VirtualBox drive, new size not visible to Disk Utility I use VirtualBox 5 with an OS X 10.11 guest. I resized a VBox HDD from 20 GB to 29 GB. Now I want add the 9 GB to the main OS X volume.

Opening Disk Utility I can't resize the partition: it shows a total disk size of 29 GB (physical disk) and a main disk size of 20 GB but it doesn't allow to resize the partition (even 20 GB to 29 GB). The blue circle is full in "Resize partition" dialog, no resize in it, size-edit-input not enabled.

Out of curiosity, is your host system OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) as well? From my experience, El Capitan's Disk Utility has been basically useless, and I've had several times like you describe where it just flat out refuses to let you do things. IF this is the case, I would recommend getting the old, less useless Yosemite Disk Utility back following the instructions here:

Option 1 - From a Backup
1. Copy Disk Utility.app from the /Applications/Utilities folder of a Yosemite Time Machine backup to somewhere convenient (like your desktop)
2. Download a hex editor (I personally like Hex Fiend)
3. Right click your copied Yosemite Disk Utility and click "Show Package Contents."
4. Go to Contents/MacOS within the package contents and open the file called "Disk Utility" with your hex editor
5. Find the chunk D584C00F 85440100 within the file (near or on line 25056 in Hex Fiend) and change the '85' in the second half to '84'.
6. Save the file. You should now be able to run this copied Disk Utility.
Note: you may have to give root:wheel ownership:
sudo chown -R 0:0 ~/Desktop/Disk\ Utility.app

Option 2 -  From a Download
1. Copy your El Capitan Disk Utility somewhere else besides /Applications/Utilities
2. Run this script, which downloads the Yosemite Recovery Update, copies out Disk Utility, and patches the version for use on El Capitan.
Note: It also tries to copy it over the current El Capitan Disk Utility, which failed on my computer because of system permissions.

IF your host is not El Capitan, the above does not apply. But as long as your host is a Mac, you could also try looking at the partition via the command line tool diskutil, although in my experience in El Capitan this tends to work almost as poorly as the new Disk Utility GUI.
1. List your disk partitions with:
diskutil list
2. Find your VirtualBox partition on this list - it will probably be something like /dev/disk1s2
3. Run sudo diskutil resizeVolume  ` to try and resize the partition. If there is data on the partition, make sure you have it saved elsewhere.


Can someone jailbreak someone else's iPhone to see everything they do? A friend of mine has an iPhone 8. Each time she changes her email or password on things like Facebook, Email, Instagram, her Bank app etc., we suspect her ex-boyfriend is changing them back within 30 seconds. He lives 5 states away.

My friend has used my phone and my email to change her password and email on Facebook, but her passwords are changed again when she tries to log in.

Can someone jailbreak her phone and install an app where her ex would be able to see everything she does?

Based on what you mentioned about her using your phone, it is very doubtful that the ex of your friend has access to her iPhone, via a jailbreak or other means. If anything, the ex likely has access to the email account that is linked to all these other services.

I would check her email settings to make sure the ex is not linked as a recovery account. If there is nobody linked as a recovery account, start by changing the email password. If the ex has access to the email account, they can use security notification emails from various accounts to change those passwords again.

Make sure to use strong, unique passwords for each service. Never reuse old passwords. A password manager would be helpful here.

Then, it would be highly recommended to enable 2-step authentication. Google has some info about that here, but this will be different for other email services. This prevents people from logging into your account, even if they know the password.

I would then change passwords and enable 2-step authentication on other accounts.


App to turn iPhone to an old style feature phone? Is there an iPhone app, that help me reduce usage of the smartphone , by change it into an old style feature phone? Maybe I can turn on smartphone mode for 1 hour per day, but besides that the phone can only send text message and make calls.

There will not be an app for this as apps are not allowed to change the system in this way.

The closest you can get to this is iOS Restrictions, which require a passcode to re-enable access to certain features on the device. You can configure which features are restricted on the device in Settings → General → Restrictions. There is no automated schedule for Restrictions — you will be required to enable it and disable it yourself.


Any application that can split scanned PDF's on an iPad? Are there any iPad PDF apps that either automatically or manually can split scanned PDF's into multiple pages?

At school, I receive many scanned PDFs that have 2 physical pages per PDF page, which makes them more cumbersome to work with since it requires me to manually pan around to see the next page.

PDFPen for iPad

has recently been released. It will permit you to split PDFs by saving a new copy of the PDF and then deleting pages you don't want.


Recovering unsaved quicktime recording I just recorded a quicktime video but I closed my lid before stopping it. Now it isn't saved! Is there a way to recover this very important recording?

This is empty: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/Data/Library/Autosave Information/

I found the file back using Spotlight. Open Finder and press Cmd + F. Than search for filetype 'Movie'.

It was located in /Users/name/Library/ScreenRecordings.


Receive FaceTime calls dialed to my iPhone number Since iOs 6 and Mountain Lion I'm able to receive iMessages sent to my cellular number both on my iPhone and my Mac Book.

Is it possible to do the same with FaceTime? I would like to receive FaceTime calls dialed to my iPhone number also on my Mac Book.

I tried to configure it in FaceTime preferences but it only allows my to add email addresses.

You should be able to use your iPhone number for FaceTime on your Mac, but I have heard of cases where the phone number didn't get recognized at first.

Make sure that you have 10.8.2 installed. Then try toggling FaceTime off and on in your iPhone's settings. That re-registers it with Apple's servers, and should list the phone number as an option. If it still doesn't appear as an option on your Mac, turn off FaceTime on the Mac (not quitting, actually disabling it from the menu), then sign back in to it.


Xserv Mac os x server serial number I Have a Xserve!When i Power on the xserv this window opens!where can i found serial number? or how i can install a new mac os x? please help me

The serial number is printed on a card that came with the installation DVDs.  If you don't have this card, or the DVDs, then maybe the original owner still has a record of it.


Is there a vimari or vimium port for safari on mojave? I loved vimari but the Mojave update made it no longer work because of the stronger permissions system.  Is there any way to install this safely, or barring that make extensions work again?

vimari currently has a somewhat experimental process to compile and install it locally for Safari 12, detailed here:

https://github.com/guyht/vimari/blob/master/docs/safari_12.md

  Note: We are currently working on improving this installation flow, as well as the extension itself. Because vimari now has to be released
  as a Safari  App Extension instead of a Safari Extension it
  requires some fundamental changes to the code. We can't guarantee that
  all the features work in  this version. It's a learning process for us
  so bare with us.

  Clone this repo

  $ git clone git@github.com:guyht/vimari.git

  Open the Swift project located at app_extension/vimari in Xcode
  Configure the Signing settings for both the vimari and extension targets    to use your information rather than the Vimari
  team's (see this SO
  answer
  for more information).
  If you want different settings than the default ones, make your changes in    settings.js. You can always come back later to change
  the settings again.
  Build and run the project (⌘ + r)
  An empty GUI box will show up - ignore it (we'll fix it later). Go to    Safari and open up settings (⌘ + ,). Go to Extensions and
  you should    see vimari in the list of extensions. Enable it.
  You may now press stop in Xcode and close Xcode. The extension will be    available even if you restart Safari.

  This was tested on High Sierra with Safari Technology Preview (version
  12). Let  us know if something is not working for you.


Can not share WiFi from Macbook Pro to other devices via Bluetooth PAN First of all, this problem is detailed in this discussion at Apple's forum.

I basically have the exactly same problem.

Status indicator is always yellow under "Bluetooth PAN" in Network Panel.

The status says:
Bluetooth PAN has a self-assigned IP address and will not be able to connect to the Internet.

I tried on both iPad and Android devices, doesn't work. There is an icon on the upper left corner of iPad indicates connected to Bluetooth PAN. However, there is no internet access.

Any suggestions on this issue?

I ran into the same problem when reverse tethering my Samsung phone (Android 5.1.1) to access the Internet connection on my Macbook Air (El Capitan), and found a successful solution:

Make sure your mobile device is paired via Bluetooth and follow Heiko Haller's
steps for Internet Sharing settings.
Under System Preferences > Network, select the active Internet connection
(e.g., USB LAN) and note the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Router numbers.
Select Bluetooth PAN in the same Network window, click the Advanced button
in the lower right to open its configuration panel.
Under the TCP/IP tab, select 'Manually' from the Configure IPv4 drop-down
menu, and copy the information from Step 2 in the three relevant fields.
Select 'Link-local only' next to Configure IPv6.
Click OK to close the Bluetooth PAN panel, hit Apply in the Network window.
On the mobile device, go to Settings > Bluetooth and click on the cog icon next to
the paired Macbook and turn on 'Internet access'.

It's been a couple of hours and so far, the connection seems stable.
Edit: An incoming regular call broke the connection, and unpairing and re-pairing the device appear to have restored it.
Edit2: The IP Address and Router numbers may change each time you connect to the Internet, so be sure to update the Bluetooth PAN settings accordingly.


Mac equivalent of ALT+010 for Windows (Replace Carriage Return/Line Breaks) I'm trying to do a find and replace in Excel 2016 for Mac, to replace all line breaks with a space.

On Windows I'd do CTRL+R for find and replace, then hold the alt key and type 010 which would insert a linebreak into the find field.

I'd then type a Space, and it hit Replace All.

I can't seem to workout how to do the keyboard equivalent on a Mac?

Any suggestions.

In most macOS applications ControlEnter works, and in Excel ControlAltEnter works in cells, and even in Find and Replace it will enter a space, but it doesn't appear to search.

Similarly \n which is an escaped new line doesn't work, nor does copying and pasting a new line character from another application.

In word ^p works as an escape character but again not in Excel.

It looks very much like this isn't possible in Excel for Mac. The best thing I could suggest at this point is to ask for Microsoft to fix this via their feedback forum:

https://excel.uservoice.com/

The last option I was going to suggest was using Numbers which is the Apple version of Excel, it works very well in general but has the same limitation from my testing.

Last option would be to use Excel for Windows via a Remote Desktop application like Citrix, a simulator like WINE or a virtual machine like VirtualBox, Parallels or VMWare.


iOS7 Moving Backgrounds - file type and creating your own iOS7 comes with parallax backgrounds.

My questions are:
Are these a standard file type? Does anybody know what it is?

Is there a process to create a custom one?

--

EDIT

Thanks everyone - I was asking for both.

Edit - Someone has suggested that the dynamic backgrounds that are animated according to their programming  are quartz composer files. Is it possible to write one of these yourself and upload it to the phone? What would the process for this be?

You are confusing parallax and dynamic.

Parallax is the name given to the effect whereby a still image is moved in response to input at a greater or lesser extent than other on screen elements, to provide a sense of depth. The image used is just a static image file that is slightly larger than the screen size, to allow it to move slightly without introducing blank areas.

Dynamic backgrounds are the animated ones that move according to their programming, not just your input. I suspect they are simply quartz composer files like an OSX screensaver.


MacBook Pro late 2011 cannot boot using regular tactics I've tried every suggestion provided by Apple and a few i found here but am still unable to boot my laptop.

This occurred yesterday and i did manage to get in & do some work. However this morning (exactly the same as yesterday) as soon as i opened & started using Mail it crashed.

the difference today is that nothing gets me in now.

On the white screen i get the owl icon & pw field but once enetered the progress bar quits between 50-75% way through every time.

I tried the internet reset option but it also failed!

I'm on a pension & trying to start my new biz (design etc) to support myself so i do not have money to take it to a repair mob so am desperately seeking a solution here.

am not overly tech yet but am able to follow instructions as have been using Macs for 20 yrs but this has stumped me!

Any solutions??

UPDATE!! check this out for full solution!
GPU problem - Boot Hangs on Grey Screen

First of all, there is a good chance your hard drive may be dying, in which case you could lose all your data if it is not backed up. Hopefully you already have a backup. If not, let me know and I can walk you through that.

This assumes you have a full backup of your computer already:

What happens when you hold Command + R while turning on your Macbook Pro with the power button? If you can get into the Recovery Partition this way, the first thing to try would be repairing permissions.

You do this by first clicking "Disk Utility" then selecting Macintosh HD. Click "First Aid" and then let it run. Once that's complete, restart your computer and see if that resolves the issue. If not, let me know and we can move on to the next troubleshooting step.


Creating partition for Diskwarrior I am fixing my friend's '07 MacBook Pro.  The superdrive keeps spitting out discs and the harddrive is corrupt.  I want to run Disk Warrior 4.4 but can't because of the Superdrive problem. The computer has two partitions.  I erased the second, XP one and now it's available as a Mac Drive.  My question is, can I mount the Diskwarrior program on this drive in such a way that I can boot into it as if it was a Boot CD?  I'm a PC technician and so am a little lost with the finer details of Mac.

A couple of options:

1)  Use an external DVD drive connected via USB to boot into the Disk Warrior DVD

I use a spare IDE DVD-R drive from an old PC connected with a Newer Tech USB to IDE adapter.  I have had to do this a few times with a Mac Mini Server.  The only problem is that booting this way is VERY slow.

2)  If you have access to another Mac, connect the problem machine to the good mac with a Firewire cable and boot the damaged machine holding down the "T" key to enter Firewire Target Disk Mode

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1533?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Then run Disk Warrior from the good Mac on the problem Mac's drive.

For the future:  These are better options but probably not as easy at this point.

I try to have a USB flash drive around with a clone (via Carbon Copy Cloner) of a working system that contains the emergency utilities like Disk Warrior.  I can then boot from it if needed.

I also like keeping a bootable clone on an external hard drive with Disk Warrior already installed as part of my backup strategy.

You can select an alternate boot volume when turning on the machine by holding down the <option> key.


Force iPhone to use cellular data while connected to wifi I have an iPhone 5s with iOS 7 on T-mobile in the US. I have a wifi network that is not connected to the Internet. When I connect to the wifi network with my phone, my iPhone tries to access the Internet using wifi only instead of using cellular data. Of course my phone cannot access the Internet using the wifi network because the network is not connected to the Internet. However it should be able to use cellular data.

How can I force my phone to use cellular data to access the Internet while connected to a wifi network?

This is possible, as shown here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6448960?start=0&tstart=0

As the link describes, use a static IP in the wifi network but only fill in the IP and Subnet Mask fields.

Edit: this is also answered here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/174722/120252


Location service not working as expected in iOS 8.3 The recent update to iOS 8.3 on my iPad mini 1 doesnt seem to have gone well with the location service.

The Location Service is enabled in the Settings but it doesnt really get my current location. When I ask Siri about my current location, it doesnt have an answer. Also, if I try to check in on Facebook App, it doesnt get the location either.

Is it a bug? Is there a fix for this?

The way to fix it is to power off the device and then open Apple Maps when it reboots.

That way you can determine if the maps app cannot work or if it's related to a temporary issue to a problem with the third party apps.


iTunes Home Sharing: Shares Entire Library Instead of Selected Playlists I have my master iTunes library on a Mac Mini, and I set up Home Sharing to stream my music and videos to my MacBook Pro.  When I had iTunes 9, I selected certain playlists to share and not others, and things worked fine.  When I upgraded to iTunes 10, now the entire library shows up on the MacBook Pro.  But I still only want the selected playlists.

Here's what I've tried so far:

I've gone into Preferences and double-checked that I'm only sharing selected playlists.
I've quit iTunes on both machines and re-launched it.
I've turned off Home Sharing on both machines, then turned it back on.
I've switched the setting on the Mac Mini to "Share my entire library", applied the change, then switched it back to "Share selected playlists" and applied the change.
I've right-clicked different playlists on the Mac Mini and verified that Share is unchecked when desired.  But it still shows up on the MacBook Pro

I'm using iTunes 10.2.1, so it's the current version.

So: how can I convince iTunes on the Mac Mini not to share only the playlists I've selected?

Confusingly, the Sharing preferences have no effect on Home Sharing, which is a separate sharing mechanism altogether.

The main advantage of Home Sharing is that it allows copying from one Library to another; the disadvantage is that as yet, you don't get to control which playlists are shared.


Poor quality font when connecting MBP 2016 to external 27 inch full HD monitor I have bought a Samsung 27" Full HD (LC27R500FHNXZA) monitor and have connected my MacBook Pro 2016 (macOS 10.13 "High Sierra") to it via HDMI.
This is the image I see:

And this is the image I see on my own display:

I still see individual pixels clearly. I tried to follow this guide to copy the generated file in the Overrides folder and restarted my MacBook Pro, but it didn't work.  Any idea?
Maybe full hd is too small a resolution for a 27 inch monitor?

The quality of the image is dependent (among other things) on the density of the pixels -- how small they are.
A 27" display of 1920 x 1080 pixels will have a pixel density of around 82 pixels per inch.
To give some perspective, your MacBook Pro's display has a pixel density of 219 pixels per inch. The very first iPhone had a density twice that of your screen.
When buying a monitor, it's not just how big it is, but how many pixels it has. The Apple Thunderbolt Display, for example, is 27" but with 2560 x 1440 pixels, so 109dpi. There are plenty of  27" displays with 3840 x 2160 pixels ("4K"), so c. 164 ppi.
The higher the pixel density, the sharper the image and text. You can't really expect great quality from a 1080p 27" display.
Note that some manufacturers specify 'pixel pitch' rather than PPI. Pitch is the size of one pixel, so 109ppi is 0.233mm pitch; 219ppi is 0.116mm.


Pause button started working for Chrome / Youtube, messing with audio player controls I'm on macbook pro, 2017, Mojave 10.14.4.

Previously, I used F7/F8/F9 audio-buttons with Spotify only (it worked with iTunes if it's open together with Spotify but whatever. It didn't do anything in Chrome).

I don't remember exactly when, but recently it started working with youtube videos in Chrome, and the sad thing is that if both Spotify and a youtube window are open, it changes from Spotify to Youtube. (e.g. start playing a song in Spotify, open a youtube link, and it starts working for youtube only). This is very confusing, can I somehow change this behavior?

This is a new feature of Chrome73, called Hardware Media Key Handling in chrome.
Enter this URL in the address bar then you can simply disable it.
 chrome://flags/#hardware-media-key-handling


Naming a Cell in Numbers Can you define a cell's name in Numbers for use in formulas across a workbook like you can in Excel?

Numbers has some limitations when compared with Excel.

You can't reference sheets in a different Numbers file, for example.

The best you can do is to reference a cell withing the same file but on a different worksheet.  This works the same in Numbers as it does in Excel.

You can request this feature by using the Numbers Feedback form.


OS X contacts: Related name - In which direction does the relationship field work correctly? How do I correctly use the "related name" feature?
In which direction does it work?
Does the relationship label indicate what the edited person (full contact sheet) is to the stated person (field data), or what the stated person is to the edited person?

Example: Jane is Jon's daughter.
I edit contact Jon. Which of the following setups is correct?

a) Daughter: Jane (= Jane is Jon's daughter)
b) Father: Jane (=Jon is a father to Jane)

I found nothing via Google, Apple Support pages, Contacts.app help menu nor here on StackExchange. Only some sites where people complain that Siri fails to interpret "call my <relationshipEntity>" (mostly "call my wife"), which my guts tell me is related to a false usage of the relationship field.

I think this topic would be worth to be addressed in official Apple documentation. It is a usability problem. Possible a harder task for users than Apple's UX designers and developers thought, particularly regarding internationalization/localization. Maybe in English the semantics and mental concepts on "related name" are very clear, but in other languages it may be more ambiguous. A small tooltip which clarifies the relationship in a full language sentence such as "Jane is Jon's daughter" could help to establish certainty and/or avoid false usage.

ANSWER: The correct scheme is:

a) Daughter: Jane (= Jane is Jon's daughter)

As answered by @Thibault and comprehensible deduced in @Phong's comment. Thanks!

I've always use this like the a) exemple and it always work for me.
So I think your a) exemple is good because it's like this I use the relationship field.


connecting a PS2 keyboard to Mac I have a keyboard that has only a PS2 interface. I tried setting a PS2 to USB connector over it and connected to Mac. The keyboard does not work. It works fine on a Windows XP though.

Is there a way I can get this PS2 interfaced keyboard to work for Mac ? (assuming there is no information on support of Mac)

It looks like you need something like this (Good info on the page too). I've never used one of those so I can't vouch for the specific device or vendor.


USB 3.0 disk not mounting in single user mode I have a MacBook Pro Retina (Early 2013) with MacOS X 10.11. To cut a long story short, due to issues with the NVIDIA card and graphics switching, I'm able to boot into single-user mode, but can't complete the boot past that into the Finder, so I would like to make a back-up of the data while in single user mode before taking the laptop to the Apple Store (since the graphics card issue is a known issue).

However, when in single-user mode, if I plug in a USB 3.0 disk, I get an error after about a second or so, once the disk has spun up:

AppleUSB30XHCIPort:: resetAndCreateDevice: failed to create device after (1) tries, disabling port

and no new device appears in /dev. In contrast, if I plug in a USB 2.0 key, it appears in /dev.

I'm assuming this is therefore a USB 3.0 issue - is there any way to get this to work correctly in single user mode?

Have you tried Safe Booting it? (Will bypass loading discreet graphics kext so you might be able to use GUI)
https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201262

If you have another Mac with Thunderbolt handy you could put this one into Target Disk Mode and transfer your data through a Thunderbolt Cable?
https://support.apple.com/kb/ph10725

Otherwise it's likely the needed kext for USB3 isn't loaded in single user mode and you're out of luck and need a USB2 storage device.

As a side note the part needing to be replaced to resolve the graphics issue is the main logic board, separate from the storage, so I'm sure if you ask nicely to the Genius at the Apple Store to please not erase your data they won't.

See https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Display+Late+2013+Teardown/18696 showing that it's a separate part.


Closing a window in Mission Control Is it possible to close a window within the Mission Control interface?

E.g. by highlighting a window and perform a keyboard/mouse shortcut?

If you use Better Touch Tool, you can configure a shortcut for the keyboard, mouse, magic mouse, trackpad or even Apple remote to close a window, and it will work in Exposé.

BTT is free and it works really well, in my case I configured the close shortcut as a pinch out gesture for my trackpad.


Karabiner Elements: Why is a series (or sequence/batch) of keys called in {…"to": …} only executed every second time? I used the original Karabiner app 10.22 and could very precisely restrict any actions via Apple's Accessibility Inspector to work for specific dialogue windows.

This is no longer possible with Karabiner Elements.

So in order to (in Safari) click the context menu's item "Element Information" (which I use very often) I tried this code in "Complex Modifications":

 "to": [ { "pointing_button": "button2" },
         { "key_code": "e" },
         { "key_code": "return_or_enter"}  ]

Which did work, but alternately only opened/showed the context menu or actually executed "Element Information".

By experimenting, I found a workaround that mostly works for me:

"parameters": { "basic.to_if_held_down_threshold_milliseconds": 50 },
"to":       [ { "pointing_button": "button2" } ],
"to_if_held_down":
            [ { "key_code": "e" },
              { "key_code": "return_or_enter"} ]

My questions:

Why are not all "commands" in the first code example executed in due order (or: only alternately) and (more interestingly:) how can you ensure that each "command" is executed every time?

I think your workaround perfectly demonstrates the reason: you are selecting "Element information" via the GUI, and the context menu may take a few milliseconds to be brought up. This isn't an issue with Karabiner specifically — if the E and return keycodes are sent instantaneously after right-clicking, the context menu may not be in focus yet, and they won't be directed appropriately.

In short, if you're making a GUI macro, you may need to wait for the GUI to respond.

As I see it, there are three possible solutions:

simply add a brief delay, as you've done,
use an alternate tool (e.g. Keyboard Maestro) which allows you to pause until a certain condition is filled, or
use an alternate method of activating the desired outcome, i.e. something which doesn't rely on the graphical user interface at the user level, such as AppleScript (though I don't know if such an option exists for this specific goal).


Remove and Reinstall Python on Mac -- Can I trust these old references? I'm new to the mac, and apparently I've made some sort of error.  I've been learning python, via tutorials, and between Homebrew, Pip and XCode somehow my versions are all mixed.  Pip3 points to python2, so all my python3 trials fail, etc...

I'm researching how to safely remove all versions and then shoot for a clean install (homebrew?) but I'm a bit nervous.

I've found some excellent links:

Uninstalling Python 3 on a Mac
How to uninstall Python 2.7 on a Mac OS X 10.6.4?

Clearly one doesn't touch anything in the root /system directory, and basically everything else gets deleted.   What makes me nervous, is that this links are pretty doggone old. (six years! +) I'm not sure if I really trust them or not.

Anybody been here lately?  Can I trust the postings linked above?  How do I clean up this python version mess?  Note: I'm using MacOS Sierra (10.12.5)

So, I ended up removing all python installations, and reinstalling things via Homebrew.

which python ---> /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python
Delete the entire Python.framework directory from /Library/Frameworks.
which python3 ---> /usr/local/bin/python3  Delete the entire python3 directory.
I was a bit nervous about the symlinks.  I initially renamed the ones that were obviously going to cause me trouble. It turns out that was unnecessary.  Instead, just use:

$ brew doctor
Warning: Broken symlinks were found. Remove them with 'brew prune':
  /usr/local/bin/python-32
  /usr/local/bin/python2-32
  /usr/local/bin/python2.7-32
  /usr/local/bin/python2_DNU
  /usr/local/bin/python_DNU
  /usr/local/bin/pythonw-32
  /usr/local/bin/pythonw2-32
  /usr/local/bin/pythonw2.7-32

So, brew prune (or brew cleanup --prune in newer versions of Homebrew) worked perfectly. It removed all of the above symlinks.
Reinstall python and python3 via homebrew.  All done.

At no time did I touch the python installation located within the /System folder.

Oh, and to be clear.  The answer to the original question is

  Yes, you can trust the old references, as written! That guidance is still valid.


Notifications sounds not affected by iPad 2 volume When turn down the volume on my iPad 2 all the way down, It still makes a sound when notifications are received.
Is there any way to globally disable notifications sounds ?

In Settings | General | Sounds, you can either set the sound level of the alerts, or choose that it will be affected by the Volume buttons (which is off by default).
Update
In iOS 10 (and maybe earlier versions, I'm not sure when the change happened) this setting is under Settings | Sounds and is called Change with Buttons in the Ringer and Alerts section.


How to change the language on date and time stamp in MS Word for Max 2011? I am using MS Office 2011 for Mac on Macbook air with OSX 10.9.4. In the comment balloon the date and time stamp shows some different language after date. I have added the screenshot of Word document below. How to change it to English? The language in both Word and system preferences is already set to English.

Head over System Preferences » Language & Region and make sure you don’t use Chinese for Calendar option.


Internal name for "Scheduled" List in Reminders App on iOS I try to connect Do Note with the iOS Reminders app and add a new Button to add Reminders to the "Scheduled" List but everytime I try to create a Note from Do Notes I get a new list in the Reminders app called "Scheduled" and it won't add it to the internal "Scheduled" list (which shows up in the Notification center and sends push notification when a scheduled reminder comes up).

So my question is: What is the internal name for the "Scheduled" list in the Reminders app, so that I can add a Reminder from Do Notes

Btw: I am using iOS in german so the german name for the Scheduled list is "Planmäßig" but even with this name set up in Do Notes it won't add it to the correct list

The "Scheduled" list in Reminders is just all of the reminders that have a due date. There is no way to add a reminder to that list.

If you do use the + and add a reminder, you'll see it shows up on another list (Reminders list for me).


Selecting different letters like "ä" and "õ" on IPhone SE I have to press and hold the the default letter "a" for example which then opens another list of modified letters which I can then choose If I slide my finger without lifting it up to the "ä".

I find it inconvenient, is there a way to set it that you when you press and hold the default letter and lift up your finger that the alternative letter menu still stays up?

Or any other  suggestions which you think might be more preferrable to me?

There is no way to make the Character Picker stay up.

The alternative is to use a keyboard which has the letters you need already directly on it.  Apple's Estonian doesn't do that, so have a look at the Keyman app or other 3rd party keyboards from the App Store for this language.


Can a 3rd party charger damage my macbook pro? I forgot my macbook pro charger at a friends place and I won't have it for a week. I saw that there are 3rd party chargers being sold for half the price of official chargers. Can 3rd party chargers damage my macbook pro? After I get my normal charger back in a week I will be mostly using that one and keep the new one as an extra, so I won't be using it fulltime.

It's unlikely they will actually damage your MacBook Pro by delivering too much power to it. But there are many cautionary tales to be found on the internet of third party chargers overheating, and occasionally catching fire or exploding. Technically, using a non-Apple charger without Apple's written permission may also void your warranty if anything did go wrong.

Personally, I wouldn't risk it.


Only sync photos to icloud when plugged in? I noticed that on icloud.com, when i add a reminder, it automatically gets sync on my phone when i turn on my wifi. Which is great and i really love that feature.

But that got me thinking, are my photos being synced too? Wouldnt that consume lots of data uploading it and also the battery?

Also, since im already here, why cant i access photos on the icloud.com website? Only on the windows explorer

For syncing photos to iCloud, you can turn it off by going to Settings > iCloud and search for Photos and then turn off My Photo Stream.

If you want to access photos uploaded on iCloud, you need to turn on iCloud Photo Library (Beta) (in the same settings) so that it will automatically upload and store your entire library in iCloud to access photos and videos from all your devices.


ctkahp quit unexpectedly I am getting "ctkahp quit unexpectedly" regularly on my macOS Sierra 10.12.1 Mac Mini.

I cannot find any resources about what this process is.

When this error occurs, my machine can't connect to the internet at all and I get a ton of errors, iCloud, etc.

I have to reboot to make it go away.

Had the same problem in an environment that uses Active Directory. When I attempted to run Chrome, I would get the error. The error mentioned the CryptoTokenKit, or something like that.

Oddly enough, other accounts on the same machine worked fine.

When I dug deeper, I found that the client did NOT have a Mobile Me account. Setting them up with a Mobile Me account appears to have solved the problem.


MacBook Pro 2017 without Touchbar Not Charging I just got a used MacBook Pro, 2017 without the Touchbar.  It has 2 USB-C Ports on the side.  I'm not using mobile much, but I do sometimes.  At my desk I'm using a USB-C device that gives me an HDMI, USB-A, and USB-C port for charging.

I've noticed that while everything is plugged in and the laptop is on everything seems to work fine.  However, if the laptop is asleep the system stops charging.  It only seems to charge asleep when the charger is directly connected to the computer.  I've reset the SMC twice and the NVRAM and this is a fresh copy of macOS installed via Internet Recovery.

Is this normal behavior?

I'm concerned because I bought the laptop used from a computer shop and I have a limited window to bring it back to them if it is faulty.  I just don't know if this is normal or not.

I'm assuming that macOS requires to be running for it to recognize the splitter device.  I've got an external hard disk attached to a powered USB hub which is then attached to the laptop via this splitter device.  When the computer wakes from sleep I get an error saying I should unmount the device before powering off the drive.  I never got this error with previous Mac's that had their own USB-A ports.

In addition to the USB hub and charger, I also have an external monitor connected via the HDMI port, so all 3 are going through this one splitter device.  I don't know if that is relevant, but I thought I'd include it in case it is.  Everything seems to work perfectly when the system is on.

I really like the idea of when I want to do work with the larger monitor and such I can just plug one thing in, so I would really appreciate help on seeing if I can get it working in this configuration / if this is NOT normal (i.e. there is some potential hardware failure) returning it to the store I bought it from in short order.

However, if the laptop is asleep the system stops charging. It only seems to charge asleep when the charger is directly connected to the computer.

You've narrowed down the problem to the "splitter."

If it charges when directly connected, but not when going through the splitter, your MacBook is not the cause of the problem.  If you were to bring it into any Apple store or repair shop, the first thing they would do is hook up a known good working charger to your MBP.  If it charges while sleeping, you'd be told that your MBP is working correctly; which it is.

What to do?

That vintage MacBook Pro has two Thunderbolt 3 ports so...

Return the "splitter."
Try not to use HDMI (it's very flaky, IMO).  Use DisplayPort instead. Thunderbolt 3 natively outputs DP; it will have to convert the signals to give you HDMI.
Use a "proper" (meaning an active adapter) USB-C Hub with Power Delivery and 4K support if you must use HDMI.
Because you only have 2 TB ports, I would spring for a Thunderbolt 3 dock instead.  This way you'll have ample room for growth should you want a second monitor or additional USB ports.

(Standard disclaimer follows)

Of course, if you're not comfortable that your MacBook Pro doesn't charge with the splitter you've chosen, by all means, return the Mac.  If your splitter continues to exhibit the same behavior, you'll have proof positive that the splitter is the issue.


Incorrectly labelled albums in Apple Music I sometimes come across albums in Apple Music whose tracks are incorrectly labelled. For instance, the second track of this album is entirely incorrect. Similarly, the first three tracks of this album are permuted.

If I download the album then I can change the song info in my library. But, is there any way to let Apple know that they have their songs incorrectly labelled, so that the album data can be corrected in Apple Music itself?

Pulling down the comment above, since it satisfactorily answered my question, and it seems this question will not be receiving more activity anytime soon.

  It's possible that the problem is not with Apple's database - it may be in the catalog/meta data that the music publisher supplied. It's not unusual to see this on CDs. I'd suggest: Don't Worry Be Happy – Seamus Mar 2 '19 at 5:08


Restored from Time Machine but NO applications Really puzzled here.  Had a power cut and imac (27", OSX 10.8.3) wouldn't restart/boot up afterwards.
Tried unplugging, restarting, safe start, zap pram etc. no luck, just 'Apple logo screen'
Used Mountain Lion CD disc to boot into Disk utilities. verified and repaired disk.  Said it was good. Still no start up / boot up happening.
Decided to restore to yesterday from Time Machine
Did this (twice now) at about 25 hours each restore, and the restore has my docs files etc but NO APPLICATIONS are available so nothing opens or works.
The dock has a row of greyed out Question Mark symbols and the Applications folder has basically nothing in it (149mb, in /users/myname folder) There is no '2nd folder)
I don't understand as I thought Time Machine backed up your entire system at points in time, not just your files.  I had it set to backup full 2TB imac HD
No idea what to do now.
Can anyone help?

This question was also posted at https://discussions.apple.com/message/22138652. Based on the replies, it seems like /Applications/ was actually missing from the iMac and the snapshots.

I'd also recommend doing an upgrade install from the recovery partition. It should replace applications and other system files with the default versions but not affect most user files or settings.

A similar question where the OP had excluded /Applications/ from backups:

Full restore from backup, /Applications not backed up


How do i find my WiFi password when i am already connected but it doesnt show I am trying to find my WiFi password from my iPad and I am connected to it.

Is there anyway I can find out when I am connected to it?

At present, there is no way to find out, but I am offering this as an answer anyway despite it being covered by the linked answer:

1) If you have a Mac connected to the same network, you can find the stored password in it's Keychain

2) If the router is an Apple Airport based device, you may be able to log straight into it via Airport Utility (available on Mac and iOS) to see the password at source

3) If you are patient, you can wait for iOS7 to be released, which will include Keychain Syncing, allowing the stored password on your iPad to be synced elsewhere, giving you potential to then read it in your Keychain as per point 1.


How can I restore deleted contacts from iPhone 4s? My wife and I both have 4s models and we both downloaded iOS 7 and now we have all contacts (hers and mine) on both phones. I started to delete some of hers on my phone and it deleted the same contacts on her phone automatically. How can I restore her contacts?

The deleted and lost iPhone contacts can be recovered in 2 ways: recover from iPhone directly or restore from iTunes backup copy.


How do I reset all gatekeeper rules? So I made a really stupid mistake and while trying to delete a gatekeeper rule from the command line I managed to delete all of them.

Command I ran

spctl --remove

New Output of List

Nathaniels-MacBook-Pro:~ nathanielsuchy$ spctl --list
error: no matches for search or update operation

Before it had a ton of rules. How do I reset gatekeeper to factory defaults?

Luckily for me I knew how to read the man pages. From that I found a default copy was at /var/db/SystemPolicy-default and was able to copy it to the normal system policy location

Command To Run:

Nathaniels-MacBook-Pro:~ nathanielsuchy$ sudo cp /var/db/.SystemPolicy-default /var/db/SystemPolicy

From the Man Pages

FILES
     /var/db/SystemPolicy  The system policy database.
     /var/db/.SystemPolicy-default
                           A copy of the initial distribution version of the
                           system policy database.  Useful for starting over
                           if the database gets messed up beyond recognition.

The developers included a default copy to ensure that if you mess up the database, you can simply copy the default database to the database location, reboot, and be ready to roll.

However there is an even easier way to do this, it's also the recommended way. See the man pages:

 --reset-default
          Unconditionally reset the system policy database to its default
          value. This discards all changes made by administrators. It also
          heals any corruption to the database. It does not implicitly
          either enable or disable the facility. This must be done as the
          super user. Reboot after use.

Just run:

sudo spctl --reset-default

and then reboot your Mac and everything will be back to normal.

Fixed Output:

Now everything's back to normal:

As shown I cannot install any new apps that are not from the App Store. While the gatekeeper system is disabled or if it has no rules, I can load the app without an issue. Thought disabling gatekeeper isn't recommended from a security context, it's better to grant exemptions to trusted and verified apps that are not signed, though the best and most security friendly way to do things is to sign your apps without an exeception.

In the future always be careful when adjusting gatekeeper rules though I'm glad there's a simple way to reset it back to the default set of rules. It could of been a lot worse without a copy of the default rule set.


Search for a string in Preview I use Preview's Command-F (find) to search for C# in the pdf document. However, the result is not for 'C#', but just 'C': I get hundreds of meaningless search results.

How can I get the search result exactly for 'C#' or 'C++' in Preview?

I've not found a way to get Preview to search for characters like # or +, but Skim, an alternative PDF viewer (homepage here), is a good replacement/addition to Preview and is able to search more specifically.

I've tested it and found it was able to find C++ (without needing any quotes/special options) without bringing up all C results.

It was also able to search specifically for accented characters (like é or ö) — though requires such characters to be accented in the search to find them (i.e. you can't search for blah and expect it to match bläh, nor vice versa). In Preview, either search will return matches for both accented and unaccented characters.


download WineBottler with AdBlocker (Privoxy and Adblock Edge) Because of security (malware) I run two ad blockers. System wide proxy Privoxy and browser plugin Adblock Edge.

I wish to download WineBottler 1.8-rc4 Development

and I received this strange error (all other sites work)

after I disabled Privoxy temporal in browser network settings

still issues. Is there a mirror? Howto download without getting security trouble?

Adf.ly is basically an Ad page which will show the real link after some seconds. That's the direct link for the file you are looking for:

http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/combo/builds/WineBottlerCombo_1.8-rc4.dmg


iPhone 4S does not get detected in Windows When I connect my iPhone 4S to my computer, iTunes does not detect it. iPhone pops the message of USB connectivity and defaults to Mass Storage. Windows shows the message that "Device is ready to use" and I can read both drives of the iPhone in Windows Explorer. However iTunes does not detect the device and the "Devices" tab does not appear.

I've tried:

Restarting the phone.
Restarting the computer.
Connecting the phone to a different computer.
(I'm on version 4.3.3 (8J2), firmware 01.59.00 and iTunes 10.5.3.3)

Verify that the iPod service is running by doing the following:

First, close iTunes and disconnect your iPhone from your computer. Then:

Go to Start
Go to Run
Type "services.msc" and hit enter.
Find the iPod Service
Right click on it and click Start or Restart Service
Reconnect your iPhone to your machine.

If this does not resolve the issue, try going through the steps in this knowledgebase article.


How do I unsync all apple devices for text? How do I unsync my iphone messages so that those do not go to my ipad.  I have unclicked the email address associated with my ipad on my iphone.   Is there something else I need to do so other people in the house do not see my text messages on the ipad?

You want to (on your iPhone) open Settings, then go to Messages -> Text Message Forwarding, then uncheck your iPad


Set custom scaling on Retina MacBook Pro (13inch) I want my scaling to look like 2560x1600. Currently, according to Display preferences, it looks like 1680x1050, and that is the smallest option.

I want everything to be WAY WAY smaller. My eyes are super good and I bought a MacBook with a retina display for a reason - so I could fit more stuff on the screen.

Notice how in the attached screenshot underneath the picture of the MacBook, it says "Looks like 1680x1050". That is no good. I need to fit a lot of stuff on my screen at once.

An example is when I open up League of Legends in Retina resolution, the cursor becomes extremely tiny for 3 seconds. That is how I want my whole Mac to look like.

Is there any way to set the scaling to 100%, like you can in Windows?

I have a 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display and by itself, the highest resolution I can set in System Preferences > Hardware > Display > Display > (o) Scaled, is 1920x1200. To get an even higher resolution, e.g 2880x1800 I use a third-party utility named Display Menu. It's available in the App Store for free.


Protecting iMacs from high humidity I am moving to Costa Rica and want to take both of my iMacs.  Humidity and salt air are a problem.  Will leaving the iMac running help to keep humidity out of the unit?  I see only one vent;  maybe a cover?

Humidity is not an issue.

Humid air on a warm/hot computer components won't be a problem.  It's when the temperature of the components are lower than the dew point of the ambient air that it will become a concern; water will condense.

Running the computer won't keep humid air out as it's the ambient air that gets circulated.  Unless your computer somehow gets colder than the room that it's located in, it will be fine.

(I live in the tropics with many, many 100% humidity days)


Clear recent file list in AppleScript? I created an AppleScript for cleaning the clipboard which had this command:
tell application "System Events" to set the clipboard to ""

How would I create an AppleScript that did this with this shell script in Catalina latest version?
I tried:
do shell script "defaults delete -g NSNavRecentPlaces"

and got this error message:
error "2020-06-27 22:20:11.304 defaults[1830:54087]
Domain (kCFPreferencesAnyApplication) not found.
Defaults have not been changed." number 1

How would I get an AppleScript to work for this sort of thing like the clipboard one I made?
Any advice appreciated on this!

In AppleScript, you do not need System Events to clear the clipboard, just use:
set the clipboard to ""

To use the above AppleScript command from Terminal, use the following command:
osascript -e 'set the clipboard to ""'

To clear the general clipboard from Terminal, not using AppleScript, use the following command:
pbcopy < /dev/null

To clear the find clipboard from Terminal, not using AppleScript, use the following command:
pbcopy -pboard find < /dev/null

That all said, there is a discrepancy between the title of your question and the AppleScript code you're wanting to run in Terminal.
If you are wanting to clear the Recent Items on the Apple menu, then the following AppleScript command will do that:
tell application "System Events" to ¬
    click menu item "Clear Menu" of ¬
        menu 1 of ¬
        menu item "Recent Items" of ¬
        menu 1 of ¬
        menu bar item "Apple" of ¬
        menu bar 1 of ¬
        application process "Finder"

To use that in Terminal:
osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to click menu item "Clear Menu" of menu 1 of menu item "Recent Items" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Apple" of menu bar 1 of process "Finder"'


How to take full-resolution screenshots on iPhone? (Getting reduced from 1242 x 2208 to 674 x 1200) I've downloaded an app (that I built - I am preparing to submit) on my iPhone 6s Plus and I'm trying to prepare some screenshots for the App Store. Per documentation, the screenshots should be 1242 x 2208px, however when I take a screenshot and open it up on my desktop, I'm left with 674 x 1200px. What can I do to get the proper resolution for these screenshots?

Screenshots should be in full resolution, but the way you send it to yourself may cause the resolution to be reduced. In particular, Google Inbox reduces the resolution of photos by default when emailing them.

You should be okay sending it to yourself using Apple Mail, and selecting full resolution.


My Dock and Launchpad appear to have died So around last month my dock decided to make my notification badges blue and very large. I have no clue why. I’ve tried resetting the preferences, restoring them from time machine, restoring Dock.app from Time Machine and nothing works. Whatever caused this, also broke LaunchPad because the instant I try to open it, it just crashes, the dock quits and restarts, and it never appears. Any ideas?

Retina 5K iMac (iMac15,1) macOS 10.12.1

First off, I would install any macOS software updates from the App Store in case it's a weird, uncommon bug with that version. (Current version is 10.12.2)

If your issue is not resolved after this, I would highly recommend testing in a new user account to determine whether or not the issue is system-wide. You could also boot into Safe Mode to see if the issue persists there. This would narrow down the list of possible culprits immensely!

If the issue appears to be user-based not system-wide, and still occurs in Safe Mode, I would then recommend rebuilding the the Launchpad database if you haven't tried this already.

When an issue does not occur in Safe Mode and has not resolved itself after restarting out of Safe Mode (yes, it can happen - albeit not often), it usually points to an issue with a kernel extension, third-party font, or a startup/login item. So at least if this is the case, we'll know where to start looking.

To rebuild the Launchpad Databases:

Note: Having a backup of your system is highly recommended as some of the tasks you will be performing delete user library data; not to mention you will be working with a couple of Terminal commands which if typed incorrectly can cause issues with your system.

Click here for my reference

Quit Launchpad, if it's open. You can do this by clicking anywhere
in the Launchpad app, as long as you don't click on an app icon.
Open a Finder window.
You need to access your Library folder, which is hidden by the
operating system. You can gain access to this folder by using the
instructions in OS X Is Hiding Your Library Folder. Once you have
the Library folder open and visible in the Finder, you can continue
to the next step.
In the Library folder, locate and open the Application Support
folder.
In the Application Support folder, locate and open the Dock folder.
You'll find a number of files in the Dock folder, including one
named desktoppicture.db, and one or more files starting with a
dashed set of capital letters and numbers, and ending in .db. An
example file name is FE0131A-54E1-2A8E-B0A0A77CFCA4.db. Grab all the
files in the Dock folder with the dashed set of letters and numbers
that end in .db and drag them to the trash.
Launch Terminal, located in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
In the Terminal window, enter the following: defaults write
com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true
Press enter or return to issue the command.
In the Terminal window, enter: killall Dock
Press enter or return.
You can now quit Terminal.

I would suggest restarting your Mac at this point and then testing the issue. Keep in mind that the first time you open Launchpad it has to rebuild the databases it needs so it may take a bit longer to launch.


How can I select preferred languages when I install applications from homebrew? How can I select preferred languages when I install applications from homebrew? Some applications (such as Firefox) have different binary versions for different languages. Is it possible to choose the languages that I prefer most/second most etc?

With --language:

brew cask install firefox --language=de

as pointed out here.


Valgrind in OS X Lion I am not sure if this question would be more appropriate for stackoverflow, but I thought I'd ask here first.

The other day, I tried running one of my programs against valgrind to check for memory leaks. To my surprise, the terminal reported that valgrind couldn't be found. Additionally, there seems to be no man page for valgrind either.

I am certain I used to have valgrind on this computer, but haven't used it in a while so I can't say when it disappeared. Could this have something to do with my having updated to OS X Lion? Anyone know?

I'd start with a spotlight search from terminal mdfind valgrind as well as checking your path variable to rule out some simple errors before digging deeper. You will want to ensure you have Release 3.7.0 of valgrind as it's the first that states compatibility with Lion in the release notes.


iOS 10 public beta infinite loop So I tried signing up for Apple beta program where I use Safari on my iPhone 6 and go to beta.apple.com and tap sign up. I'm then taken to the login page, and just after that to the legal page where I accept the terms of Apple beta program. This is where it falls apart and instead of redirection to the beta profile download page I get redirected back to beta welcome page where I can sign up again, accept the agreement again and than be sent right back to welcome page, thus creating an infinite loop.

Things I tried:

Deleting old iOS 9 beta profile and rebooting
Reverting back to non beta iOS 9.3.2
Restoring my iPhone to factory defaults
Leaving and signing back up for beta
Trying beta.apple.com/profile directly, but again result is an infinite loop
Searching Apple and Apple oriented sites for a solution
Sacrificing a goat

Basically nothing works for me, and visiting beta.apple.com on any browser, desktop or mobile is resulting in the same annoying behavior.

I had the same problem.. I really don't know how I fixed it because it was with iOS 9 public beta. I'm on iOS now, and here is the exact link for the beta profile. Also, just make sure you are enrolled in the program with apple or you won't be able to use feedback assistant.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B92o0HIZOVnQcWNZYXc1WktsNWM


Is there any way to programatically remap the keys in a Macbook running OSX Mavericks? I want to remap the keys on my keyboard. I want to do it programatically, because I will use some logic to decide what to input. For example, when a user press "A" followed by "S", I will output "λ". In other words, everytime I type a key on my keyboard, I want to intercept it, apply some logic to it and give it back changed before it goes to the focused app.

How?

Have you looked into Keyboard Maestro?  I use it all the time,  I believe you can accomplish with what you want using Keyboard Maestro.

For example:  You can have it check for a typed in string "good" and return morning or afternoon based on the time of day.

With Keyboard Maestro you can execute AppleScript or Shell scripts.  Keyboard Maestro is pretty powerful.   Your macros can then be global or specific to an application.


Yosemite Double Login I just bought myself a Macbook Air and its the first time I own Mac hardware.

I have registered with My apple account and the issue I am getting is that when I boot the machine I have to login twice.

Once with the Apple ID credentials, and the second time with the Administrator account of the machine.

There is another issue. When I registered I had made a mistake typing in the Apple ID name, now this wrong name appears in the first login even though I have changed it in the apple ID webpage.

Actually found that the problem. On setting up I activated disk encryption in Filevault with the previous account.

The solution is to decrypt and re-encrypt the the disk with current Apple ID.


Mapping F13, F14, F15 I am a programmer and I would like to map all the unused function keys (from F13 to F19) on my Apple Keyboard to some useful chars like parenthesis: {, },  [, ] and quotes

Is there a free software for Mac OS X 10.7+ that I can use?

Thanks!

You can use a private.xml like this with Karabiner (previously named KeyRemap4MacBook):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F13, KeyCode::BRACKET_LEFT, VK_SHIFT</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F14, KeyCode::BRACKET_RIGHT, VK_SHIFT</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F15, KeyCode::BRACKET_LEFT</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F16, KeyCode::BRACKET_RIGHT</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Change for example KeyCode::BRACKET_LEFT, VK_SHIFT to whatever key combination inserts { in your keyboard layout.


How can I make Safari or Chrome remember my messages in contact forms? As a customer, I contact businesses through contact forms on their websites, and often I forget the exact wording of the message and when I sent it.

(Often, I need to re-send messages when I don't receive a reply and an email address isn't listed on the site.)

How can I make Safari remember the contents of the <textarea> and <input> fields of the <form> element? Preferably timestamped.

Is there a Safari (or Chrome) extension that does this?

This question applies mostly to Mac OS X, but also relevant for iOS devices.

For Chrome, there is Lazarus: Form Recovery
(haven't tried it)

For Firefox (although you didn't mention Firefox, I'll put it in any case), there's the TextArea Cache addon.

For Safari, I don't know of anything.
At the moment I either copy/paste text areas I want to save, or long-click selected text in the textarea, and drag it to a folder in the Finder to create a text clipping. You could also look for a keystroke recorder/keylogger, which would record every key you type in case you need to get back to it later (but those also record spelling mistakes in some cases).

Another option for Safari is to use Jumpcut. Jumpcut can save up to 99 text clipboards in its internal memory. I use it all the time for temporary saving purposes. For example, you are typing text inside a text box, quickly select all (cmd + a) then copy all (cmd + c) and you've just "saved" the text inside Jumpcut. If your computer crashes or your app crashes, restart it and within Jumpcut your text is accessible, ready to be pasted again.

And since Jumpcut remembers up to 99 clippings, you can easily copy all the fields in a form to paste them again later in the exact same way.

Creating a clipping from a text field in Safari:


How can I prevent accidentally quitting an application? I use Adium, but if I set a "Quit Confirmation" in the advanced preferences, it cancels log out. If I don't, it is way too easy to quit it, since it gets focused between apps sometimes.

Is there any way I can have a "Quit Confirmation" show up when I try to quit Adium, except when I am logging out or shutting down the OS?

You can do the following to make it a little bit harder to quit Adium by accident. I think this should solve your problem.

Start by opening System Preferences > Keyboard.

Click Keyboard Shortcuts in the pillbox above.
Make sure you have Application Shortcuts selected in the left bar.
Click the + button to add a new shortcut.

Select Adium from the Application dropdown.
Type "Quit" in the menu title field.
Put your cursor in the Keyboard Shortcut field and type Command-Option-Q
Click Add

And you're done. You can close your System Preferences because the Quit command in Adium has been remapped to a less-likely-to-be-accidentally-typed shortcut.


Pin required to power-off phone? Is there an app that makes it so that a pin is required to power-off the phone? Or, can someone explain to me how Find my iPhone works if is powered-off and can't be located?

There isn't currently a way to set an iPhone (or iPad) to require a passcode to allow powering off, without jail-breaking your device. It seems to be quite a popular feature request that Apple haven't implemented. For example, this 9to5Mac post from earlier this year. https://9to5mac.com/2016/01/28/feature-request-theft-protection/

Unfortunately if your device is turned off it will not be able to update its location. However as soon as the device is turned back on (assuming it is turned back on) it will resume updating its location. Thankfully, without a lot of effort, Find my iPhone can only be disabled by entering the appropriate Apple ID password.


Can I tell if a device has an active Activation Lock before inserting a SIM card? I got an iPhone 5c off of eBay and I can't tell if it's iCloud locked (Activation Lock) or not because I don't have a SIM card for it yet. It was restored by iTunes with no problems. The phone asks me for my language, country, WiFi, then tells me to insert a SIM. Is it going to tell me I need the previous owners password after I get the SIM card and insert it?

If you are referring to "Find my iPhone" with "if it's icloud locked":

No, "Find my iPhone" must be turned off on your new iPhone. iTunes doesn't let you restore an iDevice with turned on "Find my iPhone" (on iOS 7 and greater)


"sudo crontab -e" not updating /etc/hosts In my /etc/hosts file, I have records like this:
127.0.0.1    www.youtube.com
To keep me from getting distracted. When I need something on one of the sites I have blocked, I add # to the beginning of the line. Running this command, I can make it so all of the lines can be uncommented to remove access again:
sudo sed -i '' 's/\#//g' /etc/hosts
To automatically remove access, I run sudo crontab -e and add this line
*/10 8-15 * * 1-5 sed -i '' 's/\#//g' /etc/hosts
I also tried with sudo crontab -e -u root
After saving it, mac asks for permission for terminal to admin the machine, which I grant, and I figure it should be all good, but it doesn't see that the command is ever run (the file doesn't get updated). Is there something I need to do to get it to update the file?

When you issue a command via cron, you need to specify the whole path, so instead, you should use /usr/bin/sed.
There are a couple other issues you should consider:

cron is deprecated and this should be done using launchd instead

Why edit the file in place?  Simply save the original version of the hosts file  (i.e. /etc/hosts.orig) and create a new hosts file for when you want to block YouTube (i.e. /etc/hosts.nodistractions).  Just copy the appropriate file to /etc/hosts at the specified time interval.
For example, to unblock everything:
  cp /etc/hosts.orig /etc/hosts

To go into "no distraction mode":
  cp /etc/hosts.nodistractions /etc/hosts

The benefit of using this method is you can easily edit the file to add more hosts as your distractions evolve and you won't have to modify the code. Running this as a LaunchDameon executes this as root so there's no permission issues to really worry about.  You won't have to contend with sudo or su or ensuring you're using the right user.
That said, there's an app called Focus ($20) that has a very rich feature set that will allow you to block not just websites, but apps as well.  There's a "take a break" function that will allow you to release the restrictions for a configurable amount of time allowing you to take a break or as you described, get something when needed.  The price point (IMO) is quite reasonable for what it provides.
Please note, I'm not affiliated with this app/company in any way nor do I personally use it. I just know of this product as a result of having to find a tool for parents of students - who were not focused on the task at hand - that gave them the ability to manage their distractions automatically; mainly due to location (parents at work, kids at home not doing homework).


Make mercurial NOT use xcode's filemerge This is perhaps a question for hg as much as it is for macOS.

I just upgraded to macOS High Sierra(10.13.4) to install Xcode.

Before the upgrade, my mercurial was set up to use kdiff3 as the diff tool and I was happy with it.

After the upgrade, mercurial is now using the file merge tool that comes with xcode. I do not want hg to use the file merge tool and have not done any change for this to happen except install xcode.

The configuration in ~/.hgrc looks as follows

[extdiff]
cmd.kdiff3="/Applications/kdiff3.app/Contents/MacOS/kdiff3"

[merge-tools]
kdiff3.args = $base $local $other -o $output
pom_merge.priority = -100
pom_merge.premerge = True
pom_merge.args = -o $output $base $local $other
pom_merge.executable = /Users/username/codebases/apm/hg/secondbase/tools/hg-tools/pom_merge.py

[merge-patterns]
**pom.xml = pom_merge

[extensions]
shelve=
rebase=
purge=
hgext.extdiff=
extdiff=
strip=

[tortoisehg]
vdiff =kdiff3
editor="/Applications/kdiff3.app/Contents/MacOS/kdiff3"

When I run hg config, which is supposed to show the combined settings from all hgrc files, it does the following entries, but I do not know where they come from

merge-tools.filemerge.executable=/Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMerge
merge-tools.filemerge.args=-left $other -right $local -ancestor $base -merge $output
merge-tools.filemerge.gui=True
merge-tools.filemergexcode.executable=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/FileMerge.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMerge
merge-tools.filemergexcode.args=-left $other -right $local -ancestor $base -merge $output
merge-tools.filemergexcode.gui=True

Does any one have any idea how to fix this so I can continue to use kdiff3 as my difftool instead of the xcode file merge?

I don't have Xcode installed, since I don't want to use FileMerge. However, I can spot that the path to your kdiff3 is inside quotes ", and it shouldn't. I tried here and it doesn't work like that.
The necessary configs to the .hgrc file to run kdiff3 as the vdiff tool in Mercurial (TortoiseHg) are:
[extensions]
hgext.extdiff =

[extdiff]
cmd.kdiff3 = /Applications/kdiff3.app/Contents/MacOS/kdiff3


excluding Windows 7.pvm from Time Machine If I exclude the file: MacHD>User>FH>Documents>Parallels>Windows 7.pvm from the backup made by Time Machine, do MS Word and Excel files get backed up?

I have configured Parallels 8 to Share Mac User folder w/Windows and to Map Mac Volumes to Windows. All my MS Office files are stored in Mac HD->Users->FH->Documents.

I'm a bit confused. Any thought would be terrific.

Thx,

FH

Yes they should get backed up, since your MS Word and Excel files are located in your Mac User Documents folder and not the Parallels .pvm. If they were located within your Parallels .pvm and it's excluded, then they would not be backed up.

The .pvm file essentially acts as the hard disk drive for Parallels, and is basically a separate container that exists somewhat isolated from your Mac's environment. It can share files and folders with your Mac, although anything outside of it's .pvm belongs to OS X.


How to sync 30 days of mail in the mail app? I find managing multiple browser windows on OSX a real pain with no solution, so I decided to get rid of some tabs.

I loaded up gmail into the OSX Mail client, but it wants to sync my entire account. Is it possible to sync only new stuff? Basically I want it to only sync the last 30 days and not everything...

It's trying to sync about 6gb worth of mail...

You can't do this in the OS X Mail client. Mail.app will download all your emails available on the server.

The workaround is to make the change on the server. You mention that you have Gmail, therefore you can go to Gmail's IMAP settings and restrict the amount of emails available (for example, the most recent 1000).

Also, you can exclude labels from being visible to IMAP, therefore Mail won't download the contents.


video resolution of iMovie app export in iPhone 4S What are the export resolutions of a video shot on iPhone 4S and exported from iMovie app (after editing)? Also, is there a way I can export original resolution, (1080p) video to youtube from within the iPhone app of iMovie.

My understanding is that the new Garageband (iOS 5.1) supports 1080p video.


Add Environment Variable to PATH I am new to the Apple "eco system" and I am trying to setup my environment variables for local development.

Here is what I have in my ~/.bash_profile (simplified for brevity):

export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:$MAVEN_HOME/bin:$DEV_CLI:$PATH"
export DEV_CLI="/path/to/cli/$BRANCH_NAME/bin"
export BRANCH_NAME=dev

What I want here is to have my dev cli accessible from any point in the terminal. The crucial thing here is I want to change the BRANCH_NAME on different occasions.

Currently my solution works only if I do source ~/.bash_profile in every terminal tab/window I use.

So let's say that I open new terminal and do:

echo $DEV_CLI - it will be printed,
echo $PATH - the path for the cli will be missing there
source ~/.bash_profile
echo $PATH - all variables set in the path will be shown (cli path including)

I am running on Mac High Seirra.

Any help explanation will be deeply appreciated!

Your variables are out of order.    You cannot set a variable based on  other variables defined after it.

Set the commands in your ~/.bash_profile to the following:

export BRANCH_NAME=dev
export DEV_CLI="/path/to/cli/$BRANCH_NAME/bin"
export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:$MAVEN_HOME/bin:$DEV_CLI:$PATH"

Why this is happening...

When you open a new shell, it reads ~/.bash_profile
It sets a PATH environment variable with other environment variables that aren't defined yet (DEV_CLI and BRANCH_NAME)
The environment variables are then defined
You re-source ~/.bash_profile and sets the PATH again, this time with defined variables

It's important to note that this has nothing to do with the Apple "eco system," per se.  This is a Bash issue, and more generally a shell issue; you would literally have this problem whether you were on Apple, BSD, Linux, Unix and even Windows.


Purchased tv shows on my iphone, how do i take them off? Possible Duplicate:
  How do I remove videos from iPhone

I bought a couple tv shows while on my Iphone. So i plug my phone into my PC and now they are on my computer too. How can i take them off of my phone after i watched them and just leave them on my Itunes? They are taking up too much space on my phone and they don't need to be on it since i have already watched them.

Open iTunes. When your device is plugged in, click on it in iTunes. Then, click the TV shows tab at the top. It will say "Automatically include all episodes of all shows". Click where it says "all shows" and change it to "selected shows," then deselect the shows that you don't want.


How to beautify binary dict files? I've opened /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Resources/StandardKeyBinding.dict in vim, and it looks like jibberish. Is there a way to convert it to human readable just to see what it contains?

If you have plutil installed

You can run this Applescript which will create a text version of the dictionary for you to read.

   property copyScriptPath : "~/Documents/" (* path dir for text version*)

tell application "Finder"
    set selectFiles to (get selection) (* get the finder selection*)
end tell
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in selectFiles
    (* convert to POSIX path*)
    set this_item to quoted form of POSIX path of (item i of selectFiles as alias)

    (* get the file name , add it to an alias, then use plutil to read and write atext version out using the original name*)
    do shell script "name=`basename " & this_item & "`;/usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1  " & this_item & " -o  " & copyScriptPath & "\"$name\".txt"
end repeat

OR

There is an old hint on macosxhints - 10.4: Edit binary (and normal) plist files with vim

The post also has the link to the vim script that does all this.

Which may do what you want. ( don't use vim myself )

Quote from the post ( But please go and read it as there are comments and notes that you will need:

  What does it do? It reads a plist file, checks and memorizes if it is
  binary, converts it to plain text if necessary and turns on syntax
  highlinghting for XML. When you save the file again, it is converted
  to binary again for writing if it was binary in the beginning. If the
  file was not binary or if the conversion to binary fails (which can
  happen if you have syntax errors in your file), the file is stored in
  text format. If an originally-binary plist is saved as plain text due
  to syntax errors and you fix the errors and save the file again, it is
  written in binary format. If you open a binary file and just view it
  without making any changes, you can still exit from vim using the
  normal :q (no need for :q!) and the file is left untouched (still in
  binary format). All this should work even when working with several
  buffers (files), when reading a file into an existing buffer, or when
  only writing parts of a buffer to file


Switching between applications in OS X It is very easy to switch applications in OS X using ⌘-tab. But what if an application is hidden?

Let me describe some problems I am facing and what I want to accomplish.

⌘-tab switches between all opened applications
What about minimized applications or applications with no windows?
(Xcode, for example, after I've closed all its open windows)
When I press F9, I can see all windows
This includes minimized windows at the bottom, but not hidden windows
Hidden versus minimized windows and application creates confusion
If someone wants to switch, they can:

F11 to view the desktop
F9 to view all opened windows (except for hidden windows)
F8 to switch Spaces (if multiple Spaces are active)
⌘-tab for all applications
⌘-H to hide an application
⌘-M to minimize a window
⌘-` to switch between multiple windows of one application

I face a lot of confusion while switching. I have to keep many things in mind, such as whether it is a window or an application.

In short: What do you do when you want to switch? And what's the simplest way to get familiar with how OS X handles opened windows and applications?

Let’s reply in parts (as Jack The Ripper may say).

⌘ cmd + Tab is effectively for switching between applications but not windows of an application.
⌘ cmd + ` does the window part.

So far, so good.

Why do we have Minimize and Hide?

At first they tend to be very confusing, especially because the hide part is rather new to people coming from other Operating Systems. Windows only has minimize.

It is confusing but the reason for both becomes apparent when you analyze the limitations of each. Independently of the particular implementation that OS X does for handling with this situations, there’s a reason for each.

Hide
⌘ cmd + H will effectively hide most of the applications (and I say most because there are some notable exceptions out there). You will want to hide an application when you want to get it out of the way, completely, in all its forms, windows, and palettes. There will be two traces of the application after it has been hidden. It will be on the Dock with a dot (where you can click to perform the usual dock’s magic) and it will be once in ⌘ cmd + Tab regardless of the number of windows/palettes/etc.

So in conclusion, hide is an all-or-nothing mode. If you have a multi-document application (e.g.: Pages) with a few documents open (each in its own window), and you want to not see all of them at the same time, Hide is the way to go. It disappears. Until you bring it back, again, all of it. It also doesn’t show in Exposé, so you can’t find it there. You’ve hidden it.

Minimize

⌘ cmd + M will perform an old trick and will send the current window to the dock. In older OS X versions, there was a dedicated space (next to the trashcan) for these minimized windows. Snow Leopard changed (for better in my opinion) the way this works, and now you can see them in Exposé or when clicking (and holding) on the application icon in the Dock. This subtle distinction is the first important difference, as hidden apps are invisible to Exposé (except when you click on the Dock’s Icon, exposé will show all the windows, separating the minimized ones in the lower portion, but you can still see the ones that were open before you hide the whole application).

You want to use Minimize when —following the above example with Pages— you have this Application with three windows (Pages Docs) and you want to hide one of the documents, but not all of them. Minimize it, and it will go to the Dock, but you can still work on the other documents you have open.

But what about Applications with one Window?

Well, here’s where things get “gray”. Technically, unless you really like Minimize (or have any other reason), hide should be the way to get rid of that Application. Minimize is more clumsy and harder to bring back without the mouse, but hidden windows do not show up in Exposé, so you really have to decide.

Ok, I know I minimized something, how do I bring it back without the mouse?

That’s a tricky one since the age of Panther (OS X 10.3). Perform this simple test.

Open TextEdit and create 3 new documents (windows). You have now 3 editor screens right in front of you.
⌘ cmd + M one of them, and watch it go to the Dock.
Now use ⌘ cmd + ` and see you can only switch between the two windows.
⌘ cmd + H in either Window, hides all the TextEdit windows. It no longer shows in Exposé… wait… the Minimized windows do show!

Let’s get real… really, how do I bring it back?!

Technique Number One:

Use Exposé. You can type the name of the window while expose is activated (or use the arrow keys) to select a window, including the minimized ones.

Technique Number Two: (this one is trickier)

⌘ cmd + Tab until you have TextEdit selected but don’t release ⌘ cmd, instead press ⌥ alt (both at the same time now) and release them together. It’s hard.

Now this doesn’t always work (especially if the Application has multiple windows open and you have switched a few times away), so the best way to bring minimized apps back is Expose.

Enough trickery, how do we deal with this?

This is subjective and a matter of personal preference, and I didn’t even include Spaces in the mix, that would have make it more interesting… all these window handling mechanisms are confusing and have gotten more confusing with the newest additions to OS X. But it’s usable and you get used to it kind of fast.

What I do is usually hide an application I don’t use. I don’t really use Spaces, I hide. If I happen to have a lot of windows of an application open, I start to minimize the ones that I really wish I could hide but I can’t because then I’ll lose the others (are you following me here?). So the key for me is Hide as much as possible. Only minimize when more than one Window within the same application and I want to keep at least one visible.

I have recently started using HyperDock (still Beta and Free) and I like the Window 7 approach to the Dock (and the fact that It can show all safari tabs as “windows”). So I’ll be likely getting that. I don’t use the Mouse that much, but that’s a nice addition for when I do.

In Mac, users tend to hide rather than Minimize, at least that’s my experience after spending years with other Mac users (mostly programmers and graphic designers).

As they say in Internet, ymmv. :)


What's the difference between iTunes Match and Apple Music? I currently pay for iTunes Match which gets me advertisement free streaming as well as a unified, cloud backed iTunes Library.

I don't understand how those existing features work with or against the newly announced Apple Music subscription service.

Is the former discontinued or credited to the new service or are they complimentary and optional to pay for either A or B or both?

Actually, the Apple Music membership page says that service brings your iTunes library to iCloud, too

It does say Apple Music and iTunes Match are "independent but complementary," but I think I'm like you — I can't figure out why I'd want iTunes Match if I'm paying for Apple Music.

The only benefit of Match is the $2 a month price point over the $10 a month price point. Music appears to do everything Match did but better and more and is priced accordingly.


Safari blocks all UK websites? Suddenly no site in the UK will open in Safari (10.8.2 OS/6.0.2 Safari): BBC.co.uk, virgin.co.uk, apple.co.uk, amazon.co.uk, bobsyeruncle.co.uk, etc - every UK site is unavailable. Safari generates a "Failed to Open Page / Safari cannot connect to server" error. It's as if the entire range of servers in the UK have been denied.

Yet if I use Chrome or Firefox, no problem; UK sites pop open without issue, so it's likely not a system issue (etc/hosts). If I open a different user, Safari opens the UK site fine - the problem only seems to affect this one account. Unfortunately it's my work account.

What I've done (nothing has worked):

Checked proxies, none on
Uninstalled Safari Extentions
Removed Safari preferences
Fixed disk permissions
Flushed DNS caches
Removed Safari files from the ~/Library/Saved Application State folder
Removed Safari folder from ~/Library/

Okay - I give up. What have I missed?

It ended-up being even more simple: Little Snitch somehow blocked all domains within the UK range. I didn't know it could do that! I discovered it by rebooting in safe mode and discovering it did work, then removing anything running on boot.


How do I exit private browsing mode in iOS but retain all of my private tabs? When I exit private mode in Safari, all of my tabs go away. How do I take all of my tabs with me out of private mode?

As of iOS 12 beta 2 and below, this is not currently possible with Safari.

As said by @Snowbody,

  [You can copy & paste] all the URLs from the URL bar into an email or other document[.] Of
  course that doesn't preserve history, form fills, etc.

Your best option is to either find a different browser with that feature (maybe create a new question) or to submit a feature request to Apple.


Where to find OpenSSL devel package - can't seem to find it in Brew I'm trying to install openssl-devel on OS X El Capitan, and I can't seem to find the package on Brew nor the source anywhere online. The application I'm installing (UnrealIRCd) requires both openssl and openssl-devel to install. Can anyone help me out? Thanks.

Just install openssl via Homebrew. It contains all you need.

EDIT: I tried building UnrealIRCd with openssl installed and it built successfully.

EDIT2: On a number of package managers, a software package is divided into runtime (used by other softwares to run) and development (used to build the other softwares) packages.
For instance, openssl is a runtime and openssl-devel is a development package on those package managers.
However, packages on Homebrew aren't separated in this manner but just contain both.
This is why just installing openssl is fine on Homebrew.


I get a bash syntax error message every time I open Terminal I've been getting this error for the past couple of months and I wonder if it's a major issue, and how do I fix it?

When I open terminal on my Mac I get this bash error:

~bash: /Users/admin/.bash_profile: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token 'fi'
~bash: /Users/admin/.bash_profile:line 1: 'if which rbenv > /dev/null; than eval "$(rbenv init -)"; fi'

Anybody know what's going on?

Open the Terminal.app and type the following line at your prompt

sed -i '' 's/than/then/' .bash_profile

You do have a .bash_profile in your home directory.


MySQL not working on mountain lion I'm using mountain lion, I have installed MySQL.

GUI

It shows MySQL is running, but when I type

mysql --version

It gives error "mysql: command not found"

export PATH="/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH"

in .bashrc or .bash_profile file (cd ~/.bash_profile)

This will tell your terminal where to find mysql command.


Monitor Connected to Mac Not Displaying I have an TV which accepts a DVI and VGA input, and a retina macbook pro with Mini Display Port and HDMI. I needed to connect my mac to the monitor so I decided to go for an HDMI to DVI cable since it was cheaper than the Mini Display Port one.

When I plugged my mac into the monitor, the mac's screen flashed and the discrete gpu was activated, which would seem to indicate that it is attached to an external monitor. However, the monitor does not display an image and in a few seconds says that it is "entering power save mode" (when nothing is connected it does not display this, indicating that it detects that something is connected).

I tried using boot camp to see if that would help but there was no difference. I also tried an older mac. It did not have an HDMI port, but I had a Mini-Dvi to HDMI adapter. Again, nothing displayed.

I thought that it might be an issue with the inputs or the cable, but I connected an Xbox 360 to it and it displayed perfectly, so it must have to do with the mac

Any possible fixes to this issue?

You could use the ColorSync Utility.app located in your Utility folder.

It will tell you all about the monitors connected and the mode they are using.

Check the profile used for your TV and if it is the correct one, the run a profile repair.


How will the new Touch Bar & Touch ID work with Windows/Boot Camp I'm deciding to buy a MacBook Pro 2016 and installing Windows on it (via Boot Camp) but I'm not sure that the new Touch Bar works in Windows. Can I use the Touch Bar to access function keys in Windows?

I actually had the same question as I want to use Boot Camp and the function buttons are now virtual and their answer was that yes Apple will provide a setting in Boot Camp to have the function buttons appear in the Touch Bar.
I'll provide the exact text from my chat:

  David:
  Hey there, my name is David. Welcome to the Apple Online Store. I would be very happy to help you with your questions about the new MacBook Pro.

  David:
  This product will definitely be capable of running in Boot Camp mode. May I ask, are you already using a device in this way now?

  Me:
  I'm currently using a MacBook Pro for late 2010 and am running Windows 7 on it

  Me:
  The reason of my questioning is due to the Touch Bar which makes the Function keys a virtual thing

  David:
  Yes, they will be virtual, but there is a setting that allows you to show the function keys.

  David:
  When in boot camp mode, you’d want to switch the touch bar to this setting, and they should function like normal.


Where does Siri acquire it's list of recognized locations from? Where is Siri (on iOS5 on an iPhone 4S) get it's list of recognized locations, such as those used for location-based reminders, from?

I've seen demonstrations and have experimented a bit, but only a very few locations like "home" seem to work well. Is it necessary to set up named locations in Contacts? Does Siri use "world knowledge" from other sources (such as Maps or Yelp)? Is there a way for users to extend or configure the list of locations Siri recognizes, or for developers to create applications that do so?

The Reminders application does something similar, it knows three locations: Home, Work, and Other. When you assign a location to a reminder, you are presented with the current location, those 3 previously mentioned locations, and a "Choose Address" option. The 3 locations are taken from the address book's contact information for yourself. The contact that represents yourself is determined by the setting under Settings > Safari > AutoFill > My Info.

I'm guessing that Siri uses the same My Info setting to determine locations such as Home.

Note that the name of a contact has no effect on the Reminders app. Even if you have a contact named "Home" it will not present this as a default address unless the contact is also assigned to the My Info setting.

Update: Siri has its own My Info setting which is the exact same one accessed in Safari (i.e. they always have the same value).


Conditional SUM() based on text of a cell using iWork I have some basic data

Name | Amount
Jake | 10
Jake | 12
Jake | 13
Ben  | 1
Ben  | 14
Ali  | 9
Ali  | 4

I want to total up the amount for each person so I end up with something like

Jake | 35
Ben  | 15
Ali  | 13

Rather than specifying which cells are Jake's, Ben's and Ali's I want to do this using a function. Pseudo code might look like:

TOTAL = WHERE `Name` IS "Jake" IN `COL-A` + `Amount`

It would appear that SUMIF() does exactly this

 =SUMIF(test-range, “test”, [sum-range])


How to enable the iOS spell checker in Mobile Safari? The iOS spell checker works for me in all the iOS applications, but it doesn't seem to work for text I type in a text area in Mobile Safari. For instance, spelling errors are underlined in red for emails I type in Mail, but they are not underlined in red in the web-based Gmail. I am not talking about completion feature, but the red underline of misspelled words, which is new with iOS 4, as shown in this screenshot:

How can I get spell checking to work for form fields in Mobile Safari like it works in other applications?

It looks like it's indeed a hole in iphone's safari. I'm not sure if it was always like that or if it's a new undocumented feature that might soon go away.

But meanwhile you can try using Inspell if you're willing to jailbreak. There's just no other way to fix such an issue: it's either apple or cydia.

Another option, if the error occured only in safari, is using another browser. But that doesn't seem to be this case.


Safari not opening local html files after upgrading to macOS Catalina Beta I recently upgraded to macOS Catalina (10.15 Beta (19A546d)) on my Mid 2014 MacBook Pro. Then I can not open local html files on Safari (13.0 (15608.2.5)) and got the following error message. However, I can open websites on Safari and local html files on Chrome and Firefox. I don't have any third-party security software.

It turns out that Safari did not have permission to read my html files. Go to

System Preference > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access

and add safari. (Answer taken from comment.)


Where is the preference list for "open with" applications? I'm getting an (error code -10813) when trying to set file extensions to open with a certain app in Mountain Lion 10.8.5. Where is the plist file that has those preferences so that I can delete it and hopefully end this problem?

See the answer for Why does my Mac's list of “Open with” applications start listing the apps twice and sometimes three times?:

This happens because the LaunchServices database gets corrupted.
To fix on Mountain Lion:

Open Terminal.app in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder.
run /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Restart

This hint on Mac OS X Hints covers the command for other Mac OS versions over the years.


How to set an iPad back to factory settings where I have forgotton the restrictions passcode? I am trying to help my uncle reset his iPad. He has not had it long and has forgotten the restrictions passcode (to manage restrictions in Settings). He is OK with putting it back to the factory settings. However, the restrictions code is required to do the reset. How do we bypass it and reset it?

The restrictions passcode is required to set and enforce limits on age restrictions, categories and other parts of the iPad's interface in Settings.

Connect it to a computer, open iTunes and click "Restore" in the "Summary" tab for the device. Note that you will lose all data and settings on the iPad.

See: iTunes: Restoring iOS software


Remove system default / third-party app 'service' items from OS X context menus? I'm in the process of replacing OS X's default 'Search with Google' context menu item (found when you right click on text in many apps like Terminal, Notes, or third party ones like the RSS reader ReadKit), with my own one that opens in Chrome as the default aforementioned one is a Safari service and hard-linked to open in Safari only.

So currently, my context menu (in ReadKit), looks like this:

I want to be able to get rid of Safari's 'Search with Google' at the top so I don't accidentally use it instead of my own one down the bottom.

Now I realise the actual file / code for the service may be contained inside Safari.app or in ~/Library/Safari somewhere, (though I've had a quick look not finding anything that stands out in particular), but I'm thinking that if I could delete the service outright, it might cause instability, problems, or be re-added when Safari is updated next, anyway. (Though it would be an acceptable second best, if someone can figure out how to do it - without deleting or affecting Safari itself.)

As for the OS X services Preferences menu, it is already unticked, but still present in Terminal, Notes, ReadKit etc.:

So is there a way I can actually remove it? Where in the system does OS X register / save 'Services', whether ones in OS X by default, third party apps, or ones added by the user in Automator? Maybe I can go there and 'remove' the one from Safari so it no longer shows in the context menus?

Or maybe there's some app that can tweak context menu items in general in OS X, including this Safari one I'm looking at? (I have already tried Services Manager which doesn't appear to change it, and as for Service Scrubber they say it may cause problems in OS X 10.6 or later so I have not tried it.)

(N.b., if there's a Terminal hack to just turn off the whole 'Searching' services section in the context menu outright, that would be acceptable for me as I don't use the 'Look up "x"' item [above 'Search with Google'] anyway.)

My own experience (on 10.9) is that the service uses the default search engine selected for the default browser, so right now my own "Search with…" says "Search DuckDuckGo for…" and will open in Firefox.

This doesn't answer your other questions, but it may mean you don't need to bother. I hope it helps. I've an old system running 10.6 so I'll give that a look when I get a chance and see if the same can be done there.


WiFi problems with new MacBook Air 11" I just bought a new Mac Book Air 11", but it looks like it has a problem with WiFi. So, every 20-30 minutes I lose an internet connection. The WiFi signal strength is good and adapter doesn't disconnect from the router, but I can't open any web site and all my internet applications (Skype, Dropbox, etc.) goes offline. The only way to go back online is to switch the wifi adapter off/on. All other devices (iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPad 1, iPad 2, Samsung Notebook) work fine, i.e. only new mac book has this issue. I've tried to change all possible settings on my router and I even replaced it with new one, but it didn't solve the problem... I use Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH with DD-WRT v24SP2-MULTI (10/31/11) std firmware.

P.S.> This problem occurs after awakening from sleep, i.e. it connects to my router and I even can access other computer in LAN, but it can't see WAN.

Did you try using static DNS servers on your Mac instead of fetching them from DHCP server? You can try Google DNS which is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4