Is Mac OS X required to submit an app to the iOS App Store? We are about to develop an application using Phonegap, a cross platform mobile development tool, but they offer a service where they will build your applications and send you the compiled source code.

Can I submit the compiled source code to the App Store on a Windows-based PC?

No, the compiled code must be submitted via a Mac. One "workaround" is to install OS X into a virtual machine on Windows, but that violates the OS X user agreement. So yes, you'll need a Mac.


How to take music from cassette tapes to iPod So I have this large cardboard box full of hundreds of cassette tapes with music I absolutely positively had to buy in the 1980s and '90s. If I wanted to listen to the music contained on those tapes on my iPod, I imagine I could follow a process something like this:

Put new batteries in my old Walkman®
Connect some sort of cable between the headphone jack on my Walkman and the audio jack on my mid-2011 MacBook Air
Play tapes on the Walkman and record the incoming music on the MacBook Air using some sort of software.
Use iTunes Match to upgrade the quality of the resulting audio files.
Put the iTunes Match audio files onto my iPod.

I know this workflow would take a long time (each tape would have to play its full length), and I don't know if it would work.

So my questions is, what should I do? Again, my goal is to get music from my audiotapes to my iPod without having to repurchase all the tracks. The procedure outlined above is just my guess at a solution; if your answer doesn't look much like that process, but it doesn't cost much more than iTunes Match, I'm open to ideas. I'd love a solution that worked faster than my idea.

For step 3, I'd recommend Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro which has the ability to break up the incoming audio into tracks for you and import it directly into iTunes.
But otherwise, you've got to do pretty much exactly what you planned to do.


Should the Windows 10 Technical Preview work in BootCamp 5.1 on new Mac Pro (Desktop) Microsoft released the windows 10 technical preview . I am not 100% thrilled with the user experience of windows 8.1 so i wanted to try this out on my new Mac Pro (the garbage can black one). Does anyone know if it should work with the version of bootcamp 5.1 on this mac pro? I know i couldnt run windows 7 because the drivers werent written for it.  Apple doesnt specify Bootcamp and windows 10

Yes, Windows 10 works fine in Boot Camp, but the Boot Camp Support Software doesn't really launch correctly. In compatibility mode, it seems to work but I haven't extensively tested whether the settings actually make a difference. Technical Previews are generally 'buggy' too so problems may not solely be due to Boot Camp.


Macbook retina scaled resolution quality I have a 2nd gen Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch. For pretty much the whole time I have been running it at the scaled 1680 x 1050 resolution (1 up from the "best for retina" resolution).

After randomly playing around with the different resolution, I came to notice that the "best for retina" display is in fact better quality to my eye (so much so that its almost painful to use any of the scaled resolutions now):

I tested this by browsing and reading text at the two different resolutions, making sure to zoom to accommodate for size difference. I even tested it out reading smaller text on the higher scaled resolution with the same outcome.  The "best for retina" (1440 x 900) appears less fuzzy and significantly reduces eye strain.

My question is (aside from wondering if anybody else has noticed this): is there a technical reason that could account for what I am seeing?

Best for retina = every on-screen pixel is represented by four pixels on the display (1440 x 900 displayed on 2880 x 1800 pixels)

More space = every on-screen pixel is represented by 1.8 pixels on the display. (1920 x 1200 displayed on 2880 x 1800 pixels)

In between these two settings every on-screen pixel is represented by an uneven number of pixels on the display. Because there is no such thing as half a pixel, the drawing is not exact so there will be fuzziness. But the physical pixels on the retina display are supposed to smaller than we can perceive from a normal viewing distance so most people cannot notice it.

Maybe you are sitting closer to the screen than most people do. Maybe you are just perceiving a difference that is not really there. Maybe your text zooming is doing something weird. Or maybe you just have sharper eyes than most and are more sensitive to fuzziness.


Network service inactive/Unable to add Wi-Fi network on mac pro I have no idea what happened but my Wi-fi network has disappeared completely! The Wi-fi icon found on the top menu bar is gone. I'm unable to create a new Wi-fi network service but only able to connect to the internet via LAN cable. I've checked my system information and it says that my network service is inactive. Not sure if reformatting my laptop would make a difference. HELPPPP!

The + sign on the bottom left of the dialog is the button you want to press.

Or switch your location back to automatic if it isn't already.


MBP SSD upgrade - which settings to change? After replacing the harddisk drive in MacBook Pro  with a Solid State Disk I am wondering which settings I should change and how.

Thinking of things that are supposed to protect the SSD like

enabling TRIM support
disabling suspend to disk
disabling the shock sensor (if no standard harddrive is used anymore - does that make sense at all?)

Update:
Swapping the harddrive with a SSD was just the best decision - totally different, much better experience, almost like a new, much faster MacBook Pro.

Here you are some major points:

Reinstall your Mountain Lion.
Don’t run benchmarks on your new SSD

  Benchmarks usually write a lot of data to the disk (to test the write
  speed), wearing it out. So it is the best way how you can ruin your
  SSD even before you start using it. Don’t do it.

Enable TRIM

  OS X supports TRIM only for Apple-supplied SSD’s. If you want to have TRIM enabled with 3-rd party SSD drives - download Trim enabler from this site. Very experienced users may want to enable trim manually not using above mentioned enabler, here is the tutorial how it can be done by the hand.

Turn off local Time Machine snapshots [laptops only]

  There is no GUI switch to turn these local backups off, but it can easily be done on the command line. Just start Terminal.app and execute the following command: sudo tmutil disablelocal if you want to back to original settings use sudo tmutil enablelocal command

Turn off hibernation [laptops only]

  OS X saves all the memory to disk when entering sleep mode.The more RAM you have, the more gigabytes it writes to the disk every time you close the lid/put it to sleep. You can disable this feature via sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 command

Set noatime flag

  OS X by default records last access time for every file.  Every time you read a file, a write is made on the filesystem to record this action. There is no point in doing it and no side effects if you disable that by mounting the root filesystem with noatime flag set.  You can read more about it here and here:

Move user home directories to HDD [SSD+HDD only]

  This is only useful if you have both SSD as well as HDD in your Mac. You can move all the content of /Users folder to the HDD and create symbolic link from the SSD to it by running this 3 commands:
  sudo ditto /Users /Volumes/your_hdd_name/Users
  sudo mv /Users /Users.bak
  sudo ln -s /Volumes/your_hdd_name/Users /Users

Turn off sudden motion sensor [no HDD only]

  If SSD is the only drive in your Mac, there is no point in using the Sudden Motion Sensor. You can turn it off by  sudo pmset -a sms 0

Turn off hard drive sleep [no HDD only]

  Some websites mention SSD may freeze when the hard drive sleep feature is on, so it is recommended to turn it off. It can be done in the System Preferences->Power settings->Put hard disk to sleep.

The full article about above mentioned tweaks can be found here


Software for Mac OS X to view movies on my PS3 or Xbox 360 I want to see movies that are on my Mac on the screen connected to my PS3 or Xbox 360

Nullriver Software:

Medialink - PS3

Connect360 - Xbox360


Installing Windows on External SSD on MacBook Pro I am planning of installing windows following the tutorial given by 9to5mac in the link https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/14/install-windows-mac-external-ssd-drive-boot-camp-2020-video/
I want to do this using Samsung T7 SSD on my MacBook Pro(2020, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD)
I have a few questions about this if someone could answer:

How much of the RAM will the windows use when run using the SSD? all 16 gb?
If I do not have the SSD plugged in, will I be able to login to my MacOS smoothly?

I think you have a misconeception of how BootCamp and virtualization works.
BootCamp: Only on Intel Macs!
With BootCamp you can install Windows on your Mac. The guide you mentioned shows how to install it onto an external drive, since usually Apple only suggests partitioning your internal drive and installing Windows there.
After installing Windows on that drive or internally you have to shutdown your mac and press cmd + opt while starting up to access the boot menu and select the external drive, i.e. Windows. You will then only run Windows and can't switch back to macOS unless you shutdown Windows and restart into macOS.
With BootCamp you are running Windows natively on the Mac, i.e. your Mac basically works the exact same way as an equally spec'd "original" Windows Laptop. I.e. all hardware (including 16GB RAM) will be used. This is also the reason why you cant run Windows natively on an M1(ARM) Mac because it is written for x86 and not ARM.
Virtualization
There are multiple programs like Parrallels VMWare,... that allow installing a so called virtual machine. This virtualization allows you to run windows inside macOS, i.e. you basically have access to macOS and Windows at the same time. Windows will run in a seperate window, but if you make that fullscreen it looks like you are only running Windows.
However, since you are running Windows virtualized on top of macOS you have to assing a certain amount of RAM, CPU Cores,... to the virtual machine. This creates performance losses. In this case you would actually not be able to use all 16GB of RAM on Windows (but thats not what they explain in the linked article).

To briefly answer your questions:

If I do not have the SSD plugged in, will I be able to login to my MacOS smoothly?

Yes. You will simply boot into Mac and since there is no other startup device you dont have to choose macOS in the boot menu. Simply hit the startup button.

How much of the RAM will the windows use when run using the SSD? all 16 gb?

If you go the BootCamp route Windows will use all 16GB of RAM.


Adobe Premiere Pro 13.1.4 on Mojave, MacBook Pro 9.1 I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro mid 2012 (9.1) to Mojave. It has the 512mb NVIDA GT650 graphics card. When I'm using Premiere it gives me this error message.

    NVIDIA CUDA is not currently supported in macOS 10.14 or later.  If you are using an Apple-authorized NVIDIA GPU, you should be able to continue to use the Metal Mercury Playback Engine.
    URL: https://helpx.adobe.com/en/premiere-pro/kb/gpu-and-gpu-driver-requirements-for-premiere-pro.html

Video    NVIDIA Resman Kernel Extension v.12.0.0.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  NVIDIA CUDA is not currently supported in macOS 10.14 or later.  If you are using an Apple-authorized NVIDIA GPU, you should be able to continue to use the Metal Mercury Playback Engine.
    URL: https://helpx.adobe.com/en/premiere-pro/kb/gpu-and-gpu-driver-requirements-for-premiere-pro.html

Video    com.apple.driver.AppleIntelFramebufferCapri v.12.1.0.0

From what I understand my model is the last model that got Mojave. I would really like to push buying a new computer to the future as much as possible as it does everything I need.

Are there any solution to this? Should I just ignore it? Or would a downgrade to High Sierra be better?

Update:

I did a reinstall to High Sierra (from Mojave) and got the nvidia web drivers installed. Some of the adobe programs works on my old GPU but premiere doesnt (it requires 2gb memory). See: https://theblog.adobe.com/important-information-on-gpu-acceleration-with-cuda-and-apple-metal/

I still think my computer works better on High Sierra so the reinstall was worth it anyhow.

NVIDIA GPUs on macOS

This information only applies if you have an older iMac (2013 or older), an older MacBook Pro (2014 or older) or an older Mac Pro with an after-market NVIDIA GPU. Modern Apple computers use AMD GPUs and no separate driver updates are required.

For running CUDA with NVIDIA graphics:

You need to be running macOS 10.13.6 (most recent version of High Sierra).
mac0S 10.14 (Mojave) does not currently support CUDA
A current NVIDIA GPU with a minimum of 2 GB of memory
NVIDIA display driver version 387.10.10.10.40.105.

In this case if you don't want to buy new hardware, downgrading to High Sierra would be a better option.

Sad but True.


Using symbolic link not working to back up iPhone directly to non-default location There are quite a few questions about this and the answer usually involves symbolically linking the backup file to the external drive. (E.g. Is it possible to backup iOS devices to an external drive? or Backup iPhone to external drive on Mac)

The command I ran was

ln -s /Volumes/<externaldrive>/iOSBackup/Backup /Users/<username>/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

But when I try to backup, I get:

To save space I stopped doing local backups a long time ago, so there is no backup in my Mobile Sync/Backup folder to begin with which may complicate things. When I go to Devices Preferences, there is no backup to delete (as expected):

It appears that the symlink process no longer works (the questions all seem to be from 3 years ago), or perhaps I've not done it correctly.

Edited to remove a wrong suggestion.

I have not witnessed any problems making backups while symlinking the MobileSync/Backup directory, but I have seen many problems restoring the backups with the symlink setup. With that said, it's possible the issue extends to making the backups now too. That would be interesting to verify.


Can I upgrade RAM on an early 2014 Macbook Pro with Retina display? I bought a Macbook Pro with Retina display (4GB RAM, 128GB SSD) in April.

It keeps freezing and about every 3 days, and I need to upgrade the RAM.

Am I able to upgrade the RAM on this machine to 8GB or 16GB?

No, you cannot add more RAM.

Open up Activity monitor, located in the Utilities folder of the Applications folder (or just search using Spotlight)

/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor

Go to the memory tab and check out the memory pressure and swap used. If the memory pressure is too high (yellow/red graph) you can figure out which applications are using the most memory by going to the View menu and choosing Columns -> Real Memory. Sort applications by the newly added Real Memory column and you will see which applications/processes are taking the most memory and slowing/freezing your computer.


iTunes only showing Purchased Music My iTunes is suddenly only showing music purchased through iTunes.  I have tried renaming the files per as mentioned on this Apple Support Communities thread and had no luck.  I am also not using iTunes Match.

In iTunes go to "File" -> "Import Folders" then simply select all the folders from your "iTunes Music". They will be sent to your library!


MacBook Pro 2016: Keyboard key stuck – how to remove key? Regularly different keys on my new MacBook Pro (2016) are stuck. I assume little pieces of dirt or small crumbs interfere with the mechanics. With older Mac keyboards, I occasionally removed individual keys for cleaning. As the keyboard of the current model was redesigned, it seems much harder to do so now and I can’t find any tutorials.

So: How do I remove (and reinstall) a key of a MacBook Pro (2016)?

Yes, it is possible to remove the keys safely and clean them.

But first, it is important to know how it looks below the keycap in order to not damage anything:

The key cap is attached to the mechanism by two claws and two hooks. the hooks (left side of the image) are at the bottom of the cap and they would break if you lever up the cap from there. The top side is held by claws (right side of the image) which can be unclipped.

The butterfly mechanism has a round surface on both sides that touch the whole button cap. That is where the problem comes from: since there is a big contact area it can stick together easily (fluids) or become clogged. I actually spilled whine into my keyboard and many keys were affected, but I did not break a single one doing it as follows. You will have to lever the top side of this mechanism up, gently, to unattach the keycap.

So, just be careful and do exactly as described below!

First, take a thin tool (a needle works fine, but I guess a thin plastic tool is better), squeeze it into the gap above the key and gently lever it up, until you can reach below the rim of the cap with a second tool or your fingernail.
The first tool will likely be under the butterfly hinge which is why you have to release that one and make sure you are only just under the cap with the second one (short fingernail is the safest option). Now lever up (with the second one/your fingernail!) until it pops of with a slight clicking sound.
Now you have to untangle the hooks at the bottom side. Hold up the top side just a bit and very gently wiggle the key around, left right up down, until it is loose. Do this really gently! It should not make a clicking sound or anything since it isn't really attached to the hinge!
I mostly just cleaned the top side of the hinges with my finger or a soft cloth, but you can reach underneath the hinges, if necessary, with a fine brush.
To reattach the keycap, slide the hooks underneath the cap back into place from bottom to top. Then press the key (slightly upwards, that is in the direction of the screen, so that the hooks stay in place) until the top clips back in again.

There you go.


Scilab installed but application does not start I have installed Scilab a few weeks ago, and when I tried it for the first time it worked, but now when I try to run it, it seems it will open (it jumps) the application, but nothing happens actually.

What could be the problem and how can I solve it?

If you are right about it being OS compatibility then yes installing the latest version which works fine for me on Yosemite should work.

To answer your question about the upgrade: If I remember correctly scilab is a standard Mac install via a .dmg and drag the application to the Applications folder.

If this is the case then just download the latest .dmg from here - http://www.scilab.org/download/5.5.1 (make sure to download the one verified for 10.10), mount it and copy the application to the Applications folder overwriting the previous version. And now it should work. Let  me know if it doesn't.


Can I update my iPad to 9.3.1? Can I update my iPad if it hasn't been done for a couple of years to 9.3.1? I haven't updated in a long time and it's currently at 7.1.2.

It's not the same as your but I have tried mine just few days back... it's iOS 8 and iPad3.  It was okay but had to be connected to iTunes (USB).

Over the air had problems.
Using non-original cables will also cause issues (my previous experiences).

Just make sure you make a backup as there is a big chance it will fail and you have no choice but to restore from backup which will first update your iPad to the latest OS then re-download the software and data.


How much can iTunes download on my MacBook? Not talking about iCloud How many gigabytes does iTunes occupy on MacBook? I am downloading a lot my CDs. Is there a limit? How can I see if I'm getting too close to full capacity?

You are only constrained by the storage capacity available on your MacBooks internal storage.

iTunes creates its library for storing media and metadata in ~/Music/iTunes directory by default.


Does Time Machine fix ownership of files when restoring from another Mac? My computer recently crashed with no backup of Time Machine. I'm having issues getting a clean install to install on my hard drive (it won't let me do a fresh install from my Boot USB disk).

I am however having more luck using a Time Machine backup from my girlfriends MacBook Pro.

Am I going to run into any ownership issues when restoring Lion from another computer its Time Machine backup?

As far as I can tell, if you use Migration Assistant (either the standalone application or during the installation of OSX) to move files from Time Machine to any computer there is no problem. I've moved users before from one computer to the other. If you copy directly from the hard drive you might run into issues, but Migration Assistant does the trick.


Password controlled iphone erase application? At present you can set your phone to erase when the correct password is not entered N times in a row.  10 I think by default.

Is there a way to configure an immediate erase?  E.g.

My unlock code is 1234, my erase code is 4321.

So if I am fumble fingered and type 2468 I get try again

but if the border crossing asks me for my password, I tell them 4321 and the phone immediately starts to erase.

Currently there is no feature for this in iOS. For an improvement over the erase after 10 incorrect passcodes, you can use Apple Configurator to set this to a number between 2 and 10.

I haven't been able to find a way to do this with jailbreaking either, since there doesn't seem to be any actions or such to use the Erase Content and Settings option, however you could set up an Activator action to run a variety of ‘rm’ commands such as rm -rf /private/var/mobile which may be suitable depending on what you are going for.


Disk space lost after shrinking partition I have my SSD partitioned into two 128 GB disks. I was managing my disk space and decided to shrink one of my partitions (the one with Mavericks) because it had more free disk space, in order to transfer this space into my main drive (the one with El Capitan).

As I couldn't just transfer space from Mavericks to El Capitan I shrank my Mavericks partition, but then my total disk space was reduced. I did everything I could without success.

Macbook Pro Retina Late 2013 13" (256 GB SSD)

Thanks!

Try this:

Reboot Into recoverymode
Select disk utility
First try to use first aid on your drive
And then use first aid on each partition.


Unable to view uploaded photos/videos on iCloud.com I can see that my photos/videos are backed up to iCloud, however, when I log into icloud.com to view them from my PC, the images do not populate.

The app has been installed onto my computer.

If you have made a backup of your device and the photos it doesn't work. For synchronisation of your photos you need to use iCloud Photo Library which was introduced with iOS 8.


Does PhotoStream copy videos too or just still photos? If I use PhotoStream to sync photos from an iOS device and my Mac, will it transfer videos too? Are the higher resolution videos from the new iPad treated any differently than other devices?

The iCloud Photo Stream FAQ says no - photos only.


How do I record FaceTime i wish to record FaceTime events when communicating with my family on my iPad. How do I do this? I can find no information about how this maybe done.

If you have a Mac you can connect your iPad to, it's fairly straightforward to record the iPad's video output in Quicktime -- although you might just as well use Quicktime to screen record from the Mac's copy of FaceTime in that case.

Last I checked, Apple still doesn't allow general-purpose screen recording apps in the app store (apps in the Games category can do it, but not elsewhere).

There are a few apps which claim to allow you to do screen recordings on the device without jailbreaking, but all the ones I've seen install via alternative mechanisms and so 'buyer beware', as it were. I haven't tested personally.

Edited to add:

@Allan To screen record your iOS device on a Mac is pretty straightforward, provided you have the necessary software versions (iOS 8 or later, macOS Yosemite/10.10 or later):

Connect your iOS device to your Mac using a Lightning cable
Open Quicktime (player) on your Mac and from the File menu, select
"New Movie Recording".
A window will appear, which will likely default to showing you the
live view from your webcam. Click the dropdown button by the red
record button, and in the list of sources you'll see the name of your
iOS device (e.g. Derek's iPhone) listed under both the Camera and
Microphone sections of the input sources list. Select it in both
places.
You should now see your iOS device screen mirrored on the Mac (you
may need to unlock your device and 'trust' the Mac if you've not
connected before).
Press the record button in Quicktime to get started.

Hope that helps.


How to remove an iTunes Wi-Fi Sync host I open settings, pick General, iTunes Wi-Fi Sync, and it has two hosts listed.  The older host does not exist any more.  The newer host says "Books" so I assume it is just syncing Books and not the rest of the iPhone's data.

How can I remove the older host and get all of my data synced to the newer host?

iOS 10.3.1 on an iPad Mini 2

In order to start wifi syncing with a new computer, you must first attach your iPad, over your charging cable, to the computer with iTunes running. Then select 'Sync this iPad over Wifi' in the Options in the iPad Summary screen in iTunes.

To get rid of a sync 'host', you need to connect your iPad to iTunes on the host, then deselect 'Sync this ipad over wifi' in the Options of the iPad Summary of iTunes.

Having one 'host' does not impact the ability to sync over wifi to another one. The iPad will sync with whatever machine is online and available over wifi. If the older host no longer exists, this won't impact syncing your iPad to the new computer at all, and other than connecting it to that computer, there is no way to remove that item on your Ipad.


OS X application shortcut folder in dock and icon updates after installation Here is the setup: I have the Applications folder right in the dock, which is the default after installation afaik.

Now I have a custom build DMG with an application in there which I drag&drop into the Application folder. When I open the Application folder from the dock and look for the newly installed app, it does not have the application icon it should.

The App is custom build as well. It uses the info.plist to specify the icon file to be used - which is called cc.icns and located in the Contents/Resources folder

I think this might be a problem with the icon cache and can be resolved by logout/login - a solution that I'm not looking for. Afaik there are apps that do not have this problem. (Right? Wrong?)

Any suggestions on this?

If you want to avoid the Login/Logout, restarting the dock should be enough: killall Dock from the Terminal should be enough.


New smart folder renamed "All My Files" folder. How to revert? I created a new Smart Folder with the Kind is Document filter. I then sorted by Date Last Opened and saved the search as Recents.

It seems like doing so has overwritten the default "All My Files" folder:

Q: How do I revert this?

It looks like the smart folder distributed with macOS is located at /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/MyLibraries/myDocuments.cannedSearch.

In Finder it's shown as Recents, even though the file on disk is called myDocuments.cannedSearch.

I can't rename this through Finder:

Opening myDocuments.cannedSearch in TextMate allows me to view the .strings files, which contain the CFBundleDisplayName key with "Recents" as the value:

It looks like macOS has also translated this:

[

I don't really know where to look now to make this change in a way that won't break Finder.

You did not tag an OS version, but MacOS Mojave ships by default with a Recents folder in the Finder sidebar and Go menu. There is by default no All My Files folder now. You have not overwritten anything.

(Or else, you overwrote mine too)


Disable the physical Silent Mode switch on iPhone SE 2020? I keep missing calls because the Silent Mode hardware toggle (outside left edge) keeps flipping inadvertently.
 Is there a way to disable that switch, to prevent my iPhone SE from ever going into silent mode?
When I need silence, I can simply shutdown the iPhone.

No

 Is there a way to disable that switch, to prevent my iPhone SE from ever going into silent mode?

There is no way to disable the working of the physical silent switch.
Flash for alerts
If you keep missing calls due to the switch inadvertently getting flipped, you may consider enabling LED Flash for Alerts, a setting that flashes the iPhone camera's flashlight for alerts.
This may help with catching your attention if the iPhone is on silent mode either intentionally or inadvertently.
In iOS 13, the setting can be enabled by going to Settings app → Accessibility → Audio/Visual → LED Flash for Alerts.

Flash only in Silent Mode
While this setting has been around for a long while in iOS, an interesting enhancement to the setting introduced in iOS 13 is the ability to have your iPhone's LED flash only when it's in silent mode.


Zip Utility with encryption option Is there any good zip application for Mac OS X similar to 7-Zip (Windows only) which is free, compatible with many formats, and offers encryption options?

Check out Keka - the free Max OS X file archiver

  With 7z and Zip you will have the
  opportunity to create password
  encrypted files to better protect your
  privacy. It's as easy as write your
  password in the box, and drag and drop
  files to Keka in the dock.

Another way is to run the command in your Terminal.app:

$ zip -e myzip.zip <files>

After the command you will be prompted for a password. Instead of the single files you can specify a folder, too.

I don't know of any more apps that allow you to create archives with many formats. For decrompression there are multiple great apps (The Unarchiver, Stuffit Expander).
You can give 7zipX a try, too.

Some paid alternatives:

BetterZip
StuffIt
Archiver


MacBook Air Won't Boot * I did an update on my Macbook Retina 13" to the most recent version of Sierra OS X. The computer never gets past the Apple logo (black screen with a full progress bar). *  This is a copy of the problem previously written up in November.  None of the solutions worked nor a few others.

I have maybe the solution, but it requires a USB key and an other computer on macOS. The solution consists to create a bootable USB key.
You can find here a good tutorial: Bootable USB key macOS Sierra - MacWorld
I had this problem too when I installed macOS Sierra (but after I downgraded because my CPU was overheating). I hope it will work for you


TeX on Arm Infrastructure I am new to the macOS and the apple ecosystem in general. For research purposes I need to install a TexLive distribution on my new machine (MacBook Air M1) which I think can be done in at least two ways :

Using HomeBrew or similar platform
Using MacTeX

My questions :-
A. I will be using HB later on (and most probably with /usr/local as install directory) so should I install TeX using HB or MacTeX?
B. On the official website of MacTeX I read that they will release MacTeX with Arm support around April 2021 but on the linked page above they have provided MacTeX-2020-Universal.pkg which is supposed to run natively on Arm without Rosetta support. So, I am a little confused here as to what the universal package actually is.
C. Also, if I install using MacTeX+MacTeXUniversal and in April 2021 I want to upgrade will I have to delete everything and install from scratch?

As it says on https://www.tug.org/mactex/aboutarm.html

After installing MacTeX-2020-Universal, all front ends and the command line programs will automatically use Arm binaries on Arm machines and Intel binaries on Intel machines.

so if you start from scratch and want a working TeX installation which runs natively just install the Universal package and you are all set. The remarks about the 2021 version providing full ARM support most probably refers to extended testing and maybe adapting some programs to make better use of ARM.
As for upgrading to 2021 next year, this will work the same way as before: The 2021 package will install into its own directory within /usr/local/texlive and you can then switch to the new version with the TeX Live Utility. Any user-installed styles and fonts are in /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local so they will remain available.
PS: Using Homebrew has the advantage of updating TeXLive automatically whenever you update your Homebrew installation. OTOH Homebrew currently is still transitioning to ARM so IMHO it's better to install MacTeX directly and run tlmgr update --self; tlmgr update --all every few weeks to keep it updated.


iphone restarts every 2 minutes I have an iPhone 3GS, jailbroken, on iOS 5.0.1 . Everything was working great till this morning, where when I woke up I noticed that the device had no WiFi. Sometimes sbSettings crash so I rebooted the phone. From that time on, the phone restarts every 2 minutes , has no signal "no service" , the Wi-Fi and Bluetoooth in the settings are -greyed out- that means I cant select them.

I cant even close the device, as when I do it automatically restarts! The only way I found to finally close it was to plug in to my pc, put it in airplane mode and then shut it down. Like this it remains closed.

I used iPhone Enterprise Configuration app to get the logs from the phone the 2 minutes that it stays open , before it restarts again.
The console logs .

I read some dozens of forums with people with the same problem and i tries solutions, like putting the phone on aeroplane mode, restart and then back to normal, i also tried opening data-3g, take off the sim and then restart the phone and put the sim back again, but nothing seems to work.

Has anyone ever encountered something like this before? My problem can actually be exactly described here .

It seems like your iOS software might be corrupted. I would suggest you to backup your iPhone through iTunes (no worries, iTunes doesn't detect whether your device is jailbroken) and restore your device to factory settings, restore from your backup and jailbreak again. If everything goes smoothly, try to be careful when adding sources or downloading apps and tweaks, because if you add untrusted sources, viruses might be downloaded and since file viewing is possible on a jailbroken device by users, viruses can too.

If you're afraid to lose your jailbreak settings and any configurations you have made or you have bought paid apps, I recommend you to backup all of your apps and tweaks by downloading OpenBackup via Cydia. I doubt you'll be able to do all that because the process of downloading and installing the app, and backing up the contents take more than 2 minutes. I was using iOS 5 when I was tempted to upgrade to iOS 6 and my iPhone was "bricked", so I had to give up my jailbreak and restored my iPhone (same as yours that time, iPhone 3GS). Few months later I bought an iPhone 4S and tried to jailbreak it and I was happy to realize that my jailbreak settings were still there! So I hope when you restore your iPhone and jailbreak again it will have all your jailbreak settings.

Hope this helps.


How do I turn off push notifications without turning off notifications in iOS 6? I want to turn off push notifications for a single app (Skype, in this case) because I accidentally said "Yes" when it prompted me to receive push notifications.

I do not want to turn off notifications.  When I have Skype open, I want to receive notifications.  When Skype is closed, I do not want to receive notifications.  My understanding is that push notifications are the type that come when the app is closed.

How can I do this?

Update - clarification

I want to receive notifications from Skype, but only when Skype is running.

Go to Settings > Notifications. Scroll down until you find Skype and tap on it. Then you'll be able to set the notification settings for that app without turning notifications off entirely.


Move Large, Frequent files closer to center of HDD Is there a native/third-party utility (or native trick) to move large, frequently-used files closer to the center of the disk?

I was under the impression that the OS tried to automatically optimize frequently used files to be closer on the center of the disk, but I don't know how "frequent" is "frequent enough" and would like to force an entire project directory to be moved closer on disk.

The reason: I'm using Logic Pro for several projects, but on one particular project, I keep tapping out the Disk Activity (as evidenced by "System Overload" messages from Logic and spikes in the Disk Activity view of Activity Monitor).

I've seen some users of Logic and Final Cut have performance improvements after a defrag (using iDefrag), but was wondering if there were any other options other than a forced defrag.

Suggestion: Could copying the entire project directory to an external drive, rewriting it to the local disk as a single I/O operation, and then waiting for the file system to index/optimize it help? Or would that reset the access "frequency" and actually hurt?

Specs of machine in question:

OS X 10.7.4
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200
2.66 GHz i7 MacBook Pro
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

There’s not much difference between moving the files to the centre of the HD or towards the periphery. The centre you see in visual representations is just that, a rectangular visual representation of your circular. Physically, the file may be anywhere on the disk.

Deleting and rewriting the file won’t help much, as the space on your disk is already fragmented. Though I have not confirmed it, OS X defragments files below 20 MB automatically. Audio and Video files tend to be large than 20 MB, and are highly fragmented.

Assuming you are talking about defragmenting the disk, I highly recommend iDefrag. I use it every 6 months, and using the computer after the defrag is like switching from an old 56k modem to Google’s fibre optics.


OS stops receiving left (primary) mouse click I've got a frustrating problem that seems to have cropped up within the last two months or so.

Infrequently, the left (primary) click stops registering with the OS, so I can't really click on anything.  My mouse moves around the screen, I can right (secondary) click, but I just can't perform a primary click.

I'm running 10.6.8 on an Early 2011 MacBook Pro (http://support.apple.com/kb/SP619). The click stops registering both on the trackpad and my Magic Mouse.

A restart solves the problem.

Any ideas?

Double check that you don't have any stuck keys on your keyboard by testing all the keys, particularly the modifiers (shift, option, etc).
Make sure there aren't any wizards, alerts, or dialogs hidden behind existing windows or in other spaces (this one gets me often, especially running the odd mix of programs I use daily).


Why I cannot use the expose and launchpad from the touch bar? Here is an image of the touch bar layout

I normally connect my MBP to two external monitors. When I try to use the expose and launchpad (The third and forth icons from the left) from the touch bar, there is no reaction at all.

The behaviour does not change when I disconnect the usb-c to display port cables.

But if I use CTRL+UP, I can activate expose. I can also access launchpad via the Dock.

Did I miss any configuration?

The hardware is MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017)

Something similar happened with me yesterday, I started using a brand new MBP, opened the App Store and my Touch Bar showed me five tabs - Featured, Top Charts, Categories, Purchased, Updates - out of which the first tab was ofcourse, highlighted but when I clicked on any of the other 4 tabs, it just wouldn't make the switch. I even tried shutting the app and restarting but it didn't work.

Few minutes later, I tried again and it worked so maybe it was just a software glitch and Apple probably still needs to fix some bugs. Who knows if it's the same with your Touch Bar? I just tried and my Expose & Launchpad are working fine, so maybe if you give your machine a reboot or just try again after sometime it might work.

Hope this helps.


Username.conf rules to fix 403 error I am setting up a webserver but I am currently receiving a 403 error when browsing to Localhost. I am setting up "username.conf" and I have a couple of questions:

Since I am not logged in as a user that is not the admin, do I need to rename the username.conf file to the specific user's name?
The path can be something custom like this?

<Directory "/Users/niccolomineo/Creative Cloud Files/dev/">

This is what is reported in the log

[Sat Aug 02 16:30:34.481180 2014] [autoindex:error] [pid 392] [client ::1:49541] AH01276: Cannot serve directory /Library/WebServer/Documents/: No matching DirectoryIndex (index.html) found, and server-generated directory index forbidden by Options directive

Clearly, for some reason, the path he's trying to serve is still the default one, but I specified a custom one. It is like I cannot override it. How can I fix this?

Create the file /etc/apache2/users/niccolomineo.conf and copy the following into the file...

<Directory "/Users/niccolomineo/Creative Cloud Files/dev/">
    Options Indexes MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

Then restart apache sudo apachectl restart and you should find your pages at http://localhost/~niccolomineo.


How to prevent Mail creating a local Sent Messages folder I have a Gmail account in Mail.app that behaves a bit weird: whenever I send an email, Mail tells me that it created a local "Sent Messages" folder and changed my settings.

The sent email messages are correctly saved in the Sent Items on the Gmail server (this is the behavior I want), but they are also saved in this local folder. Is there a way to prevent Mail creating this local folder and save sent messages only on the server?

Select Gmail's Sent folder, then go to Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Sent.


Resetting an AppleID password when you don't have access to an IOS device Okay, here is a kafkaesque situation:

A friend of mine broke her iPhone 7, to an extent that she can't even read the screen or reliably press it. She is setting up a borrowed iPhone 4S (with iOS 8)... but when introducing her iCloud credentials, the phone asks her for a verification code. This code is sent to her old iPhone... but since it's screen is broken, she can't read the code.

I've been trying to help her, but all the methods I've found (iforgot.apple.com, use "Find my iPhone" in my own phone) involved receiving a passcode in her old iPhone... the one that she where can't read the screen. The only alternative seems to initiate an account recovery, which may take days, and from what I've read (https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-reset-your-apple-id-password/2/) also involves receiving a verification code in the iPhone.

My friend does have a Mac signed into iCloud, and also access to the email address of her iCloud account. Isn't there a way to receive the verification code in the Mac, or through email? Maybe I'm missing it, but I haven't been able to find any way.

Have her put the SIM card of the iPhone 7 into the iPhone 4s and then when the 4s asks her for the code, she can say "Didn't receive code" and then chose the option "Text me" and it will text her the code if that number is her trusted number and if the number is still active.

Then she can put that trusted number into her iPhone 4s. Once she does that she needs to go to www.appleid.apple.com and then sign into her account and then add a new trusted number. Also make sure that she is really signed into iCLoud on her Mac. You can click on the Apple Logo -> System Preferences -> iCloud and then see if it asks her to sign in or enter her password. If not, then she is signed in.

If she is in the setup process, she needs to setup the iPhone as new (Apps & Data screen), and then when it asks her to sign in, DON'T SIGN IN. Choose below it "Forgot password or don't have an Apple ID?". On the next page choose "Setup Later in Settings" and it will let her setup the iPhone without an Apple ID so she can get the code she needs.

Let me know if you have any questions!


How to ensure Time-Machine can rollback to a specific-date backup? (not deleting it) I just upgraded from El Captain to Mojave and I have a Time Machine backup of the instant before starting the upgrade.

I need to be able to eventually restore the previous operative system, but I am afraid that that backup could be removed in order to make space for newer backups.

How can I "mark it" and ensure that that specific backup will not be discarded?

There is no way of marking a TM snapshot as being particularly important.

However, as long as the TM disk isn't full, then TM should not normally delete the snapshot that accounts for a complete OS change. (Assuming that you had the old OS on your disk for more than 1 month.)

TM will start deleting the oldest snapshots if the drive is full, to make space for the newest ones.

If you want to make absolutely certain, you would do well to use an app like SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner to make a clone disk image, which you can restore at a later time. (But you needed to do this before upgrading.)

Bear in mind that when you roll the whole disk back, you will lose any changes to your data made since the rollback date. IMAP servers will handle changes to email, but documents and other files will need to be restored by other means.


Cannot set up Touch ID, unlock System Preferences, or reinstall Big Sur [2020 Intel MBA i3] Today I have upgraded my 2020 Intel MacBook Air to Big Sur (11.1). Since upgrading, I am unable to unlock the "lock" in the System Preferences panels that require it (the window "jiggles" even with the right password) and I am unable to set up Touch ID (after entering the password it doesn't prompt me to register a new fingerprint).
I saw in other answers that others used the resetpassword utility from Recovery mode, so I did this too. The problem persisted even after changing the password. The linked answer recommends creating a new admin user, but I cannot do that as I can't unlock the "padlock" in System Preferences to do so. I also reset NVRAM to no avail.
Ultimately, I chose to reinstall Big Sur from recovery, but entering the password to unlock the disk does not "do" anything, as in, the password entry window simply fades out but the installation does not move forward and I am still able to click on the "unlock" button again.
I was wondering if anyone knew how I can solve this issue. Since the computer is relatively new, I don't mind completely resetting it.
Thank you very much.

Answering my own question, but... resetting the SMC (as explained here https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201295) ended up doing the trick for me.


Is there a native/cocoa REST client for Mac OS X? I'm looking for a cocoa REST client for the OS X. I prefer something native so that I'm not in the terminal interface and not looking for any browser extensions.

Here's one client:

http://code.google.com/p/cocoa-rest-client/


Why is ~/.zprofile always sourced on every interactive session? from zsh document, ~/.zprofile should only be sourced at login shell, and should NOT be sourced at every interactive session (for example, a new tab in a terminal).

I am running MacOS Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91).

But I can confirm that my ~/.zprofile is sourced at every interactive session (a new tab). Why is that? Is this a bug? How to stop this incorrect behavior?

Each Terminal tab is a login session on macOS by default. You can run w to see that each tab/tty running a shell has a process name starting with - attached to it (which indicates a login shell).
Additional information (related to bash, but the same is applicable to other shells)

What options does Terminal pass to bash on startup?
Why doesn't .bashrc run automatically? (some of the answers explain details)
What are the differences between /usr/bin/login and /usr/bin/bash?
Why doesn't Mac OS X source ~/.bashrc?

PS: If I remember correctly we have a Q&A which goes into even more detail on this including a rationale why macOS considers each Terminal window/tab to be a login shell. I didn't find it yet though...


How do I install JDK 1.6 in Mavericks? When I upgrade to Mavericks, it uninstalls Java 1.6. I can install Java 7, but for some applications and development work, I still need access to Java 6. How can I reinstall Java 6 in Mavericks?

Apple docs generally recommend downloading Java directly from Oracle, but I don't see a Mac version listed on the Oracle download page for Java SE 6.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javasebusiness/downloads/java-archive-downloads-javase6-419409.html#jdk-6u45-oth-JPR

Update

I was able to install parts of Java 6, with an Apple Support update. But Maven is still missing.

$ specs java os
Specs:

specs 0.7
https://github.com/mcandre/specs#readme

mvn --version
mvn not found

echo $CLASSPATH

echo $JAVA_HOME
/Library/Java/Home

javac -version
javac 1.6.0_65

java -version
java version "1.6.0_65"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode)

system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType | grep 'System Version'
      System Version: OS X 10.9 (13A603)

Update 2

I was able to install Maven with Homebrew:

$ brew install maven
$ mvn --version
Apache Maven 3.1.1 (0728685237757ffbf44136acec0402957f723d9a; 2013-09-17 11:22:22-0400)
Maven home: /usr/local/Cellar/maven/3.1.1/libexec
Java version: 1.6.0_65, vendor: Apple Inc.
Java home: /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: MacRoman
OS name: "mac os x", version: "10.9", arch: "x86_64", family: "mac"

You can download Java SE 6 for OS X from here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572

For Maven support you can use brew (as stated above) or, if you don't want to install brew just for Maven support, you can download it directly from maven.apache.org. Here's the steps I took to get Maven setup on a fresh install of Mavericks:

curl -O http://apache.tradebit.com/pub/maven/maven-3/3.1.1/binaries/apache-maven-3.1.1-bin.tar.gz
sudo mkdir /usr/local
cd /usr/local
sudo tar -xf ~/apache-maven-3.1.1-bin.tar.gz
echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/apache-maven-3.1.1/bin" >> .profile
echo "export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home" >> .profile


Use downloaded picture for login image For macOS Sierra I am trying to change the login image. I am going to System Preferences → Users & Groups and clicking on the edit button on the image.

An image selection popup appears. I have to add an image to any of the location so that I can select that images (I downloaded from internet) but none of the location is accessible.

There are locations like "Photo Booth" "iPhoto" "Photos" etc but I couldn't find the location where I can copy my newly downloaded picture.

Within the Users & Groups panel, click and drag the image onto the profile picture circle.


ios devices screen overview I am really reckless and just dropped my ipod touch second time in past year and the screen is broken, I am not very keen on trying to replace it with flat fee, bacause I am sure it would happen again, what i want to ask is how resilient are the screens of iphone devices : iphone 3gs or iphone 4s, I am not sure about 3gs but it is fairly cheap where I live and 4s is too expensive howeever I already have shelved a lot of money trying to replace my ipod touch, I have a two year old wp7 device which is showing it's age so can anyone suggest a screen comparison, or buying a conver , protector is the last resort.

The strength of the screen was greatly improved in the 4s. The 3Gs broke quite easily and alot of people weren't happy with this. My 4s has taken a hammering and still looks (almost) as good as new.


Format new SSD as OS X Extended (Journaled) from PC I’ve just got a new hard drive but my Mac won’t accept it as boot drive unless it’s formatted in a macOS readable format - it’s simply not readable by the volatile system (which is what’s run if no OS is found). I’ve ordered a USB to SATA cable to format the drive from another Mac, but can I format the drive, as OS X extended journaled, in Windows?

tl:dr --> How do I format (or partition) a clean SSD as OS X Extended (Journaled), as opposed to exFAT etc., from a PC?

Windows is able to write data to create a HFS+ disk.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/format-disk-hfs-mac-49229.html

Edit: The aim was to produce a disk in Windows that can be read as a boot drive by the volatile OS X system- this works and thus is a valid solution


File can't be moved by root on OS X I tried to move a few files to a subfolder on OS X. One refused to move. It said Operation not permitted. I tried again as root:

$ sudo mv file subfolder/
mv: rename file to subfolder/file: Operation not permitted
$ sudo mv file filex
mv: rename file to filex: Operation not permitted
$ lsattr file
lsattr: Inappropriate ioctl for device While reading flags on file

I tried lsattr on other files; all files I tried gave me the same message: Inappropriate ioctl for device While reading...

Coming from Linux, I did not know about flags so here is the output of ls -leO@ file:

$ ls -leO@ file otherfile
-rwxrwxrwx  1 eeytan  staff  uchg 79549 Nov 11  2010 file
-rw-r--r--  1 eeytan  staff  -     5071 Sep  7 02:37 otherfile

I tried the OS X Disk Utility; it said there were no errors on my disk. What's going on here?

For people stumbling upon this in an OS X 10.11+ era (El Capitan or newer): Apple has added a whole new layer of security in OS X. They have taken away some privileges from root. The file you are trying to modify has a restricted flag. Only restricted processes which are signed by Apple will be able to modify these files. However, you can disable this security system by booting in recovery mode and disabling it in a Terminal by doing: csrutil disable.

Alternatively, you can also just start Terminal in Recovery Mode and delete the file there. Or even try booting in a Linux environment with HFS+ support (at least if you're not on APFS yet) to change the file.


xcodebuild firing after every terminal command After every terminal command, the prompt becomes unresponsive for 2-3 seconds. During this time xcodebuild seems to be running:

Where would this hook be that's causing the xcodebuild to be fired? I couldn't find anything in my .zshrc.

The problem is that the Xcode license hasn't been accepted so when running git it tries to prompt you for accepting the license. For me running

sudo xcodebuild -license accept

fixed the issue


Application similar to MS Paint to do graphical work on Mac This is going to sound silly to someone who does this everyday.. but I am confused about something.

What do people use to do similar things like with MS Paint (not Paint.net), e.g. stuff like making rage comics and meme's or other such silly things. The only graphics application I found for my Mac is GIMP

Probably the most similar to MS Paint that I've seen is Paintbrush.


Can Email Notification of Find my iPhone be disabled? When I use the Find my iPhone for my daughter's phone she receives and e-mail telling her that someone has been using find my iPhone to locate her phone. Can the email notification be disabled ?

No, it can't. If you want to track an iOS device without an email notification, try Apple's Find My Friends.


Screen brightness automatically adjusting in OS X Mavericks I just downloaded OS X Mavericks for my MacBook Pro. I don't know if this is a unique problem, but the screen brightness is automatically adjusting on it's own.

If I set it for about half the bars (50%), I'll be working, then notice that the screen is brighter than normal.  I'll check and it'll be at 75% or higher. Then, when I open the MacBook from sleep, sometimes the brightness is at 100% and sometimes it'll be 10%.

What gives? Is there a automatic adjust brightness setting on the new OS that I need to turn off?

There is an automatic brightness adjustment setting, but it's not new to Mavericks.  In System Preferences, check Displays; the setting is called "Automatically adjust brightness".

It adjusts based on a light sensor near your MacBook's built-in camera.  I've found it to be fairly good, but occasionally tipping my MacBook Air's display back a little further back than usual will make the light sensor detect more light and brightens the display considerably.


Is it possible to buy a legal third-party MacBook (Pro) charger? Apple owns the MagSafe patents - I realize this. On eBay, there are a ton of chargers, but no doubt of dubious origins. Are there any third party creators of chargers?

If a company wanted to create a new charger for the MacBook line, can they legally do so?

I have long-term professional expertise regarding electrical safety.
Legal power supplies have extensive and expensive certification and testing and manufacturing controls to ensure the user's safety.
Some of the most safety sensitive aspects are:

Isolation Voltage - How high a voltage may exist between the computer electronics and the mains wiring without a breakdown occurring.
Leakage Current - How much current can flow through the power supply (and ultimately you) if you make contact with a grounded contact or even a live wire while you are contacting the computer electronics.
Fire or burns

I will not claim that the "knock-off" supplies have NOT had the testing, but you decide for yourself if you think that Chinese manufactured supplies, even those bearing CE, UL, or CSA marks have actually passed or even been tested with the ultra-expensive tests and whether the manufacturing operation is well-controlled enough to guarantee that the product has not been modified.
How much would you spend to ensure that you or your child is not electrocuted?


On OS X is it possible to override DHCP assigned DNS servers but still keeping them for fallback? By default I would like to use the google public DNS servers and to fallback to intranet ones when these are failing.

Is this possible? ... I am looking for a setup that would not break when I move my laptop no other networks.

It would be acceptable if I found a solution specific to this wifi network connection (to do the trick only in this case, and to use defaults for others).

You can use ipconfig getpacket to find the DNS server that DHCP recommended:

$ ipconfig getpacket en0
...
domain_name_server (ip_mult): {192.168.3.2, 192.168.42.1}
...

So, assuming you are using the Wi-Fi adapter and its device is en0, you can:

#!/bin/bash

default_servers=$( ipconfig getpacket en0 | \
   perl -ne'/domain_name_server.*: \{(.*)}/ && print join " ", split /,\s*/, $1' )
networksetup -setdnsservers Wi-Fi 127.0.0.1 $default_servers


How to tell whether a purchase used an iTunes gift card or my credit card? I redeemed an iTunes gift card and purchased some songs. When i tried to go see how much money I had left on the card it said: credit card total $1.29. This information was displayed underneath latest purchases in my account information. Does this mean it was charged to the credit card or the gift card?

If you have a credit card assigned to your account as well as a gift card, purchases will use the gift card first as a rule. Only when the gift card is consumed or can not cover the entire cost of the purchase will money be deducted from your credit card.


how to upgrade iphone 3gs ios 4 to ios 6 directly? Is it possible to upgrade directly to iOS 6 while from iOS 4? I'm just new with apple gadgets. iTunes only shows ios 4.2. Does it require me to upgrade one step at a time? It took a lot of time if it does. ;(

I believe that you have to go in the order of the updates available. Sometimes this makes more sense for Apple to do instead of merging all of the updates into one, at least for smaller updates. After you update to 4.2, if your device is compatible with any higher versions, it should recommend the latest version of it.


Mac becomes slow and unresponsive when opening complex pdf So I a trying to open some lecture slides from my university to study however when I try to open certain PDF files the system becomes extremely slow and unresponsive.

Details of the PDF (Blurred out the names):

My macbook is a Macbook Air Mid-2011 with i7 and 4GB RAM running Yosemite OS X 10.10 . While slow and unresponsive, I opened Activity Monitor. After just a few minutes the amount of virtual memory increased from 10Gb to 24GB and Safari (what I opened the PDF with) was listed as using 7.8GB of RAM. Further the graph of Memory Pressure as shown in activity monitor had moments of being orange and red before the whole system becomes totally unresponsive.

I have tried restarting the laptop, closing other applications, and downloading and opening in preview. None of which helped.

This file isn't particularly large so i was wondering what would cause it to do this? The file does however contain numerous pictures and equations, which is what I believe to be the cause.Any ideas how to comfortable open this PDF?

Edit:
Here is the usage from Preview after opening for about 1 minute:

I ran into some issues like this with a PDF which contained some embedded vector images… the images were plots generated by Mathematica which had been exported as PDF files. The images were composed of a few thousand data points. As Preview attempted to plot these (thousands of) vectors, it would lock up (just as you describe).

Exporting the images from Mathematica as a PNG (raster format) solved the problem instantly. I'm not very familiar with the behavior of PowerPoint with vector images (if I recall correctly, the two do not mix…). Could you try rasterizing some of the more complex images prior to placing them in the document?

Note: as in your case, the PDF file didn't seem particularly large (the file size of the PDF image compared to the PNG image was very comparable), but the amount of processing power required to render the PDF brought the system to a crawl every time I scrolled to the point in the document where the complex plot was located.


How do I have Safari 6 ask before quitting (to avoid accidental quits)? Safari used to have a preference option to confirm before quitting, now that has disappeared.  It's so easy to quit accidentally and lose all your tabs.  I know you can resume or re-open the previous session, but those are not solutions to the problem.

How do I make Safari ask me before quitting?

The setting was called "Confirm before closing multiple tabs or windows", but it was removed in 10.7 when Resume was introduced. defaults write com.apple.Safari ConfirmClosingMultiplePages -bool true doesn't work anymore either.

The part of Resume where application state is kept after quitting was disabled by default in 10.8, but you can reenable it from the General preference pane:

You can also enable it in just Safari by running defaults write com.apple.Safari NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool true and quitting and reopening Safari.

Safari will still reload tabs when they are restored. And restoring state has only worked about half of the time for me since Safari 6 or 10.8.

You might also change the shortcut for quitting Safari:

Or disable some of the shortcuts completely:

defaults write com.apple.Safari NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict 'Quit Safari' '\0' 'Close Window' '\0' 'Close All Windows' '\0'


Bluetooth volume resets to a lower level whenever the iOS Music app advances to the next track While listening to the system Music app on iOS 12.1, I can use the volume buttons on my Bluetooth headphones (BeatsX) to raise or lower the music volume.

However, when the app advances to the next track, the music volume decreases to a lower level. I can raise it again with the headphone volume controls, but it will be reset again when advancing to the next track.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

This appears to have been caused by the Volume Limit setting of the Music app.

It seems that adjusting the volume via Bluetooth will bypass the volume limit, and allow higher volumes. However, the app will reapply the limit without warning whenever it switches tracks, resulting in the observed volume reset.

The workaround is to turn off the Volume Limit setting.


I get notification in Mac, though App is installed in iPhone There is one App installed in my iPhone, that is news App. Now, whenever I connect my iPhone to Mac, I get notification also in Mac.

What may be the reason ?

I want to get rid of this..

  EDIT 1

I disable it from Preference. But as shown in the following image, I don't know why this App is shown in Mac. It only exists in iPhone.

See App named NDTV.


What should I do to fix homebrew? I installed apache-spark 1.6.1 lately and then I uninstalled it and update homebrew to install apache-spark 2.0.0. However, When I run brew doctor I don't get any helpful diagnostics about what is wrong:

Error: No such file or directory - /usr/local/Cellar/apache-spark/1.6.1

What should  I do now? The version of my os is 10.11.6.

You have broken links. Homebrew has built in repair utility.brew doctorAfter brew finishes the doctor utility, run prune to update & fix homebrew's sym links.brew prune


How can I create a smart playlist in iTunes that updates weekly? I have about 1100 songs in my library from CDs in itunes which are matched in Apple music/iCloud music library. Some of them are loved in terms of Apple Music and others not.

Here comes the challenge: I want to create a smart playlist with still not loved songs(love is none rule) limited to 25 and it should live update every week.

What I’ve done is to set the following rules:

Plays < 15
Love is none
live updating
Limit 25 songs

But this will make songs never return back to the playlist. Do you have a better idea?

Thanks in advance.

First off, live updating is immediate rather than "timed".  Other than that though, there are a couple things you can do to get close to what I think you are trying to do but it can't be exact.  It will require multiple smart playlists for set up and a "playing" playlist that references the others, and it won't be perfect.

Because the updating is immediate, the "playing" playlist will change after a song is played.  This isn't as bad as it sounds, what you want to accomplish is getting the song to come up again until you "love" it - and let it hang around for a little while.

(All playlists below should live update.)

Playlist1: love = none songs.

Playlist2: Playlist1 AND not played in the last week AND plays < 15 AND limit to 4, random

Playlist3: 21 most recently played

Note that Playlist3 looks mutually exclusive from Playlist2 because if you played a song in the last week it can't be in Playlist2.  You could put most of the Playlist2 criteria in Playlist1, but the main thing is that Playlist2 should be a subset of Playlist1.

PlaylistA: (any songs from) Playlist3 + Playlist2, limit to 24 least recently played.  This is the playlist you actually play - play it in sequence of arrival rather than any other sequence.  I chose the sizes of Playlist2 and Playlist3 for the sake of repetition which I will explain later.

Playlist3 + Playlist2 = 25 songs, but you are limiting it to 24.  Because it is 24 least recently played, as soon as SongA is finished playing it will drop off PlaylistA - if it was a song from Playlist2 it will jump into Playlist3, the least recently played song from Playlist3 will vanish from the list, and Song$ will be added to Playlist2 AND SongZ will be added to the end of PlaylistA.  After SongB on PlaylistA finishes playing, it will drop off PlaylistA - if it was on Playlist3 already it will move to the end of it and either SongA or Song$ will be added to the end of PlaylistA, depending on the randomization engine.

Once a song drops off Playlist3, it can only return to Playlist2 in a week or more IF you didn't "love" it AND it hasn't played 15 times.  The songs dropping off Playlist2 and Playlist3 happen immediately, not every week. You might want to experiment to see how long it takes for a song to fall off Playlist3 - the randomization engine may make some songs stick around for a a long time before it gets victimized while a song from Playlist2 may only rotate through Playlist3 a couple times before it falls off Playlist3.  I guessed that a proportion of 4:21 would keep a song rotating for about a week - at an average of 4 minutes per song you will get a "new" unloved song every 20 minutes or so until you've exhausted Playlist1 or Playlist2.  So you'll "lose" a song from Playlist3 every 90 minutes or so - if my math is right (and it probably isn't) a song may rotate about 10 times through before it falls off Playlist3. If you "love" a song that is in Playlist2, it will drop immediately and NOT go to playlist3 since you didn't let it finish playing so you might need to be cognizant of what you are "loving".


Where to view photo and movie metadata on iOS I noticed today when a friend emailed me a movie he shot on his iPhone XR that the quality was only 568 x 320. While trying to get to the bottom of that mystery, I asked my friend to check the video details on the phone, prior to being sent. Neither of us could find a way to view the video information on the phone.
Is there a way to view media information (like file size, dimensions, data taken etc) for photos and movies shot on iPhones?

Apple, in their infinite wisdom, has chosen to hide that information. There are few built-in ways to view it in iOS. You'll need iOS 13 or greater, even so the procedure is (annoyingly enough) a bit of a kludge.

Select the file you want info on it.
Tap the share button
Select the place to share it to as the Files App.

Once that is done you will need to go into the files.app, and "long" (or more accurately "force tap") on the pic or movie you just "shared" and tap "Info" and then "show more."
And voila the EXIF data for the file and it only took you about eight steps to do it (sarcasm off...)
There are actually a lot of sites that have this info. And many also have recommendations for apps to display EXIF data more readily.


What do "Mac Ads Cleaner" and "Mac App Cleaner" do while installed? Recently I responded to a suggestion that I "upgrade Flash" on my macOS system only do end up with several applications running, and intruding into my browser and desktop that I did not (mean to) install:

Mac Ads Cleaner
Mac App Cleaner
Porn Cleaner

I followed instructions I found online for removing these apps and believe they are gone (Bitdefender's virus and malware virus scan shows no remaining malicious software).

However, I wonder what they did while they were on my machine. What I could see is that they were very intrusive: launching themselves, setting themselves up to re-launch on start, resetting my browser's homepage to a spoof "safe" search engine — even popping up a window when they were installed by moving to the Trash. But I would like to know what else they did while installed *that I couldn't see.

What do these (specific) apps do? Have they done any lasting damage? Or are they only a nuisance while installed?

Note that this isn't a general question about being infected or how to handle it, but what these specific and fairly widespread apps did while installed.

You ran into a scam - that was not an actual Flash Player update, it was just a malware installer made to look like Adobe Flash Player. People are so used to updating Flash every other day, so a web site offering an upgrade doesn't set off any alarms.

The programs that got installed are search hijackers. They bring up pages offering other fake programs, or even send you to a page that insists you have a virus, which includes a handy 800 number to call to remove it. This is a scam - the "support" company will remote into your system, probably steal personal info such as banking files, then charge you $500 for their "service." Fake, fake, fake.

Go to malwarebytes.org and download the free Mac version of AntiMalware. It will scan for and remove the remnants of those junk apps.

Next time you get a prompt to update Flash, use the applet in System Preferences or get the update direct from adobe.com. If the site still says you need to update, it's a scam and you should run screaming.


How to setup Dual Apple Thunderbolt Display 27 inch with Thunderbolt 3 MacBook Pro and Ethernet My current setup

2 Thunderbolt 27 inch displays

7 port Dlink USB 2.0 HUB

15" MacBook Pro Retina, Late 2013

Various low power USB 2.0 Peripherals plugged into hub

I have the one monitor daisy chained into the other which also has an ethernet 1 Gb/s connection and the USB hub connection. This is all connected to my MacBook Pro with the Thunderbolt 2 connection.

Upgrading to 2016 MacBook Pro

I thought it would be relatively simple to simply get a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter.However, Apple support said that this is not possible.

If that is true, why? They said I would need an adapter for each Thunderbolt Display. An adapter for the ethernet, and an adapter for the USB 2.0 hub.

That's a total of 4 adapters!

However, I'm wondering if that is true since you can buy hubs (OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock) which this guide says will run over a single Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter. These hubs can have various thunderbolt/hdmi/ethernet connections. In principle, aren't I using the Thunderbolt display in the same manner?

The product page indicates that you CAN use the adapter for the display.

  In addition, it can be used to connect Thunderbolt-enabled displays — such as the Apple Thunderbolt Display and LG Thunderbolt 2 displays — to any of the Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on your MacBook Pro.

Please note the distinction between Thunderbolt and mini-DisplayPort. The Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display ISN'T primarily a display. It's actually a Thunderbolt-connected hub with a built-in display. Why is this distinction important? Because it means that the data traveling from the computer is being transmitted via Thunderbolt, not DisplayPort protocols. While it is true that you wouldn't be able to use the Thunderbolt 2/3 adapter for a mini-DisplayPort monitor, using it to connect your Thunderbolt monitors WILL work. According to the products webpage:

  This adapter does not support DisplayPort displays like the Apple LED Cinema Display or third-party DisplayPort and Mini DisplayPort displays

Source: Apple Product page

Edit: I assume you mean the 2016 MBP, as no 2017 model has been released as of this question.


Is there any way to add an ePub book to iBooks without iTunes? I purchased a book and have it in ePub and PDF formats. I can easily add the PDF to iBooks from Safari. However, I can't find a method to get an ePub book into iBooks without iTunes. I'm away from my laptop with iTunes where my iPhone syncs, so that's not an option at the moment.

Is there anyway to add an ePub book to iBooks without iTunes?

If you email the epub file to yourself, opening the attachment in iBooks will be an option in iOS Mail.


Restoring window configuration for monitor setups I would like to achieve the same effect as is described in this question, which doesn't seem to have a suitable answer.

I develop on a macbook pro. Often I use it on its own, but sometimes I connect it to an external display (of various sizes).

When I connect to an external display, all of my applications move to that display as it is plugged in. I then need to move most of them back on to the smaller (built in) display by hand and resize them to the smaller screen: I generally only have my development environment and terminals running on the larger display.

When I disconnect from the external display, all my Apps move back on to the built in display, but aren't resized.

The behaviour I would like (or a close approximation):

When I connect an external display, the OS remembers the window layout from the last time this display was used and restores it.
When I disconnect the display, the OS remembers the layout I had in the disconnected state and restores that.
When I connect a new display, nothing happens. The OS leaves it to me to move windows on to it that I want to be there.

I note that the OS seems to know connected monitors by name, so it should be possible to have the configuration be specific to the particular monitor that I have plugged in.

If there are no existing Apps that support this, I'd love any leads on the  APIs I should be looking at that will let me develop an App to do this.

I'm currently using Mavericks, but I'll probably upgrade to Yosemite fairly soon.

Thanks.

The App "Stay" that I discovered today does this extremely nicely.

Thanks to this answer on the Super User S.E. for the link.


What hardware needed for multiple monitors (3) on a 2009 MacBook Pro 5,5 with displayport (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M video card) I am adding a 30" monitor to my existing setup (a 24" monitor) for use with a 2009 13" MacBook Pro 5,5 with DisplayPort. This is the model with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M video card.  This MacBook Pro should support the higher resolution of the 30 inch model (2500x1600 res), but...

How do I add the older 24" monitor (1900x1200 res) into the mix?

The laptop stays closed, but technically this is 3 screens. The older monitor only supports DVI and VGA inputs.  I have read about several USB to DVI converters on Amazon, most with mixed reviews.

Can anyone recommend a specific piece of hardware known to work?

Later addition:

Thanks everyone for the helpful answers.

Thanks Martin, but the Matrox is unsuitable for my setup as I have one 2500x1600 and one 1900x1200 monitor. The Matrox website says "maximum resolutions of dual 1920x1200 and triple 1360x768 under Mac" and I've read elsewhere that both resolutions need to be the same.

John, Thanks for the tips - that is indeed what I settled on; a Kensington USB to DVI Converter (with DisplayLink 195 chipset).

My additions to your suggestions:

Definitely use the latest drivers, even if beta. I had a major problems with the DisplayLink 1.5 drivers when trying to resume from sleep. The 1.6b3 drivers fixed that.
You cannot use the Mac built in screen capture on the USB monitor.  No biggie, but it tripped me up until I figure out that was the issue.

Rock on.

A new product has been announced today about this. On the Windows side, the Matrox DualHead/TripleHead were common, but not available for Mac.

That has recently changed because Matrox Introduces New Mac-Friendly DualHead2Go DP and TripleHead2Go DP Multi-Monitor Adapters.


Macbook 2016 shutdowns during start, safe mode working I bought an Apple MacBook with Retina display (Core M, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) and today I was experiencing the first problem with it.
I was unable to log in to my account. During the login process mac turned off unexpectedly. After few tries I realized that I'm able to login as guest. After some Googling I tried to restore my Mac.

First step, in guide I found, wants to turn off FileVault. So I did it. After reboot my Mac was unable to boot completely. First few seconds looks promising, Apple logo appeared, loading bar so. At almost 3/4 of loading Mac turned off.

Ok, I said, maybe it wants to continue the restore process.

So I booted up restore (Cmd+R), with Disk Utility erased Macbook HD partition and started the installation process. After first reboot it continued in "bootup screen" with time remaining text. After second, or third reboot it looks like it is finally booting, but again at 3/4 of loading it turned off.

So I tried to start it with Shift key holding (of course after few retries). Mac booted successfully in Safe mode. I finished the installation, created account and rebooted. And again at 3/4 Mac turned off!

I was looking for some logs, but unsuccessful. The time when turn off happened the /var/log/system.log have nothing it it.

I can successfully log in in safe mode and single user mode. I tried SCM restart and NVRAM restart.

I'm attaching verbose mode in slow motion video, but I can't find the problem. Also I'm attaching system.log. For example the unsuccessful boot happened at ~21:53 after reboot from safe mode. Next successful safe mode boot was at 21:55:25

system.log: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/1d7eaa49d125c67f10e9460b081128e0

Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zaee2vlkLzo

This looks like a hardware error, but it could also be a software error.

Jul 14 12:16:45 localhost kernel[0]: disk1: alignment error.
Jul 14 12:16:45 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 14 12:16:45 localhost kernel[0]: disk0s1: alignment error.
Jul 14 12:16:45 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 14 12:16:45 localhost kernel[0]: disk0s3: alignment error.

Since you already tried formatting the drive (the software issue) i think you are only left with hardware issue. But just to be 100% sure, try repartitioning the drive again, it might be an issue with the partition table on the drive and not the filesystem itself.

Repeat what you did before, Internet recovery, Utils > Disk Utility -> Partition the drive as 2 or more partitions first, then after successful partition, go back to 1 partition. (Do not only format Macintosh HD). Try and reinstall OS and see if it works. Otherwise i would recommend an Apple Authorized Service Provider.


Hyperlinks missing in printed documents I've noticed this on several occasions where I'll print a document (Pages file, RTF, PDF, etc) and any hyperlinks in the document don't appear on the printed page. Where the hyperlinked text appears on screen it turns blue with an underscore (as expected), but on the printed page a white gap is left where the text should be as if the font has been changed to white.

Is this a known issue? This bug has become apparent to me since upgrading to OS X 10.7. I recently updated to 10.7.2 in hope that it would be resolved in that release but it wasn't. The only way I can find around this is to remove the hyperlink from the text and re-print the document which isn't great when I want the hyperlinks to look like links to begin with.

Any ideas on how I can solve this problem and if there's a known fix? I've been unable to find anything on the Apple forums as of yet :(

One potential cause of this problem is hardware-related.

If you have a color inkjet printer and the blue ink is empty, this could cause the problem you describe. If it happened that you ran out of blue ink at the same time you upgraded, it might appear to be linked to the OS upgrade, but in fact would not be.


Disable weather.com in Safari In Safari if I type a place name or place name + weather and press enter, I get taken to the weather at weather.com

How can I make it do a google search instead?

You can disable this in Safari Preferences


Can't switch on Wi Fi after internet sharing stops due to VPN dropout We use a VPN to get around geoblocking because we now live in a different country to our native homeland. We do this by using an iMac to connect to the internet via an ethernet cable. I then connect to the VPN service and share that connection with internet sharing from the iMac. How this works is I use internet sharing to share the VPN connection via the iMac's Wi Fi antenna.

This all works fine and has done for over a year. The only problem we've ever had is that the VPN connection does drop out sometimes. I'm used to this, and its always been a simple case of reconnecting to the VPN from the iMac and all is swell again. But for about a month now, whenever the iMac disconnects from the VPN the Wi Fi antenna is switched off and I can't switch it back on. I've tried everything I know such as Safe Mode, resetting PRAM and resetting SMC.

Nothing works except totally restarting the iMac. This is a pain because we have multiple users logged in and the VPN typically disconnects a couple of times a day.

How do I fix this?

I've seen this issue before. I'm not sure why this happens, but have found that totally removing your Wi-Fi service, restarting your Mac, and adding your Wi-Fi service back again will resolve the issue.

While you don't specify your version of macOS, the steps below should work:

Go to Apple > System Preferences > Network
Select the Wi-Fi service on the left-hand side
Click on the cog icon at bottom-left and select Make Service Inactive
Now delete the service by clicking on the minus sign (i.e. the - button) at left of the cog
Click on the Apply button
Exit Network preferences
Restart your iMac
Go to Apple > System Preferences > Network
Click on the plus sign (i.e. the + button) at left of the cog
In the pop-up window, ensure that Wi-Fi is selected from the drop-down menu
Click on the Create button
Make sure Wi-Fi is on

Let me know if this resolves the issue.


removing authorization access to addressbook and calendar While installing / running the first time, I authorized the app to have access to addressbook and calendar.  How do I go about to revoke that permissions?

You can choose which apps can access Contact & Calendar data from
System Prefs > Security & Privacy > Privacy

Check or uncheck each app


How long before WWDC are old models usually put on sale? I used to work as a salesperson at an Apple retailer. I remember that prior to WWDC Apple usually changed the target price on old computers before the new computers were launched. (I guess they are easier to sell before the new models come out). Are there any statistics when this usually happens and how much those prices change?

I am not aware of public price cuts prior to WWDC. At least not with today's Apple.

The practice you mention may no longer be in place, it may be limited to some stores, or it could be country/region specific.

Apple's computer products tend to maintain the same price for their lifetime. iOS devices can attract discounts over time – their more predictable update cycle helps with this.


Apple Bug Report (Apple's Response Time?) I did a bug report because of this Xcode Situation ( Xcode.app gets scanned by socketfilterfw (OS X Firewall) at every launch ).

I wonder about the time Apple usually needs to respond.

Weeks, Months? I really have no clue.
If you know more (from your experience) please tell me.

There is no easy way to tell how/when/if Apple acts on your bug report. I have filed quite a few bug reports during the last years. Some still seem to be unchanged since I created them, some got closed silently and there is only one where I ever got notified that the fix would be in the next OS X release.

So basically you filed the report, now just ignore it :-)


What does shell_session_history_check do in the default PROMPT_COMMAND? I'm using terminal on MacOS High Sierra.

I added echo PROMPT_COMMAND to the top of my .bash_profile to see the default and I got:

'shell_session_history_check; update_terminal_cwd'

I don't fully understand what the shell_session_history_check actually does. I can't really find a difference with/without it (history from closed shells still show up in history in a new shell).

shell_session_history_check calls shell_session_history_enable which creates a unique log file for each shell session.
NOTE: shell_session_history_check is a Mac specific function.

Let's break it down.
$ declare -f shell_session_history_check
shell_session_history_check ()
{
    if [ ${SHELL_SESSION_DID_HISTORY_CHECK:-0} -eq 0 ]; then
        SHELL_SESSION_DID_HISTORY_CHECK=1;
        if shell_session_history_allowed; then
            shell_session_history_enable;
        fi;
        if [ "$PROMPT_COMMAND" = "shell_session_history_check" ]; then
            unset PROMPT_COMMAND;
        else
            if [[ $PROMPT_COMMAND =~ (.*)(; *shell_session_history_check *| *shell_session_history_check *; *)(.*) ]]; then
                PROMPT_COMMAND="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}${BASH_REMATCH[3]}";
            fi;
        fi;
    fi
}

The last if/else removes shell_session_history_check from the PROMPT_COMMAND (assuming your PROMPT_COMMAND starts with shell_session_history_check;) so that it only runs on the first prompt.
shell_session_history_allowed is true by default so basically the real behavior is calling shell_session_history_enable.
$ declare -f shell_session_history_enable
shell_session_history_enable ()
{
    ( umask 077;
    /usr/bin/touch "$SHELL_SESSION_HISTFILE_NEW" );
    HISTFILE="$SHELL_SESSION_HISTFILE_NEW";
    SHELL_SESSION_HISTORY=1
}

This function overwrites the default value of HISTFILE (~/.bash_history) and sets the SHELL_SESSION_HISTORY to 1 (true).
So this question boils down to: Why is the history saved even though HISTFILE isn't set to a unique file name?
Well it still functions the same way. Once the shell exits, it appends to ~/.bash_history. The difference is that you don't have unique files logging each session.
Why would I want unique files logging each session?
Check out this Reddit post:

(~/.bash_sessions/) is used to store HISTFILE's and .session files
that are unique to sessions. If $BASH_SESSION or $TERM_SESSION_ID is
set upon launching the shell (i.e. if Terminal is resuming from a
saved state), the associated HISTFILE is merged into the current one,
and the .session file is ran. Session saving is facilitated by means
of an EXIT trap being set for a function bash_update_session_state.
Essentially, this lays the groundwork for us to be able to extend
Terminal's session-resuming using our own rc files. By implementing
our own extension of bash_update_session_state, we can, say, add
functionality to the .session files that are run upon resume.


Keyboard shows on iPhone 4 on lock screen and home screen I just upgraded to iOS 7.1. Now there is a permanent keyboard on the lower half of my screen in locked mode and on home screen. How do you get rid of it?

This is a glitch — simply reboot to fix it, either by rebooting normally or by doing a hard reset (hold both home & power until the Apple logo appears).


Using health and Nike+ ipod app If I want to use these 2 apps do I need any sensor to check about the health related data available in app
If no external device or sensor is required then how to use health and nike+ ipod app

If you're using an iPod (e.g. nano as I do), then the trainings won't be synced to Health App. Otherwise using Nike+ Running App your runs will be automatically synced with Health App as far as you added Running App as a source in the Health App.
What I personally find disappointing, that Nike doesn't take a use of a step counter of an iPod and leave all the data on the iPod.


Lion Apache Subversion (SVN) ignore problem I hope this is the right place to ask this kind of problem.
So, before the Lion, when I tried to ignore something on Apache Subversion (svn), I just typed the following command: svn propedit svn:ignore .
So this opened a temporary file for the current directory with the selected editor and I could write there my patterns, which where ignored by the svn.
After the I installed Lion, when I type this command the following error appears: The document “svn-prop.tmp” could not be opened. The file doesn’t exist.
Did anybody else met this error before? (I tried googling, but I didn't find any solution).

The problem with GUI editors is that when launched from the command-line, they generally do not halt the process in the shell. That's why when editing a property, svn will create the temporary file, launch the editor, and wait for the exit signal to read and delete the temporary file contents. Because the GUI editor returns the exit signal immediately upon launching, the file will no longer be there.

Some GUI editors like TextMate and Sublime Text support a -w (wait) option from the command-line, forcing them to halt the SVN process until the file is closed. I am not aware of TextEdit supporting such an option.

You probably want to change your SVN editor to something more appropriate, like vim or nano. You can change the editor command in ~/.subversion/config


Apple Developer Account Link Recently I enrolled in Apple developer program. I'm looking for a link through which i can get all my apps that I developed/published.

How i get all apks under one link in app store ?

I've found one developer link in this format:

https://itunes.apple.com/<country>/developer/<developer–name>/id<developer-ID>?mt=8

From where i get developer-ID for my app store ?

I've app-ID of all my app, through which I can go to single app not my all apps.

Source:

To find your developer/team ID if you already have an Apple Developer account, you can go to https://developer.apple.com/account/#/membership.

Scroll down to Team ID and that's it.

If you don't have a paid developer account you will not have a developer ID.

Update based on comments:
Source.

To find the link for all your apps:

  There are three types of App Store Short Links, in two forms, one for
  iOS apps, another for Mac Apps:

  Company Name
  iOS: http://appstore.com/ for example, http://appstore.com/apple
  Mac: http://appstore.com/mac/
  for example, http://appstore.com/mac/apple

  App Name
  iOS: http://appstore.com/ for example,
  http://appstore.com/keynote
  Mac: http://appstore.com/mac/ for
  example, http://appstore.com/mac/keynote

  App by Company
  iOS: http://appstore.com// for example, http://appstore.com/apple/keynote
  Mac:
  http://appstore.com/mac// for example, http://appstore.com/mac/apple/keynote

  Most companies and apps have a canonical App Store Short Link. This canonical URL is created by changing or removing certain characters (many of which are illegal or have special meaning in a URL (for example, "&")).

  To create an App Store Short Link, apply the following rules to your
  company or app name:

  Remove all whitespace Convert all characters to lower-case
  Remove all copyright (©), trademark (™) and registered mark (®) symbols
  Replace ampersands ("&") with "and" Remove most punctuation (See Listing 2 for the set) Replace accented and other "decorated" characters (ü, å,
  etc.) with their elemental character (u, a, etc.)
  Leave all other characters as-is.


Current line number keeps to be 0 no matter where cursor is Please see the attached to images.

When I change the line the line numbers changes, so that the cursor's line number is always 0, the previous and next line numbers are always 1.

Is it a bug?

OS: Yosemite.

You have line numbering set to relative.  Absolute line numbers will count the more traditional way from the top of the file.


How to check which parts of a dead MacBook Pro 17" Mid 2010 work Mac was water damaged. No start up chime. Charger shows green light dimmer than when plugged in to working Macs when plugged. Battery status button on side has no effect. Won't start in safe, target disk, verbose etc modes. Removed the HDD and verified that it works fine and am cloning it before wiping, reinserting and selling.

I believe only the logic board is broken/shorted, but what can I do to check whether anything else works? Specifically if I can make sure the display is functional I assume it is of greater value.

edit: I have on hand a voltmeter and the 2011 model of the same Mac, but do not wish to potentially break that one in establishing what works on this.

That will depend on what kind of analytical/measurement tools do you have? Oscilloscope, Volt meter ect...

Since it does not start at all and Battery is shut it could be simply the power input module. Open it and check if power is coming in and the fuse is not blown.

Is the display working: try the Target Display Mode.

Here is some how to:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1122338

Check your DCIN board.


Recover from mistakenly restoring a different iPhone instead of back up I was just trying to copy my photos with my PC, but I accidentally clicked to restore a back up of my husband iPhone. Everything shown on my mobile is from the back up and I don't see my data now. How do I access data from my iPhone?

Not much you’re left with, it’s either restoring from iCloud backup or iTunes backup. iTunes may have backed up your phone during a sync. So you may have a backup from your phone, check it in iTunes -> Preferences -> Devices will list backups.


Does the upgrade to OS X Lion include iMovie 11? I have a system with Snow Leopard and iMovie 09.

If I upgrade my system to OSX Lion, will it also upgrade my iMovie 09 to iMovie 11?

No, iMovie is part of the iLife suite of programs, not the OS itself. It's only included bundled with the OS when you buy a new Mac.


Audio Formats That Function With Multiple Streaming Devices/Software? I'd like to know which audio encoding format(s), as part of a video container file, will stream with all of the following devices/apps:

Apple TV 3
Roku 3
LG 2012 Smart TV MediaLink (Plex front end)
Plex (for OS X, iOS & Roku)
iTunes (for OS X & iOS)

Thanks

MP3 is the most common, so I'd assume it'll work on all non-Apple devices (I know it will work on Apple)


TextEdit Strange Error If I hit Spotlight type "TextEdit" and hit enter. TextEdit starts and after that I can open any txt file by double clicking on it. As you would expect. If I close TextEdit and click on any txt file it will flash very quick (as if it opens) and than nothing happens. No Console message and it does not open the file. I don't get it. I trashed the "com.apple.TextEdit.plist", but that did not change anything. Restart has no effect as well.

This seems spooky. Any ideas ?

So I found the solution. I tried to understand the underlying process better and therefore asked this question in a more general format here:

Double Click to Open Program Mac

The answer is also the answer to this question =

Rebuilding Launch Service Database

Hope this is not too complicated :)


VPN+Proxy: How to override main network settings I can establish a connection to my university VPN (Cisco IPSec). In addition I have to set a proxy, in this case I have the URL of a .pac file.

When I set this in the VPN-settings, the proxy is not used by Safari or Chrome. How can I set proxy settings for my VPN? I don't want to put this in the main network settings because I only need the proxy for VPN.

Under Mavericks this should work fine. Once you have all the security details set in your VPN connection click on Advanced and then Proxies.

Make sure you select Automatic Proxy Configuration and put the complete URL provided by your IT staff into the URL field. This will almost certainly be different to the proxy config file used by a computer that lives inside your network.

You don't want to send all traffic over the VPN. Now a web site internal to your network will use the proxy but those outside will not. This is the behaviour you want.

It may be useful to actually look at the .pac file. You can do that by entering the URL into the address field of your browser and it should be loaded as a text file.

The only case where you want all traffic to go over the VPN is if you are accessing an external web service that your organisation pays for that authenticates through the network - this is usually things offered by the library such as law services or special dictionaries.