Mac Pro 4,1 (Early 2009) Sierra Compatibility? According to this list my tricked out mac pro won't run Sierra. Tricked out with 20gig of memory a big SSD and lots of HDD. Sad.

.

Historically how has Apple enforced this? And has there been a way to defeat it? Or is there an actual hardware reason as far as anyone knows?

Thanks!

Though the Mac Pro 4,1 won't run Sierra, the Mac Pro 5,1 will.

Apparently, the Sierra installer only looks for the 5,1 firmware, not the 2009 tag.

The thing about the 4,1 & 5,1 is they are so similar, it's possible to turn one into the other with a simple firmware update.

I have never personally done this, mine was bought already upgraded. The original hack is at http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,852.msg5004.html#msg5004 Which links to a user-made utility to allow this to be changed in both directions, 4,1 to 5,1 & back again. It apparently uses the official Apple Firmware updater as part of the process.
You can pre-empt the download by fetching the 5,1 firmware first, directly from Apple

There are 69 pages of comments... which, honestly,  I haven't read. Early theories were that this would allow the machine to use Westmere CPUs - which is now known to be true.

From page 68, this is apparently the process for El Capitan...

  Boot into recovery mode and disable SIP since I'm running El Capitan
  Reboot
  Mount the MacProEFIUpdate dmg (for 5.1)
  Run MacEFIRom's utility.
  Shutdown and power back up by holding the power button until light flashes and beep sounds
  Verify Boot ROM Version: MP51.007F.B03
  Boot into recovery mode and enable SIP
  Reboot
  Reset PRAM

Just to prove it does work, screenshots from my own machine, originally, I think, a Nehalem 4-core, now a Westmere dual 6-core

From Apple KB: About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers

And a comfirmation image from the netkas thread...


Create El Capitan install partition I went through a lot of articles on how to create bootable os x install partition but eventually I ended up with a need of making resize of my system partition - unfortunately DiskUtility shows this option greyed out. Any ideas why? I don't want to loose my existing system installation.

Properties say that it is a physical volume and it's not using CoreStorage.
This is the output of diskutil list command:

And it seems like I managed to resize this disk0s2 partition with:

diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 480GB

command. Still don't get why this option is absent in DiskUtility. It used to be there. And unfortunately this is not what I was looking for. After I resized this volume DiskUtility didn't allow me to create a new partition. Therefore I think the problem is in that I didn't partition drive properly from the very beginning. diskutil splitPartition doesn't work at all - it says that it cannot unmount disk. Any ideas other than to wipe HDD contents out and install from scratch? I don't want to install Snow Leopard first and update it to El Capitan.

Try to return everything back:

diskutil resizevolume disk0s2 R

and then:

diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 480G jhfsx InstallOSX 10G

  Resizing a volume that is currently set as the computer’s startup disk
  will invalidate that setting; use the Startup Disk System
  Preferences panel or bless (8) to reset the resized volume as the
  startup disk.


Where are Address Book group definitions stored and how can I delete them all? I know Address Book metadata is stored in Library/Application Support/AddressBook.

I wonder, however, what's up with Address Book "Groups".

They are peculiar items. For example, I quit LaunchBar (it prevents deletion if it's running), then I removed all items from AddressBook, emptied trash, then started Address Book and watched Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Metadata get repopulated with the .abcdg files that define Groups.

Clearly, Address Book was getting them from somewhere! I was not logged into iCloud. I have the sense Apple doesn't like Address Book 'groups', I wonder if this is very old code.

I'm trying to find a way to clean them all out because of an iCloud Debacle related to EOL termination leading to a cascading and comical failure chain (which established, in my mind, that iCloud is a regression from MobileMe, which is saying a lot - details here -- http://tech.kateva.org/2012/06/icloud-transition-went-as-expected.html).

One aspect of the failure chain is recursive Group creation (hundreds of replicated groups).

Any advice appreciated!

Update: one guess. I think they may be coming in from somewhere in a local cache of iCloud data that's not being fully cleaned out even after logging out from iCloud.

I think I can answer my own question, based on further experiments.

Once you sync an Address Book with iCloud, the data is, in a sense "gone" from the local drive. You can still see it all in the usual location, but it's a cached version of the iCloud data. (You can "move" contacts back to the local drive, but Groups are gone forever.)

On startup, even if you're not logged into iCloud, there's a process (a bug?) that recreates at least the Groups, probably from some local iCloud data store. (I do wonder if Apple has 'social' plans four our Groups.)

If you truly kill all iCloud accounts, including from both System Preferences AND from Address Book, and restart, it is possible to delete all from Address Book and not have files magically reappear.

There are many tedious details on this and other iCloud topics in a long personal multi-update blog post: http://tech.kateva.org/2012/06/icloud-transition-went-as-expected.html.

Suffice to say, these are coming from iCloud. If you never mess with iCloud (personally I'm going to wait for Mountain Lion!) you won't run into this bizarre behavior.


Guest login got enabled even though FileVault 2 is enabled and Guest login is disabled I rebooted my Mac yesterday after installing the Apple update TS4088. Even though I disabled Guest Logins in my Users Preferences and have enabled FileVault 2 since the start, I am able to see Guest Login which is showing the following notice

  The computer will restart to a secure, safari only system for the guest user

Is there a way to disable the Guest user ? The whole drive is supposed to be encrypted ideally, but looks like there is a bug ?

Related Questions/Articles:

File Vault 2 - Apple KB article

Can FileVault show the login window as 'name and password', not 'list of users'?

Unable to create Guest Account after enabling FileVault

How to create a pseudo-guest account in Lion with FileVault 2?

How to disable that “Guest User” from appearing at the OS X 10.7.2 login screen

Open System Preferences
Click on “Security & Privacy”
Click the lock in the lower corner and type in your administrative
password to unlock the control panel
Check the box next to “Disable restarting to Safari when screen is
locked”

This prevents the Guest User account from being visible at the login screen both during reboot and at the login screen. Again, it’s highly recommended to keep this enabled for security purposes, but if your Mac is locked down with a security cable or you don’t have any use for Find My Mac, you could disable this and not feel too bad about it.

If you haven’t tried it yet, clicking on the Guest User account gives you this message:

This computer will restart to a secure, Safari-only system for the Guest user.

The reboot process is quick and opens directly to Safari, there is no access to anything else. No Finder, no preferences, nothing.

Source: osxdaily


Mac app for automatically closing / opening certain apps according to profiles? I am looking for a app that allows me to set profiles consisting of apps to close or open on profile change.

Example. The following processes are currently open

Dropbox
Chrome
Foo
Bar

After activating "cafe profile"

Chrome
Bar
Terminal

Background: I work in cafes a lot. Most of the times, I forget to turn off dropbox, hangouts, and other background processes which drains battery. Upon realizing, I close everything from the process manager, but if I had a app which does that automatically, that would save me a lot of time.

I plan to write it myself but want to make sure it doesn't exist yet before doing doubled work.

If you are willing to pay some money for it there is the excellent Keyboard Maestro which can do a lot of things. There you can close and open Apps easily.

If you do not want to spend money I suggest you take some time to learn Apple Script. This is a free scripting language provided by Apple. Alternatively you can use shell scripts but I am not so sure if you can easily check which apps are running or not.


Understanding 'sort by name' behavior in Finder I don't understand the sort behavior I'm experiencing in Finder (MacOS Sierra). Is there anyway to get the 'sort by name' to sort alphabetically such that 0 < 9, a < z, and numbers < letters?

Apple OS X uses "natural" sort order in which a string of digits is considered as a unit.

The Apple documentation is in the Finder section of this page.

An old article on Finder sorting that may still be useful is here.

I think Terminal may sort the way you want.  There are also several 3rd party alternatives to the Finder which may offer that kind of sorting.


I need help "quitting mail" on my Apple computer After I tried to use links in some websites, my Apple computer will not send the emails to those links nor will it allow me to quit mail. Since I cannot quit mail, I cannot get updates because the mail program interrupts the updates.  What do I need to do?

Do you know about "Force Quit"? In any app, if you hold down the keys Command-Option-Escape, a window comes up with running apps where you can choose which one to Force Quit.

Post another question here if you need help with Mail.


Set Different Language I am trying to have everything in English, except day and month, which I want to change to my language.  I followed this post, but this command does not work.

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleLocale nl_NL

In the comments for the accepted answer in the post to which you linked, WEBjuju states it also requires "fiddling with the date in preferences" to it to truly "take." Have you tried that? Also, another response stated that, as of Sep 2016, Sierra could not do this change that was allowed in El Capitan. Which version do you have?


Bluetooth Not Available? Mac OS X 10.6.4, MacBook Pro, Apple Magic Trackpad.

The trackpad is unresponsive. Right-clicking on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar shows me gray text that says "Bluetooth not available".

I don't see a system preference item in which to fight with this, but I don't see anything relevant.

According to this article, resetting the System Management Controller might to the trick.

Here's how to Reset the SMC on Apple's support site.


Do Mac installs become progressively more 'crufty' by using Migration Assistant? I'm on my sixth Mac since purchasing my first in 2006. I've used Migration Assistant on every upgrade. In between upgrades, I've installed and removed lots of programs, changed lots settings, added and removed stuff all over the file structure while programming and on other spelunking excursions.  My Mac still runs fine, but I suspect it may be a little disheveled. What's the best practice with Migration Assistance in cases like this?

You may get a lot of opinions about this but I have been migrating from one Mac to another since the original Mac O/S public beta with nary a problem.

On occasion I will make a quick pass through the root and user level Application Support folders and remove anything associated with an app I know has been removed. Same with the Preferences folder (both User and Root).

Utilities that show you file sizes so you can find disk space wasters are handy here as are utilities like CleanMyMac or Onyx to get rid of cache and other temporary files.

But my days of poring through the file system for stray files ended when I had more disk space on my Macs that I could ever possibly use, so I don't sweat the small stuff. Much of it takes up very little space and I have better things to do than manually remove a thousand (or more) preference/settings/support files.

If you have a Mac with limited disk space that may not apply. In that case keeping on top of the disk space used with cache cleaners and utilities to spot the largest files/folders are your best friends.

When buying a Mac I go with the old engineer's rule of thumb, "buy as much RAM and disk space as you can afford."


What is this invisible character icon in Pages? I enabled 'show invisibles' on a docx that has been converted from pdf and this icon appears at several places:

I cannot get rid of it. What is this icon? What's its purpose?

According to Apple's official documentation, that symbol denotes a layout break.

These allow you to change the layout anywhere on the page (for example, a one-column title then a two-column title).

The reason you can't remove it is because it's part of the layout of the document. You could try applying a default style to the text that is part of the layout break (such as "body text").


cant get my number to change from email to my phone number I am need ing to know how I can use my cell phone number to send and recieve messages instead of my email address.

When I go to my settings to change it my number is in grey and my email address is in black and I am needing to know how I can fix that?

Even though the line is greyed out, the checkbox next to your phone number in Settings > Messages indicates it is being used for sending and receiving messages. The email address(es) listed indicate that iMessage also looks for iMessages sent to those address(es), and will deliver them as if they were sent to your phone number (so long as each one has a checkmark next to it as well).


macOS - Bash commands not working as needs to be First of all, the problems:

I'm not able to use both exported bash commands and default system bash commands at the same time
Some of the exported paths working on terminal but some of them not

Things I did:

I was adding exports to my .bash_profile but I got the problems, then I searched for solutions. Tried a couple of things. I'm not sure if I did something wrong or what.

Changed: Terminal -> Preferences -> Shells open with, then reverted to default
Deleted .bashrc and .bash_profile files then reverted them to the first state
Corrected the $PATH directory, did everything in this answer: https://superuser.com/a/498356

If I restart the terminal, default bash commands working but if I source the .bash_profile or .bashrc then some of the exports working some of not and the default bash command not working(e.g. open command not working).

How can I manage to get it to work simultaneously while all my additional bash commands working?

My .bash_profile:

export JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/default-java"
export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/user/Library/Android/sdk
export PATH=/Users/user/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools:$PATH
export PATH=/Users/user/Library/Android/sdk/tools:$PATH
export PATH=/Users/user/Library/Android/ndk-build:$PATH
export PATH=$PATH:~/Flutter/flutter/bin
export PATH="\$PATH:/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin"

Sorry, I'm searching for hours and there too many different kinds of questions, solutions, suggestions and it's hard to figure out what should I do exactly. Thanks in advance!

Remove the \ in front of $PATH in the last line and start a new shell


My macbook thinks .as files are zip files (and they won't open in XCode) I've got some old .as files from a project I was working on on a different mac a long time ago. I was trying to open one of them just to try and remember something. But for some reason my mac thinks they're zip files (even though I've used these same files on another mac before).

If I double click one of the .as files, Archive Utility opens, thinks for a second, then disappears and nothing happens. If I right click -> open with Text Edit, it opens and displays the correct file, but I don't want to use Text Edit. I want to view the file in XCode. When I right click -> open with XCode, it doesn't display the code in the file; it shows a little zip image with AS on it, and no text.

I just noticed it's showing the file type as "AppleSingle archive". The only thing I can think is that that could be abbreviated ".as" too. But why would it have worked on another computer (and presumably many other people's computers) and what can I do to fix it?

Xcode doesn't support ActionScript files out of the box, so it sees your file and thinks it's an AppleSingle file instead, as does the rest of your Mac, since that's how OS X usually understands files with the .as extension by default.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any information on getting Xcode to support ActionScript projects. There is this Stack Overflow question, but it (and the resources the answers point to) doesn't give you much to go on, and I can't really vouch for any of the answers either since I don't do AS development on my Mac.

TextEdit should open your script in plaintext mode with no issues, though. If you just want to give it a quick read, you might just have to go with TextEdit for now until you can acquire Flash or another IDE.

The reason why it used to work on your old Mac, presumably, is because you had Flash or a different IDE that designated .as files as ActionScript files, overriding the system default of AppleSingle file. Based on this, installing Flash should be enough to get your Mac to recognize .as files as ActionScript files.


iOS 4 and Landscape Orientation Lock for iPhone iOS 4 allows you to lock your iPhone in portrait mode by double clicking the Home button, swiping the dock left, and clicking on the lock icon.

However, it does not appear to allow you to lock the iPhone in landscape mode, which can be desirable for some applications.  Instead, the lock always seems to force portrait orientation.

How can I prevent my iPhone from rotating out of Landscape mode?

Orientation lock on iPhone with iOS 4 only does portrait lock at the moment. Hopefully they will have landscape lock on the next update.


How to run a root/admin shell in Terminal? How can I run a shell as Admin in Terminal if Im logged in as User with standard privileges? I know the passwords for user and admin account

One easy way is to su to the admin user than use sudo -s to become root shell.

su - shortname_for_admin
sudo -s

This also is covered well in the linked questions:

Run sudo From Non-Admin Account
How do I run terminal in sudo mode?


After sleep, Messages doesn't consult Keychain for passwords My MacBook will often sleep while I take a break, and when it wakes up, Messages doesn't consult Keychain for passwords. Instead, I'm prompted for all of my passwords again.

Why is this? Is there something I can do to fix this?

Try:

Disk Utility to verify volumes and repair permissions on the startup volume, then Keychain Access to verify or repair the keychains
run Messages
sleep then wake the computer
if the problem persists, remove relevant items from keychains then allow Messages to replace the items.


Unexpected question 'enter PIN for "Kryptonite iOS"' while doing git pull after updating to MacOS Catalina 10.15.4 Most of my Bitbucket git repos can't be pushed/fetched after upgrading to MacOS 10.15.4. All git origins are SSH (not HTTPS). I get this question in terminal when doing git pull and other commands:

  enter PIN for "Kryptonite iOS"

I have never ever had an iOS device in my life. I have never ever dealt with Kryptonite (but used Krypton).

What is going on and how to get back my git repos?

This is what I found so far.

When terminal is asking for "Kryptonite iOS" it is actually asking for Bitbucket 2FA one time password. I tested.

How I fixed:

Go to Bitbucket -> profile -> Atlassian Account.
Logout, log back in. (Yeah, this was necessary.)
Change password. (Old password didn't work for some reason.)
In git repo switch from SSH to HTTP origin. git remote set-url origin https://you@bitbucket.org/org/project.git (This will stop asking the above question, but will start asking for the new password.)

Hope this will help someone.


MacBook Pro Retina, questions about 2nd monitor for gaming I have a MacBook Pro Retina, and I'm gaming a lot with bootcamp windows 8. I'm considering buying a external monitor for better gaming (might be a BenQ, has to be 120Hz). My questions:

Does a 2nd monitor affect CPU performance?
If I buy a good monitor, is there only the latency from the monitor, or is there also other latency? (Some monitors have latency of 1ms, 5ms, which is quite good, and not a problem, but if there's more latency because it isn't my primary screen or something, I need to reconsider).

Thank you

EDIT:
And, I've also heard people say that it's useless to connect a 120Hz monitor to a MacBook because the videocard is only able to handle 60Hz. Any confirmation? (Hopefully not)

The GPU on your MacBook Pro will be driving two displays, which is a lot of pixels — gaming performance will definitely be affected by the addition of the second display. You'll probably have to drop the resolution of your games to get an adequate framerate.

As for the latency question, a wired second display won't have additional latency just because it's a second display.


Xcode 4.2 install for Snow Leopard fails with an OpenGLApps.pkg During an install of XCode 4.2 for Snow Leopard (this is on a brand new install of Mac OSX that has been updated to the latest OSX version), I'm getting the following error in the /var/log/install.log file.

Failed install preflight: Error Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=102
UserInfo=0x1003c46b0 "The package “OpenGLApps.pkg” is untrusted." Underlying
Error=(Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-2147409654 UserInfo=0x1003b1f10
"The operation couldn’t be completed. CSSMERR_TP_CERT_EXPIRED")

The installer indicates a generic error and suggests to try the install again or contact the vendor.

Based on the entry in install.log, I'm guessing that there may be a way to force the OpenGLApps package to ignore the cert check.

This install was downloaded today from apple's developer website under Other Downloads.

Dave, your post and subsequent answer were just what I needed, and very refreshing indeed.  I was getting the same error and log output, trying to install Xcode 3.2.6 with iOS 4.3 on OS 10.6.8 (the untrusted package in this case was iPhoneSDKTools.pkg).  I had tried a bunch of other things, to no avail.

When I followed your suggestion and checked for updates, it listed one for Safari (including some security-related fixes) plus another for the Application Installer (or something similar) - the description for that mentioned something about fixing problems installing certain apps on 10.6.8!  After doing those updates the Xcode install finally worked.  I'm pretty sure it was the Application Installer.  I didn't have to download a fresh Xcode installer, I just used the one I'd been trying to use all along.

Other posts I'd found recommended reinstalling Snow Leopard, which seemed a bit extreme and didn't answer why it was happening.  I think you've hit on the real issue and a nice straightforward easy solution.  Thanks.  I can now abandon my plans to leap into the Abyss.


Is there a way to upload a video from my iPhone to Google+? is there a way to upload video from iphone to Google+?

From iphone Google+ app we can upload photos but Video option is only available for Android yet

No, there's no way to do that yet. Using external apps won't help either since Google has not released a full API yet with those functions so far.


iPhone 4S Otterbox Defender: Exposed speaker? Advice? While I'm waiting for my iPhone 4S to come in, I'm agonizing over what kind of case to get. I've been quite well served by my Otterbox Defender for my old 3GS; the phone has bitten the dust once or twice but the phone doesn't have a single scratch to show for it.

I'm concerned, however, about the pictures of the case on Otterbox's website. It looks like the entire earpiece, perhaps along with the entire camera lens area, are exposed to the air. Someone asked about this on that page's Q&A section, and that's the only question so far that's been ignored.

I'm worried that dust and dirt are going to be able to get inside the case and stay trapped there, possibly damaging the device and hurting its later resale value more than if I just use a different, less protective case altogether. Of course, nothing hurts a device's resale value more than being dropped and broken.

So I ask you wonderful people: Do any of you have experience with this latest Otterbox Defender? Is  the speaker or the camera lens actually exposed to the air, or is there some protection there that I can't tell from the pictures? Are there any other considerations I should make before making my decision?

I own the Otterbox Defender Case for the iPhone 4S. The speaker for the earpiece, the speakers on the bottom and the camera lens (but not flash) are exposed to air. The Defender offers some protection because the thickness of the case creates a cavity roughly 3mm deep around the exposed speakers. These cavities DO collect dust.

When I opened my case to answer this question I found only a very slight amount of dust infiltration within a very close vicinity of the openings "exposed to air". I do not believe this dust will in any way damage the phone or mar the finnish (because the slight dust inside was more like "fuzz" than "grit") but I have only had my case for a few weeks. I have a screen protector on the front of my phone and on the back too, with the Defender case on top of that.

The biggest annoyance for me with this case is that dust collects in the "protective" cavity for the camera lens and is not easy to clean on-the-go (you need something like a q-tip or rolled piece of tissue) which makes my HD camera take blurry pictures.

I would recomend Otterbox include a silicone cover for the camera lens like they have included for the charge port, headphone port and silent button -OR- re-design the shape of the cavity to collect less dust or allow the user to wipe the lens with a finger or cloth to clear dust.


Play count and ratings in iTunes transferred to Music in 10.15? Will the play count and ratings move from iTunes to Music in the update to 10.15?

I have gotten confirmation that yes ratings and play counts both transfer to OS 10.15. I was asked for the source of my information: I checked with Joe Kissell the publisher of the Mac Take Control books and he check and confirmed with Kirk McElhearn the author of Take Control of Mac OS Media Apps. Both said in emails that both the play count and rating stars were preserved when up grading to OS 10.15


Resizing A Macbook Pro Partition I am trying to dual boot with linux on my 2012 MacBook Pro running MacOs High Sierra. Whenever I try to add a partition for my linux system, It says this: "A problem occurred; undoing Logical Volume resize changes.Unable to perform your specific resize request while busy encrypting.Operation failed…"
Does anybody know what is happening?

Unable to perform your specific resize request while busy encrypting

this part indicates me your drive is currently mounted and some write operations are being encrypted to disk.
while encryption of data (write operations) is happening, you cannot resize.
I believe you have three options

If you have an extra drive with a TimeMachine backup, you can delete the volume, make a new partition and restore backup
See this other answer for a hint.
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/349215/415753
Umount your drive and do offline resize, you probably need to reboot into diagnostic mode.
Disable disk encryption before doing the resize, which is likely going to need to be happening offline anyway.

Note that Offline means not-mounted also known as "while not using it".
If that's your root filesystem, then you need to boot into diagnostic mode, or with a rescue Live disk.
I believe 1) is the safest.
You should do a backup before whichever options you choose


Name of a part inside 2012 MBP 15", below RAM slots, little pins to keep bottom cover from hitting electronics I am trying to figure out the name of a tiny black doohicky part inside my 2012 15" Macbook Pro (unibody, non-retina). It's right below the RAM slots, between the RAM and the battery when you open up the laptop. I have circled the part in this picture from the iFixit teardown of said laptop.

There are two springy pins coming out of the part. I think it is intended to keep the bottom cover from hitting the electronics when it is closed. In my laptop one of the pins is not springy anymore, so I want to try and replace it. I have no idea what the part would be called or what search term I would use though. I was hoping someone might have an idea.

I would call it (bar)-spacer and the part number seems to be 6813-1946 (or 6818-1946). Usually apple part numbers have the form 000-0000.

I searched for the part at powerbookmedic but it's not available there.


How to determine the absolute path to a file in a shell script I am writing a generic script that can get passed both absolute and relative (to the current working dir) paths to existing files.

I need a fail-safe way to turn all those passed paths into absolute paths because I need to pass the paths to the "open" command, which in won't pass the current directory to the launched app.

One idea I had is to check if the path starts with a "/", and if not, then I'd prepend the current working dir's path to it.

However, I wonder if there's a smarter solution to this. Also, as I'm quite inexperienced with shell scripting and related tools, I don't even know how to test for a variable's value to start with "/". I'm looking for a portable solution to run on multiple Mac, so installing extra tools or configuration would be less than ideal.

Can someone suggest a standard script using only shipping tools that takes a variable (let's call it $path) and turns it into a absolute path if it's not already absolute?

One option would be to install coreutils and use greadlink -f. It resolves symlinks and it works with /Foo/ or ~/foo.txt if they don't exist, but not with /Foo/foo.txt if /Foo/ doesn't exist.

$ brew install coreutils
$ greadlink -f /etc
/private/etc
$ greadlink -f ~/Documents/
/Users/lauri/Documents
$ greadlink -f ..
/Users
$ greadlink -f //etc/..////
/private
$ greadlink -f /Foo
/Foo
$ greadlink -f /Foo/foo.txt
$

This doesn't resolve symlinks, and it doesn't work with /Foo/foo.txt either.

abspath() {
  if [ -d "$1" ]; then
    ( cd "$1"; dirs -l +0 )
  else
    ( cd "$(dirname "$1")"; d=$(dirs -l +0); echo "${d%/}/${1##*/}" )
  fi
}

abspath /etc # /etc
abspath /Foo/foo.txt # doesn't work
abspath /Foo # works
abspath .
abspath ./
abspath ../
abspath ..
abspath /
abspath ~
abspath ~/
abspath ~/Documents
abspath /\"\ \'
abspath /etc/../etc/
abspath /private//etc/
abspath /private//
abspath //private # //private
abspath ./aa.txt
abspath aa.tar.gz
abspath .aa.txt
abspath /.DS_Store

dirs -l performs tilde expansion. dirs +0 prints only the top directory if there are other directories in the stack. You could also replace the subshells with something like old="$PWD" ... cd "$old".

Ruby's expand_path works with all paths that don't exist, but it doesn't resolve symlinks.

$ ruby -e 'print File.expand_path ARGV[0]' ~/aa/bb
/Users/lauri/aa/bb$


Changing AppleScript-created date-based folder structure I have an AppleScript that has been written and it works as such, but I need to change the way it creates the folder structure. The script does the following:

Folder is selected which contains files (in my case it will be photos).
It will then look at the pictures created date.
Create a YYYY (Year folder if not already created).
Create a MM (Month folder if not already created).
Create a DD (Day folder if not already created).
It will then move the photo into this folder and repeat for the next photo and repeat until completed.

The current folder structure is created as follows:

2018 "YYYY"
├── 2018-01 "MM"
├── 2018-02

This is great and works as designed, but I have changed my mind on how I would like the folders to look like. I would like the following structure (which is almost the same just a different naming structure:

2018
├── 001 January
│   ├── 20180101
│   └── 20180102
├── 002 February
│   ├── 20180201
│   └── 20180202
└── 003 March
    ├── 20180301
    └── 20180302

Now I have tried to work out where the script generates this but I have failed, so now I am turning to this great place for some help.

on run
    SortFiles(POSIX path of (choose folder))
end run

on open (DroppedFolder)
    set DroppedFolder to POSIX path of DroppedFolder
    if text (length of text of DroppedFolder) of DroppedFolder is not "/" then quit
    SortFiles(DroppedFolder)
end open

on SortFiles(SortFolder)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to return
    set SortFolderContents to the text items of (do shell script "find '" & SortFolder & "' -type f")
    set FolderMakeList to {}
    repeat with ThisItem in SortFolderContents
        set ThisFile to ThisItem as string
        if ThisFile does not contain "/." then
            tell application "Finder"
                set DateString to text 1 thru 7 of ((creation date of ((POSIX file ThisFile) as alias)) as «class isot» as string)
                set ThisFilesFolder to SortFolder & text 1 thru 4 of DateString & "/"
                set ThisFilesSubfolder to ThisFilesFolder & text 1 thru 7 of DateString & "/"
            end tell
            if ThisFilesFolder is not in FolderMakeList then
                try
                    do shell script ("mkdir '" & ThisFilesFolder & "'")
                end try
                set FolderMakeList to FolderMakeList & ThisFilesFolder
            end if
            if ThisFilesSubfolder is not in FolderMakeList then
                try
                    do shell script ("mkdir '" & ThisFilesSubfolder & "'")
                end try
                set FolderMakeList to FolderMakeList & ThisFilesSubfolder
            end if
            try
                do shell script ("mv '" & ThisFile & "' '" & ThisFilesSubfolder & "'")
            end try
        end if
    end repeat
    return FolderMakeList
end SortFiles

The part of your script that names the folders is this line:

set ThisFilesFolder to SortFolder & (do shell script ("date -r " & ThisFilesEpoch & " \"+%b-%Y\"")) & "/"

However, in my brief test of your script, it doesn't appear to create the folder structure you described at all, which isn't a surprise to me given that the shell command used to generate the date string from which the folder is named is this:

date -r %time% "+%b-%Y"

where %time% is inserted by way of the variable ThisFilesEpoch and represents the number of seconds since the Epoch (January 1, 1970) that the file (or, rather, its inode) was created.  This shell function, date, takes this value (a large integer), which it understands as being a value in "Unix time", and re-formats it using a canonical representation as given by the tokens %b (representing a three-letter abbreviation for the month) and %Y (representing a four-digit number for the year).

So, for instance:

date -r 1534615274 "+%b-%Y"

returns:

Aug-2018

into which the files from August 2018 I had in my chosen folder were moved.  It did not create separate day-of-the-month folders, nor even separate year folders; only "month-year" folders.  So I am confused that you appear to have described what might be a different script entirely.

The script also has a number of qualities about it that irk me a great deal, such as:

Its lazy usage of try...end try;
The insertion of literal single quotes surrounding a variable being used as part of a string, e.g.

do shell script "find '" & SortFolder & "' -type f"

instead of

do shell script "find " & quoted form of SortFolder & " -type f"

This bizarre formulation:

if text (length of text of DroppedFolder) of DroppedFolder is not "/" then...

which could be written as

if text -1 of DroppedFolder is not "/" then...

or as

if the last character of DroppedFolder is not "/" then...

or even

if DroppedFolder does not end with "/" then...

And repeated use of do shell script, which is fine as a command tool to be invoked thoughtfully when needed, but when it populates the script as densely as it does this one, one wonders why the script wasn't just written as a shell/bash script to begin with.  It's also very costly in terms of overhead to create and destroy shell processes one after another like this script does.

Given these stylistic and functional drawbacks, plus the confusion over what the script is supposed to be doing currently versus what it actually appears to do, I felt it warranted a re-write:

use Finder : application "Finder"
property rootdir : missing value

# The default run handler when run within Script Editor
on run
    using terms from scripting additions
        set root to choose folder
    end using terms from
    set rootdir to Finder's folder root                         -- '
    sortFiles()
end run

# Processes items dropped onto the applet.  The handler expects one or more
# file references in the form of an alias list, and will process each item in
# the list in turn.  If an item is not a folder reference, it is ignored.
# For the rest, the contents of each folder is reorganised.
on open droppedItems as list
    repeat with drop in droppedItems
        set rootdir to Finder's item drop
        if rootdir's class = folder then sortFiles()
    end repeat
end open

# Obtains every file in the root directory and all subfolders, moving them
# to new folders nested within the root directory and organised by year, month,
# and date of each file's creation
to sortFiles()
    repeat with f in the list of fileitems()
        set [yyyy, m, dd] to [year, month, day] of (get ¬
            the creation date of Finder's file f)               -- '

        set mmm to text -3 thru -1 of ("00" & (m * 1)) -- e.g. "008"
        set mm to text -2 thru -1 of mmm -- e.g. "08"
        set dd to text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & dd) -- e.g. "01"

        (my newFolderNamed:yyyy inFolder:rootdir)
        (my newFolderNamed:[mmm, space, m] inFolder:result)

        move Finder's file f to my newFolderNamed:[yyyy, mm, dd] ¬
            inFolder:result                                     -- '
    end repeat
end sortFiles

# A handler to house a script object that enumerates the contents of a
# directory to its full depth
on fileitems()
    script
        property list : every document file in the ¬
            entire contents of the rootdir ¬
            as alias list
    end script
end fileitems

# Creates a new folder with the supplied name in the specified directory,
# checking first to see whether a folder with that name already exists.
# In either case, a Finder reference to the folder is returned.
to newFolderNamed:(dirname as text) inFolder:dir
    local dirname, dir

    tell (a reference to folder dirname in the dir) ¬
        to if it exists then return it

    make new folder at the dir with properties {name:dirname}
end newFolderNamed:inFolder:

I would urge you to test this script initially on a test directory containing sample files.  In fact, the worst case scenario is the same as with your current script, which is the situation where you choose the wrong directory by mistake.  Assuming the correct directory is selected, then the worst case scenario is that files don't get moved, so it's generally a very safe script.

I re-wrote the open handler too, to (hopefully) allow it to cater for multiple items being dropped onto the applet.  This means you could, for example, drop two folders onto it and have both folders' contents re-structured.  However, I haven't tested this.  Again, the worst case scenario here is that it doesn't do anything, which will be the case if I am wrong about what type of file reference gets passed to the open handler (I assume it will be alias objects).


How do you clone a drive encrypted with Filevault2? Say I have drive A that is already encrypted with Filevault2.  I want to make an exact clone of the drive to a different drive B.  Every way I've tried so far decrypts drive A first, then clones, resulting in drive B being decrypted when the clone completes.  Is there a better way to clone drive A bit for bit?  I'm thinking of using dd but was wondering if there was a more Apple friendly way.

The best way I've been able to figure out how to do this so far:

Boot to a Lion install USB drive.
Open Disk Utility & unlock the encrypted drive
Format the new drive
Restore the encrypted volume on your new drive.  It will be unencrypted.
Close disk utility & open Terminal.
In Terminal, type "diskutil cs convert /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/".
Boot up to the new drive, open System Preferences, & re-enable encryption.  All previous settings should still be there.

I have not fully tested this method, but in theory it should work.  It's too many steps for my liking though.  I'd prefer one clone & be done with it, somehow.

You could use the recovery option of Disk Utility:

This of course requires source and target disk to be identical, but the same restriction applies to dd and similar tools.

Usual warnings concerning picking the right disk as source etc. apply!


When I go to my calendar it isn't working When I go to my monthly calendar I can no longer go to a date?! I have to manually scroll through. Any ideas on why or how to fix?

Try a double click on the date. It seems to be a bug.


I copied MP3 file to Iphone but Music app does not see it I am not everyday user of iphone. So I connected iphone 4 with ios 7 to my Ubuntu 14.04 machine, Nautilus opened and I copied mp3 files so Downloads folder.

Then I disconnected the phone and opened Music app, but it was empty.

Where should I copy mp3 files so Music can see them?

Can Music app see WAV files as well?

Unfortunately, you can only use iTunes to transfer media into the iOS Music app.

In your case you can either run iTunes in a Windows VM or use another app to play music with (VLC comes to mind, there might be others).


iOS9: configure spotlight news suggestions When I swipe left from the first page of my home screen, iOS 9 brings me to the spotlight screen.

There I can see Siri suggestions and news.
Is there a way to configure which news are showed in this page?

Note: I do not have the news app, I suppose because it is not yet available in all the countries.

Edit: As of iOS 10 you can remove the news widget.

It is not possible in iOS 9. See this question for more information about turning all/news suggestions off. Removing news headlines from Spotlight Search in iOS 9


How to create an executable file for an AppleScript? I want to create an executable file that when run will send a popup. I have the code for the popup

osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to display dialog "message"'

but don't know how to create an executable file.

Write your AppleScript in Script Editor.

Choose File → Save and select Application as File Format.

This gives you an .app which will run your AppleScript when opened.


Is the 3.5 mm headphone jack of a Macbook Pro Retina also a line in port? The question is in the title of the post. :)

The Apple website says:

3.5 mm headphone jack

Support for Apple iPhone headset with remote and microphone
Support for audio line out (digital/analog)

Does this mean that the port is also a line in for the microphone?

Yes, you can use the port as a line in. As detailed in Apple's support article,

Plug the input audio device into the combination audio port using
the proper adapter cable.
From the Apple () menu, choose System
Preferences.
Choose Sound from the View menu.
Click the Input tab.
Change the "Use audio for:" menu selection from Sound Output to the
Sound Input.
The device type should change from "Internal
Microphone/Built-in Input" to "Line In/Built-in Input."


mycingular.net did not encrypt this message, message sent as email I am receiving normal messages that should be arriving as txt instead on my personal email(gmail) messages from another Iphone User. They should be arriving as messages. He told me he sends the messages exactly the same way as if any txt to anybody else.

His phone is set as a backup for recovery of my gmail email. (only added this info in-case it is pertinent). I also own a iphone 5 with software ios at 7.0.4

For some reason eveytime he sends me a message from his iphone 6 it sends it like this. But if i initiate the message he then talks with me as if just any other txt(sms) to txt(sms) conversation.

Is there something i can suggest for him to do to change on his phone so this doesn't happen anymore?

Here is what link appeared when i click on the encryption message in the picture: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6330403?visit_id=1-636304498701265550-1987472819&p=tls&hl=en&rd=1

Edit: 5/16/17
UPDATE

Talked with my friend, we ran a few test scenario's everytime we tries to send me a direct txt to my phone line it still sends to my email. Does he have to delete my contact and re-enter it? This is really strange.

I've had this happen a few times, and it's always been a problem with the carrier (not the phones or Apple's services). His carrier (Cingular) is sending the text message as if it were an email; this clear from the address @mms.att.net.

Thus, I suspect it has nothing to do with data in contacts apps on the phones. Similarly, the encryption warning is irrelevant.

Whenever I've experienced this before, it has fixed itself. That is, suddenly texts begin working properly.

Your friends should make sure he has run the latest updates on his iPhone. If that doesn't fix it, resetting network settings might force some carrier updates. (See Settings > General > Reset.)


Removing account from iCal to which I have lost access I have been syncing my iCal with a company email to which I have lost access.  I want to remove the company calendars from my iCal, but when I try opening iCal it continues to pop up the following exception:

Access to account “[Company Account]” is not permitted.

The server responded:
“403”
to operation CalDAVAccountRefreshQueueableOperation.

Thoughts?

I tried Kvass's solution, it wasn't easy to click the "accounts" in the split second after closing the error window, but I did it.

I then disabled each of my ical accounts and the error window went away.

Then I went back through activating each account one by one until the error message appeared again, narrowing down which account was the culprit.

I then disabled that account permanently and re-added the calendar events from that account to my good one. So far it's been 20 mins and it's working.

Not the most time efficient or technical solution, but I finally have relief!


Unable to complete setup of used Ipad I recently bought a used ipad air 2 from ebay. But when i tried to do the initial setup i an taken to a configuration page that is essentially a mobile device management setup which essentially says the ipad is remotely configured by someone else. Then when i try to proceed with the configuration its asks for a username and password. which has not been given to me. do u guys know how i can remove this?

I am perfectly fine with jailbreaking the etc.

This is the DEP enrollment screen. Contact the business that manages that device to either return it to them or have them release the device from management. Only they can release that hardware by Apple policy.

If you don't want to hassle with a potentially stolen iPad, contact eBay to see about a refund or how they handle sales of goods materially different than advertised. (on the assumption you didn't bid on a locked iPad)


Get System Profiler Information without a macOS Installation I have a bunch of factory reset MacBooks. I want to know the CPU, memory and storage configuration for each of these machines. What is the fastest way to get this information without to go through the initial setup and resetting the machines again?

I have a USB installer of macOS 10.13 and a macOS installation on an external hard drive, which needs unusually long to load on each machine.

What are my options?

Using bootable Ubuntu You can check the Computer Feature fastest.

Make USB drive bootable with Ubuntu
Connect that USB drive to Computer and Boot from it
then go to about computer in dropdown menu at top right corner.
here you will get all details of computer such as HardDisc Size, CPU, GPU, RAM,   etc

Using this method you don't have to go through time consuming installation processes.


How to pipe output of 'say' to another command 'say' has both -o and -n arguments for various ways to direct the output, but I don't see any way to simply pipe the output to another command (say, sox).  Is this a limitation of say, or is there a basic Unix shell feature that will do this?

It seems impossible. It should have been possible to use -o /dev/stdout for this, but say insists on adding a file suffix, which rather ruins that option. I tried getting around that by creating a symlink to /dev/stdout, but it gives a permission error. (Perhaps this comes from say opening the output file for both reading and writing (option O_RDWR) instead of just writing.)


launchd: ask user before performing tasks Is there a way to get a user-defined launchd task (i.e. like the one in this question) to get user confirmation before executing the task? A popup like the one for scheduled sleep (with yes/no and a timer in case of no user input) would be great, otherwise a simple yes/no popup would work.

Make launchd call this AppleScript. It displays a dialog with a timeout and calls a shell script if the user selected "Ok".

set timeoutInSeconds to 60
set abortOnTimeout to true

tell application (path to frontmost application as text)
    try
        set dialogResult to display dialog "Do you want to execute?" default button 2 giving up after timeoutInSeconds
        on error number -128
            return
    end try
end tell

if gave up of dialogResult and abortOnTimeout then
    return
end if

do shell script "/path/to/yourscript.sh"


How do I move GarageBand to a new Mac? I have a copy of GarageBand 4 (I think it's branded as "iLife 08" in the retail box) on an old Mac.  I bought a new Mac, and want to transfer the app to it.  (By my reading of the license, this is perfectly legal, as long as I don't continue to use it on the old computer.)

I copied GarageBand.app over, and then it complained about missing "Application Support" and "Apple Loops Index".  I've started copying these files, but my network isn't the fastest (the set of Loops is pretty big).

Is there an easier way to go about this?  Am I missing something here?

I don't think the older Mac came with physical media for iLife -- only OS X.  I see some .pkg bundles in /Library/Recepits/ with "GarageBand" in the name -- is there an automatic way to copy or repackage these?

If iLife came pre-installed on your computer back in 2008, your computer came with one or two install discs. If there were two, iLife installers exist on the second disc.

You didn't specify what kind of computer your old or new computers are, but if they both have FireWire ports, you could use Target Disk Mode and a FireWire cable to transfer files faster than via your slow network.

A third method to transfer GarageBand (and other applications) from your old computer to your new would be to use the Migration Assistant application. You can't select individual applications to copy, but you can fairly seamlessly transfer applications from one computer to another, then delete what you don't want.

Without knowing any specifics about hardware or OS version, it's difficult to give you better advice, but your three best bets to more seamlessly copy the application are 1) the install disc, 2) copy the files using Target Disk Mode, or 3) use Migration Assistant.


From which version does Safari not support 32 bit architecture? I have a problem with Safari on different macOS versions. Is there any information from which version Safari doesn't support 32 bit architecture? Like Firefox (from v.56) and Chrome (from v.74) on macOS.

According to Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser)#64-bit_builds - Safari has been 64-bit since Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 in 2009, which would be Safari 5, [around the same time they stopped supporting Windows.]
All Macs since then have been 64-bit capable, but until Catalina have been backwards compatible with 32-bit applications.
The last OS X to be capable of running on 32-bit architecture was also Snow Leopard, 10.6
The App Store will only offer you builds of Safari compatible with your Mac's hardware & OS
Safari 11 - 10.11 to 10.12
Safari 12 - 10.12 to 10.13
Safari 13 - 10.13 to 10.15
Safari 14 - macOS 11 [backwards compatibility currently unknown]


How to control fan speed in macOS Sierra? After replacing the hard drive in my 2009 iMac 27", I noticed that the hard drive fan spins at maximum speed since the sensor cable is not plugged in. (The new SSD drive doesn't support it)

To solve this issue, I installed a software called "Macs Fan Control" that can read out the temperature from the SMART status of the drive and control the fan speed itself.

This was a near-perfect solution until I upgrade my system to macOS Sierra. Now both "Macs Fan Control" and also "smcFanControl" can't control the fans anymore and the latter reports that I am running it on an unsupported system.

Now my question is, can I somehow control the fan speed manually using Terminal etc. or do I have to "trick" the sensor hardware-wise?

I am a firm believer in avoiding software "hacks" to fix hardware issues.  To fix this problem, you need the sensor.  Unfortunately, as you have found out, your SSD doesn't support this connection.

However, OWC makes an digital inline temperature sensor.  Basically, it goes between the SATA power cable and the SATA power connector of your HDD/SSD.  The temp sensor goes on your drive.

The best part about this is that it's a "once-and-done" solution meaning future OS upgrades won't be susceptible to software incompatibility problems like you are experiencing now.

C|Net did an article on this exact problem and a review of this solution.


How to restore bash history function in macOS Sierra I installed Sierra OS on my iMac without any troubles. But, when I open Terminal, I can't scroll through the bash history when pressing the up arrow.

Have a look at /etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal. The file contains comments that explain how to disable bash_sessions:

# The save/restore mechanism is disabled if the following file exists:
#
# ~/.bash_sessions_disable

or just disable their shell history mechanism

# You may disable this behavior and share a single history by setting
# SHELL_SESSION_HISTORY to 0. There are some common user customizations
# that arrange to share new commands among running shells by
# manipulating the history at each prompt, and they typically include
# 'shopt -s histappend'; therefore, if the histappend shell option is
# enabled, per-session history is disabled by default. You may
# explicitly enable it by setting SHELL_SESSION_HISTORY to 1.


Adobe photoshop cs6 not upgrading raw plugins in my macbook i tried to install raw camera plugin in my adobe photoshop cs6, but still not getting installed.

It will depend what version of CameraRAW you are trying to install.

CS6 is no longer supported & the last version it is capable of handling is CameraRAW 9.1.1

Source: Adobe Help - Camera Raw-compatible Adobe applications

For a workaround using DNG Converter, see Update to camera support policy in CS6


Mismapped keyboard keys? How to correct them by software means Now I had a problem with my keyboard.

When I press shift and number keys,
the output is different than expected.

When I press Shift plus 2, it gives me "

when I press Shift plus ;, it gives me +.

when I press [, it gives me @.

All the symbols are strangely mapped. I thought something was wrong in the keyboard routing or processor. I checked system preference -> keyboard:

Here is what I see;

So strange! Apple recognizes the wrong mapping but continues it! I want it back to normal mapping.. Is there any way to do it or actually create a software mapping so that SHIFT PLUS 2 is @ ?

Thanks
Indeed this layout belongs to a Japanese Layout, obtained from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2841:  Now the question is how to remap it back to a US layout..

Your mac for some reason thinks you are using a Japanese JIS hardware keyboard instead of the US ANSI or European ISO. Notice the Yen key at top right. What kind of keyboard do you actually have?  This note may help:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2009/12/fixing-keyboard-type-problems.html


How to connect regular iPad (6th Gen) to external monitor? Is it possible to connect an external monitor to a regular iPad 6th Gen?
The goal is to use it to watch Netflix, etc.
I found some Lightning to HDMI cables, but my monitor only has DisplayPort input. Are there any Lightning to DisplayPort cables?
What resolution monitor can the iPad use?

This is an excellent question as converting in this direction (Lighting/HDMI to DisplayPort) very rarely comes up.  Offhand, I don't know of any Lightning to DisplayPort adapters and I don't suspect that you'll see any as the market for that type of adapter is very small.
So, to do this, you will need the following:

The Apple Lightning to Digital AV Adapter (HDMI output)
An active (powered) HDMI to DisplayPort Converter
A USB power source.  Either on the monitor or via a USB power adapter plugged into the wall.  A regular phone charger (12W) adapter is more than sufficient.
The HDMI and DisplayPort cables to make the connections

Why is this so convoluted?  Unfortunately, going from HDMI to DisplayPort isn't very easy.  There are HDMI monitors and televisions everywhere, so manufacturers build for that.  DisplayPort monitors are designed for use with higher end computers (like Macs) and not for "consumer grade" displays.

Display converters are one way, meaning the descriptor tells you which direction the conversion goes (i.e. "DisplayPort to HDMI" or "HDMI to VGA").
DisplayPort is most prevalent on high end computers (like Mac) whereas HDMI is ubiquitous.
It's easier to convert DisplayPort to HDMI.  As such, you can get both active and passive adapters.  Going from HDMI to DP,however is not as easy so an active adapter is required.
Because it's active, power is required, thus the USB-A connector on these adapters.  If the monitor has downstream USB ports, it will be able to supply the necessary power.  If not, a simple USB phone charger that plugs into the wall will do
DisplayPort has power on it's bus, so it can "self power" an active adapter.  HDMI doesn't, this is why it needs additional power.

An alternate solution would be to connect a Mac to that monitor and Airplay your video to it.


How can I figure out why Applications will NOT add to Dock? I'm using the instructions from this question: How do I add my Applications folder to the dock?

In Finder, right-click on Applications on the Sidebar and select: Add to Dock

to add Applications to my Dock, however, nothing happens when I click "Add to Dock".  I've also tried dragging Applications from finder onto the Dock next to Trash, but nothing happens.  How can I find out what's wrong?
I'm on Catalina, 10.15.6 19G73

When you "right-click on Applications on the Sidebar and select: Add to Dock", nothing obvious happens if you have the Dock hidden, which is the default behavior. If your Dock looks anything like mine, after you add the Applications folder to the Dock, you might not even notice it.
When I right-click on Applications on the Sidebar and select: Add to Dock on Catalina 10.15.6, and then mouse down to the bottom of the screen to reveal the Dock, the Dock now has what looks like a new Application Icon next to the Trash Basket. It does not look like a folder at all. Instead, it is a stack of icons, with the top-most being the first (alphabetically) application in the Applications folder, so at first glance it looks like just another Application on the Dock.
When I hover over it, a label "Applications" pops up over it and when I click on it, it expands into a grid of icons representing all the Applications in the Applications folder. So that is the Applications folder in the Dock.
If I then drag the Applications folder from the Finder to the Dock, it disappears when I release the mouse, because the Applications folder is already in the Dock and you cannot have it duplicated in the Dock.


How to load images from PC to iOS 8 iPhone camera roll? I have 100 pictures on my PC that I want to load into my Camera Roll. The PC is running Vista so I can't install iCloud onto it.

On iCloud.com, I only see Notes, Contacts, etc, but not Photos.

Please help. Thanks.

I recommend trying Dropbox or Cubby. I know Dropbox allows roughly 3GB (I think) for free and depending on the size of your photographs that may be enough.

All you do is login online and upload the photos to Dropbox (note that Cubby is comparable in nearly all aspects) and then install the app on your phone. You can then save the images to your camera roll.

Note that if you use Backblaze (if you don't now perhaps you should anyway), you can simply download the images from your app on your phone.


Which were the first 500 apps on the App Store when it launched in 2008? The subject says it all. Is there somewhere a list of the first set of apps on the iPhone App Store when it went live in July 2008?

This PinchMedia RSS feed in Wayback Machine is the best I could get so far:

Top 100 Paid Apps as of July 21, 2008

Still hoping I can get a full list. According to TechCrunch, there were 552 apps at the beginning, 417 paid, 135 free. If there would be a way to get top lists for all the categories, it should be possible to assemble the full list.


How do I increase the heap size for Netbeans and any app run via Netbeans? I'm trying to run a well-coded algorithm that tries to solve an NP-Hard problem via NetBeans but I'm running out of heap space.

Is the heap space I'm running out of specific to Netbeans? If so: how do I increase the heap space available to Netbeans?

Or is it specific to the app, as launched from Netbeans? If so: how do I tell Netbeans to launch it with more heap space?

As Ian C. says, the heap size is Application specific, therefore, here's how you increase it for Netbeans:

Right click on the NetBeans.app and select Show content of package.
Inside the package go to /Contents/Resources/NetBeans/etc/ and open the netbeans.conf file.
In the netbeans_default_options setting, change or add the following options: -J-Xmx... (e.g. -J-Xmx1600M) or -J-XX:MaxPermSize=... (e.g. -J-XX:MaxPermSize=500M).
Save the file and restart the IDE.

If you want to increase the Project's heap size you must go to your project's Properties / Run / VM Options, and in the text box add the arguments.


Durability of HDMI versus Mini DisplayPort socket I want to connect second display to my 13 inch MacBook pro, which will be connected and disconnected 2 times a day on average.

Is it better to use HDMI or Mini DisplayPort as far as durability of the socket is concerned?

I've got a non-pro Aluminium unibody Macbook (2008), the first one with mini display port. It's 6.5 years old, and I've been using external display for 4 years. I unplug it once a week only, and its failing for more than a year, maybe 2 years: it is getting loosy day after day, showing artifacts or non working. You need to move the cable to get it working again. And the adaptor is official...
Maybe now they make it stronger...


Change spotlight's calculator to degrees? I use spotlight to perform calculations constantly, but at the moment the type of project I'm working on measures all angles in degrees.

Is there a way I can make spotlight's trigonometric functions default to degrees instead of radians?

Simply add a d to the trigonometric function and it should work.

Example: sin(x) > sind(x). sin(1)=0.8414... sind(1)=0.0174...


High Sierra, how to set screensaver as desktop background? Before I updated my OS I was able to set my current screen saver as my desktop background using this command found in this answer

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

I'm not able to run it anymore as /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/ doesn't exists anymore.

Anybody knows a workaround ?

The path and functionality have seemed to change. Heres a link and quoted tutorial to do it. Unfortunately, it appears its much more of a hassle in High Sierra+.

From here:

  If you are using High Sierra (or later), the ScreenSaverEngine.app has
  been moved to a different location. Use the code below instead of the
  one above.

/System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background &

  The problem with running just that line of code is that if you close
  the Terminal window — or if your Mac goes to sleep — the screen saver
  closes and your wallpaper goes back to whatever it was by default. To
  handle this, we need to go a bit deeper.

  To detect when the Mac sleeps and wakes up, we need a small piece of
  software called “Sleepwatcher.” You can download it here. Just open
  the file and your Mac will extract the downloaded file (sometimes it
  might have to be extracted twice). After extracting, you’ll get a
  “sleepwatcher_2.2” folder. Just move this folder to Desktop and run
  the following lines of code in the Terminal.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/share/man/man8

  You might need to enter your password after pasting this line. Next,
  run:

sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher /usr/local/sbin

  Then run:

sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher.8 /usr/local/share/man/man8

  Awesome! You have successfully installed Sleepwatcher. Now let’s add
  the lines of code needed to make Sleepwatcher run the screen saver
  when your Mac wakes up, and kill the screen saver when your Mac goes
  to sleep.

  Sleepwatcher searches for and runs two files, .sleep when the Mac
  sleeps, and .wakeup when the Mac wakes up. We just need to create
  these 2 files in the user’s Home Directory.

  In the Terminal, type nano ~/.wakeup then paste the below code.

 #!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'do shell script "/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background & EOF"'

  Now press Control + X to exit. When it asks if you want to save the
  file, press Y and then press the enter key to confirm the file name.
  This will create the .wakeup file. Now to create the .sleep file.

  Just like above, type nano ~/.sleep and paste the below code.

#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'do shell script "kill `ps -ax | grep [S]creenSaver | cut -c1-6` EOF"'

  Again, press Control + X to exit, Y to save, and then the enter key to
  confirm the file name. Now the .sleep file will be created.

  In Terminal, run the below line of code.

chmod 700 ~/.sleep ~/.wakeup

  It changes the permissions for the newly created files so that it can
  be run by Sleepwatcher.

  Now that you’ve created the scripts, you just need to add Sleepwatcher
  to launchd so that it can start when the system starts, then
  continue to run in the background. Paste the following code code into
  your Terminal.

cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/config/de.bernhard-baehr.sleepwatcher-20compatibility-localuser.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents

  This will copy the Sleepwatcher property list file so that it can be
  added to launchd. Now just paste the code below into Terminal to add
  Sleepwatcher to launchd.

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/de.bernhard-baehr.sleepwatcher-20compatibility-localuser.plist

  Awesome! You can now restart your Mac and the launchd will run the
  Sleepwatcher scripts at the startup. Just put your Mac to sleep and
  wake it up. Then you’ll be welcomed with a beautiful wallpaper.


Intact iPhone's display broken, how to make backup from locked phone? My iPhone's display broke. The phone itself is intact, yet the screen stays black. iTunes on my recognizes the phone, I have synced with this Mac before. Yet when I want to make a backup of the phone, it denies, because the phone is locked with an passcode. But since the screen doesnt work, I cant unlock it. I know the unlock combination.
Can I still make a backup from my phone without having to replace the display?

It depends on if the both the digitizer and the display (LCD) are broken or just the display. If it's just the display, then you should be able to interact with the iPhone, even though you won't be able to see it. In other words, treat the iPhone as if it were fully functional and swipe where Slide To Unlock should be and then type in your passcode by tapping where the buttons should be.

If it is both, it will need to be repaired. If it is an original iPhone, an iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, 6, or 6 Plus you will need to buy a digitizer assembly , not just the "glass" or the digitizer or LCD separately. If it is an iPhone 3G or 3GS, you can buy the parts separately. As far as parts go, don't buy a $5 digitizer assembly someone made in their garage in China, the best thing is to pay $25 or so and get a good one (not to say that bad parts don't exist at that price).


Where are Anaconda's libraries for PYTHONPATH? I installed Anaconda's graphical installer successfully. I configured it to Python 3.5 by

conda create -n py35 python=3.5
source activate py35 % to deactive source deactivate
conda install notebook ipykernel
ipython kernel install --user

With PYTHONPATH

I want to get Anaconda's libraries in PYTHONPATH.
They are not located in $HOME/.anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages.
Here is a similar thread without an answer about PYTHONPATH problems in OSX.
I run by accident pip install conda just to test if you can confuse the system by installing second Anaconda, but you cannot and you get

Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): conda in /Users/masi/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages

where you apparently see the location of the libraries of Anaconda.
My $HOME/.bash_profile

export PYTHONPATH=/Users/masi/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages

# otherwise PYTHONPATH fails in OS X; see history for logs
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

I run my test code

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

and I get unsuccessfully

/Users/masi/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages/matplotlib/font_manager.py:273: UserWarning: Matplotlib is building the font cache using fc-list. This may take a moment.
  warnings.warn('Matplotlib is building the font cache using fc-list. This may take a moment.')

I do not know where Matplotlib keeps its cache. In Linux, removal with rm -rf ~/.cache/matplotlib would be possible but not in OS X.
This can be a bug in Matplotlib that has not been solved in OS X. I sent a message to the thread about the issue in the project's Github here.
The cache directory is empty, ls -a $HOME/.matplotlib/ gives empty list where you find the cache directory by import matplotlib; matplotlib.get_cachedir() in ipython.

Without PYTHONPATH

My PATH is

/Users/masi/anaconda/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin

I install numpy by sudo -H pip install numpy. I run the test code but I get

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ImportError                               Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-1-a38059fd5ca4> in <module>()
----> 1 import numpy as np
      2 import pandas as pd
      3 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
      4 get_ipython().magic('matplotlib inline')

ImportError: No module named 'numpy'

so something wrong with pip in installing the modules.
I have both conda via pip and Anaconda.
This may not be optimal. Please, propose different setting.

Trying to get rid of conda

I run pip uninstall conda but I still get the error about missing numpy although I installed it with pip. I think have some PATH problem. How can you uninstall all packages installed by conda?

How can you add Anaconda's Python Libraries in PYTHONPATH?

I think one good option is to gave up with Anaconda and use Canopy under an academic license (user2738815).
Another option is to use Debian Linux, where I have not experienced any such problems.


Bluetooth and wifi stopped working Yesterday suddenly the bluetooth and wifi stopped working, while iMac was on and on screen saver.
I have tried several restarts and tried to follow the bluetooth debug and reset options as well as SMC reset, but nothing worked. Also removed the bluetooth plist from Preferences.

Since I have magic keyboard and mouse with bluetooth I cannot use them and was making the restarts from anydesk using another laptop that I have.

Today after even more restarts and SMC resets the Wifi worked again, but bluetooth still nothing. I am on 10.13 osx and I cannot boot in safe mode or recovery without the keyboard and I have tried the vram boot options on terminal but I was getting that they were invalid.

Lately after the last SMC reset iMac boots on the option screen to reinstall High Sierra but I cannot make any selection even with a usb wired mouse!

any help on how to restart on normal mode or unblock the bluetooth will be highly appreciated.

Unfortunately, the AirPort adapter in your iMac has failed.

Your issue is is just like the issue in the question Mac Mini frequently loses connections (both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) where the only difference is in that question, The problem was intermittent and yours appears to be permanent.

The AirPort adapter is just the mPCIe card that has a “combo” Bluetooth and WiFi chip (usually made by Broadcom).  Dell, HP, Asus and pretty much every manufacturer uses some variant of this chip/adapter.  That means this adapter is not very expensive.

However, since the iMac computers from 2012 on have the screen glued in place, the labor could be costly to change the part.  If this is the case, upgrade your hard disk to an SSD while it’s open.


How can I online stream from my iPad Air to an older model Viera TV without Apple TV? How can I connect my iPad Air to an older Panasonic Viera TC-L37e3 to stream a YouTube video? What app do I need, if any?  Can I use a HDMI adaptor?

I take a glance at Panasonic Viera TC-L37e3 manual and as I understood it has DLNA feature. Have you try to use it? Because there are several streaming apps for iPad working with DLNA devices (Infuse, nPlayer, ArkMC, VLC). They give you a possibility to wirelessly connect your iPad and TV.
The only problem is if they work with Youtube videos. I definitely know that ArkMC streams Youtube videos, but what about others, I doubt.


How can I empty my Camera Roll from my iPhone? I don't want to save anything—just wipe out the Roll like one would reformat a digital camera's memory card. Is there any easy non-computer route? If there aren't any system settings, do any apps do this?

Assume I have too many to delete individually (1,000+).

I'm afraid there isn't an easy way to do so. As far as I know, there is no app which can do what you want... So I've come up with two alternative solutions.

The most easy one is to connect your iPhone to your Mac, launch Image Capture (which comes by default on your Mac), select all the photos and delete them. Here is a tutorial how to do so.

You can do this on your iPhone as well, without a Mac, but you'll have to do it manually. Which isn't a grateful job if you've got over a 1,000 photos...

Open the camera app, hit the upper-right icon (share), tap all the photos you want to delete (they are marked with a red check-icon) and then hit delete.


Does my MacBook have malware? Frozen screen and Automatic Clock Reset on Macbook Pro I like to download books and games on the internet and so my MacBook Pro had acquired some malware. I did not know this, but eventually I installed Avast. It detected that I had acquired a couple of adware and I deleted them. Recently, I performed a full system scan and found 13 infected files. The names of the adware/malware I found were (found some of them in several places):

Mac-OS-Genieo-V [Adw]
Win32:PUP-gen [PUP]
Win32:Malware-gen
MacO...K[PUP]
… and several others I can't recall.

I do not know if they have been eradicated, for I did not follow any steps to ensure they are wiped clear from the hard drive—unsure if it was necessary. But then, yesterday, my notebook froze, while I was on Safari. I had not left many programs running, but my physical memory was around 3.99 GB of 4 GB, like it is right now. I was looking up about viruses and adware and clicked on a link, when my screen froze. The mouse neither the keyboard responded. I have recently purchased this computer, last year, and it is not even a year old. So I tried pressing escape (Windows) and a bunch of random keys but it did not work. When I closed it, even then the display lingered on. Finally I gave up and left it till its battery drained away. After a few hours, when I plugged in the charger, it started up normally.

But then, today morning, when I opened Safari, it claimed that Google's certificate was not yet valid. Previosly,this had happened a couple of times. Then I checked the certificate to see that it was validated by April 5th 2015. I then checked the date and time and saw that it had reset to 1st January 2012. Does this mean that my computer is infected? And if so what is the solution?

Here are the specs of my notebook:
Macbook Pro 13-inch, Mid 2012 (non-retina)
OS X 10.9.5 (13F34)
2.5 Ghz Intel Core i5, 4 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3, Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB

The date was lost when you let the battery run flat. Once you reset it, it should be fine.

Check out Adware Medic (donationware) for any other PUPs, then run Avast again to see if it finds anything else.

Read http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg-defense/ too, to see what you can do to protect yourself in future.


How to Undo Deny Access on Keychain When accessing a secure note on my login keychain (Using the Keychain Access app) I accidentally selected "Deny" on the prompt.

Now I have no access to this keychain anymore. All of my applications that were previously able to access the keychain are denied as well. All items in the keychain have this issue.

The "Access Control" on the individual items in the keychain does not indicated that access is restricted.

Other keychains do not have this problem.

The error that I get is "Access to this item is restricted (-67808)"

How do I undo this action?

Had the same issue after accidentally hitting deny.
After repairing keychain, repairing permissions and touching the keychain file. I finally locked the keychain then unlocked it. That seemed to do the trick.


Why can't I shuffle songs within a specific album under the latest version of iTunes 12.5.1.21? Prior to the update, I was able to select the "Shuffle Songs" button in the upper-mid Information Bar, click on a specific song in an album and then hear a mix of songs only from that album.

For example: If I clicked on a song from the album L.A. Woman and I had shuffle enabled, I would only hear other songs from that album.

Under the current version, If I select a song from L.A Woman, I will get that one song and then a mix of songs from my entire library.

In this example, the next song might be from Frank Sinatra, the Dead Kennedys, or anything else.

How do I disable this "feature?"

I don't want to have to click "Shuffle Album" to hear the songs shuffled.

Often I will start with one song I want to hear, hear another song from the random shuffle on the album, and then select a new song to hear from the same album

Select Control > Shuffle
In the drop down/slide out menu check 'Album' instead of 'Songs'


Mac os x 10.5.8 Can't download Flash Player! I am having issues installing Adobe Flash Player on my 10.5.8 Mac. I uninstalled the previous version. My understanding understand is that i need an older version of flash player as this is an older Mac.

I've been to the archived flash player page and tried downloading several older versions. In each case, it starts to download, then after say 19% it says "Installation Failed". I've tried loads of times, and tried loads of different ways of doing it and i'm at a loss!!! Please Help!

The older version cannot be downloaded and installed because Apple bars such an operation.

Due to Malware and hacking reasons, Apple does not support the installation of this program.   Nobody knows of a way around it unless it is copied over from another Mac.


Can't update boot ROM firmware on iMac Late 2006 I want to use Boot Camp on my 17 inch iMac Late 2006, but whenever I open it, it tells me that I need to update my Boot ROM firmware to use the assistant. So I downloaded the latest Boot ROM from Apple's website. However, when I launched the installer, I was given the following error message.

This computer does not need this update.

But it does need the update. The Boot ROM version I have does not match the latest version on Apple's website. Does anyone know how I can get to installer to run properly?
I've already reset the PRAM and made sure my hard drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). And if it helps, I'm running OS X Snow Leopard.
Edit (12/21/14): I made some additional progress in figuring this out, but I'm still stuck.
To start, I tried booting into the Apple Firmware Restoration CD 1.3 and 1.4. However, none of the discs would boot at all. The power light flashes and bleep sound happens, but then it'd just proceed to booting Snow Leopard, ignoring the fact there was a disc. My optical drive is functional, so that's not the problem.
Next, I thought about modifying the installer so it'd ignore the above error message. I unpackaged the installer and dug into the file iMacFirmwareUpdate.dist. That's when I found out why I got the error message. My iMac was failing the hasValidEFI() function because my current firmware wasn't on the list of EFI's qualified to be update, even though my firmware was made for the same machine (IM51).
So I went inside the code and removed the hasValidEFI() check. After that, I was finally able to install the iMac EFI Firmware Update program. But when I opened that program, I got another error message:

The iMac EFI Firmware Update will not update over your current Firmware version of IM51.88Z.008F.B00.0608091133.

So once again, I'm stuck. If anyone knows a method to force a firmware update (or if I even should), I would greatly appreciate it.

You could try with Apple's Firmware Restoration CD:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24012


How can I silence the startup chime on El Capitan? It's insane that in 2016 we still have to do with this, but since upgrading to El Capitan, previous solutions don't seem to work for me anymore. This is what I've tried.
silence.sh
sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume="%00" # does nothing
osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'
echo "run at $(date)" >> /var/log/silence_log.txt

1. LogoutHook
This is what worked on Yosemite
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /path/to/silence.sh

but ceased to work on my almost fresh El Capitan install
2. LaunchAgent
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN
http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>Silence</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/path/to/silence.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

But running launchctl load silence_sysvol.plist doesn't write anything to the log, so the script doesn't seem to run and I haven't figured out how to have it always be loaded and run at logout.
I read that launchd will send SIGTERM to the agents on logout, so would something like this be a way to go?
#!/usr/bin/env bash

function silence()
{
   sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume="%00" # not working
   osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'
   echo "run at $(date)" >> /var/log/silence_log.txt
}

trap silence SIGTERM
silence

3. nobootsound
Tried this, didn't work.

After a (few) restart(s), method 1 is back to working. Beats me.


MBP 2013 becoming unresponsive to keyboard and mouse My machine is a 15" Late 2013 MBP Retina. My OS is Yosemite 10.10.4.

I have a recent issue where my machine is intermittently becoming unresponsive to the keyboard and mouse. It's happening on average about twice a day at the moment.

I use a USB keyboard and mouse, plugged in via a USB hub.

The screen looks fine, the cursor is still flashing, I can plug the charger in/out and the battery symbol changes accordingly, the screensaver will come on fine, new email still comes in etc, so everything seems ok except my keyboard and mouse no longer work.

It also affects the keyboard and trackpad on the laptop itself. I press the caps lock key on the laptop keyboard and the green indicator doesn't come on.

The only key which works, luckily for me, is the power key on the laptop keyboard. I can hold that down and restart the machine. Nothing else works.

I've tried plugging the keyboard and mouse in directly (albeit only after the issue has started happening), I've reset the PRAM, I've closed the machine for 5 minutes and come back, nothing seems to fix it other than a reboot.

I've looked through the logs (after restarting) at the time it starts happening but nothing stands out.

I only recently moved to a USB keyboard and mouse and this issue only started happening since then. I only started using the USB hub at the same time too. I also started putting the machine on an MStand (although I can't imagine that would affect anything).

If it's one of the USB devices (or hub) causing this then it seems odd to me that it would also affect the keyboard/trackpad on the actual machine.

I've seen couple of other threads where people have something similar but nothing exactly the same and no definitive answers. Has anyone had a similar experience? Is there an obvious culprit out of the things I've changed recently which would cause the input devices to stop working?

Any advice appreciated.

Some more info: I'm pretty sure it's only happening when trying to do lots of scrolling with the mouse scroll wheel. I used to use the infinite scroll feature on the mouse a lot but noticed that's when the issue was occurring. So I switched to regular scrolling i.e. the clicky scroll wheel and it's happening much less frequently. It's happened once in the last 3 days whereas before it was at least once per day.

Feels like some kind of driver issue but the logitech software is up to date (v3.9.1).

Still hugely frustrating.

I had a similar issue and I stopped having it by turning off bluetooth.
I had no bluetooth device connected when the problem happened.


iPhone contacts bar with letters doesn't work for letters D-Y? I have this very strange issue with my iPhone 4's (iOS 5.0.1 9A405) Contacts app.

As you know, there is this "bar" on the right which allows you to touch a letter and have the table directly "jump" to that letter:

On my iPhone, the bar only works for letters A, B, C, and Z. Not the letters in between. If I touch any of the letters D-Y, it jumps to C. Huh? Note that searching for a contact starting with letters D-Y and/or scrolling to it manually works fine.

While investigating for the possible cause of this weird behavior, I also found out that there's a section # between the letters C and D, which I suspect might be causing the problem. Why is it there? All contacts in that section start with C and should thus be in the C section. Here are two screenshots of the misplaced # section:

Thanks a lot for your help!

I finally fixed this by removing/renaming all the contacts in the misplaced '#' section.

No idea why it happened in the first place...


Charging iPhone 4S from closed MacBook Air Should an iPhone recharge when plugged in to a MacBook Air which itself is plugged into its wall charger?

My MacBook Air was closed and plugged into its wall charger.  The green light on the power cord was lit.  I plugged my iPhone 4S into the MacBook Air USB port under the MagSafe connection.  I went to sleep.  When I awoke seven hours later, the iPhone was at 30% charge.  I thought it would be at 100%.

Is something wrong?

I am not sure about MacBook Air, but in my MacBook Pro (Mid 2010) it will charge my iPhone if the MB is active (powered up and not sleeping) and it will also charge my iPhone when sleeping, but only if the iPhone was plugged in before the MB went to sleep.

If your MB is shut down (not active & not sleeping) it will not charge your iPhone.

UPDATE

One of OS X/MacBook updates must have changed something at some point. Now, when a MacBook is plugged and sleeping and you plug in an iPhone, the MacBook will silently wake up, start charging the iPhone and fall back to sleep. It all happens with closed lid.


Understanding the Preview App and the Duplicate file option I'm running macos Sierra with Preview 9.0 on an iMac. I have a fairly large (40 MB) pdf file that is a version 1.6 PDF. The Preview app does not have a 'save as' option. Your choices under the file menu are: save, duplicate, rename, move to, export, and export as PDF.

Duplicate makes a copy but it converts PDF from version 1.6 to 1.4 and this in itself reduces file size from 40 MB to 20 MB. 'Move To..' and 'Rename' have no noticeable effect on file or size.  Export has several options. The 'None' option, however, also converts file to PDF 1.4 from 1.6 again reducing file size to 20 MB.  Export to PDF does the same but file size is 19.5 MB. I'm confused on these differences. It appears just going from PDF 1.6 to PDF 1.4 cuts file size in half. Why is this and why the conversion in 1st place. The only way I know to truly make a copy is do it in Finder using cntrl-c. What info has been lost in going from PDF 1.6 to PDF 1.4?

To get Save As... on the File menu in Preview, and many other apps as well, press the option key when clicking the menu.

The option key also modifies other commands on different menus as well.

Note that the shift key also modifies commands in some cases.


Mac Mini with Lion wont start after Power failure...help! I was working on my Mac mini (Lion 10.7.2) when the power went off. When the power came, I started Mac Mini. But it keeps on showing grey screen with activity indicator forever. It wont start the system.

I have tried Repair Disk, Repair File Permissions, but still it wont start.

How do I resolve this issue?

Apple has guidelines explaining what to check for:
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup (support.apple.com)


How to renice by process name? I am trying to Launch a process using NICE but this process is starting other process by itself and they are not affected by the priority of the main process ( main process has the correct nice but sub process priority is set to default)

So I am trying to renice those process while they run.
I tried

 renice n -p $(pidof <process name>)

but it is not recognised by MacOS (it is probably linux specific ?)
so how can I do that?

you can find a related discussion here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30062340/starting-process-with-nice-command-macos-leaves-the-process-priority-at-0#comment48287323_30062340

thanks.

You can use pgrep instead of pidof on OS X. Using your example from earlier, the following should work:

renice n -p $(pgrep <process name>)

That said, a child started after the parent has had their priority changed should inherit the parent's priority.


Is MacBook Pro warming during gaming normal? I have a 2010 MacBook Pro MC371 (Core i5, GeForce 320M, 4Gb RAM).

When I launch a game either new one (i.e. Starcraft 2) or rather old (Unreal Tournament 2004, bootcamped) my MacBook gets rather warm, even hot in the top left corner, around the place where magsafe charger is plugged in. The temperature is more than 40C. The fact that confuses me is that this warming occures even when I play old games.

Is that OK?

Yes. That's normal. As for "okay" -- it depends. The heat is coming from the extra graphic activity and CPU activity you're asking your machine to perform when playing the games. The MBPro is vented at the back, along the hinge between the screen and the keyboard, you want to make sure that area is free of obstructions and the hot air can leave escape unimpeded. Long-term exposure to high operating temperatures can certainly be detrimental to the components in your machine. But for the most part, if your machine's venting is unobstructed, it should be able to cool itself adequately.


Skype hangs since upgrading to Mavericks Since upgrading to Mavericks the latest version of the Skype app (6.9 rev 701) hangs frequently, pretty much every time on wake after the laptop goes to sleep.

I've heard some suggestions about downgrading to an earlier version in the 6 series, any decent workaround for this problem?

It would be worth upgrading as significant changes have been made for anyone in this situation.


Skype for Business has no sound and I am not able to make calls So first of all I have checked sounds settings, tested normal Skype client, updated Skype for Business, uninstalled and re-installed it, etc. and my microphone and speaker are working as expected in regular Skype client and in general.

But when I join a meeting with Skype for Business, I can't hear anyone speak and they don't seem to see me as a participant in the conversation. My mic is muted right away and the button is disabled. I have tested meetings created by my self, and ones created by others. I also seem to being having troubles calling others (one to one). It gives me the classic sound from Skype when calling but the others are not receiving the call. My college then tried to call me and that worked fine, calls and sound was fine.

I just experienced that when joining the meeting my colleague says I have a status as "Not in the call" when he howers over my icon and after waiting a bit I actually got a message from Skype saying that the call could not be made. So maybe when I am joining the meeting I am actually not with the voice call - and I cant make calls directly to others.

Making calls/joining meetings from my windows laptop works.. but not from my macbook.

Any ideas how to resolve this?

I am running Skype for Business version 16.26.19 on a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave.

Apparently (according to IT) a restart of the Exchange server and the Skype server (in the right order) was enough to solve the issue.


Sharing Mac hard drive over the Internet to a PC Similar question to this, but my other computer is a PC. (PC seeing external hard drive from the Mac over the Internet.)

My external is formatted exFAT. Neither the Mac nor the PC have issues using it. When I connect it to the PC, the Mac can read/write on the external HDD over the Internet. However, when I connect it to the Mac, the PC can identify it (through Network) but the access is denied. The message is

  \192.168.xx.xx\HDD is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. The parameter is incorrect.

At the first time to try, it asked me to log in to the Mac, which worked, and has never shown up again. I can see the hard drive in question in the folder as "share", but double-clicking does not let me in, instead I get the above error message. One weird thing is the Property window for the hard drive (gotten from the right-click menu on the PC) shows it is NTFS, which is wrong.

I've also tried mapping the drive to a drive letter. I tried to map it from the PC by assigning Z: drive with \192.168.xx.xx\HDD, then Z: drive is shown as a network drive with right capacity size (XXX GB free of 931 GB). But again, when I click it, it fails to get in. "Z:\ is not accessible, The parameter is incorrect."

I have no problem accessing the Mac's user directory from the PC, so I also tried to map the drive to a folder in the user directory of the Mac (\Users\myuserID\) by running ln -s \Volumes\HDD HDD on the command line, but this trick doesn't work for me.

I don't think Sharepoint is necessary, since my Mac is on Mountain Lion. The PC is running Windows 7.

So, now, I don't know what to do. Any suggestion?

You may get better help on the Windows side of this problem from Super User.

As for the Mac side, mounting the drive in a folder in your user directory should work and is a good idea. However, you used the wrong command. ln -s makes a symbolic link, like a Shortcut on Windows or an Alias on the Mac. You can mount the drive temporarily using the diskutil mount command. There is a way to do it permanently, but I don't know how to do it offhand; you should ask a new question about that.


Finder "copy as pathname" adding smb:// on Mojave On previous MacOS versions using the "copy as pathname" option from Finder would provide me the local mounted path on SMB resources

ex:
/Volumes/mountname/folder1/folder2

Now on Mojave its giving me an smb:// url to the same mounted SMB resouces

ex:
smb://server/mountname/folder1/folder2

Is there any way to change the format back to the pre-Mojave version?