User profile transfer, apps which are/were not PPC show up as PowerPPC I have tried using the Migration Assistant, straight copy/paste using Firewire disk mode, and even a clone using Clonezilla...

Both machines are 10.8.2

The old computer in System Information under applications shows apps as either Universal or Intel.

Once migrated to the new machine (newly imaged, and re-imaged between each attempt), almost half the apps show up as PowerPC and will not run.

What's going on, any solution, anyone seen this before?

I had forgotten about how great Carbon Copy Cloner is! I have not used it in quite a long time (last time I used it, it was free; they do offer a fully functional trialware version for 30 days).

I retried all attempts I listed in my question, including only transferring a single user profile (data, applications, etc) using the Migration Assistant with no change. Each time I finished a migration, clone, almost 50% of my apps were being seen as PowerPC applications and would not run...even though they were in fact Intel/Universal apps.

I believe the underlying problem was that the recovery partition on the two machines differed. I'm surprised Clonezilla didn't wipe it out (It cloned the 3 partitions)! Carbon Copy Cloner on the other hand, informed me of the difference and offered to clone over the difference. That difference was only the fact that the destination machine had a Lion OS in the recovery partition. Both machines were imaged with Mountain Lion.

That's just a guess, but because nothing else worked and CCC did, I'm leaving it at that unless someone else can offer some insight. I hope this helps someone in the future. I've never seen or heard of anything like this.


C-s must be pressed twice I'm on macos Sierra (2013 Macbook Air). When I press C-s (control and the character s) nothing happens. Then, if I press it again (within a certain amount of time) it triggers. If I open the keyboard viewer in macos I can see that the s is not triggered until the second time it's pressed.

Any ideas on why it could be like this or how I can find out what is causing it?

I had khd installed which intercepted the C-s


Keyboard shortcut not working in yosemite Here is the screen shot and it's not working anymore after upgrading to Yosemite

NOTE: Although if I add this shortcuts under all applications then it works.
I don't know why it's not working, wasted my time and I found on apple discussion forum that in Languages there should be only one language and that doesn't work for me.

I have reported this bug to apple and it's still not being closed. I will update my answer once it's closed.

Till then you can add this shortcuts under all applications(instead of preview) then it will work.


Can't extend Macintosh HD partition after removing Linux I toyed around with Linux, and after discovering that the offical Linux NVidia drivers doesn't have EFI support which makes it impossible to make it work optimally on my system (bummer), I wanted to remove it.

I deleted the partitions with Disk Utility, except the swap partition which I deleted with GParted.
My disk looks like this now in Disk Utility:

Now when I try to extend the Macintosh HD partition to fill the entire disk and click Apply, it gets stuck at checking the catalog file and gives me an error.

Translation (I don't know what it's exactly like in the English version of OSX): Partitioning failed - The partitioning failed with the error: The partition-layout cannot be changed, because the file system could not be checked.

When I try it with GParted, I can't move the handles for some reason.

How can I make Macintosh HD fill the entire disk again, other than formatting the disk and restoring a Time Machine backup?

EDIT: When I click the button to check the disk for errors it says there's nothing wrong.

Try run Disk Utility from Recovery Mode as described in http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718


Installing extended offline dictation fails without error I'm trying to download the offline dictation files but I only see the download window (screenshot) and after a while it disappears and the next time if I want to use dictation the same thing happens.

Is there some cache that I can try to clear so that it would download everything from scratch?

Please follow the instructions to remove a ?.plist file (it will be recreated automagically once you restart the system).

Press these keys simultaneously: shift+⌘+G
In the dialog box that appears after step 1, copy and paste the following

  ~/Library/Preferences

Hit return/enter
You will be presented with a ton of files, but you should be able to find the

  com.apple.assistant.plist

Move it to the Trash and Empty your Trash
Open Dictation & Speech preference panel and turn off dictation
Restart your computer
Open Dictation & Speech preference panel, turn on dictation
Select Enhanced Dictation
Download should begin and install correctly

I hope this helps.

The file you are downloading is 750 meg, so it might take a while.


How do I disable auto-turn-on Bluetooth after rebooting iPhone? Using iPhone 7+, iOS 11.1. Every time I reboot my phone, my Bluetooth automatically is turned on. This is NOT wanted and very annoying. I only use it with my remote shutter button when using my cam, which is rarely. How do I disable the auto-turn-on?

p.s. I obviously know how to turn it back off via control center. But the point is I shouldn’t have to turn it back off, and back off, and back off, and...you get my point.

To stop the automatic enabling of Bluetooth on reboot, you must go to Settings > Bluetooth and shut off the Bluetooth radio completely.

Control Center is but a command for our convenience, not ultimate control.

I just tested this three times on my iPhone 7 running iOS 11.1.


Macbook pro evolution between 2011 and 2013 models Is there an easy way to understand how Macbook pros evolved from 2011 to 2013?

It seems (to me at least) that until the retina display was introduced there were no revolutionary changes in the macbook pro line between 2011 and 2013 (just incremental processor upgrades).

Another way to ask the question would be: would an i7 macbook pro from 2011 be able to hold her own against an i7 2013 model? (By hold her own I mean would say: a java developer notice any real difference).

Thanks.

I would download the Mactracker app (runs on Mac and/or iOS) to compare the specs.  I've compared them briefly and those two models seem pretty similar to me, retina graphics aside.  I'm happily using a mid 2009 MacBook Pro for iOS development, although I've upgraded it with 8GB of RAM and an SSD.


Takes a long time for my macbook pro to wake from sleep Ever since I first started using my brand new Macbook pro (mountain lion, 10.8.2) it has taken a long time for it to wake up from sleep (several minutes). When I open the macbook it first shows a grayed out picture of the screen with a count at the bottom (as if the battery was run out, which it is not) then the picture gets clear and the count is done, but still I have to wait 1-2 minutes before I can move the mouse.

It was the same with both 8 GB RAM and 4 GB RAM.

What is wrong?

Thank you for your help

The greyed out (and blurred) background with the progress bar indicates that your computer hibernated (as opposed to suspended) - meaning it dumps the memory state to disk, and when resuming needs to restore that memory state from disk to memory.

To check which sleep mode your computer is using run the following from a terminal:

pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

If it is 1, this would be the expected behavior. If it is 3, OS X is unable to resync the memory state from background tasks (such as time machine) and may fully restore the memory state from disk. If it is 0, the memory shouldn't have been dumped to disk during normal sleep which would indicate that it hibernated as a last resort before losing power.


Is it possible to download an app and install it on iPhone/iPad by using Finder Actually, after updating to Catalina iTunes is divided into Music macOS application and Finder abilities. So for backup and etc, we should use Finder, now I want to know:

Is it possible to download an app from App Store and install it on iPhone/iPad by using Finder?

No.

Firstly, you can't access the iOS App Store on MacOS, so you can't download iOS apps onto your Mac. You can of course download apps from the Mac App Store, but they won't work on iOS.

Secondly, there's no general mechanism to 'side-load' apps onto iOS (well, there might be, but not without jail-breaking your iPad).

There may be methods that require the co-operation of the developer, or Enterprise device management tools.


Shortcuts - Saving a file to specific folder that is NOT ‘/shortcuts/‘ I’m trying to create a shortcut from the sharesheet to save a file to particular iCloud Drive/Files folder. However within the options for the ‘save file’ action in shortcuts only allows me to save into the directory ‘/shortcuts/‘. How do I change this so that I can specify a file path that is not within ‘/shortcuts/‘?

You can't access files outside /Shortcuts/ on purpose, it's called sandboxing and makes sure that your iCloud data is safe!

As a matter of fact, it used to be possible to trick Shortcuts.app with a relative path (e.g. /Shortcuts/../../hiddenData/), but that security problem (CVE-2019-7289) was fixed in February 2019: release notes


How can I assign a customisable mouse button to open Notification Center? I want to set my mouse's customisable button to open Notification Centre on OS X Mountain Lion.

Is this possible?

Depending on your mouse and driver software, your best bet would probably be to set a keyboard shortcut for Notification Center and program your mouse button to trigger that shortcut.

You can set up the shortcut in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Show Notification Center.

The setup for your mouse driver will vary, but on a Razer mouse you can assign the button to a Keyboard Function and type your shortcut.


Macbook pro mid-2010 randomly cuts off. Panic report I am not sure why this keeps happening. Either plugged in or off it cuts off. If I leave a video playing on youtube it seems to be able to handle that, if that is left by itself. But if I say type into faceboook, youtube, stackexchange into the search bar fast it cuts off. It's as if I am over-exciting it or something and then it turns off. Here is the panic report that keeps appearing? any ideas?
THANKS!

Yes the GPU panics are almost certainly due to a defective discrete GPU card. I have the same 2010 MBP and have noticed 10.9.3 has increased the frequency of these fatal crashes significantly.

I'm using the https://gfx.io utility to turn off this discrete card whenever possible but many apps force it on.

P.S. Here is the link from the replacement program, but it had ended: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203554


editing a sqllite database from the command line within an iPad I'm running a technical demo - it requires altering a SQLite database on an jailbroken iPad.  At the moment I'm pulling the database off via SCP and altering it with a GUI I have lying around, (very new to SQLite).  This takes time so ideally I'd like to be able to alter the SQLite database from the command line within the iPad - any recommendations for how that might work out?

I would like to bring up that you do not need to jailbreak your iPad in order to pull this off.  You may still want it jailbroken for other reasons, but that is up to you.

First download iSSH from the Apple store.  It is $10, but it is worth every penny.  That will allow you to securely log into the server that already stores the SQLite database.  You said that you are currently using SCP to access the database, so SSH is already set up for you on the server side.  Just log into the server with the same credentials you use to SCP to/from it.

If you are SSHing in, you aren't going to have access to a GUI program to alter the SQLite database.  You will have to do it using the SQLite command line tool "sqlite3".  This really is easier than you think it is, and I personally feel that using the command line interface for SQL databases really help you understand them much better.


Does Apple's Numbers support 3rd party plugins / data providers / formulas / functions? Numbers has the ability to pull in prices for various stocks and currencies. However, I am after the ability for it to pull in prices for various cryptocurrencies, not just BTC, such as Cryptofinance does for Google Sheets.

As Numbers doesn't currently offer that functionality, my question is: Does Numbers support the ability to be extended with plugins? Such that one can create/use custom-made formulas/functions.

It seems all the major competitors to Numbers offer such functionality:

Google Sheets
Microsoft Excel
LibreOffice Calc

Crossposted on the Apple Discussions community.

No.

According to this outdated post the answer is no. I also doubt Apple would add this feature.

  There is no "plug-in" architecture yet for Numbers. the '09 version
  does have some basic scripting ability it looks like. But I haven't
  gotten it to work yet. Waiting for someone that knows more than me to
  post some examples.

You can make a feature request here

Although not plugins per se, Numbers (and the entire iWork suite) does have a library for AppleScript.


How to install OS 9 on my PowerBook G4? I am having trouble getting Mac OS 9.2.2 installed on my PowerBook G4 Titanium (867mhz).
I am knowledgeable with Windows and Linux but I have no experience on how to setup these older Macs. They seem to have a lot of disparate drivers that are very specific and shipped on install discs with those machines only. This is very foreign to me as I'm used to genetic OS disk/discs and then installing a selection of compatible drivers.
I downloaded this:

Download #4: Mac OS 9.2.2 system folders extracted from the PowerBook G4 Titanium (DVI) A1025 (867MHz/1.0GHz) Software Install and Restore DVD. Unstuffed, this should result in a bootable OS 9 toast image.

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/mac-os-922-system-folders
Which I extracted from the .sit file using Stuffit Expander on a newer Mac running OSX. I then mounted the .toast file and copied the files by dragging them onto a disk newly formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
I installed the disk I to the PowerBook and achieved only a partial success. I get a little face in a folded that blinks to a question mark. The folder has the appearance of OS 9 but does not boot.

Simply formatting a disk and then copying files to it is really strange to me. I'm used to having to setup boot partitions or some kind of a bootloader. But from what I've read you just drag and drop the files?
Here are the files as they appear on the disk. Are the folder names right?

Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is an OSX extension to the older HFS+ file system. While it can be read by OS9, the journal block will be ignored. OS9 needs a HFS+ file system without journaling. Also, unstuffing on an OSX file system will not add the resource fork which is essential for OS9. The blinking folder with the question mark tells you that while the file system can be read, no bootable operating system is present.
The original Mac OS held data in two forks, the data fork and the resource fork. That was a clever way of preserving precious disk space because many UI elements could be shared by all programs and read from the operating system files. ResEdit should be included in your OS9 installation and can be used to study and change resource forks once you get the system up and running.
Dragging files on OSX dives will not produce a bootable disk. Better try to burn a DVD directly from the .toast file because this will also copy files that OSX will ignore. Then boot from that DVD and do all file copying from within that OS9 system because only then will the resource files be copied as well.


Third party youtube app as default on iOS 5.1.1 (iPad1,1, jailbroken) Is there any way to set up third party youtube app as default on iOS 5.1.1 (iPad1,1) i.e. ProTube?

I've heard about TubeSelector, but it's only available for higher iOS versions.

(By "Default" I mean ability to open youtube URLs from mail or from sites.)

N.B. The reason is: native YouTube.app by Apple is not supported by youtube servers anymore. And it recommends to upgrade (what is impossible - as far as iOS 5.1.1 is the latest OS for iPad1).

Just install any good third party youtube app from the app store, like Jasmine or Youtube Pro etc... Or since your iPad is jailbroken install a tweak called: older version of the app (if you can't find it on cidya try google), and find a version of official youtube app by google that supports ios 5.x.x


Which SSD Thunderbolt Product For Main Boot Drive for my iMac? So I have a 2012 iMac.  I got the base model 21.5" which means I have a painfully slow 5400 RPM hard drive.  The pure SSD option would have cost $1,300 ($1 more than the $1,299 base price) if I could even get it but you had to get the 27" to even have the option.

The iMac is very fast with the obvious bottleneck being the 5400 RPM HDD.  I want really a better than stock setup with insane speed. Considering that anything under $1,300 is actually a savings (lol) and with the possibility of even being superior in speed to the internal SSD.  The issue I'm most concerned with now in my choice is if it will be bootable.  This is especially true with the RAID options because as the ones in my price range are SOFTWARE RAID I wonder how it could be possible to be bootable?

I've narrowed down my choices to these four options, in no particular order:

OWC Mercury Helios 240GB
Essentially a thunderbolt PCIe expansion chasis with fast PCI based SSD
Pegasus J2
Thunderbolt 2 x 128GB SSDs configured in RAID 0
Pegasus J4
4 drive thunderbolt 2.5" storage chassis, RAID configurable
I'll probably get 4 x 64 GB SSDs and configure them in RAID 0 or maybe RAID 10
LaCie Thunderbolt SSD 240GB
Kind of the same idea as J2

Any advice would be excellent.  Feel free to make an alternative suggestion if you prefer.  I'm ready to go as soon as I can make a choice.

Again my machine is:
Apple iMac 21.5", Late 2012 / i5 2.7 GHz / 8 GB RAM / 1 TB HDD / GeForce GT 640M 512MB DDR5 / OS X 10.8

In the end I went with the most expensive but also the fastest option: #1 which was the Mercury Accelsior PCIe based SSD hardware RAID array (RAID 0 by default which I will keep) in a Mercury Helios Thunderbolt PCIe chassis.  The main reason was because it was the only one that mentioned it was bootable (and made a big deal out of that fact).

I paid $799 for the 240 GB model (it's 128 GB X 2 minus the unusable amount...a nice touch for the seller not to count that).  It's got a lot of technology built into the card including processors and cache etc. to monitor and control the hardware RAID array including extra error checking and load leveling/balancing.  Also it's theoretically upgradable (each drive is called a "blade" and while they don't yet sell independent blades they may in the future).  Also the PCIe chassis is an extra bit of the investment that could live beyond the SSD, just like the whole arrangement could live beyond the use of my iMac itself.

This is a great review on it where they say it's "really fast.  Ridiculously fast."

A guy on youtube has a (somewhat boring) video of his Mac Pro taking 3 minutes to boot and launch paint shop pro with his hard drive and then after setting up one of these it cut down to 15 seconds!  Crazy balls out fast.

This is the sellers sites for;

The Thunderbolt PCIe
Chassis
The SSD RAID
array
And the bundled special of the two

Of note is that if they didn't offer the bundle discount and if it were not so much more expensive I might have opted for this much more attractive chassis.

Or for even more and larger chassis with multiple slots and supporting larger sized cards.

These chassis got me thinking about the possibilities with thunderbolt.  Now any iMac or MacBook can be as capable and expandable as a Mac Pro...there are even developments with video cards in one of these things!  I do wonder if it would be possible to take a MacBook Air and hook up a thunderbolt PCIe chassis with a high end graphics card with the display on the internal monitor?

If I was one of these manufacturers, or even Apple, I would consider making a full on chassis with PCIe slots and storage areas, etc.  I really wanted a Mac Pro but they were so old...now I can get some of that goodness piecemeal, though for a price. :-)

I get the device about a week from now and will post back my impressions if anyone is interested.


MBP early '11 kernel_task over 300% when unplugged Ok, after reading so many topics and not finding a solution maybe I should join the army of people posting topics about a kernel_task problem with a MBP.

Which MacBook do I own: MacBook Pro 13", early '11 (default, no extras)

When did it happen:
After some (maybe a bit more than some...) water was spilled over the keyboard/screen.

What was the direct notable effect (after 'drying'):
A very slow machine when the battery is the power source.

What did I found out
The system proces kernel_task is consuming around 280 - 330% CPU usage. Percentage rises up in about 5 seconds after unplugging the power supply and switching to battery power.

What have I tried

Reboot, didn't work
Removing applications I recently installed, didn't work
Reinstalling Mountain Lion, didn't work
Run a diagnostic tool provided by Lauri Ranta (see post), gave me some insight but nothing special. Looked up the kext-items which didn't make sense to me. After all: didn't work
Installed a trial version of iStat (version 4) and see which items would change when switching from socket power to battery. Didn't notice anything to be honest, even the fanspeed of my only fan (exhaust) kept running ~2000rpm
Checked Console to see if any messages would appear when switching, nothing
Tried resetting SMC using these instructions, didn't work

What makes me frown? When switching to battery CPU rises up to 330% but the fan doesn't seem to bother.

As you can see I've tried as much as I could find around on the internet. I'm wondering if there's a tool which allows you to see which threads kernel_task is managing (mostly around 83, 84 on my machine).

Any suggestions? Any help is greatly appreciated. I don't really mind to replace components if only I would know which one(s).

Best regards from Holland,
Ben Fransen.

Something is telling the kernel to do work.

You might need to run sysdiagnose and get expert assistance to interpret the results. Since you've done so much troubleshooting, it's going to be unlikely someone can drift in and point out an obvious flaw in your reasoning (but if they do - we might have a quick resolution.)

The real data missing is what you've done to isolate the issue. Can you summon this on demand? Does it happen immediately after a reboot?

You'll need to have some process to keep track of when the issue arises - once you have 5 to 10 events, then it's much easier to go over the system.log and top process listing to see if any patterns emerge.

A single sysdiagnose is very hard to pinpoint a problem by a non-expert. Ten events where sysdiagnose was run and there is data on what was connected, what you were doing, and ten sets of detailed logs is often very easy to narrow down your specific issue.


How to repair external hard drive that fails diskutil with 'Disk Full Error' If I run fsck_hfs -y -d /dev/rdisk2s10 it putters along, rebuilds the catalog B-tree then fails when writing the new catalog to disk.

bash-3.2# fsck_hfs -d -y  /dev/rdisk2s10
** /dev/rdisk2s10
Using cacheBlockSize=32K cacheTotalBlock=16384 cacheSize=524288K.
Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-491.6~3).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
Invalid node structure
(4, 19740)
** Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
BlockFindAll:  1060209 blocks free, but need 2314620; ignoring for now
BlockFindAll:  found 1938640 blocks but needed 2314620
Disk full error
** The volume MongoDisk could not be repaired.
volume type is pure HFS+
primary MDB is at block 0 0x00
alternate MDB is at block 0 0x00
primary VHB is at block 2 0x02
alternate VHB is at block 1953261182 0x746c667e
sector size = 512 0x200
VolumeObject flags = 0x07
total sectors for volume = 1953261184 0x746c6680
total sectors for embedded volume = 0 0x00

Diskutil reports the following for this partition:

Device Identifier:        disk2s10
Device Node:              /dev/disk2s10
Part Of Whole:            disk2
Device / Media Name:      Apple_HFS_Untitled_1

Volume Name:              MongoDisk
Escaped with Unicode:     MongoDisk

Mounted:                  Yes
Mount Point:              /Volumes/MongoDisk 1
Escaped with Unicode:     /Volumes/MongoDisk%FF%FE%20%001

File System:              HFS+
Type:                     hfs
Name:                     Mac OS Extended
Owners:                   Enabled

Partition Type:           Apple_HFS
Bootable:                 Not bootable
Media Type:               Generic
Protocol:                 FireWire
SMART Status:             Not Supported
Volume UUID:              4758CE30-CA9C-3DF1-90D6-0436772E622D

Total Size:               1.0 TB (1000069726208 Bytes) (exactly 1953261184 512-Byte-Blocks)
Volume Free Space:        146.8 GB (146791854080 Bytes) (exactly 286702840 512-Byte-Blocks)

Read-Only Media:          No
Read-Only Volume:         Yes
Ejectable:                Yes

Whole:                    No
Internal:                 No

My suspicion is that the extents tree indicates a full volume, so that diskutil can't find a place to write it.

The man page for fsck_hfs claims that you can rebuild the btrees individually with the R flag.  Doesn't work on Snow Leopard.

Is there a way to fix this short of reformating the drive?

Any recommendations to other commandline utilities to beat up on HFS file systems?

Perhaps Disk Warrior will be of some help. It's the best for recoverying the volume:
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks.
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
Data Rescue II is the best data recovery software on the market for recovering files from a problem hard drive. Data Rescue II works when other tools fail. Data Rescue II is also completely safe to use since it does not attempt any risky repairs to the drive while its scanning.
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume.  FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:

been accidentally deleted.
become unreadable due to media faults.
been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.

Entering:

  mac data recovery

into Google will list some firms who specialize in recovering data. Data recovery isn't cheap.


What is the font used on Console.app in macOS Sierra? Looks like Console.app went through some changes in macOS Sierra. I really liked the font used in that app but can't find it anywhere in the app (probably they disabled changing the font altogether).

The font used in the Console.app on macOS Sierra is the SFMono-Regular font.

This can be found in /Applications/Utilities/Console.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts

More versions can be found in Xcode8 directories for example here:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/SharedFrameworks/DVTKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Fonts/


Finding login attempts to a MacBook Pro Is there a way I can see the login attempts and login status to my MacBook Pro? These are essentially user sign-ins. Running macOS Mojave 10.14.4.

Open Console and search for "login" in the search box.

In a terminal, do

grep -i login /var/log/system.log

For finding failed attempts, use

grep -i authe /var/log/system.log


Completely synchronise multiple Macs I actually have a Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard (I plan on upgrading to Lion).

I may have to buy an Mac mini in order to have a full dual screen (external identical screens) layout (see my previous question).

So I will work on a Mac Mini and a Macbook Pro, most of the time on the same LAN.

How to get everything completely synchronised, as fast as possible? (I don't know if iCloud can)

I am talking about every file/data on my computer:

applications
application preferences
mails
calendar
iPhoto/aperture libraries
lots of small files (web development...)
files out of my account (apache server files, php/libraries)
...

I don't want to manage 2 computers and do everything twice (installing something, configuring the system, etc...).

Try using Mac OS X Server installed on the Mac Mini. Technically you should be able to install configure and mange users, applications etc all on the Mac Mini. Then you should be able to login via the MacBook Pro as a user on the server and pull down a configuration of Apps etc that you set up on server for your user accounts. See Considering OS X Server for home users.

This is just one example and it may be irrelevant to some people, so to understand the scope of what OS X Server has to offer it is best to look at all of its services lumped into four general categories: Account Management, File Sharing, Network Administration, and Web Services.
User account management
...
Beyond the directory itself are the domain management features of OS X, with which you can bind client Mac computers (such as your desktop iMac) to the server so the usernames and passwords in the server can be used to log in to the client Mac system. With this setup, you do not need to make new accounts on a system every time you want to allow someone to use a computer. Instead, you can go to the server and enable an account for a workstation, and that user can go log in to that system and use it. Additionally, if you purchase new systems all you need to do is bind them to the server and users can then log in to them with the same restrictions that they have on your other Macs (such as access only to certain applications, and only specific settings being available to them).

Also check out On Mobile Accounts and Syncing  where there is more research to be done at on how well OS X server does mobile accounts. It looks like Apples Offial name is Portable Home Directories as referenced from OS X Lion server spec under Client Management, this should allowing syncing to occur for your files in your home directory.


iOS Email Image Caching During the course of developing email campaigns I use my own iPhone as one of many testing devices.  The problem is, if I modify an image, I must modify the name of the file and the link to it in the code as well because my iOS device will incessantly reload the cached image from the previous test if I try use the same file name.

Is there any way to turn this caching off so that the images are downloaded each and every time?  I can't even seem to find a way to purge the cache.

If you force quit Mail (double-tap the home button, swipe the app up) the embedded image cache seems to be cleared when you relaunch it.


How do I tell if a device is doing USB 3.0 and not downgraded to USB 2.0 for some reason? For example, if I plug a USB 3.0 device and find that the I/O performance is rather slow, how do I check whether it's because the device is actually doing USB 2.0 (even though I'm using a USB 3.0 cable, connected to a USB 3.0 port on my MacBook Pro).

Try  menu >  About this Mac > System Report...
Select USB on the left, then find your device in the list.
The reported speed ought to be a giveaway. Mine shows it's only running at USB2 speeds [but that's because I don't have a USB3 machine]

List of speeds & common names…
USB 1.0 / Low-Speed: 1.5 Megabits per second (Mbps)
USB 1.1 / Full-Speed: 12 Mbps.
USB 2.0 / Hi-Speed: 480 Mbps.
USB 3.0 / SuperSpeed: 5 Gbps.
USB 3.1 / SuperSpeed: 10 Gbps.


Convert a number of zip file to rar? Any suggestion of how to convert tens of zip files to rar format? App or command line tool are welcome.

What you could do is making a little batch file that would use RAR, a shareware command line utility for mac (I did not find any free rar command line utility, but RAR is available as a trial).

Installing rar command

To install RAR into your terminal, simply copy rar and unrar into your bin folder.

To get access to the bin directory, open Terminal.app and type

open /bin

The Windows version of RAR allows to "convert" zip archive into rar archive in tools, but the mac version doesn't seem to have this feature. The solution would be to unzip each of the files into separate folders and then to RAR content of those folders right away.

The Solution

#!/bin/bash
# shell script that will convert zip files into rar files
# Require RAR for Mac os x to be placed in bin folder

# Working directory, use ~ for home folder shortcut :)
WorkingDirectory=~/test

# Temp directory that will be used for zip files manipulation
# Will prevent loop from raring other folders ;)
TempDirectory="${WorkingDirectory}"/zipToRarTemp

# Target Directory is where you want the rar files to go after the process
TargetDirectory="${WorkingDirectory}"

# Let's create the directories
mkdir "${TempDirectory}"
mkdir "${TargetDirectory}"

# Will loop into WorkingDirectory and unzip each .zip files
for file in "${WorkingDirectory}"/*.zip
do
    # Get file name
    # See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/965053/extract-filename-and-extension-in-bash
    # 1st answer
    filename=$(basename "$file")
    extension="${filename##*.}"
    filename="${filename%.*}"

    # Temp folder in the loop
    tempFolderToRar="${TempDirectory}"/"${filename}"

    # Create folders to rar later
    mkdir "${tempFolderToRar}"

    # unzip -d folder/extract/to fileToExtract.zip
    unzip -d "${TempDirectory}"/"${filename}" "${file}"

    # rar all the files in tempFolderToRar into the target
    rar a "${TargetDirectory}"/"${filename}".rar "${tempFolderToRar}"
done

# Optionnaly, delete temp directory if different from target
if [ "${TempDirectory}" != "${TargetDirectory}" ]
    then
    rm -r "${TempDirectory}"
fi

Save this to a file with no extension, be sure to set the good paths in the first variables and it should work fine running it in terminal.app

Conclusion

Well, It worked for me.

Note: this script is not perfect. Maybe there's a better way, but it works ;) that was one of my first shell script, would probably be better with parameters, or go with python ;)

Hope it helps.


IR Remote stopped working Most likely after installing/(and since removed) Parallels my Apple IR Remote stopped working.

I've confirmed that it's not the battery (using the built in camera) and later tried it on another mac (where it works as it's supposed to).

Is there any tricks to restoring IR functionality without restoring the whole machine?

Check your System Preferences -> Security pane, on the General tab, to make sure that the IR remote functionality on your machine isn't disable. If it isn't disabled try pairing the remote with the machine by clicking the Pair... button and following the on screen prompt.


Shift+3 returns £ sign instead of # sign When I press Shift+3 on my Mac, it returns £ sign instead of # sign. How can I fix it? Any ideas?
Input source - British - PC

The keyboard is working as designed for Apple.

If you want to use the keyboard as normal the # is given by Alt-3

I found this annoying as well and the way I get round it is to change the input source to Australian the only difference is that Shift3 is now # and Alt3 is £

Input Source setting is System Preferences->Keyboard->Input Source By default this will just show the UK keyboard to see more hit the + at the bottom of the list and add Australian

This is the answer I gave in Stack Overflow and I think is a duplicate here as well but I could not find the original.


How do I configure an .osx file? I have found the following repository on GitHub...

https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.osx

...that has some useful environmental settings I would like to adopt.  It appears they go into a .osx file.  Where is this file located?  Also, when does it 'run'?  Do I have to reboot the machine to get the settings in this to be recognized?

Select settings that look interesting, paste them in a terminal, and then quit and reopen applications to try them out.

You might also save the whole script as for example ~/.osx and then run bash ~/.osx in a terminal. It includes commands for things like changing the computer name though.

The defaults commands modify files like ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist, and you only have to run them once. Adding them to .bash_profile would only make your shell startup time longer. You might keep a personal file like .osx though in case you make a clean installation of OS X. And for example chflags nohidden ~/Library has to be run again after every OS X update.

I have a file like .osx only for settings that can't be changed from the UI (defaults.txt). I think it's easier to transfer settings to new OS X installations by recreating them manually, by copying the plist files, or by using Migration Assistant.


Trouble with Memtest86 4.0a on 15" MacBook Pro I have a 15" MacBook Pro late 2011 (MacBookPro8,2) It has a 2.4Ghz Core i7 CPU and 4GB of stock RAM. I'm trying to run Memtest86 4.0a from boot (Memtest86+ does not work.)

After about 5 seconds into the Memtest86 run the system starts OS X. I can't tell if it reboots because I can't see any POST messages but it does that chime thing (I'm a Mac noob.) So I'm assuming it is. That smells like Memtest86 4.0a is borking because it doesn't support the hardware in my MacBook Pro.

Has anyone got Memtest86 4.0a working from boot on this hardware? If not what do you guys use to test RAM without loading OS X?

An easy way to get memtest running is the Ubuntu install cd which has memtest as a menu entry.

Note that you previously had to run Boot Camp first to make the system capable of booting Linux or Windows.  I do not know if this is still the case with OS X 10.8.


Is there a way to "force" an iMessage to "come from" an e-mail address? When I send an iMessage from my phone, it appears to come from the phone number for that phone, and as a result, when it is replied to, the replies (and the conversation) appear only on the phone; but when I send an iMessage from an iPad, the message appears to come from an e-mail address, and as a result, the conversation is replicated across all iOS devices using that e-mail address.

I may not have that quite right (it requires some cooperation to test, and I can find no documentation that confirms it) but if I do:

Is there a way to "force" an iMessage to "come from" an e-mail address rather than from a phone number, so that I can ensure that a conversation is synced across my iOS devices?

Yes, under Settings -> Messages -> Receive At -> Caller ID you can set the phone number or email address you want your messages to appear to come from.

You can also do this with FaceTime as well.


Multi-monitor: spaces thumbnails on external monitor missing I've been having the following issue since about two weeks:

My external monitor, containing the OS X title bar, does not show the thumbnails for my three spaces when in mission control. My retina's monitor (secondary) does show them as before.

[ Nice, this question need a screenshot, but I don't have enough reputation. :( ]

External (primary) monitor:

No grey border in mission control. The outermost bg is the wallpaper for that space on the Retina display. It will change as well when moving to another space using ^left/^right

I can still move an app to another space by drag 'n dropping them to the place where the thumbnail should be. So it's not that they're gone; they're just invisible!

Retina display (secondary)

As it should be in mission control: Zoomed out bg image, grey border containing three thumbnails for the three spaces I have.

Has anyone experienced these symptoms as well?

Restarting your Dock should do the trick. To do so just open the Activity Monitor, type dockand press End Process.


How to Edit .pps files? They open like power-points in Powerpoint with animations. I would like to maintain the animations. There are just a few mistakes that I would like to correct in the body.

How can you edit .pps files and maintain the animations of the presentation?

In PowerPoint, choose File → Open… and manually navigate to the file in the Open dialog. This opens the presentation normally and you can edit it just like any other PowerPoint presentation.


How to omit apps from external drives in "Open With" menu? I maintain a SuperDuper! clone of my primary boot drive for backup purposes. When it's mounted, Finder's "Open With" menu shows duplicate applications. When I unmount it, they go away.

How do I configure OS X not to show applications from external drives in "Open With"?

Note: there is a related question involving duplicate "Open With" items. However, it's not related to external backup drives and its answer -- rebuilding the LaunchServices database -- does not solve my problem.

You can prevent the applications on your external drive from appearing in the Open With… menu by preventing Spotlight from indexing the drive.
To do this navigate to System Preferences > Spotlight. Select the Privacy tab and add your external drive to the list. Mutineer in the screenshot below is my SuperDuper clone drive.

Update:
My best recollection is that this was all I did to solve the problem, but if the problem persists, two additional steps may be necessary:

Make Launch Services reload the list of available apps with the command /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -all local,system,user. As apps on the second drive are not available via Spotlight anymore, the new database will only contain those on your main drive.
Restart Finder to rebuild its Open With context menu (Option-right click on its Dock icon to get the restart option, or do killall Finder in Terminal).

Credit to @kopischke for providing this concise answer on SuperUser.
If you want to avoid the terminal incantations, you can use Onyx to rebuild the spotlight index and launch services database.


can I trash my mail folder My mail folder is using a lot of memory.  Can I simply empty the folder in the Application Support folder or do I have to throw mail in the trash using the Mail program?

As a general rule: don't delete anything in ~/Library. Those are private folders used by apps to save configuration and data.
The ~/Library/Application Support/Mail folder in particular holds configuration files.
Don't delete ~/Library/Mail either, if your mail provider uses POP3 you'll lose all mail, if your mail provider uses IMAP the Mail app will have to download messages and attachments again.
To free up disk space delete mails you no longer need and then simply empty the trash:


Music app suddenly switches to speakers With the new iPhone 7 and iOS 10, I came across a problem that I ran into very rarely with the iPhone 5s/6s.

Recently, I was sitting in the bus, when suddenly the Music app switched from headphones to speakers. It's not a pleasant way of getting attention. (I think I pressed the home button, activating Siri and then pressed it again)

Just two days later, I plugged in my headphones and started to play music and again, it started playing using the speakers until I unplugged the headphones and plugged them back in. (This time, I didn't do anything wrong)

Basically, I can't diagnose this issue, because it is non-deterministic and I don't see a clear pattern for this. However, from a personal perspective, I slowly develop the phobia of people in the train being annoyed because my music is on speakers without me even noticing. This information may not contribute to solving the issue, but I just wanted to point out the personal aspect that comes along with it.

Hardware / software used:

iPhone 7
iOS 10.0.2
Headphones connected using the lightning adapter that came with the phone
The default music app
No jailbreaks or any other modification

This sounds like a serious issue with the iPhone 7 lightning-to-audio adapter.

You're going to have to diagnose the issue:

Try buying a new adapter to see if that fixes the issue, and also try using the native lightning earpods to see if those consistently work right. If a new adapter fixes it or if the issue can't be reproduced while listening with lightning earpods, it's the audio adapter's fault. If the issue isn't fixed by the new adapter but is fixed with the lightning earpods, you probably have some headphones that aren't compatible with the iPhone 7 (for whatever reason). If all else fails, just talk to apple at https://getsupport.apple.com and try to get yourself a hardware replacement.


iTunes 11 - how to "make iphone version" I just got iTunes 11 and coincidentally just discovered that supposedly there was an option to "Create (or make?) iPhone version" in the older versions for movies and TV shows and such.

I would like to know how to do that iTunes 11.  Is this possible?  What other ways could I compress my downloaded TV shows and movies from the iTunes store such that they wouldn't take up so much space on my phone?

I want to compress the SD version which is typically about 590mb.

My goals:

that one episode would be around 150mb maximum
is possible, it would be even nicer to have them around 75mb

Click on the video.
In the menubar, go to File > Create New Version > Create iPod or iPhone Version.

Tip: 600 MB to 75 MB would be tremendous loss of quality. Even so, if you want a file 75 MB large, don’t use iTunes as you can’t modify conversion settings. Use a dedicated converter.


Safari 8 Not Clearing Redirect Data So this is a bit complex of a question. I have a domain, and I recently switched it from one host to another. Unfortunately, Safari doesn't realize that, and instead of loading the new server with data on it, it loads the default error page of the old one. It's not a hosting issue -- other browsers are working fine even on my computer.

So the question is this: where does Safari store this data, and how can I destroy it?

Edit: I have cleared Website Data in Preferences, History and Website Data in the Safari menu and Caches in the Develop menu.

A posible solution is to Reset DNS Cache.

You can do it with dscacheutil -flushcache. For more info type man dscacheutil on the terminal.


iPhone System Storage over 50 GB The extremely high system storage is making my phone unusable. What do I do?

None of my apps have any storage more than 3.44 GB. When I connect to iTunes it shows like 30 something GB available. It is annoying to have because I’m not able to download any apps either. I have an iPhone 6s running iOS 11.3.1.

I would back up the phone and then erase all content and settings and re-measure it with no user apps or data or things installed - just the blank OS.

If you just want to poke at things before erasing, I would put the device in airplane mode then do the power off ( slide to power off in screen - controller shut down of iOS). Then start the device and open the storage viewing app. Ideally you connected to power and let the spotlight index rebuild for 15 minutes on power and in airplane mode (so no new data arrives on device)

Then if it's still too high (or you're just curious how much thinner you can make it), restore the device from iTunes (perhaps in restore mode).

Something is really off with that large an amount. I expect 3 GB of system space on older iOS versions and older devices:

What's the practical difference between a 16GB and 32GB iPhone?
How large is iOS?

Not the whopping 50 GB you post in your image. Either there are backup snapshots or something else really taking up space. If you only have 64 GB of space, I could see the device barely operating if it's reserved that much space. Even a larger storage device could be in trouble, so back up and then clean all your apps / settings and consider a restore for good measure.


iTunes and XCode not recognising devices after disconnected, until restart I have a problem which requires I regularly restart my iMac, up to several times a day, to get devices recognized.

When I re-connect a device, iPhone, iPad or iPod, I regularly get the message:

iTunes could not connect to this iPhone. This device is no longer connected.

They no longer show up as active devices in XCode.

When I plug a phone in, it asks me to confirm it should Trust this Computer but that doesn't make any difference.

Note that this is on re-connection. The devices are fine up until the point when I disconnect them. That doesn't change whether I "eject" them from iTunes or not.

Modal nature of problem

It seems that after this problem has started occurring, plugging any new devices in suffers a similar problem.

The problem survived a system restore from backup, which returned some 50GB of space to me. It originally showed up in Mavericks and I have since done an in-place upgrade to Yosemite. It's a mid-2011 iMac 21.5" with four USB ports.

The problem occurs regardless of whether the devices are connected directly into a USB port on the iMac or via the keyboard's extra ports. The devices are all getting power and show up on the System Report as being connected, eg:

USB2.0 Hub:

  Product ID:   0x0608
  Vendor ID:    0x05e3  (Genesys Logic, Inc.)
  Version:  77.60
  Speed:    Up to 480 Mb/sec
  Location ID:  0xfd140000 / 6
  Current Available (mA):   500
  Current Required (mA):    100

iPhone:

  Product ID:   0x12a8
  Vendor ID:    0x05ac  (Apple Inc.)
  Version:  7.01
  Serial Number:    52c05c8223d3efc793f2815e9d3dbcc018805880
  Speed:    Up to 480 Mb/sec
  Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
  Location ID:  0xfd143000 / 10
  Current Available (mA):   500
  Current Required (mA):    500

Using the following in Terminal is an alternative to resting your Mac.

sudo launchctl stop com.apple.usbmuxd

You still have to quit and relaunch iTunes or Xcode in order to see the device.


iPhone 6 with iOS 9.3.1 stuck restoring My phone was replaced yesterday, and I've since been trying to restore it from the backup I made just before it was replaced.

I have no greyed out apps, and all my photos are back, but it says I can't install the newest iOS update or make a backup to iCloud because it's still restoring from the iCloud backup.

I've turned it off and on again, turned wifi off and on again, put it in Airplane mode and switched that off, and also tried resetting it.  It's asked me for my Apple account password a few times but then I haven't seen anything change after I've entered it, and there's no spinning wheel in the top header bar to show that anything is downloading.

Any ideas as to what else I can do to try and resolve this please?

Three things come to mind one have you tried resetting doing a hard reset by holding home button and the power off button till the apple logo comes up and says to connect to iTunes then connect to iTunes and restore another couple of lil tricks are hold the power button till it brings up slide to power of instead of powering off ur phone hold down the home button this will wipe all back loading apps another thing is go to App Store and after the App Store loads up hit the explor button 10 times if none of this works got me but my mothers phone did the same thing and by doing these things a few times it is now working not sure tho


Nvidia MCP79 SATA controller caps link speed Why is my SATA controller capping the link speed? This is what it says in my System Profiler under the Serial-ATA page:

Vendor:                 NVidia
Product:                MCP79 AHCI
Link Speed:             3 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed:  1.5 Gigabit
Description:            AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

The link speed is as expected (3 Gigabit), but I don't see why it is negotiated into a 1.5 Gigabit link speed.
The drives attached to the SATA interface are a Hitachi 320GB 5400rpm hard disk drive and a MATSHITADVD-R UJ-868 superdrive.

I have a MacBook Pro 5,3 with Snow Leopard 10.6.8. My question is why the negotiated link speed is lower than the actual link speed.

Because devices connected are SATAI devices. How can you connect to a device at 3Gbps if it doesn't support it?


Is there a built-in way to both save and copy a screenshot to the clipboard at the same time? From what I've seen it seems like the basic hotkeys do not allow such a thing, besides if I use the following command on the terminal :

screencapture -ci somepath/screenshot.jpg

It only copies the screenshot to the clipboard but doesn't create the file screenshot.jpg at all (-c copies to clipboard and -i makes the user select a rectangle region to capture)

Thanks for your help.

According to man screencapture one can only save to the clipboard or to a file: there doesn't seem to be any way around this as designed.

The description of the command uses the word 'or' to indicate that only one action is possible: save the screencapture to a file or to the clipboard:


My MacBook Pro (2010) doesn't charge My MacBook Pro (2010) doesn't want to charge when I plug my MagSafe into it. This is what I get:

I already looked at Apple's support page, but it still doesn't work at all.
How can I make my computer charge again?

I know there's a question mark over your charger, so it's understandable you may not have tried this, but it's still worth at least trying an SMC reset.

To do this on your MBP, follow these steps:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (or power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

If nothing happens, you could use the MagSafe lead and connect it to one of the newer MagSafe 2 adapters you have (keeping the lead but changing the power source) and then trying the SMC reset again.

Let us know how you go.

[EDIT]

Ok, your MBP 2010 has a 60W Power Adapter and so does the MBP 2013.

If you can borrow that (the MBP 2013 adapter), then connect your MagSafe lead to that and connect it to your MBP 2010 for a while and leave it. Take note of whether the power/charge light comes on or not.

Regardless, leave it connected for at least a half hour and then try starting your computer. If it boots okay, then check the battery status (in the menu bar) to see how much charge it has and whether there's any sort of error message. If there is, take a note of the message. Then shut down your computer and leave it connected to power for a while (if possible, long enough for what a usual charge would take).

Finally, before having to return the adapter, redo my steps for resetting the SMC.

Once you've done all this, report back on how this all went (any power light, any charge, any error message, etc).


How to restore apps on iPod? I have an iPod touch Gen 3 running ios 4.2.1.

I have done a restore via itunes on my MacBook many times in the past. Usually when I do a restore, all the apps on my iPod are restored.

For example, I recently did a restore last year and all the apps were restored.

However, today I did a restore and the apps have not been restored. Worse still, when I go to iTunes and view my ipod, the Apps tab in iTunes is missing. There is only  a tab that says "file sharing" but when I click on it nothing is displayed.

When I go to the iTunes directory on my Mac (under home > music) I can see all the app Ipa files but there doesn't seem to be anyway to restore them.

How can I get my apps back?

Because this ipod is so old, none of the apps are available in the iTunes App store anymore.

And yes, I know that this model of iPod is no longer supported, but I have always been able to restore in the past without any problem.

If you updated iTunes to 12.7 then that explains the missing app loading.

Try to go back to iTunes 12.6 and then check. If the apps are still missing, you may need to restore them from a backup before iTunes 12.7 changed the syncing of apps to your device.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3230135/software-entertainment/how-to-install-itunes-1263-and-replace-itunes-127.html


File permission problems after migration to iMac I used the migration assistant to transfer files from my MacBook Pro (2011) to my iMac. Both computers run Mavericks. Now I'm not allowed to modify files which originate from my 'old' computer because of file permissions. The folders have this red sign and if I look with GetInfo the only authority with read&write access is "fetching".

I don't know whether it is relevant but after migration also the computer name changed from ...iMac to ...MacBook Pro and the transferred files are in a folder which is at the same hierarchy like my home folder of my iMac. Any suggestion how to obtain write access to my transferred files?

Terminal outputs of file properties per Douggro's request:

mac-Myname:~ iMacMyname$ ls -l /Users/iMacMyname/Desktop
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  7 iMacMyname  staff  238 Jul 10  2013 Universal

mac-Myname:~ iMacMyname$ ls -l /Users/MacBookMyname/Desktop
ls: Desktop: Permission denied`

I have just found a fix!

Basically "Get Info" then at the bottom of the window next to the gear icon click on the + button. In the next window choose your account name. It creates a new permission category. then just choose Read & Write and apply to all enclosed. I have just done this to 3 machines. It's magic!! and after 3 hours of frustration.


How can I rename the columns in Numbers? I'm working with a language file, with columns for different languages. My first row is the language names.

Is it possible to have the "A", "B", "C", etc as language names instead. That way, when I scroll I can still identify each column.

As often happens, a couple of minutes after posting the question, I found a way to do this.

In the Inspector, (opt-cmd-i), in the Table Inspector tab click on the middle button of Headers and Footers. Select the option Freeze Header Rows and the first row will stick to the top.


How to change the system folders (Pictures, Movies etc) It used to be possible (before Big Sur I think) to rename and remap the system folders (Pictures, Movies etc). What I am trying to do is move the folders to Dropbox like this:
sudo mv ~/Documents ~/Documents_old
ln -s ~/Dropbox/Pictures ~/Pictures
When I do that I get the following message:
mv: rename /Users/neilthompson/Pictures to /Users/neilthompson/Pictures_old: Operation not permitted
I know that it used to be possible because I have been doing it since 2014 but just moved to a brand new machine and now it doesn't work.
Anyone know of a workaround?

You need to give full disk access to Terminal to make it work - those permissions seem to have changed in Big Sur.  Go System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy and grant the permission to Terminal.  Even files that look like you have full control over them (based on unix permissions) can be impacted.


Any way to make multiple files stop hiding their extension? How can I make multiple files show their extension at once? Any finder setting and/or terminal command would be nice.

Not sure what your goal is, but you make Finder show all extensions by default by selecting Show all filename extensions in Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced.


AirPlay enabled speaker disappears from iTunes I have the AirPlay enabled B&W Zeppelin Air all set up correctly on my local WiFi. However, quite often when waking my iMac from sleep it will have disappeared from the list of AirPlay devices in iTunes to stream to.

I am not sure what the problem is. The speaker still shows up on all my other iDevices, and in iTunes I still get my AppleTV in the list of devices. I also can ping the IP address of the speaker from the computer without a problem.

So far the only solution for me has been restarting the computer. Just restarting iTunes does not do the trick. Disabling and re-enabling my network interface (it is connected through cable) also seems to work. However I am looking for a more elegant or permanent solution.

This has been a common issue with the Zeppelin Air and upgrading your firmware should resolve the issue.

How to Upgrade the Zeppelin Air Firmware

You should check the firmware installed on your Zepplin Air. You can view the current firmware version on the screen of an attached iPhone and most iPods. Generally it can be found in the "About" section in the "Settings" in the iPod menu.

The latest firmware for your Zeppelin Air is available in the support section on the B&W website. Download the installer from their site and then follow the instructions found in the manual to upgrade the software via a USB 'B' cable.

Didn't help?

If this does not help can you please provide the following additional pieces of information: the firmware version of the software installed on your Zeppelin Air, the version of Mac OS running on your machine(s), the version of iTunes you are currently using.


Is there a way to turn off email notifications with find my iPhone? Is there a way to turn off email notifications in find my iPhone?

Currently, it's not possible to disable security notifications from iCloud services.


Can I see a list of location notifications set up through Find my Friends? I want to know if I have already setup a repeating location (geofence) notification in the Find my Friends app before I create a dupe of an old one. Is there a way to see a list of location notifications in the Find my Friends app?

Tap on 'Me' at the bottom of the app then tap the Notify Friends button to see a list of your location notifications.

This related Apple support seems to be out of date (for iOS 9 at least) because it says to tap 'Notifications' instead of 'Notify Friends'.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19434?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US


What is covering my iPhone camera? Just today I noticed something new covering my iPhone camera lens. It looks like a shutter or aperture blade over the optics, but knowing that the iPhone has neither, I'm really confused. The camera is able to take pictures still, but I can't imagine this would help. I have not dropped the phone to my recent knowledge and I do not believe this "blade" was covering the optics yesterday.

You could clean the lens of your iPhone internally and see what that black object is that blocks the clear view. I've done this when some dust or tiny particles slip into the iPhone...

It's very easy and you won't do any harm with it,  if you follow the instructions carefully!

Open up your iPhone according to the tutorial on iFixit
Use a slightly moistened ear-swab to clean up your iPhone lens

To reassemble your iPhone, just follow the steps on iFixit in reverse order.

If you find a piece has slipped, once correcting that, you can also clear out all dust from your lens and it can solve your issue.


How to Find My iPhone using my Samsung Admire via MetroPCS? How do I find my iPhone 4 using my samsung admire Phone via MetroPCS

I think you'd be better off using icloud.com.


Can this 800 MHz iMac G4 boot into Mac OS 9? I'm trying to find a legacy Mac that I can use to boot into Mac OS 9. I've found an old iMac G4 in the classified ads, but it has Mac OS X currently installed and I'm not sure if it's compatible with Mac OS 9. This is what I could learn about it by looking at Hardware Overview in System Profiler:

Machine Name:       iMac
Machine Model:      PowerMac4,2
CPU Type:           PowerPC G4 (2.1)
Number of CPUs:     1
CPU Speed:          800 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
Memory:             1 GB
Bus Speed:          100 MHz
Boot ROM Version:   4.4.0f1
Serial Number:      <redacted>

Based on this information, it seems to match two different models on EveryMac: M8535LL/A and M9105LL/A. But only one of those models has support for booting into Mac OS 9. Is there any way for me to identify which exact model is this computer? Do they have different Boot ROM? I want to know for sure before I buy it, and I can't try installing Mac OS 9 on somebody else's computer.

This is going off of memory so unfortunately, I don't have a reference.

But the partial serial number that you provided QT219 gives us a clue as to when it was manufactured:

QT - I believe this is the device (i.e. iMac), but it's not really relevant
2  - The year it was manufactured.  0 = 2000, 1 = 2001, 2 = 2002, etc.
19 - Week in which it was manufactured.  19 = 19th week.

So, just looking up the week numbers for 2002, we can deduce that the iMac was manufactured sometime between May 6th and May 12th, 2002.  That model, M8535LL/A, was made between Jan. 2002 and Feb. 2003, is the model that can run Mac OS 9


TV app doesn't show some episodes I just ripped a few episodes of a TV show, added them to iTunes, updated the metadata, then synchronized them to my iPhone 6 running iOS 10. However, the episode doesn't show in the TV app. Other episodes that I ripped and synchronized do show up.

When I look in Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage > TV, it shows the missing episodes, so they are on the device.

Why doesn't the TV app show some of my TV show episodes?

It turns out the TV app lists episodes from left to right, not up and down. I had to swipe left to see the "missing" episodes. What made this tricky to discover is that the first page of episodes show up below the bottom of my screen, which requires a swipe up to see them. So, you have to know to swipe up and left.


How does Apple Watch backup work? Does the Apple Watch use the same mechanics of the iPhone in terms of backup data in the cloud?

For example, if for any reason, such as password forgot or whatever you need to reset to factory setting the apple watch, can you make a restore from a backup or do you need to sync again all the info from the Apple Watch app on your iPhone? How does it work?

I am pretty sure that I understood that when the Apple Watch is paired with the iPhone it continuously sync data with the iPhone and the iPhone itself does the cloud back up, but I would like to know more about it.

Yes, the Watch uses basically the same mechanics as the iPhone, since it more or less piggybacks it's backup with the iPhone's backup.

In your given example you would likely want to first unpair the Watch in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.  You might notice that the unpair process takes a while (a minute or two) compared to unpairing of other bluetooth devices, this is because the Watch automatically backs up to the iPhone when unpairing is initiated.  When you pair the Watch back to the iPhone you will be prompted to set it up as new or restore from a backup, similar to how an iPhone asks when you first set it up.

Source - Just had this conversation with an Apple Genius yesterday when dropping my Watch off for service.

This Apple KB article explains this as well - HT204518 Back up your Apple Watch


Are there any good reasons to NOT symlink 'System Folders' like Photos or Music? I am currently adopting oDrive for all my cloud storage needs. The only restriction that oDrive has it that it creates a folder called 'ODRIVE' on your computer. Everything that you want to sync has to go in that folder. I have now symlinked my Creative Cloud folder (for adobe CC) but I would REALLY like to symlink my Movies, Music, Documents, etc. That way oDrive manages my backup process, I continue using my usual workflow of saving photos to Photos and music to Music.

But I'm uncertain of how the Apple OS treats those folders. As I believe they are "System Folders" and have requirements on them.

So is there any good reason to NOT symlink 'System Folders?'

This is fine! Go ahead!

Symlinks or hard links are followed by the system, so you're free to create them within any of those folders, or indeed the folder itself.


What does it mean to have "custom access"? I'm having some permissions-related trouble with OSX clients and a Samba server.

When I create, for example, a new directory on the mounted share, it will be created with rwxr-xr-x permissions. But when I open the info window for the directory in Finder, it will tell me "You have custom access" and it won't allow me to display or change the permissions for the directory.

What is the message trying to tell me and why won't Finder let me change the permissions?

Generally, the "You have custom access" can indicate that the file has more complex permissions set than the Finder's Get Info window can display. From this Apple support article:

Custom: If the permissions for an item is set to Custom, the permissions have been configured in a way that is more complex than is provided in the basic user settings.

It's possible that the files on your SMB server have Access Control Lists setup. You may be able to get additional information about these (non-POSIX) permissions in OS X by using a command like ls -ale /Path/To/Folder.

It's probably also worth noting that the Finder may have problems setting permissions on your SMB share. I'd probably recommend configuring some sort of server-side permissions inheritance (i.e., using ACLs) to keep permissions in check on your share.


Is there a way to remove the artist name from a large number of titles in itunes? I have a few hundred mp3's which are labeled, e.g., "Rush - 01 - actual title of song". Is there a way to automatically remove "Rush - XX - " form the title names?

Try Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes . I think This one does it if not there will be something similar


Scaling different amounts on each axis in Keynote In Keynote it's easy to build an animation wherein you scale or rotate an item uniformly on horizontal and vertical. But is there a way to scale an object only on the vertical axis?

This is on the latest version of Keynote (6.5.3).

I don't think you can do it through the usual Actions applied to the object, but you should be able to get what you want using Magic Move.

Get your slide the way you want it, then duplicate it.

In the second copy, scale the object to the new stretched out size (deselect Constrain proportions to stretch the vertical axis).

Then click back on your first slide and in the Animate tab, choose Magic Move.

When you play your slide and go to the next, it should scale your object to its new vertically stretched size.


What are the main technical obstacles to running macOS on iPads in the near future? Since the new Macs have ARM chips, there is now access a build of macOS that technically could run on a device like, say, the iPad Pro? The architecture should be pretty much the same, I guess?
Clearly some tinkering would be required, but what are the main technical obstacles to it, even with the right skills and tools?
I suppose this would be something similar to what the Hackintosh community has been doing for over a decade with macOS on Intel computers. Only instead of creating Clover bootloader etc. to make macOS "think" it's running on a Mac, the same would be done on a jailbroken iPad, making macOS think that iPad is a Mac.
Obviously one would pair a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to get that desktop experience. Heck, maybe even a second monitor through the thunderbolt port on the iPad Pro?
I figure the coolest thing would be to have a dual-boot of both iOS and macOS on the same iPad. I guess virtualisation on top of iOS may also work, but I think the performance would be way better if running bare metal macOS.
Another cool idea, Imagine having macOS as a dual boot option on your iPhone 12. All you would need would be a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and an adapter to plug it into a TV, and your phone could be your computer to go wherever you needed it.
I am mainly talking about a fully function version of macOS here, with GUI, Bluetooth support, etc.

Technically it is possible.
Apple made a Developer Transition Kit (DTK) available to developers back in June 2020 - i.e. the recently released M1 Macs were announced. This DTK runs macOS Big Sur on an A12Z CPU. This is the same CPU that the iPad Pro 2020 has.
The latest release of Big Sur still runs perfectly fine on the DTK, although a few things aren't perfect. For example the A12Z CPU does not contain the same virtualization functionality as the M1 - essentially making virtualization a no-go here. The M1 and the A12Z compared also has a lot of other differences - which are the cause of the big performance difference in running macOS on the two systems.
Besides the CPU itself, there are other things to take into account however - most importantly being drivers for the basic peripherals and bootloading - especially the signing of the operating system.
If Apple wanted to make macOS boot on iPads, those issues are very small and could relatively easily be overcome. After actually booting (i.e. getting the kernel running) - then comes the question of getting the actual graphical user interface running on the iPad. This involves having a suitable driver for the GPU - and drivers (which can be quite complex and involve a lot of high-level functionality) for things such as FaceID/TouchID, the flash drive, camera, audio (speakers/microphone), touch module, cell subsystem, etc.
If others wanted to try doing it, you would need a bootloading exploit to get the non-Apple-for-iPad-signed operating system to get accepted. Also you would need to acquire or create drivers for all those elements of the iPad.
Getting macOS to boot into a text-only command prompt on the iPad is probably feasible for outsiders within a reasonable time frame. Getting a full macOS working with support for all peripherals, Bluetooth mouse/keyboard and external Thunderbolt monitor - probably not something we'll see before long. Prediction is ofcourse always difficult, especially if it's about the future.


Why won't my LaunchDaemon start? I'm attempting to write my first LaunchDaemon: I think it's pretty simple and meets all the requirements, but it won't run.

The file is at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.noah.supertest.plist

Ideally, it should be running ls and writing the output to ~/test.txt. But nothing is ever written to the file.

I restarted the machine thinking that might do it, but nothing.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.noah.supertest</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>ls</string>
    <string>></string>
    <string>~/test.txt</string>
  </array>

  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>

  <key>StartInterval</key>
  <integer>10</integer>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>

</dict>
</plist>

Permissions are set as root:wheel

You made several errors:

It is running provided you started the plist properly with launchctl - but it's faulty
You didn't define a working directory for ls
You are missing a proper stdout
You are missing a standard error file (then it's usually easy to detect what's wrong with your agent
Put it in LaunchAgents instead of LaunchDaemons: ls is no daemon

Here is a working plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>EnableGlobbing</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.noah.supertest</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>ls</string>
        <string>-laO</string>
        <string>/private/tmp</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/com.noah.supertest.stderr</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/Users/user_name/test.txt</string>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>10</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

You have to create the file ~/test.txt first before running the launch agent.

Then start the launch agent with sudo launchctl [subcommand [arguments ...]] and check the result:

...
drwxrwxrwt  8 root      wheel  -       272 Jan 23 12:23 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root      wheel  hidden  204 Apr  9  2015 ..
-rw-r--r--@ 1 username  wheel  -      6148 Jan 23 12:21 .DS_Store
drwx------  3 root      wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:07 KSOutOfProcessFetcher.0.sAglCyxY5lzPoNgfmEvv-ZqGl-w=
drwx------  3 username  wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:05 com.apple.launchd.XFA6PYyYos
drwx------  3 username  wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:05 com.apple.launchd.pHTdYNvPM9
-rw-r--r--  1 username  wheel  -      1867 Jan 23 12:21 com.noah.supertest.stderr
-rw-r--r--  1 username  wheel  -         0 Jan 23 12:16 com.soma-zone.LaunchControl.dumpstate
total 24
drwxrwxrwt  8 root      wheel  -       272 Jan 23 12:23 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root      wheel  hidden  204 Apr  9  2015 ..
-rw-r--r--@ 1 username  wheel  -      6148 Jan 23 12:21 .DS_Store
drwx------  3 root      wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:07 KSOutOfProcessFetcher.0.sAglCyxY5lzPoNgfmEvv-ZqGl-w=
drwx------  3 username  wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:05 com.apple.launchd.XFA6PYyYos
drwx------  3 username  wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:05 com.apple.launchd.pHTdYNvPM9
-rw-r--r--  1 username  wheel  -      1867 Jan 23 12:21 com.noah.supertest.stderr
-rw-r--r--  1 username  wheel  -         0 Jan 23 12:16 com.soma-zone.LaunchControl.dumpstate
total 24
drwxrwxrwt  8 root      wheel  -       272 Jan 23 12:23 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root      wheel  hidden  204 Apr  9  2015 ..
-rw-r--r--@ 1 username  wheel  -      6148 Jan 23 12:21 .DS_Store
drwx------  3 root      wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:07 KSOutOfProcessFetcher.0.sAglCyxY5lzPoNgfmEvv-ZqGl-w=
drwx------  3 username  wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:05 com.apple.launchd.XFA6PYyYos
drwx------  3 username  wheel  -       102 Jan 23 12:05 com.apple.launchd.pHTdYNvPM9
-rw-r--r--  1 username  wheel  -      1867 Jan 23 12:21 com.noah.supertest.stderr
-rw-r--r--  1 username  wheel  -         0 Jan 23 12:16 com.soma-zone.LaunchControl.dumpstate
...


How can Apple provide GNU tools? I am a web developer and am wondering why os x comes a long with a lot of gnu tools (nano, bash, vim). How can apple provide them in their closed-source system when the GPL forbidds this?

Regards,
Bodo

The basic philosophy in the GNU world is that they want you to be able to change their software, and anything which requires their software.  (This is their definition of "Free Software")

This essentially implies you need access to the source of all GPL software in a form so you can change things and install a new binary.

For programs which use GPL libraries directly ("linked with") they want you to have that ability too for those programs.   For programs not linking with but invoking through a command line (like "gcc -o foo foo.c") this does not apply, as you can just use another c compiler instead.  This is intentional and the GCC license address the fact that you can use it to create non-GPL'ed software.

Many commercial Unix server distributions have included GNU software over the years, but they have faded away.  To my knowledge there is only Solaris and AIX left with any serious market impact (due to their ecosystem).

So, yes, Apple can include and ship GPL'ed software as long as they provide the sources you need to change that software yourself.


Move Certificates from Server to Remote Computer (MACS) So I am trying to push a certificate from a location (server) onto a remote mac computer so that then I can run a script that installs the certificates onto keychain and installs the application. Do you guys have any idea on how to get the certificate onto the other machine?

I have OS X Server set up and Apple Remote Desktop as well if that helps.

scp provides a handy way to do this. It also happens to be nearly platform-independent (Windows requires Cygwin or similar).

Ex: from the Mac you want the certs on:

scp -r user@server:/path/to/cert/directory /where/you/want/the/certs

Note that the '-r' option works on entire directories, if you only want to work on the certs, not the directory containing them, you may ignore it.


App Shortcuts missing in Keyboard preferences I upgraded to Mavericks recently and it seems I am now missing the ability to set App Shortcuts. I only see the following in my Keyboard/Shortcuts preferences. Any thoughts on how to get App Shortcuts back?

Drag the divider bar to the right to show the categories.


Applescript for automating MS Word for Mac feature: add quote mark wrapper to unformatted text paste The post below from 2011 gave a really good script for pasting unformatted text into Word for Mac.

How can one create a shortcut for pasting unformatted text in Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac?

I'm a student, using this to help with quoting in essays, but I have no experience writing apple script. I've found a few scripts that wrap selected text in " marks (e.g. https://www.macworld.com/article/2038095/5-automator-workflows-everyone-should-have.html ) but have no idea how they could be integrated with the first script so that the unformatted text that is pasted has " marks wrapped around it.

Is that something someone could help with?

Take the first script and add a line to it to integrate it, like so:

try
    set theClip to Unicode text of (the clipboard as record)
    --add this line to the original script
    set theClip to "\"" & theClip & "\""
    tell application "Microsoft Word" to tell selection to type text text theClip
end try

That should do it.


Various iOS apps log out randomly, lose all data & settings I've been experiencing an issue that has causing me a lot of problems, as various apps including Whatsapp, Telegram, Linkedin, Authy, Lastpass, and more will randomly log out, and reset back to their inital state as if I just installed it on a clean phone. Apps like Whatsapp and Telegram will have lost all of their chat history, even if it was backup up on iCloud.

I've talked with Apple and they're adamant the problem is not with the hardware or with iOS after restoring the phone using iTunes. Whatsapp support is just giving me the run around with canned responses, so I doubt they know anything about the problem either.

I'm at a total loss as to what might be causing this problem after restoring the phone multiple times (the last time without restoring to a backup).

My phone is an iPhone 6S 64GB running iOS 9.3.2 although this problem has existed well before iOS 9.3.2 was released.

A found a 'satisfactory' workaround. As I commented on the question, I was having the bug after I decided to close all applications using the app switcher and then start every application on my phone.

My 'solution' is to close all applications in the app switcher and then turn off the device. Then, turn on the phone.

Since that, I have not had problems.


Is it possible to add an internal broadband card to MacBook Air? I have a Mid-2011 MacBook Air 11". Can I add a Verizon (or any kind of) broadband card to it internally? We want to avoid having an awkward USB modem hanging off the side.

No unfortunately the only options are really external. Until someone can come up with a 3G / 4G card that will work in place of the MacBook Airs Wifi / Bluetooth card, but even then how portable are the antennas designs between Wifi and 3G / 4G cellular signals, not sure it would work well if at all.

See iFixits teardown of the MacBook Air 11":

A mobile WiFi Hot Spot is a real option for now, essentially a portable broadband card that interfaces with your Mac via Wifi to allow a data connection. Also if have a smartphone such as an iPhone or Android phone that offers this Wifi sharing you can use one of those as well to do the same thing.

These kinds of devices have their own battery and would allow  you to tuck them away in a backpack, bag, pocket etc and use your MacBook Air with out any dongles, etc.


Catalina to Catalina SMB Share Disconnecting When Busy I've seen several questions like this but none of the answers are of any use. I have a Catalina Mac server with an attached Drobo drive, shared over SMB to my local network. I have another iMac that writes large amounts of data to that drive. This has been working fine for over a year. A couple months ago I updated my server to Catalina. Then I discovered that the drive would disconnect. I switched from SMB to AFS and the problem went away. Abruptly this past weekend the issue has returned.
I test this condition by mounting the drive on any Mac on my local network and dropping a large file onto it. Within seconds, the drive becomes non-responsive, and after a few minutes will disconnect from my Mac.
I can't find any log message to suggest what's happening. I've tried fiddling with all the Sharing settings on the server, messing with the /etc/nsmb.conf file, but to no avail. I'm considering putting a Linux box in place and removing the Mac altogether; this needs to work! But I'm out of ideas for fixing this issue.
[Update]: I noticed something odd: my Drobo has a second volume that I don't use for much. I tried using that over sharing and it doesn't seem to have the same issues! I've used DiskWarrior on the problematic disk (the file directories were in good condition) and Disk First Aid (no problems), but I'm wondering what could possibly be different about this one?

I realize the problem: the first Drobo volume is at max capacity.


MacBook Pro turned off and won't turn on! I was just using my laptop normally when suddenly the whole computer just shut down. I turned it back on straight away and it was fine. Another hour passed and it did the same thing. I could also turn it on again. And then it happened again, this time I couldn't turn it back on!! I have never spilt any liquid over my laptop so it isn't liquid damage. I have tried resetting SMC, replugging the battery cable inside the computer, leaving the charger disconnected from the mac for a few hours, nothing works! The strange thing is when I have my charger disconnected and I press the little button on the side to show power, nothing happens. But when I do the same with the charger connected it shows full battery.

I have a MacBook Pro 15" Early 2011 running OSX El Capitan.

Your Mac should still be able to turn on with a dead battery.  As long as charger is functioning properly, it's more than enough to both power up and charge your Mac.

You have three possibilities for the cause of this:

MagSafe Board (highest probability).  This board is known to go bad and when it fails, it presents symptoms similar to what you are describing.  The good news is that this component is very inexpensive ($10-$15).

You said in your post you had opened it up and disconnected/reconnected your battery so it sounds like you have the tech skills to do this repair.

Your Charger (medium probability).  This is the easiest test to do.  I once  took in a MacBook Air into Best Buy and hooked it up to a charger they had connected to one of their display models to verify that the charger wasn't the problem. It may or may not be the charger, but there's no need to spend $60 - $100 just to test it out.  if your computer comes to life after plugging in another charger, you have your answer.

Your Logic Board.  (least probability).  This is obviously the most expensive, but most of the time, it's not the issue.  The only way to diagnose this is at the component level.  If you have exhausted the first two possibilities, it's time to send it in for a professional diagnosis.


Why do the keyboard brightness keys sometimes stop working? Occasionally after turning my keyboard brightness all the way down to 0 manually (Which I do sometimes at night if I need to leave the machine running while it processes something) it won't allow me to turn it back on.

It gives me this symbol when I try. It usually lasts until I reboot. But is not easy to reproduce as it does not always happen.

Something tells me this is unanswerable, but I was hoping someone else might have discovered this problem too.

2010 2.4GHz MacBook Pro.

This is actually quite a clever little battery saver Apple have built into the MacBook.  There is an ambient light sensor next to the iSight camera on the unibody models or on both sides of the keyboard, under the speaker holes, on older models.  If the MacBook determines that the light in the room/outside is too bright for the keyboard backlight to be of any use, it will turn the backlighting off.  Then you can see that overlay to indicate that you don't have control of the brightness because the macbook has disabled it.

You can test this by putting the keyboard brightness up to full brightness and then shining a light/torch at the area around the iSight camera (or speaker holes) and you'll see that you cannot control the keyboard brightness while the light is shining.

Once you turn the light off, the keyboard brightness controls will function again.


MacBook not opening apps I am having a problem with my computer. It starts up totally fine, but as soon as I get to my desktop and try to open any app (Google chrome, Calendar, Messenger etc) the cursor just spins and the whole computer slows down. No apps will open.

So far I tried to fix the problem by resetting the PRAM. The weird thing is that the computer didn't make the restart sound while I was holding down the keys (alt/optcmdPR). Is this normal? It brought me to the OS X Utilities screen where I tried repairing my disk using Disk Utilities. But this didn't work.

Any suggestions as to what I can do to fix this? I'm new to
fixing computers but I'd really like to try fixing this myself!

Even before trying to fix permissions - I would make a new user account and then see if you can open these three apps:

Calculator - check if self-contained apps work
Safari - check if networking works
Calendar - check something that can connect to cloud data - substitute contacts if you don't sync calendars. Mail is usually a huge amount to download - so that's generally a bad test app.

If your new account works, the system and online and network are fine and it's just your settings in your user account that are amiss (or third party apps). If you can't make a new user work - then consider wiping the Mac and restoring from your backup once you have a clean install.


Show contact name that save in outlook app as Caller ID? I use outlook app on iPhone for work email/calender/contacts. The app is great however iPhone does not recognize incoming number that is matching a saved contact inside outlook app. So the phone only show the phone number instead of contact name.

is there any setting I need to enable?

Thanks,
/S

I don't think the iPhone can use the contacts in Outlook app.
However you can syncrhonize your contacts through iTunes :

Connect your iPhone or iPod touch to your computer using the cable provided with your device or by placing the iPhone or iPod touch in the Apple Universal Dock
iTunes opens automatically when connected to your computer.
In iTunes, in the source list, under Devices, click the entry for your iPhone or iPod touch.
Click the Info tab.
Under Contacts, click Sync contacts from, and then click Outlook.

Or you can try to add your contacts in your iPhone :

Settings -> Mails Contacts, Calendar -> Add an account

And then just syncrhonize your contacts.


iPhone 4S logic board replacement I have damaged my iPhone 4S. A weight was dropped on it and it stopped working instantly. I've opened the back and it appears the bottom of the battery, the speaker and charger point have been damaged. All at the bottom of the phone. The logic board appears fine.

Is it possible to put this into another iPhone 4S and thereafter access all my files, music, photos etc.? Stupidly it hasn't been backed up and there are many things I don't want to lose.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Also if it is just a straight swap over, do I need to get a replacement with equivalent memory?

I purchased another iPhone 4S, removed the logic board and replaced it with the one from my damaged phone. The damaged phone was 32gb and the replacement model was only 16gb. I figured this wouldn't matter as the memory is attached to the logic board itself so as this was being removed I bought the cheapest replacement available. The repair is fairly straight forward and is much easier than replacing the glass screen which I've had to do on a number of occasions for friends. There are many links on YouTube which are perfect to follow. I have subsequently purchased iCloud data to avoid the worry of something like this happening again. I think I was fortunate to have not damaged the logic board otherwise this repair/replacement wouldn't have been possible.