Connect a 2007 macbook to a TV We've an old 2007 MacBook that I'd like to connect to a recent TV. If I'm not mistaking, the laptop has a FireWire 400 port, a VGA port, and USB ports. The TV has HDMI ports and USB ports insofar as I can tell.

The laptop can't run AirPlay insofar as I can tell - it's running OS X Lion and is too old to upgrade.

Is a USB/USB cable the recommended way of connecting the two devices in this case, or are there reasonably priced adapters to convert FireWire 400 to HDMI or something to that effect?

Is a USB/USB cable the recommended way of connecting the two devices

No, not if you're trying to get the display of the laptop onto the TV. A USB port doesn't carry monitor signals.

  are there reasonably priced adapters to convert FireWire 400 to HDMI

Firewire is also not a monitor signal. It can be used to transfer video information but afaik it's a completely different format to HDMI. I've not seen a device that converts firewire video to HDMI.

From your given ports the only way I'm aware of connecting your laptop to your tv would be with a VGA to HDMI adapter. VGA to HDMI adapters do exist at a reasonable price point, eg. https://www.jaycar.com.au/vga-to-hdmi-with-audio-adapter-usb-powered/p/AC1719?utm_campaign=redirect&utm_source=AC1639r&utm_medium=web

Maybe if you post the model of your laptop someone could confirm if it has a displayport capable of being adapted to HDMI. Not all displayport sockets can be converted to HDMI, even if the socket is electrically compatible with the adapter they still need to output the correct signal.


AppleTV interrupting while playing movie My new black Apple TV (3rd generation) is plugged into my flatscreen by HDMI. All worked fine.

A few days ago there were sudden "interruptions" while watching a show from netflix: no video, no sound, black screen. After a few seconds, video and sound returned, my screen shows a message that it is connected to a HDMI source.

From that message, I understand that the HDMI connection was lost. ATV has the latest software, the interruptions come and go, no pattern to be detected.

Anybody know what I can do, apart from returning the ATV and getting a new one?

HDMI connection lost

Could mean that the HDMI cable is not having good contacts on the pins.

The only way to test that is to get different HDMI cable.

Apple also provides some instruction on how to fix it.


Can Find My Mac still persist after erasing the hard drive? I have recently acquired a MacBook Air 2011 off of ebay. In order to avoid second-hand Mac issues relating to iCloud remote shut downs, I have performed the following actions:

Secure erase (using parted magic), deleted old partition and created a new partition (using gparted).
Cleared PRAM/NVRAM using keyboard procedure a few times, after HD was already wiped.
Installed Ubuntu (I will be using Ubuntu, and maybe Windows through VB).

Is there any way that Find My Mac capabilities could have persisted, and would it be able to shut me down if I connect the MacBook to the internet and the seller (or sellers seller) decides to lock the device on iCloud?.

The device does not currently have any type of lock, nor did it have it when I received it, as I was able to plug in a USB and boot parted magic. A quick inquiry: I would be able to tell for sure if the device is FMM locked when I connect to the internet, correct? If FMM capabilities are still in order, the laptop would be tracked/locked (if so was the command), even if it was running Ubuntu?

There is a simple way to find out who is the owner of the computer as reported to Find my Mac.

In terminal use

nvram -p | grep fmm

If it is your name there then you are fine.


Search within opened file in Xcode without Apple keyboard Is there a way to search within opened file (only!) in Xcode when I can not use Apple keyboard (because I am connecting remotely via LogMeIn from a PC)? I guess there was a search icon just above the text editor in Xcode 4.3 but I can not find it in 4.6.

One way to do this is to access the search function through the Edit menu. Select Edit > Find > Find...

The search box will appear for the currently selected file:


How to make the dock transparent in Mountain Lion? When I log in as a Guest user on Mountain Lion, i get a transparent dock with no background 'surface':

I can seem to find the settings that would make the dock in my own users' desktop look like this. Is it even possible for non-guest users?

To make the dock transparent in Mountain Lion type the following two commands in a terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock hide-mirror -bool yes

killall Dock


Can't move files in root user desktop I logged in as the root user so that I could pull all the files from all users into one folder to then transfer to an external hard drive. I had no problem moving files to the root user desktop but trying to move, copy, or even delete files from the desktop results in a “preparing to move” dialog box that shows no progress even when trying to simply move an empty test folder.

I feel like this may be because of some error in permissions because the root user desktop is located in /macintosh hd/private/var/root/desktop/ and the private folder is hidden.

How do i get around this issue?

Not sure why it was happening but i found a work around using terminal “sudo mv ...” command to manually move the folders


How can I take photos off my iPhone automatically? I shoot a lot of photos and videos so my iPhone fills up often.

The way I deal with it now is a time-wasting chore. I connect my phone to my computer. Dropbox automatically sucks my photos & videos to my computer. Then I use a mass-delete app to remove the photos from my phone.

I know I can use Dropbox on my phone, but it takes too long for the photos to upload.

What I'd like is something that automatically moves older photos to the cloud. Then I'd like to access those photos from anywhere.

iCloud Photo Library with "Optimize device storage enabled" will make a copy of your full resolution photos and videos, and will leave a small copy on your device, if storage space is needed. It will not remove them but it will sync changes made in all connected devices (deletes, edits, albums).


How can I install Messages.app on Lion Is there any way to get the final version of Messages.app installed on Lion?  For reasons I'll not get into at this point upgrading to Mountain Lion is not possible.  I had the beta of Messages.app but removed it because it was buggy.

Is there any way to install the 1.0 version on Lion?

Update: The final build of Messages isn't available for Lion. It is only available on Mountain Lion.

MacRumors had an article on this:

  Apple has not removed the download entirely, however, as it is still
  accessible via direct download (63.8 MB)

You can also download it via Mac Update.


Mission Control slow and jerky on 2011 MacBook Pros: any fix? Mission Control has been horribly slow on my 2011 MacBook Pro 15" (2GHz quad i7, 8GB RAM, 256MB graphics, SSD) -- swiping up usually freezes the screen for 2 seconds, before showing me the Mission Control layout. I've tried switching to discrete graphics only, but the problem doesn't go away.

It seems others have been experiencing this, too, and it might be a video driver issue. Has anyone found a fix for this? One MacRumors forum post suggested disabling automatic scrollbar overlays, but that hasn't helped.

Only a couple of suggestions, and neither is sure to work, but worth a try.

Safe boot - Start up in Safe mode with the Shift key held until the progress bar appears.  Select Restart (normally) at the login in window.  Safe boot mode does a Repair Disk during boot.

Re-install the OS - Your data and settings will be preserved.  There may have been a glitch in the original installation that could be fixed this way.

BTW, have you tested for this problem by logging in as a different User?

I have 3 Macs on Lion: 2007 iMac, 2009 mini, 2011 i7 MBP, none of which exhibit this problem.  This leads me to suspect that those with the problem have some 3rd party software in common, especially since it happens in such a wide range of Macs.


How do I switch between Finder tabs with a keyboard shortcuts? Ideally, I'd like to be able to cmd+1 == first tab, cmd+2 == 2nd tab, so on and so forth.

How can I do this?

Thanks!

To move forward (Show Next Tab) through the tabs use the keyboard shortcut ControlTab, to move in the reverse direction (Show Previous Tab), use ControlShiftTab instead.


Move windows between displays without dragging I'm using a 2011 iMac running MacOS Sierra with an HDMI output connected to a projector. When I want to watch a film on the projector, I just drag iTunes over to the second display and watch. If I forget to drag iTunes back, it ends up stuck on the other display. This is because the Mac still sees the second display when the projector is turned off. This means the only way to get iTunes back on the main iMac display is to turn the project back on so I can see the iTunes window and drag it back across to the main display. This also happens to any other app I "leave behind" on the external display and forget to drag back over. What I've tried:

Quitting and relaunching the app. This doesn't work, as MacOS remembers which display the app was on previously and re-launches it on that display
Finding the app in Mission Control. This doesn't work, because each display has its own Mission Control. I therefore can't see the spaces on the external display in order to grab the iTunes window and drag it to a space on the built-in display
Right-clicking the app icon in the dock and selecting "Show all windows". This just displays my wallpaper with a message in the centre saying "No available windows" (presumably because the window is on the external display).

I am hoping there's a key combination or some other trick to force the windows of the app to move over to the current display.

If you want a trick, you could briefly unplug the HDMI cable from the iMac. That should signal Mac OS that there is only one display and it will move all windows to the only remaining display.


Keyboard shortcut flashes my display If I press the keyboard shorcut  Cmd-Opt-Shft-Ctrl-W from any app it seems to flash my entire display.   I believe this started with Catalaina but I could be wrong.

I thought at first it was Keyboard Maestro doing it but the shortcut flashes my display even when Keyboard Maestro is not loaded.

Any ideas what  Cmd-Opt-Shft-Ctrl-W does and why it flashes the screen?

Quoting from this question:

WifiDiagnostics files filling up drive even with logging disabled

  ... that particular keyboard shortcut, command+option+control+shift+w, triggers something in OS X (possibly Catalina only; I don't have an older OS to test against) that starts the wifi logging.

So please check your /private/var/tmp.


Is there a way to overline text in Pages for the iPad? I use my iPad for note taking in my statistics class and I need to create an overline for the sample mean (which has a line over an  x  called x-bar) and I can't find a way to get it to work in Pages.

I was able to get the Greek keyboard for all the other math symbols I needed, but this one I can't figure out.

If you search for "math symbols" in the app store, you will find a number of apps designed to create such things for pasting into other apps.  Otherwise copy/paste from an existing note is solution I think.


How to create a cache server with osx server? We have an OS X server in a small office and want to have a cache server. When first user download something from Internet (NOT just from apple products) the second it should be downloaded from the server cache not from Internet.

With this approach we want to use less bandwidth and faster downloads. What approach should I take to achieve this mechanism?

The OS X Cache server is for caching only Apple products. For having web caching you can try something like Squidman


How to renew Apple Developer Membership manually? How can I renew my Apple Developer Membership account manually? Is it possible to do this?

I know that developer.apple.com/support/renewal describes renewing but does not explain manual renewal.

You can renew starting 30 days before the expiration date of your existing membership or any time after it expires. Your expiration date is available in your account on the developer website. To renew, sign in to your account with the Apple ID you used to enroll, and click the "Renew Membership” button.

https://developer.apple.com/support/renewal/


How do I remove ads from Cydia? The ads from Cydia are really intrusive and slows down the application a lot. How do I remove them?

One solutios is to edit /etc/hosts file and add:

127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 media.fastclick.net
127.0.0.1 cpxinteractive.com
127.0.0.1 adserving.cpxinteractive.com

If you know more addresses let me know.


AppleTV Air Mirroring: does the signal go through the WIFI router? A general question about how AirMirroring works, because I've some freezing problems and I would like to know if connecting my Apple TV to the rough by ehternet cable could help.

N.B. I'm not watching online streamed movies, but just using Apple TV for Air Mirroring. The videos are stored on my macbook Air hard disk.

How does Air Mirroring works: is the streaming going from
macbook ---> Apple TV, or
macbook ---> WIFI Modem ---> Apple TV ?

If the second is true, connecting Apple TV to WIFI Modem could help.. even if the content is not online streaming... ?

Two different AirPlay devices exist:

AirPlay transmitters (such as iPhone/iPad/iPod/iTunes)
AirPlay receivers (Apple TV, AirPort Express and audio system with built-in AirPlay)

Apple TV will connect to your WiFi modem to get Internet access.

It will also connect to your computer (without modem) for Airplay/mirroring.

It could also connect true the AirPort Express modem if you have it set up for that. Check what settings do you have in this article.


What is the TERM_PROGRAM and  TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION environment variables used for? After running:

env  ; #from with in terminal

I see the following output:

TERM_PROGRAM=Apple_Terminal  ;#Not sure Terminal.app
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION=273     ;#The CFBundleVersion of Terminal.app
TERM=xterm-color
SHELL=/bin/bash
...

After trying to put meaning to each of the variables listed I can't really find any definitive sources for what exactly the TERM_PROGRAM and TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION variables are used for. Man pages and Apropos are not showing anything explaining it, and Google is not as well. Clearly it is relating to some kind of Apple specific setting in Mac OS X, just not sure what?

I assume it is just an environment variable that stores your default program that you want to use to bring up a terminal window.  There are several different applications on OS X that give you a Unix-like command prompt.  The default is the Apple-supplied terminal in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app.  If you've installed some other terminal like iTerm or AquaTerm, then this variable is likely set to that particular application, if it is your default.  The name Apple_Terminal must be some internal shortcut to the full /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app path.

Just like your SHELL variable, this is the default that is used in scripts or other programs, unless it is specified in those programs specifically, whereupon the default gets overwritten.

EDIT: actually this answer on stack overflow seems to confirm my suspicions.


MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) shuts down when not attached to Thunderbolt Display Maybe somebody else is having this same issue? I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) running OS X El Capitan. For some reason, anytime I unplug the laptop from the Thunderbolt Display, it will shut down. I need to hit the power button for it to come back to life. It shuts down pretty quickly most of the time, although I've seen it stay alive for 5-10 minutes at the most.

I'm in the System Profiler looking at the battery info and it reports everything is cool. Fully charged, 284 cycles, condition normal. Any guess what might be wrong with this? Is there something to try before I spend money getting the problem diagnosed?

Try resetting the SMC (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295) and the NVRAM (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063)


MS Word for Mac, show outline on the left panel In MS Word for Windows, I can see an outline panel that shows headings so that I can jump to desired section quickly. But I don't have such an outline panel in Word for Mac.
It does not have 'view' tab in the ribbon.

I'm NOT talking about 'outline view' that you can choose on the lower-left corner of the window.
I want an outline displayed on the left-hand side and main text in the middle.

I think I found the answer.

There is 'Show or hide the Sidebar' button on the toolbar.

I can choose 'Reviewing pane' from that button.


Possible to choose Screenshot output method with Keyboard Shortcut? The revised Screenshot utility in Mojave brings the handy option of choosing if the resulting Screenshot should be copied to the clipboard or saved as a file, or saved to email, etc.

However this requires that I first press Cmd+Shift+5 to bring up the options, then select my desired option using the pointer. I find myself often needing to switch between saving to a file and saving to the clipboard and wondering if there is a way to do this by a keyboard command or modifier.

For example it would be great if I could use Cmd+Shift+4 to capture a selection, but modify the command to save-to-clipboard or save-to-file.

Grateful for any suggestions.

It's already there…

System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screenshots

By default
 Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   4  will save as a file
 Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥    Shift ⇧   4  will save to clipboard.


Keyboard shortcut to select Application "quit unexpectedly" dialog When encountering an application "quit unexpectedly" dialog box in OS X, sometimes the focus on that dialog box is lost. With only a keyboard, how does one restore focus back to that window? cmd+tab and similar do not work.

(I've wondered this for YEARS. Any help is greatly appreciated.)

Those windows are shown by the UserNotificationCenter process, so you can focus them by opening UserNotificationCenter with Alfred or Launchbar.

It is also possible to disable the crash report dialogs completely:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none

This script can also be used to focus other windows shown by background processes:

tell application "System Events"
    repeat with p in {"UserNotificationCenter", "SecurityAgent", "CoreServicesUIAgent"}
        if exists process p then
            tell process p
                if windows is not {} then
                    set frontmost to true
                    exit repeat
                end if
            end tell
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

SecurityAgent shows password dialogs and CoreServicesUIAgent shows Gatekeeper and quarantine dialogs.


Mapping home key - supported all apps? I'm using the following technique to remap the home and end keys to make them work like windows:

~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict

{ /* Remap Home / End to be correct :-) */
"\UF729"  = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";                   /* Home         */
"\UF72B"  = "moveToEndOfLine:";                         /* End          */
"$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Home */
"$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";       /* Shift + End  */
}

http://lifehacker.com/225873/mac-switchers-tip--remap-the-home-and-end-keys
(ie go to start and end of text row)

This doesn't appear to be supported in all apps (ie TextEdit)

Is there a different way to make this work in other mac apps? (ie is this technique obsolete on OS X Lion?)

It should work in TextEdit and 10.7 / 10.8. Did you reopen applications after saving the plist? It looks valid, but you can check for syntax errors with plutil ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict.

DefaultKeyBinding.dict does not work in other applications like Xcode, Firefox, or Photoshop though. Another option would be to use KeyRemap4MacBook:

You can customize the setting group by copying it from the source to private.xml.


Spoofing the OS version to trick a buggy installer I've been tasked with supporting a print shop using Kodak Prinergy 6.1, which is ancient. I need to install it on a new machine. The problem is that the installer has a bug where it compares OS versions lexicographically, so it doesn't grok that 10.13 is newer than the required minimum of 10.4.

Is there a way I can trick the installer into thinking I'm running 10.9?

Assuming that it's not baked into the installer, you can edit the version requirements for the app bundle.

Right click the app, hit Show Package Contents and open Info.plist. Look for a LSMinimumSystemVersion key, then change the value to your version of macOS.

You can also use Xcode's visual editor

It's possible you may need to do some more work though.

  NSBundle and CFBundle aggressively cache the contents of
  application bundles to improve performance. Although you edited the
  Info.plist, the Finder and Launch Services don't yet know that the
  application is any different.

  Running the following command in Terminal to touch the application
  bundle will force the Finder (and Launch Services) to re-register the
  application, thereby noticing the changes you made to the
  Info.plist:

touch "/Applications/My Cool App.app"

  After running that, deselect the application, then reselect it in the
  Finder, and then try launching it.

  Note that this won't necessarily guarantee that you'll be able to
  launch the app.

In the case that it's baked into the app more deeply, you can edit your macOS version at a system level. Note you'll also need to disable SIP if you haven't already.

  Boot in single user mode (hold down s during boot)
  Make file system readable:

  /sbin/mount -wu /
  Go the /System/Library/CoreServices directory:

  cd /System/Library/CoreServices
  Edit SystemVersion.plist

  nano SystemVersion.plist
  Change the version strings (note that there may be two of these in the .plist), e.g.

<?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>ProductBuildVersion</key>
        <string>14E46</string>
        <key>ProductCopyright</key>
        <string>1983-2015 Apple Inc.</string>
        <key>ProductName</key>
        <string>Mac OS X</string>
        <key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
        <string>10.10.4</string>                // <<<
        <key>ProductVersion</key>
        <string>10.10.4</string>                // <<<
</dict>
</plist>

  Save and exit (Control-OControl-X)
  Reboot:

  reboot


iOS Mail & Gmail Account, How to flag on swipe? I would like to flag/star email when swiping left. Is it possible with gmail account in iOS mail app?

You can only change what a right swipe does in iOS. You can change what the middle option on a left swipe is, but a full left swipe will still be delete/archive.

Check out settings -> mail, contacts and calendar -> swipe options.


Display arrangement gets reset after connecting to a different external display My MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) is connected to two Lenovo ThinkVision P27q-10 displays via a Kensington SD5200T docking station. One display is connected to the docking station via DisplayPort; the other via HDMI. The Mac is connected to the docking station with a single USB-C cable. The display arrangement in macOS is set up accordingly and is working perfectly.

However, when I disconnect the Mac from the docking station and connect it to a different external monitor (e.g. a TV) via a HDMI dongle, then the display arrangement settings in macOS are reset the next time I reconnect the Mac to the docking station.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening and how to fix it, so that I don't have to reconfigure the display arrangement each time I connect my Mac to a different display?

macOS fails to preserve my monitor layouts too. I wrote a tool called displayplacer that lets describe your monitor layout as a terminal command. I then use BetterTouchTool to execute these profiles via hotkeys. Create a profile for your layout with the docking station and then execute the profile after you plug in.

For example, on my 4 monitor setup at home I have this profile: displayplacer "id:A46D2F5E-487B-CC69-C588-ECFD519016E5 res:3840x2160 hz:60 color_depth:8 scaling:off origin:(0,0) degree:0" "id:F466F621-B5FA-04A0-0800-CFA6C258DECD res:1440x900 color_depth:4 scaling:on origin:(-1440,1437) degree:0" "id:4C405A05-8798-553B-3550-F93E7A7722BB res:1440x2560 color_depth:8 scaling:off origin:(3840,-363) degree:270" "id:18173D22-3EC6-E735-EEB4-B003BF681F30 res:1920x1200 color_depth:8 scaling:off origin:(960,-1200) degree:0"

Also available via Homebrew brew tap jakehilborn/jakehilborn && brew install displayplacer


Monitoring and limiting internet usage I am currently having to access the internet through a wireless dongle which is giving me a 2gb per month download allowance. I need to be really cautious about my internet usage.

Just this afternoon I ran out due to some process downloading 600mb of something. I have no idea what it was (although I suspect iTunes) or why it would need to download so much.

Is there anyway I can monitor which processes are using the network, or failing that set up a firewall that only allows the apps I choose to have access?

If you install Little Snitch you can monitor which application using internet. Every time any application wants to use internet you must accept or deny it, but it doesn't have an ability to measure bandwidth usage of each application.

You can see its demo here.


Getting photos from MobileSync data created by iTunes My wife had an iPhone 4, which she synched with a PC using iTunes.  Both the phone and the PC are gone, but I have backups of the PC, including the folder where I believe iTunes kept copies of her photos:

C:\users\herusername\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync

We don't currently own either an iPhone or an Apple computer.  Is it possible to retrieve the photos from the files in this folder, using only a PC?

In the MobileSync folder, go into the Backup folder which will probably just contain a pile of folders and files.

Open these files in some type of Media Player (Quicktime is probably the best option).

There may be of items once you open them, but if you sort by size you should get video, audio, and photos to float to the top.


iCloud still full after deleting lots of messages My iCloud was full, mostly due to messages.

So, I deleted the biggest message files, reducing the space down to 1.78GB.

However, it still says my iCloud is full - on my phone, laptop and on icloud.com, even though there should be 2.62 extra GB free.

Wait for some time and check again. It may take a little while for the messages to be purged on the iCloud servers and for the updated storage space to be reported on the device.


How to remove a nonfunctional folder from the Finder sidebar with Paragon installed? I drag-and-drop 2 folders to the places group in finder's sidebar. Now i want to remove it. However, there was no option for remove it from side bar, although the other things (application, desktop, documents...) have the option to do so when you right-click on them.

(in short: i want to delete the folder "study" in the above screenshot)

Actually those folders are on an ntfs partition. This problem happened after i install paragon ntfs driver. It works fine before that.

Do you have any suggestion to solve this problem?

If you're running 10.6.7, dragging to remove from the sidebar changed: Try Cmd-dragging it off. (You've already tried other ways that should have worked and didn't, so I'm not hopeful, but it's worth a try).

This solution works for dead favorite folders in 10.7.2.

I have just fixed a similar problem: An OSX shortcut was pointing to a folder on an HP NAS box which had been deleted so right-click menu was only 1 item. I recreated the folder on the NAS box so I could right click on the Mac to choose from now multiple list 'Remove from sidebar'. Also install free NTFS 3G (linked on Apple site) to access native Windows HDD.


Calendar Event Color I want to arrange different calendar events with different colors. I work on several projects, and use different colors to identify with calendar event corresponds to which project. My company uses Google calendar, but I use the Mac Calendar. I can not find a method to change specific events to the color I want.

The colors are set in your Google calender (the Google web site).

There you can set the individual colors for the events.

The Mac Calender is using the Google calender settings, but you can not change the colors in your Mac Calender.

UPDATE

If you really want to use the Apple Calender there is a somewhat initially complicated process to set it up, but easy to use afterward.

You would in Google Calender make new Calenders (name them to your liking) like Events A ect.. then assign a color to it.

Now they will show in your Apple calender with the assigned color.

and you will see them in your calendar list


How do I get VMware Fusion to use the native screen resolution within a scaled OSX desktop? I'm using VMware Fusion 7.1.1 to run both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 on a mid 2014 15-inch retina Mac. I've heard it is possible to run VMware in such a way that the screen's native resolution (in my case, 2880x1800) is displayed without any scaling.

After lots of trial and error, I discovered this works fine using the default desktop scaling in OSX. However, I normally run OSX in a scaled display setting (the default scaling makes everything too big to my tastes), where it actually renders everything at 3360x2100 and then downscales that to 2880x1800. It seems this also happens when using VMware Fusion, which means the perfect 2880x1800 picture from Windows gets stretched to 3360x2100, only to get scaled down to 2880x1800 again, leaving me with edges and text being blurrier than they should be.

Is there any way to prevent this from happening? I'd rather not change back to default desktop scaling in OSX every time I want to use VMware Fusion.

From here:

Install the VMware Tools by selecting Virtual Machine → Install VMware Tools in the menubar. Follow the on-screen instructions.
Set Use full resolution for Retina display in VMware Fusion’s Settings → Display preferences panel.
Run this command in Terminal on your OS X guest VM and enter your password when requested: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true
Log out of your OS X guest VM and then re-login.
Resize your OS X guest VM window to your preferred dimensions.
In System Preferences → Displays, set the resolution to Scaled and then select the HiDPI setting.

Note: If you resize your guest VM, it will revert to the non-HiDPI resolution. Simply re-select the HiDPI resolution in the System Preferences → Displays preferences panel.


How can I read the battery level of a MacBook in Swift? I have seen many post here/on SO and many docs on Apple's website about reading the battery level on iOS, but what's the best way to do this on a MacBook? In the past the only way I've found to do this is with a time-consuming bash command piped to grep, which seems very inefficient. (as seen and adapted from, although I can't locate the original source I read,  here and here) Is there a better way to do this programmatically? I've also seen this, but that only appears to have an Obj-C version. Is there any way to do this in Swift?
EDIT
There's actually a better way that doesn't take any significant time (ioreg -l -w0 | grep Capacity shows current charge and maximum capacity), but it is still a seemingly unneeded bash script.

Yes, it can be done fully in Swift. You mention that you have found a sub-optimal solution for you in using the "ioreg" command line tool. You can find the full source code (in C) for the ioreg tool here - for inspiration:
https://github.com/opensource-apple/IOKitTools/blob/master/ioreg.tproj/ioreg.c
That tool gets the battery level for you by reading the properties of the I/O devices - the battery level being one such property. It reads them using a function that in Swift is available as IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperties() in the IOKit framework.


"iPad Not Charging" Notification is annoying - Mavericks I get this really damn annoying banner every time I plug in my iPad and sometimes when I build and go in Xcode it loses connection with the iPad for a second and reconnects straight away.

Anyone know how to get rid of this notification? I know my iPad won't charge on this Mac Pro, it predates the iPad so it has less power going through the USB ports.

To turn off notifications:

sudo defaults write com.apple.usbd NoiPadNotifications -bool YES
sudo killall usbd

To turn them back on:

sudo defaults delete com.apple.usbd NoiPadNotifications

Via Craig Hockenberry


MacBook Pro problem with screen freeze My MacBook Pro 13" mid 2012 worked perfectly, but last days it has many lags (screen freeze with or without artifacts/shaders). After force shutdown it beeps 3 times and after approximately 10 minutes it loads OS, but fan works very noisy and fast.

Where can be the problem?

I have a Macbook air mid 2012 and it still runs like it is brand new. If I were you, I would get an external, backup everything you have on there. Do an internet recovery through disk utility and it should run like its brand new! Ive had issues like this before and what I suggested has been successful for me every time.


iPhone Keyboard font How do I make my Keyboard font on iPhone 6 larger?
I have tried enlarging my fonts on the phone - it only enlarges the typed words I need to have the Keyboard Lager, my fingers are too large so when I type I keep hitting the wrong letters. How can I increase the size of my KEYBOARD?

You can't change the size of the keyboard itself, that's fixed.  What you can do is find 3rd-party keyboards on the App Store such as Thick Buttons or Minuum.


Conditional formatting when checkbox checked I am trying to make conditional highlighting accross whole row when a checkbox is checked. I found a tutorial to make this happen, but it doesn't work for me. If you know a better way to do this, please show me how.
At this moment I am trying to use formula from the tutorial:

Where A3 is the checkbox. When I check/uncheck the checkbox  I see in the bottom statusbar TRUE/FALSE state, but the formula is not working. In the example it's always showing "NOT YO".

If I think what your asking is what I think might work have you selected from the bottom of what you want to the top?


most Mac-compatible linux distribution I want to install Ubuntu on my iMac. But I don't want to use Unity. I want to use Gnome 3. I can install it over Ubuntu (as I do on my laptop) but I know that Fedora and OpenSuse use Gnome 3 natively.

Also, I use Ubuntu on my laptop because of drivers. It was a pain in my ass to install all working properly on Fedora and CentOS. So finally I've installed Ubuntu and it works fine for years.

So now I understand, that here is another bunch of drivers on my iMac and maybe here won't be any problems with Fedora.

Ok. Actually, the question is what is the best distribution (best, I mean most compatible with drivers wireless devices: Mouse, Keyboard etc) to use on iMac. As a second OS and as OS in my VirtualBox.

I look at this issue the other way (which may not help you at all as you mention video driver issues and you want full linux access to the GPU).

My take is "Which virtualization environment works best with the linux distributions I want to use?"

For me the answer is VMware Fusion, then VirtualBox and lastly Parallels. And I really haven't heard any significant issues with all three of these in the last several months.

The reason is that my time is so much more precious than whatever marginal increase in speed I would have gotten installing linux natively. If and when I need huge performance I deploy to co-located linux service where you can easily pick your optimal price / performance / service level.


No entry sign on MacBook pro when installing snow leopard from 'new' disc onto new HD My HD died on my MacBook pro so I decided to change the HD myself. I didn't have the original snow leopard disc so got a copy from a friend. When I try to boot from disc (holding c) is runs the DVD drive, followed by apple symbol. After a short while, the apple symbol is replaced by a no entry symbol. Totally at a loss as to what to do. Tried different copies of the copied disc, but same issue.

Any thoughts?

Is your friend's Snow Leopard disk one he got with a Mac, or one he purchased at retail?

Disks that came with Macs are hardware-specific, if it came from a different model/revision than your MacBook Pro, then it likely won't work.

Try your install with a retail disk (or a Lion/Mountain Lion installer on USB) and see if that works.


Using Exchange email in Mail on iOS and MacOS how can I have a single Junk folder? If I mark an email as junk in Mail on iOS it puts it in a folder called "Junk".

If I mark an email as junk in Mail on MacOS it puts it in a folder called "Junk Email".  This was a little hard to spot at first as Mail displays this folder as "Junk", you have to see it on other devices (e.g. Mail on iOS) or the web app to see that the folder is actually called "Junk Email".

My question is this: how can I tell one of these OSs to use a different Junk mail folder?

On your Mac, in Mail.app, go to Preferences → Accounts → account name → Mailbox Behaviors and set Junk Mailbox to the correct mailbox.


Why does the iMac not allow memory parity error checking? Based on this Apple support page, the iMacs (in particular the 2014 5K I just ordered) do not support parity checking on the memory.  From other articles, it appears ECC is not supported either.

I find this surprising.  If there is a memory error, then the computer just goes along its merry way, propagating the error until it happens to cause some other detectable exception (like accessing an invalid memory address or running an invalid instruction).  Though it might not, and simply result in incorrect or corrupted data.

I often do large numerical simulations, for which such an error would probably not cause a crash, but could likely propagate to a large error in the result.

You don't even need a cosmic ray to get an error.  The drive to pack to higher and higher densities inevitably results in vulnerabilities, such as row hammering.  One study measured an average rate of four errors per year per DIMM.

What is the rationale for no parity checking?  I can see that ECC might slow things down a little and cost more, but at least a detected parity error could bring the system down instead of propagating an error silently.  65 bits instead of 64 bits would be a very small price to pay.  Even if it would make sense for a consumer to not have parity checking, I would at least like the ability to replace the memory to get parity checking.  It seems that even the DDR3 standard doesn't support just parity checking -- only ECC.

This is not Apple specific at all. First, why is ECC (72-bit) used over parity? The reason is simply that DRAM chips have been made in data widths of 4, 8 or 16 bits for decades. ECC lets you simply add another commodity chip, instead of making a specific low-volume 5 bit chip. Besides, when you have parity, you can't correct any error, so all you can do is crash the computer when an error is detected. So the net effect is to cause more computer crashes, even if the error is in part of the RAM that is not in use.

There's two reasons why Apple can't put ECC in. One is simply the integrated memory controller Intel puts in does not support ECC to force workstation/server makers to buy the more expensive Xeon line. You can check the ECC supported processors on the Intel ARK.  You see it's only Xeons and low-end CPUs (server appliance market), but none in the Core i5 or i7 range.

Second, the SO-DIMM pinout simply lacks data pins for the 72 bit bus in order to shrink the size for laptops. Memory bus routing is very difficult and the extra 8 lines would also make it difficult for laptop motherboard manufacturers.

Many numerical simulations do not require ECC. Real-world tests have suggested that the extra cost and speed penalty of ECC isn't worth it. As another example, some companies even tell you to turn off ECC.


How do I exclude a single day from/preemptively snooze a daily alarm? I have an alarm that goes off every day at 8. Sometimes I wake up earlier on my own accord, go out early and I don't need the alarm any more -- at 8, I'm already in the metro and I don't want it to sound (especially since my alarm of choice is a siren). Is there a way to preemptively snooze it? Right now, I disable the alarm, but this is sub-optimal: I need to remember to reenable it after 8. This happens often enough that I have a second daily alarm at 11, reminding me to restore the morning one.

Apple's clock app isn't very deep - it mimics late 20th century watches in functionality, it seems. There is certainly no problem with that as it serves most people's needs completely and many users needs to varying levels.

In this case, I suggest that you look beyond the app. If you only want to use that app, you will need a system like what you do know - remind yourself later, or rig a complex pattern of alarms (which wouldn't be self-reliant anyway). But either way the functionality you are requesting isn't possible with that app.

Before looking at 3rd party apps, you could use Calendar instead. If you didn't sleep until the alarm, you could simply delete that day's event and be done with it. Snooze should still be functional. But all the rest of your calendar alerts would be set with the same terrible ringer and you would miss it entirely if you forgot to deactivate the silence switch on the side of your phone.

After that, I suggest an app like MotionX Sleeptracker (24/7) or SleepCycle. They both work well for alarms and have some nice features that go along. That said, they may not work for you as you do have to start the "recording" every night. I find the process easy, but perhaps you wouldn't prefer it.

So then it comes down to going through the App Store looking for a full-featured alarm clock. I've used several but never could get away from MotionX so I didn't stay long and I don't remember enough to know if they had the ability that you described.


How do I uninstall Tuxera NTFS? I wanted to remove the NTFS support I installed using Tuxera NTFS. When I checked out my preference pane, the option seems to have been greyed out. How do I uninstall it now?

I tried disabling it but still the "Uninstall Tuxera NTFS" was only greyed out.

Running - macOS 10.12

The uninstall button runs the following script, located at

/Library/Filesystems/fusefs_txantfs.fs/Contents/Resources/Support/uninstall-package.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$0" != "/bin/uninstall-for-real" ]; then
    echo "Reexecuting script from memory."
    /bin/bash -c "`cat \"$0\"`" "/bin/uninstall-for-real" "$@"; exit $?
else
    echo "In-memory execution active."
fi

DRIVERNAME="Tuxera NTFS"
PACKAGENAME="TuxeraNTFS"
PACKAGENAME_COMPAT="TuxeraNTFS_compat"
PACKAGEID="com.tuxera.pkg.Tuxera_NTFS"
PACKAGEID_COMPAT="com.tuxera.pkg.Tuxera_NTFS_compat"
FSBUNDLENAME="fusefs_txantfs"
FSBUNDLEDIR="/Library/Filesystems/${FSBUNDLENAME}.fs"
COMPAT_FSBUNDLEDIR="/System/Library/Filesystems/${FSBUNDLENAME}.fs"
PREFPANEDIR="/Library/PreferencePanes/${DRIVERNAME}.prefPane"
STARTUPITEMDIR="/Library/StartupItems/${PACKAGENAME}UnmountHelper"
DISK_MANAGER_DIR="/Applications/Tuxera Disk Manager.app"
OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH="/Library/Receipts/${PACKAGENAME}.pkg"
OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH="${OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}/Contents/Archive.bom"
OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH="/Library/Receipts/${PACKAGENAME_COMPAT}.pkg"
OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH="${OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}/Contents/Archive.bom"
NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH="/var/db/receipts/${PACKAGEID}.bom"
NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH="/var/db/receipts/${PACKAGEID}.plist"
NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH="/var/db/receipts/${PACKAGEID_COMPAT}.bom"
NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH="/var/db/receipts/${PACKAGEID_COMPAT}.plist"
APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR_PATH="/Library/Application Support/Tuxera NTFS"
BACKUP_RECEIPT_PATH="${APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR_PATH}/Receipt.bom"
BACKUP_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH="${APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR_PATH}/Receipt_compat.bom"

error() {
    echo "There were errors... aborting."
    exit 1
}

checkForErrors() {
    _ERRVAL=$1
    if [ ! "${_ERRVAL}" -eq 0 ]; then error; fi
}

EFFECTIVE_UID=${EUID} #`id -u`
if [ ${EFFECTIVE_UID} -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "ERROR: Not running as root! (UID: ${UID} EUID: ${EUID})"
    exit 100
fi

if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    RECEIPT="${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}"
elif [ -f "${OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    RECEIPT="${OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}"
elif [ -f "${BACKUP_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    RECEIPT="${BACKUP_RECEIPT_PATH}"
else
    echo "None of the possible receipt paths were found... aborting."
    exit 101
fi

if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    COMPAT_RECEIPT="${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}"
elif [ -f "${OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    COMPAT_RECEIPT="${OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}"
elif [ -f "${BACKUP_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    COMPAT_RECEIPT="${BACKUP_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}"
else
    COMPAT_RECEIPT=""
fi

# Store the list of files to delete in memory (so that we don't depend on
# reading from files that we may delete during the process).
FILES_TO_DELETE="$(sh -c "lsbom -fls \"${RECEIPT}\" | colrm 1 1 | sed \"s/^/\\\"/\" | sed \"s/$/\\\"/\"")"

if [ ! -z "${COMPAT_RECEIPT}" ]; then
    FILES_TO_DELETE="${FILES_TO_DELETE} $(sh -c "lsbom -fls \"${COMPAT_RECEIPT}\" | colrm 1 1 | sed \"s/^/\\\"/\" | sed \"s/$/\\\"/\"")"
fi

# Remove all uchg attributes from installed files. If present, this attribute
# will cause deletion of installed files to fail.
# (No need to check exit value from chflags since we want to attempt deletion
# anyway if chflags fails.)

chflags -R nouchg "${FSBUNDLEDIR}"
if [ -d "${COMPAT_FSBUNDLEDIR}" ]; then
    chflags -R nouchg "${COMPAT_FSBUNDLEDIR}"
fi
chflags -R nouchg "${PREFPANEDIR}"
chflags -R nouchg "${STARTUPITEMDIR}"
chflags -R nouchg "${DISK_MANAGER_DIR}"
sh -c "echo '${FILES_TO_DELETE}' | xargs chflags -R nouchg"
if [ -d "${OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags -R nouchg "${OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}"
fi
if [ -d "${OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags -R nouchg "${OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}"
fi
if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags nouchg "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}"
fi
if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags nouchg "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}"
fi
if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags nouchg "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}"
fi
if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags nouchg "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}"
fi
if [ -d "${APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR_PATH}" ]; then
    # Backup receipt resides in this directory, so we must do this in the right
    # order.
    chflags nouchg "${APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR_PATH}"
fi
if [ -f "${BACKUP_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags nouchg "${BACKUP_RECEIPT_PATH}"
fi
if [ -f "${BACKUP_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    chflags nouchg "${BACKUP_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}"
fi

# Remove installed files.

echo "Removing package files..."

sh -c "echo '${FILES_TO_DELETE}' | xargs rm -fv"
checkForErrors $?

if [ -d "${FSBUNDLEDIR}" ]; then
    echo "Removing file system bundle directory..."

    rm -rfv "${FSBUNDLEDIR}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -d "${COMPAT_FSBUNDLEDIR}" ]; then
    echo "Removing compatibility file system bundle directory..."

    rm -rfv "${COMPAT_FSBUNDLEDIR}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -d "${PREFPANEDIR}" ]; then
    echo "Removing ${DRIVERNAME} preference pane directory..."

    rm -rfv "${PREFPANEDIR}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -d "${STARTUPITEMDIR}" ]; then
    echo "Removing ${DRIVERNAME} startup item directory..."

    rm -rfv "${STARTUPITEMDIR}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -d "${DISK_MANAGER_DIR}" ]; then
    echo "Removing ${DRIVERNAME} Tuxera Disk Manager directory..."

    rm -rfv "${DISK_MANAGER_DIR}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

# Remove all package receipt files.

if [ -d "${OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing package receipt..."

    rm -rfv "${OLD_STYLE_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -d "${OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing compatibility package receipt..."

    rm -rfv "${OLD_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_BUNDLE_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing package receipt bom file..."

    rm -fv "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing package receipt plist file..."

    rm -fv "${NEW_STYLE_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing compatibility package receipt bom file..."

    rm -fv "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -f "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing compatibility package receipt plist file..."

    rm -fv "${NEW_STYLE_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PLIST_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -f "${BACKUP_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing backup receipt bom file..."

    rm -fv "${BACKUP_RECEIPT_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -f "${BACKUP_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Removing backup compatibility receipt bom file..."

    rm -fv "${BACKUP_COMPAT_RECEIPT_PATH}"
    checkForErrors $?
fi

if [ -d "${APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR_PATH}" ]; then
    echo "Attempting to remove support dir..."

    rmdir "${APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR_PATH}"
    # This will fail if there are other files in there, but that's ok.
fi

echo "Done."
exit 0


List of iPhone voice commands? (prior to Siri / iPhone 4S) Is there a list of possible voice commands anywhere?

via http://atmac.org/iphone-voice-commands

Phone Commands

Call a contact
“Call” or “dial” plus the person’s name or nickname as entered into your address book. Optionally add the phone number type at the end, such as “home”, “work”, “mobile”. For example, “Dial John Smith Work” or “Call Mum”.

Call a number
“Call” or “Dial” plus the number, just as you would recite it usually. For example, “Dial 555 9592″.

Make a correction
Say “not that one”, “wrong”, “nope”, “no”, or “not that”.

Music Commands

Start music
Say “play” or “play music”.

Play from a specific playlist
Say “play playlist” and the name of the playlist. For example, “Play playlist gym songs”.

Play from a specific album
Say “play album” plus the name of the album. For example “Play album Dark Side Of The Moon”.

Play from a specific artist
Say “play artist” plus the name of the artist. For example, “Play artist Pink Floyd”. The alternate “Play songs by” plus the name of the artist has also been reported to work.

Pause music
Say “pause” or “pause music”.

Skip to next song
Say “next song”. The shorter “next” has also been reported to work.

Go back to previous song
Say “previous song”.

Shuffle the current playlist
Just say “shuffle”.

Turn on Genius feature
Say “Genius”, “play more like this”, or “play more songs like this”.

Get information about the current track
Say “what’s playing”, or for more specific information say “what song is this”, “who sings this song”, or “who is this song by”.

Misc Commands

Ask the time
Say “what is the time” or “what time is it”.

Cancel voice control
Simply say “cancel”. With iOS 4  you can also say “stop”.

Get help
Say “help”.


Delay mounting Backup Plus drive after being improperly ejected I have a 1TB backup plus drive (Seagate) formatted using ExFAT, to be able to use it on Mac OS. I'm using an Early 2015 Macbook Pro Retina (13"), running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6.

From when I first started using the hard drive, it works perfectly fine once it's mounted. When it has been ejected improperly (yes, I know, I shouldn't, but it happens by accident sometimes) it will take ages (+- 20min) after plugging it in again for it to mount (show up in Finder). I tried opening Disk Utility to check if it shows up there, it never does. The delay is always there. Disk Utility just shows a spinner and doesn't even load my main HDD, unless I plug out the external HDD.

Also tried various commands in the Terminal, e.g. diskutil mountDisk disk name and  diskutil mount volumeName, etc. Nothing seems to help, the delay is consistently there.

After reboot, it always shows up immediately, which tells me it's not the disk's fault.

Anyone have a solution to this? USB service restart or something like that?

There's probably a duplicate question here, but the system will run a filesystem check when the device attached is possibly a foreign file system or a native Mac filesystem where the journaling feature is disabled or the journal indicates possible failures of the disk allocation catalog or directory structures.

You can usually open Activity Monitor and see some activity start when you connect the drive while the OS is checking if the drive is correct before showing it in finder. Depending on size of the volume, this could take 5 to 25 minutes or more if the drive itself has hardware malfunction.

To diagnose this, you would need a tool to disable the disk arbitration framework and then time / examine the mount process for each disk that's out of the ordinary.

How to Disable USB Auto-mount
https://superuser.com/questions/531673/disable-auto-mounting-of-all-unknown-drives-on-os-x


Downgrade Apple tvos11 to tvos10 How do I downgrade an Apple TV from tvos11 to any version of tvos10 without jailbreak safely? My Apple TV is 4th generation.

You can't anymore. Apple stopped signing iOS/tvOS 10 back in October, making it impossible to downgrade.


iPhone 4/4s Spotlight Search Problem Spotlight Search on iPhone 4s doesn't show any results.

Everything is checked under Settings -> General -> Spotlight Search.

Restart doesn't help. New contacts don't appear.

Under Settings -> General -> Spotlight Search

are the areas you want to search selected (tick on the left hand side), if not just tap the group (Contacts, Applications, etc) to add them to Spotlight Search.


Accidentally removed /usr/bin - is my Mac permanently damaged? Please don't judge, I accidentally deleted a big part, if not all, of the /usr/bin folder.

How can I confirm I did not do an irreversible damage to the MacBook?

You cannot permanently damage your computer just by deleting files. At worst, you will render the OS non-functional.

Just run the macos installer of your choice that is the same version (or newer) as your current os. This will fix everything needed to boot your Mac and not overwrite any user settings or programs or files.

If you have deleted only /usr/bin, (NB: not /user, which does not exist) then you should be able to restore this from your backup. It's normally hidden in the Finder, so press Command Shift dot to show hidden files in the Time Machine window.

If you think you may have deleted other files and folders, you would be well advised to re-install the OS. You should be able to download it from the Mac App Store (depending on what version you're on), and then just launch the app. Your user files and preferences will be maintained.

Deleting system files is never a good idea: normally, you would have had to have bypassed a number of safety features and warnings to do this. If you want to ask another question about what you were trying to do, you may get an answer that provides a safer method.


What to do (besides rebooting) when Finder won't navigate to /tmp? If one uses the Command + Shift + G keyboard shortcut and asks Finder to navigate to /tmp, on occasion instead of being taken to /private/tmp (with appropriate hiding of the /private directory from the user) the user is taken to / as exhibited here:

And if I attempt to navigate to /private/tmp:

What gives?

The answer appears to be related to setfile. If one runs getfileinfo /private/tmp:

Tomass-MacBook-Pro:tmp tomasgallucci$ getfileinfo /tmp
directory: "/private/tmp"
attributes: avBstclinmedz
created: 07/30/2016 14:32:36
modified: 01/16/2017 14:56:52
Tomass-MacBook-Pro:tmp tomasgallucci$

In my case, the bundle flag was turned (capital letters mean attributes are turned on, lower case means they're turned off). To resolve the issue I was able to run

setfile -a b /private/tmp

And I could once again navigate to /tmp in Finder.

What set the Bundle bit? I don't know. But life wouldn't be worth living if there weren't at least a few mysteries.

Here's a Super User article that discusses the topic in some detail.


Not charging iPhone when using GPS apps I have GPS Drive App Motion X-GPS. I tried to use this app with my iPhone/iPad cigarette charger plugged in, but the battery is keep draining even with the charger to make this app almost useless for long distance driving. I used the charger without any problem with other apps.

Why iPhone is not charging with GPS apps? Is this iPhone's known issue? Is this an issue with Motion X-GPS? Or new/better cigarette charger is needed to solve this issue?

I use Scosche that has 2.1A port, but it doesn't charge when I use this port with iPhone.

It's not a bug, it's just because the GPS app is using much more power then the charger can deliver. You should check the amp. of your charger. I have one of 2100 mA and I can use my iPad with Navigon while my iPad is charging.

This charger sold in the Apple Store will provide your iPhone enough power to both run the GPS app and charge at the same time.


How can one sort files without knowing their extension? I have recently been having an issue moving a backup of an iPhone to a new iPhone. After many hours spent with Apple Support I've determined it's a lost cause, but I have the backup and am able to view the files in the backup, including my pictures. I was wondering if anyone knew how to sort these files using Automator so I can have all the pictures in one folder. I I have tried using the "Kind is image" filter, but that will only work if the extension is an image extension, and since none of the files have any extension this will not work.

Don't need to use Python, you can do this on the command-line command: file

eg.

$ file *
Sams.jpg:               JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01, aspect ratio, density 72x72, segment length 16, Exif Standard: [TIFF image data, big-endian, direntries=10, manufacturer=Apple, model=iPhone 7, orientation=upper-left, xresolution=150, yresolution=158, resolutionunit=2, software=Photos 1.5, datetime=2016:11:13 14:09:31, GPS-Data], baseline, precision 8, 4032x3024, frames 3

So, you can dump that data out, and sort it for the paths you want.

eg.

alex@smiley:~|⇒  find . -type f -exec file {} \;
./.bash_history: ASCII text
./.bash_login: ASCII text
./.bash_profile: ASCII text
./.bashrc: ASCII text
./.bashrc.bak: ASCII text
./.cache/fontconfig/0f0db7876307790c19e1f91eb9095080-le64.cache-4: data
./.cache/fontconfig/1487dd4aecf3164c4a11193169052443-le64.cache-4: data
./.cache/fontconfig/2d5afd1bf94294700ac1600496f0236c-le64.cache-4: data
./.cache/fontconfig/3f80be19c668e16fc38439c9c84a1bc7-le64.cache-4: data
./.cache/fontconfig/49aa604a5ac92994756d3008e408245c-le64.cache-4: data
./.cache/fontconfig/558352270fb122ca08359d23b5a778d4-le64.cache-4: data

etc.

Filter the output for images, using grep:

From the directory storing your back-ups:

find . -type f -exec file {} \; | grep image

alex@smiley:~|⇒  find . -type f -exec file {} \; | grep image
./.gradle/caches/minecraft/assets/objects/92/92750c5f93c312ba9ab413d546f32190c56d6f1f: PNG image data, 32 x 32, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced
./.gradle/caches/minecraft/assets/objects/bd/bdf48ef6b5d0d23bbb02e17d04865216179f510a: PNG image data, 16 x 16, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced


What are the '~previous', '-previous' and '~orig' files in /private/etc/? After upgrading from High Sierra to Mojave I've noticed a bunch of new files with prefixes in /etc/:

~previous, e.g. syslog.conf~previous
-previous, e.g. php.ini.default-previous
~orig, e.g.sudoers~orig

What are these? Is it safe to delete them (e.g. in case they are identical to the original files)?

The ~orig and similarly suffixed files are previous and likely corrupted versions of the settings/plist file where the "current" one is pretty much a duplicate of the "bad"one, not helping most situations (like when your ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist is corrupted).

In my experience though it usually ends up that the current file still has part or most of the corruption the previous one had. Depending on the location, it should be safe to delete the ~orig and similarly named files.

The current ones in /Library/Preferences should be safe to delete, I've never had negative results from that.

In the previous iTunes example, the freshest plist still may cause wonkiness like slow start and quit of iTunes. I had this happen to me about ten years ago, took 5 minutes to open iTunes, 10 to quit when I had this issue. When I checked the plists I must have had 200+ bad copied (in this case they would be com.apple.iTunes.plist. ). Removed them all and reopened iTunes, it created a new plist without trying to inherit any issues from the previous ones and it was smooth sailing since.

But like I said earlier, the ones in non-user and non-/Library/Preferences I would leave alone or be careful with, especially in /etc and /private.


Deleting of old backups in Time machine I have WD-My book world of 1TB and I struggled for some time to set it up correctly to use it as a disk for usage of time machine on Mac OS X Yosemite.

My question is the following-what is the best way to delete old backups as I don't want to eat up all the HDD with the backups. I'm more than enough with a 1 month old backups.

I read on Apple's website about the deletion on files on disk but as this is a NAS disk it's a bit different than a regular USB external HDD and it shows me only a lookalike of the "img file" (when I go to get info, it says "Sparse Disk Image Bundle") see screenshot:

What is your advice?

The sparsebundle is a disk image file and probably contains your Time Machine files. If you double-click it, it should be mounted. If not, launch Disk Utility and open it from there (File > Open Disk Image...).

In order to delete backups, enter Time Machine, select a snapshot (time) and right-click in the Finder window. From there you can delete the snapshot by clicking Delete Backup. Watch out no more confirmation will be asked! You can also delete all backups / snapshots of a file or folder by selecting Delete All Backups of ....

If you are more the Terminal kind of person you can also use tmutil. This would look somewhat like this:

sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/Time_Machine_Disk/Backups.backupdb/computer/date/

You should only use these methods and not delete files manually from your mounted sparsebundle image.


How to set a double press key shortcut on Mavericks? i.e. double-press option-key for mission control I was wondering how can you set a double press key shortcut on Mavericks? i.e. double-press option-key for expose. I've search everywhere without a clear solution. I haven't even found an application that could do that.

Thanks

You can use a private.xml like this with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>custom</name>
    <identifier>custom</identifier>
    <autogen>__DoublePressModifier__ KeyCode::OPTION_L, KeyCode::OPTION_L,
    KeyCode::EXPOSE_ALL</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

You can also assign different functions to pressing and holding a key. This would make pressing the right command open Safari:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <vkopenurldef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_SAFARI</name>
    <url>file:///Applications/Safari.app</url>
  </vkopenurldef>
  <item>
    <name>custom</name>
    <identifier>custom</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::COMMAND_R,
    KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_SAFARI</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


Why does QuickTime's screen recorder make my MacBook Air very slow while recording? On Snow Leopard (10.6), the screen recorder on QuickTime Player worked just fine. However, since I have upgraded to Mountain Lion (10.8) QuickTime screen recorder has been making my 2010 MacBook Air extremely slow/laggy while recording the screen but once I stop recording my computer is no longer slow/laggy.

Is there a way to fix this annoying problem? My computer is pratically unusable while recording so I can't use QuickTime to record the screen until it is fixed.

Not exactly a solution, but some observations that might provide a clue:

Issue also seen on my Mac mini (Mid 2011 - 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 + 8 GB DDR3) after upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion
QuickTime no longer saves the recording to ~/Movies/Screen Recording.mov, but instead saves it to some temp location and when done recording, you need to save/export it.
Downgrading quality to medium quality didn't help

[Update 11/17]

Even my new Macbook Pro Retina 15" has this issue.

I happened upon a tutorial that showed someone using VLC to screen capture on a Mac and decided to give it a try. It turns out that functionality was removed from VLC on Lion and Mountain Lion and the reason was provided in this this thread: Mac OS Lion, VLC screen capture does not work:

  Apple completely removed the API to capture the screen and replaced it with something totally different. Until anyone steps up and implements the new one, this feature is not available to Lion users. It remains accessible to Snow Leopard and Leopard users of course.

I'm not sure if this is also what's causing QuickTime on Lion+ to be super slow.

I did find an alternative which is working out really well for me: Voila

Available on the App store for $10 and records w/o performance issues. I was skeptical at first, so I downloaded its trial, and was extremely happy with the performance. $10 is definitely more than free, but depending on how often you need to record your screen, this is well worth the money in my opinion.

It supports both JPEG and H.264 encoding, but only records up to 25fps. For audio, it allows you to select which input and even allows you to use the computer audio (something QuickTime didn't allow and you had to use a separate utility like Soundflower).


How can I turn off the screen on the macbook when I have an external monitor set up? I have an external monitor and want my macbook screen to go blank or black so I can focus on the monitor instead. On my windows machine Function F5 does this.

Turn on your MacBook without the external display connected.

Close the lid and it will go to sleep.

Connect your external monitor and an external keyboard via USB.

Now wake it up by typing on the external keyboard. If you don't have a USB keyboard (you might be using a BT keyboard and mouse) you can use the Apple Remote to wake up a MacBook when its lid is closed.

The MacBook should wake up with the external monitor as its one and only monitor.


Numbers Sum of all values in a column where another cell within the row matches text I'm sorry if the title is confusing.  I'm struggle bussing hard on figuring out how to write some formula in Numbers. It really doesn't help that the name of the program and functions I'm trying to use are so generic, I get random completely unrelated math results with every search!

I have a table like this (obviously a lot more data):

ID    number
01    24
01    12
03    62
05    12
01    1

I have another table like this:

ID    count    total
01    3
03    1
05    1

I'm trying to write a formula to get the sum of each Id's numbers. I managed to get the count using COUNTIF(table1::B:B,$A:2), and copy / pasting that down the count column. Sweet! That was a pain, but I got it.  Now I want to get the total of all their numbers. I know it's going to look something like this: SUM( <iterate over range, if table1::A matches A, add table1::B>) But I'm struggling to figure out both how to do this and how to word searches to get relevant results.

So, in my second table, 01's total should be 24 + 12 + 1 = 37.

I would love both some help in figuring this out (I'm totally OK with being pointed to relevant functions and can figure it out from there!), as well as some tips on generally how to search for stuff like this. It stresses me out endlessly that they named the program Numbers and made it near impossible to find what I need.

Thanks!

I've found it!

I opened the function browser and read the description of every function down the list until I finally found the SUMIF function!
SUMIF(table1::ID, $A2, table1::numbers)

The first parameter creates a range across the whole column with header ID in table1, the second is a strict column reference with a relative row reference, so I could copy / paste down the whole column, and the third parameter is the entire column with header numbers in table1.


iOS: Advantage of fresh install over backup restore? Are there any advantages in setting up a new iPhone from scratch over restoring a backup of the old one?

I have now my third iPhone and I always used the backup of the predecessor to get it set up. Do I carry any clutter with me that makes it better to do a fresh install?

This is Alex from Reincubate, I work on the iPhone Backup Extractor.

Setting up your iPhone from scratch will mean that you lose your personalized settings, while restoring from previous backup will revert the settings to the moment of the backup. If you have nothing against taking it all over again with your iPhone you should set as new, but if you are in a hurry and want to speed the process up restore from backup.

Hope it helps.


core dumps in Mac OS X I was wondering if core dumps are disabled by default in Mac OS X, or if we have to add the following line to our .bash_profile:

ulimit -S -c 0

By default, ulimits on OS X have a soft limit of 0 and a hard limit of unlimited.

You can verify this by opening a Terminal and running ulimit -S -c and ulimit -H -c.


Time Machine Backup: New Partitioning and a Restore I have a MacBook Pro mid 2009 with a 250 GB SSD split in 2 partitions: (1) OS X El Capitan (200 GB) and (2) Debian Linux (20 GB).

Willing to give more space to Debian, I will wipe the SSD and reinstall everything from scratch. To put things into order, I thought about utilizing Time Machine for backups and restores.

If after wiping the disk the created macOS partition is smaller than the previous one, will I be able to have a successful restore (assume that the real old data fits in the new partition)?

Time Machine is a file-level backup so the size of your partition will not be taken in to account.

In fact a block-level backup also would not be an issue, only taking a disk image would be problematic as a disk image includes the file system whereas backups do not.


Mac Hacked? "a computer with IP address 128.130.244.179 tried to establish an incoming connection to kernel" I got a suspicious alert on litte snitch today which I captured in a screenshot. I am sending it to you. Could you please take a look and tell whether you think my mac got infected or not?
I installed Clear VPN through my Setapp subscription last week and it asked for my keychain password. I am not really informed on keychain access and security. I was even less informed last week. I reset the password for keychain and entered it in the Clear VPN App and then got this suspicious alert on MacOS Kernel. I then tried to restore from a time machine backup, which seemed to help (this was a couple of days earlier). But today I got this alert once again. I blocked it. However, I have a feeling that this is not good.
Maybe the installation of clear VPN and keychain password isn't related to this alert. I don't know. If anyone does, could you please help me with this and shed some light on the matter?
Big Sur 11.0.1
Little Snitch 5.0.3

There's nothing there that indicates being "hacked."
Too often, folks see connections or random behavior and immediately assume this is a hacking attempt.  It's not.
This could be any number of legitimate connection attempts especially given that the IP in question isn't flagged as coming from a known hacking IP, one of the many rogue countries (like China) or from a remote, anonymous proxy.
Now, you shouldn't be getting connections like this directly to the kernel especially if you are behind a firewall.  However, if your Mac sends a request out and creates a "state" on your firewall, it can connect back - making this entirely legitimate.

Ensure you're behind a proper firewall
Turn on the firewall on the Mac
Log outgoing connections in Little Snitch to correlate traffic

Bottom line...a single connection is not enough to determine anything.  You need to see this in context and you need to see the actual traffic that's incoming.  If you're not using firewalls, your very first action is to get behind one and/or turn it on.


Mac Mini Late 2014 4K 60hz http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht6008

Apple does not list the Mac Mini 2014 in above link in the Mac's that can use MST to achieve 60hz on 4K via Displayport.
On other places I read that this is due to the limitations of the Intel processor:

  This type of resolution is supported on 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor family (Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 5200 / Intel® Iris™ Graphics 5100, Intel® HD Graphics 5000 / 4600 / 4400 / 4200)
  See the following supported screen resolutions through DP 1.2
  DisplayPort* 1.2 / eDP*
  H-Processors: 3840 x 2160@60Hz
  U-Processors: 3200 x 2000@60 Hz, 3840x2160@30Hz

My question is, if I get a Mac Mini 2014 and upgrade the configuration to 3.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i7, will is still not be able to run at 60hz?

On the Apple site I cannot see the direct difference in processors between the Retina Macbook Pro 15" and the Mac Mini. But apparently the macbook has an 'u-processor' and the mac mini a 'h-processor'?

The CPU in the Mac Mini late 2014 is not capable of driving a display at 4K at 60Hz.

This Intel Quick Reference Guide, under the "Display and Audio Features Comparison" section, lists the Intel Iris 5100 (the graphics chip in the Mini) in the second column. Cross referencing this with "Maximum Display Resolution" in the first row, you see that the H-series CPUs combined with the Iris 5100 can drive a 4K display at 60Hz, but the U-series that is in the Mini cannot.


Time on macbook (Mojave) is incorrect with auto-time on (Is apple time server wrong?) I just realized that the time on my Macbook Pro running Mojave is incorrect. For example, current time shown is 22:47. But the correct time should be 22:39.

I tried all listed time servers (three servers) on time settings, but no luck. All my time settings are correct.

I tried many ways to fix it with no luck. For example, I tried to turn off auto-time option, set a wrong time and then turn auto-time option on etc.. The auto-time always gives me the same wrong time. (8m difference)

So what is the problem and how to fix it?

Btw, the reason why I know what the correct time is because all my mobiles, other Linux PCs, google can tell me the correct time.

More:

I ran the following commands suggested by one comment and it fixed the problem.

$ sntp -d $(< /etc/ntp.conf); echo; sudo sntp -S $(< /etc/ntp.conf)
sntp 4.2.8p10@1.3728-o Tue Mar 21 14:36:42 UTC 2017 (136.200.1~4588)
kod_init_kod_db(): Cannot open KoD db file /var/db/ntp-kod: No such file or directory
handle_lookup(server,0x2)
move_fd: estimated max descriptors: 65536, initial socket boundary: 20
handle_lookup(time.apple.com.,0x2)
server lookup error nodename nor servname provided, or not known
sntp sendpkt: Sending packet to 17.253.16.253:123 ...
Packet sent.
sntp sendpkt: Sending packet to 17.253.26.125:123 ...
Packet sent.
sock_cb: time.apple.com. 17.253.26.125:123
2020-04-09 23:22:05.625789 (-0800) -488.274511 +/- 325.516966 time.apple.com. 17.253.26.125 s1 no-leap

sntp 4.2.8p10@1.3728-o Tue Mar 21 14:36:42 UTC 2017 (136.200.1~4588)
kod_init_kod_db(): Cannot open KoD db file /var/db/ntp-kod: No such file or directory
server lookup error nodename nor servname provided, or not known
2020-04-09 23:22:10.854075 (-0800) -488.226441 +/- 325.484462 time.apple.com. 17.253.16.253 s1 no-leap

You can trigger the sync manually by running
sudo sntp -S $(sed -n '/^server/s/.* //p' /etc/ntp.conf)

(just ignore the kod_init_kod_db error or run sudo touch /var/db/ntp-kod to create the missing file)


Screen Recording in Quick Time 7 not available Just bought a new MacBook Pro 15" Retina display laptop with Maverick. Was needing to record an app on my screen. Went to Quick Time 7 and Quick Time 7 Player opened up. Registration for Pro was already set. How do you enable Screen Recording in Quick Time 7?

This is not a QuickTime 7 feature but a QuickTime X feature  !


MacBook Air (2015) Trackpad and keyboard not working My MacBook Air's internal keyboard and Trackpad have stopped working. To be honest, she had a bit of a fall about 2 weeks ago, about 3 feet onto carpet, it has worked fine ever since yesterday. I reset PRAM and SMC, no luck.

Works totally fine with external mouse and keyboard. How do I get it working again?

It is likely that the internal connectors for keyboard and Trackpad have lost contact from the main logic board. It is advisable to get it inspected by an authorised Apple technician.


Undo move files from the "all my files" to the trash folder I transferred by mistake  some files from the "all my files" folder to the trash folder (but haven't emptied it). Do I risk to delete these files? How can I undo this?

Do I risk to delete these files?

You're fine as long as you don't empty the Trash.

  How can I undo this?

Command ⌘-Z will undo the last action in Finder. So if you just deleted them you can use this shortcut to undelete them all.

Otherwise:

Click on the Trash icon in your Dock to open the Trash view in Finder
For each file in the Trash, right click on the file and select Put Back from the menu (unfortunately you can't issue the "put back" instruction to multiple files at once, see this answer for a way to do it in groups of files that might work or this one if you're comfortable running some AppleScript)


Format disk with one Windows and one Mac partition Can I partition an internal hard disk (in a Mac Pro or Mac Mini) such that it contains one partition usable for Mac OS and one usable for Windows?

I know Boot Camp does that for the boot disk but I wonder if it will work for a second disk as well?

Basically I want the system to start either Windows or Mac and use the second disk for data.

If you have 2 hard drives you can do this way:
1) On 1st drive install osx. Then use bootcamp assistant to re-partition the disk 1 and install windows on second partition. At this point you can via disk utility format the second drive as you wish (e.g.: second drive 1Tb= 500gb fat/ntfs for win data and 500gb hfs+ for osx data);
2) On 1st drive install osx. Then use bootcamp assistant and select secondary hd (not the osx' one) and install windows. Now you have dual boot on 2 separate disk, 1 fully dedicated to osx and one to windows.


Lync auto achieving correspondences in outlook "Conversation History" folder I'm using Lync 2011 and I wish to set rule to auto send all my correspondences to "conversation History" folder in outlook for achieving.

Currently, all my correspondences are located locally under the following dir on XML format:
/Users//Documents/Microsoft User Data/Microsoft Lync History

I've tried to follow the following link: Lync for Mac 2011 - Managed Preferences

According to this guide, I should have a plist file for all Lync configuration named /Library/Preferences/MicrosoftLyncRegistrationDB.plist , where i need to have a flag that tells Lync to auto-archive conversation in outlook.

However, i don't have this file, and it hasn't been created as part of the installation.

Perhaps I can get a sample of that file with the right flag to auto-store conversations.
thanks

Funny as it may sound, but I was manage to solve the problem just by logging in from another computer in my organization that runs windows. after the outlooks synched with Lync, I disconnected from the windows station, and re-connected to my original mac station - and it worked !


Strange padlock icon on status bar (not rotation-lock!) I recently noticed that a strange padlock icon with a "T" in it on my status bar. It is not rotation-lock tho. What exactly is this?

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.6

This icon does not appear in any of the devices running iOS 7 or 8.

It's probably caused by a jailbreak tweak. OpenNotifier is one such jailbreak tweak which lets you customise the status bar to indicate notifications from any app. The icon does not seem to relate to anything specific so it's quite impossible to tell what's it's indicating. Checking the tweak settings could tell what's that icon is indicating.


What are dos and don'ts when charging an iPhone / Apple device? Can I charge the phone all day long? I usually charge my phone all day and night long. All day long, because at work I connect my phone with my laptop, and all night long because when I go sleep, the phone will be charged overnight too.

But I got worried this may reduce battery life. So I went searching online, and the best article I can come up for best practice for charging Apple device is this. In the article, it just says that the device is smart, and can automatically stop the charge once it's almost full, to prevent overcharging. Does that mean it's actually completely okay for me to charge the phone all day long? I still can't find any article that can give me the straight answer to this question.

This questions risks inviting a lot of opinion, which also explains why it seems you can't find an article that can gives you a straight answer.

However, to try and keep this to the facts, I refer you firstly to what Apple has to say about their batteries. You should also read this.

In a nutshell, the key indisputable points are:

Charge your iPhone whenever you want. Many people believe you need to let them discharge 100% before recharging. This is not true.
Apple lithium-ion batteries use fast charging to reach 80% of their capacity and then switch to slower trickle charging to complete the charge.
Ambient temperature is one of the biggest factors in battery health/life. iPhones are designed to work at their best when ambient temperatures are between 0° to 35° C (32° to 95° F).
Store your iPhone where the temperature is between -20º and 45º C (-4º to 113º F). Don’t leave it in your car, because temperatures in parked cars can exceed 45º C (113º F).

Also, the latest research confirms one of the most important determinants of what ruins a battery is time. (You could purchase a brand new iPhone battery and leave it unused in its original packaging for five years and then find its capacity is nowhere near what it should be when you start using it)

Basically, you can continue to do as you have been without fear of causing damage to your iPhone battery.


Go to specific desktop on TotalSpaces I want to make the gesture "three fingers up" to to desktop 1, "three fingers left" go to desktop 2, and so on.

try JITouch https://www.jitouch.com
or
Better Touch Tool http://www.bettertouchtool.net


Is there a SVN software that'd allow to work with a remote copy? So far I've checked cornerstone and versionapp, neither of which allows to do that.

I've also tried mounting a remote disk (SFTP) using Transmit 2, but that resulted in an error when I've tried to checkout the SVN or add a working copy later on.

This may be a silly to suggest, but Nautilus on Ubuntu Linux has mounting of network drives, and ssh repositories and such built it very nicely. I used to edit code using this method with gedit. As for the mac, I would say that Transmit with its MacFUSE plugin is probably what I would use. What error are you getting?


How can I uninstall Safari Technology Preview? I installed Safari Technology Preview, but want to get rid of it now. Clicking and holding on Launchpad doesn't do the trick, STP "wiggles" without a cross. The download is an installer, so I'm wondering if anyone knows of an uninstaller. Else I guess I'll just dump it in the trash.

I used AppCleaner.app to make sure I don't have any leftovers. And it turned out there were a lot, namely crash reports, plists, diagnostics, cookies and more.

Just make sure no Safari files are included in the list of files about to be deleted. In my case there were no such files, it was either plugin related crash reports (e.g. VLC plugin) or other files clearly related to Safari Technology Preview.


Macbook Air 2015 fan at 7000rpm I have a brand new Macbook Air and since first start fan is pretty loud.
I've tried SMC restart but that didn't helped.
Now I have installed SMC FAN CONTROL and it's showing that fan speed is currently 6945rpm after the restart, and before it was at 7065rmp.

And fan is pretty loud since I press power button on.
Any idea how to fix it and is it even possible to be 7000rpm?

The difference between 6945rpm & 7065rmp might just be the noise in the measurement - these are both basically saying "7000 rpm".

Perhaps one of the thermal sensors isn't attached/set properly (although this would be unusual for a brand new computer), so it always runs at maximum fan speed just to be safe (which might be nominally 7000rpm in your case).

Since it's brand new I'd take it back and ask the Apple Store to check it.

Update:

I found out after years that DropBox (along with some other progs) would caused my fans to blaze.
Perhaps because I was syncing a massive work DBox drive, it was always computing at max power.

I quit DropBox and the fans start to slow down to a reasonable level. Quitting would DropBox drop the CPU temp and fan speed within ~15-30 sec, although quitting other programs (such as MS Office apps, NetFlix in a browser window) sometimes had some effect if DropBox was already closed.  Since I wanted DBox syncing on, and this indicated that the fans were just blazing due to actual CPU usage (not some hardware problem), I would just learn to live with it (or quit DBox when I wanted a quieter computer).


How to transfer purchases from iPhone into iTunes library While trying to sync my phone and update new information this came up.

  There are purchased items on the iPhone “iPhone” that have not been transferred to your iTunes library.  You should transfer these items to your iTunes library before updating this iPhone.  Are you sure you want to continue?

How do I do this?

You can do this in the iTunes menu at the top of the screen: File :: Devices :: Transfer purchases

As simple as that.


Keyboard shortcut to display music library in iTunes So assuming that I'm in a playlist I'd like to be able to type a keyboard shortcut and then have my music library display on the main panel and then tab to the search bar and look for a song.

Just use Tab.

If you start with the focus on the playlist and hit Tab, the focus will go to the sidebar. You can start typing Mus and the Music library will display in the main panel. Hit Tab again. The focus will jump to the search bar. Start typing the song you're looking for. Hit tab again and you're back in the main window where you started.

You can use OptionCommand + f to jump to the search box at any time regardless of where the focus is.

It sounds like you'd benefit from an app launcher with built-in iTunes launch/search navigation. Quicksilver and LaunchBar are both good choices.


How do I make invisible files (like bash profile) visible in the finder? question is in the title. There's some files that most Apple users don't need access to, but if you program you do need access to. in particular the bash profile. anyone know how to make these visible in the finder?

i'm using a macbook pro 10.6.8

All you need to do is set the AppleShowAllFiles preference to "true." From terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true

If you'd like to reverse the change, enter the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles false

For the changes to take effect, either restart the Finder or logout and back in.


macOS: Is /etc/fstab file deprecated? What is the recommended config file then? I am running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6. When I look for /etc/fstab file, I found /etc/fstab.hd file (no /etc/fstab file was present), and the file content says IGNORE THIS FILE.

But when I google, there are many articles still talking about /etc/fstab such as this link. So should I create and use /etc/fstab file? If it's not recommended, what is the recommended config file then?

afaik, fstab doesn't exist by default. You have to create one, first time.

From your linked instructions...

  7) Edit (or create) an fstab file by typing the following and pressing enter:
       sudo vifs

Will do precisely that, edit - or create - an fstab file.
Once you've got it set up, it ought to work as expected. I have mine set with ACLs so it will let me edit it without jumping through hoops every time. iirc, by default it's set to root/wheel.

fstab.hd seems to be a red herring, but no amount of Googling has turned up what it is or was used for :/


Most times when I install something it asks to be dragged into applications I kind of get the general idea from this question Why do I have to drag my new apps into the application folder? that I've just unpacked an archive I downloaded.
but I'm wanting to understand what the alternatives for me are and any benefits of dragging the unpacked application to a different "folder" of my choosing. Is there an advantage to creating separate task oriented folders at all?
Trying to get comfortable with my imac, but I keep forgetting that dragging into "applications" does not actually complete the installation. So why are the web download install experiences not just a one click and you are done activity? (I would use the store, but the app store far too often shows me other unrelated apps above the one I am looking for/ wastes time /distracts me too.) I feel I'm missing some obvious flexible decision point?

It's just a convention that adds a layer of security.
Some apps like VirtualBox, for example have an install script that will do this for you, so obviously it can be done. However, if you have to manually do this, there's no way an inadvertent double click will install the App.
Secondly, apps can be installed for both users system wide or for individual users (~/Applications) so this manual step gives you a choice of which Applications folder you wish to install it to.
“Completing the installation” is a misnomer here on macOS.  Unlike Program Files on Windows, you don’t have to have a special place to run an app. You can put that app bundle  almost anywhere (obviously not protected volumes) and have it work. You're only copying the the app bundle to the Applications folder for convenience.


'Latin (Helvetica)' Format in Word 2016 (High Sierra) Word 2016 for Mac is styling text as 'Normal + (Latin) Helvetica' when I paste it into a new document. I cannot remove the '(Latin) Helvetica' style by reapplying 'Normal' or directly formatting the text. How can I remove all instances of '(Latin) Helvetica' and substitute 'Normal'?
Below: 'Normal + (Latin) Helvetica' on the left; 'Normal' on the right.

I have solved problem by updating the version of Word. I've updated to 15.39; and the problem has solved.


How can I launch an Automator workflow upon import in iPhoto? I use iPhoto to import images from my iDevices and the photos go to the iPhoto library folder.
When I import from my DSLR, I place photos in a folder I organize myself by date and events.
I would like to automatically copy the imported photos in iPhoto to my folder so that all my photos can be found in the same place.
Is is possible to launch an automator workflow upon import in order to perform this task?

As you don't seem to use the iPhoto library at all, you should use Image Capture instead. It allows you to put your picture directly in a given folder.

You can also create a "transfer module" with automator which can be set to run after an import using Image Capture with imported pictures as input. Thanks to this, you can create an automator process to arrange them in folder as you want.

Image Capture is also scriptable with AppleScript, you might want to take a look at its dictionary if the GUI or Automator don't provide enough flexibility for you.

If you want your pictures both in iPhoto and in your folder, you can configure the automator process to add them in iPhoto once imported in your folder with Image Capture. Lots of workflow are possible, it depends and what you exactly want to achieve.


Accessing URL from Chrome and Safari goes well but terminal encounters `curl: (52) Empty reply from server`, what do I do? This python flask code hosts a simple web service
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/login', methods=['POST', 'GET'])
def login():
    if request.method == 'POST':
        user = request.form['nm']
        print(user)
        return redirect(url_for('user', usr=user))
    else:
        return render_template('login.html')

@app.route('/<usr>')
def user(usr):
    return f'{usr}'

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(host="0.0.0.0")

Here is the login.html
<form action="#" method="post">

<input type="text" name="nm" id="">

<input type="submit" value="submit">

</form>

My Mac's IP = 192.168.31.37
When I access the following URL from Chrome and Safari
http://192.168.31.37:5000/aa

everything goes as expected.
However, when I run this line from terminal
$ curl http://192.168.31.37:5000/aa

I always get this
curl: (52) Empty reply from server

I looked into a post but got no clue for this. What do I do?
not just this URL, curl in the terminal on my Mac gives this error for any URL.

The content you get from a server doesn't just depend on the URL. It can depend on the request method, the language preferences, user agent, cookies, etc.
You can ask your browser exactly what it sends to the server. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all have a command in their developer tools which copies something to the clipboard that you can paste in a shell window. In Safari, enable developer tools and open the Web Inspector on the current page. In Chrome or Firefox, press F12. In any of these browsers, in the developer tools, go to the Network tab, reload the page, select the first location and “Copy as cURL” from the context menu (it may be in a “Copy” submenu). Then paste the command in a terminal. The command will have the form
curl -X GET -H … http://192.168.31.37:5000/aa

Your curl command doesn't specify a method, so it's a GET by default. The form specifies a POST. So if you're trying to simulate entering the form, you'll need to pass -X POST to curl, and of course to pass the form data. To see what the browser sends with the form, open the developer tools' and switch to the ”Network“ tab before submitting the form, then use the “copy as cURL” command from the form URL.


migrating partition to a 2015 MacBook Pro I'm a developer and through the years with my MacBook Pro early 2011 I installed and configured a lot of stuff to help me in my job.
I would like to buy a new MacBook pro but don't want to spend days/weeks installing everything again.
Since the Mac migration assistant won't copy everything, is there a way to duplicate the partition from my old mac to a new MacBook Pro (which can't be opened) ?

edit:

by "can't be opened" I mean I can't take the hard drive and clone my current one with a third computer.

To my knownledge the migration assistant won't copy kernel modules for instance.

You can use Thunerbolt/FireWire to boot a Mac into Target-Mode to use it as a drive. Than you can clone it using disk utility, like you would clone a regular external drive. Next you'll (probably) need to reinstall OS X on the new MacBook Pro over that partition (so you have the latest OS X with all the drivers for the new device and whatnot), you can either do that by first creating a bootable USB (DiskMaker X is an easy solution for that) or by using Internet Recovery (boot the Mac while holding cmd+alt/option+R).


Using dictation in the command line (e.g. transcribe an audio recording to a text file) I have some audio recordings and would like to transcribe them into text files. I was wondering whether there is a command line tool that could use the built-in Dictation to do that? And if so, is there a known duration limit?

Dictation only works in standard text input UI widgets. Terminal applications typically don't use them.

The time limit per submission for processing is 30 seconds.


Allowing subdomains through restrictions iPad 6th gen I am trying to restrict access to websites on an iPad, but the domain that I wish to allow has embedded youtube videos that will not work. Is there a way to allow only the embedded videos to work, and not having to open up the entirety of youtube?

I tried allowing www.youtube.com/embed/ but that made youtube unrestricted.

Your title and body seem to be asking slightly different questions.

Subdomains are distinct in restrictions. That is, a.example.com and b.example.com are distinct, and a restriction on one does not affect the other.

Furthermore, subdomain restrictions override domain restrictions, such that if example.com is blocked but a.example.com is unblocked, then a.example.com will remain unblocked but b.example.com will be blocked.
Paths (a.k.a. URL prefixes) are not distinct. That is, example.com and example.com/a are both regarded as example.com. It's not possible to use iOS restrictions to independently block or unblock just one of these.


Restore an older version of iCloud keychain I saved an important password in an iCloud keychain, then deleted it there, and then forgot the password. Pretty dumb, I know.
Still, is it somehow possible to get an older version of that keychain that still keeps the password?

I just ran into the same situation and unfortunately no you cannot restore iCloud keychain from your own backup.

See Apple's support note on the topic https://support.apple.com/kb/PH20120, specifically:

  Passwords stored in the iCloud keychain are encrypted and stored on your computer and can’t be copied.

As you, I tried copying other keychain files and 'keychain-db' files, but none of the iCloud passwords were contained in those.