What are my secondary backup options? So we have a setup like this:

His MacBook Pro with 1TB, about 30% used.
Her MacBook Air with 256GB, about 30% used.
USB2 drive with 2 x 2TB configured as RAID-1 ('mirrored for safety'), about 80% used, contains 300GB family photos, 700GB family videos, 400GB music, 200GB document archives, etc. This is most often connected to (1) when archiving or doing family event video editing.
His and hers iPhones, we infrequently back them up to (1) and (2).
TimeCapsule 3GB, currently backs up (1) and (2) but not (3)

All seemed good.

Then, one day, the USB drive wouldn't start up.

After cold sweats of panic, we opened the USB drive. Luckily, this is a model where you can pop open the top and pull out a drive. One of the drives inside has died. Due to the RAID-1 configuration, the other drive worked just fine, so all our data is safe.

That was too close - losing all the family photos, videos, scans of important documents, etc, would be catastrophic for us.

We accept that with normal usage; the drive(s) inside the USB enclosure were going to wear out at some point, so this isn't a problem with the product - although I'd think twice about buying a passively-cooled device again as manipulating gigabytes of video files is going to keep it warm for some time and heat causes equipment like this to fail quicker.

So we'll likely replace the USB drive with something suitable in the next week o so.

...but we're now really keen to incorporate some kind of secondary backup so that we don't have this panic again.

We've looked at 'cloud drive' types of solution, but they seem to presume that the entire backup will fit onto one computer - which it won't. We also don't need all our photos, videos, etc, to be fully sync'd - just be able to retrieve it if everything goes south with the USB drive.

So, putting aside costs for the moment, what are our secondary backup options?

UPDATE

I should've been clearer - the USB RAID drive is only sometimes connected. Backing up ~2TB to the cloud will take a very long time (2TB @ 2mb/second ADSL upload = 102 days according to http://www.databarracks.com/support/bandwidth-calculator/) which would tie up his or hers laptop for that whole time.

Can we connect the USB drive to the TimeCapsule and it upload to a cloud backup provider?

More than a 'cloud drive' solution, you should be looking for a 'cloud backup' solution. Backblaze and Crashplan are popular options, but there are a variety of possibilities with different features , such as Arq or Tarsnap.

A bootable copy of your main drives would be an additional insurance against disaster; you can use a software like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner.


Unibody White MacBook display dims when laptop on top of another When you place an open display plastic unibody MacBook upon a closed display MacBook of almost any kind, the display will cut out when it goes past the ninety degree angle.  I am thinking its a pressure point issue or a magnet issue.  Though not entirely sure.

Its consistent enough to see it, but infrequent enough not to worry about it, since stacking laptops is a no-no, but occurs when doing mass imaging.

Has anyone else out there seen this strangeness?
What may be causing it?

I've had this happen to me a few times, and it is annoying. My best guess is that the magnets in one MacBook are tricking the other one into thinking that the lid is closed. I know that it's at least possible to intentionally trigger the magnet that detects if the lid is closed, and my guess is that the other MacBook has a magnet in close proximity that's triggering it.


Drag images from browser and drop it into Finder Until recently, I was able to drag pictures displayed in my browser to drop them into Finder (Desktop or directory). It doesn't work anymore.

Any idea why ?

NB: Running 10.9.1, happens with Chrome,Safari & Firefox.

After a reboot everything works fine again. Finder was probably bugging (again ...).


How does macOS select a name for a Time Machine backup? I see a folder

/Volumes/WD MyPassport/Backups.backupdb/GregoryMBpro

and /Volumes has

~/ > ls -l /Volumes
total 0
drwxr-xr-x+  3 root    wheel   94 21 Sep 09:08 Preboot
drwxrwxr-x  16 gregory staff  632  2 Nov  2014 WD MyPassport
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root    wheel    1  7 Oct 22:37 elcapitan -> /
~/ >

while the "Computer Name" I chose under Sharing in System Preferences is "Gregory's MacBook Pro".

(Note to self: it's a bad idea to name a volume after an OS release that will be upgraded sooner or later.)

What is the mapping between these names? In particular, if I change the name of either the volume or the computer name (under Sharing), would I inadvertently start a new Time Machine backup?

Relevant

Time Machine Backup Precautions

The name of the Time Machine ’backup disk’ (‘WD MyPassport’ in your example) does not matter. You can rename this as you wish and Time Machine will continue to back up as usual. References to the backup disk name in places such as Time Machine preference pane will be updated accordingly automatically. Per tmutil man page:

  In Mac OS X, HFS+ volumes have a persistent UUID that is assigned when the file system is created. Time Machine uses this identifier to make an association between a source volume and a snapshot volume.

The computer name (‘GregoryMBpro’) is used as the ‘machine directory’. Like the backup disk, you can rename your computer such as from the Sharing preference pane and Time Machine will continue to back up to the previous computer name. This is because…

  Machine directories and sparsebundles are owned by one computer at a time, and are tracked by unique identifiers rather than computer name, host name, or ethernet address.

However, unlike renaming the backup disk, renaming your computer doesn't rename the actual directory path used for backups — rename your computer and it will continue to back up but to the old computer name.


Put Backup on Old iPhone Is it possible, using iTunes, to put a backup of a currently active iPhone onto an older iPhone that has no service?

Basically I want to keep all the text conversations on a separate older device.

It's a backup of an iPhone 6 and I want that backup placed on an iPhone 4S.

Thanks!

Alternatively there are apps that let you download texts off, such as PhoneView by ecamm but I heard they stopped working in one of the most recent updates, so I would check the demo first.


How to make windows of new folders open in my size? In OS X 10.8.2, I create a new folder by right-clicking in the Finder and selecting New Folder. When I open this folder, the size of the window is not the size of the foremost window. The window size inherited by the new folder is always the system default window size, and apparently can not be changed by any means.

Is there a preference, possibly through Terminal, to have the windows of newly created folders open in my preferred window size?

I mostly use column view and have removed all folders except the home folder from favorites, so the root folder of most windows is ~ or /. When the default dimensions or view options for them change, I reset them by running this script with FastScripts.

tell application "Finder"
    if number of windows is 0 then return
    tell Finder window 1
        set toolbar visible to false
        set sidebar width to 0
        set statusbar visible to false
        set current view to column view
        set bounds to {474, 250, 1318, 750}
        tell its column view options
            set shows icon to false
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

FinderMinder watches what windows you open and changes their dimensions. The windows appear at the previous position for a split second though.


Is it possible to disable CPU throttling on a MacBook Pro with a completely dead (not recognized) battery? I have a MBP late 2011 running El Capitan, recently my battery died (x over the icon and "no battery available" in the dropdown.) I've noticed since then that CPU intensive tasks are very slow, and I read that without a battery macs will throttle the CPU to half capacity.

So now I'm looking for one of two solutions:

1) Either somehow disable the throttling, or
2) Trick the computer into thinking it has a battery.

In regard to the first one I've tried a few things such as described here, removing a plist file that supposedly controlled it, but that hasn't helped. Any help would be greatly appreciated, TIA.

Edit: I've looked over the question about a 2006 MacBook, it's similar but I've tried everything outlined there and nothing has worked. I'm curious if there are any new ideas. I think the difference may be El Capitan.

Not practically. You're better off selling the computer for parts or getting a replacement battery / having the Mac serviced by a professional.

Non user replaceable batteries are very vulnerable to damage and lithium battery fires are no joke. Even global companies have struggled with making safe products from brand new parts (galaxy 7) so please don't cut corners on safety when Apple batteries are involved - especially with repair parts or unauthorized / uninsured repair shops.


Restore file to previously saved version? Hey guys so I was using Xcode as a text editor to write a C code, and without paying attention I deleted the whole code I had on the file and somehow it got saved that way. When I noticed this (the code was not there), I exited my editor without saving, but when I opened my file again it opened the deleted version already.
I am freaking about because I was supposed to send the code in today and my work is just gone.
I saw a couple of posts on similar situations, but the answers depend on what text editor was being used. In one answer I was there is a 'revert to saved' but this only puts me back to the deleted version, not to anything before this. Please help.

I managed to figure it out. Fortunately I am a mac user and I was able to use Time Machine to help me sort this out!.


App stuck while downloading at stage of 2% I have downloaded two apps using iPhone App Store in the morning and they were downloaded successfully. My apps stuck when I was trying to download 1 of the app called Ninjump. It's still showing in downloading mode but no progress has been made yet.

Rebooting doesn't resolved my problem too. Its still in downloading mode. I have full Internet Speed right now. I can browse as well so there is no chance app is stuck due to Internet.

How can I remove that app which is still in downloading mode?

Tap the Ninjump app icon once so as to pause the download. Turn on Airplane Mode in the settings. Immediately hard reset the iPhone (Sleep/Wake (Power) + Home button held simultaneously until the Apple logo is seen). Once the iPhone restarts, disable Airplane mode, allow it to connect to Wi-Fi. Usually this will have removed the app by now.

If unsuccessful, the next step will be to sign out of your Apple ID in Settings or the bottom of 'Featured' in the App Store, and repeat the process above.

Failing those two, the process can be repeated while incorporating signing into a different Apple ID to get it unstuck...and lastly a restore in rare cases.


Icon without app name in Notifications (iOS 9.2) There is an icon without app name in the Notifications screen of my iPhone (iOS 9.2).

Any idea what app may be causing that?

That is the Apple News app icon.

It should appear normally if you are in a region that is supported by Apple News.

Its availability is dictated by the Region setting under Settings > General > Language & Region.

If that is set to a region that is supported by Apple News, then it is likely a bug. Try rebooting your device.

If that is not set to a region that is supported, the malformed entry in your Notifications settings may be a result of having used one of several 'methods' to force the availability of Apple News.

It should not present any problems for your device, but if you really want it fixed/removed, a restore may be in order.


Docbook Viewer for OS X Is there a docbook viewer for OS X? I don’t mean an editor, just something to view the output. I know that there is no standard format, but something that looks like formatted output rather than XML would be ideal.

There’s nothing on the App Store, and I’ve done rounds of the search engines.

I would prefer a solution without Java.

(I’m going to ask the same about an asciidoc viewer in another question).

I don't think there is a DocBook viewer for OS X.

The workaround seems to be to convert the DocBook document to another format using a converter.  Here are some suggestions:

dblatex: Can be used to convert DocBook to PDF.  It is free, and installable using Fink.  However, if you are already using Brew you might mess up your system if you start using another package manager.  An alternative would be to use dblatex on a Linux VM, but that would be a great deal of work if you don't already have one set up.
OxygenXML - a commercial product that can read DocBook XML.  It has a 30 day free trial period.   I tried it on my DocBook document, but it was not well formed and Oxygen couldn't parse it.

So in the end, neither of the two options worked for me, but they might for you.


How To Delete Finder Search History? - "Downloaded From" If you type a period (.) in the search box of Finder, you will most likely see a small drop down menu labeled "Downloaded From", with several domains listed. These domains appear after downloading files or applications such as Google Chrome and Little Snitch, using Firefox or Chrome, and they persist after deleting the downloaded files. Spotlight is off, everything unchecked. Siri is disabled.

How do we clear this history?

I believe this list is populated based on metadata stored inside files where you're searching. I would think mds/Spotlight would be indexing that data and allowing you to search on it, so I'm confused about your assertion that Spotlight is off .. but regardless.

If you're comfortable with the command line, you can inspect any given file's metadata with the xattr command. The file attribute you're looking for is com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms. For example:

************@Themis  ~/Downloads  xattr -p -l com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms conference_poster_5.zip
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms:
00000000  62 70 6C 69 73 74 30 30 A2 01 02 5F 10 54 68 74  |bplist00..._.Tht|
00000010  74 70 3A 2F 2F 77 77 77 2E 6C 61 74 65 78 74 65  |tp://www.latexte|
00000020  6D 70 6C 61 74 65 73 2E 63 6F 6D 2F 74 65 6D 70  |mplates.com/temp|
00000030  6C 61 74 65 73 2F 63 6F 6E 66 65 72 65 6E 63 65  |lates/conference|
00000040  5F 70 6F 73 74 65 72 73 2F 35 2F 63 6F 6E 66 65  |_posters/5/confe|
00000050  72 65 6E 63 65 5F 70 6F 73 74 65 72 5F 35 2E 7A  |rence_poster_5.z|
00000060  69 70 5F 10 40 68 74 74 70 3A 2F 2F 77 77 77 2E  |ip_.@http://www.|
00000070  6C 61 74 65 78 74 65 6D 70 6C 61 74 65 73 2E 63  |latextemplates.c|
00000080  6F 6D 2F 74 65 6D 70 6C 61 74 65 2F 61 30 70 6F  |om/template/a0po|
00000090  73 74 65 72 2D 6C 61 6E 64 73 63 61 70 65 2D 70  |ster-landscape-p|
000000A0  6F 73 74 65 72 08 0B 62 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 01  |oster..b........|
000000B0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000C0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 A5                          |........|
000000c8
************@Themis  ~/Downloads 

So you can see the URL used to obtain this file is embedded in the file itself.
To remove that metadata:

************@Themis  ~/Downloads  xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms conference_poster_5.zip
************@Themis  ~/Downloads  xattr -p -l com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms conference_poster_5.zip
xattr: conference_poster_5.zip: No such xattr: com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms
✘ ************@Themis  ~/Downloads 

That bit of metadata has been removed. Now you would repeat your search and see if you get the same results once you've removed the metadata. I'm guessing not, but if you do let us know.

If you're not comfortable with the command-line, you can try a GUI-based extended attributes editor, such as this one.


Is there any alternative to Windows Live Writer? Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a good / acceptable blog-publishing application on Mac OS X?

Coming from Windows, I've quite got used to writing to my blog using Windows Live Writer, which offers the ability to directly publish to the CMS.

Is there any such alternative for Mac OS X?

I'm still tied in both OS/X and Win environments going against Wordpress, Ecto is pretty good.  MarsEdit was so so.  Both approach with a classic single-document-interface problem of cramming too much stuff on one screen.

I still prefer Live Writer.


How to install the leopard OS? I have an apple laptop.But the OS is corrupted.I have a new one to use the apple laptop.But i have an licensed version.

What I need:

How to install the leopard os....
What are the steps am i should follow...

After backing up your system, insert your shiny OS X DVD into your Mac and restart the computer, holding down C, so that the Mac boots off of the DVD-ROM.

After a few moments, you will be presented with a installation screen and presented with a number of options.


Verifying Xcode is installed on High-Sierra I am having pip3 difficulty installing hidapi: a question was asked if Xcode is installed.

To verify Xcode Installation instructions provide two commands for verifying Xcode command tools:

My tests:

$ ls -l /Applications/Xcode.app/
ls: /Applications/Xcode.app/: No such file or director

$ ls -l /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs
ls: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs: No such file or directory

$ /usr/bin/xcodebuild -version
xcode-select: error: tool 'xcodebuild' requires Xcode, but active developer directory '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools' is a command line tools instance

$ xcode-select -p
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

$ xcode-select --install
xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, use "Software Update" to install updates

$ gcc
clang: error: no input files

$ xcode-select -p
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

$ gcc --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 10.0.0 (clang-1000.10.44.4)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0
Thread model: posix

QUESTIONS

Can I eliminate Xcode as the problem?
Maybe Xcode is installed but
needs to be configured?

The screenshot you provided tests only the installation of Command Line Tools which sit in /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools. However some software can require full Xcode app to work/install properly.

xcode-select -p Shows where the complier looks for packages. If this shows /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools and the software installs properly, you don't need full app. But if the software needs it, you need to install Xcode App from the App Store or the website and update the path using

sudo xcode-select -r

which resets it, or

sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

with appropriate path to Xcode.app.

Your test: /usr/bin/xcodebuild -version highlights this issue. On my Mac, with Xcode app, it shows

Xcode 10.3
Build version 10G8

So follow the instructions here

Download older version of Xcode?

to get the Xcode app, move it to appropriate place, run the path switching command with correct path to Xcode. And proceed with the installation.

@jmh: "X-code V 10.1 is the latest version of X-Code for High Sierra."

OP: "Link to Xcode 10.1"


How to tell if an iPhone is third party unlocked? Is there a safe way to find out if a used iPhone is intended to work on a particular carrier or is factory unlocked VS. having been unlocked by a third party?

I'm on the Rogers network. I'd want a phone intended to work on the Rogers network, or intended to work on any network, rather than one that might become relocked by a future update. (Also, I had a third party unlocked phone once before, and it liked to spontaneously restart. I don't think that was a coincidence.)

Jailbreaks don't concern me, since I can always revert those. But having a hacked baseband is something I'd want to know about.

For a 3GS, you need to avoid the 06.15.00 iPad baseband, which is easy to check.  As far as I know, all other unlock-related baseband hacks consist of preserving old versions of the baseband - which is easily remedied by updating to (or re-installing) the latest firmware.

You can also match the latest iOS version and baseband for that device, as listed here.

iPhones might also be unlocked with a Gevey sim card interposer, which replaces the SIM tray, and so is easy to check for.


Did I expose myself to information-theft via possible malware on iPad by opening an e-mail in Safari? I received an email from cdhhospitals.org/upload.htm and opened it. I immediately was redirected to a waiting screen. I immediately closed the Safari app.

I tried to track this site down and the search states that this site may damage your computer.

Did I expose myself to information-theft or anything alike?

It appears the site is distributing malware. If you opened the page on your computer you should first install a good antivirus/antimalware program, try Sophos which is good and free. If it was on your iPad (as your tag suggests) there's probably a bit less cause for alarm as there is currently no known virus which can infect an iPad.

Next it's probably a good idea to change all of your passwords, most importantly your AppleID as it stores your confidential information and credit card data. You can manage your apple id here.


Shortcuts for # and $ not working on Turkish keyboard layout My keyboard layout is "Turkish QWERTY PC" and the problem is that I cannot type the special symbols being typed by using ⌥+3 and ⌥+4 which are "#" and "$".

I opened the key viewer and typed ⌥+3. It then says that I typed "#" but that's wrong.

Is there any solution to fix this?

I am using a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X 10.6.8.

A brief look around and it seems as though an third party application like Ukelele should help you map keys correctly for your keyboard.


German keyboards for recent model Mac lap-top I have an apple lap-top with an external keyboard.  My computer has the capacity to compose in German  (a capacity I need) but my keyboard is in English and many crucial keystrokes (extra characters, punctuation, etc.) are different on the German layout. Since I have to plug in my external keyboard any way, why could I not buy a German external keyboard to plug in when I have a lot of German stuff to type? Where could I buy such a keyboard?

You don't need a German keyboard to use the German keyboard layout. You can enable the German keyboard layout from System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources, and you can use the virtual keyboard viewer to look up the positions of characters.

Even if you buy a keyboard with a German keyboard layout, the input source won't change automatically when you connect the keyboard or press some keys on it.

You can buy keyboards for different keyboard layouts from store.apple.com.

Note that there are some differences between the Apple and standard PC versions of the German keyboard layout. Particularly the five ASCII special characters under option are all under different keys. You can download a keylayout file for the PC version from http://www.nullpointer.de/stuff/keylayout/.

ISO (European) keyboards have one more key than ANSI (U.S.) keyboards. The extra key is a dead key for ^ in both the Apple and standard PC variants of the German keyboard layout. In the version of the German keyboard layout that is included in OS X, option-shift-6 enters the same dead key state as the extra key.


Can an Automator workflow generate an Application? I'm building a "Wizard" of sorts that uses Automator and some Appliescript, and at the end I would like it to generate an "Automator Application" that does things when launched, that are based on the inputs from the wizard.
Is this even possible?  Can one Automator workflow, actually generate an application from the results?  I know software can create software, but is this possible within Automator's capabilities?
EDIT:  As noted in the comments below the post, osacompile seems like it might get me where I want to go, but now I have a new problem with that.
Here's a screenshot of my automator steps:

Here's the code of the erroring module (Send iMessage):
on run {input, parameters}

    set sms_address to item 1 of input
    set email_address to item 2 of input
    set sms_content to item 3 of input
    set email_subject to item 4 of input
    set email_body to item 5 of input

    set savePath to (path to desktop as text) & "test.scpt"

    set code to "osacompile -e 'tell application \"Messages\"' -e '
    set imessageservice to 1st service whose service type = iMessage' -e '
    set iMessageBuddy to buddy " & sms_address & " of imessageservice' -e '
    send " & sms_content & " to iMessageBuddy' -e '
    end tell' -o " & quoted form of POSIX path of savePath

    do shell script code

    return input
end run

Note that the lines are broken up that way because it was the only approach I could find where I didn't get any errors just because of adding line breaks (I can put this code all on one line and get the identical error)
Here's the error I receive:

I haven't been able to figure out what the problem is here but it seems like I'm not passing the variables in the way a bash script expects.  Have tried a bunch of other approaches and nothing has worked any better, but this is the one that seems the most sensible to me, knowing how I would normally pass variables into a script.
EDIT 2:  To simplify further, here is the standalone code I'm current debugging in AppleScript Editor and without any line breaks to not confuse the issue:
set sms_address to "person@gmail.com"
set sms_content to "sms content"

set savePath to (path to desktop as text) & "test.scpt"

set code to "osacompile -e 'tell application \"Messages\"' -e ' set imessageservice to 1st service whose service type = iMessage' -e 'set iMessageBuddy to buddy " & sms_address & " of imessageservice' -e 'send " & sms_content & " to iMessageBuddy' -e 'end tell' -o " & quoted form of POSIX path of savePath

do shell script code

So from the edits to my post, I was on the right track.  But I forgot that the final script needs to have quotes around the content being passed in!  This is the code snippet that ultimately worked:
set sms_address to "sms_address"
set sms_body to "sms_body"
set filename to "filename"
set savePath to (path to desktop as text) & filename & ".scpt"

set code to "osacompile -e '
tell application \"Messages\"
    set imessageservice to 1st service whose service type = iMessage
    set iMessageBuddy to buddy \"sms_address\" of imessageservice
    send \"sms_body\" to iMessageBuddy
end tell' -o " & quoted form of POSIX path of savePath

do shell script code

So I was on the right path all along, just needed to excape those double quotes.


Can OS X Combine Physical Disks I have OSX Server 10.5.8 installed on a drive and I would like to combine 2 USB drives together to act as one drive.

Is that possible?

Yes - OS X offers software RAID functionality on both the Server version and consumer OS. Open Disk Utility and read through the help on RAID.

  Create a single, large disk from several smaller disks by creating a concatenated disk set, which is also called “Just a Bunch of Disks” (JBOD) or “spanning.” The concatenated disk set acts as one large disk with the combined capacity of all the smaller disks.

You will need to erase/repartition both drives and then can choose from a simple concatenation of the drives or set up striping which has advantages and disadvantages compared to just combining the two drives.


Does macOS Sierra support Server Side Copy via SMB and/or AFP? I'm using FreeNAS and it has the option to share data using SMB or AFP. Since I recently learned that AFP is being deprecated, I'm hesitant to use AFP but I'v read that AFP supports Server Side Copy and SMB on Mac does not.

I want to confirm both points with the Ask Different crowd:

Does macOS Sierra connecting to a FreeNAS server via AFP support Server Side Copy?
Does macOS Sierra connecting to a FreeNAS server via SMB support Server Side Copy?

Based on release notes, FreeNAS supports Samba 4.1.4 (SMB3), and thus supports Server-Side Copy when connect with compatible clients.

Unfortunately, the source code of the AFP driver is not free software, so it's difficult to give a definitive answer on that. However, it appears that Netatalk supports copyfile, so it's likely that the answer to that question is yes.
If you look at the source code of the latest version of the macOS smbfs driver, you can see that it does implement the copyfile operation (see smbfs_vnop_copyfile)

According to the release notes, OS X did that since ca. 2013:

  8) Added Server Side Copies (OS X SMB Client <-> OS X/Windows SMB File
  Server)

Whether that actually gets used with FreeNAS, I cannot tell - I have no access to a FreeNAS system.


Can't store multiple arguments with read -p in macOS terminal using bash I am trying to store words from an input as parameters with read -p as follows :

    read -p "Enter your command: " cmd arg1 arg2
    echo "$cmd"
    echo "$arg1"
    echo "$arg2"

With this, $cmd contains all 3 inputs separated by spaces, $arg1 and $arg2 are empty. Any idea why?

The variable IFS is used by various commands. The safest thing to do is save the value, then restore when finished. Below is an example.

declare "IFS_BACKUP=$IFS"
IFS=$' \t\n'
read -p "Enter your command: " cmd arg1 arg2
IFS="$IFS_BACKUP"
echo "$cmd"
echo "$arg1"
echo "$arg2"

The documentation command man bash defines IFS as follows:

   IFS    The  Internal  Field  Separator  that is used for word splitting
          after expansion and to split lines  into  words  with  the  read
          builtin  command.   The  default  value  is  ``<space><tab><new-
          line>''.


Spam (or just email) filters in iOS Mail.app I know that iOS' Mail.app doesn't do automatic spam filtering. However, my ISP's spam filter is quite good, so it automatically marks all suspicious emails with "[SPAM]" on the Subject line. Thus, I'm looking for some way to have iOS' Mail  filter automatically move mails with that expression in the Subject to the Junk folder.

It would seem like a basic feature; I mean, mail programs from 20 years ago had this (filter automatically mails according to sender, Subject line or whatever), but I haven't been able to find it. Does it even exist?

EDIT: if possible, I'm looking for an automated way to filter email. We all know already how to manually find and remove unwanted messages, but the whole point of using computers is to save work, after all...

This is definitely something they should have implemented by now since large umbers of people are now using their smart phones as their primary email reader.

Currently, this is how I'd do it:

In iOS Mail tap on the Search field at top of screen
Type [SPAM] in the search field
The screen will show results under various headings
Swipe up until you see the Subjects heading
Now tap on the Subject contains: [SPAM] option
This will bring up all results matching that criteria
Now tap on the blue Edit option at bottom right of the screen
Select all emails
Tap on Mark > Move to Junk

However, you may be able to achieve a more automated approach by creating a Shortcut with the Shortcuts app. I'm heading out now for a most of the day, but if I get a chance I'll try and create a shortcut and edit my answer to explain how I created it.

In the meantime, if you'd like to explore this as an option and you don't already have the app installed, you can download Shortcuts from the App Store.


Yosemite Storage Analysis I have Yosemite on MacBook Air and continuously get en error about storage usage. It keeps saying there isn't enough empty space on disk. About this Mac says that I have 65.96GB of other type files. When I get info about home directory it says 57.69GB is the size of home directory. However when I sum up the sizes of each directory under home, it is only about 12GB of data. I can't find where the remaining 46GB is. Any ideas?

Finally found it :)

Under home directory Library has all the data and most of them came from mail app which includes downloaded imap copies and attachments. I erased them by using mail app and everything is fine for now.


My terminal keeps printing "emergency" messages I keep getting these broadcast messages being printed to every terminal window, and it's driving me nuts. Does anybody have a clue as to how to turn them off?

Broadcast Message from _usbmuxd@10242-MacBook-Air.local
    (no tty) at 7:23 GMT...

[03/12/2016 07:23:37] [Emergency] [update thread] uncaught exception: easyDNS
Runtime Exception

Ok, this is what I did.

Like Brian Mc said, I checked my logs at /var/log/system.log. I found a little extra information. This is what the full line in the system log reads:

Mar 12 04:43:29 10242-MacBook-Air ddnsd[60]: [03/12/2016 04:43:29] [Emergency] [update thread] uncaught exception: easyDNS Runtime Exception

So I was like, huh! What's this "ddnsd" thing? So I looked through my processes for any process with a name like ddns.

I ran

ps aux|grep ddns

The command came back with:

abudu_h          1142   0.0  0.2  2538864   6496   ??  S     7:24AM   0:01.27 /Users/abudu_h/Library/Application Support/easyDNS/ddnsa.app/Contents/MacOS/ddnsa

I thought, I don't really need this program running, why not turn it off. So rather than delete it, what I did was make it non-executable.

cd /Users/abudu_h/Library/Application\ Support/easyDNS/
chmod -x ddnsa.app/

And hooray! The messages stopped.


My terminal on osx 10.11.6 will not accept `[` character Every time I type it the terminal flashes but doesn't insert it. If I paste in a command that has a [ it will paste everything except the ['s

This has been happening before I updated to 10.11, but has become a massive issue, I can't use jq at all because of it.

I also have the same issue with iTerm2.

So I have found the cause in my .inputrc

[[ $- = *i* ]] && bind TAB:menu-complete

I don't know why it's the cause of the problem but it was resolved by removing this, and to be honest I am not even sure what the reason for this being there was

if anyone knows the reason this causes it please feel free to answer and I will accept that answer over this


Comparing Time Machine backups with Beyond Compare? Would it be safe to compare Time Machine backups with Beyond Compare? Or would Beyond Compare somehow corrupt the backups? Thanks

Beyond Compare would not corrupt your Time Machine backups so long as you just compare files and folders, but it would certainly corrupt the backups if you use any features which alter your data.
And, from what is on the Beyond Compare web site there is nothing to suggest that it is aware of the specifics of how TM writes to the destination disk.
So between lack of awareness of TM formats and risk of modifying/corrupting the backup, I recommend you not use Beyond Compare.
For functionality and safety, it is much better to use a tool designed for Time Machine.  That means BackupLoupe, as @mmmmmm has suggested. BackupLoupe reads the TM destination and builds its own database of the content.  Under no circumstances can it modify your TM backup.
As well as making it easy to find significant changes, BackupLoupe includes a search capability to assist when finding files to recover.


How do I change the bitrate field of an mp3 file? I have some music files which have somehow the wrong bitrate settings (32 instead of 320). Yes they are really 320bps, the file size and show exactly that. So this means no Apple Music availability. I tried changing the values in the iTunes XML file, but that did nothing, as kind-of expected. Other programs also show the wrong bitrate or none at all. Searching for 32 in a Hex-Editor of that file was useless as well.

Sorry but if the file has been encoded at the wrong bitrate, then they'll need to be re-encoded i.e. you'll need to rip them from a CD again. The bitrate refers to the amount of data that is used to store a second of audio. There is no way to increase this, in any meaningful way, once it's been created.

However if the file are encoded with Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding there does seem to be a common problem where the bitrate is misreported. If I'm reading things correctly it's because software like iTunes just looks at the bitrate of the first chunk of the file (which might just be silence or something simply resulting in a low bitrate encoding) and report that as the bitrate even though subsequent chunks might have completely different (higher) rates. There does appear to be a tool to fix this called vbrfix. However there doesn't seem to be an easy to get this tool for Macs.

If you are relatively confident with using the Terminal you could try the following:

Download http://http.debian.net/debian/pool/main/v/vbrfix/vbrfix_0.24+dfsg.orig.tar.xz
Decompress the file with something like The Unarchiver (macOS native Årchive Utility won't know what to make of it)
Open a Terminal window and cd to the path of the unarchived files
Run ./configure and then make to compile the vbrfixc binary
Assuming the binary compiles successfully cd into the "vbrfixc" folder and you should find the vbrfixc binary.
Run it with ./vbrfixc -log input.mp3 output.mp3.

If the file is a VBR MP3 file this will attempt to fix it by placing a blank chunk at the beginning of the file with a bitrate that is more representative of the entire file.


Samsung UE590D external monitor settings I can't get quite the right colors on my external UE590D 4k. Does anyone have the correct settings/colors so it looks as close as possible to the MacBook Pro retina display?

Here are the settings I'm using that's pretty similar.

Picture
Samsung Magic Bright > Custom
Brightness - 22
Contrast - 75
Sharpness - 76

Color
Red 69, Green 52, Blue 60
Color Tone - Custom
Gamma - Mode 3 (edited)


Widevine disappeared in Chrome in Yosemite I updated to Yosemite a couple of days ago. When I watched a streaming service using Google Widevine it all worked fine but after a reboot Chrome keeps asking for me to install Widevine, and when I do and restart the browser it is still not working. Widevine seems to be installed because it works fine in Safari.

Any ideas on how to solve this with Chrome? Never had this problem before.

Thanks!

The latest version of Chrome is 64 bit.  Widevine only runs on 32 bit browsers


How Can I Retrieve Files from my ipad? I'm not sure that this is the right place but I really need some help!!!I connected my ipad  with my laptop  and my brother  pressed sync with the library itunes , but my laptop has not the photos and all things that had my ipad so everything form the laptop passed through  the ipad and everything from the ipad deleted!!Basically, if anybody knows of a program to get back my files, you are a hero!!  I didnt make a safe copy so  I cant reload the photo or files! I've never encountered this sort of problem and I don't know of any programs that are legitimate that do this; so if you guys could tell me of one I could easily get a hold of (preferably free) then I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

I'm sorry to say, but it's gone... G.O.N.E.

Unless your PC/Mac has the files, its gone. Check to make sure you still have Contacts, Photos, Apps, Music, Videos on your iPad AND on your PC/Mac by going into the respective apps and by checking iTunes.

Also check to see if you have a backup of your iPad by following these steps:

Connect your device to the computer that has your backup.
Install the latest version of iTunes.
Choose File > Devices > Restore from Back up.

If it has the backup, well make sure that it hasn't got anything on it. If it does, sync that information over before restoring.

Good luck!


Is there a music app that lets me start/pause playback by tapping anywhere on screen? I'm looking for an iOS app where, once the music is playing, I can touch anywhere on the screen to pause it, and then start it again.

The CarTunes Music Player app does what you need - there are no buttons, just taps and swipes for all music controls.

Tapping is play/ pause, swiping is next/ previous track etc. Even volume can be adjusted by holding and dragging up/ down.

The app is not free at the moment but does fluctuate in price and is sometimes even free, as can be seen in the App Activity sidebar on App Shopper


Logical Volume Group 17gb "Available Space" Can anyone help explain why there is 17 GB worth of free space on my LVG I can't seem to do anything with this space. Is there anyway to fix this? I have already reformatted the disk then cloned the contents back with CCC. I also have FileVault enabled.

Whenever I see this on others setups it is usually a few KB not 17 GB

I don't know what happened with your drives while installing OS X Yosemite, but I have the same Fusion drive as you but ostensibly without "glitches".

First let's compare your and my Fusion drive, though mine is not filevaulted, but that shouldn't make a big difference.

Your SSD:

Apollo:~ arronvoce$ sudo gpt -r show /dev/diskO
     start          size  index  contents
         0             1         PMBR
         1             1         Pri GPT header
         2            32         Pri GPT table
        34             6
        48        409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    489648     236306352      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
 236715992        262144      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
 236978136             7
 236978143            32         Sec GPT table
 236978175             1         Sec GPT header

My SSD:

machine:~ user$ sudo gpt -r show  /dev/disk0
      start         size  index  contents
          0            1         PMBR
          1            1         Pri GPT header
          2           32         Pri GPT table
         34            6
         40       409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640    236306352      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  236715992       262144      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  236978136            7
  236978143           32         Sec GPT table
  236978175            1         Sec GPT header

They have the same size and are formatted the same way.

Your HDD:

Apollo:~ arronvoce$ sudo  gpt -r show /dev/disk1
     start          size  index  contents
         0             1         PMBR
         1             1         Pri GPT header
         2            32         Pri GPT table
        34             6
        48        409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409648    5857846336      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
5858255976       1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
5859525512       1007623
5860533135            32         Sec GPT table
5860533167             1         Sec GPT header

My HDD:

machine:~ user sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk1
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640  5858853952      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  5859263592     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  5860533128           7
  5860533135          32         Sec GPT table
  5860533167           1         Sec GPT header

They have the same physical size but are formatted slightly different: after your Recovery HD (the third partition) you have some non-formatted blocks with a total size of ~516 MB (1007623 blocks)

Your Physical Volume on the SSD:

    +-< Physical Volume 1212D66A-ADCC-49C2-B2BD-43180F3D1B6F
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)

My Physical Volume on the SSD:

    +-< Physical Volume 1212D66A-ADCC-49C2-B2BD-43180F3D1B6F
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)

They have the same size.

Your Physical Volume on the HDD:

    +-< Physical Volume 39D4DCA9-7F2E-40FA-B457-CCDD4370FF2F
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     2999217324032 B (3.0 TB)

My Physical Volume on the HDD:

    +-< Physical Volume 39D4DCA9-7F2E-40FA-B457-CCDD4370FF2F
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     2999733223424 B (3.0 TB)

Your Physical Volume is ~516 MB (515899392 B) smaller than mine which roughly matches with your non-formatted blocks on disk1, which are "missing" now.

Your Logical Volume Group:

+-- Logical Volume Group 91F22B32-DD9C-442B-95F0-ED3DB69AC4FB
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         3120206176256   B (3.1 TB)
    Free Space:   17091772416 B   (17.1 GB)

My Logical Volume Group:

+-- Logical Volume Group 91F22B32-DD9C-442B-95F0-ED3DB69AC4FB
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         3120722075648 B (3.1 TB)
    Free Space:   114688 B (114.7 KB)

Your LVG is ~516 MB (515899392 B) smaller than mine, which matches with the findings above.

Your Logical Volume:

         +-> Logical Volume 2E2D175C-1397-474D-900F-A9DA7B9D65D6
             ---------------------------------------------------
             Disk:                 disk2
             Status:               Online
             Size (Total):         3097259147264 B (3.1 TB)

My Logical Volume:

        +-> Logical Volume 2E2D175C-1397-474D-900F-A9DA7B9D65D6
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk2
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          3106191572992 B (3.1 TB)

Your LV is ~ 22.9 GB smaller than your LVG (while 17.1 GB are indicated).
My LV is ~ 14.5 GB smaller than my LVG (while only 115 KB are indicated!).

Your LV is ~ 8.9 GB smaller than mine, which matches again, because 22.9 - 14.5 + 0.5 (the unformatted blocks on the HDD) = 8.9 GB

Compare this with a filevaulted OS X Yosemite VM where the LVG (67.86 GB) is 365 MB bigger than the LV (67.49 GB) and the indicated free space is 12.7 MB.

Finally we have to note:

the arithmetic of diskutil is in great need of improvement
apparently some valuable hard disk space is needed/lost dealing with LVM (CoreStorage). I haven't been able to find any sources explaining this though.
You lost only 8.9 GB (which are only 2.9 ‰ of the total disk space) instead of 17.1 GB compared to my Fusion Drive.

After backing up your Mac, booting to Internet Recovery Mode or Recovery Mode and starting Terminal.app you may try to increase (or decrease) your Logical Volume with the following undocumented command after unlocking the volume with diskutil cs unlockVolume LVUUID -stdinpassphrase:

diskutil cs resizeVolume LVUUID size

Example:

diskutil cs resizeVolume 2E2D175C-1397-474D-900F-A9DA7B9D65D6 (3106191572992+x*4096)b

with x = integer and 4096=8x512 (aligned blocks).

Usually you can't expand the CoreStorage Logical Volume beyond LVG_size - ~300 MB (tested with a 64 GiB disk, I don't know how this works for bigger disks). So you may start with 3119900m. If you get a message saying "Error -69720 There is not enough free space in the Core Storage Logical Volume Group for this operation" decrease the size in 100m or 500m steps until it works. If you enter g (=Giga), m (=Mega) or k (=kilo) instead of b (=byte) diskutil will do the math and choose a proper aligned (=multiple of 4096b) value.

I have tested those steps in my aforementioned 10.10.4 VM with FileVault enabled and managed to increase the size of the volume by 6 MB to 67.5 GB. Your mileage may vary.


Noticebly larger amount of free space reported compared to the graph in Storage view My MacBook Pro is of 256 GB. Although I haven't used much of it's space, I'm kind of facing an issue. When I click the Apple menu on top left corner and go to About This Mac > Storage, it mentions 213 GB free of 256 GB but slightly below there is a bar, which is about half filled (approximately 160 GB acquired).

The most amazing part is 160 GB is being acquired by applications, and I haven't downloaded application more than 6 or 7.

Can anyone tell me why the bar is filled but still it showing I'm left behind with 213 GB? I really appreciate if someone help me out with this.

Sometimes spotlight can mess up that graph.

I would open Finder and use the preferences to change the setting on calculate all folder sizes or use a tool like Daisy Disk to double check the sizes.

If you have that much space used but things are mis-classified, you can reset spotlight and leave the machine running for a few hours as it re-reads the storage contents.

If you don't have that much space used, boot to Recovery HD and run Disk Utility to repair the volume and drive.


Transfer cell service from one iPhone 4 to another I just bought a 32 GB iPhone 4 on eBay to replace my broken iPhone 4. How do I change my Verizon service from one to the other?

Take it into a Verizon store and an employee should be able to help you.


File sharing between two Catalinas - Finder cannot connect So I can screen share between the two Macs; I can ssh, rsync, and scp  the files between the two Macs; but having Finder try to “Connect As” always fails the login sheet using the same user and password as on the command line.

I tried switching between SMP, SMP encrypted, and AFP ... makes no difference. Authentication? Always fails. Shakes it head at User and password validated as above.

Both Catalina systems were upgraded from previous OS X / MacOS versions, but both client and server accounts are new.

Regrettably I have found no solution to this anomaly.
I was in the fortunate position to be able to erase and re-install Catalina.

The problem no longer exists for me. I have a “de-crufted “ system.

I’m always impressed by how OS X / MacOS has been able to upgrade this Mac successfully for about 6 years with very few of these kinds of anomalies encountered generally in upgrades over the last couple of decades and nearly a dozen different Macs.


Lost email settings and no icon for Mail I've lost my Settings → Mail, Contacts, and Calendars on my iPhone 5.  No icon for Mail and no Mail settings.  How do I get it back?

On iOS 10 you can delete stock apps. If you accidentally deleted your Mail app, to get it back, you have to search it on the App Store and reinstall.

They are not actually deleted though, just hidden, so you won't be downloading anything.


App Store update issue? "We could not complete your purchase. cancelled" For the past couple of weeks, every so often (every few days perhaps) I get this popup, from 'nowhere', ie, I don't have the App Store app open. I normally see it after I've been away for a while, or overnight it greets me as I wake the screen, so I've never seen or initiated any event myself that could cause it.
Presumably this is an auto-update of something, but it doesn't say what. It's also not a general issue, other apps seem to be auto-updating as & when they like.

Any suggestions as to how to track it down?
I'm signed in correctly. (Messages & Facetime are also absolutely fine.) Other apps update correctly, including one just today. If I go to the Store menu > View my account it goes straight to it, no issues, no further sign in required.
As far as I'm aware I have no apps on this Mac that were purchased by any other account.
Mojave 10.14.6 on an old Mac Pro 5,1 (last available macOS for this model without needing dosdude)

This is a known issue. These steps were suggested here:
https://robservatory.com/fix-a-could-not-complete-your-purchase-app-store-error/

Quit the App Store app.

Switch my DNS to another provider.

In Terminal, paste this command and press Return:
open "$TMPDIR/../C/com.apple.appstore/"

Confirm that the Finder opened a window to the com.apple.appstore folder, then drag everything there to the trash.

Back in Terminal, paste this line and press Return:
killall -9 appstoreagent

Relaunch the App Store app.

I have had this work, and I've had this not work. I've found that logging out and logging back in to the App Store has helped, and then there are times when it hasn't.
Nothing has solved it long-term, all of these are temporary fixes so far.
It just started recently, so I assume something changed on Apple's end, but I have no idea if/when a permanent solution may be forthcoming.
If anyone has a better technique for dealing with this, I hope they will share it.
Another Non-Solution Option
If you go into the Mac App Store and check for pending updates, you will see the apps that need to be updated.
If all else fails, you can delete the app and then download the new version from the Mac App Store. That works, although it is obviously not ideal.


Late 2006 iMac without OS: How do I boot to reinstall? I was given a late 2006 iMac with the hard drives erased and no OS loaded. The iMac boots to flashing folder. I purchased a Mac OS Tiger Install DVD but it is not bootable. I also have a Mac OS Leopard Drop-in DVD that will boot to the installation menu but will not install because 10.4 is not found on the HD.

I have a MacBook Pro with Yosemite loaded and purchased a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter and Firewire 800 to 400 cable to connect to the iMac. I put the iMac in Target Disk Mode and partitioned the HD into two partitions and copied the Mac OS Tiger install DVD to partition 1. On the MBP in Finder I can see on the iMac the Tiger install DVD loaded onto the partition 1 but in Finder the Install Mac OS has a slash through it. When I double click the Install Mac OS icon I get a pop-up when on the MBP saying Power PC Applications are not supported so I cannot run the Install MAC OS.

Is there some other way to get Mac OS Tiger installed on the iMac since the MBP cannot run the Install Mac OS on the iMac?

If you Tiger DVD is not bootable it might as well be PowerPC one.

If your iMac is Late 2006 it will support Mac OS X 10.7 as latest.
You can buy it from Apple for 20$. System requirements for OS X 10.7 is at least 2GB RAM though. So you might check first if you have enough. These are guides on how to get to the memory.

Then you will need USB pen drive and Lion Disk Maker to make it bootable out of bought file.

The mac will accept 2 or 3GB of DDR2-667 SODIMM RAM total(depending on exact model).


How can I use Torify for an App on OS X I want one of my applications to use Tor; however the app itself does not have proxy setting and it uses the System proxy. The problem is that I don't want to set my system proxy and I just want this one application to use tor.

I searched a bit for a solution, I came up with torify. I have installed tor and torify using brew and everything works fine and for example I can force curl to use tor like this: torify curl ifconfig.me 2

To use torify, I need to start my app from Terminal. For this, I use open -a myapp. However, this does not make myapp to go behind the tor proxy.I think it's because of the open command and I think I have to open myapp somehow directly. By the way, myapp does not work when I try to run it by opening the executable file inside the /Contents/MacOS folder.

Do you guys have any suggestion?

Thanks in advance

Tell your command where your myapp.app resides

You need to provide the open command an absolute or relative path to the application, unless the executable is already within your $PATH, or you change your working directory to the location in the filesystem where your myapp.app is (in my examples, myapp.app is the Applications folder, the home Applications folder, a folder called someotherplace, and the Shared folder, respectively).

 open /Applications/myapp.app
 open ~/Applications/myapp.app
 open ../someotherplace/myapp.app
 cd && cd ../Shared/ && open myapp.app

You can also type your open command and hit spacebar, and drag your application from anywhere into the Terminal, and the path will be provided.

There is another way

You can execute your executable using its full path  and adding the ampersand.  This will run it in the background so your terminal isn't tied up:

 ./myapp.app/Contents/MacOS/myapp &
 /Applications/myapp.app/Contents/MacOS/myapp &
 cd /Volumes/externaldisk/projects/thisone/myapp.app/Contents/MacOS && ./myapp &

And interestingly, using this method you can launch as many instances of your app as you have memory to do so.

To use torify with your myapp.app

I'm reasonably sure you need to launch it like this to use torify (assuming your myapp.app is in the /Applications folder):

 torify /Applications/myapp.app/Contents/MacOS/myapp &

or

 cd /Applications/myapp.app/Contents/MacOS/
 torify myapp &


Can I block Chrome's notification with Mac's Do Not Disturb? I don't want to get notification while I'm working so I want to disable Chrome's all notification (Settings -> Show Advanced Settings -> Privacy -> Content Settings -> Do not allow any site to show notifications)  from Mac's Do Not Disturb mode?

Is it automize with Automator or something else?

Yes, I finally found a solution for this.

Change the following propery

chrome://flags/#enable-native-notifications

as ON. After that you can see all Chrome notification's from Mac's default notification center so it will work if you enable do not disturb mode from Mac's settings.


Why is the "black" text on my Mac made up of so many different colors? My Mac has this nifty "zoom" function that kicks in when I hold control and scroll in and out.   If I zoom all the way in on black text on my screen, it is made up of many different colors.  Why is this?

The Mac is rendering text using subpixel resolution. See these explanations for instance:

Font smoothing, anti-aliasing, and sub-pixel rendering
Font smoothing explained


Disable resume for all apps I would like to disable resume for all applications  by default (including newly install applications).

I know the following command will disable resume for a specific application (Safari in this case)
defaults write com.apple.Safari NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false but I was wondering if there's a way to disable it permanently.

Uncheck Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps under System Preferences -> General.

In Mountain Lion, this option has been changed to read, Close windows when quitting an application with fine print to explain that open documents will not be restored.


IP management throug Airport Extreme When I am traveling I need to be able to connect me to the office and get the same IP address as I have in the office. Would it be possible to configure this with an Airport Extreme and if so how?
I understand that Airport Extreme can not act as a VPN server. If that's what I need - is there some recommendation on a simple VPN server that is reliable?
Regards
Oscar

The Airport Extreme (or Express or Time Capsule) don't have any VPN functionalities. I mean, apart from opening a port to let you access a VPN in your home network.

So, you will need some sort of server inside your home network. Mac OS has a VPN server but it doesn't have the most friendly interface (if it has an interface at all). Once upon a time I used iVPN (http://macserve.org.uk) to help me configure it. Otherwise, Apple Server also has a graphical interface. Todd Olthoff has a great series of videos on how to set up your VPN (and Apple Server): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjrcmsMHwPI


How do I install Mavericks now that Yosemite has been released? I have a late 2009 iMac running Mountain Lion, I also have a Macbook Pro running Mavericks. I have been planning on installing Mavericks on the iMac, but now that Yosemite has been released, Mavericks is no longer available on the Mac App store.

How can I install Mavericks on the iMac? As you can guess, I'm not an early-adoptor, so not interested in installing Yosemite for now.

Even though I have a Macbook Pro with Mavericks, it came installed with Mavericks, so it is not in my Mac App store 'Purchases', but 'Mountain Lion' is.

Take it to the Genius Bar. They have installers for every OS.


Blurry display in Windows 10 on VMware Fusion Pro on MacBook Pro Retina I have a 15 inch mid 2015 MacBook Pro Retina with El Captian on it. I recently installed VMware Fusion Pro in that and created a new VM and installed Windows 10 64Bit. The problem I'm having is that the resolution is very bad when I use to this Win 10 in my VM. The texts are blurry.

My Mac's resolution is 2880*1800 (Intel Iris Pro graphics) and i thought if i change my Windows resolution to the same values, it would fix it. But I can't even see that kind of resolution in my Windows display options.

You can see the blurriness in the text Identity and Detect. (I tried different resolutions and ended up with the setting 1440*900. I also adjusted the text size to be 125%)

How do I fix my resolution issue so that my Windows 10 is also sharp. Is it a problem where Windows 10 is not capable of supporting Retina displays ?

Here is another screenshot of what I am having. The left side is chrome in my Mac and right side is Chrome in my Windows 10.

Finally I got this working. The trick was to install VMware Tools in my VM OS (Windows 10). After installing this, I was able to select 2880*1800 resolution.

Much better now :) Some apps are still not sharp (Visual Studio menu items etc.). But I can live with those.


Stop songs shuffling in iOS Music app In the Apple's Music app on my iPhone, when I press the play button, the music titles begin shuffling through all of the songs and will not stop shuffling.

How do I stop songs from shuffling?

On the Now Playing screen in the Music app, scroll downwards and tap on the shuffle button to turn it off.

The shuffle button is concealed in the UI and it's placement isn't obvious.

Image Source: http://osxdaily.com/2016/09/16/shuffle-music-ios-10/


Can I submit an app to the App Store that needs a hardware device not available in the market(yet)? I am working on a project where im developing a circuit (Raspberry Pi) and an iOS app where the app is used to communicate (via Bluetooth Low Energy) to the Raspberry, only to setup some credentials. The circuit is a prototype, my question is, if I send the app to review will they reject it because the reviewer does not have the Raspberry device to test it?

Yes, you can submit such apps! I have done so before and got them approved.

You’ll probably be asked to provide more information about your setup, or be asked to provide a video of you actually using an iOS device to control the hardware.


Applescript failing even though variables are equal I have a file that is a list of numbers like so:

  01

  02

  03

  04

  ...

  241

  242

However, this was generated from a list of files so I am not sure if it contains all the numbers in sequence from start to end, inclusive (Meaning it might be "13 15" instead of "13 14 15").

My applescript checks for that, and although it seemed like it was going it be simple, my applescript fails at the number 10 and beyond, even though my dialogues say that the numbers x and y are both equal. And by fail I mean it is telling me the numbers 10 and on are missing even though it shouldnt be, because x is equal to y at that point.

Here is my applescript, and the list can be found here.

set x to 0

repeat 242 times

    set x to x + 1
    if x is less than 10 then
        set x to "0" & x
    end if

    display dialog "x is set to " & x

    #Get's the x'th line of the file and sets it to y
    set y to do shell script "sed -n '" & x & "p' ~/Desktop/numlist.txt"

    display dialog "y result is " & y

    if y is not equal to x then
            display dialog "The number " & x & " is missing!"
        #exit repeat
    end if

end repeat

Your x values are strings when the value is less than ten (because you use string concatenation to prepend a zero), however they are plain numbers when the value is greater than or equal to ten.

Your y values are always strings.

So, for values less than ten, your final comparison compares a string to a string; this works as expected. For higher values, the comparison will always yield false because it is comparing a number to a string.

If you want exact string matches, then you can use use this comparison code:

if y is not equal to x as string then …

If you only care about numeric values, then you could remove the zero-prefixing code and use this comparison:

if y as number is not equal to x then …

Equivalently, you could do the coercion when you fetch the y value:

set y to (do shell script "sed -n '" & x & "p' ~/Desktop/numlist.txt") as number

The parentheses are necessary there because do shell script has its own optional as parameter that is not the same as normal coercion.


Can I configure my Mac to store documents and pictures on iCloud only I am using the latest macOS Mojave, and I have a Mac which only has 250 GB of storage space. Due to the nature of my work, I need as much of this space available at all times.

I will sporadically need 100+ GB for a short duration of time for example. The problem with iCloud is that it optimises so to store as much as possible on the Mac at anytime and this causes me problems. Yes it will delete some local content when I am short on space but it takes too long.

I want iCloud switched on and accessible from my Mac, I just want it to keep everything on iCloud. Why does this not seem to be a feature or am I missing something?

It seems to leave me with 25 GB, which is 10% available so maybe this is a setting?

You can buy additional storage, but this will not help you in your case. Documents in iCloud are always synced with your Mac, so anything you remove on your Mac will also be removed from iCloud.

You need to look into other cloud storage solutions (eg Dropbox with selective syncing) if you want to temporarily want to offload something into the cloud. Or buy an external drive (which may be simpler).


Will Mac OSX 10.5.4 or 10.5.8 run on a PowerMac g5 quad? I would like to know because I am going to get the highest version that will run on this specific Mac...

According to Mactracker, the latest version of Mac OS X any version of an Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop can take is Mac OS X 10.5.8 although Mac OS X 10.5.4 will also run on them.

The information I presented was what is reported by Mactracker and they usually are correct with the information they provide.  In any case all sources I've looked at for the Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5GHz M9592LL/A PowerMac11,2 the only quad core Power Mac G5 produced all say the same thing, latest or maximum OS is "Mac OS X 10.5.8".  Unfourtunatly Apple's own page Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) - Technical Specifications does not say. So I guess the answer should be contact Apple via phone or stop by an Apple store for what would be considered an authoritative source.


Accidentally removed all commands in terminal I was following a tutorial and put in the following line:

export PATH="~/.composer/vendor/bin/"

Now no commands work at all, not even things like ls.

What does the command do that I copy and pasted in and how do I fix it?

What you did
$PATH is the variable that tells your shell (bash by default) where to look for your commands. It contains a list of directories, separated with colons (:). When you type ls, the shell will search all the directories listed within $PATH (/bin, /usr/bin, and so on) until it finds a file called ls, and will execute that.
Normally, you set a variable simply with
variable="foo bar baz"

...however, that only sets that variable for the current shell -- those changes won't carry over to subshells, which can be important in (for example) scripts. Using
export variable="foo bar baz"

...will allow you to use the variable in subshells.
So, when you use export PATH="~/.composer/vendor/bin/", you are overwriting the $PATH variable -- so when you try to use ls, the shell looks in ~/.composer/vendor/bin/, doesn't find any file named ls, and so fails. What you probably want to do is add ~/.composer/vendor/bin/ to your $PATH, which you can do with:
export PATH="$PATH:~/.composer/vendor/bin/"

You can view the current contents of your $PATH with echo $PATH.
How to fix it
All of this only applies to the current shell (and all its subshells, since you used export), so you can fix the problem most simply by opening a new terminal, as Mateusz Szlosek's answer notes.
If you do want to alter your $PATH permanently, you can put that line at the end of your ~/.bashrc, which is sourced whenever you open an interactive shell. This is standard practice if you want to write a few of your own scripts (on Linux, we use ~/bin for user scripts, but they can go anywhere).


iPhone 3GS headphone sound is crackly I have a problem with the sound from the headphone jack on my iPhone 3GS. Sound from the speaker is fine, but the sound from the headphone jack (on any headphones) is distorted at normal volumes. If I turn the volume down to about halfway then the distortion vanishes but the volume becomes barely audible.

I've just replaced the headphone jack with a brand new assembly, so it's not a problem with jack itself.

Anyone have any ideas?

Gonna say if you take it to Apple, they will confirm the audio processing chip on the mobo has maybe become faulty. Seen this before, took it to Apple, the chip responsible for audio processing had fried itself (not sure how). They replaced my iPhone.


Ethernet-over-usb not working with usb-c to usb-c cable, working with adapter I have an OTG device that exposes a network interface over USB-C, providing a DHCP server (think a raspberry pi or similar). When I plug it into my Linux computer (USB-A on the computer, USB-C in the device), then Linux shows a new interface with an IP, and I can SSH into the device.
On a Macbook (where the Macbook also has USB-C connectors), it does not always work:

If I take a usb-c to usb-c cable and use it to connect the Macbook to the device, it does not seem to get recognized (the network interface is not appearing in ifconfig).
If I connect a USB adapter to the Macbook (one of those USB hubs exposing 3 USB-A sockets), and then I connect a usb-a to usb-c cable between the hub and the device (so it's usb-c <--> usb-a <--> usb hub <--> usb-c), then it is recognized.

My first thought was that the hub was definitely a USB device/gadget, and maybe that helped because both the Macbook and the device were USB hosts. But I am pretty sure that the device is OTG, and the fact that the device can connect directly to the Linux shows that it can run as a gadget (and for sure the Macbook can run as a host).
What could be the reason for that issue? And optionally: is it correct to think that the Macbook USB ports are not OTG but always host (I have never heard of an OTG port in a computer, not sure if that's a thing)?
Note: it seems similiar to this old unanswered question.
EDIT: as required, the System Report when it works. When it doesn't (i.e. with the usb-c-only cable), then the line just does not appear in "USB 3.0 Bus"...

I think the problem is that your USB-C to USB-C cable is in fact power only.
The setup you have should work when you connect it directly, but you write the USB part of System Report gives no indication that anything at all is plugged in. If you have used a charger cable that has no data lines, this is what would happen.
Try with a different USB-C to USB-C cable and it should hopefully work.
UPDATE: Based on your comments, the problem seems to be that the device itself doesn't actually support USB-C fully. You'll need to configure the Linux kernel with the CONFIG_TYPEC option in make menuconfig in order to have support for USB-C build.


How to stop iOS 13 Personal Hotspot dropping out after 3 minutes even when plugged into power? The Personal Hotspot on iOS 13 will stay on for long periods, when paired to Mac. (Note that the Mac -> iOS tethering has unique operating system support different to simply connecting to a wifi host.) This is when the iOS device is plugged into power.

In contrast, when shared over WIFI to a PC, it drops out after 3-7 minutes.  This is even when the iOS device hosting the internet connection is plugged into power. The same PC stays connected to an ADSL modem sharing over WIFI for hours. This occurs even though I leave the phone on the hotspot page in settings. I’m using the PC continuously (working from home) when this occurs.

My question is: How to stop iOS 13 Personal Hotspot dropping out after 3 minutes even when plugged into power?

The hotspot on iOS 13 is stable and solid for me to connect windows 10 and iOS and macOS from 10.13 and higher for more than an hour, so the presumption that iOS is the culprit might be worth investigating.

At worst, your device needs an erase and install if its struggling to share out the network. Do you suspect your iOS device needs repair or are you in an enviromnemt where WiFi interference is high?


Display visual notification of currently-playing song in iTunes? Is there a way to display the currently-playing track on my Mac? I would rather not use a 3rd-party app.

You can click the Zoom button in iTunes to get a Mini Player version which you can position anywhere on your screen.

In iTunes Preferences - Advanced, you'll additionally find an option to keep the Mini Player on top of all other windows.


2016 Macbook Pro 15" In Flight Power Solutions? I travel a lot by air and have run into a problem with my 2016 Macbook Pro 15": it draws too much power for in-seat charging on United Airlines (75 watt max). Since my journeys have me in transit up to 30 hours at a time, this is a major productivity killer.

My 2015/2013 Macbook Pro's did not have this problem even though their power supplies were rated at 85w (18.5v/4.6a). The 2016 has an 87w (20.2v/4.3a) power requirement. I'm not really sure if that's enough of a difference to make a difference but it seems to.

Is there a way to power a 2016 MacBook Pro 15" on an airplane? I'm open to external battery options, but I can't seem to find USB-C external batteries that work with the 2016 MacBook Pro 15".

All of Apple's USB C chargers will charge your 15 inch MacBook Pro. To avoid the 75 watt limitation, grab one of the 61 watt chargers.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNF72LL/A/61w-usb-c-power-adapter

I use the MacBook charger (29 watt - same as iPad Pro charger) for most trips due to smaller size. I run software that drains the battery in 12 hours so I don't need the faster charging rates the 61 or 87 watt adapters provide.


How do you erase pictures from the Photo Stream album on an iPhone running iOS 5? I have recently upgraded to iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 and am loving it.  One issue I've run into is that my iPhone adds my recently taken photos to an album named "Photo Stream" whenever I'm on WiFi.

The Photo Stream album seems to have the same properties that an album I had synced with iTunes would have; meaning I can't delete photos.

I have my iPhone syncing with iCloud, but I can't find any mention of synced pictures on icloud.com.

How do I erase pictures I don't want from the Photo Stream?  Do I have to delete them from my Camera Roll?

EDIT

As of March 7th 2012 you can now delete individual photos from Photo Stream if you are running iOS 5.1 or iPhoto 9.2.2

Believe it or not, it seems you can't delete individual photos from iOS5 Photo Stream.   It seems you'll need to wait for them to scroll off as Photo Stream just holds your most recent 1000 pics.  Deleting a picture from Camera Roll has no effect on the photos on Photo Stream.

According to this page:

  iCloud manages your Photo Stream efficiently so you don't run out of storage space on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. If you have Photo Stream enabled on your iOS device, every single photo you take appears in a special Photo Stream album that holds your last 1000 photos. You can't edit or delete photos from your Photo Stream. If you want to touch up a photo or keep a favorite shot permanently, simply save it to your Camera Roll. iCloud stores new photos for 30 days, so you have plenty of time to connect your iOS device to Wi-Fi and make sure you always have your most recent shots handy.

So unless you delete it before it's uploaded to the cloud, you need to follow the procedures below.  You need to reset your Photo Stream from iCloud.com or turn off Photo Stream within iOS5 on your device.

Turn off Photo Stream in iOS5:

Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream
Switch off and then back on to clear Photo Stream on this device
Repeat for each iOS5 device

Reset Photo Stream on iCloud.com

Sign into iCloud.com
Click on your name in the upper-right corner
Click on 'Advanced'
Click 'Reset Photo Stream' to remove all Photo Stream pictures from iCloud


Conditionally map keys depending on the application being used Here is my need on keyboard mapping:

When using Terminal, exchange the use of alt and cmd (map one to the other)
Otherwise, restore the default mapping on these two keys

How to achieve this?

Use a private.xml like this with Karabiner:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <appdef>
    <appname>TERMINAL</appname>
    <equal>com.apple.Terminal</equal>
  </appdef>
  <item>
    <name>onlyterminal</name>
    <identifier>onlyterminal</identifier>
    <only>TERMINAL</only>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::COMMAND_L, KeyCode::OPTION_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::OPTION_R</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::OPTION_L, KeyCode::COMMAND_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::OPTION_R, KeyCode::COMMAND_R</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


-bash: command not found appears every time I just recently discovered what terminal was. I started using it today and every time I try a command (like shh) it says that the command was not found. I was instructed to type in echo $PATH and this is what I got

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

How can I fix this? I know mostly nothing about terminal or how to use it.

I wonder if the command you want is ssh , not shh.  Are you trying to connect to another computer? As Doc G points out, your PATH looks fine.


Mission Control won't open with dual monitor I am experiencing some really annoying issues when using a secondary display on my 13-inch Retina Macbook Pro with OSX 10.12 (Sierra).

I use two different external displays (one at a time): my iPad Mini with the Duet app and an LG M2550D with an hdmi cable. In both cases, Mission Control is not opening when I have the secondary screen plugged in. I tried disabling and enabling Mission Control, rebooting the computer, reinstalling Duet, changing the hdmi cable for the monitor and nothing has worked. I also tried using the trackpad gesture, the mouse button I have assigned for this and the keyboard F3.

Also, when I'm using the LG monitor, my mouse won't work as well (as if it is unplugged). When I unplug the hdmi cable, the mouse "starts working again". It is a Logitech MX Performance.

Can you help me? I really don't know what else to do.

Thank you very much.

Mission control not opening is caused by Duet disabling it due to a bug in Sierra. I've just done a Google and found that apparently the bug is fixed in OSX 10.12.2 which is in beta and hopefully released soon.


Safari and Firefox default to Chrome and webmail page So when I have, say, Safari open, or Firefox, but not Chrome, and go to (in Safari) FILE>SHARE>EMAIL THIS PAGE (or the equivalent in Firefox)...suddenly Chrome opens to the Network Solutions webmail login, which I was working in earlier, until the server locked up. I've dumped caches, cookies, histories, run diagnostics...no luck. Ideas?

Chrome is set as the default browser on your machine, and the default email is set as your Network Solutions webmail.

To change the default browser, go to System Preferences > General > Default web browser and change it to your choice of browser. (You can also change this in Safari under the Safari menu > Preferences > General > Default web browser.)

To change the default email program, open Mail, then click on Mail menu > Preferences > General > Default email reader. It is almost certainly set to Google Chrome right now. You can change it here to whatever you like.

If you want to leave it with Chrome, but change the email that opens when you use Email This Page, you can change the default email handler in Chrome. Go to Chrome menu > Preferences > Show advanced settings... > Content Settings button > Scroll to Handlers and click Manage handlers. In the window that appears, across from mailto there should be a drop-down where you can select what email website you would like to use. Note that this menu may only contain Network Solutions, if you have never visited another webmail service in Chrome.


How does Apple Pay work Can someone give me an overview as to how Apple Pay works. What goes on inside it. What microchips are used and essentially how does it work?

Here is the best write-up I know of. In typical Ars Technica fashion, it tells you everything you could ever want to know. A must-read for the curious: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/how-mobile-payments-really-work/


Can I Upgrade My Mid 2009 15 Inch Macbook Pro past it's maximum memory limit to 16gb? I have a 15 inch macbook pro (mid 2009 1.8ghz core 2 duo) and I want to upgrade the memory. It currently has 4gb (2x2gb) and the maximum Apples says will work is 8gb. I am wondering if I could get away with 16gb (2x8gb). I know this is possible on certain other macbooks, I am just wondering if it will work on my model.

According EveryMac.com no Macbook Pro models build before 2010 had an actual maximum RAM of 16 GB. If your Macbook Pro is a 2009 year model, then your maximum actual RAM should be 8 GB.


How to determine where the localhost:8080 source and server are located I am running Mavericks OS currently on my iMac. It has been a while since I set up a web server on my iMac. I went to my Firefox browser and went to localhost:8080 and it returns a simple string "SUCCESS". How can I determine what server is responsible for this and where the source file is located? I have searched multiple locations and can't find it's location. I have looked at /etc/apache2/sites/...conf file and it shows /Users/(me)/Sites but the index.html located there is not what I'm seeing. I would expect that to be on port 80 anyway and it won't load, suggesting that the apache server were running, which I'm pretty sure is not, based on  the Activity Monitor.

I don't recall how the server was started. I have been dabbling with nodejs but not sure which project is involved with this. Is there a way to track this down and control the server and the webroot code located there?

Try:

sudo  lsof -n -i :8080 -s TCP:LISTEN

The first two columns will be the name and PID of the process(es) listening on port 8080.

Use the PID to find it in Activity Monitor, Get Info, and notice which files it has open. It'll have a bunch of libraries open, but high on the list will be the executable file.

Alternatively, from the name, see what service it corresponds to with

sudo launchctl list | grep theprocessname

For example, if the name were httpd, the above command would tell you the service name is org.apache.httpd. If you don't get any hits (because it's not running as a daemon), try it without sudo.

Ask launchctl for more info about that service. Continuing to use Apache as the example:

sudo launchctl list org.apache.httpd

would tell you

{
    "LimitLoadToSessionType" = "System";
    "Label" = "org.apache.httpd";
    "TimeOut" = 30;
    "OnDemand" = false;
    "LastExitStatus" = 0;
    "PID" = 39660;
    "Program" = "/usr/sbin/httpd";
    "ProgramArguments" = (
        "/usr/sbin/httpd";
        "-D";
        "FOREGROUND";
    );
};

Notice the "Program" line, which gives you the path to the executable. Most of that information comes from /System/Library/LaunchAgents/org.apache.httpd.plist, which is the file that tells Launch Services when to run the program and how.

Your web server, listening on port 8080, is not from Apple, so it won't be in /System/Library. Look in /Library/LaunchDaemons, or maybe even in ~/Library/LaunchAgents (if it runs only when you're logged in). (Listening on port 8080 does not require root privilege, so it could conceivably be running as you, although that has interesting security implications.)

Another place to look is in System Preferences→Users & Groups→Login Items. Since we don't know how you set it up to run automatically, it might be that you didn't do it by putting a file in any of the ...Library/Launch* directories.


How do you fix a non-working key on the Macbook pro 2016? I have a Macbook pro 2016 and keys keep getting stuck. By "stuck" I mean that pressing them doesn't do anything anymore unless I press them really hard. The recommended way is to blow air into the keyboard while holding it at a certain angle. I never have a can of air laying around, and blowing with my mouth doesn't seem to work. Is there a different way?

I found another way that seems to work and doesn't require a can of air: Hold the laptop sideways and while holding it like that, pound on the key. Pound as hard as you would if you were typing an angry message. Try to pound on each side of the key. Holding it sideways gives gravity a chance to pull the crumbs out. And if it doesn't work the first time, try holding it a different direction.

I've tried this method on several keys, including the large right SHIFT key. It seems to work pretty good. The SHIFT key still isn't fully back to normal, but is way better than it was.


Cisco AnyConnect denies connection after failing to recognize antivirus First I'd like to say...

I don't typically install antivirus on my computers but I had to make an exception for a client.
I've talked to their help desk about this issue and aside from providing a spreadsheet of approved antivirus apps for Mac I have had no luck getting AnyConnect to recognize that I have installed one. Tried a few actually.
They did ask some other people in company on Macs and they said they were running the AnyConnect in a windows vm and I'm guessing making windows act like a proxy for specific traffic. Not exactly sure how that is being configured, but that's my last resort.

So now the question, does anyone know what AnyConnect is checking? Is it a path? Or something else? I've been wondering if I can force it or fake it. My client doesn't want me to settle for Windows since their network people say they support it. No response from network dept on that so I'm on my own or have to hack together some obtuse solution.

So if anyone has any suggestions that would be awesome.

Thanks!

I cannot say I fully grok how anti-virus comes into play with your VPN software, but AnyConnect is a notoriously flaky VPN client. You are better off using the native VPN connection built into the OS. You will need to create a new Cisco VPN connection and most importantly, You will need the gateway IP, Group ID, and shared secret for your connection from your IT folk. You may find them quite reasonable about giving your that especially if you are are being locked out and can solve your problem with some self-sufficiency.


How can I achieve higher quality results from my bargain based 4K monitor? I just got the latest 2013 15.4-inch MBP 2.6GHz and I also have the 39-inch Seiki 4K television.

I previously had a 2010 MBP 15.4-inch 2.53GHz and used a Mini-HDMI to connect to the 4K which was able to support 1920 x 1080p at 30Hz and 3840 by 2160p at 24Hz. 4K videos on Youtube had a picture that looked fantastic, but the 24Hz really put my ongoing enthusiasm in a bind.

Since I've upgraded to the latest MBP, which is in every way superior to my old build, how can I best utilize the new features and power to get the most out of the 4K or at least improve the 24Hz rate.

Are there any best practices to follow for movies, audio, browsing etc when you have a choice between Thunderbolt2, USB3.0, HDMI, etc? Are the dual graphics enough to push 4K at a rate above 24Hz?

Perhaps there is a single cable that can solve all my problems.

Here is some information:

Apple lists the 2013 MacBook Pro with Intel Iris Technology as being able to run a 4K display at 4096-by-2160 resolution and 24 Hz as well as 3840-by-2160 displays at 30 Hz over its HDMI port.

The latter is the resolution of the Seiki and conveniently as high as it goes at 4K – HDMI 1.4 is limited at these rates.

Some manufacturers say that they will update their HDMI 1.4 to 2.0 which can do higher frame rates, but Seiki has made no such promise.


How can I use FileVault encryption and still track my laptop if stolen I've spent quite some time over the last few days trying to work out how I can combine the clear data security advantages of encrypting my machine with FileVault 2 under Lion, and the theft-recovery potential of programs like Undercover, Prey, or LoJack. The general consensus is that this is basically an either/or tradeoff, because encrypting your system is going to prevent a thief getting into it, and consequently prevent him from even running the tracking software. Under the old FileVault, you could have left a honeypot guest account unencrypted, but that came with some serious data security downsides, because it opened the route to a smart thief circumventing your encryption in single user mode. The new FileVault obviously doesn't give that option, although potentially you may get somewhere with Find My Mac on iCloud, which apparently does run under the recovery partition.

Is there are a better solution than being forced to choose between data security and tracking tools?

After a bit of messing about, it turns out that there is a better compromise which doesn't seem to be clearly documented anywhere obvious, so I thought I'd share it here. I don't believe this is a duplicate but I'm happy to see this question closed if I've missed something.

The cost of the solution (which may be unacceptable to some) is that you need to sacrifice about 14G of your drive to a honeypot partition. The steps I took are:

Use Disk Utility to resize your boot partition to create at least 14.3G of free space at the end of the drive. If you've already enabled FileVault, I believe this means you're going to have to turn it off and wait for it to finish decrypting first.
Create an empty, Mac OS Extended, Journalled partition at the end of your drive filling the free space.
To make things look a bit more convincing, give your new partition a name that's more plausible than Macintosh HD (2) - I name mine after my host name.
Restart your computer and launch into recovery mode by holding down Cmd-R as the system boots.
Select reinstall OS from the recovery menu, and follow through with the install. Somewhere along the line you will get the option to select where to install the OS. You want to put it on the new partition, obviously. It should be just big enough to let you install Lion. If it isn't you're going to have to drop back out to the main recovery menu, fire up Disk Utility and resize the partitions again. This is a bit of crapshoot because you don't end up with as much free space as the specified size of the partition but you'll get there in the end.
Complete the installation of your new copy of Lion. You want to set this up as a honeypot, so:

Enable automatic login that logs into a non-administrative account with the same username as you use on your main partition (for added plausibility)
Make sure your admin account has a decent password to make it hard for the thief to mess with your tracking software if he finds it
Don't hook anything up to iCloud - I'm assuming you're going to be using an alternative service like Undercover, Prey or LoJack to aid recovery, so it's just more potential exposure and best avoided.

Install your tracking software of choice on the honeypot partition. I went with Undercover in the end because it's a one-off cost and Prey is written in bash <shudder>.
Prevent corestoraged from trying to mount encrypted partitions on startup, thus blowing your cover:

sudo mkdir -p /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.Disabled
sudo mv /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.corestorage.corestoraged.plist /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.Disabled/com.apple.corestorage.corestoraged.plist

(A bit of a hack, but it's only a honeypot. Hat tip to the contributors here )
Reboot your system. You'll need to hold down alt/opt as the system boots to bring up the boot menu. Select your original main partition to boot into your main system.
(Re)Enable FileVault for this partition and allow it to complete.
Install your tracking software on this partition as well (this works fine for Undercover, which identifies machines by serial number of MAC address, so it doesn't care which partition you boot into)
Set a firmware password. If you're on a pre-2011 mac this is only a token gesture, but I suppose every little helps. If you have a newer mac, this is a serious security measure, as the only options for circumventing it AFAIK are taking it to Apple or physically replacing a chip on the motherboard.

So now, if you power off your mac and boot it from cold, it will boot into the honeypot partition without even asking for a password. To an unsophisticated thief, it will look like they've got access to your machine just by rebooting it. There's a fighting chance that your tracking software will have a chance to file a report before the thief realises that something isn't quite right.

When you reboot your machine, you will have to remember to hold down the alt/option key to get into your proper system, at which point you will be prompted for a password to decrypt it. Assuming that you have the appropriate locking settings enabled for sensible security, your machine is tolerably secure against someone getting hold of sensitive private data.

If you have a recent mac with proper firmware protection, the thief will have an exceptionally difficult time using anything other than the honeypot partition, and will struggle to do anything particularly useful even with that, since he has no administrative rights. With any luck, by the time he's finished getting frustrated with it the police will already be knocking at his door :-)


Can I get Installer for Aperture 3.6? Apple terminated Aperture at 3.6. Photos.app is the only replacement, for my uses it's far from ready. I want to be sure I can run Aperture 3.6 for at least 2 more years. I'd like an installer.

We have been able to download from the app store, but yesterday Apple transiently removed Aperture from our Previous Purchase list. (It's now back.) Aperture 3.4.5 updater is the last version available for downloaded from Apple [1]. No-one I know trusts Apple to keep Aperture available.

Does anyone know a way to get the Aperture 3.6 installer? How about a way to restore Aperture to a new machine from backup?

I have a license of course.

[1] https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1657?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

I updated from Mavericks to El Captian and suddenly Aperture 3.4.5 stopped working. Sadly, the Aperture 3.6 update is not available in the App store. Don't know if this is a temporary thing or it's gone forever. However, if you have 3.6 on another Mac you can drag the app itself to a flash drive and simply drop it in your App folder. It did it today and it runs perfectly under OS 10.11.


USB short protection I was prototyping some USB things and I was wondering if the Mac USB ports have any short-circut protection.

If I were to connect Vcc and GND directly together would it break my Mac? Would the motherboard be borked?

Specifically, I'm using a Mid-2012 Retina 15" MacBook Pro and am looking to know if it has any protection or resilience against damage of this sort?

OS X should identify the port as having high current draw and shut it down until you unplug the device.

Source: I was doing exactly this and ended up accidentally shorting the Vcc and ground pins, and got a notification center message saying this.


sudo access to specific folder On OS X Mavericks, I want to install few files without prompting user for sudo password. (Folder where i am trying to install require root access because it is present at / location). I can do this by modifying "sudoer" file and disable sudo password but this is unsafe and open up security risk.

Is there any way I can provide sudo access only a particular folder? So when I try to write to this folder, sudo password prompt is not visible to user.

(All above task are done through command line)

Don't modify the sudoers file. It isn't necessary. I think what you mean is "is there anyway I can alter ownership and permissions so sudo isn't required?" Yes. You can modify the folder's permissions and ownership settings using Terminal. Note, you will have to use sudo to do so and the command must be run by an administrator.

sudo chown -R $UID:staff /path/to/folder; chmod -R 755 /path/to/folder; exit

Substitute "/path/to/folder" with the proper path. The "chown" command changes ownership of the directory to you (and it's subfolders, using the -R option). The "chmod" command sets the folder's permissions to readable/executable by everyone and writable by the owner (you) only.