Samsung SSD 830 disappears A Samsung SSD 830 installed on a MacBookPro 2011 with Mavericks 9.5 was chugging along nicely until a file save action generated the coloured beachball ... and nothing else was active. I initially assumed a system freeze...

However, after pulling it out and attempting to connect as an external drive via USB to both its intended unit and another MBP with Snow Leopard, the disk is never recognized.

System logs are naturally unaccessible.

I've read around that it may be a firmware issue, however the info is sketchy. Samsung has a latest firmware FDOS OEM CD with a version of DOS and the Firmware Update Application for Mac users (really one can boot from a small DOS?).  However using DiskUtility and trying to copy btdsk.img or its parent Samsung_SSD_830[...]_Mac.iso to a USB disk DiskUtility asks for permission to scan the img file, but drops the destination USB unit (loop into empty...) and also returns (Invalid argument)

Many variables are now up in the air.

Is the SSD fried or really needs a firmware upgrade
I need pointing to a good ressource to make this supposedly DOS-booting drive for the firmware update.  ALternatively, is there a better way to achieve this?
Will I lose the data on the SSD? (I was lulled into the comfort of quiet speed and have quite a bit of work not backed up.  Mea culpa)

It may be fried, although 4 years is much shorter than expected lifetime.
When it was "was chugging along nicely" until now, I think a FW update will not succeed, nor be the cause of this stroke. It may be too full also.
I suppose that you already tried to see it in the Recovery Partition (start with CMD+R) and "repair disk" it with DiskUtility.


Gmail App on iOS shows badge count for unread Chats At times, the Gmail app for iOS can display a hard-to-remove badge. The badge corresponds to a gchat message that was received offline. The badge is considered difficult to remove due to a series of facts:

gchat sends an 'email' to your Gmail when you receive an offline message
gchat messages do not show up in any inbox in the Gmail app; they're only visible in the browser
The "Chats" label does not show up in the side bar of the Gmail app, so there is no easy way to access the chats
Searching for "label:chats" only finds chats up to June 7th. Maybe they released an update then that stopped sending chats to iOS devices?
Being online 24/7 (for instance, using the Hangouts app) is not a good solution, as I do not want to be online 24/7.

The question is: is there any way to make this badge less annoying?

Possibilities:

Can you make the Chats label appear in the iOS app?
Can you make chats not send emails when you're offline?
Can you make chats received offline not count as unread?

My "Notifications" setting is set to "Primary Only." This affects both my iPhone and iPad.

Inbox by Gmail solves this annoying issue! I've switched over my personal email accounts, and haven't had any problems since.


MDM software on iPhone - Monitoring hotspot use? I have a company phone (iPhone 8) which I use as a hotspot for my personal phone sometime.

My company uses Blackberry MDM. In "rights", it says they can "list network information." What does that mean?

Can you they monitor my hotspot use (i.e. what I am using hotspot for? Websites visited, photos/messages sent etc.)?

I read somewhere that Apple does not allow monitoring of browsing details by MDMs - is this true? Does it apply to browsing when on a hotspot?

"List Network Information" is related to blacklisted websites and what the device is using to connect to the internet (Roaming, VPN). For example if the corporate policy demands the device connecting through the corporate network.

Here you may get a sneak peak of what is able to get configured: http://www.wpci.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/BES10-2-FDM-EMM-data-sheet1.pdf (last page for iOS and Android)

Furthermore, see https://help.blackberry.com/en/blackberry-uem/12.7/administration/filtering-web-content.html and accompanied pages.

So, answering your question: It is possible, but you may never know what data your company is analyzing. The certificate with "list network information" just says it is theoretically possible.


How can I find Bottom Rubber Feet Foot For MacBook Pro 15" A1398？ How can I find Bottom Rubber Feet Foot For MacBook Pro 15" A1398？

I searched Amazon.com and ebay.com, can not find this model.

Apple actually has an article specifically about this, right here.  Apparently they have a rubber foot replacement kit which you can get if you contact them and request it.

Personally I would just find some soft-side velcro, felt, or some other craft material, cut out a few small circles with an xacto-knife, glue it on with Loctite (which is what Apple uses according to their article above) and call it a day.

If it really bugs you and you want someone else to cut out the little circles for you..

http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Macbook-Unibody-Feet-Replacement-Set-Black-p-23146.html

http://macdudu.en.alibaba.com/product/742059651-218052561/Rubber_Case_Foot_Feet_for_Macbook_Pro_retina_15_A1398.html


Increase attachment size limitation with Outlook 365 I'm having issues with sending large amounts of attachments via Outlook 365 (Home Edition) On OSX. I Can find a ton of information and fixes online for this issue in a Windows environment, or an Exchange environment, But can't turn up any information regarding this issue in OSX.

The issue i'm running into is the same one outlined here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2222370 - But as you can see, there's only information on resolving this issue on Windows. Can anyone shed any light on how i could resolve this under OSX?

Cheers!

This is not a client-side setting that you can control.  This is a server-side setting, which is to say, it's something that Microsoft limits (as do most internet service providers).  Since your attachment is larger than their limit, you could upload it to oneDrive and then send a link to the file on oneDrive to your intended recipient.  You should have at least 7 GB available in your oneDrive account, possibly more, depending on which Office 365 subscription you have.


Assign Tab to switch input method I want to use Tab to switch to the previously-used input source, and ⇧ ShiftTab as the usual tab function.

As a Chinese language user, the key combination I use the most is ⌘ CommandSpace, which selects the previous input source. Since I only have two keyboards enabled, selecting the previous input source is the same thing as toggling between them. For every non-English user, this switch is frequent.

To make it easier, I want to use Tab to switch input sources.
Following this, a ⇧Tab sounds like a good idea to perform the normal function of Tab.

However, System Preferences (as I tried it) only allows the user to set the switch as a combination starting with ⇧ Shift or ⌃ Control.
Is my request unreasonable? Or can it be done?

Oh, I found Karabiner Elements works for Sierra, and I am very satisfied now.

Previously, Karabiner is out of order in Sierra.
Indeed, Sierra starts to offer custom remaps among those of ⇪Caps Lock, ^Control, ⌥Option, and ⌘Command, with System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard > Modifier keys.
Still, I cannot use any of them to switch input source with System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Input Sources.

There has been several months, and today I visited Karabiner's homepage again.
They say they produced a Karabiner Elements for Sierra, but I cannot compile myself, though had not closely studied the error message.
Besides, fortunately there is a latest compiled image.
The link is not anywhere obvious on their homepage, but I found it in another forum discussion, so I hope more people seeing this (my post) can find this image.

Karabiner Elements works fine, as far as I see, for simple assignment of keys — i.e. to force the physical key X's signal to be interpreted as key Y's function.
This is my setting.
Physical ⇪Caps Lock now performs the function of Esc,
and Esc that of `,
and ` that of ↹Tab ,
and ↹ Tab that of F4 (or something else),
and F4 that of ⇪Caps Lock.
Then I set F4 to switch to the previously-used input source.
I am proud of my setting. Vim users for non-Latin family language will save considerable effort with this!


How do I enter Dutch names in Address Book? Dutch surnames are kind of weird, in that a lot of them start with small words such as
de/'t/het ("the"), van ("of"), van 't, van der ("of the"), etc. This makes them a pain to enter in most address books, since you really want to ignore that part of the name when sorting, but not when displaying. This means you get "Piet Vries" instead of "Piet de Vries".

While Address Book has the "middle name" field, which can be abused for this, it really isn't meant for it, causing some applications (iCal, for example) to ignore the field, showing an incomplete name.

iTunes solves this problem for artist and album names, giving you a "sort album" or "sort artist" field to enter a string to sort on (so "The Beatles" are sorted as if they're called "Beatles"). I haven't been able to find a similar field in Address book.

So, what is the correct way to make Address Book deal with this?

My preference is to list their name as something like "Heirseele, van" because when searching by last name you'll still find them using "van" if you decided to. Putting the preposition in another field is a little hackey (and incorrect from a data-integrity point of view) for me.

For the benefit of others: in Dutch, all those prefixes are part of the name. You refer to someone in Dutch as "Meneer van Heirseele" not as "Meneer Heirseele". Those names haven't joined the prepositions like French names have (e.g., Dupré).

Just my two cents…


Prolific PL2303 ceased working On my MacBook Air (running 10.11.2), all my Prolific PL2303 USB-RS232 Adapters (USB VID_067B&PID_2303) ceased working out of the blue, literally over night. I have no idea what caused this.

The adapter shows up when running ioreg -p IOUSB as

+-o IOUSBHostDevice@14200000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x10000063a, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (37 ms), retain 11>

The devices /dev/tty.usbserial and /dev/cu.usbserial are still created, but screen /dev/tty.usbserial won't work. screen opens without an error, but I can't do nothing. screen does not react to keystrokes.

I tried these adapters with Windows / Putty and everything works as supposed.

I uninstalled the old drivers by running

sudo rm -rf /Library/Extensions/ProlificUsbSerial.kext
sudo rm -rf /var/db/receipts/*PL2303*.*
sudo rm -rf /var/db/receipts/*ProlificUSbSerial*.*

and installed the latest Prolific driver from http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=229&pcid=41, but no luck.

sudo dmesg shows

  PL-2303/X V1.5.0 start, Prolific

No other errors.

Still, no show.

Any ideas?

I have tried everything myself. The only thing I actually got to work was buying drivers from Mac-serial-USB.com I do believe what the website was. After I loaded the new driver from them. It was like 8$ it worked perfect which made me extremely mad because I shouldn't have to pay some random company for a driver that should already work.


Does choosing "Reset All Settings" on an iPhone 5 cause re-activation that requires a sim card to be present? I have a badly cut sim that was converted to Nano but it was cut slightly too small and damaged. I subsequently went to the Apple shop and they activated the device for me.

If I perform a "Reset All Settings", Will I need to reactivate the phone with a sim card, or will wifi only be enough?

Reset all settings will not. Erase all content and settings, though, will need a SIM.


Disable Force Touch from terminal using Bash or AppleScript Is there a way to disable (or do other things to) the Force Touch settings using either shell scripting or AppleScript?  Hacks accepted.

Credit:Control haptic engine and force touch from terminal
@bmike

  Apple hasn't released an API for that, so the answer until someone
  reverse engineers it (or Apple releases an API) is no.

  The best you can do today is read force touch but not influence the
  haptic feedback or modify that.

  https://developer.apple.com/osx/force-touch/


When running Windows (or Linux) on a Retina MacBook Pro, what resolution does it report? I use parallels and vm software to run Windows and Linux on my Apple machines. When running Windows (or Linux) on a Retina MacBook Pro, what resolution does it report?

Windows
According to AnandTech:

Windows 7 by default starts up at 800 x 600 on the Retina MBP, Windows 8 defaults to 1024 x 768. This behavior isn't specific to this system, the GeForce GT 650M doesn't have native driver support in either OS at this point and these are the defaults for the standard VGA driver in both cases.
Windows 7 won't expose any resolutions higher than 1600 x 1200 without an actual NVIDIA driver, while Windows 8 will let you select the full 2880 x 1800 panel resolution.

This is a report about Windows via bootcamp. I don't know how this differs from Windows being used in a virtual machine. It would probably also depend on the options that the VM software offers.
Linux
When using the NVIDIA drivers on Linux (and on Windows too) you can select the full native panel resolution (2880x1800). You can also select any of a number of scaled resolutions which don't look as sharp. In general, running at native resolution is actually less of a problem for Linux than it is in Windows and OS X because of the way it's designed. There are no blurry fonts on 3rd party apps like on OS X and it is easier to set your DPI so that apps are scaled properly than on Windows (it is set automatically in Linux).


Getting quotation marks to the bottom of a line Quotation marks go to the top of the line in MS Word, like “this”.
However, official EU text as well as some Dutch publications use quotation marks as follows:

Van Slingelandt: „We vinden het belangrijk dat gemaakte afspraken nagekomen worden.”

The opening quotation marks are at the bottom of the line. How do I get MS Word to do the same? Is there a setting in MS Word, or do I need to do something in the Apple/Mac environment?

On my (german) mac keyboard

I get „ when i press ALT + SHIFT + w
I get ” when I press ALT + SHIFT + 2
and I get “ when I press ALT + 2

On your keyboard this can be different depending depending on the language and/or setup. Another option I recently saw here could be as follows:

get „ when you press ALT + .
get “ when you press ALT + [

In order to find the right key combination it can be useful to turn on the keyboard viewer from "preferences > languages and text > input sources ..."  as described here.


SSD upgrade for 15" MacBookPro2,2? I'd like to upgrade my old MacBookPro2,2 with something like a 120 GB Samsung 840 Basic SSD. Does that make sense?

I have a MacBookPro3,1 myself and have thought about doing this as well.  You will see a little bit of performance increase in boot time and overall usage by upgrading it.  In fact, ifixit.com may even sell kits for your computer's hard drive replacement.  It really boils down to do you want to shell out the cash, knowing that Apple will, if it hasn't already, cease to support your hardware.  Meaning that at some point, if it hasn't already, newer versions of OS X will not be able to be installed on your machine.

I'm still on the fence about upgrading to a SSD on my MBP because I know that sometime in the next year or two I will probably get a new machine to replace it, along with my iMac.  If you have the cash, a better investment may be to sell your laptop and use those funds to buy a new one.  Just my two cents.

here is a link to the parts that are sold by ifixit.com for your mac, but please verify that I have linked to the correct model (A1211): http://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro-15%22-Model-A1211


How do I mask "forbidden" chars in passwords in the mount command? How do I properly mask/escape illegal characters like /:@\ in passwords added in the mount command?

The question arose in the answer here:

mount -t afp afp://adminname:password@ServerIPAddress/ShareName /Volumes/TimeMachine

The asking person had a backslash "\" in the password and the command didn't work. The solution were single quotes around the afp...-part.

Testing the whole scenario in a VM, I created an admin with a password similar to aaaaa\@11111, but I haven't been able to get the mount command working.

Use URL encoding to protect the wonky characters in the password. Essentially each character (or byte of UTF-8) can be encoded as a % followed by two hex digits specifying the encoded byte. In your example, \ -> %5C and @ -> %40:

mount -t afp afp://adminname:aaaaa%5C%4011111@ServerIPAddress/ShareName /Volumes/TimeMachine

This worked in my test.


Timemachine Mac Mini with 2 Hard Drives I have a mac mini server with 2 Hard Drives, one for the system and active files (Server HD) and one serving as an archive (Archive HD). Is it possible to use Time Machine to back up both disks and not just the Server HD?

Time Machine ought, by default, to back up everything except locations it is specifically told not to, with the exception of itself & any NTFS volumes, which will be already in the exclusions list & greyed out.

System Prefs > Time Machine > Options…


involving the Return key in a System Preferences keyboard shortcut I'm trying to get used to a macOS development environment after years of being an i3 junkie and I want to be able to use keyboard shortcuts to launch applications. I learned that you can do this by writing simple Automator services and then making keyboard shortcuts to those services (under System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services). I followed the instructions here and I now have the Automator service I need in place and I can also tell it to use a shortcut like ⌥+⌘+T to open it.
However, I don't want to use ⌥+⌘+T to open a terminal. I would like to use ⌘+return instead. When I try to do that, System Preferences acts as though I haven't specified any shortcut at all; I think it doesn't like to set up shortcuts involving the return key. It lets you use most other keys though, as far as I can tell. (aside: I played around and it looks like the only keys you aren't allowed to use in this menu are return, delete, caps lock and fn.)
Does anyone know a way to work around that?

An ideal workaround would let me set it up directly in the System Preferences Menu. (that feels impossible to me so far but I have no idea why)
Second place would be doing it using config files somewhere on the filesystem. (akin something like an ~/.xbindkeys file under X11).
Least desirable to me are solutions involving installing third-party
keyboard automation tools. (I think I can figure out how to do that on
my own, I'd just like to avoid it.)

I'm using macOS Catalina.

Does anyone know a way to work around that?

Second place would be doing it using config files somewhere on the filesystem.

In macOS Catalina, it's the ~Library/Preferences/pbs.plist file that stores information about the services listed at: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services
This answer is mainly focused on applying the ⌘↩ (commandreturn) keyboard shortcut to a service listed at System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services and without concern to the issues with creating an Automator Service/Quick Action and assigning it a global keyboard shortcut in reference to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy.
Having created an Automator Service/Quick Action and assigned it a temporary global keyboard shortcut of ⌘] in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, I then did the following to change it to: ⌘↩
Note: The name of the target Automator Service/Quick Action is: New Terminal Window
Closed: System Preferences
Opened: Terminal
% defaults read pbs | grep 'New Terminal Window'
        "(null) - New Terminal Window - runWorkflowAsService" =         {
%
% /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "set :NSServicesStatus:'(null) - New Terminal Window - runWorkflowAsService':key_equivalent @↩" ~/Library/Preferences/pbs.plist
%

Then went to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services and verified the target Automator Service/Quick Action had the ⌘↩ keyboard shortcut.
I then pressed the ⌘↩ keyboard shortcut, responded to the Security & Privacy dialog box, and now have a new Terminal window.

Notes:
If after running the PlistBudy command and then checking System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services to see that ⌘↩ was assigned to the target service's keyboard shortcut and testing... If the ⌘↩ keyboard shortcut doesn't work, try the following before rebooting:

Try the the service from the Services menu, then try agin with the ⌘↩ keyboard shortcut.
If that does't work, execute the PlistBudy command again while appending ; killall cfprefsd to the command. Then repeat the step above.
If nether of these steps work, execute the PlistBudy command again and immediately reboot.

This was done from an Admin account.
This was done under macOS Catalina with Language & Region settings in System Preferences set to English (US) — Primary and worked for me without issue1.

1  Assumes necessary and appropriate setting in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy have been set/addressed as needed.

The AppleScript code used in a Run AppleScript action of the Automator Service/Quick Action was coded to work whether or not Terminal was already running.


Model Name: MacBook Air Model Identifier: MacBookAir4,2 Processor Name: Intel Core i7 Processor Speed: 1.8 GHz Battery life catastrophic since upgrade to Yosemite - activity monitor shows 'spotlight web content' items using large amounts of CPU for webpages that are not even open?? Does anyone know why this is?

Spotlight is re-indexing after the upgrade, which means it's busy all the time, impacting performance and battery life. Never try to judge the performance or battery impact of any major OS X upgrade until the machine has been turned on but idle for at least a week, to give time for the re-indexing to complete.


How to tell total MacBook screen on time on battery? I'd like to know the total screen-on time since I plugged off my MacBook from the charger, but apparently there are no easily found stats for it.

Do I need an external app? I'm using MacBook Air 2015 with El Capitan.

I don't think that's something that Apple provides anywhere, however if you put in a little scripting work it's definitely doable. You can get the current brightness on the display with this command:

ioreg -l | awk '/ApplePanelRawBrightness/ {print $NF}'

A '0' result means the backlight is completely off. The upper limit depends on your specific hardware. You can get the highest possible number for your hardware with:

ioreg -l | awk '/AppleMaxBrightness/ {print $NF}'

You could set up a cron job to run that every minute, and record the result and current time, e.g. in a CSV file. You could then use a spreadsheet program to do the calculation. Or, you could use a higher level language like Python or Ruby to do the same thing and automate the calculation in your script. The latter would be my approach.

EDIT: I just noticed the 'on battery' part of the question - dunno how I managed to miss that. You can get a simple Yes or No answer to whether the AC adapter is connected using this command:

system_profiler SPPowerDataType |grep Connected | awk '{print $2}'


Change shortcut for switching to the next most recently used app among your open apps in MacOS From the Mac keyboard shortcuts page

I found shortcut for switching to the next most recently used app among your open apps : Command-Tab.

I want to change it to Option-Tab.
Does anyone know name of this shortcut so I can add a new shortcut key as Option-Tab in App Shortcuts

Not sure if this is what you wanted, but here's a possible solution without using any third party apps:

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard
Click on Modifier Keys... (Refer to screenshot)
Map Option to Command, and Command to Option (or use the modifier keys in any way you want)

Now you can use Command key shortcuts using the Option key.


Private Key and Certificate protection on IOS I have a question about private key protection on iOS.

I simply would like to know if there is a way of protecting client's certificates when importing them to an iPad.

For example, when installing a certificate on an Android device, it forces me to set a pin or pass phrase to the device, which can't be disabled until the certificate is deleted.

Is there something like that in iOS?

Edit: In my case, I'm speaking of private devices used for professional activity. It means that we can't applied any MDM policy solution (because we don't own the device).
Am I right?

Yes, iOS has MDM functionality built in to it to enforce enrollment into a policy framework where the device has to obey profile restrictions.

Passphrase restrictions was one of the first things to be deployed - perhaps around iOS 4.

You can use Apple's Server.app to set up these profiles as well as Apple Configurator and many third party MDM solutions can help you configure the OS to secure and introduce certificates and public/private key chains of trust.

Apple documents this at a high level at http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/management.html and once you have read up on how configuration profiles work, feel free to ask another more narrow question if you run into any difficulties.


Why does Drop Box not work after 10.8 upgrade? Setup: I got SMB shares on my old-old Mac Mini (running 10.5). I have Drop Box folder/directory with Write-only permission - it is used to be called "Dropbox". Recently I upgraded my laptop (MacBook) from 10.6 to 10.8. It was clean install - meaning format drive, install new OS.

Issue: Running 10.6 on my laptop, "Dropbox" use to work great - no issue whatsoever. Used it for over 5 years. However once I got 10.8, I can't seem to write to the remote (Mac Mini) SMB Write-only folder.

Scenario: Drag a file to "Dropbox" folder. Finder shows active window of copying a file. Once the transfer is done, I look under the folder (from a server side via VNC) and there are no file's.

I am certain the issue is with my laptop running 10.8, not a Mini. However I can't figure out what is wrong.

To be honest it sounds like it could be a bug in DropBox, and you should contact them to find a solution (and please post the solution here if they give you one).

Why do you have the DropBox folder on the server? Why not have a dropbox folder on the server and a completely separate one on your notebook?

Perhaps it's not what you want, but it seems like that should work perfectly. DropBox usually sends files across to the other machine within a few seconds.


Slow initial app window opening, but only in certain situations? I use some apps that can accept files a few ways:

open and then use its own file select dialog
"open with" from Finder
"drag & drop" from Finder

Method 1 is fine and the app responds as expected.

Methods 2 & 3 result in the app opening—you can see the app's menu bar and dock icon—but then there is a delay of 4 or 5 seconds before the app window appears.

Apple say:

  Engineering has determined that your bug report (39378510) is a duplicate of 19293778 and will be closed.

But why the delay? What is macOS doing? How can I remove the delay?

I've tried:

reset launch services (no difference)
new/guest user account (no delay!)

Most interestingly:

Build new app with unique ID (no delay on first launch; delay on second launch)
Delete Saved Application State for the app (no delay!) but this regenerates with every run of the app
Deleting only the file data.data (download that file) in the Saved Application State (no delay!)

  Workaround: I can prevent Saved Application State on a per-app basis.
  See here: https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Platypus/issues/110#issuecomment-377398429

Any ideas appreciated.

mac OS 10.13.6
no antivirus

Here are two videos:

xACT.app: https://youtu.be/IzUbQaPzAhA
Platypus.app: https://youtu.be/Omn0pHl7oQw

So it seems that the app is for an as yet unknown reason tied-up opening its com.organisation.AppName.savedState from ~/Library/Saved Application State/. I found this out by using FSMonitor whilst launching the app and confirmed it using AppCleaner.

Looking inside the .savedState file I can see that there's a file restorecount.plist, present for exactly as long as the delay, which contains an incremented number which on my install of macOS is about 544,000,000 right now. Half a billion windows restored since Mac OS X 10.7 Lion! The ID seems to be system level, as even the Guest user has roughly the same number in its savedState files.

  I'm still interested to know why a new account has faster generation of the restorecount.plist file whilst "old" accounts can be a lot slower.

The workaround is to either:

per-user: enable System Preferences > General > Close windows when quiting an app
per-app: in Terminal defaults write com.organisation.AppName NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false which stores it in the app's preference file at ~/Library/Preferences/.

Further discussion at this GitHub issue.


Need to re mount usb drive to complete time machine backup (24" 2009 iMac running Lion 10.7.5)
I have a Seagate 1t usb hard drive (have done for about 6 months) . I have mounted the drive and set it up as my time machine backup drive.
It will perform the first back up once connected fine but when the time comes for the next scheduled backup a warning is displayed saying "Could not complete backup" or something to that effect.
If i eject the drive and remount or restart my mac it works fine at the next scheduled backup then continues to do what i have explained above.

I would disable Time Machine and turn it back on, reselecting the backup drive. If possible, it may be helpful to reformat the backup drive before reselecting it as well (though I hesitate to tell you to delete your only backup, even for a few hours. If you have a second external, you may copy the Time Machine backup data there temporarily for safekeeping).


How Do I Uninstall Google Voice Voicemail from an iPhone? I installed Google Voice Voicemail on my wife's iPhone, thinking she would like it. You know, the thing where you put in the funky long set of numbers and dial somewhere, and kapoof, you now have Google Voice Voicemail instead of iPhone voicemail.

Now she tells me she doesn't like it, and wants to go back to the old Apple iPhone Voicemail. How do I revert this back?

Simply turn off voicemail for calls to google voice using the web interface for that google voice number.

If you activated the carrier settings like in the image below, click the instructions to reverse those changes with the carrier. You could also call your carrier for help since it's a feature that has different commands on a per-carrier basis. They will be most familiar with their settings and order to undo the change if Google doesn't help undo it.

Without your carrier forwarding all calls to Google, you can still keep Google Voice and have both voicemail systems separate.

That will simply forward the call and let the iPhone and carrier handle the voicemail.

Lastly, you don't have to delete the google app for this to work, but that might make things simpler if your wife doesn't want to call out using the Google Voice number anymore.


Using Applescript to fool key logger with keystrokes I don't know much about how Mac processes keystrokes, but if I wrote a simple AppleScript that opened a TextEdit document and started typing a huge block of text, would this effectively mask my typing if it ran in the background?

Or does Mac process the AppleScript keystroke input first then whatever I'm typing second?

Well, it might kind of work, but idk if it would do what you want to achieve.

This script

tell application "TextEdit"
    activate
    make new document
    delay 1
    repeat 100 times
        tell application "System Events"
            keystroke "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
            keystroke return
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell

will start typing into whichever document is frontmost when it starts after the 1s delay time for TextEdit to come to the front.
Once it's typing, you can switch to another app & continue what you were doing - but you can't use TextEdit as it won't let any other document come to the front until it's finished.

If you switch to another app before it starts typing, it will type into that instead.

Whether that would fool a key logger, I have no clue - but that begs the question…
what makes you think you have a key logger & why not get rid of it instead?

If it's some kind of 'corporate' checkup on employees, consider how long it might take before they noticed it & wondered why you felt it necessary to try to bypass - something presumably covered in a contract of employment.


Where is the New Oxford American Dictionary stored? I'm trying to build a command line tool to look up definitions of words, it's only a dummy app for me to practise my C++ skills.

I know there is a list of words stored at /usr/share/dict - but what I'm really looking for is the path to the New Oxford American Dictionary data, it comes bundled with the system, but I couldn't find it yet.

The dictionaries are stored in...

/Library/Dictionaries
~/Library/Dictionaries


Showing the current boot arguments in OS X Is there some way to know the arguments passed to xnu at boot from within the system?

You can use the nvram utility.

Open Terminal.app and run nvram -p to see all the boot parameters. You can also run man nvram to see all the options. Note that to set any parameters you will have to use sudo if you are not logged in as root.


Numbers create a chart with transposed data I'm willing to use numbers to create a chart.

Unfortunately it is creating the chart using the rows of my data source and I can find how to tell it to use columns instead.

Do you know how I could set that?

I found it out. It was actually simple. I just had to go to the table containing the data and click on the little icon at the top-left of the table.

I added a couple of pictures to clarify what I had to click.
Notice the arrow on the first arrow that shows the button you have to click.


Transfer media files from an Android device to an iOS device Is there any software or app that can directly transfer media files (videos, images, audio) from an Android device to an iOS device (similar to AirDrop)?

While there's no native way to transfer media files from Android device to iOS, you can install and use a 3rd party app called Xender to do so.

Since iOS doesn't provide direct access to file(s) and filesystem (unlike Android), the media will be transferred via the app and the same needs to be installed on both the devices.


VirtualBox 5.1.22 on OSX 10.10.5 fail to start after install I get the following error when starting from Terminal:

VirtualBox: Error -610 in supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime!
VirtualBox: dlopen("/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxRT.dylib",) failed: <NULL>

VirtualBox: Tip! It may help to reinstall VirtualBox.

And when I run vagrant I get:

There was an error while executing `VBoxManage`, a CLI used by Vagrant
for controlling VirtualBox. The command and stderr is shown below.

Command: ["startvm", "a8a8fac4-2c8d-4ad4-9ab6-1d200a742c90", "--type", "headless"]

Stderr: VBoxManage: error: The virtual machine 'bapresta16_default_1499355015641_13826' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1)
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component MachineWrap, interface IMachine

I couldn't found any info about these errors anywhere.

Please help.

Solution:

sudo chown root:admin /Applications
sudo chmod o-w /Applications

Run the lines in the Terminal.


Apache 2 `UserDir` problem in OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) Server after upgrade from Lion (10.7) I had a Mac under OS X Lion. I upgrade it to Mountain Lion, and buy the OS X Server software in the AppStore.

Since the beginning, I use the Apache version bundled in Mac OS, and it work fine.

But after solving some problems (like the change of location of the main directory from /Library/WebServer/Documents to /Library/Server/Web/Data/Sites/Default), I can't figure out how to configure UserDir to work again!

As explained here:

  Please note - the Mountain Lion install removes the contents of the directory
  /private/etc/apache2/users
  so if you counted on those configuration files working for you, oops.

So, I follow advices found here, and finally my file /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-userdir.conf look like this:

#
# UserDir: The name of the directory that is appended onto a user's home
# directory if a ~user request is received.  Note that you must also set
# the default access control for these directories, as in the example below.
#
UserDir Sites

#
# Users might not be in /Users/*/Sites, so use user-specific config files.
#
Include /private/etc/apache2/users/*.conf
<IfModule bonjour_module>
       RegisterUserSite customized-users
</IfModule>

<Directory "/Users/*/Sites/">
Options Indexes
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

But, event after some sudo apachectl restart or reboot, impossible to acces again to my UserDir /Users/utilisateur/Sites/ through http://127.0.0.1/~utilisateur

Can you provide me some advice for the configuration please?
Remember: I've installed the Server software from the AppStore.

Thank you in advance!

[EDIT] I also tried these recommendations: Mountain Lion, Apache, Sites folder, htaccess and mod_rewrite, but it dosen't help…

[EDIT 2] In response to the possible duplicate with "How do I get my user directory working for web sharing again?", I will say that in my case, it's not a permission denied, but a 404 Not Found. It is probably due to the concomitant installation of the OS X Server application from the AppStore, so, it's a distinct issue IMHO…
In fact, I've tested the solution provided, and it does not work at all for me.

It seems that the Apache configuration files in /etc/apache2 are not at all considered by the Apache version provided by the Server application.

With the Server application, all configurations are in /Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2

As the ReadMe.txt of this directory says, the default apache configuration file is httpd_server_app.conf, and I just had to uncomment the line Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-userdir.conf in this file!

problem solved.

[EDIT]
As notified by Kristopher Johnson, it may also be necessary to uncomment LoadModule apple_userdir_module


Files.app - how to control which app opens when a file is tapped? iOS 14.1
I'm using iCloud Drive to store files and shuttle things back and forth between my Mac and iPhone.
When I tap a file from Files.app on the phone, it immediately opens in a seemingly random app. There is no prompt saying "Open in XXXX?". There also seems to be no way to view or control these file associations, nor any long-press → "Open with..." type of action.
Anyone got any insight into this maddening behavior?

You can select the app to open your file by long pressing your file. In the menu, tap the "share" option and then tap the app that you would like to open your file in.


Why won't my late 2014 Mac mini output 4k video? I have a Samsung U28D590 plugged into a Late 2014 Mac mini (with Iris video graphics) via Thunderbolt 2 to DisplayPort.

In the display options it does not give the option for 3840x2160, even after holding the option key while clicking on "Scaled"

Both the monitor and Mac mini support this resolution according to their documentation, so I wonder if I need to install some extra drivers or something like that.

Just out of interest what is your screen refresh rate?
needs to be low 30hz

Your problem could be related to the Iris graphics chip, just read a few
posts mentioning it could be the Iris causing the problems.

What version of Yosemite are you running?


MBP Early 2015 (A1502) has died! Went to use my MacBook two days after switching on with no issue. When I went to boot it was completely dead. When I went to charge it, there was no light.

I left it on the charger for 20 mins and returned to a solid green light. I did an SMC reset which set it back to amber. The MacBook booted and worked fine for around 4 mins. The battery was registered at 32% (think it’s only around 420 cycle). It suddenly died, and returned to a solid green light.

I left it to charge where I noticed it flick between amber and green, but then was permanently green. Still no boot so took the charger off and went to put it back on and it’s been dead since!

Any help would be appreciated! I have the parts ordered that’s  needed to open and try restart the battery.

this sounds like a Hardware Issue definitely. I have the same A1502 model. I have never seen any Mac do this but if you can connect the MacBook Pro to its charger then startup, you should press "D" while its starting. This will allow it to check itself for issues. If you are convinced that its a software issue, you can try booting up from macOS Recovery and reinstalling macOS. Good luck!


iPhone 5 doesn’t connect or show up in iTunes I am using a Dell Inspiron 15 3521.

I replace my iPhone 5 with Apple, and my new phone doesn’t show up or connect in iTunes. It doesn’t even show any device as attached. I’ve reinstalled iTunes three or four times, but I’m still having the same problem. Can anyone help?

Make sure that you have correctly entered the pin code and
deactivated the device auto-lock feature
Do not use a USB hub. Please connect your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch
directly to your computer
Use a different USB port on the PC. For desktops with USB connectors
on the front and on the back, try with one of the back connectors
If possible, try using a different USB cable
Restart the Apple Mobile Device Service and set its Startup type to
“Automatic” by following these instructions precisely
Install the iOS drivers required for the PC to correctly recognize
the device separately and without installing iTunes.


iOS 10 Safari JavaScript setting disabled Today, JavaScript in Safari suddenly stopped functioning. I had just updated my iPhone 6s to iOS 10 yesterday. I eventually noticed that somehow, JavaScript had been disabled in the Safari settings. Furthermore, the control itself is disabled!

Why might javascript be permanently disabled? How can I re-enable it?

It obviously makes it difficult to debug javascript when it's disabled on my debug device.

The following is based on my observation.

By default the Safari JavaScript is enabled, because most of the website that I visited that extensively using JavaScript are working in Safari. The problem starts only when I Clear History and Website Data and go to Settings > Safari > Advanced.

I think as soon as you hit Advanced "for the first time" the program just has an issue as no previous settings are set, thus setting itself to Disable.

I exited from settings and visit the previous website that are using JavaScript, obviously all of them either don't show up or become a Dumb website except you click a link that uses anchor.

Solution: Just go to Advanced again and set Enable the JavaScript setting. Next time you visit this remain enabled.


Alternative to "luit" which is available via homebrew I have a few legacy commands which I need to run in the terminal. Unfortunately they only work with ISO-8859-1 encoding being used.

For now I manually switch the terminal encoding, but that bugs me. On Linux I use luit, which can convert the in- and output from utf-8 to iso and vice versa (transparently for the run command).

Is there something similar for OS X, preferably available through homebrew or available as binary?

Greetings
-Sascha-

You can install XQuartz as a binary from http://xquartz.macosforge.org. It's the de facto standard X11 for OS X. It comes with luit and all the normal X11 stuff.

Homebrew does not have an X11 installer; it expects you tu use XQuartz, and will compile against it when it is present.

You could also use AppleScript to programmatically change your Terminal settings instead of doing it manually.


Can one use a 2nd external monitor together with the new iMac 5k? Sometimes I like to have monitoring data to be displayed on an external monitor to be less 'in my face', even so I would have place for it on my main screen. So, is it possible to attach an external monitor to the new iMac 5k?

And can somebody with powers maybe generate a new tag iMac5k, if it is considered useful?

Yes. According to Apple's website, under the device's "Connections and Expansion" section:

  Headphone port
  SDXC card slot
  Four USB 3 ports (compatible with USB 2)
  Two Thunderbolt 2 ports
  Mini DisplayPort output
  Support for DVI, VGA, and dual-link DVI (adapters sold separately)
  10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)
  Kensington lock slot

iMac with 5K retina display specs


Can't display content of emails on iPhone 4 I see my emails and can read the 3-line tags in my inbox, but when I go to open the message to read the full text, it is just blank - regardless of the size, number of recipients etc.
What causes this kind of behavior and how can I solve this issue?

When I had this problem it was due to a network issue. Make sure that you are able to surf the web in "accurate" speed. If websites will not load, restart your phone.

If websites are loaded as fast as ever, restart your phone nevertheless (press the key in the upper right corner for a few seconds).
I would also suggest to completely close the Mail.app before (doubletab on the home button, press and hold the mail icon until it starts wobbling, click on the red X on the corner when it appears).


Preventing quit of Firefox I'm planning to show a presentation of my websites to friends on Firefox, but I do not want them to exit full screen and terminate the Firefox application, but only to click the elements on the screen, similar to the browsing of computers in a store?

How is this possible?

There are several Add Ons which provide Kiosk modes for Firefox. You should search Here.

For several card catalog search stations in my school's Library, I've been used the Kiosk Mode in the iCab browser for many years.

Kiosk mode - While in Kiosk mode, iCab will cover the whole screen and all other applications are blocked. The Kiosk mode is the ideal environment when the computer is accessing a public place (like fairs, exhibitions, hotels etc.) where users should be able to obtain information, yet prevent any external access to your system. Additionally, the access can be restricted to certain pages (even refusing referrals, if you choose).


How to use 3 external monitors on 15" late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina? Several people have posted about how they use 3 external monitors with their MacBook Pro Retina. see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJhvyLB_Tbw
Using 3 External monitors on my macbook pro, problem with DVD player
How many monitors can the new retina MacBook Pro handle and at which pixels resolutions?

However, when I attempt to do this on my 15" late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina, I can only run 2. Either, 2 thunderbolt, or 1 thunderbolt and 1 HDMI. When I plug in all 3, only 2 of them work.

Apple tech says

  Yep. You can only have 2 external monitors (unless you want to add a usb monitor).

Is there some trick I am missing? Some setting to tweak? I have 3 monitors just waiting for the solution. One of my monitors feels quite left out...

3 external displays DOES work.

I am on a Late 2013 MacBook Pro. I have 1 monitor on the HDMI port, 1 on a displayport to HDMI adapter, and one on an ACTIVE displayport to DVI adapter. I'm thinking that the trick here is to use an Active DVI adapter (mine is from Accell)


Inconspicuous microSD card adapter for MacBook Pro Does a microSD adapter exist that doesn't stick out of the MacBook Pro SD card slot?  I don't want to live in fear of breaking the SD card off while carrying around my laptop.

I know this is an old question but I just found it via a Google search. Check out the Nifty MiniDrive which is exactly what you are describing.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1342319572/the-nifty-minidrive


Missing Angle Bracket Key when using G613 I'm using the Logitech G613 Bluetooth Keyboard with my 2019 MacBook Pro.

When I try to use the < key on the Bluetooth Keyboard it prints "^" while the key left to the 1 key prints "<".
In the "Input Sources" setting I can see a keyboard layout with the < key (next to left shift key) missing:

After using the built-in keyboard the displayed layout switches to the correct layout with the angle bracket key. The key works fine on the built-in keyboard. After using the bluetooth keyboard the layout switches back to the previous one.

Does anyone now how to tell macOS that this key exists on the G613?

You should be able to set a device-spesific key change using Karabiner. If you can't easily set that, you can make a (custom) rule by finding a custom rule on karabiner's website, and then modifying it.


How to automount a network share once OpenVPN has connected? (Using Tunnelblick) Does anyone know how to automatically mount a network share once a VPN connection using Tunnelblick has connected?

Right now I have to connect and then do a cmd+K in the finder to connect to the AFP share. It'd be nice if it would connect automatically.

The share doesn't have a password (TimeCapsule without any passwords, and no, not using it for backup, we use it for a fileserver).

1.

Edit the file /Applications/Tunnelblick.app/Contents/Resources/client.up.osx.sh and add these commands at the end of the file, just before exit 0 :

su USERNAME -c '
mkdir /Volumes/TimeCapsule
mount_afp afp://afp_username@server/volumename /Volumes/TimeCapsule
'
open /Volumes/TimeCapsule

Replace USERNAME with your username on the system.

2.

Then add the following at the end of /Applications/Tunnelblick.app/Contents/Resources/client.down.osx.sh :

umount /Volumes/TimeCapsule

3.

Do not forget to check the set nameserver option for your configuration :

Warning : Configuration files client.(up|down).osx.sh are executed for every connections made using OpenVPN.

This could also be made using launchd for watching if the vpn connection is up, but I don't know how to use launchd.


Optimizing system for installed software What does it actually do when showing this message on the end of a installation?

During the "optimizing" stage, the system is "prebinding" executables. As per Wikipedia:

Prebinding is a method for reducing the time it takes to launch executables in the Mach-O file format.
Prebinding looks up memory addresses of symbols in libraries that the program is using before the program is launched, and stores this information ahead-of-time, so that the computer need not look up (bind) addresses on each launch.


Set MacBook Pro on energy saving mode I have a 2008 MacBook Pro (last one before the unibody ones) and have been monitoring a the laptop temperatures for almost a day. I used Temperature Monitor to graph the changes in temp and correlate them to my typical usage.

Aside from obvious considerations (GPU getting HOT while playing 3D stuff), I noticed that when I unplugged the laptop from the AC adapter the temp dropped down by 15-30 °C.

I think this may be related to some energy-saving mode of the CPU/GPU but I didn't find any setting or hack that allow me to turn it on on purpose. Is there a way to do so?

PS: One may ask, why do you care about temperatures: well, first of all it's summer and this laptop is damn hot. On the other hand, I'd much prefer my laptop to use only as much resources it needs for common tasks and then turning it on when I need more computing power.

The temperature drop when unplugging the power can be attributed to Intel's SpeedStep technology, which will conserve energy while working on battery by dynamically decreasing/increasing the clock speed.

There is no way to control this from Mac OS X itself, but for your processor you could use the 3rd party software CoolBook. I have no experience with this software though, and I'd be cautious, there really is no good reason to go fiddling with these settings manuals.


How do I change my iChat name? Now I am using iChat, have set my nickname to be Ben Potter, yet for some reason I always show up as "Jennifer Potter"...

do you know how to fix this?

Quit iChat if it is open.
Open Address Book.
Choose Card > Show My Card.
Click the Edit button.
Edit your first and last name.
Save changes by clicking the Edit button again or by selecting a different card.
Open iChat. Your revised name appears after you log in.


In Shortcuts on iPadOS and iOS, where is the Adjust Date action? I found a way to end an event 50 minutes after I started it using Adjust Date. However I could only find Adjust Date by copying it from a shortcut I downloaded here

Where did Adjust date come from?

In the Shortcuts app, typing “Adjust” in the ‘Search for apps and actions’ box will reveal what you seek.


Does keyboard maestro have a trace/verbose log? I was experimenting with the "Highlight Location" action of Keyboard Maestro  yesterday. It worked.
Today it's not working.
How can I troubleshoot keyboard maestro?
When I press the play button on a macro, and nothing happens, is there an internal log I can inspect maybe?

There is a Keyboard Maestro debugger. Look under start for start debugging. You can single step through your script.


How to show dock on all monitors in Catalina? I have my dock on the right side of the screen, but it only appears on my designated primary display. How can I have it so that it displays on all screens instead? Nothing I've seen online seems to work.

This isn’t how the dock works. Apple puts it on one screen only.

You can do some setting with mission control and hiding, so you might be happy with that.

How to get a dock on multiple monitors
Is it possible to have my dock visible on all monitors in El Capitan?
show dock permanently on the primary display only or simultaneously on both displays

You could use a third party app to make a launcher window on multiple screens or move to using a keyboard based launcher like LaunchBar or Alfred.


iPhone - how to free up space when storage is completely full My mom has an iPhone 4 (or 4S) and she has taken so many photos that there are 0 Bytes space left.

I can't install apps to delete files on the phone directly.
I can't move files via USB.
I can't delete files via USB.

Windows 7 shows the "Deleting ..." window but nothing happens (not even on a single photo).

So how can I delete all those photos (backups done) or even better the whole phone including iOS?

If there are many apps installed from the Ap Store (or iTunes store) it may be possible to delete some of them to get enough extra space to be able to delete photos. After deleting photos any of the apps you deleted could then be reinstalled from their original store at no charge. (If this works, the only possible problem could be if any of the deleted apps aren't current since reinstalling them would bring in the current version which might work differently.)

If the problem with deleting photos is dependent on the app you are using to try to delete photos this may work; if it's a problem with lack of space for iOS itself then you'll probably just have the same problem trying to delete apps, too. It can't hurt to try. Hope this helps.


Mac slow after clean install, what should I do? My mac was so painful slow so I had to do clean install but the problem still.

Obs: I have one Macbook pro 13' 2012 with i5 and 4gb of ram.

Edit: After the install took 12 hours, the problem still here's the log

Edit: Safe mode on don't stop this errors

Edit: I did a clean install, because I am a developer and I need my mac 100%, but when I open any app take minutes to open, the worst its finder and spotlight, I dont know what could happen to him... ): Installing the yosemite again take 9 hours or more, I am thinking in sell it and take one windows, this problem upset me.

13/05/15 09:09:56,121 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.watchdogd) Service only ran for 1 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 9 seconds.
13/05/15 09:10:03,512 lsuseractivityd[484]: -[LSUserActivityClientProcess doUpdateUserActivityInfo:makeCurrent:completionHandler:], refusing to register user activity from client, and returning error Error Domain=LSContinuityErrorDomain Code=-108 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (LSContinuityErrorDomain error -108.)" for item <__NSConcreteUUID 0x7fa7e970f1c0> 88E931D2-F97C-4125-A01B-BD9A0A38C8E1 NSUserActivityTypeBrowsingWeb (LSUserActivityClientProcess.m #1148)
13/05/15 09:10:07,959 watchdogd[565]:  [watchdog_daemon] @(    wd_watchdog_open) - IOIteratorNext failed (kr=0)
13/05/15 09:10:07,960 watchdogd[565]:  [watchdog_daemon] @(      wd_daemon_init) - could not initialize the hardware watchdog
13/05/15 09:10:07,960 watchdogd[565]:  [watchdog_daemon] @(                main) - cannot initialize the watchdog service
13/05/15 09:10:07,964 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.watchdogd) Service only ran for 2 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 8 seconds.
13/05/15 09:10:16,089 watchdogd[566]:  [watchdog_daemon] @(    wd_watchdog_open) - IOIteratorNext failed (kr=0)
13/05/15 09:10:16,089 watchdogd[566]:  [watchdog_daemon] @(      wd_daemon_init) - could not initialize the hardware watchdog
13/05/15 09:10:16,089 watchdogd[566]:  [watchdog_daemon] @(                main) - cannot initialize the watchdog service
13/05/15 09:10:16,094 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.watchdogd) Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

The log shows you having problems with iCloud.

Here is one way to fix that.

Open the iCloud pane in System Preferences and uncheck the box marked iCloud Drive.

You'll be warned that your iCloud documents will be deleted. ->Confirm.

They won't be deleted from the server.

Check the box again and test.


How do I set the default card for Apple Pay on macOS? The card I'm presented with when I use Apple Pay from my Mac is the wrong one. I've set the default card correctly in iOS (where it appears correctly), but when Apple Pay in invoked from macOS, even when payment is completed on iOS, the wrong card is presented on macOS.

How do I set the default card for Apple Pay on macOS?

This can happen when you have Apple Pay enabled on your Watch with a different payment option as the default there. There appears to be no way to configure the order in which devices are offered when more than one (Watch and iPhone, for example) are present, so that if Watch is present (unless Watch is disabled for Apple Pay entirely) it will "jump the queue" and offer whatever is the default there, independently of what you have set as your default on the iPhone.

To prevent this from happening and see your iOS-configured default card on macOS, disable Apple Pay on your watch (Watch > Wallet & Apple Pay, and remove all cards there, including Cash; turning off "Allow Payments on Mac" surprisingly doesn't do the trick).


Timer after autolock Is there a way to get the timer in the Clock app to sound the alarm when the iPad has been autolocked?

For example if I have set the iPad to Autolock after 15 minutes and start a timer for 20 minutes, the alarm doesn't sound.

Alarm to sound while iPad is locked.

Based on what you've described, I would first suggest force closing the Clock app: Follow instructions from Apple here.

Then, restart your device.


Can I use Thunderbolt to mini display port? I have a 2011 27" IMac running OS X 10.6.8 with a mini display port and would like to purchase a 13.3" MacBook pro with Thunderbolt and use the IMac as an external display.  Can I do this with a mini display port cable and will the two screens mirror or will I be able to view separate windows on each monitor like mail on the MACBook and a browser on the IMAC?  Also, I will run Windows 7 in Parallels or with boot camp on the MacBook and wonder if that will still allow me to use the IMac as an external monitor?

Actually yes, you can use your 27" iMac as a external display for you MacBook. It will only work if you are going from thunderbolt to Mini-Displayport though. Refer to this article for questions.  http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20043524-263.html


How can I modify OSX GUI colors to be more readable for weakened vision A bit of preface: I'm currently a Windows user but I'm looking into switching to Mac for work purposes. This of course means that I'd be staring at the UI of OSX for about 40 hours every week at least which is significant enough to cause strain to my eyes.

What's even worse is that I have weakened vision (essentially a mix of color blindness and snow blindness) which means that the default white/light gray theming of OSX is too bright and not high contrast enough for my eyes. In fact, the default UI is unusable to me.

I'm aware of the "poor vision" mode of OSX, but it's just a color inversion. My vision isn't that highly impaired that I would appreciate the whole operating system to look like ass at the expense of readability. Instead what I'd like to do - as I can do in Windows - is to change the UI colors to relatively neutral medium to dark colors, but so far haven't found a way to do it. As a color scheme this isn't anything new, especially lots of graphics related applications nowadays use these darker tones a lot. For example here's a screenshot Microsoft's Expression Blend 4 which is pretty close to what I'd want the UI to look like.

So, how can I change the colors/styles/whatever used by OSX (preferably 10.7 Lion) to either match the linked screenshot or be fully modifiable on the fly?

Neither MacOSX nor iOS offer to change the OS theme. If you want to do this, you need to use third party software.

What MacOSX does offer, is changing the color profile and calibrate it in System Preferences -> Displays -> Color -> Calibrate.

I've played around with different options and found the option "Cool bluish white" to be much easier on the eye:


How do I get .wav files made on the iPad into dropbox? I have an iPad Mini, and I have iElectribe which allows me to make music loops and render them as .wav files.  I want to use them in other apps and also store them in Dropbox or Google drive, but neither app lets me see anything but photos, videos, spreadsheets and .doc files.

How on earth do you get things you make into one of those services?  P.S. I don't own a Mac.

You can access the exported .wav files using the iTunes app on your Mac or PC when the iPad is plugged in through USB:

Select the Apps collection in the Sidebar, then scroll that window down to File Sharing. In the File Sharing list, you'll find iELECTRIBE, with all the exported .wav files. Drag the files from this list to your Desktop or folder. There seems to be no other way but to drag.

Until the developer creates the hooks that allow it to access Dropbox or Drive, this is the only way, other than SoundCloud.


How to view only my mail box and not the shared ones I started a new job and the mail client has a lot of shared inboxes. How do I see the messages directed only at me? In other words, I'd like to filter out my own personal mail box.

I'm using Mac OSx 10.8.5 and the default mail app. If there's no way to select a specific mail box how can I filter out messages with my e-mail address in the to/cc/bcc field?

In the left column there's a MAILBOXES heading but only "Inbox" is beneath with no further selections.

In this screenshot I have Chats selected, which is empty, but if I go to Inbox there's a ton of stuff, not all of which is mine.

I am not sure to understand your question, but here is what I think it is.

You can create a New Smart MailBox (under the Mailbox Tab) that will automatically filter all your personal emails (addressed to you) and store them in to that mail box.


"Macintosh HD" no longer shows up in Finder on Lion How do I get to the Macintosh HD, or the root folder, from Finder in Lion? It no longer appears in the favorites section.

I know I can open it from Terminal, but I want to do it in Finder easily like I could in 10.6.

Disks have been removed from the Finder sidebar by default, however you can easily reenable these.  In Finder go to File > Preferences and then to the Sidebar tab.  There you can choose what gets displayed in your sidebar.


Change Icon/Thumbnail for File Type Have searched for quite a while for the answer to this question but the only solution that has worked has been to change icons on a file to file basis, which is not very efficient...

Currently my Mac is using some generic images for icons, regardless of what the default application for them is.  As you can see in this image, even though all three of those files are set to open with Sublime Text by default, they retain painfully ambiguous icons.

What I would like is some way to simply set a default image for a file extension, regardless of default application. Say that I want to set the Sublime Text icon for .py extensions and the TextEdit icon for .txt and .tsv extensions. The result should look like this.

So far, I've tried setting the icon through the default application, which is the only solution I could find so far aside from changing the icon on a file by file basis, with no luck. I attempted this by changing the CFBundleTypeIconFile for the python entry in the Sublime Text Info.plist file from PYTHON to Sublime Text. Upon reboot, the icon had not changed and sublime could no longer launch due to verification issues I think. Changed that back and tried simply replacing the PYTHON.icns file in the Sublime Text Resources folder with a copy of the Sublime Text.icns. Rebooted and no change had taken place.

I believe that we can change this kind of icon with an app. In previous macOS releases, there were many apps (e.g, CanyBar) for these kinds of things. You can change any file type as per your liking with an app called LiteIcon which is free.

LiteIcon


Text expansion for Mac OS X Lion? Is there a built in feature into OS X Lion which is similar to iOS 5.0's shortcut feature? For example, by default if you type "omw" on the iPhone, it gets expanded to "on my way" automatically.

I know that there are probably 3rd party solutions, but I would prefer using an Apple solution.

You can do this in System Preferences in the Text tab of the Language & Text pane:

You can toggle on/off the built-in replacements, as well as create ones of your own.


Internal Bluetooth Failed in Mac Pro I have a dual quad-core Mac Pro bought in July 2008 (2.8GHz Xeon processors, 16GB RAM). Not the latest model. But the internal Bluetooth never worked very well and finally quit completely (after the one-year warranty expired, of course). I didn't care too much because I didn't like the Bluetooth mouse I had and didn't mind using the USB Mighty Mouse that came with it.

Well, the Mighty Mouse trackball died for good (no amount of cleaning has restored its ability to scroll down a page, though it scrolls up just fine)  and the only new mouse I could get from Apple was the Magic Mouse. So I bought a 3rd-party USB Bluetooth dongle, which works OK, but occasionally disconnects my mouse for a while and sometimes requires me to use the USB mouse to reconnect it via the Bluetooth menu. Also I experience periods of latency that are intensely frustrating, especially when gaming.

I Googled extensively and found diagrams of the internal Bluetooth. I examined the Bluetooth chip on the motherboard and found a wire was loose. I reconnected the wire but I still can't get the internal Bluetooth to work at all. I located a solution that would require soldering, but the diagram showed didn't look exactly like my setup, so I gave it a pass (I balk at soldering my motherboard anyway).

I hear there were problems with the Bluetooth on my model, but obviously they are not going to get fixed for free by Apple. So, on to my specific questions:

Is there anything I can do to get the native Bluetooth working short of paying to have Apple fix it?
If I did get the native Bluetooth working, would it be any better than the 3rd-party alternatives?
Is latency something you just have to live with when using a Bluetooth mouse?
Does anyone sell new or reconditioned (perfectly) USB Mighty Mouses? I haven't been able to find any online except used models.

Your question contains a myriads of questions, but let me try to give you a hint on some.

Possibly not, unless you can find a way to fix it, Apple will happily charge you fix it for you.
I don't know if it will be better, but I know that the BT on that machine works ok. And that's because I have the exact same model. Mac Pro early 2008 with Dual Quad-Core Xeons in it.
Yes and no. I've used the (included) Mighty mouse for a week. I hated it and simply gave it to a friend who liked it. There IS some latency in BT peripherals and there are some micro-disconnections that get fixed real fast, but if you're playing a FPS, you'll notice a small "it's not working" moment. Also, the less change the batteries have, the more this will happen. Same with the keyboard. You're typing and then ……… a couple of secs of nothing and then it works again. Sometimes you even get the "Disconnected" Bezel on screen.
I can't help you with that. I absolutely hate mighty mice.

The plural of mouse is mice ;-)


Cobook deleted all blank lines in Contacts' notes Cobook, a relatively new Mac & iPhone contacts / address book replacement, recently trashed my address book. Specifically, the iPhone app deleted every blank line in every note of every contact. The issue was mentioned in passing as fixed in version 1.1.1, but that didn't repair my address book. It's very tough to read notes with no paragraph separation.

How can I get the blank lines back? I didn't notice the problem right away, so while I could restore from back up, I'll lose some recent data.

I wrote an AppleScript to re-create the blank lines that were deleted. It's only approximate – it has to make certain imperfect guesses about when to insert a line, but it's better than nothing.

-- Contacts newline reflow
-- Reintroduces paragraph separation into contacts' notes
-- after a bug in Cobook deleted all blank lines.
-- (Fixed in Cobook v. 1.1.1: http://blog.cobook.co/post/43633583273/cobook-with-google-maps)

-- Based on Nigel Garvey's work at MacScripter
-- http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=153540#p153540

-- Get all the people IDs and notes in one go, for efficiency.
tell application "Contacts" to set {theIDs, theFirstNames, theLastNames, theCompanies, theOrgs, theNotes} to {id, first name, last name, company, organization, note} of people

-- Store the current text item delimiter(s) and set the delimiter to linefeed.
set astid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to linefeed -- this may now be unnecessary

try
    -- Work through the parallel lists of IDs and notes obtained above.
    repeat with i from 1 to (count theIDs)
        -- Get the next value from the note list.
        set thisNote to item i of theNotes
        -- If it's not 'missing value', there IS a note for this person.

        if (item i of theCompanies is false) then
            set theName to (item i of theFirstNames) & " " & (item i of theLastNames)
        else
            set theName to (item i of theOrgs)
        end if

        if (thisNote is not missing value) then
            -- Split the note text into paragraphs.
            set theParagraphs to thisNote's paragraphs
            set newParagraphs to {}

            -- PGP block state machine:
            -- 0 not in PGP block
            -- 1 First line of PGP block (always "-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----")
            -- 2 In PGP block header, not first line
            -- 3 In PGP block body, first line
            -- 4 In PGP block body, not first line
            -- 5 Last line of PGP block (always "-----END PGP MESSAGE-----")

            set pgpBlockState to 0

            repeat with k from 1 to (count theParagraphs)
                set thisParagraph to (item k of theParagraphs)
                set appendEmptyParagraph to true

                if pgpBlockState is 0 then
                    if (thisParagraph contains "BEGIN PGP MESSAGE") then
                        set pgpBlockState to 1
                    end if
                else if pgpBlockState is 1 then
                    if thisParagraph contains ":" then
                        set pgpBlockState to 2
                    else
                        set pgpBlockState to 3
                    end if
                else if pgpBlockState is 2 then
                    if thisParagraph does not contain ":" then
                        set pgpBlockState to 3
                    end if
                else if pgpBlockState is 3 then
                    set pgpBlockState to 4
                else if pgpBlockState is 4 then
                    if (thisParagraph contains "END PGP MESSAGE") then set pgpBlockState to 5
                else if pgpBlockState is 5 then
                    set pgpBlockState to 0
                end if

                -- Alter output according to pgpBlockState
                if (pgpBlockState is not 0) then set appendEmptyParagraph to false
                if (pgpBlockState is 3) then set end of newParagraphs to "" -- this is a hack, not clean

                -- Conditions under which we don't want a newline
                if (length of thisParagraph < 30) then set appendEmptyParagraph to false
                if (length of thisParagraph > 1 and first character of thisParagraph = "-") then set appendEmptyParagraph to false
                if (length of thisParagraph > 1 and first character of thisParagraph = "•") then set appendEmptyParagraph to false

                if (thisParagraph is not equal to "") then set end of newParagraphs to thisParagraph -- delete any manual paragraph separation
                if (appendEmptyParagraph) then set end of newParagraphs to "" -- remember, newParagraphs is a list, not a string
            end repeat

            if (count of newParagraphs) > 0 then
                -- Get the number of the last "non-empty" one.
                repeat with j from (count newParagraphs) to 1 by -1
                    if ((count item j of newParagraphs) > 0) then exit repeat
                end repeat

                -- Coerce the paragraphs (up to the last non-empty one) to a single text, using the linefeed delimiter.
                set editedNote to (items 1 thru j of newParagraphs) as text

                tell application "Contacts" to set note of person id (item i of theIDs) to editedNote
                log "Updated entry for: " & theName
            else
                log "Skipping / no note for: " & theName -- handles Exchange-based notes, which don't equal "missing value" even when blank
            end if

        end if
    end repeat
on error msg
    display dialog msg buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end try

-- Restore the old delimiter value.
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid

-- Save the Contacts changes.
tell application "Contacts" to save
--> Returns 'missing value'. No known significance.

There's a long section in the middle which handles PGP blocks that might appear in your address book. It may seem like overkill, but those blocks are super-sensitive to having correct newline placement. If you lack the proper newlines, GPGTools (in its current state) will simply fail when you try to decrypt them and give no useful error indicating the problem.

To run this just paste it in AppleScript Editor and click Run. Pro forma warning: Back up your contacts beforehand.


How can I make the OS X privilege escalation popup less annoying? I am looking for a way to make the root privilege escalation procedure less annoying - I have to type the password too many times.

Is it possible to remember the password once per login session or to remember it for a specific period of time? Or to have the dialog but not require you to type the password?

Remark: I'm looking for GUI solution, for console sudo I do have a solution.

Mac OS X's authorization rights and behaviours can be adjusted through the /etc/authorization file.

You must take care when altering this file; mistakes can lock you out of your Mac. There are instructions at the top of the file to get you started.

To extend the period of time authorization is granted, look for the appropriate timeout field and increase the value as needed.


Can I download updates for another computer? I have a Mac Pro that needs a lot of updates, but my home internet is very slow. I have a laptop, however, with access to better internet.

Is it possible for me to access the updates on my laptop, download them, and then move them over to my Mac Pro and install them? If so, how?

A lot of software updates (particularly OS, driver and firmware updates) can be found on Apple's Support Downloads page. You can download them like any other file and just transfer them to your Mac Pro at your convenience.

For software on the Mac App Store (including bundled apps like iPhoto), there aren't separate downloads. You could try downloading the full apps on your MacBook then copying the application bundle over.

For third party software, there are often separate patches available for download from the developer's site.


Why does it take so long to load the login items with "reopen when logging back in" enabled? With OSX Lion 10.7 Apple has introduced resume:

Restore the state of the computer when shut down.
Reopen the used windows of applications.

While both are quite useful, the option to "reopen windows when loggin back in" causes the login items to be reloaded with a significant delay.
Programs get restarted immediately. I can use them with their full functionally within seconds. But the login items take up to another half minute to start. I should probably mention that the boot process takes only sixteen seconds (power button → desktop).
On a 'clean' start the login items will load right after the desktop appears.
Question
Why does it take so long to load menu-extras with "reopen when logging back in" enabled?

[Update: march 2013] This behavior is still persistent as of Mountain Lion 10.8.3.

It appears to me that the login items get started after all the applications from the last session have started up. For example, an older version of Adium used to hang (due to no internet connection being available) for a few seconds after starting up, and as soon as Adium was responsive, the login items got started.


Problems with font rendering on a MacBook Pro using external 24" LCD I have a 24" HP LP2475w at my home and 23" Apple Cinema Display at work. Today when I turned on my laptop at work, I noticed that all fonts look perfect (after having an issue with rendering for the past two days). I thought the issue somehow got fixed and happily went on with my day.

Later when I came home, everything still worked, because I didn't turn off my MacBook. This is how it looks (correct), even on my home LCD

but when I quit the Terminal.app (or any other app for that matter) and launch it again, while the 24" is still connected, the fonts get ugly

Notice even the background color is different, which doesn't make any sense at all, since the screenshots are taken about 15 seconds apart.

When I disconnect my LCD the Terminal still looks ugly, until I relaunch it, then it looks ok again.

The important thing here is, that I've been using the 24" LCD for the past year and never had this issue, it just started happening without me changing anything.

Is it possible, that my MacBook is somehow having trouble communicating with the LCD when the app starts? I would understand if this happened to everything that is displayed on the 24" LCD, but it happens only to apps that are launched when the LCD is connected.

Even if I quit all the windows in the terminal and open new ones it still looks ok, until I actually quit the application itself and relaunch it.

You should try adjusting font smoothing globally. Open up terminal and type:

defaults -currentHost read -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing

Depending if it's enabled or not you might get a message such as:

The domain/default pair of (kCFPreferencesAnyApplication,
 AppleFontSmoothing) does not exist

(which is actually good, since it tells us it's not set, and why you have the issue).

Next, type:

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

If it doesn't look any different, worse, etc. or want to adjust it even more replace the number '2' with '1'.

To remove the global setting you can use:

defaults -currentHost delete -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing

*Hopefully this solves your troubles.


Is there a way to access Google Contacts using iPhone? I have all my contacts in Google Contacts, so I was wondering is there anyway I could sync them with the contacts on the phone?

Edit: Now I've set it up properly, however there are still no contacts in my phone! Do I need to do anything else after syncing to get the contacts to my phone?

Edit: For some reason I can read my emails using my phone but still no contacts!

Sure. On your iPhone, go into Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, select Add Account... and add Google as Exchange (!!!) account. Using Google as Exchange account allows you to sync calendars and contacts.

See http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252

Now, gathering together all info spread around, into a checklist format:

Google Sync is only supported on Apple iOS versions 3.0 and above, because that's when Microsoft Exchange was implemented and that's the protocol we will use.
If your business, school, or organization uses Google Apps, your administrator will first need to enable Google Sync. If you're not, then there is no such setup - it's enabled by default.
Double check you're using the correct gmail account - many users have more than one gmail, or google apps, with similar mails due to forwarding and often mistake this.
Be sure to follow the steps mentioned above. Every configuration has to be done properly and it must lastly look something like this, from Mail, Contacts, Calendars > [your account] > Exchange Account [your email]:


4K Monitor and performance issues with MBP Late 2015 As a software developer I insisted on buying a 4K Monitor which used to work with my previous MBP 2017 quite ok.The Retina MBP Late 2015 has output that lags quite a bit when I use a scaled resolution.

The output is only OK if i try the 4k or 1080p resolutions which are not very optimized for reading things on the screen.

Is there any way to optimize this? The lagging performance can be seen when I do something with Java VM especially Android Studio.

UPDATE

I connected my mac book over mini display to display port since HDMI does not support 60hz. Lag means when you scroll the code editor in Android studio, it is not very fluent.If i type something there is a small time gap till i see the letters appear on the screen.

Scaling is your culprit. Anything different than 1080p or 4K is going to tax the GPU and cause lag. It's unfortunate. I think a solution which costs a lot more money would be to purchase a 5K monitor then run it at 1440p (the only acceptable resolution imho) This would be the default resolution since it's exactly half of 5K. 1080p is exactly half of 4K which is why the GPU doesn't struggle on a 4k monitor when run at that resolution. Of course 4k at it's natural resolution is far too tiny to be useable which I'm sure you found out. So 1080p and 4k are just not useable for a 27" monitor. Purchasing a blurry 1440p monitor or a 5K monitor run at retina 1440p are the only options to get a lag free experience imho on a 27" external display paired with a MacBook Pro.


Command to find out the version number of a .pkg file Does anyone know how to retrieve the version number of a .pkg file which isn't installed yet?

I'd like to use something like pkgutil --pkg-info, but that only works for installed packages.

I've also tried installer -pkginfo -verbose, but that doesn't show the version number.

Is there a built-in command to do this, or alternatively, could someone suggest a one-liner please?

Thanks.

The best I could come up with was this:

pkgutil --expand package.pkg /tmp/pkg; cat /tmp/pkg/PackageInfo | grep ./Applications | grep -m 1 .app\" | awk '{ print $3, $2 }'; rm -rf /tmp/pkg

Not the most elegant solution, so I'm still searching for a way to do this without having to extract the .pkg first.


Red box on Finder icon in Dock Please see this image:

I don't know what's going on with that icon, but it has been persistent for the past week. It became like that when I forced the shutdown on my Mac because it hanged up. I've just upgraded to El Capitan when it happened.

I've tried the following:

Reboot
Relaunch Finder
Quit Finder and Dock on Activity Terminal
killall Dock

Nothing worked so far.

Update:

As per user24601's suggestion, I've tried the following:

Turned on magnification. It persists on zoom. Please see image:

Tried to change position. It still persists:

I ended up reporting it as deeeeeeekun suggested. Some of the suggested workaround in the comments were also suggested to me. This is the solution they gave that worked:

1) cd getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR

2) attach com.apple.dock.iconcache to radar

3) rm com.apple.dock.iconcache; killall Dock

I'll update the answer when they give me the reason why the redbox happened.


Mac High Sierra not able to Set Touch ID - Canceled by another authentication I am not able to set the touch id, may be after some minor update to High Sierra. Before that everything was working fine.

I tried reseting the password for KeyChain Login and KeyChain Local items, however nothing is helping.

Keep on getting following error message.

This is a Keychain error and you probably need to rebuild it. These steps should fix it.

Open Finder.
Hold the Option key and on the menu click Go.
Click on Library to open that in Finder.
Drag the Keychain folder to the trash.
Restart your machine.

You will have to re-enter all your passwords again but it should fix the Touch ID.


Getting Silverlight to work on Mac OS X Yosemite I'm trying to get Silverlight to work on Mac OS X, any browser would do. I'm not getting much success at all so far, nor help from the Web.

1) Silverlight + Mac OS X Yosemite

To start with, can anyone tell me if this Silverlight test works for them on Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10.1) ?

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/iis-smooth-streaming/demo/

This should offer a menu and various content, mostly pictures. (As opposed to a big black square of nothing.)

2) Troubleshooting

I'm using a MacBook Pro from Mid-2014. I had Silverlight version 4 installed before but never got it to work (I don't know if this was before or after my Yosemite update.)

I've tried uninstalling and re-installing Silverlight but without success.

To install, I'm merely using the Silverlight.dmg file and its installer to install.

Here is what I'm getting so far:

In Firefox: the official "Get Silverlight" page tells me the plugin is installed ("Silverlight 5 (5.1.30514.0)"), however the test page linked above renders black. FYI, the plugin is set on "Always activate" in about:addons and disabling AdBlock did not help.
In Chrome: I had to use the "Get more extensions" option inside of Chrome to install. However, the test linked above merely offers an "Install Microsoft Silverlight" icon.
In Safari, the test seems to render okay but then I get an error from Safari itself: "A problem occured with this webpage so it was reloaded", leading to the page being reloaded automatically until Safari gives up and tells me that an error repeatedly occured with the page.

Any pointer welcome.

Under Safari/Preferences/Security click the last box that states "Internet Plug-ins: Allow Plug-ins"

So simple and it worked for me running Safari on 2008 MBP with OX X Yosemite


Mac Pro with Thunderbolt Display 30 meters away We want to position a Thunderbolt Display (2015 model) 30 meters away from a Mac Pro (2015 model).

Questions regarding this setup:

What cable do we need to connect these two? I have seen Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 cables, can't really see which one we need to connect the display to the Mac Pro
Is it possible to connect a keyboard and mouse to the Thunderbolt Display and control the Mac Pro?

Further explanation of our situation:

We have a Mac Pro upstairs which has one account of adobe cloud and we have a laptop with the second adobe cloud account. 1 license is limited to 2 computers.

We have 2 Thunderbolt Displays 2 keyboards 2 mouse. We want to use the same Mac Pro in the upstairs office and in the downstairs office which are located right on top of each other. I was thinking of just drilling a whole trough the floor and connecting the second screen via thunderbolt.

Copper-based Thunderbolt cables are limited to max length of 3 meters. Corning sells optical Thunderbolt cables you will need for the distance you specify here. You can get 10m lengths at Amazon for US$299. They come in 30m and 60m lengths for US$659 and US$1299, respectively. I haven't had the need for these lengths yet, but I did the research a few weeks ago for a project which didn't get off the ground.


Can I record video and then make a call while recording? This is so not me:

But I was curious if there was a way to call 911 while recording, so, anyone who is like this can at least have an option. :-)

No, as soon as you receive a call or initiate a call the video recording is stopped.

With an active call it's not possible to record a video at all.

I have tested this with iOS 9.3.x, iOS 10.3.x and iOS 11.0.x.


How to solve the "Connection Unsuccessful" when trying to connect iPhone to Mac Book Pro via bluetooth? MacBook Pro summer 2015 edition. Bluetooth is enabled. iPhone 6 plus and iPhone 7 plus bluetooth is enabled.

When trying to connect from MBP to the iPhone after tapping 'Pair' on the iPhone with the message

Waiting for "iPhone" to accept pairing

MBP is saying that the iPhone is connected but after a second or two the connection gets dropped.

Trying to connect to the MBP from the iPhone gives a message on the iPhone

Connection Unsuccessful
"MBP-Hostname" is not supported
<<Forget Device>>

What is the problem?

Using the Mac's keyboard as an external keyboard for the iPhone over Bluetooth is, unforunately, not supported.

You would need third party software on the Mac and special apps that support this third part software for something like that to work. I don't know of any such software in existence today.


Does running Google Photos in addition to the iOS Photos app cause two copies of each of my photos to be stored on my phone? I run both iOS' Photos app as well as the Google Photos app on my iPhone, but I worry that doing this causes two copies of each picture to be stored on my phone.  Does it, or do the apps share the photos they both show me?

I have an iPhone 6 running iOS 11.

Please note that this question is only about storage on the phone. What happens in the cloud as regards Google Drive and iCloud is not part of my question. In case it happens to be relevant, both apps back up my photos to their respective clouds.

The photos are stored on your device and Google accesses them there.

It makes a copy of the selected photos (or all photos, depending on your settings) and uploads that copy to their servers for storage.

You only have 1 copy of the actual photo and not your device but some space is also used by the Google app to keep the links between your photo and it's databases in sync.


macOS Calendar.app Duration-of-Day Preference Nonresponsive macOS 11.3.1, Calendar 11.0, mid-2015 iMac
I have Calendar's preferences set to display a day beginning at 5:00 a.m. and ending at 9:00 p.m. thus:

However, both Calendar's Day and Week tabs display a calendar starting at 12:00 a.m. and ending at 12:00 a.m. This is 24 hours rather than the 17 hours I've set.
Restarting the app and rebooting the computer and rebooting the computer in safe mode each has no effect. In all other respects, Calendar operates as I expect.
How might I get the computer to display the specified day duration?

'Day starts at' / 'Day ends at' is for working day. It has effect on Calendar > Window > Availability Panel (⇧ + ⌘ + A). This panel is 'available' for usage only if calendar is connected to supported service (and iCloud is not being one) and for meeting planning.
I believe that this is for work related appointments so that your colleagues can't make appointments outside of the working day and they can see your appointments or free/busy time only during working hours while planning meeting.
'Show ... hours at a time' has effect on Calendar Day view. It determines how many hours are shown as default in Day view.
"Show 24 hours at a time" setting displayed in Day view:

"Show 8 hours at a time" setting displayed in Day view:


Is there a desktop pager for Mac OS Lion? A desktop pager is a little program that sits in the corner or the dock, that allows me to switch desktops with a click, and drag windows between desktops.

Something like KDE had with kpager:

Mission control is very nice, but it works better when you use a trackpad and not a mouse, and it can be quite an interruption. To move windows between desktops with key combos you need some acrobatics (click and hold titlebar, then ctrl+⬅). With a pager, you could just fling the icon to a different desktop.

Is there a desktop pager for Mac OS (Lion)?

You can indeed use a mouse efficiently with Mission Control. Set any corner, preferably bottom, as the hot corner (System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners) for Mission Control. After that, it’s just simple drag and drop, and you can switch apps and desktops in under a sec, or 2 secs with a file being dragged.


iOS6 and Bluetooth OBDII Adapters Does anyone know of a OBDII Bluetooth adapter that works with iPhone? I would be developing an application for the iPhone 5 where Bluetooth 4.0 is supported. I have found several adapters, but they do not support Bluetooth 4.0.

I am aware that Apple restricts Bluetooth development for Bluetooth versions before 4.0. Is there anyway to work around this so I could use older versions of Bluetooth? I am open to Jailbreaking the device if needed.

WiFi adapters are not an option.

Thanks

Dash ( http://drivewithdash.com/ ) is promising a Bluetooth 4.0 ODB-II module, but it's not available yet; it's a Kickstarter project as of this writing ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shred444/drive-with-dash ).

Also take a look at Automatic ( http://www.automatic.com/ ), as Brad Larson mentioned in the comments above.


Mount .NRG image file on OSX 10.6 I have a Nero Disk Image(.nrg) File and I would like to mount it on OSX to copy it's contents. I've tried to rename to .iso and to use NRG2ISO with no luck.

Any tips ?

Had the same experience as the OP. Tried using nrg2iso, tried renaming the file to .iso and also tried the dd command from that MacRumors thread. Nothing worked.

However, I then found nrg4iso which worked perfectly! The project has been abandoned since 2007 but it still works.


How long will the Spring 2010 MacBook Pros be available? I'm thinking about picking up a refurb 13" 2010 MBP next month. But I just started wondering, how long will they be available?

They will be available until they run out.

As you are looking at a refurbished product, availability is limited and highly variable. Apple tends to have a continuous supply of refurbished products, however they may not have the specific model you are looking for next month.


What is the difference between .m3u8 and .m3u playlists types? iTunes will export a few different kinds of playlists, including .m3u8 and .m3u types.  What is the difference between these two file types?

.m3u8 is simply a UTF-8 version of the M3U format [source]. (.m3u files can have various encodings.)


How to dual boot (Catalina - High Sierra) from a iMac 2020, 27", T2? For good reasons I need to boot into Catalina or into High Sierra on a new iMac 2020, 27", T2. So far all attempts have failed. "Secure Boot" is set to "No Security" and "External Boot" is set to "Allowed".
I have tried a couple of bootable High Sierra Installers, but Catalina just shows a "No Entry" sign after selecting the Installer drive and then turns off the iMac.
I have downloaded the High Sierra Installer some time ago using my old MacBook Pro 2012. The Original High Sierra Installer is not anymore available in the App Store.
I have also tried to install High Sierra using TM. It is a backup of my MacBook Pro 2012 with High Sierra (NO APFS). A message comes when I choose the Backup in Recovery mode, saying: this mac does not support starting from HFS. I do not think by converting my old MacBook Pro 2012 from HFS+ to APFS and then backing up with TM will solve the problem.
Is it that the original High Sierra Installer must be downloaded from the same iMac where i want to use it and not from another machine?
I am desperate. I have tried CCC, Superduper. NO Way.
Unthinkable there is no solution to be able to boot into Catalina or into High Sierra on a new iMac 2020.

Your sticking point is actually much simpler than that.
No Mac can boot to an OS older than itself.
There's the occasional edge-case when a new Mac is released right on the cusp of a new OS, but otherwise, it's simply not possible. There are no drivers for the hardware in the older OS, as the hardware hadn't been invented yet, so Apple stops you from even trying.
Your only solution would be to run High Sierra in a Virtual Machine.