Is there Spotify-Connect-Equivalent functionality for Apple Music? I have an Apple Music subscription and iTunes 12.2 on an HTPC (Windows) which his my primary music player. I want to use my iPhone to control what I play. I've tried the Apple Remote app, which works, but it only allows me to choose music that I've added to my library. It does not allow me to look up an arbitrary song from the cloud (whatever the term for this is - it's the functionality under the "New" section of iTunes on OSX) and play it from the Remote. If I want to do that I have to do it directly on HTPC, which is not acceptable.

Basically I just want Spotify Connect functionality for Apple Music. If it's from the Remote app, great. If it's from the Music app, great. What has been the most successful approach from others with a similar need?

In 2018 - AirPlay and AirPlay 2 are the premier ways to play Apple Music. Most people will want to just connect their speakers to a computer or device and use Siri / AirPlay to queue up music.

If we go in a time machine back to 2015 - the situation was a little less clear, but using iPhone and Apple TV was still the best way to stream music over WiFi from many controllers.

(much of what follows is wrong and/or outdated, but were possible solutions at a past point in time)

Your iPhone is a first tier player in Apple Music. It would be better to just play the music on your phone rather than monkey with "remote". Send the music over the network to the PC rather than sending the remote commands over the network to the PC.

Remote options are:

Wait for Apple's remote to get updated for the hot newness
Get a VNC/RDC remote and control the PC (janky - but does 100% what the PC can do without needing anything else on the PC end) screen directly.
Third party remotes like Rowmote Pro (I say like since I have a handful of iPhone to Mac remotes - just can't recommend specific PC ones)

The iPhone can AirPlay to a PC quite easily with software on the PC such as AirFoil for Windows and you're set with Apple's full fledged iOS music controls but taking advantage of the PC to speaker connection you have already set up.

Depending on how the PC outputs to speakers, you could also add hardware ($5 to $65) to get the sound from either the PC or the iOS devices to the speakers. You don't need to do that as there are several workable software solutions.


How can I prevent certain tracks from going to iPod? I manually put music onto my iPod by dragging albums over from the library in iTunes.  For some albums, I don't want all of the tracks to copy over to the iPod - for example, audio commentaries and dialog tracks.  Short of deleting these tracks from my iTunes library, how can I prevent specific tracks from being copied over to the iPod when I place albums?

I love the setting where you can only sync songs with the checkbox to one or more iOS devices.

Simple deselect the songs by plalist, genre, or as you find them and even if they are in a playlist or genius mix that would normally install the song on your device during a sync, iTunes will suppress those songs that are not check marked.


Is it safe to eject a hard drive during encryption? I am currently encrypting my external hard drive (1TB), but the process takes a while. I'm always using it on the go with my laptop, so I have to eject it at some point. However, after I eject my hard drive, the light on my hard drive is still on, indicating it's still active. I ejected it properly, but it still flashes on. So I decide to just shut down my laptop and plug out my hard drive.

Is this safe to do?

This is fine — if the disk has been ejected, it is no longer in use. I have done this myself during encryption of my Time Machine disk. Reconnecting the drive continues the encryption process from where it left off. Of course, make sure the disk is ejected before disconnecting it.


Character Accent Menu doesn't appear anymore in macOS Sierra Before upgrading to macOS Sierra, I really liked the Character Accent Menu by doing a long press on a key (for example, the character e) and being able to add an accent on it.

However, this functionality seems to not work anymore, and so far, I can't find out why?

Also, before, doing a long press on the delete button, would repeatly delete characters. Now, it is doing only one character deletion disregarding how long I'm pressing the key. So if I want to erase 10 characters, I need to press the delete button 10 times...

Also, I am not able to log off or shut down. When doing it, all applications are closed, status bar disappears but nothing happens. The dock remains here. I have no way to shut down or log out without doing a long press on the power button.

Is someone facing the same issue?

EDIT :
Logging with a new user account or guest account fix all the problems. But I still would like to know what, in my user account, became corrupted during the upgrade.

I got the same issue after a recent update now, found the answer here and it worked for me. In Terminal type

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

and then log out and log in again, this should fix the issue.


Hard link '~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs' to ~/iCloud Is it possible to do this at all? I've tried the following command:

ln /Users/Rowan/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Documents /Users/Rowan/iCloud

which results in:

ln: /Users/Rowan/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Documents: Is a directory

I can't seem to find how to add an argument to ln in order to 'allow' directories.

ln(1) on OS X does not support folder hard links. A symlink would work fine instead.

ln -s /Users/Rowan/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Documents /Users/Rowan/iCloud

If you really want a hard link, you can install coreutils with Homebrew and use

gln -d /Users/Rowan/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Documents /Users/Rowan/iCloud


Remote SSH access to sleeping MacBook Pro only works when 'Find my Mac' application is running - can I make this persist? As expected, I cannot SSH in to my MacBook when I have left it with the lid shut/sleeping, but if I use my iPhone to access 'Find my Mac', the MacBook wakes and then I can SSH in.

However, when my iPhone goes to sleep/I quit 'Find my Mac', the SSH connection hangs.

Is it possible to use 'Find my Mac' to wake my MacBook for SSH and then have this connection persist after I close 'Find my Mac'?


Sharing music in the iTunes library with multiple accounts and iOS devices My wife and I both have iOS devices (some iPods, an iPhone, soon an iPad), which means that both our iTunes libraries have not only music, but also apps, podcasts, iTunes U stuff, etc.

How could we manage to share just the music in one single location, and still keep our apps/podcasts/etc separated from each other?

Would iTunes Home Sharing work for you?

Basically, one of you would have all your music, but every device would have access to it.


Will i loose my data after upgrading I know Yosemite(Leaving public betas) is yet not out but i am little curious to clear out few doubts before hand. I have bought my new macbook pro retina 15 inch so i am not aware about few things. If i upgrade from Mountain Lion to Yosemite will I loose all my installed softwares? Data?

Even if loose those installed softwares, no worries. I can re-install them. I have the .dmg files. But what i am worrying is, will these old softwares for M.Lion work with Yosemite? Or i need to update them all.

The system is clearly designed to take great pains to not lose your data, however whenever you rewrite the core part of the OS that is responsible for booting the system, that is the time when you are most likely to discover a problem:

Your hard drive or hardware could be flakey and the volume of changes exposes a pre-existing problem that was un-noticed since it was only affecting non-vital files.
Your unique set of software and settings has a bad effect when migrated to the new OS.
Your apps you depend upon don't work well yet or ever with the new OS.
Your command line tools might all get deactivated / moved so it really depends upon which package manager you use and how ready it is to use the new versions of the compiler tools from Yosemite. I would ask a second question with specific details if you want to research that aspect of the upgrade to 10.10.

If you don't have the time to back up fully and have tested your restore process, you might be better doing that and not upgrading to a new OS before upgrading. Or you can check the availability of help to assist in the very unlikely chance you have an issue and pay someone / recruit someone to help you over the bumps.


Non-recursive spotlight search? When using the Spotlight search at the top right of a finder window, I often want the search to be non-recursive, i.e. only look at files in that specific directory, not any directories within it. Is this possible?

As far as I know, unfortunately it's not possible to do this.

Strangely, I also set the 'Document Container' criteria within Spotlight and it wouldn't show any results at all.

This is extremely poor behaviour, I agree. You can give Apple feedback on OS X (from which you can post feedback on Spotlight) here.


What are the potential consequences of partially-disabling SIP for yabai yabai is a window management utility for macOS.
Since macOS does not offer a suitable API to control the native window manager, yabai resorts to injecting a scripting addition into Dock.app for controlling windows. Dock.app
is located somewhere in /System which is inaccessible thanks to by SIP.
For yabai to work to it's full potential, the user must  partially disable SIP with a command like csrutil disable --with kext --with dtrace --with nvram --with basesystem  (Big Sur) or csrutil enable --without debug --without fs (Mojave or Catalina).
This leads me to my question which is, what are the potential consequences of permanently disabling fs and debug?

On a traditional UNIX system—including many major platforms still in use today, such as Debian—any user or process with "root" privileges is considered to have absolute control over a machine. There is basically nothing the OS will not allow a root user to do, whether it's rewriting system files, adding code to other processes, adding code to the kernel, you name it. If you've ever been told not to run programs as root unless absolutely necessary, this is why.
macOS, being itself a UNIX operating system, also behaved this way for many years. As recently as OS X 10.10 Yosemite, once you gave an app your root/administrator password, it was free to do anything it wanted, and macOS would not stand in its way.
All of this changed with the release of macOS El Capitan in 2015. For the first time on the Mac, Apple decided to define a set of actions which they believed no user or program—even one with root privileges—should ever be able to perform! Among these restrictions included installing kernel extensions from unidentified developers (the "kext" protection), injecting code into projected processes, such as apps made by Apple (the "debug" protection), and writing to certain protected system directories (the "fs" protection).
Apple called this new set of restrictions "System Integrity Protection", or SIP for short, and they also made it possible for advanced users to disable, by running a Terminal command from within recovery mode. Disabling SIP reverts your computer to the traditional UNIX behavior of letting root do whatever the heck it wants. Apple also made it possible to individually disable certain restrictions—for instance, running csrutil disable && csrutil enable --without debug will allow injecting code into protected processes, but still leave SIP's other protections in tact.
Suffice to say, disabling SIP grants you a great deal of power over the way your Mac operates. I've recently been learning how to swizzle methods in Objective C; when SIP is off, you can use this to replace code in existing apps, which is really quite fun. When an app does something I don't like—whether it's Zoom making all its windows rudely float on top, or the Dictionary app not respecting my Mac's proxy settings—I can go ahead and change it.
The danger, however, is that if I can inject my own code into any other app, other software potentially could too! You don't need to be particularly creative to imagine the mischief an evil app could cause if it could modify every other app on your machine. For example, an app could inject its own advertisements into Safari, or tell Microsoft Word to send all of its documents to a server in North Korea.
On the other hand, evil apps with root permissions can wreck plenty of havoc without disabling SIP! They won't have any trouble installing bitcoin miners, reading all of your browsing history, and holding for ransom a great many (although not all!) of the files on your hard drive. In fact, a lot of these attacks don't even require root to work. Installing apps is just inherently somewhat dangerous—not unlike inviting someone into your house—unless they come from the Mac App Store, where they're guaranteed to be sandboxed.
I'm only aware of one real-world issue caused by disabling SIP, although it was pretty bad! A couple of years ago, there was a bug in Google Chrome's updater (which sometimes requests root permissions... ugh...) which caused it to overwrite a number of core system files, rendering Macs unbootable. On Macs with SIP enabled, Chrome was prevented from deleting these files, and Chrome carried on its merry way. Presumably, Google never tested Chrome on a Mac without SIP, and so did not discover the problem prior to release. In Google's defense, they did fix the issue quickly, and I'd imagine Chrome now gets tested on Macs without SIP. (But suffice to say, uh, this is why I don't like Google Chrome.)
You should also be aware that on Apple Silicon Macs, Apple does not allow iOS apps to run while SIP is turned off, presumably because developers expect iOS software to only be usable in a locked-down environment. (Those developers are also wrong, because Jailbreaks exist.)

Given all of the above, my general recommendation is as follows:

If you don't have a reason to turn off SIP, leave it on. It won't do any harm.

If you have a reason to turn off SIP, go ahead, and don't let it keep you up at night. You need to be a bit more careful about which apps you run as root. You need to do that anyway.

Other people can and will fall elsewhere on that spectrum. Hopefully you now have enough information to make your own decision!

Okay, so, "anything you want" is perhaps an oversimplification. For starters, modern versions of macOS have a number of other protection systems in addition to SIP, such as TCC and AMFI. The thing is, once SIP is off, there is in theory nothing to stop a process from disabling those as well—who is going to stand in the way, when you can literally rewrite kernel memory? I suppose there are probably protected CPU registers and such.


How to Make Bootable APFS Volume From Disk Image I am currently using terminal to early and quickly add APFS volumes to my Mac's APFS container.

Once I make an empty APFS volume in the container, how can I copy a disk image to it and make it bootable? I have tried using dd, but there have been various issues that seem to keep this from working. Thanks!

I would try rsync. Below is an example of the syntax. Here, I assume the source is the mounted disk image volume and the destination is the apfs volume.

rsync  -a  /Volumes/source/*  /Volumes/destination


How does the Airport Access Control work? I would like to set some rule on my Time Capsule and Airport Express in such a way that some cell phones can connect only in specific time slots.

In my network both the devices are connected to a router, which provides the Internet connection. Time Capsule and Airport Express create two networks with the same name and password (i.e. one is not an extension of the other).

I tried to set up some rules in this way:

Phone MAC address
Time slot 1: from 12AM to 1 PM
Time slot 2: from 2PM to 11:59PM

However the phone is still able to connect form 1 to 2 pm.

I also tried to modify the default rule in order to set up the time constraints for all the clients and then I added a rule for allowing the connection to my laptop all without constraints (all the day, all hours). With this second option I wasn't able to connect my laptop to Internet.

How can I configure a filter for not allowing the phones to connect from 1pm to 2pm?

Also:

What's the time my airport bases are using? It is retrieved from the net and is it based on my default time zone?
When I insert a rule and specify a time slot. Is the time slot the period in which the connection is allowed or the period in which it is not allowed?
Which is the priority assigned to the rules in case of constraints?
And finally, do I have to set up the same rules on both the stations right?

First of all, I would suggest setting this up with the Time Capsule first (unplug the AirPort Express). Then, once you have it working on the Time Capsule, you can duplicate it with the AirPort Express.

Option 1

If you want to lock things down as much as possible, then "No Access" should be the default:

And then create a new entry for the cell phone for when you do want to allow access:

However, that will mean that you have to create entries for all of your other devices as well.

Option 2

So your alternative is to make the default "Everyone is welcome":

But then specify when the cell phone is allowed to access:

Which to try?

I would use Option 1 unless you have so many other devices connecting that it would be impractical.

Option 2 seems like it would be easier to setup, but I have to admit I have not tried it myself.

Time Zone

Time Zone information is set here:

Note that I am still using AirPort Utility 5.6.1 because I find it a lot easier to use than AirPort Utility 6.

You can use 5.6.1 on Mountain Lion, despite what the installer will tell you.

See http://www.tuaw.com/2013/01/22/use-automator-to-get-the-airport-utility-5-6-1-working-on-os-x-1/ and http://www.macworld.com/article/1167965/mountain_lion_and_the_ancient_airport_base_station.html for details on how to install it.


Where did "Open in Safari" go? Suddenly, the option to open in Safari is missing from my share menu. It's not even listed in the "More" options menu. The only unusual thing I've done recently is to install iCloud for Windows on my laptop at work. It never did fully install, however, so I'm not sure how that could affect anything as I sync to iTunes on a MacBook Air.

This is apparent in apps that use the horizontal icon-based share menu—e.g. Tweetbot or ABC News—the Safari option is gone. The share menu is different in other apps like Twitter or Facebook (where it's a vertical text list) and "open in Safari" is still an option in those.

Is anyone else having this problem? I've tried Googling this with no success. I've also cleared all Safari data and tried a reset with no luck.

What am I missing? I'm on an iPhone 6 running the latest iOS 8.3.

One of the recent version update changelogs for Tweetbot states they made a change to the share sheet, which may in turn have caused a bug that is preventing Safari from showing up. This would best be reported to the developer of the app.

In iOS 8.x, a developer basically advertises "I have this type of data to be shared, what apps can share it?" The system responds with a list of apps that are capable of receiving that type of data. (Types can include text, a web URL, images, and so forth.) Depending on what type of data Tweetbot is advertising, it may not be compatible with what Safari says it can receive - Tweetbot might be advertising the URL in plain text format, whereas Safari might only be able to receive the URL specifically formatted as a URL.


What is ScriptEditor2? It appears in my usage report in Settings as having 0.4KB of Documents and Data, but I've never installed anything by that name. It doesn't appear as an app on my home screen, and a Spotlight search turns up nothing. For that matter, a Google search turns up nothing. What the heck is it?

com.apple.ScriptEditor2 is the CFBundleIdentifier for AppleScript Editor.app.

The 0.4KB of iCloud data associated with ScriptEditor2 is likely to be a shared preference file created by AppleScript Editor on your Mac.


Yosemite corrupted texture in Mission Control When I fire up Mission Control, there are some corrupted textures ("glitch") overlaying Unity3D window. The texture is different each time I enter Mission Control, and they are related to what other programs I'm using. After I switched to Unity window, the corrupted textures disappear. I'm using the 15in MacBook Pro with Retina Display Late 2013 with dedicated graphics.

I've also seen corrupted graphics in Yosemite Safari and Preview after waking up from sleep with external monitor, and zooming makes them disappear.

Is it a Yosemite bug or a hardware defect?

Some samples:

From System Information:

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M:

  Chipset Model:    NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M
  Type: GPU
  Bus:  PCIe
  PCIe Lane Width:  x8
  VRAM (Total): 2048 MB
  Vendor:   NVIDIA (0x10de)
  Device ID:    0x0fe9
  Revision ID:  0x00a2
  ROM Revision: 3776
  gMux Version: 4.0.8 [3.2.8]
  Displays:
Color LCD:
  Display Type: Retina LCD
  Resolution:   2880 x 1800 Retina
  Retina:   Yes
  Pixel Depth:  32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Main Display: Yes
  Mirror:   Off
  Online:   Yes
  Built-In: Yes
ASUS PB287Q:
  Resolution:   3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz
  Pixel Depth:  32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Mirror:   Off
  Online:   Yes
  Rotation: Supported
  Connection Type:  DisplayPort
  Television:   Yes

Based on your specifications I am guessing that you are using a MacBook Pro with Retina Display. I have heard about glitches with ones that have a dedicated GPU because OS X actually used both the integrated and the dedicated side by side. To fix this problem you are probably going to want to reset your SMC (System Management Controller) which controls these things.

Step 1 : Shut down your MacBook.

Step 2 : Connect the MagSafe power adapter into your MacBook. If it’s already connected, leave as is.

Step 3 : Press Shift + Control + Option + Power keys at the same time.

Step 4 : Release all the keys from the keyboard.

Step 5 :  Press the power button to start your MacBook.


Is there a way to trace the reason 'fseventsd' process hogs CPU? I run Mac OSX 10.6 and noticed that a process 'fseventsd' was taking 100% CPU and 1.5G RAM. Doing a google search, I found that this could be tied to Time Machine.
However, I do not run Time Machine on this computer.

Is there a way to trace the source of the resource hog? Does it log to anywhere? A restart 'fixed' the issue, but I'm sure it will come back if I can't figure out why it began in the first place.

Thanks in advance.

fseventd is the filesystem event logging process, you can read a lot about it in the ars technica review of Mac OS X Leopard. You can use programs like fseventer to see the same kind of output it sees.

From the article:

  The FSEvents framework relies on a
  single, constantly running daemon
  process called fseventsd that reads
  from /dev/fsevents and writes the
  events to log files on disk (stored in
  a .fseventsd directory at the root of
  the volume the events are for). That's
  it. That's the super-high-tech
  solution: just write the events to a
  log file. Boring, pragmatic, but quite
  effective.

You can check that log though I dont know how useful it will be for you. I would not be that surprised to see Time Machine, which deals with many files, and sometimes many many tiny files, to possibly cause some issues with fsevents.


Way to remove or minimize iPad/iPhone 4 glass scratches? My new iPad has a scratch that produces a rainbow effect on the screen. I have read that cerium oxide can be used to reduce the appearance of scratches on Gorilla Glass which is similar to the iPad/iPhone 4 glass, but it is hard to find step-by-step instructions on how to use it or any examples that it works.

Does anyone have any experience removing scratches using cerium oxide or something else?

You might check out the resurfacing compounds from TDI Smart Technologies.  They seem to have come up with their own compound formula for removing scratches from Glass, Acrylic and even Gorilla Glass touch screen panels.  Here's their link...

TDI Smart Technologies - Glass, Acrylic, and Gorilla Glass Compounds

As far as a screen protector, I have always loved the screen protectors from Screenguardz.  Compared to the ones at Best Buy (forget which brand but they are stickier feeling), they are extremely smooth and the anti-glare is great in sunlight or other bright environments.  Here's their link...

ScreenGuardz

A little late here but I hope this helps someone that comes across this in the future.


Admin privileges requiring for installing a package build though Packages Using osx 10.9 and packages for making package installer.

While installing a package made using Packages in /Applications location on a osx 10.9 machine, installer is asking for Admin password. Even though I had unchecked 'Require admin password for installation' while package making.

So, how to avoid this i.e a non-admin user should install this package. Package should install in /Applications location, so that non-admin user can use the app.

I check this and this

The installer is actually doing the right thing by asking for an admin password. Users without admin rights do not have the ability to write to the /Applications directory on a Mac.

Without knowing more about your installer, I suspect the request for an admin password is coming from Apple's Installer.app, which is the application that your installer is working with to install your application.

Installer.app is detecting that the non-admin account that's running the installation doesn't have admin rights and that /Applications doesn't allow non-admin users to write to it. To resolve the issue, Installer.app is requesting that an admin account authenticate the installation and authorize the needed rights. Otherwise, the installation will just fail.


Can I remove the page breaks (or re-flow postscript documents) in PDF files? I have a piece of software that formats source material and produces PDF files.  These resulting files may be any length and are broken into pages according to a selected page size.  (In other words, very standard paged output.)

Since these files are not intended for printing, what I would like is to have them converted to take up one page only with a length that matches the total length of the content.

Does anyone know of a method for reformatting PDF this way on a Mac, or of an "editor" that can perform this one function?

Alternatively, if there's a program that can convert a PostScript file into a single-page PDF by calculating the necessary page size, that would work too.

Alternatively, if there's a program that can convert a PostScript file into a single-page PDF by calculating the necessary page size, that would work for me too.

Any PostScript to PDF converter would convert a valid one-page postscript file into a one-page PDF file. You can for example use OS X’s own pstopdf or Ghostscript’s ps2pdf script. If you need to tighten the bounding box, pdfcrop will do the trick.


iMessage and FaceTime won't activate IOS 7 Please help, iMessage and FaceTime won't activate after updating my phone to iOS 7. I have tried to be patient... For five days ... I'm about to scratch my eyes out ... Any suggestions I havetried everything people said. Help! -Shay

Attempt to reset your settings via Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings. It will not erase your data, but you should have a backup before your attempt it. If the issue persists, "Erase all content and settings" from the same menu, which will erase all of your data. You would have to then restore from a backup.


Cannot log out from iCloud to turn off Find My iPhone because the account is locked I can't log out from iCloud on an iPhone 6 Plus. After I enter the password, a popup is shown saying I need to unlock the account because it's locked for security reasons.

I can use the same Apple ID on a different iPhone normally.

How can I turn off Find My iPhone?

It looks like your account has been locked for security reasons, most likely because of incorrect password attempts and changes.

According to this Apple support article, you can either unlock your account at iforgot.apple.com or wait one day to get a few more attempts.

If neither of these options work for you, you can also contact Apple support and they will help you out.

Keep in mind that you will likely have to prove your identity if you contact Apple or try to unlock your account yourself, so be ready for that.


Autocorrect & Capitalization of Words in iOS13 Since upgrading to iOS 13 I've noticed that every time I type my name (primarily in Messages and Mail apps) auto-correct insists on fully capitalizing my name (James > JAMES) whereas before it would only capitalize the first letter. I don't know why it has suddenly started doing this and can't find any way to 'reset' the auto-correct dictionary. Turning off auto-correction in Keyboard settings doesn't make any difference to this behaviour. Any advice on how to fix this annoying feature?

I’ve turned off Auto-Correction in Settings > General > Keyboard. The capitalized suggestion JAMES still appears, but the phone doesn’t automatically replace it.


iPhone 3- Was set up with someone elses iTunes account, are they able to access my phone? My phone recently for no apparent reason came up with the iTunes symbol and a pic of a USB cord.  Apple seems thus far unable to access any of my data-like my contacts which is the most important.

My ex initially set up my phone on his iTunes account, he hates me now, and I never even gave the fact that he set up my phone with his password and id until this happened.

is it possible for someone else to remotely access my phone if they have the itunes id and pw that my phone has been operating off of?

i right away signed up for my own itunes account, but i am just wondering if it is possible he wiped my phone or installed malware.

thanks

Find My iPhone can be instructed to remotely wipe an iOS device, if that service was enabled on your phone.

It can also be used to track the location of a device, which you should also be concerned about.  However, once the device is erased, it can no longer be tracked.

Further reading: iCloud: Erase your device remotely


Can Finder delete a file directly and bypass moving it to the Trash? Is it possible to really delete a file (ie, bypass the Trash) from Finder? Currently, when I want to reclaim space from a USB drive, I rm files/folder from the Terminal, but I'd like to do it from the GUI (similar to Shift+Delete in Windows).

Delete Immediately @ Github (free)

Download the file Delete Immediately.service
Move the file to ~/Library/Services. You may have to create the folder.
Restart the finder by running killall Finder;
You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to this service in System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts →Services


Remote control Apple TV from MacBook I need a program to remote control my (new) Apple TV from my macbook.

I know I can control it from my iPhone using Remote. Does exists a similar software for mac osx?

I want to be able to watch youtube videos in Apple TV, and make searches in youtube using my macbook keyboard.

You can use your Mac as a Bluetooth keyboard for your Apple TV. I.e. type on your Mac's keyboard to have text appear on Apple TV.

For this you need Type2Phone ( http://www.houdah.com/type2Phone/ ) from the Mac App Store.

Full disclosure: I am the developer of Type2Phone.


How Can OS 10.9 Kotoeri Keyboard Layout Behavior Be Reverted To That of 10.8 and Earlier In OS 10.8, you could set the keyboard layout for Japanese input in Kotoeri Preferences.  The default was US, which generates the correct layout for a JIS hardware keyboard.  In 10.9, Apple deleted this preference setting, and the keyboard layout is now set by whichever layout was most recently used.  So now anyone who normally uses something other than US winds up with output that does not fit a JIS keyboard, unless they go to the trouble of switching to the US layout before they do so, which is major inconvenience.  It seems like one should be able to fix this via some sort of .plist modification or "defaults write" command line input, but I can't figure out how.

Another way to put it is:  How can one make US the default layout for Kotoeri input in 10.9, even when US is not on the list of user keyboards, but something else like French is.

This bug was fixed by Apple with update 10.9.1 of 12/17/2013

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2013/12/mavericks-update-fixes-japanese-input.html


High Sierra: How to resize window taller than screen? I'm trying to capture a screenshot of a browser window, where the page content is quite tall.

In Sierra, I could drag the window down, and then resize from the top of the window (moving up). I could repeat this process until the window was tall enough to contain all of the page content, and then take a screenshot of the browser window.

In High Sierra, at the completion of any vertical resize operation that results in the window being taller than the active display, the window snaps to the size of the active display.

I've tried browser extensions that cause window resizing, and an AppleScript that tells the browser to resize. On a MacBook Pro and a 27" 5K iMac. To no avail.

Does anyone have a solution? In the meantime, I guess I'll be stitching multiple screenshots together.

I've always used a program called Paparazzi to take pictures of websites:
https://paparazzi.en.softonic.com/mac


Bypassing Gatekeeper in macOS Mojave 10.14.5 At least until macOS Mojave 10.14.4, a user could run any application on a Mac, signed or not, by right clicking it in Finder and manually selecting Open.

Does this still work for all applications when running macOS Mojave 10.14.5, which has more strict code signing requirements (i.e. Notarisation)?

Applications that have not gone thru Apple's Notarization process can't be run on Catalina and above.  According to Apple's information to developers:

Gatekeeper on macOS helps protect users from downloading and installing malicious software by checking for a Developer ID certificate from apps distributed outside the Mac App Store. Make sure to sign any apps, plug-ins, or installer packages that you distribute to let Gatekeeper know they’re safe to install. And now, you can give users even more confidence in your apps running on macOS Mojave by submitting them to Apple to be notarized.

As of this writing, there hasn't been any published way to go around the Notarization process to run applications.
Update: To address concern about older software not running, Apple has also stated this in their Support doc:

Beginning in macOS 10.14.5, all new or updated kernel extensions and all software from developers new to distributing with Developer ID must be notarized in order to run.
Apple recommends that you notarize all of the software that you’ve distributed, including older releases, and even software that doesn’t meet all of these requirements or that is unsigned. Apple’s notary service uses a variety of methods, including telemetry, to determine which of the above rules to relax for preexisting software.

I'm reading that last quote to mean only new software and not existing code.  I think we need more clarification from Apple on what happens to existing applications.


How To Enable Wireless Monitoring Macbook Pro I own a MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch, early 2013, and I would like to put the wireless card on board into monitor mode, but was unable to.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Use Terminal
You can use the airport utility.
It's located in a very obscure place, so I suggest creating a symbolic link to it:
ln -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport /usr/local/bin/airport

Now, you can put the WiFi (Airport) adapter into monitor mode:
sudo airport en1 sniff 6

This will sniff all packets on adapter en1 channel 6.  It will save a .cap file in /tmp/airportsniffXXXXXXXXX
You can view the output through Wireshark or issue the command tcpdump -r [filename].  For example, the following is the capture of my wireless adapter in monitor mode for a few seconds...
 18.0 24.0 36.0 54.0 Mbit] CH: 1, PRIVACY
17:37:37.746644 35635598us tsft 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -82dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Probe Response (yoyo) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 18.0 24.0 36.0 54.0 Mbit] CH: 1, PRIVACY
17:37:37.774068 35662623us tsft bad-fcs 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -82dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Probe Response (LORRAINE) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 18.0 24.0* 36.0 54.0 Mbit] CH: 1, PRIVACY
17:37:37.782831 35671401us tsft bad-fcs 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -84dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Probe Response (LORRAINE) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 18.0 24.0* 36.0 54.0 Mbit] CH: 1, PRIVACY
17:37:37.793357 35683064us tsft 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -63dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Beacon (Go Noles ) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 18.0 24.0 36.0 54.0 Mbit] ESS CH: 1, PRIVACY
17:37:37.796149 35686928us tsft wep 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -62dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Data IV:4767c7 Pad 20 KeyID 1
17:37:37.816820 35706464us tsft 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -79dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Beacon (yoyo) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 18.0 24.0 36.0 54.0 Mbit] ESS CH: 1, PRIVACY
17:37:37.898203 35787820us tsft 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -62dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Beacon (Go Noles ) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 18.0 24.0 36.0 54.0 Mbit] ESS CH: 1, PRIVACY
17:37:37.919172 35808864us tsft 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11g -81dB signal -82dB noise antenna 0 Beacon (yoyo) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 18.0 24.0 36.0 54.0 Mbit] ESS CH: 1, PRIVACY

Use a GUI

Launch Wireless Diagnostics.  Press CommandSpace and start typing "Wireless Diag...".  Press Return when Spotlight finds it.

Press ⌘7 (Window >> Monitor) to monitor the traffic on your Airport Adapter.

Press ⌘6 (Windows >> Sniff) to put the Airport card into "Sniff" mode.  Select your channel and start sniffing...

It will then start sniffing the network packets...When it's done, it will put a .wcap file on your desktop.  You can then use the file with Wireshark or with the tcpdump command.


Is there a way to prevent a Macbook Air from sleeping when external monitor is plugged in but power is not? I have a 13-inch Mid 2012 Macbook Air running 10.9.3. I usually run with the lid closed plugging into 2 Apple cinema displays. Everything works great, except when I accidentally bump the power cable, at which point it goes to sleep.

Is there any way to prevent this? Clearly it isn't a power issue, because with the lid open and no power cable it drives all 3 monitors just fine.

The power adapter is required for closed display mode on any Apple portable machine, without it you can't use closed display mode.

Reference:  http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3131

There is however a third party solution, called Caffine.  Which when enabled, forces the mac to stay on until the battery dies, it won't ever sleep.

http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/


Upgrade bash without using the terminal to fix iterm issue dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/opt/readline/lib/libreadline.6.dylib Question

How can I upgrade bash or otherwise get a CLI to work?

Error

dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/opt/readline/lib/libreadline.6.dylib
  Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/bash
  Reason: image not found

Background

Out of nowhere iTerm stopped working.

I uninstalled then reinstalled the latest version. Still getting this error

Then i tried the default Terminal mac app. Now seeing this in there

I have been searching similar problems and they seem to all give instructions on how to update BREW or bash.

https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/5799

https://gist.github.com/samnang/1759336

But the instructions are with the CLI, which i cannot access

Update 1

I changed the path per a suggestion in the comments. Now Terminal app works but iTerm still has a "broken pipe"

This was what helped me, there may be more "correct" ways but if you just need to get it working, give it a go.
Step 1
Open the default Terminal app, then click on Preferences

You will see a path for "Shells open with"

Change the path to
/bin/bash

Close everything out and restart Terminal. Now it should be working, if not, sorry you might have an additional problem that I did not have. But proceed if you are good at this point.
Step 2
proceed to now update bash
brew install bash

Because I ran install I also had to unlink
brew unlink bash

then I ran the command again to install
brew install bash

At this point i started iTerm up again with no problem


iPhone: How to restore and update without using iTunes or iCloud I decided to delete an existing iCloud account on my new iPhone SE which my deceased mom left me. After successful deletion, i changed password and forgot it. Now "iPhone is disabled connect to iTunes" is he only display i see. But whenever I connect to iTunes and software update begins to download, it pauses. And instead of resuming the download, it stops even if it is 99 % done and starts all over again.

I'm unable to pause download on iTunes and this is killing me because the file is too large for me to afford mobile data or Wi-Fi for.

Please help me with any other alternative aside using iTunes or iCloud. i have no iCloud account on my iPhone SE and i deleted the existing one.

How can I restore and update my iPhone SE without using iCloud or iTunes?

Restore iPhone not available without iTunes.
You can only do Factory Reset without iTunes.


Applescript (or other Quicksilver accessible thing) for hibernating a snow leopard mac? Anyone have a quick way, accessible from Quicksilver, to force your mac to hibernate?

You can use Deep Sleep. It's a Dashboard widget that will put your mac into hibernation mode.

Edit: from the website

  Deep Sleep can also be used as a command line utility

From there, you can check out if QuickSilver can launch command line programs.
You can also package it in a .app -for example using Automator- and launch it with QuickSilver.

~~

Careful, be aware there's 2 sleep mode.

The normal one you can trigger using ⌥+⌘+Eject

And the hibernate (or Safe Sleep) mode.

You can read about the differences between them here.


Current Known Vulnerabilities I have been tasked with something at work.  We are an all Mac shop and I have been asked to provide a list of all "current" known vulnerabilities for Mac OSX.  So in other words, if my mac is running 10.13.6 (the latest release) what existing known vulnerabilities out there do my users need to worry about?

What is the best way to accomplish this?  Does Apple maintain a list?

Existing bugs in macOS and iOS are valuable and are typically kept secret by those who might want to exploit them.

Apple's Position on Security Issues

Apple does not disclose security issues until they are addressed. This is a deliberate decision and mentioned in security and privacy researchers:

  For the protection of our customers, Apple generally does not disclose, discuss, or confirm security issues until a full investigation is complete and any necessary patches or releases are available. Apple distributes information about security issues in its products through security advisories. You can also receive Apple security advisories through our security-announce mailing list.

Security Update Notes and CVE

Recently fixed issues are listed in Apple's security update notes and in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) site.

Security Advice and Best Practices

You can find third party guides to securing macOS. Apple's own security page is a good starting point.

Guide to Securing Apple OS

See the NIST Security Configuration Checklist's Guide to Securing Apple OS X 10.10 Systems for IT Professionals for a practical list of steps and advice regarding how to secure your Macs at work.

macOS Security and Privacy Guide

Another useful guide to macOS security best practices and current threat management is drhuh's macOS-Security-and-Privacy-Guide.


Can anything else be done to fix the white screen on a 3G besides restore/upgrade and DFU/restore? Can anything else be done to fix the white screen on a 3G besides restore/upgrade and DFU/restore?

It sat in a box for ages, so was completely dead. I plugged it in to charge, got the white screen (oh noes). Left it like that for a bit.

Tried a home+lock 15 second reset, screen went black, came back up to white.

I did the upgrade->4.2 first via iTunes (latest, 10.6.x), no such luck. Still a white screen. So .. Ok, maybe the firmware didn't overwrite something, let's do a DFU update.

Put it into DFU mode (took a couple tries, but only like 3 tries, I promise :p) and saw the DFU on iTunes and Windows 7 system tray, so I know I loaded the DFU mode correctly.

Did the restore, still a white screen. Note: since the 4.2 upgrade I can work it blindly, for things like swipe to unlock, press and hold power for 3 seconds, swipe to shut down. So I know the logic all works, it's literally just the white screen.

Any last takers on tips before I consign it to the bin? (give it back to my buddy who had it in a box and thought it would work)

If everything but the display works, you can try adjusting your display cabling and/or replacing the display unit. On that model, the digitizer is not tightly coupled to the display, so you can get a piece on ifixit. I remember once breaking the display on my third gen nano. It went white. Probably a defective display, but nothing that can't be replaced.

Before messing with it, I'd definitely give it a shot at the Genius Bar, if you're local to one. They have diagnostic tools and such.


OSX keyboard shortcut for 'show all' How can I activate the 'Show all' or back button in a system preference dialog in OSX? E.g.

⌘+UP appears to do it, although that just raises further questions ...


Use `mdfind` for a date range on OS X I can't figure this out. How can I use mdfind on OS X to find all photos with creation date between say March 10th, 2008 and March 15th, 2008?

using mdfind 'kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2008-03-10 12:30:56 +1100' is too specific and I don't know how to simplify and broaden the search.

To simplify and broaden the search you may use operands like >, <, >=, <= or line up several attribute values with &&.

To solve the above mentioned example you can use two different creation times and an item kind:

mdfind 'kMDItemFSCreationDate < $time.iso(2008-03-15T23:59:59) && kMDItemFSCreationDate > $time.iso(2008-03-10T00:00:00) && kMDItemKind = *image'


Persistently or aggressively enabling Low Power Mode I love the Low Power Mode feature. When I'm travelling or in other situations where reliable communication is more important than user experience, I want to always have it enabled, sometimes for days at a time.

However, iOS automatically turns it off after the phone has been charged, requiring me to remember to go in and re-enable it after unplugging my phone. I occasionally forget.

Is there any way (including third-party apps, excluding rooting/jailbreaking) for me to automatically or persistently enable Low Power Mode, aside from the system's automatic behaviour at 20%? A way to leave it on indefinitely, or a way to have it automatically activate earlier (such as at 50%), or a way to activate it based on a schedule?

If there's no user-accessible way to do this yet, I would also be interested in knowing if there are any mechanisms in the operating system (URL schemes, framework APIs) that could potentially be used to control Low Power Mode.

Yes, the _CDBatterySaver API in the CoreDuet (Private*)Framework can be used to toggle low power mode.

An example invocation, untested:

#import <CoreDuet/CoreDuet.h>
#import <objc/runtime.h>

-(void)setLowPowerMode:(BOOL) isOn {
    _CDBatterySaver *batterySaver = [objc_getClass("_CDBatterySaver") batterySaver];
    int nextState;

    if(isOn) {
        nextState = 1;
    } else {
        nextState = 0;
    }

    if([batterySaver setMode:nextState]) {
        NSLog(@"Set power mode state");
    }
}

I'd wrap this in an app with a background task to watch for low power mode (both well documented APIs). This can be done with Xcode as Apple allow building and installation of apps to your phone without requiring a developer license (IIRC).

*See answer to question how to import private frameworks in xcode. Note: header files can be found on GitHub without the need for a jailbroken device.


Copying 84 gigabyte file via USB results in duplicate file warning and case sensitive fail where no duplicate exists I'm attempting to copy an 84 Gigabyte photo library from an external Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+ disk to a newly formatted case-insensitive APFS SSD. The external disk is in an external drive bay connected via USB.

The operation takes a few hours, at which point I'm greeted with the error message

  You can’t copy this file because its name is the same as other items on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames.

There is no duplicate file on the drive.

Is the file name being cached somehow because of the file size? Is it something in the package contents? The file integrity is fine - I can open it as a photos library from the bay. I thought I could open it as a referenced file and use the Photo's Consolidate option to simply get around the issue, but "Show referenced file" and "consolidate" are both greyed out in the file menu.

Can I use rsync or some other method to copy the file or are there actual case-sensitivity issues in there I need to address? It's my wife's entire photo collection, so I'm proceeding with extreme caution, and would greatly appreciate guidance.

OP's solution:

  in the end opened up my FTP client and transferred the file via my local ethernet. It worked!

  I would highly recommend that you perform a total system backup using Carbon Copy Cloner.

  Carbon Copy Cloner does support restoring to a case-insensitive system from a case-sensitive one - see this.

https://superuser.com/a/380358/1038202

  SuperDuper is the best way to clone drives in OS X. You can rename the destination drive in Finder

https://superuser.com/a/20779/1038202
There's also a script on Github, which claims to

  Resolve all case-sensitivity naming conflicts
  Make a fresh TimeMachine backup
  Flip the backups's case-sensitivity flag
  Restore from the manipulated backup

https://github.com/cr/MacCaseSensitiveConversion


Invisible pictures in system applications While just browsing through apps like the CoreServices in both Mac and iOS, I found that most (all?) of the pictures have sizes and memory, but don't show anything when I quick look or open them. What is going on?

The images stored in CoreServices, such as those in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources, should be easily viewable in Finder — though, the majority of these are in the icns format. I'm also able to view the png images inside Dock.app. (Which particular images can't you view?)

But most png images on iOS are optimized for display on iOS (which involves switching some color channels and otherwise reducing the file size), so you can't view them in OS X without some preprocessing. See this blog post for more information.


Can the excessively limited "Recent Items" list be adjusted to include more document types? Recent Items under the Apple menu or in the Dock could be an excellent way to quickly access files that you have been working with recently. Alas, it's functionality is destroyed by obvious document file types not being included in the list. If you open a PDF it's included, if you open a Word file it's not. That makes no sense.

You can see in the picture above that even though Office applications have been included in the recent list, the actual documents (.doc[x], .ppt[x], .xls[x]) that were opened have not.

Is there a way to adjust the file type list to go into Recent Items/Documents to a useful set of document types?

Another way to try it is to set the recent items list to zero, so it shows nothing, ever. You can do this in Terminal.

In Terminal:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0

Normally that's a 20. just set the default to zero and you shouldn't see anything in recent items.

For an application-specific change (for instance, Safari) use this command:

defaults write com.apple.safari NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0

Replace com.apple.safari with the proper wording for the app you wish to modify, like vlc or flipplayer or whatever.

To reset default values, type:

defaults delete com.apple.app_name NSRecentDocumentsLimit

to remove the application-specific setting, or

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSRecentDocumentsLimit 20

to set the global value back to 20 (or whatever you want)


Is there an app such as GoodReads for movies? I like the app GoodReads, and I'm looking for something similar for movies.
Is there any app you can suggest me?

It should be able to make a collection of the movies I saw/own and to share lists, items,... on social networks (Facebook, Twitter,...)

Yes, there is, Rinema.com

Check out: Rinema Features

Feature Details

Movies: Add, Rate, Review, tag, link...

These little buttons, pretty much everywhere on the site, should come in handy to rate, review or mark a movie as "watched" or "to watch". And, while you review the movies you can also tag them (using the good old #tags) and link them to other movies by taggin them as done in the review below.
Review

To tag a movie, write the movie name in square brackets. So, [[The Shawshank Redemption]] will show as The Shawshank Redemption

Discuss...

Apart from using these little buttons to vote up/down and adding comments. You can also post updates through the homepage. And, you can tag movies, add #tags or tag your friends in them.

Oh! and you can see all conversations about a movie on the conversations tab on every movie page

Lists...

Hop over to the lists page & check out some of the lists that others have created. Or better yet, create you own. It's easy peasy.

Search...

Use the search box on the top nav to search for any movie (by name), Celebrity or user.

If you are looking for a particular movie, but are unsure of the title or wish to search by cast/crew names or just want more options, hop over to the advanced search page (second last option in the dropdown menu)

Discover...

The Movies link in top nav will take you to our movie suggestions page where we show you some movies that you might want to check out. You can also refine suggestions by a particular genre and/or language.

The best suggestions though are always from people whose tastes you share. So, use the cinephiles link on the top nav to find interesting people to follow. Or invite your friends.

You can also toggle your updates feed on home page to show updates from all users or reviews(from all users). And, use that to find interesting people & movies.

Collections...

You can add movies to various collections via this dropdown accessible from mymovies, individual and review modals.

we've have given three: Must Watch, Favourites, Guilty Pleasure to get you started with but, you can add as many new ones as you want. Just type the new name in the textbox and press Add. You can also delete collections using the [edit collections] link given in the collections list on the my movies page (towards the top).


App Store Connect: Creation of apps of this type is not available For the past few weeks, I've been getting an error when trying to create an iOS app in App Store Connect: https://imgur.com/U02cAl2.mp4

I click + → New App
A progress indicator appears
The indicator spins forever
Developer Tools shows that the server returned HTTP 500 and this body:

{"data":null,"messages":{"warn":null,"info":null,"error":["Creation of apps of this type is not available"]},"statusCode":"ERROR"}

Troubleshooting

Agreeing to terms and conditions

For the error message above, the Google results suggest there are terms and conditions that need to be accepted. I checked both Apple Developer and App Store Connect, but there are no prompts. My membership page on Apple Developer lists two agreements, both of which have been accepted:

Trying other browsers

Chrome: Same error
Firefox: Same error
Safari: Same error (https://imgur.com/9bPOY5c.mp4)

This is due to a server error or outage with Apple. You'll need to contact Apple to get the matter resolved, or alternatively wait to see if it resolves itself within few hours.


How can I temporarily suspend some users, hiding them from the login screen? I have to manage a shared OSX workstation that is used by a rotating cast of characters throughout the year. The login screen quickly becomes cumbersome when users that aren't even around for a while are listed and cluttering up the clumsy horizontal scroll.

How can I clean up the login screen without nuking accounts that would need to get re-created at a later time?

Additionally, when somebody is gone for an extended period I would like their account to be locked so it can't be used locally or remotely, but I don't want to nuke users passwords, when they come back a quick admin action should get them back into the system again?

This can be accomplished using a feature of the unix based login system that assigns a program to run on successfully login. Normally users in OSX have their shell defined as /bin/bash. The OS login window will actually make sure people have a usable shell before showing them on the login screen.

You can disable a user — revoking both their ability to login and their appearance in the login window user list — by changing the shell to /usr/bin/false.

The settings is found in System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> (Unlock the settings if necessary) -> Right click on a user -> Advanced options -> Login Shell.

Re-enabling the user is as simple as setting this back to /bin/bash.

Addendum: In later versions of OS-X, restoring users deactivated like this gets slightly more complicated.

Starting in 10.7, the users don't show up in the admin panel by default either. You can restore them manually by using the setting their shell using the standard Unix chsh command in a terminal:

sudo chsh <username> /bin/bash

Starting in 10.9, the chsh utility is also not available, but you can set the shell using the an OSX special utility in the terminal:

sudo chpass -s /bin/bash <username>


MacBook Pro Certificate - no value specified - Business Category : Private Organization Today after I signed into my computer and opened Safari this window popped up:

I am looking for help to know what this is, and what I need to do. Thank you.

It’s perfectly normal, and there’s no need to do anything (except click on OK to close the window) or worry about it. Safari is just showing you the encryption details for the apple.com website — you may have accidentally clicked on the green padlock.


Can I disable the iPhone's auto-rotation to landscape mode? I can't stand iPhone's auto-rotation feature, e.g. rotate your phone just past some threshold, and the screen rotates from portrait to landscape.

This is always tripping me up, especially when I'm lying down and simply want to read my iPhone in portrait mode.

Is there a way to just disable the feature altogether?

Before iOS 4 - jailbreak software changes could do this.

For iOS 4 and later, the lock function easily sets a portrait mode for all apps that run in both portrait and landscape.

You can lock the screen rotation on the iPhone 3GS and 4, running iOS 4, to portrait only by double pressing the Home button (bringing up the task switcher), swiping right to show the media controls and pressing the left most icon (looks like a refresh button), the rotation lock. When locked you will see a padlock in the icon and a new status bar icon of the same design.

Note: this does not affect applications which only run in landscape mode, such as most games.

Edit: Video of how to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYkUzYXtZT0


Using 85W MagSafe inplace of 60W MagSafe 2 for MBP retina 13" I have 2 MBPs:
1. Personal MBP 2011 15" (with 85W magsafe)
2. Work MBP Retina 2013 13" (with 60W magsafe 2)

So can I use my 85" magsafe for my 13" retina using this converter without any power issues?

Apple themselves states that it is safe and okay to use a higher power cord on a laptop even if it only requires a lower power one: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2346

The power requirement for your computer really is just a "minimum" power requirement. If you can even call it that. Because they'll actually charge even on lower powered cords, but it will be slower and it's not recommended. MacBooks can officially (meaning Apple supports it) use cords that supply more power than the standard provided by the default cord. The computer will actually only pull what it needs from the cord, it's not as if the cord will force as much power as it's rated for into your computer.

As far as the adapter, there shouldn't be any issues with it. Apple states that it's for using a MagSafe cord with a MagSafe 2 MacBook. Which at least implies that it supports all MagSafe cords, and all their different power outputs. And there's not really a reason I can think of why it shouldn't anyways. There is an 85W MagSafe 2 cord, and I doubt Apple would make an adapter that wouldn't work for those computers that require it.


Terminal app slows switching of desktops/Spaces I noticed some time ago that when switching from one space (workspace/desktop) to another this animation is slowed if a terminal app is running on one of them.
Funny thing I found out by experiment, the greater the terminal app window is the slower gets the switch.

Anyone can share this experience, or at best have a solution?

Bugreport is send out, and this How can I disable animation when switching desktops in Lion? approach is also tried.
It first appeared with Mavericks for me and now on el capitan it's still there.
Thank you for your time.

ok, funny, found out that changing Opacity back to 100% the switch goes just like a charm.
Leaving this for QoS in here.


"The document could not be saved" - Preview error I have the issue on macOS Sierra(10.12.1) and still have it on High Sierra(10.13.3).

I get this error message(not all the time) a lot after editing an image, and trying to save it. I can't quit Preview either, so the only way to close Preview for me when this happens is to force quit Preview.

Clicking on duplicate doesn't work because my edits made to the original document don't carry over and Preview still doesn't quit.

I was facing the same issue, I finally got the issue resolved by following steps:

Go to File
Click option 'Export as pdf'
Save the file name with pdf extension (like 'file_name.pdf')

This worked for me, so give it a try.


Does iOS 5+ securely erase data on the fly? Does iOS 5.0+ destroy data securely once deleted? Specifically if I delete a text message  or an email from an iDevice, is said data destroyed to a point that data recovery would be unrealistic in practical terms? I understand that I can perform a full reset and doing so  will erase data and restore the phone to a factory state but that is not my intention. My question is in relation to a device being used on a daily basis. This is a question of curiosity for the most part as I have been asked this by clients and I have not been able to point to a clear answer as of yet. I saw reference to this question but again it references a full restore and wipe of an iDevice with an APP and not daily use with no APP.

No, you need to wipe the entire device using the settings found under Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Contents and Settings. Simply deleting items from iOS applications does not provide any kind of secure deletion, and those files can easily be recovered (although that will be harder and harder as those blocks get overwritten in time).

This provides a one-pass secure delete call that can be liked to OS X's "Secure Empty Trash." While most 3rd party software won't be able to recover your data, government units have far more sophisticated tools that can retrieve data from far worse cases (even physically damaged storage).

This feature was introduced in iOS 2.0 and you can read more about it over at AppleInsider.


How to configure an Airport Express router to block a machine after many failed wifi connection attempts? There's someone in my neighbourhood that keeps cracking the WPA2 password on my Airport Extreme router, connecting, and using between 5 to 15 Gigs of bandwidth a day.

I've read online that with utilities, even a complex WPA2 password can be cracked within hours or a couple of days.

Is there a way to configure my Airport Extreme router to block connection attempts from a machine after X number of failed password attempts?

I don't believe you can do that, but you can use the "timed access" feature to block all MAC addresses other than the ones you own.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=508984


Install iOS 5.1.1 on iPod touch 4th gen not jailbroken with current iOS 4.1 I have an iPod 4th generation which is never jailbroken with iOS 4.1 and want to update it to 5.1.1. I downloaded the .ipsw file. On clicking ⌥ alt/option + Restore in iTunes (10.7) and selecting the .ipsw file, I get the following error:

  This device isn't eligible for the requested build

I have tried editing the hosts file by adding a # in front of 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com but the error still persists. Any suggestions regarding this?

Whenever an iOS device is restored, it checks with Apple's servers to see if the version requested is still being "signed". If it is, the restore goes as planned. Right now, the only iOS version being signed by Apple is 6.1.3.

There is currently no way to restore to iOS 5.1.1 without being jailbroken in the past.


Macbook air 13 2013 in battery drain issue This is the second time that battery is causing issue. Initially after I bought I gave it to apple service and they reinstalled OS and suggested VirtualBox was causing the drain so I did not install it next time around.

Now I installed Intel HAXM and battery again fell back to 3-4 hours. I have removed Intel HAXM and still the battery is giving 3-4 hours.

Activity manager does not show a rogue process, most processes are under 1%.

Can you help me detect why the battery is being drained or how to find the cause?

EDIT
looks like https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/6301/53842 might have a clue. I did not check on All processes in activity Monitor filter. It was

  parentalcontrolsd

taking more than 80% CPU. Now the battery is slowly coming back to show more time.

Question part 1> Are virtualization software generally drain life on mac? Or is there an alternative?

Question part 2> If parental control service is causing drain then how do we use parental control feature without draining battery? Many other posts suggest to delete and restart and then use it again.

Using the OEM tools like Apple Activity monitor could tell you who is using the juice.

Open Activity monitor located in your utility folder.

Select CPU

Select All processes

Select %CPU to sort by usage

If any process is using >70% (for longer then few seconds) it is the one draining your battery.


Fix "fork: resource temporarily unavailable" on OS X / macOS I ran into some problems on my Mac running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 that appeared to be related to resource limits. I was seeing things like error: cannot spawn or unable to fork or

-bash: fork: retry: Resource temporarily unavailable
-bash: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable

From the fact that my system was not completely freezing or spewing errors all over the place, I expected that what was happening was that I had reached my limit on the number of processes I can run.

$ ulimit -u
709

709 is a lot of processes, but I was running a lot of servers on my Mac, so it seemed possible I was using that many. I tried this command, which prints out how many processes the user is running (actually 1 more than the number of processes)

$ ps -xu $(id -ru) | wc -l
fork: Resource temporarily unavailable

OK, I could not run that command, which creates 3 processes, so I was probably at the process limit. And the error message did not start with -bash so it was not about ulimit either. I was hitting the systemwide limit kern.maxprocperuid.

I was able to confirm this by running a shell as root:

$ id -ru
501
$ sudo -i
root# ps -xu 501 | wc -l
706

Yes, 706 < 709, but mdworker processes routinely come and go, so being close to to the limit was evidence enough.

How do I increase the limit on the number of processes I can run? I searched around for answers and found articles that suggested I create a file /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxproc.plist with this content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple/DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
 <plist version="1.0">
 <dict>
 <key>Label</key>
 <string>limit.maxproc</string>
 <key>ProgramArguments</key>
 <array>
  <string>launchctl</string>
  <string>limit</string>
  <string>maxproc</string>
  <string>2048</string>
  <string>4096</string>
 </array>
 <key>RunAtLoad</key>
 <true />
 <key>ServiceIPC</key>
 <false />
 </dict>
</plist>

I did that and rebooted and now

$ ulimit -u
2048

Which would be great, except

$ sysctl kern.maxproc
kern.maxproc:
1064

THIS IS DANGEROUS. What it means is that the entire system is still limited to a maximum of 1064 processes, but an individual user is allowed to create more than that. When the system hits the maximum number of processes, it generally crashes quickly and in a very bad way. It is therefore very important that no user be allowed to create enough processes to fill up the process table, which is why on the Mac users are limited to 2/3 of the total number of processes.

I found similar suggestions regarding the maximum number of open files maxfiles and maxfilesperproc, which are even more dangerous, because a single process should get nowhere near being allowed to open the systemwide limit on the total number of open files.

The other issue is that if 709 processes was not enough, 1000 processes is really unlikely to be enough either.

So, what is the right way to fix "Too many open files" or "fork: resource temporarily unavailable" on OS X El Capitan?

If your computer is routinely bumping up against process limits and it is not due to some runaway program or malware, then instead of trying to override the defaults, you should switch to a different set of defaults known as "Performance Mode" (a.k.a. "Server Performance Mode" or perfmode or serverperfmode).

To do this on El Capitan (and later macOS versions until further notice), you do not need to create new files or mess with turning SIP on or off, all you need to do is

$ sudo nvram boot-args="serverperfmode=1 $(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | cut -f 2-)"

This is officially supported by Apple, and changes the default configuration of your computer from an interactive computer you are going to use for email and web browsing to a server you are going to use to run a lot of non-interactive software.

The new limits depend on how much memory you have and require you have at least 16 GiB of memory installed, but at a minimum, you will see your user limit on the number of processes you can run increase from 709 to 3,750 and many other limits are increased. Most importantly, systemwide limits will also increase so that a single rogue user or program will not be able to crash the system through resource exhaustion.

This is a much better way to increase your system limits because it increases all the interrelated limits in a consistent way, taking into account the capabilities of your specific computer. It's also much easier to do. The only downside is that if you ever reset your NVRAM, you will need to run the nvram command again to turn performance mode back on. But that is also a plus, because if the new settings really get you into trouble, all you need to do to undo them is reset your NVRAM, which is a normal step in recovering when things go really bad. If you instead created the LauchDaemons plist files some people suggest, you would have to remember about them to remember to edit or delete them to get back to a standard configuration.


Apple Watch not unlocking Mac I have an Apple Watch Series 3 and MacBook Pro 2017.  I tried pairing my Apple Watch to my MacBook and it worked, but I can't use it for login.  I can only use my Apple Watch to authenticate within apps (ie. in the security tab of system preferences, I can click the lock icon and unlock it with my Apple Watch).  I can't use my Apple Watch to unlock the MacBook.  Does anyone know how to fix this?

Well I thought I figured it out, but it stopped working shortly after.  So after much troubleshooting, I really did figure it out.  Wifi has to be enabled on the Apple Watch for the unlock to work.
It's funny that none of the apple support documents say that.  I just use bluetooth on my watch, so I tend to keep Wifi off.  When I reset my watch, Wifi was automatically turned back on, which would explain why it worked for a while.


How can I run/stop/relaunch an application automatically, at boot/login/some other time? How do you make a script or app to run or stop running automatically when the system is booted, a user logs on, at a specific time, when a disk is attached, etc.?

Gui Method

If you want something to run when a user logs in, the easiest way is to use the GUI. You can

Go to the System Prefs > Accounts > Login Items screen, and add the item there by

clicking the + symbol
dragging and dropping the .app onto the pane

In the dock, bring up the context menu for an app, select Options, then select Open at Login

Launchd method

If you want to launch something that is not a .app, or you want to have more control over launching it, such as:

at a certain time or at a specified interval
continuously re-launching if it crashes
not related to user login
as a function of network access
only run when another process is running
when a file is added to a folder
etc.

then you want to use the technical solution that is launchd.

The easiest way to set up a launchd config file is to use a tool to help. At the time of writing the most popular method is Lingon (which has an older free version available from SourceForge), or the PList Website tool.

Hand Coding

If you don't want to use Lingon or the PList Website and only want to use the raw tools available on the system, you can write your own launchd plist by hand

Here is my launchd script to run SomeApp continuously after the system boots (independent of a user logging in). It is in /System/Library/LaunchAgents/ and called SomeApp.restart.plist. If it is run based on a user login, it could be stored in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>SomeApp.restart</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/path/to/SomeApp.app/Contents/MacOS/SomeApp</string>
        </array>
        <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>5</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>10</integer>
       </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Load it once with

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/SomeApp.restart.plist

The RunAtLoad option will launch the application the first time launchctl runs this.
The KeepAlive option will re-launch the application if it crashes.
The StartCalendarInterval will run it at a certain time. Presumably this is mutually exclusive with the previous two, but is included to show what can be done with launchd
Launchctl will run this after reboots.

There are many additional options that can be found by experimenting with Lingon or by reading the man pages for launchctl, launchd.plist, plist, launchd.conf, etc.


How to add wiktionary as a source to the default dictionary.app? How to add wiktionary to dictionary.app?

For older versions of OS X, there is a method available here Dictionary.app: how to change from wikipedia.org to wiktionary.org. But in the latest system, there are only one field available, as mentioned in the last post.

You can use DictUnifier to convert any StarDict format dictionary into a mac format dictionary.  You can then download wiktionary in StarDict format here:

http://www.dictinfo.com/

Extract the 7z file with Keka or similar.  You will get three files, a .ifo, a .dictz, and a .idx.

Drag the resulting .ifo file onto the DictUnifier drop location and it will convert and import it into your Dictionary.  You can then go into preferences and check the new dictionary and drag it into the right position for how you want results.

Now you have offline wiktionary access in every language that is available at that dictinfo site (Gobs of them!!).


Can't install apps from App Store on iPhone with iOS 7 I upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS 7 last night but now I can't download apps using the App Store on my iPhone. It's still possible to get the apps using iTunes on my computer and syncing my phone, but this is cumbersome.

I get errors as shown below:

  Unable to Purchase
  [app name] could not be purchased at this time. Please try again later.

Is this a known issue, and how can I rectify it?

I would suggest trying the following options:

Press and hold the power button and the home button until the Apple logo appears. Once it restarts, try downloading.
Reset your router from which you are accessing your Wi-Fi.
If the issue persists, trying downloading apps from a different Wi-Fi network or cellular data.
If these fail, Reset Network Settings (Settings > General > Reset) and do steps 2 and 3.
If the issue still persists, Reset All Settings (Settings > General > Reset) and try again.
As a last resort, take your phone to an Apple Store.


Are there any free alternatives to finder? Relatively new to the Mac world, I still find the 'Finder' not really that user friendly.

What free alternatives to Finder exist?

*I mean really file browsers, not application launchers like Quicksilver, Launchy etc..

I don't know the good free alternatives, but PathFinder is the best file manager I have ever used, and probably one of the best desktop apps I've ever used. The features I use most

Bookmarks and multiple tabs
Multiple panes
Side panes with folder shortcuts
Drop stack

Most importantly, it's not clunky (relatively) and is very reliable. It was worth every cent I paid for it.


Is there an app/extension similar to The Great Suspender but for Safari? Safari is sucking wind lately, for me. I have a new 1TB hard drive in my system, put in Jan 2016. For Chrome I use Great Suspender extension - it halts tabs/sites after not being used for a while. Anything similar to this for Safari? Or any other suggestions to get Safari nice and zippy again? Thx.

Safari Extension called The Suspender by Brian Watkins

https://utahbrian.com/the-suspender/


Force iPad/iPhone to use specific location for services Is there any way to force an iPhone or iPad (jailbroken) to use a different location other then my actual current one. For searching... Say I am in NY, NY and do a search, I want location services to think I am in Miami, FL to give me results from there as if I am in that location.

I've looked under location services. Only obvious things are to turn it on off along with enabled/disabled for other apps.

FakeLocation

  FakeLocation is extremely easy to use. Just open it up, choose the app you want to fake out and then pick your desired fake location, save and you’re done. It’s as simple as that. To end faking your location just un-check the desired app.

LocationHolic

  Fake your iPhone's location with LocationHolic. You can set any location as your iPhones location.


Is there an alternative to apple's standard wireless bluetooth trackpad? I.e., an aftermarket version of the same basic thing? I have had continuing problems with apple's bluetooth wireless trackpad. the first one had strange performance problems -- I got a friendly apple agent to exchange it for me.  The new one was better, but after a while its front rubber feet (which act as its press-to-click switch) stop clicking correctly...  I want to replace this!

SO, Can you identify another wireless trackpad that works just like apple's?   By logitech or some other third party company?  I haven't found one.

A bonus question: If you recommend wireless alternatives for apple's bluetooth keyboard, that would be handy too -- mine works OK but I'm not a huge fan, could use a better keyboard (since I know there are some serious keyboard nerds out there that know the various mechanical switches used, etc.)  For the record I have no problem with considering the "broken into two sections" ergo style keyboards...

All I can find is the "Logitech Wireless Touchpad", but it seems to be for Windows only. Maybe you've just had bad luck with the trackpads? Or did you first one also have it's rubber feet wear down?


Why can't I change my desktop background? I had a nice background, a photo from the internet. It had been there for quite awhile. Then I tried to set it to a different one, another picture from the internet, by right-clicking and doing "Set as desktop background...", but it instead set my background to blue. And now I can't change it.
I also tried downloading this photo (and a number of others, all jpegs) but when I tried to open them to set as background directly from the downloaded file, it just said it couldn't, because the file was damaged or had an unrecognized format. JPEG?? Now the Mac can't open JPEGS?

Go into System Preferences->Desktop & Screen Saver. Change the desktop to one of the defaults. Then drag the image file into the window. That should fix it.


iPad 2 asks to connect to iTunes while iTunes asks for passcode on iPad SCENARIO:

I have an old iPad 2 (I think) model A1396 from a relative reclaiming an iTunes update. iPad screen is telling device is deactivated and should be connected to iTunes.

WHAT I'VE TRIED

I downloaded iTunes and connected the iPad, iTunes detects the iPad, but complains because I need to put the passcode in the iPad.

PROBLEM

I have the passcode, but the iPad screen is not asking for it, I can't unlock the screen and I just can restart the iPad, entering in this way in a vicious circle… sigh!

QUESTION is: Is there some way to unlock the iPad to insert passcode and allow update via iTunes?.

It seems that the reason the iPad is disabled and requires you to connect to iTunes to re-activate it is because the passcode was entered incorrectly too many times.

In this case, you'll need to erase the iPad, and unless you made a backup before the iPad got disabled, there isn't a way to save your device's data, and you'll lose all your data and settings.

Erase your device with recovery mode:

If you've never synced with iTunes or set up Find My iPhone in iCloud, you'll need to use recovery mode to restore your device. This will erase the device and its passcode.

Connect your iOS device to your computer and open iTunes.
While your device is connected, force restart it: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time. Don't let go when you see the Apple logo — keep holding until you see the recovery mode screen.

When you see the option to Restore or Update, choose Restore.

iTunes will download software for your device. If it takes more than 15 minutes, your device will exit recovery mode and you'll need to repeat steps 2 and 3.
Wait for the process to finish. Then you can set up and use your device.

For more info, check Apple's support article.


Convert multi-page PDF to single PNG I have a multi-page PDF.

I want to make a PNG which is just all of these pages appended. I.e., the bottom of page 1 is attached to the top of page 2, etc.

Preview.app's Export... > PNG option saves it as a ... multi-page PNG? I didn't know those were possible, but Preview opens up this PNG like it has many pages and Safari doesn't seem to be able to display both these "pages" properly.

I just want to convert a PDF into a very tall PNG, which is all of the pages on top of each other.

There is an app PDFElement6, a free trial version is available that will do what you want. The trail version is limited to only a five page PDF.


How to delete one specific file permanently in OS X Yosemite? My MacBook is running Yosemite 10.10.2.

I want to delete a single file permanently using command-shift-delete but it asks "Are you sure you want to permanently erase the items in the Trash?" which is something I don't desire.

I only want to delete this one single file from my Macbook. How can I achieve this?

From what you said in your question, I'm assuming the file you want to delete is already in the Trash.

In Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/) type the rm command followed by a space.
Click the Trash Dock Tile to open a Finder window to the Trash. (Note that if the target file is not in the Trash just bring up the target file in Finder.)
Drag and drop the target file from the Trash (or whatever Finder window it's in) onto the Terminal window. This will add the fully qualified pathname of the file to be deleted to the rm command.
Example: rm /Users/me/.Trash/googlechrome.dmg
Press enter and the file should now deleted.

For additional options to the rm command have a look at: OS X Man Pages for rm

If the target is a folder use rm -dr ... where ... is the pathname of the folder to be deleted.


How can I control iTunes from another Mac? I've got a Mac Mini running Lion that stores my iTunes library. It's hooked up to my receiver and speaker system, so it's the preferred machine for playing tunes from. I'd like to be able to control iTunes from my MacBook Pro, also running Lion, connected to the same WiFi network.

I can use Screen Sharing, but that's a tad resource-intensive to leave running all the time on my mid-2009 MBP. iTunes Remote Control does exactly what I am looking for, but - call me superficial if you like - it doesn't blend in on my desktop. I would ideally like something a little OSXier, or at least alternatively to use a utility with no interface at all - just keyboard shortcuts.

That's a lot to ask for, and iTunes Remote Control will probably be my best bet, but I am hoping somebody here has a perfect solution for me.

I've been using TuneConnect to do pretty much what you're after. It's got, what I consider to be, a much nicer UI that iTunes Remote Control. You install a server component on your iTunes machine and the remote component on the machine you want to control iTunes from and it just...works.

I've been running it without any issues on Lion. It ran well for me on Snow Leopard as well.


Time Machine restore stuck on “Preparing ” for more than 24 hours, how can I diagnose the nature of the problem? Recently I got myself into quite a pickle that eventually required I format my Mac’s dual-SSD RAID-0 array and restore from a Time Machine backup.

Unfortunately Time Machine has spent the past 24 hours stuck on “Preparing [destination disk]” and shows absolutely no sign of progress. (The backup is hosted on a Time Capsule-emulating Synology NAS.) There is no information on what is going on behind the scenes, just a solid pulsing blue progress bar that doesn’t even initialize and start creeping rightwards. Before the process began there was some cryptic remark about encryption needing to be disabled subsequently re-enabled as FileVault once restoring is complete, and I authorized the request to erase the destination disk.

Quite suspiciously it asks me to acknowledge disabling encryption every time I restart the process, which might imply that some latent form of FileVault is lingering, but I have erased the disk several times and each time explicitly instructed the system to format as JHFS+, unencrypted and case-insensitive.

(Keep in mind that “disk” in this context actually means RAID volume, as the two physical SSDs each host slices of the unified striped RAID-0 volume.)

I tried dropping into the Terminal because I vaguely remember the

tmutil

commmand but it is not present in the barebones toolkit of the macOS installer.

Can somebody help me figure out what is going on?

Thanks.

(Tragic aside: while in a panic and desperately trying to unmake my unbootable APFS-formatted RAID array which I created and that got me into this pickle, I accidentally nuked my FireWire-attached CarbonCopyCloner backup, so I’m stuck using Apple’s blunt instrument with no information whatsoever.)

I have since discovered that Apple has fully deprecated support for the APFS and that consequentially restoring from a network-attached device (as is my Synology NAS) requires re-sharing with the SMB protocol.


Is it possible to use old Wacom tablet on 10.11? I have Wacom Graphire 3 a.k.a CT-630. This model is old Wacom tablet. So, it has no driver for 10.11.

Can I use this tablet on my Mac? Any solution?

I finally solved this.

TLDR:
I managed to get my Wacom Intuos GD-0912-U (first generation Intuos A4 size) tablet working in High Sierra, with a fully functional Wacom Preference Pane, by using a newer driver and preference pane, and hacking the preference pane file: I replaced the Info.plist in the package of the newer preference pane (6.3.15-3) with the Info.plist from the old preference pane (6.2.0w4) that was working in older macOS. Then switched System Preferences to 32bit and back, opening the prefpane before, in between and after. This restores a fully working prefpane.

Explanation;

I have an old first Wacom Intuos first generation (GD-0912-U) tablet, and ran into the same problems as described above, after I upgraded to High Sierra from Mountain Lion.

After a lot of reading and trial-and-error, I now have a fully working old Wacom tablet, with a fully working Wacom preference pane in System Preferences.

I read all solutions in this and other threads.

First, the following steps got me a more or less working tablet, as described in this thread:

Using a legacy driver, in my case 6.2.0w4, downloadable on the Wacom website:
http://www.wacom.com/en-gb/support/product-support/drivers
Export/backup the Wacom preference file from my pre- High Sierra (Mountain Lion in my case) computer/backup with the right settings, with the Wacom Tablet Utility in Applications > Wacom-tablet.
Then import/restore these setting with the same Wacom Tablet Utility.

The above works, you have a working tablet, but without a working Preference pane in System Preferences, as described in this thread.

The solution for a working Preference Pane for previous MacOS versions was to open System preferences in 32-bit mode, as described in this thread.
Unfortunately this does not work anymore in High Sierra.

I managed to get a working Wacom Preference Pane with the following trick/steps:

Download the old driver that works. With my Intuos1 tablet, in my case this was version 6.2.0w4

Install the driver
Look up the preference pane file in the Library
Libray/PreferencePanes/wacomtablet.prefpane
or it might be here in your User library;
~/Libray/PreferencePanes/wacomtablet.prefpane
copy this prefpane file to your Desktop.

Download a newer driver, that does work in High Sierra. In my case this was version: 6.3.15-3:

http://www.wacom.com/en-gb/support/product-support/drivers
Install this newer driver.

Open the old prefpane wacomtablet.prefpane file that you copied to your Desktop with: right-click > Show Package Contents. Navigate to /contents/Info.plist

Copy this file, or keep window open.

Navigate to your the prefpane of the newer driver:

Libray/PreferencePanes/wacomtablet.prefpane
or
~/Libray/PreferencePanes/wacomtablet.prefpane
Open it with: right-click > Show Package Contents.
Navigate to contents/Info.plist
Replace this Info.plist file with the one from the old preference pane file in step 3.
Just be sure you keep the newer prefpane file and replace Info.plist with the Info.plist from the old prefpane. You can check versions of the prefpane file with Cmd-i if you get confused.

Restart computer

Then:

Open System preferences. The Wacom preferences pane now shows and opens, but acts weird.
Close System preferences.
Change System preferences to 32-bit mode (with CMD-i on the System preferences app > checkmark at 'open in 32 bit mode').
Open System preferences
Make some changes in the Wacom preference pane. The pref pane still acts a little weird at this point.
Close System preferences.
Revert the 32-bit mode opening by deselecting the 32 bit mode option.
Open System preferences and the Wacom preference pane: Voila: fully working preference pane, without any weirdness.

Steps 6-13 are crucial, without the 32bit switching and back, the prefpane does not work correctly.

In my case with the mentioned to driver versions, I have a fully working prefpane. All options/settings are working and can be saved. Working with my old tablet on High Sierra for a week now, no problems or hickups.

Notes;

I imagine this hack may work for other older driver combinations, but I am not sure, just try it out.
I read somewhere that next versions of MacOS may not have the 32 bit option anymore, so steps 6-13 may not work anymore after High Sierra. In that case, I imagine that the hacked preference file still may work, but only the future will tell. I am not sure what causes the hacked prefpane only to work correctly after the switch of System Prefs to 32bit and back is performed. Maybe in a new MacOS version, the copied, hacked prefpane will just work. Just be sure to keep a copy of the prefpane and drivers to be safe.
I got this idea to hack the preference pane here:
https://magicutilities.net/unrelated/75-wacom-preferences-and-os-x
where this fix is described for a Graphire 3 - CTE-430. But without the 32bit System Prefence switch weirdness.

Hope this helps anyone to restore full functionality to our older beloved Wacoms!


May I have a list of "System" group names, and their respective gid(s)? I know there are group names such as "Staff" and "Admin", but are those the only ones? I suspect that the root user should also be assigned in a group. Using the command dscacheutil -q user tells me the gid of root - 0. And if a user account is an admin, then isn't it in both "Admin" and "Staff" group(s)?

By running the command ls -la /Users, I get the following output:

Nicholass-MacBook:~ Ee$ ls -la /Users
total 32
drwxr-xr-x  12 root     admin    408 Nov  3 15:11 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 35 root     wheel   1258 Oct 29 20:21 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 root     admin  12292 Oct 27 09:02 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--   1 root     wheel      0 Aug 25 16:58 .localized
drwxrwx---   5 root     admin    170 Nov  3 08:00 Deleted Users
drwxr-xr-x+ 21 Ee       staff    714 Nov  3 08:06 Ee
drwx------+ 84 root     admin   2856 Oct 26 06:49 Ee (Deleted)
drwxr-xr-x+ 11 EeJ      staff    374 Nov  3 15:07 EeJ
drwxr-xr-x+ 14 900      admin    476 Oct 24  2012 Ee******** (Deleted)
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     admin    102 Oct 27 06:50 Old Ee (frm Snow Leopard)
drwxr-xr-x+ 11 ParAcnt  staff    374 Nov  3 15:11 ParAcnt
drwxrwxrwt   6 root     wheel    204 Nov  1 18:18 Shared

The command dscacheutil -q group will output all groups with their name, ID numbers, and list of members. Be warned, when I say it will output all the groups, I mean all the groups, including built-in system ones mortals were never meant to see. I'm just saying, don't freak out there are so many groups for a single-user system.

root as the superuser is in a group by itself and also implicitly a member of every other group. Any user account can be a member of multiple groups. On my system the only member of staff is root; admins are all in the admin group. wheel is another group name you'll frequently see for some system files; it's a popular group name on Linux systems to assign to files so that admins can edit them without using their password in sudo.

It should also be noted that Mac OS X supports access control lists that provide more granular control over file permissions than traditional Unix permissions; IIRC the + in the file permissions list indicates there are such extended permissions associated with the file.


After migration of a user to another Mac (Catalina to Big Sur, Intel to Apple Silicon) via Time Machine backup, user is stuck on login screen I setup my new MacBook Air M1 from scratch, just adding a new admin account. Then I connected my Time Machine backup disk from my older MacBook Air and used Migration Assistant to transfer my old admin account (which has a different name) to the new Mac.
This went successfully, but after restart I can not login with my migrated account. The password is accepted, but then the Mac is stuck at the login screen with a spinning process indicator and a notification about "Optimizing Your Mac". Nothing else seems to happen until I loose patience and restart.
Safe boot did not help. What can I do?

Login with the original admin account.
Delete the migrated user (say, "Joe User") with the Users & Groups control panel. Choose the option to keep the user folder as it is. It will get renamed from joeuser to joeuser (deleted).
Go to the Users folder on your hard disk and re-rename joeuser (deleted) again to joeuser.
Add "Joe User" again with Users & Groups control panel. Make sure it gets the same user folder name (joeuser) and select the option to use the existing folder when you create it.


Gray iTunes album tracks I noticed that a few tracks from an album appear gray.

The tracks are downloaded, I can play them if I double click them explicitly, but they don't play as part of the album. If I click the album's "play" button, they're skipped (1 gets played, then 3, then 4, etc.)

Why is this happening and how can I prevent it?

I saw a similar question, Grayed-out tracks in iTunes library, but that's not what I'm experiencing — for me, the songs do get downloaded and everything appears to be OK, they just get skipped when playing the album.

If you view by Songs rather than Albums, you'll see they are unchecked.

iTunes will always skip unchecked songs, by default.