weekly/310.locate

On Most Mac systems, Cron has been replaced by launchd, and you'll find that /etc/crontab doesn't exist. The schedule for this scheduled job is determined by launchd, and can be seen with one of the following commands:

% cat /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.periodic-weekly.plist
    #### SNIP
<dict>
    <key>Hour</key>
    <integer>3</integer>
    <key>Minute</key>
    <integer>15</integer>
    <key>Weekday</key>
    <integer>6</integer>
</dict>

Or, something a little more user friendly:

% open /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.periodic-weekly.plist

launchd will then run the jobs specified in /etc/periodic/{daily,weekly,monthly}/*, using this schedule.


iPhone 4s irregularly asks for Apple ID after a night at airplane mode My girlfriend uses her iPhone to wake her up, and during night, she puts it in flightmode (because she doesn't like radiation).
1 out of approx. 3 mornings the phone doesn't wake her, instead it asks her (silently) for her Apple ID.
The screen shows (in Dutch, so probably not 100% right translated)

  activation required

after clicking at it, it tells

  Activation required.
  On your iPhone flight mode is active. Turn off flight mode to continue activation.

and after clicking this it asks for her Apple ID. After filling it in, just than the alarm clock goes off (off course to late :(
Strange behavior, especially since I have used this iPhone for a year (it used to be mine), without any of these problems.

Perhaps beneficial information: she has her own Apple ID, but for apps we share an Apple ID.
[iOs 7.04 on iPhone 4s 32GB]

Does not answer question directly as this is possibly a bug with flight mode. Her use case is not what flight mode was made for though?  Better option to keep from being disturbed at night is to Use the Do not Disturb feature form settings.   Configurable and can set it to do automatically during certain times.  Otherwise just manually put the phone in mute mode.

On the flight mode...  I know certain older version of IOS had problems with alarms.   Think it is quite possible that the lack of any network connectivity might block some background processes so can think that it would be reasonable to expect the password at some times.   If it stops n alarm from activating it would be a bug in iOS though.


Is there a way to disable the "enter a password to unlock the disk" prompt for a disk? I installed macOS on a partition in an external drive which is encrypted with FireVault. I don't want to mount it when I plug it in, but I get the "enter a password to unlock the disk" prompt whenever I plug the drive in (which is fairly often) and I need to escape out of it every time. Is there a way to stop showing this prompt, while not having to mount it? You can prevent it from coming up with the "[remember password in keychain]" option but that would mount it every time.

I found this, which is basically the same as the quora.com method (link above):

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/11/24/prevent-partitions-from-mounting-mac/

However, for me, although it DOES prevent the volume from being mounted on startup, so far it DOES NOT prevent the popup "enter a password to unlock the disk".


macOS as a guest and in the host I want to install macOS High Sierra as a guest having macOS in the host but want to know what virtualization software either VirtualBox of VMware provides the best security options between Guest and Host.

For example, I would like to create multiple VM's with their own disk encrypted (filevault) boot/firmware password or any other Guest mechanism in place in a way that when the VM is down, the host could only delete the VM but in no other way could see contents of the disk besides probably brute forcing it from the host console.

The access to the guest VM may be via VNC/remote desktop/ssh but they are on a shared environment (rack with multiple mac minis) in where some extra security is required at least when VM's are down since once UP could be very easy from the HOST attach to the console.

This would be trivial with either suggested VM software.

Make an encrypted sparse disk image large enough to hold the guest storage and then build your VM once you’ve mounted the secure disk image.

By controlling the encryption passphrase of that store, other admins can only delete the container, not mount and read it.


How to delete duplicate photo album? I wanted to create a separate photo album with my wallpapers on my iPhone 4s. So I synced the photos from my computer, but now on my phone I have my "Wallpapers" album and a duplicate album "Photo Library", I tried deleting one or the other but that option is unavailable.

Does anyone know how I can resolve this?

Thanks.

From the photos app on the iphone press edit on the top-right corner and press on the minus sign before the album you want to remove. The camera roll/Photo Library cannot be deleted because it is pre-made by the operating system.


Facebook notification sound in OSX: cannot switch off In OSX Mountain Lion I'm getting beeps every time a facebook notification comes in. In System Preferences > Notifications > Facebook i have set my alert style to None. In the list on the left, the text below "Facebook" shows "Badges, Sounds". It gives me no method of turning off Badges or Sounds.

Mail, Skype and others have two additional checkboxes visible: "Badge App Icon" and "Play sound when receiving notifications". Neither of these are visible on the Facebook item.

So it appears impossible to turn off the sounds?

I found it. Account Settings>Notifications>How You Get Notifications>On Facebook>Play a sound when each new notification is received (UNCHECK the box). So far, it seems to be working. Whew. Thanks, Steve.


Finder treating symbolic links differently than terminal MacBook Pro Retina OS X 10.9.4 I created symbolic link jboss7 for hard link jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded and it worked fine in Finder. Then I made backup before modifying JBoss...

ln -s jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded jboss7
cp jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded-orig

Later, I renamed the hard link to jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded-modified and replaced it with backup.

mv jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded-modified
mv jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded-orig jboss-as-7.1.1.Final-downloaded

The symbolic link properly points to the backup with the same filename (ending with -downloaded), but Finder shows and treats the symbolic link incorrectly, saying it is alias for folder ending with (-downloaded-modified).

Is Finder supposed to treat symbolic links in this manner? How do I update Finder to recognize the symbolic link as point to the current hard link?

Side point: commands I wrote using tcsh terminal or Finder (don't remember, and terminal history does not go far enough back to answer this).

Related: OS X won't create any symbolic links, creates aliases instead

I was able to reproduce this as well (on OS X 10.9.4). A simpler case is as follows:

touch file.txt
ln -s file.txt link.txt
mv file.txt moved.txt
touch file.txt

If the Finder was open to the working directory while mv was executed, then it will (incorrectly) follow link.txt to moved.txt until it is restarted. Interestingly, you don't even need the Terminal to reproduce this bug, since it also applies to aliases:

Create file.txt.
Make an alias of file.txt.
Rename file.txt to moved.txt.
Create a new file also called file.txt.

The desired behaviour for aliases is to point to the moved file (moved.txt) unless a new file has been created in the original location (file.txt, created in Step 4). But the actual behaviour is just like in your example: Finder continues to follow the alias to the moved location until it is restarted.

This is a bug in the Finder. The workaround is to relaunch the Finder if an open window shows a symlink/alias while you move or rename the target file.


Playing Hi-Res audio files on mac with M-audio Revolution 5.1 I have audio file with 192Khz/24bit sound, and Revo 5.1 and driver for Snow Leopard. This driver is not official, and it is only the kext, without any GUI, and I can't see sound quality playing right now. I just set up in Audio Midi Setup App sound format of 192Khz. How can I see be sure the sound playing in 192/24 quality, not just 192/16? Is 24bit/16bit sound switching begins automatically?

I used to own one of these cards and used it on a Windows PC. If I'm not mistaken, M-Audio (now owned by Avid) no longer supports this card. It's been declared obsolete and orphaned. Good luck.


How do you clone an internal drive to an external one, and why? I am trying to fix my hard drive so that it can be formatted as APFS. Another Stack Exchange post suggests I must do the following:

  Full clone of internal drive to external drive using SuperDuper!
  Reboot from external drive
  Reformat internal drive as APFS
  Full clone of external drive to internal drive using SuperDuper!
  Reboot from internal drive

My question is:

Why do I have to clone the internal drive to an external drive and then reboot from the external drive? What does this accomplish?

I then have to reformat the internal drive as APFS, will this somehow be more possible once I have rebooted from the external (yet cloned internal) drive?

Why is it more possible to format the internal drive as APFS once it is cloned to an external drive? And, when they say "reformat the internal drive as APFS", do they mean the clone of the internal drive that now resides on the external drive, or the actual internal drive that was left behind when the original internal was sent to the external?

Why do I have to clone the internal drive to an external drive and then reboot from the external drive? What does this accomplish?

Technically, it allows you to re-partition and format your internal drive as APFS because you can't be mounted to the drive/partition you want to modify.  Booting from the external drive allows you to modify the internal drive.

Realistically speaking this is not necessary because...

The install of Mojave/Catalina will auto convert your SSD from JHFS+ to APFS "on the fly" during the install process
You can accomplish the exact same thing by simply booting from Recovery ⌘ CommandR or the USB installer of Mojave/Catalina (I prefer this method).

In terms of backing up your drive, having a clone of your drive isn't a bad thing, but Time Machine will get the job done better.

As a side note... you don't need SuperDuper or CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner). You can use the built in command dd

$ dd if=diskX of=diskY bs=1M

Where diskX = your source (internal) disk and diskY = the target (external) disk. This command will do the exact same thing as those programs.


How to add iPhone to my product list if it's already registered to another apple ID? How to add my telephone serial number, if it's already registered on another ID? I got this phone in exchange for my broken previous one in tech. service, so I think that it was used by someone and registered early.

As far as I know, an iPhone is linked to an Apple ID until it is released by the owner or by Apple techs (like when your phone is traded for a new one, rather than being repaired and returned to you).

This is intended to prevent theft; you can't just take someone's phone because they have to release it from their Apple ID first. If they don't, the phone will be very trackable by the owner of that Apple ID, the phone can't be reset without the owner's Apple ID & Password, and you can't get any new apps or anything because you won't have the Apple ID & password to enter for a purchase or to enter in order to remove the Apple ID from the phone.

If you got this phone legitimately, you'll have to contact the "tech. service" you used and ask them what they'll do to fix the issue. They may be able to take it back, and, as an authorized Apple repair center, send it to Apple to have the Apple ID cleared. I'm not sure they would or could do that.

There's nothing a user can do to release a phone without the original Apple ID & password, and this is intentional. If Apple set up 'online support' and allowed any user to release any phone from the Apple ID associated with it, then it would be much easier to steal and sell iPhones.

...again, as far as I know... ;)


Documents confirming the legality of the software In my country Economic Crimes Bureau1  checks organizations for legality of installed computer software, sometimes. I'm still not a busyness owner (but I may became one) and it is scary for me to.

As far as I know Apple software is protected by DMCA and recent versions don't even have a box version. DMCA is US law and it means nothing to local police, to confirm the legality of the software the license agreement or license to use the software is required. Such agreements must be on paper otherwise they are have no legal power.

So question is how to get written (on paper) license agreement or license to use the software (Apple OSX)?

1 It's called 'УБЕЗ' in Ukraine and 'ОБЭП' in Russia.

I've already asked related questions on Russian Google Answers, but I couldn't come up with a better place for this question than this site.

The operating system is covered by the Apple End User License Agreement (EULA) and you can find it in PDF form on this page. My suggestion is to print the EULA and then to attach the receipt for the hardware (that the software came with) or the receipt for the software purchase to it. Then you have some documentation.


How to synchronize data from iPhone to iPod? My iPhone was stolen. I always backed up with iCloud and my computer (Windows PC) through iTunes.
I have decided to completely block and erase my iPhone remotely but I want to keep the data (at least contacts) to a device I own. my iCloud account shows 5GB used and has contacts in it.
Will that data be erased if I erase my iPhone?

Also, I want to synchronize stored iPhone backup from my iCloud and PC to my iPod but iTunes does not show any such option when my iPod is connected to the PC.
I'm doing something like this for first time and Apple's support pages on this topic do not help.

If you backed your iPhone up and saved it to iCloud, you can do the following:
Before you do it, Make sure to backup the iPod!

On your iOS device, go to Settings > General > Software Update. If a newer version of iOS is available, follow the onscreen instructions to download and install it.
Make sure you have a recent backup to restore from.
On your iOS 8 device: Go to Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage, then tap a device listed under Backups to see the date and size of its latest backup.
On your iOS 7 device: Go to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage, then tap a device listed under Backups to see the date and size of its latest backup.
For information about backing up manually now, see Back up your iOS device to iCloud. If you don’t see a backup you expected to be there, see the Apple Support article If you need help restoring from an iCloud backup.
Go to Settings > General > Reset, then tap “Erase all content and settings.”
In the Setup Assistant, proceed to “Set up your device,” tap Restore from a Backup, then sign in to iCloud.
Proceed to “Choose backup,” then choose from a list of available backups in iCloud.
For help deciding which backup to restore from, including information about restoring from another device’s backup, see the Apple Support article If you need help restoring from an iCloud backup.

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/ph12521?locale=en_US

However, this will delete all the data on the iPod and put the iPhone data in. Ignore the iOS 7 and iOS 8. They are there for distinguishment.


Is there any way to make the ipad's front camera view angle wider? Ipad mini front camera viewing angle is so small so if a group of people wants to be in the picture during chat , the ipad mini should be placed meters away. Is there any setting or any app that allow to change or control that? (something like ZOOM out for front camera)

No, there is no software setting to make the front camera wider than it already is. If it is fully zoomed out in the app, then it can't go any further.


How do make a link open in a specific Safari window in macOS? I have multiple Safari windows for tab organization. I usually have multiple tabs in each window.

When I click on a link from an app other than Safari, it opens the link in a new tab in Safari, as Safari is my default browser.

The problem is that it often opens in a Safari window that is currently minimized or that I am currently not using. So it doesn't open the link in my main, active, current window (basically the one I have used last). Instead, it chooses its own "default window" to open links in, which may be a window I'm not even using.

However, I would like these links to always open in the window that I used last, and not in a window that I'm not using. Is it possible to make links always open in the last active window you used, or at least set the "default" window which will open new links?

I am currently running macOS Sierra 10.12.1, with the default Safari version that comes with it.

As a developer I researched the possibility of extensions being able to achieve what you want by always opening a new window when clicking a link contained outside of Safari itself. I'm sorry to say I don't think this approach is going to be possible.

Unfortunately, Safari does not give extensions a way to determine the origin of a new tab/window. What I mean by this is that a new tab can be created because the user clicks a link in an email, command-clicks a link in Safari, opens a Safari bookmark while holding down Command, clicks a link within a PDF document, or any one of several other actions that will open a page in a new tab. Regardless of the method, Safari does not provide how the window was opened to a Safari extension.

Since all these events look the same, no extension can force links from outside Safari to open in new windows without also affecting links opened in other ways (including while browsing within Safari).


Create a new iTunes column for "Play count/skip count ratio"? Is it possible to somehow create a new column in iTunes for "Play count/skip count" ratio? I usually use Play Count as a way to determine what songs I like the most, but this typically excludes newer songs (unless I limit the playlist by date).

However, if I had a new column that took a song's play count and compared it to the song's skip count (such as 50 plays to 2 skips, 25:1; versus 20 plays and 5 skips, 4:1), then it'd be easier to see what songs I truly like, regardless of its age.

So, can this be done in iTunes at all, or is it absolutely not feasible?

The columns and metadata that iTunes supports is hard coded unfortunately. There's no way to add a custom field or column to the browser.

You might be able to get a similar effect with some combination of smart playlists and/or some external scripting, but there's nothing built in that will do what you need.


Apple TV and sites like VideoBB/Screen mirroring/Flash? So lately I've been watching online videos on VideoBB and similar sites, and I'm wondering if I can do this on the Apple TV?

Also, is it possible to mirror my screen to the AppleTV and show Safari, so to play the videos right from there? So far I've looked at...

AirFlick - No audio
AirDisplay - No audio...
ClickToPlugin - Does not work on the VideoBB, "killer" doesn't work.

I'm hoping there's another solution for playing these videos on the AppleTV. If I need to, I will choose a different device, but I would rather stick with the AppleTV for the pretty flawless system that comes with it.

Also, and I'm guessing this is a no, does the AppleTV run flash videos? What about a jailbroken one? Would it be possible to go to VideoBB on a jailbroken AppleTV and just watching the videos through the browser (not sure if one if included with Boxee, Plex, or XBMC).

No, a non-jailbroken Apple TV does not display Flash videos.

I've resorted to downloading videos and converting them to MP4 for the ATV.


Safari tabs sync on two macs and an iPhone does not work Syncing using iCloud with 2 macs and an iPhone does not work. I use iCloud to sync safari, and my MacBook is perfectly synchronized with my iPhone.
The problem is that my iMac is not synchronized at all.  When I add some website to a reading list on the MacBook, it does not appear in the iMac.

I tried to uncheck and recheck the Safari checkbox in iCloud on all of my devices, but it didn't help.
Does anyone know how to fix this?

I am running the latest Mojave(10.14.6) on both Macs, and iOS 12 on my iPhone.

Update

As @ankii suggested, I've tried to remove all bookmarks from the iPhone and the iMac, and resync. Now the bookmarks are syncing between these devices, but the open tabs are not. On my iPhone I can see the open tabs from the MacBook but not from the iMac. On the iMac I see no open tabs from none of my other devices.

I also tried to follow this answer MacOS Safari iCloud tabs stop working randomly after some time but it didn't help.

It's a radical way  to solve it, but that's how I did it. Export the bookmarks.HTML  using File menu in Safari. Then start cleaning up the bookmarks, reading list and favourites from all the devices. On Macs it's easy to do using "Edit bookmarks" and right-click on an item on reading list to clear all.

How to clear ALL items from Safari's reading list?

After all devices, and iCloud have no bookmarks, reading list etc, check the sync by adding a test bookmark. If it does, then import the HTML file. If not, try uncheck/check Safari sync in System Preferences.

Also, this is not a verified remark, but Safari stopped syncing the moment I made bookmark folders on my Mac. I had to use them without folders.


Quickly switch monitors I have two monitors set up. About halfway through the working day the sun glare shines on my primary monitor. As a result I have to switch over my windows so my primary monitor faces away from the source of glare.

Is there a way to quickly switch monitor positioning? For example:

------------    ------------
|          |    |          |
|     1    |    |     2    |
|          |    |          |
------------    ------------

becomes

------------    ------------
|          |    |          |
|     2    |    |     1    |
|          |    |          |
------------    ------------

while retaining application window layouts?

In the absence of any other answers, I'd say 'no'. Even if you swap monitors from left to right in System Prefs > Displays, they retain their 'physical' layout, merely change which way you need to move the mouse to swap over.

Though... a thought - what if you assign each monitor to be a different Space & swap Spaces for each monitor? I can't test as I don't use that method & don't want to break my existing setup just to experiment.


Can't login with iCloud Control Panel for Windows. Constant server error I have problem of connecting to iCloud with iCloud Control panel for Windows.
After a while it errors with can't connect because of server error. And gives me a link to iCloud status which is always all green.

This problem is not last hour problem, it is constantly the same from the time I installed iCloud CP version 4 when it was released. I didn't have previous version of CP installed on this machine. I did't tweaked services above usual turn off of XPS server and Tablet PC components in Programs (Unistall part of Windows Control Panel)

I have Windows Firewall enabled (though disabling it doesn't make a change). Antivirus is MSSE. I am behind old Linksys router though it has uPNP enabled on it (and disabling SPI firewall on it doesn't change anything either). It is in Gateway mode.
Itunes login into account fine and I can log into iCloud.com with a browser.

Windows is Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit on Athlon XP (not SSE2 capable, had to mention because some apps just forget there are such processors still in use)
Version of iCloud CP is the last 4.0.2 (at the moment of writing).

If anybody does know what I can do to trouble shoot it I would be happy to hear. And yes I've already removed and installed iCloud CP few times. Thanks.

Had the same problem. Turning off all antivirus temporarily and firewall seemed to fix it


Clash of clans switching accounts in one device I want to to make another clash of clans base but when I log out of Game Center and log into another account it doesn't ask if I want to delete my base and sign in with the new Game Center. Is there any other was i can get a new base with out loosing my old one?

Try reinstalling the game. If that doesn't work, sign out of Game Center, delete the app, reinstall it, and you should have a new base. Then, when you sign back in with game center, it should ask if you want to merge the bases.


How do I import a Reminder.app lists into a Notes.app checklist? I want to transform my list of reminders in Reminders.app into a checklist inside a note in Notes.app. I tried dragging the list from the list of lists from Reminders to Notes and that didn't work. I tried dragging the contents of the Reminders list to a new Notes note and that imported the content with a [ ] before each item. Is there a way to convert theses into Notes' native checklist items?

The following AppleScript script will take the selected Reminders in Reminders and make a new Note in Checklist format in Notes. This can be run in Script Editor or saved as an AppleScript application.

Note: As this script uses UI Scripting, when run from Script Editor, it must be added to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility in order to run. As an AppleScript application, the application would need to be added.

tell application "Reminders" to activate
delay 0.1
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "c" using {command down}
delay 0.1
set theNotesChecklist to ""
set theReminders to get the clipboard as string
repeat with thisParagraph in paragraphs of text of theReminders
    try
        set theNotesChecklist to theNotesChecklist & text 5 thru -1 of thisParagraph & return
        delay 0.1
    end try
end repeat
tell application "Notes" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "n" using {command down}
    keystroke "l" using {shift down, command down}
    delay 0.5
    keystroke theNotesChecklist
    delay 0.1
    key code 51 -- # Delete - Deletes the last 'return' typed.
end tell

The above script assumes the selected Reminders in Reminders have no information associated with them. In other words, other then the Name property no other associated properties have been set. If other properties have been set, add the if statement to the repeat loop as shown in the code below:

repeat with thisParagraph in paragraphs of text of theReminders
    try
        if thisParagraph starts with "[ ]" then
            set theNotesChecklist to theNotesChecklist & text 5 thru -1 of thisParagraph & return
            delay 0.1
        end if
    end try
end repeat

Note: With UI Scripting, the value of the delay commands may need to be changed on your system and or additional delay commands added as appropriate.


What does the port xz do in Macports? I'm new to macports. I want to install a certain port called gimp-gap, but first I have to install 'xz'. But what does this port actually do?

xz is a compression/decompression tool like zip, bzip2, gzip, and compress.


Installing an app to run from an external HD I need to install an Adobe Air application on an external hard drive (the app puts a lot of data in local storage "/Users/$User/Library/Preferences/", and all this data only fits on an external HD).

Is it possible to install an app (Air or otherwise, since other apps put data in the user's library) so that it will exclusively use storage on an external HD? If so, how should I proceed?

If the app doesn't let you configure where to store files, you can symlink the folder to your desired location.

Move the folder where the data is stored to the new location.
Run the following to symlink the folder:

ln -s /Volumes/externalname/folder ~/Library/path/to/folder

You can move the application by itself, but that won't change where the app stores data files.


Make Time Machine backups erasable An external drive has TM backups from two Macs running OS 10.6.8 which held thousands of files in common, one copy on each. Now I want to repurpose that drive, but keep a lot of the files from the TM backups for day-to-day use (30 K photos). How do I convert the protected backups into ordinary files I can delete, move, rename and so on? If there's a way to do this without using the console, I'll be in pig heaven. Thanks!

Simply use Finder to drag a copy of the folders you want to maintain out of the Backup.backupdb hierarchy and then delete the copies left in Time Machine or delete all backups.

How can I manually delete old backups to free space for Time Machine?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 - You can also enter the Time Machine restore interface and find files that can be removed from the backup drive itself to conserve space. To do this, select the file(s) and from the Action pop-up menu (gear icon) in the Time Machine Finder window choose "Delete All Backups of...". Be sure to only delete files you are sure you won't need or want to restore later.


How do I pair iOS Remote with iTunes? I'm using iOS 10 on an iPhone 6, with the latest Remote app (updated today). I want to use it to control iTunes on my MacBook Pro, running OS 10.11.6. Both devices are on the same wi-fi network and have Bluetooth enabled.

In the iOS Remote app, I click "Add a Device". It tells me to go to iTunes and click the Remote button in the top left of the window. But there's no such button! Where do I find it?

OK, I finally figured this out.

First I opened Remote and clicked "Add A Device".

Then in iTunes, I clicked the phone icon below the volume slider. This became a drop-down menu, and one of the items was a Remote icon. (This didn't work every time; I first had to disconnect and re-connect my phone to the wi-fi network.)

Finally, I was able to enter the code in iTunes, and it paired the devices.

I didn't need Home Sharing turned on.


How do you add more than one phone number on iMessage? My sisters and I all have iPhones under the same account. I also have an iPad under the same account. I am trying to get the iMessage on my iPad compatible with my phone number, not email address.

The only phone number choice to choose from is my sister's iPhone number. How can I choose my phone number for iMessage on my iPad?

The only way to get a phone number associated with iMessage is for that phone number to be provisioned to an iPhone and have SMS messages active from the carrier. At that point, you can sign in to iMessage with your Apple ID / iCloud account and it will verify the phone number is actually connected to that device and your AppleID will then inherit that phone number.

At that point, you can remove that phone number from that iPhone and use another Apple ID with iMessage. With dual sim / esim you might even get both numbers active on one iOS device.

So, unless you can borrow an iPhone long enough to get your carrier to provide 5 minutes of service to an iPhone - long enough to register, you will be stuck with an email address for iMessage.

By this process, you could have more than one phone number associated with one Apple ID. You cannot however get one phone number associated with more than one Apple ID as the last ID to get registered with iMessage removes that number from any other Apple ID that used to "claim" that number as deliverable.


Export an email from Outlook to PDF? Is there way to export a specific email from Mac Office 2011 in PDF (or some other portable document format)?

I don't want to export a whole archive, just a particular e-mail to attach to a ticket.  External services are not an acceptable solution.

You can use the "Save as PDF" option in the Print dialog (drop down is in lower left corner of the dialog window).


Is it possible to sync messages from Mac to iPhone? I accidentally deleted a conversation on my iPhone but the conversation is still there on my Mac. Is there anyway to sync the two so it reappears on my iPhone?

Not currently. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

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


Enabling OS X 10.9 support on 10.8 (Mountain Lion)? My MacBook Pro is running OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and I have been literally advised by an authorised vendor not to install 10.9 due to its bugs.

(I would appreciate not to be given the advise to upgrade to 10.9 or higher, that would be a major disruption for my system running bug-free for many years. That is not what I am asking and is not helpful in my case.)

However,
 I have noticed the following entries in the System Information under Software/Developer:

SDKs:
  OS X:
  10.8: (12F37)
  10.9: (13C64)

Does this mean, some of the 10.9 functionalities are available on my machine that aren't currently enabled?

Is it possible to enable these, so that some 10.9 software can be used that currently refuses to install based on my OSX?

As an example, I wonder if that could help me install a more recent C++?

Just because some of the SDK is there from 10.9 does not mean that you have enough of it to run 10.9 software.  So unfortunately you can either upgrade to 10.9 or sit it out on 10.8.


working with lf x0A in bash terminal I'm mystified why the variable $lf isn't printing out when using hexdump -C

This is a copy with comments added from a run in macOS 10.10.5 bash terminal.

mac $ lf=$(echo -ne  "\x0a")
# What happened to the lf?
mac $ echo -n ${lf} | hexdump -C
# The lf seems to be working or should it be two blank lines?
mac $ echo $lf

# one lf as expected.
mac $ echo "" | hexdump -C
00000000  0a                                                |.|
00000001
# only one lf as expected.
mac $ echo | hexdump -C
00000000  0a                                                |.|
00000001
# since echo return an lf, why not use this fact to create lf
mac $ lf=$(echo)
# Why no lf?
mac $ echo -n ${lf} | hexdump -C
mac $ echo $lf

# one lf where I'd expect to see two.
mac $ echo  ${lf} | hexdump -C
00000000  0a                                                |.|
00000001

# cr seems to be working as expected.

mac $ cr=$(echo -ne  "\x0D")
mac $ echo -n $cr | hexdump -C
00000000  0d                                                |.|
00000001

From man bash:

  Command Substitution

  [...]

  Bash performs the expansion by executing command and replacing the command substitution with the standard output of the command, with any trailing newlines deleted.