How to start a slideshow on the Mac quickly and easily? This is one thing I don't quite get it for the Mac: why is it so hard to start a slideshow?

The most often way is, I have several photos on the Desktop or in Downloads, and I double click to see the first one -- and no, it is not the one I want, so I want to see the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.   At least on Win 7, that's super easy just by pressing the right arrow on the keyboard and that's it.

On the Mac, is there a super easy way?  I don't want to highlight this and that, and then choose "Slideshow" from some where I can't be sure of, or change the view to the "flip through" view, because I might not necessarily want to change the view style for the folder at the moment -- I just want to browse through a few photos -- is there a super quick way?

In Leopard and later versions (up to El Capitan), select the files you want in the Finder and press the spacebar to invoke QuickLook. You can then use the arrow keys to cycle through them. If you click the full-screen icon, Finder and QuickLook displays the slideshow. You get extra animation in some os versions if Finder is showing files in cover-flow layout.

In OS X Yosemite 10.10 and later, the maximise (full-screen) button is in the upper left-hand corner. Then press "play" to start the slideshow.

For OS X 10.9 to 10.7 the full screen icon is top right.

In Tiger, there is a "Slideshow" option in the context menu in the Finder.

In Panther and earlier, it is indeed several steps before you can get a slideshow.


MacOS zsh alias pwd is incorrect I recently switched to MacOS and some aliases in ZSH which were working on a linux system is giving me headaches in MacOS. To be specific, pwd variable inside alias is using the same directory where it was sourced from. I have to resource .zshrc from different directories for zsh to recognise pwd properly.

Here is what I mean. My content in .zshrc is:

alias myls="ls -lrth $(pwd)"

and here are the results:

~ source ~/.zshrc
~ cd ~
~ alias myls
... myls='ls -lrth /Users/myusername'

~ cd ~/Documents
~ alias myls
... myls='ls -lrth /Users/myusername' <--- It should list content for ~/Document
~ source ~/.zshrc
~ alias myls
... myls='ls -lrth /Users/myusername/Documents' <--- Sourcing again fixes it

Can someone tell me why do I have source my .zshrc again and again to be able to use $(pwd) while it works forever in linux in a single source?

The $(pwd) in your alias command is replaced immediately by its value returned from execution. This occurs at the creation of the alias, not when you want to use the alias. As shown after your first run of alias myls, the alias contains the exact path, not a call to pwd, so this will always use the original path set when you created the alias.

To use the current directory, don't run pwd, just use a relative path, which will always refer to the current directory when run.

alias myls="ls -lrth ."


Is it possible to use FileMerge as standalone app? I'm wondering if there is a way to use FileMerge as a standalone tool. I don't want to install Xcode, since I don't need it. I just want the FileMerge app. Is that possible?

FileMerge 2.8, which ships with Xcode 5.0.1 links to frameworks that are located inside of the Xcode.app bundle. Shared libraries that are used by FileMerge can be displayed by performing the command:

otool -L /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/FileMerge.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMerge

The output of this command indicates that FileMerge needs to use the DevToolsInterface, DevToolsCore, and DevToolsFoundation frameworks. :

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/FileMerge.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMerge:
    /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/AppKit (compatibility version 45.0.0, current version 1247.0.0)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 1052.0.0)
    @rpath/DevToolsInterface.framework/Versions/A/DevToolsInterface (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 3000.1.0)
    @rpath/DevToolsCore.framework/Versions/A/DevToolsCore (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 2404.0.0)
    @rpath/DevToolsFoundation.framework/Versions/A/DevToolsFoundation (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 3001.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1197.1.1)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 852.0.0)

The prefix @rpath indicates that dyld will use the run path list to search for frameworks that are being referenced. Specifically, FileMerge contains "../OtherFrameworks" in its run path list. When located inside of the Xcode.app bundle, those frameworks are right where FileMerge expects them to be.

However, if you copy FileMerge out of the Xcode.app bundle, FileMerge will crash upon launch. This occurs because the referenced frameworks (referenced above) are not in the run path list, which causes dyld to exit with an error of "image not found". The reason it cannot find those referenced frameworks is that a folder at the relative path "../OtherFrameworks" does not exist, and the frameworks do not exist in any other folders listed in the run path.

To use FileMerge without the Xcode app installed, you have a couple of options:

Copy FileMerge to the location of your choosing, and copy the contents of /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/OtherFrameworks/ to one of the folders referenced in the run path list (~/Library/Frameworks or /Library/Frameworks are probably a couple of the best choices).
Copy FileMerge to the location of your choosing, and copy the contents of /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/OtherFrameworks/ to be at "../OtherFrameworks" relative to the FileMerge app (e.g., if FileMerge is at ~/Applications, copy the folder "OtherFrameworks" to ~/OtherFrameworks

Edit

The above answer allows FileMerge to launch, but the application will terminate when you actually attempt to compare files. Apparently the application is looking for platform information at the path ../Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Info.plist. This means that it is necessary to copy Info.plist from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Info.plist to ../Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Info.plist (relative to FileMerge.app). Here are some steps that could be used to copy FileMerge to a folder at ~/Applications:

mkdir ~/Applications
cp -R /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/FileMerge.app ~/Applications

cp -R /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/OtherFrameworks/* ~/Library/Frameworks

mkdir -p ~/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform
cp /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Info.plist ~/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform


Does the command `reboot` hurt a Mac computer? Does the command reboot (used in Terminal) hurt the computer?  Because it is almost like pulling the power cord, which is not a recommended way to power down a computer.

It’s not like pulling the power plug because it sends various signals like SIGTERM which closes services and daemons.  User applications with unsaved data may get lost, but they’re not arbitrarily closed as if the system lost power.

From the man page (man reboot)

  The halt and reboot utilities flush the file system cache to disk, send all running processes a SIGTERM (and subsequently a SIGKILL) and,
       respectively, halt or restart the system.

So, running reboot is perfectly safe to the system.


Numbers formula for rolling 12 month sum I have a table with income data over a 2 year period showing columns: date, description, job1, job2, job3, (the income shown is for 3 different work jobs over a period of time).

In a separate table I would like to calculate my income over a rolling 12 month period but can't work our how to do it.

Could someone help me please?

here are the simplified tables, so with this basic data I can do the basic sum (as sown). but in the complete table 1 there are hundreds of entries so I need a formula to calculate the figures in table 2 please. needs to be a rolling 12 months figure for each heading. thank you

You can do this using the SUMIFS() function in Numbers. The SUMIFS() function allows us to conditionally add up a group of numbers with multiple criteria.

The picture below shows how to do it using this function based on the samples of the input data table and the outcome table you have given. Pls pay attention to the absolute references in the formula, i.e. the "$" signs; they are necessary for the formula to work correctly when you copy & paste it to other cells.

If you have any difficulty in creating the formula in cell E5 based on the picture below alone, you can recreate it by typing its following form (or copy & pasting it from this post) into an appropriate cell.

= SUMIFS(Table 1::E$2:E$7,Table 1::$A$2:$A$7,">="&$A5,Table 1::$A$2:$A$7,"<="&$B5)

Note, however, if your actual input data table is placed differently (the one in the example I gave, including the header row, starts from A1) or bigger than the one in the example I gave, you would need to change some or all of the cell references in the example formula I give here.


Force Quit Keyboard Shortcut Not Working I have a problem where the shortcut command+option+esc does not open the force quit menu. I've tried resetting the NVRAM and the SMC, but this did not fix the issue.

Also, sometimes when I reboot the computer the keyboard shortcut does open the force quit menu, but then the touchbar acts strangely: when I tap the buttons on the touch bar, I'm brought to the corresponding section in System Preferences instead (e.g. when I touch to lower brightness, I'm brought instead to the brightness section in system preferences).

So either the touch bar doesn't work properly or the force quit keyboard command does not. How do I fix this really strange behavior?

Have you tried opening the Force Quit  menu from the top menu? Just click on the Apple in the top left corner and manually select Force Quit. It should open up the menu without having to use the touchbar.


How to trigger a bash script from right click in Safari on a particular URL? is it possible when I'm in Safari and have link (URL) to trigger a bach script with an right mouse option?

The bach script should be run with this format:
bash scriptname.sh -parameter -parameter URL

Thanks!

No - Safari is designed to not run code like that.

Could you imagine the damage someone would do with a malicious script to delete all a user's photos if they get them to click a link that could say anything and link to a malicious script underneath?


Is there a way to speed up the way Mac responds to my trackpad clicks? I'm new to Mac and Xcode. I realize there's always a significant delay when I click the trackpad and when Mac responds to my action, around 300-500 ms or so, which is very annoying for me. I'm using a new MacBook Pro with plenty of memory and processing power.

Is it a "feature" of Mac? How can I turn if off?

EDIT: OK, I think it has something to do with the "tap to click" feature which I'm currently using. If I press to click, there's no such delay. Anyone has any idea how to fix then?

Do you have trackpad dragging enabled?  If so, it has to wait a moment after you tap in case you tap again and turn the action into a drag -- until then, it can't tell if you want to just click, or click-hold-drag.  The only way to eliminate this delay is to turn off trackpad dragging, so there's no ambiguity about what it should do when you tap.


With which carriers can I use an officially-unlocked iPhone? Recently AT&T has begun officially unlocking iPhones which are out of contract.

But I know this doesn't mean that all carriers are supported, because some carriers use different frequency bands and simply aren't compatible with iPhones. After this official unlocking process, which carriers can be used with which models of iPhone devices?

You will find an up to date list of carriers and frequencies on this list for the United States. For other countries see here.

You can use your iPhones as follows (source):

iPhone Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
iPhone 3G In addition to previous: Tri-band 3.6 Mbit/s UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
iPhone 3GS In addition to previous: 7.2 Mbit/s HSDPA
iPhone 4 quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (800 850 900 1800 1900 MHz). Quad-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (800 850 900 1900 2100 MHz) (800 MHz not yet officially supported by Apple)
iPhone 4S quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (800 850 900 1800 1900 MHz) Quad-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (800 850 900 1900 2100 MHz) (800 MHz unannounced)

This means you can use your iPhones on any carrier on the 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz frequencies as a GSM phone, and access to data at the slow GPRS/EDGE speed.

For higher speed access you will have to look for carriers who provide the right technologies at the right frequencies.

This mean the iPhone will not work on networks operating in the 1700 MHz frequencies and it will not work on 1800MHz 3G (UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA) networks as it only can use this band for GSM.


Can't set Live Photo as wallpaper, only Still and Perspective options When I want to set a Live Photo as my wallpaper it only had Still and Perspective as options. In Settings → Wallpaper it only has Still and Dynamic. Can I do anything?

As Settings → Wallpaper doesn't have a Live Photo section, it would appear your device is not compatible with Live Photos. Live Photos are available on iPhone 6s and later.


Why does my iPhone 7 have a laser? In the box of my iPhone 7 there was a leaflet with all sorts of small print easy enough to be dismissed as some legal document (and maybe it is). I couldn't help reading it and on the reverse page it says something about Class 1 Laser Information:

See text: "This device contains a laser"

So my question is where in the iPhone and, more importantly, for what purpose is the laser in the iPhone?

This site indicates that the front facing proximity sensor consists of the laser and filters to attenuate the signal to safe levels once assembled.

  Located in the front of the phone, above the main speaker, the FlightSenseTM proximity sensor uses optical land-grid array (LGA) packaging. The custom Apple device measures 2.80 mm x 2.40 mm, half the size of the rest of STMicroelectronics’s portfolio.

That reinforces the warning about repair and implies potential danger if you operate the components while the iPhone is disassembled.


Earbuds damaged by iPhone? Yesterday I plugged Apple earbuds into my iPhone 5 and the sound from the right speaker was very low, almost mute.  Assuming something was wrong with them and having just lost the 3rd party earbuds I normally use, I bought another set of 3rd party earbuds in the evening and found them to have the same problem, but now with those the left side is almost mute and the right is fine.  Of course my assumption then was my iPhone has a problem.

Now I'm at work and just tried the new 3rd party earbuds in the Mac Mini I use, and I have the same problem.

I really don't know what's going on at this point.  Did the iPhone damage both sets of earbuds?  Over the weekend I stayed in a house that was really cold at night, not sure if that had any effect on the phone; neither set of earbuds were in the house.  I've checked all the sound settings on both devices for sound balance and such, no issues there.

Not having the device in person I can only make an assumption. The problem is not the headphones but the audio port on your iPhone.

The small connector balls on the inside of the port must be damaged. I'm guessing if you looked inside, there would be one that is stuck in. Try blowing some air in the port or using a small pin to clean the inside. It might still work.

Good luck.


In Mail is it possible to copy the date and time to the clipboard from a mail message In my todo list, I like to refer to email messages based on the date they were received so I can simply find the message at a later point.

For example,

  Follow up locking issue (see Peter's email 25th Feb 2014 18:04)

Rather than transcribing the message date by hand, I'd rather copy it from the mail message and paste it into Notes but this doesn't seem possible.

There is no selection cursor when I hover over the date, just a "grab hand".

Are there any tricks to copying a mail message's date to the clipboard?

This doesn't get you the date in text format, but when I grab using that grab hand cursor I can drag it into notes. There is then an icon with the subject of the email which, when clicked opens that email (albeit in a new window).

Might be helpful.


Texts from husband show as from myself I receive a notification indicating I have a new text from my husband - showing his name/contact.  After clicking on the notifcation from him and reading the text, my Messages show the text came from me, my name/contact, but have the content of his text message.  We are on the same family share Apple ID.  Only my number is in Settings/Messages/Send & Receive and checked.  Not enjoying what appear to be text messages from myself.  lol.

There are three ways a name shows up on iOS.

Apple ID - if the sending phone is signed in with an AppleID that has your name - you will see that name and can’t change it on the receiving end. Sign out of iMessage and FaceTime on the sending device. Then sign in again with an account that isn’t in your name.
Your address book matches the email or phone number with iMessage (if blue) or sms (if green). You can clean your address book and fix the name.
All the other content. This one is harder to fix.

The last bucket uses spotlight index to search content on your phone and try to match that an email or message naming “Joe” also has joes email or phone number. Enough hits between the same name and number and iOS “suggests” who the message is from.

If you can upload a screen image of your device we might be able to help narrow down or show you how to tap on the name and get to the matching contact and clean this up.


Superimposed “W” on terminal screen I don't know when it appeared, but I have a weird superimposed red "W" in iTerm2. What is it, and how do I get rid of it?

I'm running iTerm2 v 3.6.6 and macOS 10.15.

sounds like you are using an image as your background screen. Go to the iTerm2 menu and select Preferences. Under Preferences select Profiles and then go to the Window tab. See the image below. Check if you are using an image for your background. If you are click the enable box to turn it off.


How can carrier limit hot spot connections I have encountered this question and in accepted answer there is information that doesn't click

  For instance, the iPhone 5 should theoretically be able to handle up to 14 connections, but both AT&T and Verizon limits it to 5.

How can carrier limit hot spot connections?

To clarify I own iPhone that uses sim card, and live in Europe.

It's baked into the iOS as a configurable number and the carriers submit carrier profiles that contain their preferred limits.


How do I make it so that input method is always set to one I actually choose? I am running 10.11.5, after shutting my MacBook pro to trigger sleep, and then reopening it, the input method will always switch back to Australian, I want to keep it set to Squirrel (http://rime.im/ -- N.B. all the documentation for this is in Chinese). How do I make it so that squirrel is always selected? Ideally, I could even remove Australian, but for some reason, I am prevented from removing all the inbuilt English input methods.

I don't use Squirrel, so this answer may not necessarily apply.

Once you've added Squirrel as an Input Source in your Keyboard System Preferences (as you've already done), you should be able to make this the default in your Language and Region System Preferences.

More specifically:

Go to Apple > System Preferences
Select Language & Region
Click + button at bottom left
Choose the appropriate language
When prompted set this to be your primary language
You may still be prompted to add an input source in your Keyboard preferences, if so just redo that as well (i.e. add Squirrel)
You may also need to restart your Mac


Second monitor for 2009 Mac Pro I have a 2009 Mac Pro with a ATI Radeon HD 4870 (option).

It is connected to a 2009 24" Cinema Display.

If I want to add a second monitor (non-Apple), what type of monitor/connector/cable do I need?

What is the second monitor you want to add ?
By reading configuration of your Mac Pro I find this (in the graphic card section) :

  It has both a Mini DisplayPort and a dual-link DVI port.

So I think you can connect two display devices on your Mac :

Your Cinema Display on the mini display port
Your other display on the DVI port

According to your second monitor, you can connect it directly on the DVI port or you should use a adapter (for example a VGA-to-DVI adpater).

Hope this helps !


Checkboxes appear in Playlists How can I have the checkboxes appear by default in the playlists?  When I go to a playlist no checkboxes appear, so I can't see if the playlist will burn to a cd or not.
I am on a mac, OS 10.9.5 and the i-tunes is 12.2.1

I don't know about making it the default for ALL playlists, but at least to get the check boxes back in the current playlist you are working with, go to View>Show View Options, then change the "View As:" to Songs.

This worked for me, hope it helps someone else!


Basic photo editing on OS X I need to edit a photo on my Mac. I wish to take two photos and paste them together to create one that's larger, containing both. I couldn't figure out how to do this with iPhoto.

For Windows you have Paint.NET.
For Linux you have Kolourpaint.

What would be the equivalent on OS X?

Please note that it must be of quality both in code and in UI. I wouldn't want to install buggyware on my Mac.

You can do this simply with Preview. Open the first picture.

Choose Tools > Rectangular Selection.
Select the whole picture.
Copy the selection (choose Edit > Copy).
Choose Tools > Adjust Size.
Turn off the lock for proportional changes.
Select pixels as your unit.
Double the width of your picture.

At this point, you have your unscaled picture in the clipboard and a scaled version in Preview.

Insert (choose Edit > Paste) the picture from the clipboard and align it to the left edge.
Open your second picture in Preview, select everything, and copy it.
Switch to the first picture, paste the second picture and align it to the right edge.
Save your new picture. Done.


Mac Pro 4,1 CPU upgrade I own a Mac Pro 4,1 (single socket) with a Nehalem Quad-Core CPU.

I'd like to upgrade it with a six-core Westmere processor.

Now, what I have to do prior to installation of the Westmere processor?
Is firmware upgrade to 5,1 really mandatory? Is there other stuff to upgrade?

This post at the macrumors forum lists which CPUs are capatible, outlines the various issues with upgrading, and has links to detailed guides on the upgrade process, including the firmware upgrade.

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-cpu-compatibility-list.1954766/

Read everything through before starting and you should be fine. I spent a lot of time making sure I had it all clear in my head before buying the processors and starting the job. Double check everything and ask questions(I recommend the same site again) if you are unsure about something. Drop me a line if you are having problems finding a particular guide and I will see what I can dig up and upgrade the answer here if relevant. I used lidded CPUs and did the 'washer stack' method mentioned on the site to upgrade my 4,1 with few problems following the guide on how to tighten down the heat sinks. De-lidded CPUs cost quite a bit more and are not worth it IMHO, or worth the risk of de-lidding them yourself. YMMV.

The firmware upgrade to a 5,1 is very simple and required to use Westmere processors. It is the easiest part of the upgrade. In fact you can do it all by itself without upgrading anything else with the system and you computer will for a practicable purposes be identical to a 5,1.

I upgraded my system last year with two Westmere four core Dual Xeon X5677 3.46Ghz CPUs from two Nehalem four core E5520 Xeon at 2.26Ghz. I decided that the additional cost of going to hex core processors was not worth it to me for the work I do. It was over twice the cost for used hex core processors at the time and they would have had a slightly slower clock speed. Your needs may differ and I'm sure that prices now are very different. Seeing that you are on a single processor system, a hex core may make more sense for you as you wont have to double the CPU cost by buying two as I had too. Watch the prices for a few weeks to see where the market is at and to get the best pice performance ratio that fits your needs.

Also consider upgrading your Video Card if you haven't already. There is a post at the same site with a guide on what PC cards work and which don't with work arounds and any problems or limitations. It is very long, but worth digging through.

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/frequently-asked-questions-about-nvidia-pc-non-efi-graphics-cards.1440150/

Another tip for upgrading is to look for used, registered server RAM. Registered RAM must must all be the same type; you can't mix it with unregistered DIMMS. Normally it is more expensive, but because the type of DIMM the 4,1 and 5,1 uses are quite old now, not being able to mix it, and the motherboard must specifically support registered RAM(which the Mac Pros do, most consumer machines don't), you can find it really cheap from people parting out PC servers on ebay. I can't remember the price, but I upgraded to 24GB(six 4GB 1333 DIMMs) for not much money at all.

The forums mentioned have loads of information and the people are willing to help, just be sure to read up about the process as much as you can before posting a question. Like many forums out there, they will jump on you a bit if you didn't take the time to read the available information beforehand and jumped straight to asking simple questions. Make yourself informed. Don't be put off, this is a doable upgrade and has brought a lot of life to my old system. This era of Mac pros were so well designed and I love to see their life extended. If you really get lost after spending some time gathering information, drop me a line and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction. Good luck.


iPod Touch 2nd Generation (Used) boots into Apple Logo when dead, then shuts off. If charged however, everything is normal. What is going on? I've been trying to calibrate my battery after enabling the battery meter by editing a .plist file in a copy of my iPod's backup. I restored that backup to my iPod, and the battery meter worked just fine. The iPod is running iOS 4.2.1.

However, attempts at calibrating it do not work. It will shut off after reaching "0%", but if I hold the power button, it just boots back into iOS with ~19% remaining.

I let it drain after that, and if I hold the power button again after it shuts off, guess what? It's back at ~19%.

I repeat this one more time before it refuses to boot into iOS. Once it drains the third time, it will boot into the Apple logo, then shut off after ~15 seconds. If I continue attempts to boot, it will continue doing this.

If I plug it into a charger though, it will boot into iOS and claim that it has 3% remaining and is charging. There are absolutely no problems with it (besides the weird battery meter).

I also own an iPhone 5 (iOS 10.3.2), and when that device hits 0, it stays there. It will not boot up and just shows the "I need to be charged" indicator.

I'd like to know what's going on here, how to get the battery calibrated correctly, and how to get the battery as stable as possible (Similar to my iPhone 5).

This is the method I used to enable the battery percentage meter.

"You do realize this device is almost 10 years old, and that the battery is probably showing its age? I suspect that any amount of calibration you attempt isn't going to make much of a difference and will continue to present you with perplexing results." - IconDaemon

"The firmware in the 2nd generation might not be as advanced as what's found in the iPhone 5. In addition, the 2nd Gen Touch can only take iOS 4.2.1. Perhaps a combo of these two things, in conjunction with an old/failing battery, may be causing this anomaly. I don't think you'll get a satisfactory conclusion to your quest -- it may simply be an unusual set of circumstances that is leading to what you are seeing. Lastly - it doesn't seem as if the 2nd Gen is malfunctioning in any other way. In the immortal words of Lennon/McCartney - Let it Be." - IconDaemon

The battery meter will display unpredictable fluctuations in the percentage due to the battery being very old, causing the device firmware to be unable to accurately measure the percentage remaining.


Applications occasionally start showing "The document could not be autosaved" dialogs Every now and then, some application (usually TextEdit) starts showing dialogs like this when I try to close or save any document:

  The document “2.txt” could not be autosaved.

  Your changes will not be saved until the problem is resolved. You can also duplicate the document or discard your changes to close it.

I'll have to quit and reopen the application in order to save anything again.

I have disabled both Resume and locking files automatically in System Preferences
The files have usually been in normal folders under my home folder and there hasn't been anything special about them as far as I can tell
I have tried repairing permissions
TextEdit's code signature is valid

system.log usually has usually contained messages like this:

5/8/12 9:04:01.358 PM [0x0-0x17b17b].com.apple.TextEdit: [ERROR] GSLibrary.c:_AddGenerationInternal:393  Failed to consume sandbox extension; error 12 (Cannot allocate memory)
5/8/12 9:04:01.361 PM TextEdit: NSFileVersion tried to tried to add a new generation and failed. Versioned file URL: file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/2.txt, contents URL: file://localhost/Users/lauri/Notes/2.txt, error: Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)" UserInfo=0x10b24d070 {}
5/8/12 9:04:01.362 PM TextEdit: NSDocument failed to preserve the old version of a document. Here's the error:
Error Domain=GSLibraryErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (GSLibraryErrorDomain error 1.)" UserInfo=0x10b24d070 {}

Failed to consume sandbox extension; error 12 (Cannot allocate memory)? Does anyone know what's going on here?

Edit: I haven't seen those errors after I replaced TextEdit with TextEditPlus. It's based on TextEdit's source code but it disables sandboxing and makes a few other changes.

It seems that this is actually a bug in Apple's sandboxing implementation. This means that none of the steps above should help. We had the same console output in one of our applications (including the inability to save text) and spent quite some time on finding the cause of the bug (see this radar). From what we've found out, it seems that after retrieving the recently opened documents for a number of times, the application cannot save files anymore because it does not get the permission to do so. You could try clearing the recently used documents menu, maybe this helps.


Wiping An Apple Mac For Resale I don't use my Mac so I'm going to sell it. I want to give the customer a clean Mac, so I have completely wiped the HD and reinstalled Mac OS X. I've been reading about people getting locked out of their second-hand Mac and it being still linked to the previous owner's account. I wanted to know if this is the case because I want them to be happy with it and be able to use it when they get it. I logged out of iTunes and iCloud and turned off Find My Mac, then I did the full wipe and reinstall. Now I'm up to selecting the language and stuff. Is this enough? I want it to be new and without an account but watching a video when they went back onto the Mac they had to log into their account again.

Should I complete the setup and see or will I be fine leaving it?

Thanks.

If you've erased the drive, you're most of the way there. It really depends on what you want the experience for the buyer to be. I would print out this web page and check mark what you did so the buyer's mind and yours are both at ease:

"What to do before selling or giving away your Mac" -
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065

The last step (6 of 6) reads:

  After you reformat your hard drive and reinstall OS X, the computer restarts to a Welcome screen and asks you to choose a country or region. If you want to leave the Mac in an out-of-box state, don't continue with the setup of your system. Instead, press Command-Q to shut down the Mac. When the new owner turns on the Mac, the Setup Assistant will guide them through the setup process.

If your Mac doesn't come with Internet Recovery, you might consider making a USB drive for them to install the version of OS you want to ship. They can always call AppleCare and arrange for replacement media or a download code to redeem the version of OS that shipped with the Mac in question. Most recent hardware works with Internet Recovery and most older hardware has physical install media you can/should ship with the hardware or that could be ordered for nominal cost from Apple.


Getting bizarre error message from Mail I have Mail set up to handle two different accounts: [my name]_iCloud, and [my name]_Gmail.

Today, when I try to send a message from the iCloud account, I get this message:

Can't Connect to the account "[my name]_iCloud".
Enter the password for user "".

The message is exactly as I typed -- it does not provide the user name (which would've been [my name]@icloud.com). Just two quotation marks next to each other. Entering the iCloud password does nothing. It refuses to send any mail.

The iCloud account will RECEIVE messages.
The Gmail account will both send and receive messages as usual.

Tried deleting the iCloud entries in keychain. Did not work.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

For the record, the problem appears to have been resolved. Steps I took to fix:

(1) Delete everything from key chain
(2) Remove gmail account from Mail.
(3) Restore gmail to Mail.

Everything works again. For now.


Website that uses iPhoto or Photos library as the database I've begun creating a centralised iPhoto library of all the family photos and was hoping to share it with my family members in a well presented way rather than just sending them the raw images.

My current process is:
- Scan the image
- Add a rough date to the meta of the image in iPhoto
- Use facial recognition in iPhoto to group / tag images by who they are

The last two steps are fairly pointless if I am just providing raw files. Ideally I would like to create a website, that allows me to display the images from the iPhoto library in the following ways:
- by album
- by recently added
- by facially recognised people
- by date

I can't find anyone who has done this before and I can't find anyone who is pulling content straight from iPhoto onto a website. Any ideas of how I could do this, has anyone done this before, does anyone have any alternatives that would enable me to still achieve display options in the above 4 ways?

Worth noting that I have considered just uploading them all to Facebook and making the album private but their privacy policy doesn't excite me when the images in this photo repository include photos of myself naked as a child

Have you considered using iCloud Photo Sharing?

This can be used to share specific photo albums, so you could create one for each of the four categories. You can also share these as a public website so that people who aren't part of Apple's ecosystem can also view them.

For more information refer to: iCloud Photo Sharing.

NOTE: One limitation you should be aware of is that currently iCloud Photo Sharing limits you to sharing no more than 5,000 photos/videos.


How restore missing iMessage messages on iPhone? I've found that some recent iMessage messages that were sent to me showed up only on my iPad instead of both my iPad and my iPhone. There are other questions at Ask Different that address how this could happen, but my concern here is getting the message streams back in sync so that both devices show the same history of messages. In other words, I want to get the missing messages to appear in the message stream on my iPhone (with the correct timestamps). Is there some way to force the iPhone to sync with the iPad or with a master message database at Apple?

Both devices are running iOS 9.3.5.

There is no master message database at Apple. If it's been less than 30 days, and if Apple's servers think your iPhone hasn't received the messages in question yet, they may yet show up, but it's unlikely.

There's no way to force the issue because messages are only saved for up to 30 days or until delivered, whichever comes first. If their servers think the messages have been delivered, they're already gone.


Does signing out of FaceTime disconnect your Apple ID from a specific device? I used my Apple ID to sign in only to FaceTime on my friend's iPad device. Later I went to Settings → FaceTime and clicked Sign out. Does that mean that this iPad an my apple ID are now completely disconnected? Or is there a chance that my friend can get my FaceTime calls or even my iMessages etc.?

Yes - tapping the sign out button disconnects FaceTime. The messages app uses a different account unless you set them all up using iCloud preference or a setup assistant screen to log into all icloud services with one Apple ID.

As long as you signed out of the FaceTime portion of the settings app - more deliveries won't happen to that device.

as long as you didn't sign in to the iCloud settings or anywhere else - you should be safe with no data of yours on that device other than for the moments you allowed it.


Deleting mobile applications from Mac/iTunes 12.5 There is an older question on here about removing mobile applications from iTunes. On my Mac, 5.73 GB is used by the iTunes Media/Mobile Applications folder. I would like to remove that folder, and from what I've seen in the other question I should be fine removing the mobile applications from iTunes. However I can't seem to find those mobile applications anywhere in iTunes anymore. Maybe in the redesign they removed or moved it? What is the proper way for me to remove the applications?

For more details, I used to have an iPhone 4S on iOS 7 that I no longer use, and I would update apps on iTunes and sync them to the phone. I also have an iPad 2 on iOS 9 which I may have occasionally used iTunes to put or update apps onto the the iPad but I don't need to do this and generally don't. (In fact, I don't even know anymore how it is possible to update or install apps with iTunes for the iPad... is it?) I also have an iPhone SE on iOS 9 (will probably be iOS 10.1 in a month or two), and I don't use iTunes to sync apps on that either (at least not practically, for that and my iPad I don't know if there is some setting somewhere that says to sync some apps), but when I first set up my iPhone from a backup of the 4S in iTunes I think it may have included apps that it copied over via iTunes.

Which also leads me to a followup question: If I remove the folder via Finder or somehow via iTunes, and I need to restore the iPhone from a backup, would the phone need to re-download those 5 GB of apps online? As it stands it doesn't seem that new apps I put on my iPhone SE are saved in iTunes so maybe I'd have to do that either way.

If you sync a device with the computer, and the apps don't already exist on that computer, they will be transferred from the device onto the computer. (This may only apply to apps newly downloaded since your last sync.)

If you're using iTunes 12.5.1, it's now accessible through the drop-down menu that allows you to switch between Music, Movies, Podcasts, etc., as Apps. If it's not visible on that menu, choose the Edit Menu item on the menu and check the box next to Apps, hit Done, and then click on Apps.

Once in Apps, you can remove them by right-clicking on an application (or selecting several and then right-clicking) and choosing Delete, then Delete Apps, then Move to Trash.

You can set your computer to automatically download new apps that you purchase on your device under Preferences > Store tab > Automatic Downloads and check the box for Apps.

If you restore a backup from iTunes, it does the restore and then does a separate sync step where it loads the apps back onto the device. I don't know what would happen if the apps weren't on the computer to be put back on, though. If you restore from an iCloud backup, the apps are re-downloaded over the internet.


Activate app by pressing thumb on timeout / locked screen for few seconds This might seem like a strange question. Is there some sort of way for an app to launched by pressing the screen for a few seconds on touch screen phones? the reason why I ask is because this would be a great feature for like a panic button. of course the app will have to calibrate to the owner's thumb to prevent accidental pressing from objects in purse or pockets.

Without jailbreaking, no. Even with jailbreaking, quite possibly not (you'd likely have to keep the entire screen on, which would burn a lot of power). The capacitive screen is turned off until you wake the device, so no amount of touching it will do anything.

Additionally, there's no real way to "calibrate" for the owner's thumb: a touch is a touch (on iOS devices). Objects in your purse or pockets, though, are rarely noticed by the screen because it's detecting energy being drawn away from it by the touching object (your human body is serving as a capacitor); that's why you can't register a touch with, say, a plastic pen or a gloved finger: the electrical charge isn't being siphoned off because it can't be transmitted through the pen or glove. Nothing commonly found in a purse or pocket would serve as a capacitor, so that part's safe, anyway.


adding a exception rule to do not disturb? I talk to a quite a few Americans, I my self am English, they message me during the night but, I do not want to switch off notifications for that Skype chat, otherwise as always, I will forget to switch it back on, and will miss something...

Can kind-of rules be added to the do not disturb?

or is do not disturb do not disturb at all regardless.

The only exceptions to Do Not Disturb are calls or texts from individual contacts that you have marked with Emergency Bypass. (Edit a contact, tap on Ringtone or Text tone, then enable Emergency Bypass at the top of the screen. You have to do this for each of calls [ringtone] and texts [text tone] if you want both to get through.)

You cannot add exceptions for any other kind of notifications or activities.


Reproducing execution launchd execution environment I have a script which runs flawlessly under a normal interactive shell, but which frequently has errors when run as a user LaunchAgent.
Is there a way to manually, and ideally interactively, run a command exactly as it is run by launchd, to make it easier to debug?

To be clear, the script in question does work (intermittently) under launchd. It is not as simple as missing paths. I know that launchd uses a more spartan environment, but the situation is now:

There are frequent intermittent failures under launchd
I have never reproduced these failures in my user shell

As is common, there are numerous differences in environment between my fully configured user shell and the minimal launchd context, so it is very difficult to guess what difference might be at fault (or whether it even is an environment variable that causes the difference), which is why I was hoping to find a way simply to run commands manually and interactively, exactly as they would run under launchd. I am surprised that there is not a launchd run subcommand or similar.

Launchd jobs run with a default shell that does not import any of the typical environment variables you'll see in an interactive shell; in particular the PATH variable lacks any directories that your interactive shell might have added, which can cause headaches. You can work around that two ways:

By making your script as thoroughly generic as possible: using full path specifications to every command and utility, and explicitly setting variables as you need them rather than relying on the environment.
By adding an EnvironmentVariables dictionary to your launchd plist file and specifying the environment there.

The second looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    < ... >
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
           <key>VARIABLE_NAME_1</key>
           <string>variable_contents</string>
           <key>VARIABLE_NAME_2</key>
           <string>variable_contents</string>
    </dict>
    < ... >
</dict>
</plist>


Is there a Safari plugin to remove mackeeper ads? I don't mind ads, banners and the like.

What I do mind is the fact that almost all the ads I see recently are ads for Mackeeper. Popups, banners, it's everywhere.

Am I the only one that has this problem?

I've recently installed AdBlock 2.5.13 to take care of the popups, yet the banners remain.

These banners state stuff as: "is your Mac slow? Use mackeeper to make it 21% faster!" I'm really getting frustrated, because:

my Mac is lightning fast,
I've tried Mackeeper on my friend's Mac, and it really is a textbook example of a bad Mac citizen. I really dislike the app (just an opinion).
I'm not going to buy an app to make my Mac faster, because I know there is no such thing.

Perhaps this is a google ads problem?

Do you understand how to use the customization features in AdBlock to detect a specific ad and configure AdBlock to block it?

Here are the AdBlock instructions.


Is it possible to block macOS Mojave installation? I manage a small company apple computer park and I don't want my users to update to macOS Mojave since one software package we use everyday is not yet compatible.

Is there a way to block the OS update?

You can probably use a MDM solution to support all your devices (mobiles & desktop eg: Miradore, Jamf etc.)

Check this support document:

Mobile device management settings for IT - macOS restrictions.

You can temporarily block any update (to secure for example a shared mac). Use

sudo spctl --disable --label "Mac App Store"

to block any installation from the Mac App Store.

You should create a standard and an admin user and give the standard user credentials.

Using imaging or Net boot is not the recommended approach since the introduction of APFS in macOS High Sierra 10.13.


Boot screen has wrong display resolution I recently used my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.8.4) with a projector using a mini display port to VGA adapter.

The resolution of the screen was modified from the use of the projector from 1680x1050 to 800x600 but it did not return it back to the original resolution. I therefore changed it back manually via the System Preferences "Displays" dialog.

However, whenever I boot the system, the initial boot screen (pale grey screen with the centred white apple logo) has a very small resolution (my guess is 800x600) with black vertical bars either side. Once the desktop system is loaded, the correct resolution (1680x1050) is then applied. This reoccurs every time I boot the system.

How do I return my display's resolution to a "system-wide" 1680x1050?

I had the same issue, but resetting the PRAM solved it.

Procedure from here:

Resetting NVRAM / PRAM

Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R.
You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.


How do I access icloud photo gallery to transfer photos? All of my iPhone photos are now in the Cloud, and when I hook the phone up to the computer I cannot see the photos or transfer them off. Phone storage now shows full. How can I get to the  photos to transfer them to a PC and get them out of the cloud?

This is a guess, but if you turn off iCloud back up on the iPhone, you may be able to access them using iTunes from your PC.

To turn off backing up photos to iCloud on an iPhone, go to Settings, then iCloud, then Photos, then turn off iCloud Photo Library. Note: My Photo Stream does not use any of your iCloud storage, so you can leave this on if you want.

Then, go back to Settings, iCloud, then Storage, then Manage Storage, then select your phone. Let it load, then turn off Photo Library under "Next Backup Size".

If you want to delete the photos on iCloud you can do it from Settings in your iPhone. Go into Settings, then iCloud, then Storage, then Manage Storage, then iCloud Photo Library. Use the delete button there.


Automatically executing actions according to the current location I would like to have in my MacBook Pro a functionality which execute automatically some actions according to my current location. This actions could be for example

Change the default printer
Change the network location (for setting for example static or dynamic IP like in this question)
Open an application or a specific file
Activate/Deactive file sharing
Run shell scripts

The current location could be inferred for example by using the current network (Wi-Fi network name) or other localization services.

Is there an application that provides this functionality?

You probably want Control Plane:

  ControlPlane allows you to build configuration profiles, contexts in ControlPlane lingo, for your Mac based on where you are or what you are doing.  ControlPlane determines where you are or what you are doing based on a number of available evidence sources and then automatically reconfigures your Mac based on your preferences.  Evidence sources can include your current location, visible WiFi networks, attached USB devices, running applications and more.  You can even write your own evidence sources using shell scripts!


Show all button on finder On Finder, using the View as Icons grouped by document type, is it possible to visualize all the elements instead of to have to click every time on "Show All" button?

Depending how many Folders/Files you have it is sometimes not possible to show all to fit in the screen.

You could try to reduce the Icon size (the slider at bottom right of the Finder widow), that helps to see more (or sometimes all) while loosing Icon clarity.


How can I find the location of my current user account picture? five years ago, I uploaded a photo as my account picture.
I tried the ways below, but I still cannot find the location to find the original picture.

my macOS high sierra 10.13.4

~/Library/Containers/

cannot find

com.apple.ImageKit

or

iChat Recent Pictures

and
even /Library/User Pictures cannot find

You can run the following command from terminal to get your user account pictures. This would be an easy way.

dscl . -read /Users/Yourusername JPEGPhoto | tail -1 | xxd -r -p > accountImage.jpg

Just you will get a 256x256 pixel version of your account picture


How to configure Static IP on iPhone I Want to use wifi on my iphone, Anybody can help me.
I am already using my laptop on the same network through static IP. Please also tell me that Mac address will be used in this situation. The static IP of my laptop is below:

IP Address: 10.10.10.144
Subnet Mask: 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway: 10.10.10.1
Preferred DNS Server: 10.10.10.1

Assuming iOS 6:

Tap on “Settings” and then tap on “General”
Tap “Wi-Fi” and look for the network name you are connected to, tap
the blue (>) arrow next to it
Tap the “Static” tab and enter network appropriate DHCP/static IP
information
   Close out of Settings and launch Safari or another network app to confirm connectivity

To see the MAC Address of your iPhone,

Tap on “Settings” and then tap on “General”
Tap “About” and look for the "Wi-Fi Address"


/StartupItem/ Error, How to resolved the issue? I'm using Macbook Pro late 2011 and I'm getting this error in my startup.

I've already performed Repair Disk Permission in my Utilities;
I've also upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion (10.8.3) but non of the solutions repaired it. I don't want to install fresh Mountain Lion and re-install again, it would be a tedious solution. Any idea how can this be resolved?

Errors Screenshot:

Looks like you need to reinstall VirtualBox.


Mac Grapher Complex Error Function I understand the the Grapher app in Mac OS X comes with erf and erfc, the error function and complementary error function. However, when I define

y = Re[erfc(-ix)],

the Grapher app just returns y(x) = 0 for all values of x. Is it not possible to give this function complex values?

You may well find that somewhere in there the complex number is being flattened and you will need to use the complex() function to protect it from that.

Check this out :-

http://acko.net/blog/taming-complex-numbers-in-grapher-app/


Mac update 10.13.4 - how do I exit the installer? Like many people my attempt to install update 10.13.4 has not worked. A 2012 Mac Air running OS 10.13.3 with the usual "resource not found" and exit the installer. I click restart and stuck in the loop.

I can hold Option at boot and choose the installer or the normal drive, so yes, I can get boot fine.  I do not want to install the update now. I will wait until a better update is released later.

So, how do I stop the installer so I do not have to hold Optionat boot?

Added: I have not lost anything and can use the computer fine. I just want to stop the computer defaulting to the installer instead of the normal drive.

When I alt/option at boot I have 2 drive choices on the DOS like screen - the installer or the original drive.

Apple stores the boot volume in NVRAM with some other settings, have you tried resetting that and then when you boot to the normal os, go to startup options and choose the Mac OS to be th default os to boot?

That’s the normal way to reset a sticky choice you don’t prefer when there are several OS to boot or choose.


How do I bulk rename albums in iTunes? I have an online subscription to a radio program that allows me to download past episodes. However when they are opened in iTunes the album name is set in the format Apr 01 2008. The problem is that there are thousands of these and I would like to change it to a better format such as 2008 01 Apr or even 2008 Apr 01. Is there any automatic way to change an mp3's metadata - or a program like a Better Finder Rename that can edit this iTunes metadata for the thousands of tracks that I have?

I recommend Doug's Applescripts for iTunes as a great resource to keep in mind for any future questions you might have. From it I found the script that applies sed to the track names. Once you follow the instructions to install the script, put the following code in the popup box:

s/\([:alpha:]\)+ \([:digit:]+\) \([:digit:]+\)/\3 \1 \2/

N.B. This is actually the first time I've used sed, so I recommend testing this out on a few individual songs first.

(Also, if you don't have any programming experience, then it's likely that the Regular Expression above looked downright arcane. Don't worry! That's totally normal.)


Automatic Wi-Fi connection after formatting: how possible? I have a MacBook, FileVault turned on. One day I formatted the internal SSD entirely (not just one partition), and started 'internet recovery'. The MacBook connected automatically to my home router's Wi-Fi, which is WPA2 password protected. It never prompted me to enter any username, SSID, or password.

If the Wi-Fi credentials were stored in the internal SSD, then the credentials should have been erased already. Even if they weren't erased because I messed up the formatting, they were encrypted with FileVault, so the MacBook should not have been able to use them without asking me for the FileVault passphrase first.

I'm so puzzled.

I think you have provided your Apple ID details (including the password) prior to the internet recovery. Thus, this is happening due to iCloud Keychain. (Which stores your passwords in the cloud and use them whenever it needs). If that is not the case and if you sure that the connected wifi network has WPA2, it is suspicious.


MacBook Pro won't boot into safe mode or from DVD Specs: MacBook Pro 7,1, 2.4gHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB HDD with Snow Leopard v10.6.7

I'm having a weird problem. I want to boot from the install disk to run Disk Utility because I'm having a Time Machine problem (that's not the problem). So I grab the install disk and hold down C as the computer starts up. The logo appears and then it goes straight to the login screen. I did it again, still the same thing.

So I double check and saw that Startup disk is set to Snow Leopard disk and there is nothing plugging into the computer besides the power cable.

So I did it again, still went straight to the login screen. So I tried booting into safe mode by holding down shift key, still the same result. Also tried it with booting into the Hardware Test with the Application Disk, still booting straight into the login screen.

The computer itself works fine, in fact I'm typing with it. The DVD drive works because I just finished playing one of the West Wing DVD and the supplied Apple disks works and load setup just fine.

There have been no hardware modifications in the last 6 months.

Can anyone help with my weird problem please?

Press and Hold C button should take place immediately after you switch the MBP on. Delay could cause it to go with the normal boot sequence. Continue to hold until you see the gray screen with the apple on it


Why can't I delete iCalendar account subscription? I'm trying to delete Contacts and Focuster. It is a Gmail account, and it doesn't appear on my google calendar.

For some reason, it's not letting delete from my iCal.

Calendars that are part of your Google account cannot in general be deleted from within Calendar.app. To delete the calendar, go to https://calendar.google.com/ (or in your case possibly https://www.focuster.com/ ) and manipulate your calendar subscriptons there.

Different pieces of software interact with Google calendars using a variety of protocols - Exchanage ActiveSync, CalDAV, http, and maybe others. Some of these protocols do not support all the calendars visible in your Google account, or need to be configured to show calendars beyond those listed as "My Calendars" in the Google web interface.

Information about using Apple's Calendar.app in macOS or iOS with Google Calendars is here:
https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/99358

Using the controls at https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect you can select the calendars that are visible to Calendar.app - this would allow you to turn off the syncing of calendars you do not want to see (like the "Focuster" one mentioned) without needing to delete them entirely from your Google Calendar account.

It is possible that a system like Focuster will recreate their calender if deleted or turn it back on for syncing if it is turned off, so you may have to manipulate it through their system rather than just using the Google controls.


Enter key intermittently stops working on both my Macbook Pro's & external keyboard My Macbook Pro is 5 months old and I've started to get "enter" key failure on both my internal and external keyboards.
It works again when I restart the laptop. The fact that it's happening on both keyboards tells me that it's not a hardware issue per se.
I've cleaned both keyboards to make sure it wasn't due to a dirty underside of the keys.
Can anyone provide some guidance on this?

It's very interesting that the external keyboard and internal keyboard are having issues with the same key. One action I also recommend when hardware like keyboards, back lighting, ports, chargers aren't working is to reset the SMC (System Management Controller).

In the meantime, let us know a little more information:

Is the external keyboard wired or bluetooth?
Is this issue only happening with the Enter key, and no other keys?
Does the keyboard issue occur randomly, or have you noticed a pattern (like during certain apps, or when logging in, etc.)?
Do you have Apple Care or any other warranty?


Iphone third generation I have and iphone three and I forgot the password on it and it didn't work when i went to restore it. I really need to get back on it again.

It can happen one forgets the password.

Apple knows that and has made every effort to help you with recovering it.

The quickest way is to go to Apple website and request password reset.

It is a Automated process, and you will receive a email from Apple, so look for it.

There is more help here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201487


tmux jump words as with zsh I moved from just using zsh to using zsh inside tmux. As my terminal is iTerm2 for both combinations.

I have the following lines in my .zshrc to enable jumping words on a bare zsh command line using the ALT+arrow keys:

bindkey '[C' forward-word
bindkey '[D' backward-word

Sadly this is not working inside my tmux session.

  How can I jump words back and forth also in tmux using ALT + arrow
  key?

What I tried so far:

set-window-option -g xterm-keys on 1

If found the solution here https://superuser.com/questions/427163/altarrow-moving-between-words-in-zsh-and-iterm2

You have to adjust the keybindings for ⌥ ← and ⌥→ inside iTerm2


How to test if video is local or stream? If I watch a video in QuickTime Player, how I can test in my AppleScript, if this video file is on my Mac or is it streamed live from the net?

If you open AppleScript editor and then open dictionary and choose your version of quicktime player, you can see the dictionary your system supports.

On Mountain Lion - you would look under the Standard Suite and inspect the document property to see that file would tell you if the movie is saved locally.

Presumably, you could then infer that you are playing HTTP or RSTP streaming video, but I don't see any way for AppleScript (or automator) to know if the stream was previously recorded or live from the dictionary Apple provides for the version 10.2 of Quicktime Player.


New MacBook Pro won't wake from sleep without restart My girlfriend's new MacBook Pro will sometimes seem not to wake up from sleep. No amount of spacebar hits, enters, clicks, etc. seem to awake the computer. She's resorted to hard restarting the computer which is obviously not ideal.

It seems to happen regardless of its state as it goes to sleep (closed lid, idle).

Anyone else hear of this or have any ideas?

This is a common problem and is caused by the EFI being out of date. To fix this simple download and install MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.9

Hope this helps. All the best.


Utility to identify what mouse buttons are being pressed? Is there a utility for mac to show what mouse buttons are being pressed?

Similar utilities for Windows are: Spy++ and WindowSpy from AutoHotKey.

For Linux I have used: xinput --query-state

Hammerspoon can be scripted to do this.

Install Hammerspoon and run it.
Open System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy and enable Hammerspoon.app under Accessibility.
Click the Hammerspoon menu icon and select Open Config. Your default code/text editor will open to ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua.
Enter something like the following text which uses the Hammerspoon hs.eventtap.new API to listen for events.

detectMouseDown = hs.eventtap.new({
  hs.eventtap.event.types.otherMouseDown,
  hs.eventtap.event.types.leftMouseDown,
  hs.eventtap.event.types.rightMouseDown
}, function(e)
  local button = e:getProperty(
      hs.eventtap.event.properties['mouseEventButtonNumber']
  )
  print(string.format("Clicked Mouse Button: %i", button))
end)

detectMouseDown:start()

Save the file.
Click the Hammerspoon menu icon, select Console... and click Reload config on the console window.
Now, whenever you click anywhere you'll see a log entry in the Hammerspoon Console!

(So far, this works for any type of touchpad click/tap or external mouse click.)


disable single inbox for multiple MS Exchange email accounts in Mail app on a Mac A colleague added an extra MS exchange email account to her Mac Mail app.

Unfortunately, the emails to this address are being saved into the inbox for the other MS exchange email account.

How do we separate the two inboxes please?

Thanks.

You can view each inbox separately. In the left hand column, click the triangle next to the Inbox, then select the inbox you'd like to look at.


Does opening the Mac mini 2018 for cleaning void the warranty? I've had my Mac mini 2018 for just over two years. I am concerned that there has accumulated dust inside of the computer – not because anything seems problematic at the moment, but my experience with MacBook Pro laptops has been that you need to clean them every two years. There is usually a dust coasting landing on top of the Mac mini, so I am suspecting it needs to be cleaned also.
If I were to open the Mac mini and attempt to blow it clean with compressed air, would that void any remaining warranty?
NB: I believe my product is actually already outside of Apple's limited warranty. However, does Apple not want consumers to open the Mac Mini, so that if something were to break at some time, that an authorized service shop would refuse repair?

The iFixit Teardown shows the Mac mini 2018 is relatively easy to open.
Apple even returned to the user replaceable RAM option, thus indicating that they expect users to open the case. Unless you start digging around and removing components (other than RAM) I don't think you'll be in any danger.
As always, make sure you follow proper ESD procedures to protect the logic board & RAM from getting zapped by static electricity.


Is it possible to put in consitently readable notes with a stylus on an iPad I have an iPad and I'd lovely to be able to use it for brainstorming and proper, detailed annotation of PDFs, but I find my attempts look like a child's fingerpainting:

(The word I attempted to write was 'interesting')

Is there any cure? Or am I doomed to be kept using the printer and the pen?

I have tried a few apps myself. I really liked UPad. They have a free version of the app which has nearly all the features. What I like about it is the zoom function. You have a nice palm rest where you can write in a zoomed in portion of the page. It makes writing even with a cheap stylus easy. You can also zoom on the whole page, which is nice for drawing.

The app also allows you to import PDF and write on them. I have been using it to annotate all of my classes slides this semester.

In brief, the palm rest with the zoomed in window makes it easy to write normally. Try the free version, you'll see.


Need script to automatically export Skim PDFs with embedded notes I have a folder with a few thousand PDF files, most of which have Skim annotations (e.g., highlights and notes). If I had fewer files, I'd just go through each one, export the PDF with embedded notes, and be on my merry way, having the ability to read my annotations with Adobe Reader on a PC (this is the goal).

But since there are so many files, I need a script that will automatically go through this folder, perform the "export as PDF with embedded notes" function for each PDF that has Skim annotations, and then give the new file the name of the original file plus "with skim notes" (or some other designation to indicate it's the version with embedded notes). Secondly, if I make further annotations to the original PDF, it'd be great if the script could update the exported file with the embedded notes.

I assume this is possible, as it appears Skim has great applescript support, but I have no idea  how to create one.

Thank you so much for any help you can offer.
WG

I had the same problem and wanted to batch embed a lot of skim pdfs. The apple script by Jess Riedel wasn't working for me, so I coded a python script to do the job.
I used the script to embed 568 pdfs scattered in a folder with various subfolders. It took 300 seconds. Be aware, that the script won't process files with a " in its filepath.
It is possible to create an osx folder action that runs the script on changed files in a folder automatically, every time a file changes. I haven't developed one yet because I havent found any need for it.
You can download the script as an osx service and as an alfred workflow at https://github.com/alexandergogl/SkimPDF.
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from os import system, walk, path

class SkimPDF(object):
    """docstring for SkimPDF."""
    def __init__(self):
        self.skimpdf_path = '/Applications/Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/skimpdf'
        self.embed_suffix = '_embeded'
        self.replace = False
        pass

    def embed_notes(self, in_pdf):
        """Embed skim notes to PDF."""
        if self.replace is False:
            out_pdf = "%s%s.pdf" % (in_pdf[:-4], self.embed_suffix)
        else:
            out_pdf = in_pdf

        # Embed notes
        cmd = '%s embed "%s" "%s"' % (self.skimpdf_path, in_pdf, out_pdf)
        result = system(cmd)

        # Compose message
        if result == 0:
            message = "Embeded notes to '%s'" % in_pdf
        else:
            message = result

        return message

    def embed_notes_batch(self, folder):
        """Loop through directories in given folder and embed notes."""
        messages = []
        i = 0
        for path, subdirs, files in walk(folder):
            for name in files:
                if name.endswith(".pdf"):
                    i += 1
                    # embed notes to pdf
                    pdf_file = "%s/%s" % (path, name)
                    result = skim.embed_notes(pdf_file)
                    # add result message to report
                    messages.append(result)
                    # report current state
                    print(i)

        self.report(messages)
        pass

    def report(self, messages):
        """Print list of processed pdfs."""
        print("\n\nProcessing PDFs done:")

        for i in range(len(messages)):
            message = "%s: %s" % (i + 1, messages[i])
            print(message)
        pass

skim = SkimPDF()
skim.replace = True  # set to false if you want a copy in place instead
# skim.embed_suffix = '_embeded'  # uncomment and enter your own suffix if necessary

# embed notes of a single pdf
skim.embed_notes('../path/to/pdf file.pdf')

# batch embeding process with path to folder with literature
skim.embed_notes_batch('../path/to/Literature folder')


Force windows to be maximized but not fullscreen? On my Early 2015 13" MBP, on both El Capitan and macOS Sierra, I notice that some windows -- particularly Google Chrome, of which I have the latest stable version -- often seem to resize themselves slightly upwards without my consent, not taking up quite the full length of available area between the bottom dock and the top bar:

See the dark gap between the bottom of the Chrome window (the area with "0 votes 0 answers" - that's a StackExchange webpage) and the light-blue dock showing my application icons? I'd like to have the OS automatically squeeze that gap for me.

I am not willfully doing anything weird like dragging my windows around with the mouse or resizing them when this happens. I think it happens when I close the downloads bar at the bottom of the Chrome window, most often.

I often use Alt + Click on the green button to force a window to be maximized-but-not-fullscreen, but if it's in this intermediate state where it's "not-quite-maximized", this key combo does nothing.

I don't want to run the window in fullscreen so that I have instant access to and visibility of menus and can always look at my dock without having to move my cursor to it.

Confession: I come to MacOS with a heavily Windows-based UI familiarity, and I'm used to the paradigm of having window dressings like menus and the Windows Taskbar taking up part of the screen, but being able to easily maximize windows with the "Maximize" button. Indeed, this behavior is consistent for the majority of popular GNU/Linux window managers, too. It's only on OS X / macOS where I'm seeing this strange behavior of windows that like to slide a few pixels underneath the bottom dock, or pull themselves up a little over time.

I believe this happens when dock scales up depending on a number of apps running and icons become a little big bigger. I was annoyed by this too and disabled [ ] Magnification.


Simulating a touch on a phone screen without a finger? I'm trying to simulate a touch on my iPhone without actually touching it (with a finger) for an app I'm making, I already tried electricity and it didn't worked, what is the correct way of doing it?

edit: I'm trying to simulate a touch physically, I need to understand the touch screen mechanism to find some sort of material.

A standard touch stylus is designed to work just a human finger on a captive screen.  Bonus is that your simulator doesn't start to smell after a couple days.

You have them with hard polymer tip but there's also cheaper ones with a softer, thin layered polymer layer over foam tip.  I don't know where you are from, but in Asian electronic malls they start at about 50 cents a pop.


SMB share can't rename files/folders On occasion cannot rename or delete files & folders on a Windows Server 2012 R2 SMB share from a Macbook.

Mac OS X 10.10 build 14A389a

The SMB share has granted "Everyone" with Full Control permissions.

Windows 7 desktops access the share without issue.

Error messages received are:

This is something we had issues with today at work.

It goes like this:

Have a folder (Folder 1) and create another folder in this folder (Folder 2). Copy a file (such as an image) into Folder 2. Now you won't be able to rename Folder 1 without Finder asking for admin password, and entering that gives the same dialog as the second posted above by Ash. Moving (or deleting) the file that was added to Folder 2 out  from that folder makes it possible to rename Folder 1 again. Seems like a bug to me. It has been reported to Apple.


Can not edit or add a user account on Mavericks Server App I'm having a problem with the Server app on my Mac Mini.

I had to renew my Domain Name and DNS is now working well. But i can not edit existing user accounts or add new user accounts to my Server. The the + and - buttons to add or remove users are greyed out and it is not possible for me to edit something under this Service. And under the Server app it is not possible to add a Network user.

What might be causing this problem?

Follow the directions posted at: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT200018

In summary:
1. Check that your DNS settings are correct using terminal host and hostname commands
2. Rekerberize your server - the steps basically reinitialize slapd and the chain of trust needed for network account operation


iPhone 5C behaving like headphones are plugged in I updated my 5c to iOS 9.3.2 and since then the phone has been behaving as though the headphone are plugged in.

Neither speaker nor microphone work normally when taking calls - I hear nothing and the caller cant hear me. But when I switch it to speaker during a call it works fine, and I can hear the ring tone. Sounds in apps like Spotify dont work either.

Of course I've turned the phone on and off again.

Would anyone know what I can do?

Try plugging in a headset and unplugging.


How do I create nested lists in Reminders? I want to use Reminders.app but I also want a little more structure through nested lists. How do I created nested lists with Reminders.app on iOS or OS X?

Unfortunately there is no support for nested lists in Reminders.
I would recommend Todoist if you're looking for nested lists, it does a great job and integrates into OS X and iOS well. There are plenty of other aps that do this too like wunderlist and trello


How to select paragraphs with similar style in Pages 5? Pages '09 had the paragraph styles drawer with a list of all styles. Each style had the following context menu:

On the new Pages 5, this is how that context menu looks however.

I can't seem to find where the option to "Select all uses of..." went. Anyone have a clue on how to select all uses of a given paragraph style?

As far as I know, there is no “Select All Uses of …” command in Pages 5.

You don’t need that command to edit the format of all a style’s uses, though. When you change a paragraph's style, like changing some “Body”-styled paragraph’s font, an “Update” button will appear beside the style name in the format sidebar, and the style name will append a * to indicate that it was modified. Click the button and all paragraphs using that style will update.


How to use the "instant alpha" in Preview I overlaid a rectangle atop an existing PNG image in Preview:

After enabling the Markup toolbar we can select Instant Alpha

Now what?  I tried to get a selection tool to mark the rectangle but no selecting action occurs. The instructions I was looking at are here  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6774112

The way Instant Alpha works is that it selects color that are similar to it.  It's not as nice as Photoshop where you can select multiple areas and get really granular with the selection criteria so you'll have to do multiple steps.

Select the Instant Alpha tool
Using your mouse, select an area you'd like to remove
Slowly drag your mouse down and select an area you'd like to remove.  If you select too much, back off until you've selected as much as you can
Hit the ⌫ Delete key
Repeat until you're removed the background completely.

(I may have gone too far on the first background selection, but you'll get the idea)


Force Quit Disk Utility to Cancel 7 pass Erase and Now Disk is not usable I accidentally performed a 7 pass erase on my usb drive, and I don't want to wait that long time so I forced quit the Disk Utility. However, after doing that I found out that my disk is kind of unusable. I couldn't format it nor could I erase it since it would give me the error

Error: -69888: Couldn't unmount disk

Below is the information of my usb drive right now, what should I do to make this usb usable again?

You needed to recreate a filesystem. You tried diskutil eraseVolume disk2 but this is invalid. See man diskutil or diskutil eraseVolume --help for details.
Firstly you need to tell diskutil what filesystem (if any) to use and secondly while in some odd cases (RAID for example) you create a filesystem on the whole physical disk normally it is on the partition. From your picture disk2 is the physical disk and disk2s2 is the partition so you want something like this:
diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ WhateverName disk2s2 where :

JHFS+ is the filesystem you want (in this case journalled HFS+).  Valid values can be seen by entering diskutil listFilesystems but from your picture it seems you had a HFS filesystem before.
WhateverName is the volume name you want (can be any valid characters, quoted if necessary)
disk2s2 is the partition you want to create the filesystem on.

What probably happened
From your picture disk2 is your physical USB drive.  When you format a drive in Disk Utility macOS creates a small file called a partition table at the start (and if a GPT disk the end) of the disk.  This file holds information showing where partitions are on the disk and their type.  It will then normally create a small (invisible) 200MiB EFI partition (disk2s1) followed by one or more other partitions (disk2s2, disk2s3 etc) that you request.
In your case the second partition was a 256GB HFS partition.  This was probably journalled HFS as it is the default, but not necessarily - the filesystem type code AF00 doesn't distinguish journalling.  You can see from this support doc Apple recommends it in many cases.
When you started writing zeros to disk2s2 it destroyed the filesystem by overwriting it with zeros.  The partition table entry showing the start, end and type (AF00) remained.  Therefore creating a filesystem in the partition fixed it.

Note on cleaning
Overwriting 7 times with zeros is a massive overkill.  Once is enough and more than that is a waste of time.
See this stackoverflow question: How does a 7- or 35-pass erase work? Why would one use these methods?
or this askubuntu question: Possibility of recovering files from a dd zero-filled hard disk


How do I remove Siri from the collapsed Control Strip? I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) and prefer to have the Touch Bar display the escape button on the left, nothing but a custom widget that does nothing in the middle, and the collapsed Control Strip on the right:

I don't use Siri, so I want to remove the Siri button from the collapsed Control Strip. However, when I press "Customize Touch Bar..." in the Keyboard preferences pane, it replaces the contents of the Touch Bar with the expanded Control Strip, from which I have removed Siri:

How do I customize the collapsed Control Strip to remove Siri, if every time I try to customize the Touch Bar, it removes the collapsed Control Strip?

I called Apple multiple times about this, each time it was escalated to a Senior Advisor, and each time nobody could figure this out. While toying around with it, however, I found the solution:

The only combination of preferences which allows you to customize the collapsed Control Strip is:

Touch Bar shows App Controls
Show Control Strip is checked

Then when you press "Customize Touch Bar...", you will be allowed to customize only the collapsed Control Strip. After you're done with that, you can change your "Touch Bar shows" preference to whatever you want:


Formatted XML display in Safari 8 I'm trying to find an extension or plugin that allows Safari to display XML in a more user friendly form, similar to how its handled by Firefox.

The only relevant information seems to be heavily outdated and not applicable to the latest version (8.0.7).

How can I view the raw XML of an RSS feed in Safari (or Reeder)? had an answer about 'XV XML Viewer', but the answer itself has been updated pointing out that it no longer works in Safari 5.1.

There is also an older .webplugin that could have been used, but then I read that the .webplugin mechanism itself is deprecated and no longer used in modern versions.

Is there any updated extension that can show a formatted xml view in current Safari versions? The ability to collapse/expand nodes would be nice, but atleast basic formatting would still be better than just a giant blob of text whenever I view a web service from Safari instead of Firefox.

You do not need an extension or plugin. What you should do is supply an appropriate XSL. The browser will use this to format the XML for display. See http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/default.asp for more information.


Get Spotlight to index a NAS Is there a way to have Spotlight index the volumes on a NAS?

I've used this: mdutil /Volumes/multimedia -i on. But results aren't there next time the system starts up.

I'm running 10.11 on a Mac Pro 2012 Westmere.

Spotlight requires use of the HFS Plus filesystem. It can't index your SMB shares. There exist some third-party solutions to iterate over your filesystem to create and maintain searchable databases, but it's not possible with Spotlight.


Paraview not accessible from other accounts I'm administering some Mac Minis for our workgroup. I recently needed to install Paraview, but ran into some problems I still couldn't resolve.

When installing Paraview 5.1.2 from it's .dmg file by moving the icon onto the Application folder, it ends up in /Applications. For this installation I used the only local account stsadmin, which surprisingly is an admin account. I can start the application, so everything seems to be fine.
When I log in with another account, which in our case are network accounts, I can't open Paraview.

  You do not have permissions to open the application "paraview".

I then checked the permissions:

$ ls -adl /Applications/paraview.app/
drwx------  3 stsadmin  admin  102 Jul 27 02:30 /Applications/paraview.app/

When I look at some other apps like VLC, this app belongs to root/wheel instead of stsadmin/admin.

Questions are:

Is this problem caused by paraview? Or did I use the wrong installation process?
How to fix it? chown? chgrp? If so, what is the correct user/group?

There is nothing wrong with your installation method. A lot of apps are intended to be installed by just simply dropping the app on the Applications folder.

Now either the packager/creator of the application bundle in the dmg made a mistake or the permissions of the bundle are deliberate.

To allow other users to use the app, modifying the permissions with the following command should be sufficient:

sudo chmod -R u=rwx,go=rx /Applications/paraview.app


How can I keep apps "always on top" in Lion? With past versions of OSX, I used Afloat, but ever since I moved to Lion, it stopped working for programs like Evernote & Chrome.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a program that will let me keep any other program's window 'always on top'?

It's a boring answer, but it looks like Afloat has been updated to support Lion:

http://infinite-labs.net/kb/afloat/af-lion.html


Limit my upload speed at OS level ? I know my upload speed is limited at about 100/110KB/s, sometimes I reach this limit and it impacts the connexion of other computer of my home network.

Is there a way to tell OSX to limit its upload speed to (for example) 80KB/s ?

Network Link Conditioner

You can create a custom profile for Network Link Conditioner, using the following settings:

It is a free download in Xcode (go to Xcode → Open Developer Tool → More Developer Tools… and download the Hardware IO Tools for Xcode).


Calendar Not Showing events I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 7 and now my calendar is not working.

When I try to put an event in and press done it does not show in the phone's calendar, but it does show in the iCloud calendar.

Alan R, I think your sync is broken.

Taken from this article : http://email.about.com/od/googlecalendartips/qt/Sync_Google_Calendar_and_iPhone_Calendar.htm

I think you should sync a Google Calendar with iPhone Calendar, it works best!

  Make sure you have no conflicting iCal, Exchange or Outlook calendars with which to synchronize. iPhone Calendar can only sync with one calendaring source.
  Go to Google Sync in iPhone Safari.
  Tap your iPhone under Manage devices.
  Make sure all calendars you want to sync are checked.
  Tap Save.
  Press the Home button.
  Tap Settings on the Home screen.
  Go to Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
  Tap Add Account... under Accounts.
  Choose Microsoft Exchange.
  Enter your Gmail address under Email.
  Enter "m.google.com" (not including the quotation marks) under Domain.
  Tap your full Gmail address under Username.
  Enter your Google Calendar password under Password.
  Optionally, tap "Google Calendar" under Description.
  Tap Next.
  Enter "m.google.com" under Server.
  Tap Next again.
  Make sure Calendars is ON.
  Turn ON Mail to enable push Gmail in iPhone Mail.
  Turn ON Contacts only if you have copied your existing contacts to Gmail. Otherwise, your existing iPhone contacts will be replaced with your Gmail address book contents.
  Tap Done.


Is it easy to mount my Time Capsule after a clean install (without any restore) so that I can copy individual files from it? People say it is possible but I am suspicious. I want to clean install and start fresh with nothing. Then I can access my Time Capsule that has my backup and copy any files I want. How easy or difficult is to use my Time Capsule as a external hard drive from where I can copy stuff? What I am particularly worried about is:

1) Will my new, clean and fresh Mountain Lion installation be able to recognize and mount Time Capsule on Finder?

2) Will I be able to easily locate, browse and copy the files from my last backup to my computer?

3) Will I have any permission problems to copy the files?

4) Will my new computer try to use Time Capsule to make backups and wipe out my previous backup? (that would be very bad!)

Thanks!

All the below answers assume that you are using TimeMachine for your backups on your TimeCapsule.

1) Will my new, clean and fresh Mountain Lion installation be able to recognize and mount Time Capsule on Finder?

Yes

2) Will I be able to easily locate, browse and copy the files from my last backup to my computer?

Yes - you will be able to find whole directory structure in folders with various time-date stamps.

3) Will I have any permission problems to copy the files?

No

4) Will my new computer try to use Time Capsule to make backups and wipe out my previous backup? (that would be very bad!)

Your new install may ask about using TimeCapsule for TimeMachine backups.  If you have a new hard drive, it will start a fresh structure.  If you have the same hard drive, it will probably continue with the same backup you currently have. But it will not wipe out previous backups, beyond the normal default backup intervals (saving once an hour for 24 hrs, once a day for a month, once a week after that).


OSX / Chrome keeps jumping back to video when in fullscreen When I am playing a video in google chrome on fullscreen, for example netflix or a youtube video, my macbook seems very determined to keep me focused on that video.
If I try to go to any other desktop or space by swiping left or right with three fingers, it keeps jumping back to the video. Sometimes this happens immediately, sometimes after about 10-20 seconds.
It does not happen when I pause the video, as long as it is on pause I can navigate freely between all desktops. As soon as I press play again, it starts jumping back to the video no matter what I do.
I would like to play a video on full screen while not actually looking at it the entire time. Sometimes I need to acces my work or chat windows at the same time.

It has been happening for a while now (maybe since I updated to mavericks, but I'm not sure). Other browsers and apps seem to be ok, no problem there. Does anyone have an idea what causes this?

Information about my computer:

MacBook Air (13-inch, begin 2014)

OSX El Capitan, version 10.11.6 (15G1108)

Google Chrome version 55.0.2883.75 (64-bit)

I am not sure it will working?
Try to check the chekbox in screenshot below


How to fix thunderbolt to vga display port? I have a MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014) and a third-party thunderbolt to vga adapter. I have had the adapter for over 2 years now and it has given me no problem at all. Suddenly, this week the macbook stopped detecting different displays. Here is what I have done to solve the problem:

Tried combinations of different screens, different VGA cables with the adapter
Checked if the adapter was working via a colleagues laptop (adapters seem to be working fine)
Tried different third party adapters
Resetting SMC and NVRAM
Updated the OSx from El Capitan to Mojave
Performed first aid and hardware check from Disk Utility
Tried installing the MiniDisplayVGAFirmware update

Nothing seems to work. On El Capitan the screen of the laptop would blink, after plugging the adapter to the Thunderbolt port, as if it recognised the screen but would not recognise the screen. On Mojave the screen does not even blink

I still have to try it with the official Apple Adapter but I do not want to buy it and realise that that is not the problem.

What do you think could be the issue? How can I fix it? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

If the adapter works fine on another Mac (second bullet point) then it is not the adapter. If you have tried a number of different adapters on your Mac and all of them do not work then I would then assume that is it one of two things:

A hardware issue with your Mac. EG a bad lightning port.
An issue with the installation of macOS on your Mac.

From your description of the symptoms I am leaning towards #1. However since backing up your Mac, re-formatting the HD, reinstalling the OS and restoring your files is a free (if tedious) procedure that would eliminate whether or not it is an OS issue I would start with that.

And if that fails you likely need to take the Mac in for repair.


Photos not downloading latest images to macOS Apple's Photos app has stopped downloading photos from iCloud (though I can confirm that they are present in iCloud.com and all my other devices). Only recent photos seem to be missing. I've waited a day, an still nothing. I've rebooted, turned Photos off and on in Account settings, force quit Photos, etc. I've even repaired the photo library. There is no indication that the Photos app is syncing.

How do I get Apple's Photos app to download recent photos from iCloud?

Make sure that your Mac is still uploading photos. Open the photos app and then go to the word Photos (next to File and Edit in the status bar) and then click on preferences. Then go over to the iCloud tab and you'll probably see that photos are uploading but the blue bar isnt moving or present. Click on the pause iCloud Photo Library button. Wait a minute, check your connection. Then unpause it and make sure that you Mac has a power cable plugged in and the screensaver/sleep timer turned off.

It should start uploading/downloading again in amounts.

That should fix your issue. If you have tried that before and it hasnt started the process then see if you can refresh your iCloud connection by signing out and then signing back in. That usually gets things moving again.


Multiple “Disk Not Ejected Properly” messages shown after waking from sleep I am getting tons of (about a hundred) “Disk Not Ejected Properly” notifications/messages for two external hard drives (one drive has one partition, the other has two partitions). I'm running Mojave 10.14.4. I never had these issues when these two drives were connected to a MacBook also running 10.14.4. But, now I have them connected to an iMac and these messages have been displaying recently the past day. Had not happened for about a week's worth of use prior to yesterday. The disks still seem to be working fine but for some reason it's worrisome to me.

Both drives are connected via Thunderbolt 3. Under the "Energy Saver" preference pane, I have "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" and "Enable Power Nap" checked.

Also: Similar Issue and Similar Issue

I started killing processes with "Notification" in their name, and when I hit the one called "NotificationCenter" the smoke finally cleared:

killall NotificationCenter


Can my Time Capsule assign an IP address based on client's MAC address? I need for the machines in my LAN to have static (by which I mean constant) private IP addresses.  Is it possible to configure the Time Capsule to assign IP address based on MAC address, so the hosts can simply use DHCP and get the same address each time?

(Note: I'm only concerned with the private IP addresses - 192.168.1.*.  Not with my TC's WAN address.)

The feature you are looking for is called "DHCP". This does exactly what you want, assign an IP address constantly given a specific MAC Address.

Open up Airport Utility.app, click your Time Capsule, then "Manual Setup". When the management dialog loads, click "Internet" up at the top, then "DHCP" in the category/tab bar.

From there, you can click the plus in the bottom-left hand side of "DHCP Reservations". This will open up a dialog that allows you to create a reservation via MAC Address, or "DHCP Client ID".

Fill in a system name (does not necessarily have to be the specific hostname), click MAC Address, then Continue.

Fill in the MAC address, choose an IP address, then click Done, and then Update the Time Capsule!

When the client computer next refreshes it's IP address (most computer's do this once every two hours or so), it should pick up the new reservation, now and forever.

Alternatively you can just shut the interface on the computer and turn it back one. Or go into Advanced and manually renew the lease. etc. etc.