Find photos by time zone Some of my photos in Apple Photos 2.0 (3150.4.120) have the wrong time zone, but I don't know which ones. I can find the time zone for an individual photo, by selecting Image > Adjust Date and Time.

But how can I find all photos with a certain time zone? I've tried searching in the Finder, in the photos' filesystem metadata (using mdls), in the photos' EXIF metadata (using exiftool), and even in the Photos sqlite database, but haven't found where it's stored.

Where is this information?

It may depend on the camera/phone and OS; but, I don't think the timezone is explicitly stored in the picture's EXIF metadata.

In some metadata, there is a GPS Time (Atomic Clock) which is set to UTC.  So, Photos probably just calculates the offsets of Date and Time (Original) to display the timezone.

You may be able to use exiftool to build a list of those two times for your pictures, and search for outliers which are more (or less) different than the others.

Update from original poster:

I threw together a quick Python script to compare these times, and print the ones that aren't in the expected time zone, or have different values for minutes. You'll need to export the unmodified originals from Photos, since the modified ones don't have this metadata, and then pass their filenames to this script.

Of course, I have no idea if this is anything close to what Photos does to set the time zone. But it correctly identified the photos that I knew of with the wrong time zone, and didn't find any false positives.

#!/usr/bin/python

from subprocess import check_output
import sys, re, os
from dateutil.parser import parse
from datetime import datetime

expected_offset_hours = 8.0  # set to appropriate time zone offset

def get_field(out, name):
    match = re.search("^" + re.escape(name) + "\t(.+?)$", out, re.MULTILINE)
    if match:
        return match.group(1)
    return None

for arg in sys.argv[1:]:
    if not os.path.exists(arg):
        continue
    out = check_output(["exif", "-m", arg])
    gps_date = get_field(out, "GPS Date")
    gps_time = get_field(out, "GPS Time (Atomic Clock)")
    if gps_date == None or gps_time == None:
        print arg + "\tNo GPS date/time"
        continue
    gps_parsed = datetime.strptime(gps_date + " " + gps_time, '%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
    orig_datetime = get_field(out, "Date and Time (Original)")
    if orig_datetime == None:
        continue
    orig_parsed = datetime.strptime(orig_datetime, '%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S')
    offset_secs = (orig_parsed - gps_parsed).total_seconds()
    offset_hours = round(offset_secs / 3600)
    offset_mins = abs(offset_secs - (offset_hours * 3600)) // 60
    if offset_hours != expected_offset_hours or offset_mins > 0:
        #print gps_date + ' ' + gps_time + ' ' + str(gps_parsed)
        #print orig_datetime + ' ' + str(orig_parsed)
        print arg + "\t" + str(offset_hours) + "\t" + str(offset_mins)


How do I restore missing menu extras (clock, wi-fi, etc)? When I log in to Mac OS X (10.10.5) I sometimes find that most of my menu extras are missing (clock, wi-fi, sound, bluetooth, etc.). If I logout and login, they almost always come back, but this takes too much time.

I suspect the problem is caused by menumeters but I find this menulet too useful to uninstall it.

How can I reset my menu extras (aka menulets) without logging out?

I was able to get my menu extras back without logging out by running killall SystemUIServer in the Terminal.app.

I found the answer from zane's Recover missing menubar icons - revisited System post. The post is from 2006, but the trick still works on Yosemite.


Cannot open PDF in iBooks on Mac on MacI sync my PDF files normally between my Mac and my iPhone and iPad. Bookmarks and resume options are working between iOS devices for epubs. However, no PDF can be opened in iBooks on Mac — it gets opened in Preview.app instead and bookmarks and resume aren’t working (while they still do work between iOS devices).

Is there a way to read PDF in iBooks on Mac? Or at least enable the bookmarks and resume for it on Mac?

Considering Preview.app to be mediocre as a PDF viewer (and that's a compliment for it), you might use Adobe Reader on the Mac; this should maintain the annotations (not tested, however).


Cannot resize partition Mac Os I removed a container disk 1, in order to allocate more space to Container Disk 2. but still cannot increase the size of container disk 1 which is 100G. my disk capacity is 251G.
Here is the detail of diskutil.

To add the space from the deleted container to the existing container, the deleted container would at least have to physically reside after the existing container. In your case, this probably was not true. You can confirm this by viewing the output from the command given below.
diskutil info disk0s3 | grep -e Size -e Offset

Here, I assume the existing container has disk0s3 as the identifier for the physical partition. If you restart your Mac, this will probably change to disk0s2. The offset should show the partition starts at around 151 GB. If so, then all the free space you created resides before the container and therefore can not be added to the container.
Apple's intent by creating APFS was for a computer to have only one APFS container. You can create additional volumes within a container and install more than one macOS operating system. If you had done this, then deleting the APFS volume(s) would have automatically made the free space available for other volumes.


Always show full URL in Safari address bar From the screenshot: notice we only see "github.com":

Yes it is possible to see full path by actually selecting the URL:

But I would like to see the full URL always - without that extra step. Is this possible?

Yes, it is possible.

Open Safari Preferences window using the keyboard shortcut Command + , or by going to Menu bar → Safari → Preferences..., and go to the Advanced tab. Check Show full website address.

Once this setting is enabled, Safari will always show the complete address for the currently open webpage, even when the Smart Search Field is not in focus.


El Capitan auto-corrects even though I turned it off in settings I notice that things are being corrected even when I turn spell-check off. This happened on both of my computers, and particularly stupid spelling corrections are taking place, only since upgrading to El Capitan.

Example.. I updated a ticket at work "This is now on production" .. when I submit the update, I see it says "This is not on production" ...

At first I thought maybe I did a typo but this keeps happening.

Every single instance was where the word is actually spelled correctly however it replaces it with another word.

I've turned spell-check off so I am confused as to why it's doing it at all.

There is only place to disable spell check in System Preferences and on doing that it works fine for me on El Capitan. Can you try enabling and disabling again and probably a reboot to see if it helps.


Can't change color default folders yosemite 10.10.2 I've got a brand new mac with Yosemite 10.10.2
and I dislike the blue color of the folders

I'm looking for a proper way to change ALL folders's color

I've seen that http://yukiyamashina.github.io/blog/2014/10/19/how-to-change-the-color-of-default-folder-icons-in-OS-X-Yosemite/

But I can't find the folder CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/

Is this because I've got Yosemite 10.10.2 ?

Try candy Bar, I use it to change my icons and it works all the time.
It's no longer supported by it's developers but the current version still works

http://www.panic.com/blog/candybar-mountain-lion-and-beyond/


Trouble with 13 inch MacBook Pro & about buying AppleCare This is the 2nd time I have trouble with my 13" MacBook Pro, which I have purchased a little less than 1 year ago, in october 2011.

First time it was 6-7 months ago—the logic board was short circuited—, about which I have posted here. As it was under warranty, I got it repaired.

Now, about a month and half ago, when I was using it, a reddish tint appeared on the screen and after few moments the screen start displaying different colors.

After that, whenever I turned it on, there was no desktop display. Instead it was only showing different colors like red, green, blue, grey etc. one at a time & in full screen. I mean, the whole screen shows one color and nothing else is visible. At that time, within 2-3 days I got to fly to south-Korea on a business trip for a month and I thought I will get it repaired after getting back. But now the trip is extended and it looks like I won’t be able to get it repaired in warranty time.

What can be the reason for this defect? Why is it showing different colors on screen?

It’s warranty is expiring on 10th of October.

My question is: can I purchase AppleCare from Korea and use it for my MacBook Pro which I purchased from India?

Also, can AppleCare be registered after the warranty expires? Because Apple says on its web site to buy AppleCare before warranty time is over. It does not say anything about registering it.

AppleCare is worldwide, and you can purchase it anytime within the first year warranty. It takes effect from the end of your warranty whenever you buy it as long as you register it at some point during that year, so just go ahead and buy it now.


Is it possible to pre-install apps on an iPad? We're giving away iPads (for real, and no you can't have one) as part of a promotion to our referral network. But the plan is to ship it pre-installed with our sales presentation apps and sign-up tools.

However, you can't install an app on an iPad until you've activated it through iTunes.

Is there some method anyone's aware of that would mean we can pre-install these apps on the pad before giving it to the recipient to activate?

Contact your local Apple Store and ask to speak to one of their Business Consultants (each store has one.)  If you are buying bulk quantities of iPods Apple used to offer digital etching of your company logo on the back as well as the ability to preload it with promotional content (e.g. videos), I am not sure if they are doing this with Apps on the iPad but it is worth a shot and the Business Consultant is the person who would know or have the resources to find out.


How to answer smart phone from multiple bluetooth headsets I use a smartphone for my business, not a land line.  There are 2 of us who answer the phone, depending on who is busy at the time.

I am trying to find a solution which allows either of us to pick up the phone call, just as if the cell phone was the land line base and it can be picked up from any wireless extension phone (but using blutooth headsets/ear pieces)

Currently it automatically send the call to the first Bluetooth attached so the other person does not have an option to pick up the phone call.

You cannot have multiple headsets ringing at the same time by pairing multiple Bluetooth headsets to a single iPhone.

Various solutions exists for having multiple headphones connected to the iPhone at the same time. For example in earlier days you had headphone-jack splitters, then Bluetooth splitters - and now Apple has their own built-in support for multiple listeners.

However that is all it is - multiple listeners. Even with one of the external Bluetooth splitters available for the iPhone, you can only listen to audio - it doesn't work with the microphone.

In order to achieve the effect you want, you'll need to have two cellphones, and have your provider set it up so that both ring when a call comes in. This can be done via traditional cell phone technology, or it can be a Voice over IP solution - in that case you could also use an iPod Touch, iPad or other device.


Each new tab is unresponsive in Chrome (stable/canary) Steps to reproduce:

Remove chrome app, remove profile.
Install from scratch. No plugins. Incognito mode.
Open new tab or open any webpage or open a link in a new tab.

Now if this new tab is active, it is unresponsive. After some time even Chrome lists this tab as "This page(s) became unresponsive. Do you want to kill it?".

What is strange is that I can scroll, click on the links in this 'unresponsive' tab, but there is no feedback (page stays blank or half-loaded or fully loaded but unresponsive), but when I switch to another tab and switch back to the 'unresponsive' tab, I can see that my clicking or scrolling took place. This tab switching also fixed the unresponsiveness, i.e. after switching back the tab becomes fully operational and is fully operational (I can open many different links inside it), until I close it.

This happens only some of the time. Sometimes 20 times in a row, sometimes only 1 in 20 links opened. This is really really weird and I suspect some 3rd party app might be responsible for that, but I'm not sure where/how to look for the real culprit.

It happens both for regular Chrome and latest Canary. It has been like that for about 2-3 weeks now. I'm on latest Mac OS X.

have you tried to deleting the chrome folder in your user's application support? I had a similar problem on my sister's computer the other day and this fixed it


View big.LITTLE cores on htop or similar utility Is there a utility in which I can see which of the cores are running at which frequencies? Or, even better, that shows whether a core is big or LITTLE? For example, neither htop (on Rosetta 2, installed with Homebrew) nor Activity Monitor show which cores are which, since both seem to assume that all cores are homogeneous. I've seen some (old) htop modifications for Debian (see, e.g.., here) but nothing similar for Mac. Additionally, htop doesn't seem to have an option to show the clock frequencies of each core, which I suspect would also be enough to distinguish them.
As a side note, this is mostly to check how Electron apps are running (such as VS Code). Do they mostly run on the LITTLE cores, or do they actively hog a good chunk of the big cores? Etc, etc.
Any utility for seeing this would be phenomenal. Thanks!

Pull core information using powermetrics, monitor with your favorite tool. However, be wary, and consider if it's worth the effort.
Identifying P/E cores
Unlike on iOS, this is thankfully quite easy on macOS. Using the built-in powermetrics tool, we can identify which cores are the performance (P) and which are the efficiency (E) cores. Unfortunately I don't own an Apple Silicon equipped Mac, so these screenshots are courtesy of Matthew Panzarino on Twitter. If you have the time, I also recommend reading his TechCrunch article on the M1.
> sudo powermetrics -s cpu_power

(Probably, not actually 100% sure of the command)
Although I don't have any source for this, I wouldn't be surprised if cores 0-3 are E-cores and cores 4-7 are P-cores on all M1 chips. Still, I'd recommend checking for yourself.
Cool! Off to the races it is then, right?
Activity Monitor as an example
Activity Monitor has a nice feature to monitor per-core CPU usage, hidden under Window -> CPU History (shortcut ⌘ + 2.) top/htop/Glances/iStats/Task Manager/whatever your favorite status app is probably has something similar.

However, you'll immediately notice a problem. While the total load on each core is immediately apparent, what's doing what where is not at all. Vice versa, we can see what's do what quite easily if we look at the normal Activity Monitor window, but not on which core. Even on something like htop, which readily provides far more powerful insights and tools than Activity Monitor, getting it to show (even at the process level) what's on which particular core is not an easy task.
Scheduling and stuff (sorta)
It's at this point that we need to address the fact that programs don't just run on one core forever. Forewarning: I am by no means an OS expert, so I'll be doing my best to just address things from a high level. If there are mistakes, please feel free to edit or leave a comment!
Modern systems typically contain at least one scheduler, handled by the OS (typically within the kernel) that decides what runs when and on what physical resources. On macOS (and other Darwin based OSs), this takes the form of a queue within the Mach kernel. However, Apple's OSs also contain a second layer of libraries designed to assist in this task at a higher level. The Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) is Apple's sorta main approach to this: it contains a whole bunch of useful classes that can be used by develops to help optimize their application. In turn, GCD schedules code to run on a variety of threads, which it hands off to the the OS to decide what runs on what core. All of this is constantly being swapped around and changed to best utilize available hardware resources.
Hopefully it's possible to see how things are a little bit messy at this point. While this is by no means untangle-able, it's a little tricky—especially when so many tools have been built with the assumption of homogenous cores.
Solutions
Ideally, we'd like something that (grouped by process) would show up how much each individual core was used by all threads belonging to or used by that process. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything. Problem is, everything I have found doesn't log what's using what core in a way that's easy to deal with. For example, want to know what process owns what threads and what core a thread is running on in htop? Easy, turn on tree view and enable the PROCESSOR column. But want to have it sort by which processes are using a few cores the most? Good luck.
While I'm sure there's a way to make it work—if nothing else, these are open source tools—it's not something easy or straightforward that I know of. Barring these general purpose tools, is there another option?
Profiling
As with a homogenous CPU architecture, if you really want to know what's happening inside your application, the best way to do it is by profiling it. This is true for figuring out which core you're running on, among other things.
How exactly you go about this is going to depend on how your application is built. For native Mac apps, Apple's Instruments tools (built into Xcode) can provide a great look into what's running where. For Electron apps, you might be able to use Chrome's Runtime Performance tools since Electron is basically Chrome; however, I'm not particularly familiar with it.
Thing is, these are intended as dev tools. They take setup, they (usually) require some access to source code (or something like it) to work well, they provide a lot of information, and they're not always the easiest to work with. Which brings us to the next point:
Why?
I'm as much of a fan as the next guy of knowing just to know; it's great being able to see what's doing what and play with your workflow. But do consider for a second what you're actually seeing: some (likely) very situational and complicated numbers that are frankly kinda hard to work with. Optimizing software is hard enough when its your job; as an end user, it's a whole other game.
So, even though I'd love to see it as much as the next person, I suggest maybe just... not worrying about it too much. Look at the total per-core utilization, sure; look at the per-app energy consumption. But in terms of what's on what core under what conditions, don't worry about it.
Of course, if anyone does come up with a tool, I'd love to see it :)


Is there a Mac equivalent for UDEV folder on linux? I am writing a script which should backup my Documents folder onto a USB stick. I want the script to be executed every time I connect the USB stick. I found a solution here. But it seems like I can't find the folder where to put the rule.

So does anyone know where I could find a udev or rules folder?

udev doesn't exist on OS X. As an alternative, you can use the diskutil activity command to continuously monitor disks being mounted or ejected. The diskutil man page says

  Continuously display system-wide disk manipulation activity as reported by the Disk Arbitration framework until interrupted with a signal (e.g. by typing Control-C). This can be useful to watch system-wide activity of disks coming on-line or being ejected, volumes on disks being mounted or unmounted, volumes being renamed, etc.

Whilst running the above command and plugging in (then removing) my WD Elements USB drive, I get this output, which could be parsed (even though the man page says not to) to find, say, DiskMountApproval and DiskDisappeared to get the volume name and when the disk was added and removed.

***DiskPeek ('disk2') Time=20120331-11:56:22.7716
***DiskPeek ('disk2s1') Time=20120331-11:56:23.0801
***DiskAppeared ('disk2', DAVolumePath = '<null>', DAVolumeKind = '<null>', DAVolumeName = '<null>') Time=20120331-11:56:23.0810
***DiskMountApproval ('disk2s1', DAVolumePath = '<null>', DAVolumeKind = 'hfs', DAVolumeName = 'Elements') Comment=Approving Time=20120331-11:56:23.0820
***DiskAppeared ('disk2s1', DAVolumePath = 'file://localhost/Volumes/Elements/', DAVolumeKind = 'hfs', DAVolumeName = 'Elements') Time=20120331-11:56:23.2574
***DAIdle (no DADiskRef) Time=20120331-11:56:23.2576
***DiskUnmountApproval ('disk2s1', DAVolumePath = 'file://localhost/Volumes/Elements/', DAVolumeKind = 'hfs', DAVolumeName = 'Elements') Comment=Approving Time=20120331-11:56:44.2338
***DiskDescriptionChanged ('disk2s1', DAVolumePath = '<null>') Time=20120331-11:56:44.4515
***DAIdle (no DADiskRef) Time=20120331-11:56:44.4518
***DiskEjectApproval ('disk2') Comment=Approving Time=20120331-11:56:44.4542
***DiskDisappeared ('disk2', DAVolumePath = '<null>', DAVolumeKind = '<null>', DAVolumeName = '<null>') Time=20120331-11:56:50.1964
***DiskDisappeared ('disk2s1', DAVolumePath = '<null>', DAVolumeKind = 'hfs', DAVolumeName = 'Elements') Time=20120331-11:56:50.1970
***DAIdle (no DADiskRef) Time=20120331-11:56:50.1972


What does no chime on boot mean? My MacBook Pro is having some issues. It boots. But the graphics card doesn't get detected. You can remote in to it but looking at the Displays dialog in System Preferences, no graphics card is shown:

I took it in to see if it qualified for the free mobo replacement because it does have the qualifying NVidia chipset and the repair shop said they couldn't run the diagnostics tool on it because it wouldn't chime on boot. And therefore wouldn't boot from their external drive to run their diagnostics. I hadn't noticed that it wouldn't chime on boot.

But what does that mean? What does the chime tell you? Why would the machine not chime?

You don't specify how old your MBP is, but some MBPs built a few years ago shipped with graphics cards that fatally crashed after a few years of years. That's what happened to mine and it was a warranty fix because a recall was done.

My understanding of the chime is that it is hard-coded into the motherboard. If it is not playing with the chime, then you probably have something wrong down to that level. It may be a simple fix, it may not, but only Apple will be able to tell you definitively.

(Answer edited per comments)


Is the bending issue a problem in iPhone 6 or just iPhone 6+? Obviously, the bending issue is a widely known problem with the newest iPhones. Is this a problem with just the iPhone 6+ or also the iPhone 6?

If you apply enough force to an inch-thick solid steel rod, it will
  bend.

  Same goes for the quarter-inch-thick iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (which, I
  should note, have far less than a quarter of an inch of aluminum in
  any one spot).

  Aluminum is actually a fairly soft metal, ranking at 2.5-to-3 on the
  Mohs scale of hardness.

  That is to say, it's about as tough as a U.S. penny (which is actually
  97.5% zinc and just plated in copper).

Source: http://www.imore.com/yes-aluminum-iphone-6-and-6-plus-can-be-bent-if-too-much-pressure-applied

I would not recommend to stick it in the back pocket of a very tight jeans, and then repeatedly sit on it.


MplayerX playback positions MplayerX, not only remembers what I've watched but also is able to resume playback at a later invocation.

As stated here "MPlayerX saves playback positions in plist file ~/Library/Application Support/MPlayerX/bookmarks.plist"

Can someone please explain what the values in the plist file mean?

<key> file://localhost/abc.m4v </key>
<string>33.795867</string>

clearly one is the name of the file but what does the numerica value signify?  How can I translate 33.79... to something meaningful like "70% viewed" or "50 minutes viewed".

Thanks!

I tested it, it is the number of seconds from the beginning of the video.


Is it safe to play the Macbook Pro/Air speakers at maximum volume? The Macbook Pro speakers have a very crisp sound. I like to play them at almost max. volume very often.

Will the speakers suffer a loss in quality?
Is this save to use on the long run?

The cones in almost any speaker will break down over time. Various environmental factors will determine how long a speaker lasts, but overdriving the element can definitely have an adverse effect.

It's impossible to provide any precise data but in short, you're probably shortening the life of the speakers (by an indeterminate amount of time) by running them at maximum volume but, provided you're not hearing any distortion from the speakers, you're not damaging them by doing so.


Unable to download an iOS app from iTunes Japan when I am using my Apple account registered in the USA I'm trying to download the Denwacho Kantan Copy app for iOS so that I can transfer my contacts to my new softbank iPhone.  However, I am being told that I can't download this app with my American Apple ID account.  I have downloaded countless apps in Japan without having this problem.  Please help!  Kantan means easy in Japanese and this has been anything but easy.  I have already tried changing my apple ID to a Japanese one, but this cannot be done without a Japanese credit card...which is very difficult to acquire here for foreigners.  If I was able to purchase this phone using the security of my American credit card, why shouldn't I be able to do something simple like transfer my contacts?? Everything else works fine!

You can try following this procedure (Youtube Video) to create an Apple ID in iTunes without a Credit Card, substituting US for Japan.

You need to follow these steps to create an Apple ID with a U.S. address but without requiring a credit card:

Launch iTunes and switch to the iTunes store. Make sure you are not
logged in.
Scroll to the bottom and change your country to United States.
Next go to App store and download any of the free apps.

iTunes will now prompt you to create a new Apple account and this time, you’ll definitely see the ‘none’ option on the Payments screen.

Source.


Is it safe to use a drive that previously had bad sectors (since reallocated via a Secure Erase) My internal hard drive was playing up and diagnostics found that it had 20 bad sectors. I've since done a high security erase of the drive and all my issues seemed to go away. Disk Utility reported the drive was okay and I was able to reinstall OS X and restore from a TM backup, etc.

However, a few 3rd party apps indicate my drive now has 21 reallocated bad sectors. I imagine this is better than the previously reported 20 bad sectors (now showing as 0), but these apps are indicating my drive is still failing solely due to that.

I haven't been able to find much information on the web about lifetime of a drive after having reallocated bad sectors, so I'm unsure of what to do. Will these reallocated bad sectors become a problem, or are they indicative that the problems haven't stopped? Should I bite the bullet and just install a new SSD?

This question could be considered 'opinion-based' however, in my opinion...

No hard drive is ever going to 'heal' over time; it can only degrade.
If it's developed bad blocks before, it will likely develop more as time goes on.

Unless you have a Time Machine constantly connected & working, giving you an hourly safety-net, I'd bit the bullet & swap it out now.

Better safe than sorry.

You'll also love the speed the SSD gives you. It will feel like a new machine... or actually faster than new.


Can't connect two monitors via elgato 3 dock I've got a MBP 2020 with 4 thunderbolt displays and Intel Iris Plus Graphics + an Elgato 3 Thunderbolt Dock. I can't connect two displays (both Dell U2415) via the dock. I've connected one display via mini display to usb-c cable. This one works. I tried to connect the second one using an hdmi cable with an hdmi to usb-c dongle. This one doesn't work. The system doesn't register that monitor at all, like it's not connected. However, if I connect the monitor directly to the second thunderbolt dock of the computer, it works dine.
On a side note - I see that the dock isn't fully functional. There are 2 usb-a ports on the dock, but it looks like I can connect only one device to either of them. Tested this using three different docking stations and multiple monitors (same cables/dongles in all situations though).
Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated :).

First of all do you have the Elgato Thunderbolt 3 or the Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock?
I'm going to assume you are using the Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock, as the Thunderbolt 3 Dock does not have the ports to physically plug in two USB-C cables when connected to the Laptop.
The dock has 2x USB 3.1 type C connectors and two Thunderbolt 3 ports of one is the upstream port and the other one is connected to the Laptop. It also has a Displayport connector.
The problem you are having is that the two USB-C ports support data only. So my guess is that you connect the first display to the thunderbolt Port and the second one to a USB-C port which then is staying black.
The only way to connect two displays is using the Displayport and the thunderbolt 3 connector rather than the two adapters to USB-C. Ditch one adapter for a display port connection.
If any of my assumptions were wrong and this might change the perspective. Just let me know.


Two different Apple IDs with two different @icloud.com mails I have a complicated problem. It started when I created an apple id with icloud email. Later after some months, I created anther apple id with a new icloud mail. Now, I am using this new apple id on my apple devices.

My Problem:
I need to use my old icloud email on my new apple id. In other words, I want to terminate my current (new) icloud mail and move the old icloud mail so I can use it with the new apple id instead.

I tried different ways, but no solution! Is it possible ?

No - if you really have two different AppleID each with different @icloud/@me/@mac addressed - they cannot be merged or swapped one for the other. If you just want to use the @icloud.com to log in to one AppleID that's also known by a different email address - you can do that easily by changing the username on each device.

See Apple ID - Want to make my xxx@icloud.com primary Apple ID?

If you have two AppleID - the best you can to towards merging them might be to make a family plan and share purchases and migrate mail/contact/calendar data off the account you wish to avoid.

See Renaming iCloud mail address for that.


How to find offending Finder Extension? I'm constantly (about every half second) getting this error on my MacBook Pro's console flooding my system log...
I've tried to kill all processes in hopes to find the offender, but no luck so far.
Would anyone know how I can definitely find the exact Extension name? Is there a reference or command that will reveal such information?

Error details:
2016/01/08 13:55:50.398 FinderSyncExtension[1420]: assertion failed: 15C50:  libxpc.dylib + 35399 [61AB4610-9304-354C-9E9B-D57198AE9866]: 0x13
2016/01/08 13:55:50.398 FinderSyncExtension[1420]: failed to create remote port

I found the offenders in my case (plural, for several apps were using this plugin), using a ps -axe | grep FinderSyncExt .

Before removing the apps using it from my /Applications folder, I decided to kill each of the processes using a killall -9 FinderSyncExt.


Use Time Machine disk as regular disk without deleting all the files I have a disk that was a Time Machine backup for some photo files.  I now want to use that disk as a regular disk.  Can I do that without erasing the photo files?

Yes, you can store other files on a volume that is also being used as a TM backup.

Though make sure you've got a backup for those files somewhere else. ;-)


No Flagged email folder on iCloud browser? Is it just me, or is there no Flagged folder on the browser version of the iCloud client?

There is no Flagged mailbox in the Mail "app" of iCloud.com. It also does not appear after flagging a message.

At present, you can:

use Mail.app (or another computer mail client)
use an iOS device to see the flagged mailbox that was introduced in iOS 6 for iOS devices.
ask Apple to add this to iCloud at http://apple.com/feedback


If I save files in iCloud, where are they "really"? If I save files to iCloud in apps in Mountain Lion that support such saving, where on my drive can I find these files if I want to run command line utilities on them, edit them in other programs, etc?

They're located at ~/Library/Mobile Documents.

Each application has its own individual folder under Mobile Documents where its documents and settings are stored.


How insert “+” from MacBook italian keyboard? I have just bought a Macbook pro and I have to program. But I can not figure out how to insert this symbol "+". On the net I could not find anything.

If you actually can't find the key "+" by System Preferences > Keyboard > [X] Show keyboard in menu and testing all modifier keys with Apple's keyboard overview app, you might use Terminal.

Open and type xmodmap -pk.
This will give you a list of key names & values. Copy contents to BBEdit/TextEdit, search for "plus".
If it's in a first place the key must be accessible directly.
Second place will be combined with shift, third place with option, fourth with shift & option.

So: look for the line containing "plus", somewhere, and note down the first key's name.
That's your key "+" – to be pressed with or without modifier(s).


Can I charge a MacBook Pro 2016 with a MacBook power adapter? A MacBook comes with 29W USB-C Power Adapter. A MacBook Pro 13" (2016) comes with a 61W USB-C Power Adapter. Both are USB-C adapters.

Can I charge the MacBook Pro 13" with the 29W adapter?

As with any computer, using a higher-wattage power adapter is fine, but using a lower-wattage one might not let it run at full efficiency and may be unhealthy for the battery in the long term. (And of course it won't charge as fast.)

There are a number of answers to this same question, but for MagSafe chargers, here. Kuba Ober's answer goes into quite a bit of detail about it, though I can't personally vouch for its accuracy.


Selecting buttons with keyboard Possible Duplicate:
  How can I select buttons with just the keyboard?

I have been using OS X for only a while now and am finding certain things a bit hard to do. Consider an option box shown below :-

Pressing an enter key would shut down the system, however how do I select the "restart" or the "cancel" options using they keyboard alone? Whats the keyboard shortcut for that? Arrow keys just dont work.
Coming from a Linux/Windows background, this is really confusing.

Use the Tab key to switch buttons then return to activate that.

I think all GUIs I have used - Windows, OS X, X11, old Mac all have this.


Why does the Century font in Pages '09 not include italics or bold? I am using Apple Pages '09 to write a document where the font must be in Century. In Microsoft Word, the Century font has an italics, bold, and underline option. However, in Pages '09 the only available text decoration is underline. Why is that so? And do other fonts have restrictions on text decorations in Pages?

It probably means you don't have the bold and italic versions installed. You can get those versions by downloading them (here, for example). Just Google search for century bold and century italic.

Fonts are all basically just collections of images. Bold and italic ones are actually completely different fonts, just sometimes they're packaged together rather than as separate fonts. Some fonts don't have bold or italic versions at all. That's why some fonts don't have those options sometimes.


If you lock out your iphone and put it in lost mode does it still connect to internet? I lost my iphone and i locked it out, put a message on the lock screen. But I am wondering if the phone is locked out and they don't have access to it, does it still connect to internet to be tracked?

I have lost my iphone before and gotten it back, and I did see the location of it......

Putting an iPhone in Lost Mode does not stop you from seeing your phone's location. It may be offline because the battery drained. It's also possible for a person that has the iPhone to power it down in the normal way using the Sleep button and on-screen slider. Regarding being notified of its location if it connects to the internet again, you may find this information helpful:

From http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2698:

  If Find My iPhone can’t locate a device, the last known location is displayed for up to 24 hours. Select “Notify me when found” to get an email when it comes online.


What is Lion's version of Perl 5? What version of Perl 5 is OS X Lion shipping with?

5.12.3 - exactly:

Vigor14:~ clt$ uname -a
Darwin Vigor14 11.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.0.0: Sat Jun 18 12:56:35 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1699.22.73~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
Vigor14:~ clt$

Vigor14:~ clt$ /usr/bin/perl -V
Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 12 subversion 3) configuration:

  Platform:
    osname=darwin, osvers=11.0, archname=darwin-thread-multi-2level
    uname='darwin fifth.apple.com 11.0 darwin kernel version 11.0.0: sun may 29 13:02:55 pdt 2011; root:xnu-1699.22.44~4release_x86_64 x86_64 '
    config_args='-ds -e -Dprefix=/usr -Dccflags=-g  -pipe  -Dldflags= -Dman3ext=3pm -Duseithreads -Duseshrplib -Dinc_version_list=none -Dcc=llvm-gcc-4.2'
    hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
    useithreads=define, usemultiplicity=define
    useperlio=define, d_sfio=undef, uselargefiles=define, usesocks=undef
    use64bitint=define, use64bitall=define, uselongdouble=undef
    usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='llvm-gcc-4.2', ccflags ='-arch x86_64 -arch i386 -g -pipe -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -fno-strict-aliasing -fstack-protector -I/usr/local/include',
    optimize='-Os',
    cppflags='-g -pipe -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -fno-strict-aliasing -fstack-protector -I/usr/local/include'
    ccversion='', gccversion='4.2.1 (Based on Apple Inc. build 5658) (LLVM build 2335.15.00)', gccosandvers=''
    intsize=4, longsize=8, ptrsize=8, doublesize=8, byteorder=12345678
    d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=16
    ivtype='long', ivsize=8, nvtype='double', nvsize=8, Off_t='off_t', lseeksize=8
    alignbytes=8, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='llvm-gcc-4.2 -mmacosx-version-min=10.7', ldflags ='-arch x86_64 -arch i386 -fstack-protector -L/usr/local/lib'
    libpth=/usr/local/lib /usr/lib
    libs=-ldbm -ldl -lm -lutil -lc
    perllibs=-ldl -lm -lutil -lc
    libc=, so=dylib, useshrplib=true, libperl=libperl.dylib
    gnulibc_version=''
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=bundle, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags=' '
    cccdlflags=' ', lddlflags='-arch x86_64 -arch i386 -bundle -undefined dynamic_lookup -L/usr/local/lib -fstack-protector'

Characteristics of this binary (from libperl):
  Compile-time options: MULTIPLICITY PERL_DONT_CREATE_GVSV
                        PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT PERL_MALLOC_WRAP USE_64_BIT_ALL
                        USE_64_BIT_INT USE_ITHREADS USE_LARGE_FILES
                        USE_PERLIO USE_PERL_ATOF USE_REENTRANT_API
  Locally applied patches:
    /Library/Perl/Updates/<version> comes before system perl directories
    installprivlib and installarchlib points to the Updates directory
  Built under darwin
  Compiled at Jun 13 2011 14:45:31
  %ENV:
    PERLBREW_HOME="/Users/clt/.perlbrew"
    PERLBREW_PATH="/Users/clt/perl5/perlbrew/bin"
    PERLBREW_ROOT="/Users/clt/perl5/perlbrew"
    PERLBREW_VERSION="0.27"
  @INC:
    /Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /Library/Perl/5.12
    /Network/Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /Network/Library/Perl/5.12
    /Library/Perl/Updates/5.12.3
    /System/Library/Perl/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /System/Library/Perl/5.12
    /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.12/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.12
    .
Vigor14:~ clt$

Just compiled perlbrew with the new Xcode (downloaded from the AppStore):

Vigor14:~ clt$ perlbrew install perl-5.14.1
Fetching perl-5.14.1 as /Users/clt/perl5/perlbrew/dists/perl-5.14.1.tar.gz
Installing /Users/clt/perl5/perlbrew/build/perl-5.14.1 into ~/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.14.1

This could take a while. You can run the following command on another shell to track the status:

  tail -f ~/perl5/perlbrew/build.log

Installed /Users/clt/perl5/perlbrew/build/perl-5.14.1 as perl-5.14.1 successfully. Run the following command to switch to it.

  perlbrew switch perl-5.14.1

compiler:

Vigor14:~ clt$ gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: i686-apple-darwin11
Configured with: /private/var/tmp/llvmgcc42/llvmgcc42-2335.15~25/src/configure --disable-checking --enable-werror --prefix=/Developer/usr/llvm-gcc-4.2 --mandir=/share/man --enable-languages=c,objc,c++,obj-c++ --program-prefix=llvm- --program-transform-name=/^[cg][^.-]*$/s/$/-4.2/ --with-slibdir=/usr/lib --build=i686-apple-darwin11 --enable-llvm=/private/var/tmp/llvmgcc42/llvmgcc42-2335.15~25/dst-llvmCore/Developer/usr/local --program-prefix=i686-apple-darwin11- --host=x86_64-apple-darwin11 --target=i686-apple-darwin11 --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.2.1 (Based on Apple Inc. build 5658) (LLVM build 2335.15.00)


How to Install Octave in El Capitan? The new GNU Octave 4.0.1 was released March 23, 2016.
I would like to find some standard way to install it in El Capitan (mine OS X 10.11.3) because it has significantly better support in some functions than Matlab, discussed in the thread here.
I do brew search octave and get

homebrew/science/octave    Caskroom/cask/octave       Caskroom/cask/xoctave

where one of the first two should be a correct one.
The project's homepage support for OS X is down here about installing Octave on OS X systems.
There is also ruby's way of installing Octave described in the thread How to install Octave on OS X (Yosemite) but for Yosemite.
I would like to find some standard way of getting Octave for OS X.

I do successfully brew update and brew upgrade before the commands.
My Homebrew is 0.9.5 (git revision 80d1; last commit 2016-03-24).
user1256923. I run brew info octave but I get

Error: No available formula with the name "octave"

How can you install Octave in some standard way for El Capitan?

From my homebrew:

brew info octave
homebrew/science/octave: stable 4.0.0 (bottled), HEAD
high-level interpreted language for numerical computing
https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/index.html
Not installed

and

brew cask info octave
octave: 3.8.2-1
Octave
https://gnu.org/software/octave/
Not installed

xoctave is a gui which I suspect is independent.  I'd use homebrew for the installation.

FWIW the Octave wiki it explains what to do:

brew tap homebrew/science
brew update && brew upgrade --all
brew install octave


is this swap memory use normal? I got myself a m1 macbook air with 8 gb of ram
Ive been using it for a month now and noticed that my swap usage is unusally high, is that something to worry about?
As you can see from the screenshot swap is around 3 gigs, and it hasnt gone done down yet.

I was hoping that 8 gigs was enough for vscode and node but now I doubt it
Also, my ram usage in the activity monitor always peaks at 6.6-6.7 gigs, never goes up more than that.

labels are: all ram, used ram, cache, swap
Should I be concerned?

So long as memory pressure looks OK, there's nothing to worry about.
macOS keeps things cached in RAM as long as that RAM is not needed by anything else - that gives it a tendency overall to look like it fills up & never empties.
The same can be said of swap. It fills, the contents may change, but the swap figure displayed is always a "high tide" figure. You never see it go down until you reboot.
It doesn't serve you or the OS well at all if it were to periodically flush unused RAM or swap just to "look tidier". Its purpose is best served by it just hanging onto it all in case it's needed again.


How to make Siri-initiated calls use Google Voice Previously asked for iOS 7. I need to use Google Voice (e.g. for cheaper overseas calls), not just for the Caller ID part of the problem.

iOS 10+ is fine if that solves the problem.

To the close vote: I wish to be able to use Siri and say "Call Alice" and the call go via Google Voice. Or "Call Alice with Google Voice" would be good too. I did ask the local Apple Genius Bar. And since (as of 2017-11-01), Google Voice isn't a supported 3rd-party Siri integration, that doesn't work.

Google needs to integrate Siri into their Google Voice app. Only if Google makes the integration you can use Siri with Google Voice. "Call Alice with Google Voice" is a good example.

Audio or video calling integration with Siri is possible since iOS 10 (September 2016). And for developers to build the integrations since June 2016.

So my best advice is, start asking Google to build this integration.


User permissions on volume drive Connecting to my wireless volume external HD, there are 2 users listed for it, myself & "everyone". I have read/write access as admin, but "everyone" has "no access", and I can't change this. I'm guessing this is why my volume HD has just decided to not allow me any read/write access to it anymore as I 'don't have the necessary permission', even though no details have changed all week. After admin unlocking to change 'No access', it immediately reverts back to it. Need assistance with how to either remove "everyone", or change that to read/write access permanently.

Try going into Terminal then sudo chmod 777 /Volumes/ExternalDriveName this should allow everyone access. If it doesn't work, then verify that it is formatted APFS, HFS, FAT32, or EXFAT. If it is formatted as NTFS, then it will be mounted as read only. If it is formatted as something that macOS can write to, then try running First Aid on the external disk. This might fix permissions. Good luck!


How do iPhone apps push notifications when the app isn't running? I've read some docs about notifications and background work, but there is something I do not understand.

Yesterday, I upgraded to iOS 4.2, rebooted my phone many times, and did not launch any apps. Then this morning I received a push notification from PandoraBox to inform me that an app I've placed in favorite had its price changed.

I wonder how this app, that is not launched, not in background, that cannot know in advance when the price of an app in MY favorites will change, can alert me with a notification this way?

It HAS to run some methods, some code… But I understood that that is not possible. What did I miss?

You must have launched PandoraBox before the reboot of your iPhone, right?

When you launch apps that send notifications, they keep the way to identify you and throw notifications to your phone.

So the answer to your question is : "the code is running on some PandoraBox machine, not on your iPhone".


Internet sharing from Macbook to iPad Pro via usb cable (Tethered caching) not working on Catalia 10.15.6 I would like to share the internet connection on my MacBook Pro (a wifi connection) with my iPad Pro 4th generation via usb-c cable. The MacBook Pro is running Catalina 10.15.6.
I followed the instructions in this post:
System Preferences -> Content Sharing -> Switch ON and check "Internet connection".
However, nothing happens on the iPad. I can't load any page. Any help with this? Is there anything I should do on the iPad side?
Thank you very much!
ps: if you wonder why I would do that: the iPad Pro 4th generation (brand new) has a horrible wifi reception...

I just realized that the iPad was not showing in the Finder. I rebooted the iPad, now it shows in the finder and the connection started working.
I suppose then that it is/was a problem with the connection between the two devices, rather then the tethering itself. I will monitor the behaviour in the next days.


Stream YouTube video in Full HD resolution on iOS Safari I have an iPhone X and an iPad Pro, both running iOS 11. I notice, when streaming a YouTube video in iOS Safari, the video resolution is limited to a maximum of 720p.

For e.g., when watching this video on Safari on macOS, I am able to stream it in the maximum available resolution i.e. 1080p. But in Safari on iOS, the output is limited to a maximum of 720p.

Is this behaviour configurable in YouTube settings or Safari? I notice, the same video can be played back at full resolution in the Videos app in iOS, when downloading it on a Mac and transferring it on iOS device.

I do not wish to use the YouTube app for iOS.

Safari on iOS is restricted from playing videos at Full HD resolution. To view them at higher resolution, using the YouTube app is your only resort.


Does the Catalina XNU kernel still recognize 32-bit binaries? Does 10.15's dyld? I've seen lots of commentary repeating the end result "32-bit apps are no longer supported."

But that leaves many unanswered technical questions.  Does 10.15's XNU still recognize 32-bit binaries?  Does 10.15's dyld still recognize them?

Does 10.15's XNU still recognize 32-bit binaries?

They are still recognized as executables, but attempting to execute one results in a "bad CPU type in executable" error, just as if you were trying to run an PowerPC or ARM binary (and different from an incomprehensible file, which will result in an "exec format error" error).

  Does 10.15's dyld still recognize them?

Recognize them as what? It'll recognize that an .dylib with a 32-bit slice is a library, if that's what you mean, but it'll refuse to load it into a 64-bit process.


iPhone 5 backup fails, both to iTunes and to iCloud, no 'zombie' apps found I get basically the same error as described in the thread Can't backup iPhone 5s (iOS 8.4) using iTunes 12.3 (because an error occured) or iCloud backup using an iPhone 5 and iOS 9.0.2.

It can neither
 - backup to iCloud automatically when connected to WiFi and electricity while locked
 - backup to iCloud manually
 - backup to iTunes automatically
 - backup to iTunes manually

I have tried a lot but nothing seems to work so far, and I am hoping to get some input. Here is what I have done so far (unsuccessfully):

everything in this Apple support article, including rebooting both my MacBook and the iPhone as well as resetting the Lockdown folder
deleting the old Backup from ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup hoping the iTunes backup would be built a-new from scratch
disabling and re-enabling iCloud backup from my iPhone as well as deleting the old Backup (which incidentally did not seem to work as it is still listed under "last backup" even after deletion)
the aforementioned thread lead me to search for 'null' or 'zombie' apps (without name) in settings -> general -> memory&iCloud usage – unfortunately, there are none

Any ideas how to fix this?

For anyone who happens to have the same problem: It turns out the database of the Whatsapp application seems to have been corrupted in some fashion. In order to see a live log for your iDevice, connect it to your Mac and open XCode. Under Window->Devices, there is a panel at the very bottom. When trying to backup unsuccessfully with iTunes, there where a lot of error messages, one of which read

<Warning>: ERROR: Backup error - open_dprotected_np error: Operation not permitted (1) at path "/var/mobile/Containers/Shared/AppGroup/BAB2BCE4-C114-410B-ABFE-8C6B140B9446/Library/Preferences/group.net.whatsapp.WhatsApp.shared.plist.YvjyOTy

I went ahead and uninstalled Whatsapp from the iPhone. After that, both iTunes and iCloud backups worked again.


OS X suddenly becomes very slow I am using a mid-2012 MBP 13in with no retina display, running OS X 10.8.3. Everything was fine until I was watching a video clip on Facebook. Everything just froze, except the mouse pointer can still move, but I can't do anything else. So I was forced to long press the power button to shut the machine down. After that, the whole system was ridiculously slow.

I can boot into my own account, but starting/running/closing any program takes ages. Also, when I tried to mount a .dmg. I was given a error message like "No suitable file system." I know I can just re-install the by booting into the recovery partition, but I'll take that as my last resort.

Here are more screenshots of the Activity Monitor:

It turns out to be a hardware problem. After getting frustrated with the extremely slow response, I reinstalled OS X via the recovery tool. But that doesn't last long - it starts to get slower (but not as slow as this case), and the Disk Utility complains that "This drive has a hardware problem that can't be repaired." So I send my MacBook back to Apple and they replace the hard-drive for me and it was covered by warranty.


Cannot SSH from OS X Mavericks to Solaris server Well, this is embarrassing. It was a case sensitive issue. Prior to posting the -v output on this site, and probably due to looking at this problem for too long, I forgot the fundamental rule of case sensitivity !! Was trying to log into the Solaris server using an all lower-case user name. The user id on the Mac has an u/c alpha first character (remainder is l/c). Tried it and it worked.
Just need to find a hole deep enough now but thank you to all who tried to assist.

Try and ssh into the solaris machine with the following options

ssh bob@solaris -vvv -F /dev/null -o PreferredAuthentications=Password

There are a couple of things to look at:

Does your mac have an ssh config file? If so, bypass it with -F /dev/null
Do you have multiple ssh keys? If so, select the correct one with -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa
What protocol are you using? Check the sshd_config file on the server to see if you are using protocol 1 or 2.
Have you installed / restarted the ssh-server daemon on the server?

Tail the logs on the server to see what errors it prints. Not sure about solaris, but on CentOS the logs are in /var/log/auth/audit.log


iPhone simulator on iPad When using an iPad if you download and use an iphone application, an iphone outline will appear on the screen with the application inside.

I'm looking for a way to switch between viewing websites normally as they would appear on the iPad and iphone view.

What would be the best way of going about this?

Download an iPad browser, such as Dolphin Browser or Opera Mini.
Then download a web browser that is iPhone/iPod touch only, such as Mango Browser, iFox FREE, Sphere, or Full Screen Web Browser (99¢). Then you can run an iPad browser in the full iPad mode and run another browser that is in the 1x 2x iPhone mode.


iPhone downloading not working I've been trying to download apps from the App Store since last night.  I continually get messages saying the download can't be completed.

First thing I'd do is do a hard restart of my phone (hold the power and home buttons down for about 10 seconds - wait for the screen to go black then for the apple logo to appear). If that doesn't do it, try signing out of the app store, and then signing back in.


How to fix EFI boot "Software Update is Required for this disk" when trying to boot linux? I created a bootable linux USB following Ubuntu's tutorial. When I startup the machine holding Option an EFI Boot drive shows up. When I select it, it goes to Apple Logo Loading > Then Light Grey Screen > Apple Logo Loading Again > Then the messages below show up:

With internet, I can update whatever this is, it takes 4 minutes, then the machine reboots to normal Macintosh HD. When I boot back again it keeps asking for an update. I updated 4 times and it stills shows up.

Without internet, the message below shows up:

When I click "Startup Disk" the EFI boot does not show up and all I can select is my Macintosh HD.

 (this image is from a forum, my Macbook is up-to-date, MacOS Catalina 10.15.4)

Googling up I found this could happen because of T2 chip securities, I disabled all of it's securities in recovery mode. The problem persists.
What may be causing this issue? How can I fix it?

I am having this exact same issue following the exact same Ubuntu Tutorial. Have tried a multitude of variations with the security settings...but nothing helps and after it's downloaded something (approx 70%-ish?) the screen goes black, comes back on with Apple logo and boots into my regular Mac HD.
My supposition is the process breaks the OS and we have to follow a different path to run this software.
EDIT: To add, and an FYI, following the same Ubuntu tutorial from above, but now for a bootable DVD instead, gives the same 'error' loop.
It appears (to me at least) that any kind of external media, whether that be USB flash drives or DVDs/CDs, currently aren't supported by the Boot manager under MacOS (Catalina: version 10.15.6) despite lowering/altering the T2 chip's security settings.
EDIT 2: as Topic starter mentioned below, 2019 Macs do not support alternative OS other than Windows for now. Thanks for all your insights and let's hope someday Ubuntu will also be supported.


Monitor network connection process / delay I'd like to identify what in the world delays my OSX 10.9.2 system from connecting to wifi upon waking from sleep. What is the right log to read or script to run or netstat or lsof command to run to figure out what's responsible for the delay?

I've twiddled with energy settings before and still occasionally get delayed 5-10 seconds.

While I've read a number of posts in a similar vein, I haven't found an answer yet.

I found the level of detail I needed to find in /var/log/system.log where it outlines what's happening on the port.


License and royalty specifics for AppleLoops in Logic If I use any of the AppleLoops supplied with Logic 9 in my project, will I be subject to an liability or royalty? If yes, how can I reach those persons who lent their voices to the loops?

All of the AppleLoops supplied with Logic or purchased via JamPacks are licensed to you for unlimited, perpetual use in any derivative creative work. That is: you can use the inside of your own music, but you can't just give away or resell the samples themselves.

For example: if you made a "song" that was one AppleLoop, looping for 3 minutes, and tried to sell that. Well, that's not really a derivative work because it's just the loop and nothing else. You couldn't give that away or sell it. But combine two of them together? Now it's derivative (it is unlike either of it's pieces, a new thing unto itself) and you can give that away or sell it as you, the creator, see fit.

See this discussion on AppleLoops in Jam Packs for more details and from the EULA:

  B. Except as otherwise indicated, you may use the Apple and third party audio file content (including, but not limited to, the Apple Loops, built-in sound files, samples and impulse responses) (collectively the “Audio Content”), contained in or otherwise included with the Apple Software, on a royalty-free basis, to create your own original soundtracks for your film, video and audio projects. You may broadcast and/or distribute your own soundtracks that were created using the Audio Content, however, individual Apple loops, audio files, sound settings, samples and impulse responses may not be commercially or otherwise distributed on anor may they be repackaged in whole or in part as audio samples, sound files, sound effects or music beds.

Enjoy those loops! Make lots of awesome music!


Multiple finder preference plists in mavericks I’ve had a very sluggish Finder recently on my Mid-2012 MBP 16GB 2.6GHz i7.

Looking online I found that deleting the Finder preferences can solve the issue, but when I went to the Preferences folder to look for com.apple.finder.plist I also found files like these: com.apple.finder.plist.DUkfEQe and com.apple.finder.plist.DUkfEQe2 and others with random strings at the end. Any idea what these are and which one is my 'actual' finder plist?

The com.apple.finder.plist file is the actual file.  I believe the ones with a random extension are renamed originals used to hold the changes until the .plist file is updated and then are deleted.


How to change terminal folder font color I use terminal with the fish shell. I played the themes and colors in fish_config as well as the ANSI colors in the terminal preferences. Nothing I do can change the folder font colors. How do I get rid of this ugly purple-blue color?

The colors are defined by LSCOLORS, see man ls for details.

LSCOLORS The value of this variable describes what color to use for which attribute
         when colors are enabled with CLICOLOR.  This string is a concatenation
         of pairs of the format fb, where f is the foreground color and b is the
         background color.

         The color designators are as follows:

                       a     black
                       b     red
                       c     green
                       d     brown
                       e     blue
                       f     magenta
                       g     cyan
                       h     light grey
                       A     bold black, usually shows up as dark grey
                       B     bold red
                       C     bold green
                       D     bold brown, usually shows up as yellow
                       E     bold blue
                       F     bold magenta
                       G     bold cyan
                       H     bold light grey; looks like bright white
                       x     default foreground or background

         Note that the above are standard ANSI colors.  The actual display may differ
         depending on the color capabilities of the terminal in use.

         The order of the attributes are as follows:

                       1.   directory
                       2.   symbolic link
                       3.   socket
                       4.   pipe
                       5.   executable
                       6.   block special
                       7.   character special
                       8.   executable with setuid bit set
                       9.   executable with setgid bit set
                       10.  directory writable to others, with sticky bit
                       11.  directory writable to others, without sticky bit

         The default is "exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad", i.e. blue foreground and default
         background for regular directories, black foreground and red background for setuid
         executables, etc.

To change the dark blue to cyan use

export LSCOLORS="gxfxcxdxbxegedabagacad"


Applications in OSX Yosemite independently freeze then execute simultaneously I have ample storage on my hard drive and 8GB RAM and have serious freezing issues, even doing things as simple as running Chrome. Seems to happen when I'm doing something new (e.g. pausing a Youtube video, opening a new tab, changing volume). Another example, in MS Word, I'll be typing, see no words appear, continue typing, then all of a sudden everything appears at once and runs well. The app becomes nonresponseive, but I can still move the window.

Has anyone experienced this or have any suggestions?

Much appreciated!

I've been having this problem with my Mac Mini as well. I'm running with 10 gigs ran and just recently Secure wiped the entire disk and started over. Do you have this problem with safari? With the most recent glitchiness I have decided to try out Safari and it runs a whole lot smoother over there compared to Chrome.

Also are you using a disk drive or a solid-state drive in your Mac? I have a disk drive and I believe that's one reason why the Applications have been running a lot slower because whenever chrome is open it will attempt to cache its way all the way through your RAM no matter how much you have (recently I saw a complaint in a forum showing chrome had taken up 56 GB of their Mac pros ram). When chrome does this, you end up getting pushed into the swap area on your disk where disk drives really do struggle.

My guess for MS Word: Now that most of the modern machines or using solid-state drives, Developers are starting to safely assume that the user most likely will be using this as well and start sending resources back to the hard drive instead of RAM so they have more room to work with. This new method slows everything down as well if you're using a disk drive.


What are safe or average component temperatures for my MacBook? My MacBook has been overheating for over a year now. More recently it has begun to perform alarms and automatic shutdowns.

Also on startup there is (a moment) where I see a black screen with source code of some sort before the screen resumes with the grey bootup screen.

Today I have installed Mac Fan Control, and realize that the fan still works on my computer, hopefully I can prevent anymore burning (smell) from the laptop.
Previously I had smcFanControl but it stopped pushing the fan above 2000 so I just thought that my fan didnt work for a long time

I also had my laptop/fan cleaned with air so I dont believe there is any blockage recently.

I have a screenshot showing the current temperatures, I would like to know what temperatures are ideal, safe or average and I will do my best to prolong the life of my laptop by keeping my fans spinning above 2000+ and being more mindful and keeping Activity Monitor open!

macOS Sierra 10.12.5 (16F73)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB

There are two sentences in this question that of concern:

  My MacBook has been overheating for over a year now.

and

  Today I have installed Mac Fan Control, and realize that the fan still
  works on my computer, hopefully I can prevent anymore burning (smell)
  from the laptop.

If you are aware that your computer (this is not limited to Apple products) is overheating, it's time to take it in for service.  All modern computers have thermal limits which will shut down the machine if it becomes too hot.  If this is happening on a regular basis, there is something wrong and it needs to be addressed

Further, if you actually smell something burning from your computer this is a physical problem that simply cannot be fixed with an app.  This is like running your car without out oil and then expecting to put some high grade gasoline because it has wear additives that prolong the life of your engine in the hopes that it solves the problem.

To put this another way, you can't "un-toast" toast and get bread.

Once you smell the telltale scent of burnt electronics, you're past the point of no return - it's time to take it in for service.


Use Apple Script to open Chrome with specific profile I use multiple instances of the Chrome browser for different profiles, each with their own google account. I'm trying to automate a task using Applescript and Automator, and have set up Automator to feed a set of URLs to chrome, then run the following script:

    # input is the list of url's from the previous task
on run {input, parameters}

    # The below is an applescript loop
    repeat with theURL in input
        tell application "Google Chrome" to open location theURL
    end repeat

    # We must return something so we just return the input
    return input

end run

Is there away to specify that I want to open Chrome with the browser version I specify in the "Person" or profile of Chrome, i.e. as user XXXX@gmail.com and not as user ZZZZ@gmail.com?

If you're trying to open multiple windows in Google Chrome with each set to a different profile and open a bunch of tabs in each one, then the following example AppleScript code demonstrates the concept:

set myURLs to {"https://www.google.com", ¬
    "https://www.news.google.com", ¬
    "https://apple.stackexchange.com"}

set myProfiles to {"Default", "Profile 1"}

repeat with aProfile in myProfiles
    do shell script "open -na 'Google Chrome' --args --profile-directory=" & aProfile's quoted form
    delay 1
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        activate
        tell front window
            set URL of active tab to first item of myURLs
            delay 0.5
            repeat with i from 2 to count of myURLs
                make new tab at after (get active tab) with properties {URL:item i of myURLs}
                delay 0.5
            end repeat
            set active tab index to 1
        end tell
    end tell
    delay 1
end repeat

Note: The value for --profile-directory= is that of the name of the folders in $HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome that corresponds to each profile, not your name.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


Can I disable automatic "copy/look up/share" on my iPhone SE? The "copy/look up/share" pops up when I am reading and scrolling and I never want it to.

It's not automatic, it shows when you highlight some text, by holding down on a paragraph of selectable text. It's not possible to disable this action.

One failure mode of the digitizer is that it will select areas on the screen randomly - if you open up an app like the calculator - if buttons there get pressed randomly when you aren’t actively moving a digit on the screen, that’s a good indicator your hardware is failing.


Photos.app no longer detecting SD cards for import Lately, when I try connecting any of my cameras' SD cards, either through a USB-based SD reader or by connecting the camera itself, Photos.app does not automatically launch when the card mounts, and if I manually start Photos (either before or after inserting the SD card) the Import tab does not appear. I cannot find any settings anywhere for controlling this behavior, either - as the Photos Import tab isn't appearing I never have an opportunity to check/uncheck the "launch Photos automatically for this device."

I have tried formatting the card both from my camera (a Sony ɑ6000) and from my computer, and shooting in both RAW and RAW+JPEG - but to no avail.

This setup used to work just fine, and I don't know what's changed. What settings might I need to dig through? I know that in the past, SD card behavior was controlled by a bunch of different weird things (including iPhoto and Aperture, neither of which I have installed anymore). The device doesn't appear in Image Capture either.

What might be going on, and how can I go about fixing this?

EDIT: I should add, the SD card mounts just fine and shows up in Finder - it's just that neither Photos nor Image Capture see that it's an SD card with photos and/or video. The manual import process does work but I'd like to be able to import and erase all photos and videos in one step as I used to be able to (videos are especially annoying to do manually as my camera uses AVCHD which is stored in an opaque "clips" database).

In the Terminal.app, is your SD card appearing with this command ?

ls /Volumes

If not, the problem is that your SD card is not mounted.
https://superuser.com/questions/256445/macbook-pro-not-detecting-sd-card
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5349557?tstart=0

If your SD card is mounted, you can import your photos without the dedicated tab :

in the menubar

  file -> import

keyboard shortcut

  CMD + Shift + I


New hard drive in early unibody 2011 MacBook Pro won't boot Newbie here!

I just replaced the hard drive (to a 1T senate SATA) in my MacBook Pro and upgraded the RAM from 2, 2GB cards to 2, 8GB cards.

Hardware install went smooth, backed up old drive to time machine & made a USB of OSX for install on new drive.

I've gone in and reformatted the new drive with the proper settings (1 partition, journaled, etc...).

When I go in to boot up the system, the computer goes to apple logo grey screen and the loading bar comes up, loads to exactly the halfway point in about 6 minutes, then just sits there... For hours.

I've tried it many times always with the same outcome.

I need my computer for school TODAY!

Reboot the computer and hold down the option key so you can access startup manager.

If you've already installed OS X, select your HD from the system.

If you NEED to install OS X, select your USB key and run the install

Another option would be to restart the system and hold down Command + R to enter recovery mode. Depending on your Mac model, you'll actually be able to install OS X from the internet. It will be the version you shipped with, but you can just follow the upgrade path to Yosemite.

And if you have to use your computer today, I'd just throw in the old hard drive and deal with this over the weekend


Xcode install fails at 95% under OS X El Capitan Tried to install Xcode for the first time. Tried 3 times now, same problem each time. After it reaches around 95% it fails, and I have to restart from scratch (2.5h). Going crazy.

Could it be because the computer goes into "rest-mode" while it installs?, i.e., black screen. Don't see what else it could be. Internet is fine, and I get no info apart from "Failed to install Xcode".

I had the same problem and I fixed it following the instructions of the first answer to a similar question:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/97910/135650
You need to enable the debug menu for the App Store app and reset the application:

Open the terminal
Run the following command:
defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true
Relaunch the App Store app.
Choose the menu item Debug → Reset Application.

If you follow this instructions and still get any error I recommend you to check if you has at least 10GB of free space on disk before try again.

Optionally, you can always download manually this or any other update from the following link:

(you need to enter your Apple ID in order to be able to download)

https://developer.apple.com/downloads/

or even better with this directly link(Xcode version 7.3):

https://developer.apple.com/services-account/download?path=/Developer_Tools/Xcode_7.3/Xcode_7.3.dmg


Where can someone buy a refurbished iPhone? When I go to Apple's webpage for refurbished and clearance products, I can find links to buy Macs, iPods and iPads, but none for buying refurbished iPhones.

Is it possible to buy a refurbished iPhone:

online, on the Apple Store?
in a physical Apple Store?
online or offline with a phone carrier?
other options?

If you live in the UK (and presumably Europe), SmartFoneStore is a very good place to start looking for refurbished smartphones including iPhones. I believe the refurbs are classified as Grade A, B and C and are priced accordingly.


Kill all non-essential processes I'm looking for a utility that will allow me to kill all processes that aren't essential to maintaining system stability in an efficient manner. I'm guessing the easiest way to do this would be to find out which processes are owned by Apple Inc. and exclude them from a kill list, if possible.

Disabling login items is not an option as certain processes are needed at startup, such as a few different cloud services which synchronise files. Killing them on demand would be ideal.

Below is an example of what should be killed.

The processes you mention would all be killed by one command:

kill -9 -1

That would also log you out and kill all the programs you run so it's not ideal, but it would speed up your Mac and dedicate all further memory and resources to the system.

Practically, you would need to use launchctl to list all user tasks and quit them one by one. The tasks you mention all get started when you log in, so killing them might not do anything but cause them to exit, and re-start.

I would recommend instead of killing - doing the work to really measure the aspect of the system that's causing you constraint. RAM, CPU, Network, disk IO and focus on apps that impact that. The CPU times of the tasks you mentioned are so trivially small, it's hard to see them as any sort of problem, but perhaps you have data and measurements showing otherwise.

OS X can run thousands of small processes and juggle memory, and it's a rare instance where one program has a large enough memory leak or doesn't idle when it's not in use that it's unlikely you have a problem that doing all the work to script a kill tool would ever make you back the time you spent on it. I'd say, work on that script if you need it to learn how things work and not to make any difference going forward. In this instance, don't solve the general problem is my advice...


Can't delete time machine backups - error 8072 I am not able to delete permanently time machine backups from an external hard drive which are now in my trash. After an hour or so « deleting items » and a growing number, I get « the operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred error code -8072 ». I have tried many times and different backups but no success.
I can’t even restore them out of the trash anymore and have therefore not managed to free any space from my hard drive which was the aim.

Here is what I have done :
-deleted some backups directly via finder
-stopped auto backups from time machine to avoid interference
-tried emptying the trash or « delete immediately » individually

Any help would be appreciated, have tried looking around but no luck so far.

MacBook Air (13-inch mid 2011)
macOS Sierra 10.12.6

Unfortunately, because of how Apple has secured the system files, you'll have to erase/reformat the external hard drive (using disk utility or similar apps).

Otherwise, it will literally never delete. I've tried doing the same thing with terminal and finder, and apple won't delete the files.


how to put the two fingers right click(secondary click) on macbook with Mountain Lion I have a late 2009 macbook which has the trackpad with division, unlike the ones that are in market right now. I upgraded to Mountain Lion(10.8.x) but I forgot how to enable the Secondary two fingers right-click. Can someone help to get it working.

Thanks,

uDaY

System Preferences > Trackpad > Secondary Click > "Click or tap with two fingers"


On an iPad 2 which is partly responsive touch, how to check if digitizer cable or rather, connector is broken? My left side (around 15% towards the edge) of iPad 2 has become unresponsive to touch, after I replaced with the wifi antenna. I checked the digitizer connector cable and it fits ok in the connector on the motherboard inside the iPad. I can pull it out and back in again, and it is the same result, so I don't know whether I should buy a new digitizer, or perhaps something in the motherboard is broken. How can I check this, anyone?

Sadly the best way to check would be with another whole display assembly. It sounds like it could be the actual digitizer layer (sits under the LCD display that is covered by the gorilla glass) or at least part of it that's broken. If the cable was the issue  if expect the whole display to stop responding to touch. Good thing is the part is easy to find, ifixit should be able to help with that and any tools you might need.


Can I delete /System folders in Time Machine backups to save space? I've had my Time Machine backup volume (sparsebundle) for a couple of years now and it's become quite large.
Since it is very easy to delete old backups of certain directories in the GUI I was wondering if it is safe to just delete all backups of for example /System/ and a lot of subfolders of /Library/ because those files get replaced on every OSX upgrade and I won't ever go back to an old operating system anyway. Is that safe to do? There is nothing on the internet about that.
Or is /System/ usually excluded anyway? That would kind of make sense, right?

Any thoughts on that? Thank you!

You can certainly do this. I would first set Time Machine to exclude the system folder and then get a back up or two intervals.

Then you can browse the current backup and step back in time. Once you see a folder show up - control click (right click) and delete all versions of the affected folders.

In practice, system changes are very low and small - so you might only save 20 GB or so. Applications might save a little more space, but you can do what you want.

I generally just set my drive on the shelf and get another $100 drive and start over. Much easier than squeezing the last few GB from a full drive - but if you back up to a network volume - cloning that to an external drive takes quite some time in practice. That's also a nice option if you can spend the time and then start over. Be sure to test restoring a file before you delete anything you might care to not lose.


Connecting Mac Pro with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 9XX to Apple Thunderbolt Display I'm finding conflicting information about this topic on the web, so I thought I'd raise the question here.

I'm wanting to use an Apple Thunderbolt Display with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX9XX series card in a MacPro and/or eGPU box. I figure I could use this StartTech adapter to connect the Apple Thunderbolt Display to the Display Port of the card:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/945120-REG/startech_dp2mdpmf6in_displayport_adapter_6.html

However, I've found many websites that claim this doesn't work, and one lone comment on the link above under Q/A that said it does.

To be clear, I understand that I wouldn’t be able to send a Thunderbolt signal to the Apple Thunderbolt Display using any of the outputs from the NVIDIA display adapter.

I figured I could simply adapt the larger format DisplayPort to the Mini-DisplayPort and get it to connect that way. That is assuming that the regular DisplayPort and Mini-DisplayPort are essentially the same connection/protocol with just a different interface size.

Is what I'm trying to do possible and if so, will this adapter work, or do I need to buy something different?

In short, you can't.

This is because the Thunderbolt Display is a bit of a misnomer.  It's actually a Thunderbolt Dock with a display attached to it.

The requirements for the TB Display, per Apple are as follows:

  If your Mac has Thunderbolt ports, you can use a Thunderbolt display
  in macOS or Boot Camp. System requirements to use your Thunderbolt
  display in macOS:

  A Thunderbolt-capable Mac
  The latest software and firmware updates for your Mac
  OS X v10.6.8 Snow Leopard or later

  System requirements to use your Thunderbolt display in Boot Camp:

  A Thunderbolt-capable Mac
  The latest software and firmware updates for your Mac
  OS X Lion: Boot Camp 4.0 is included with Lion OS X v10.6.8
  Snow Leopard: Boot Camp that’s updated to version 3.3

  (Emphasis mine)

If you look at the ports of the TB Display, you will notice there are
no "display" type ports (DP, mDP, DVI, HDMI, etc).  Just TB, USB,
FireWire and Network.  The Display adapter is actually "embedded" in
the display itself.

This is one of the reasons why you cannot connect an Apple Thunderbolt Display to a PC

  I figured I could simply adapt the larger format DisplayPort to the
  Mini-DisplayPort and get it to connect that way. That is assuming that
  the regular DisplayPort and Mini-DisplayPort are essentially the same
  connection/protocol with just a different interface size.

This is correct.  However, what you are missing that that the Thunderbolt Display doesn't accept DisplayPort or mini DisplayPort signaling.  Your source has to be Thunderbolt to begin with.


Any way to connect 3 external displays to a 2018 Retina MacBook Air? Just wondering if there's any docking solution that provides the possibility to connect to 3 external displays to the MacBook Air 2018, or if we're hardware limited by the iGPU here.

If you want a "native" display signal, the 2018 Retina MacBook Air is limited to 2 external monitors.

However, you can use other types of displays such as a USB display to act as a third monitor. They are generally limited in resolution, update frequency, GPU performance, etc. - so do not expect to be able to play 3D games or use 4k resolution on such a display.

If you want higher performance for the third display, you can connect an eGPU to the MacBook Air which would enable you to use more monitors with higher performance. Such a setup is usually quite more costly than a USB display however.


How do I sync my iPhone 3G to OS X 10.9? Anyone have any idea how I can sync my iPhone 3G and my Mac OS 10.9?  Seems Mavericks only uses iCloud now, so can't seem to hard sync the two.

You should be able to sync it directly by using the usb. Is it giving you error messages? What is it saying.

Also, you may need to check your sync preferences on the phone settings its self. What version of iOS is installed or is it jail broken?


VirtualBox: run OS X inside OS X I am using Oracle VirtualBox to run OS X inside OS X.
This entails running OS X on Mac-branded hardware so
does not break any license agreements.

I am following the instructions on this site:

http://ntk.me/2012/09/07/os-x-on-os-x/

I have downloaded "Install OS X Mavericks.app" and ran the script

  InstallESD.dmg.tool -B -i InstallESD.dmg -o Output.dmg

on the InstallESD.dmg file as advertised on the site.

This outputs a file, oddly called:

Output.dmg?.dmg

Not sure why the question mark followed by the .dmg is appended at the very end,
but anyways, I have configured VirtualBox to boot from this file, and it seems
like some progress is made, but then the kernel boot messages inside VirtualBox
seem to pause indefinitely when the following lines are reached:

init
probe
start
SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR OSK0 0xff(0xff) fKeyHashTable=0x0
SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR OSK1 0xff(0xff) fKeyHashTable=0x0
DSMOS has arrived
[IOBluetoothHCIController][start] -- completed
SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR BEMB 0xff(0xff) fKeyHashTable=0x0

I've been waiting 15 mnutes, the hard drive seems to be resting
with infreqeuent short flashes, and the boot process seems to
have halted at this step.

Why am I seeing this and how can I proceed with the installation
of OS X (10.9) Mavericks?

Thanks.

You will probably need to pass some boot flags to the OS while it is booting.

I googled your error and came to this site.

His OS X booted with CPUIDMAX disabled and -x.


Striving to become power user on OS X (coming from Windows) I'm a long time Windows developer guy & did lots of lower-level stuff (hesitate to say power user). I'm very proficient on the command line and using PowerShell... but now that I've moved over to OS X I feel lost at times. I'm not talking about learning the stuff on https://www.apple.com/support/macbasics/pctomac/ rather, to start I'd like to get a better understanding of the organization of the file system & working in the terminal.

I see /usr and folders in there but my lack of understanding in what I'm typing when I go to install some developer utilities / tools (think stuff that involves Homebrew) feels like I've missed a lot of steps.

Any suggestions on where to crash course?

I know almost nothing about Windows, but I think the equivalent of PowerShell on the Mac is AppleScript, not bash. The equivalent of bash would be MS-DOS Prompt, right? With PowerShell, you’re scripting the Windows GUI and apps, right? That is AppleScript on the Mac. So you might get more practical — and immediate — results from using the AppleScript Editor app rather than the Terminal app. Terminal enables you to script Unix command-line apps and become a Unix power user, but AppleScript Editor enables you to script both Mac GUI apps and Unix command-line apps, and become a Mac OS X power user.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, you can Copy/Paste this AppleScript into your AppleScript Editor and tap the Run button at the top of the window. The HTML source of the current Web page that is showing in Safari will appear in a new document in TextEdit.

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    if document 1 exists then
        set theHTMLSource to the source of document 1
        tell application "TextEdit"
            activate
            make new document with properties {text:theHTMLSource}
        end tell
    end if
end tell

This is a very basic example, but most AppleScripts are just expansions of this core idea of multiple Mac apps working together like a player piano. In-between Safari getting the HTML source and TextEdit rendering it, you could use the “do shell script” command to apply a PHP function to the source. After it is showing in TextEdit, you could use the “save” command to save the source as an HTML document to a particular file folder.

A key thing is that right away, you’re automating the apps you use every day. Anything that can be described as “grunt work” can be automated into a single step with AppleScript, so that you save a lot of time and trouble as you work. And right away, you’re not just using Mac apps, you’re also making Mac apps, because any AppleScript can be Saved as a standalone Mac app.

Ultimately, you do end up learning the Unix shell, but only the parts that you find interesting and useful to your work. For example, if you’re writing an AppleScript and you want it to download a file from a URL, you can have the AppleScript run the Unix “curl” command, but after that the AppleScript might open that downloaded file in Photoshop and add borders to it and reduce it to a certain size and export a Web-ready JPEG, and finally your AppleScript could use an FTP app to upload that JPEG to a particular Web server.

The whole Mac is fair game in one way or another with AppleScript.


How can I add signatures to Preview.app in Lion without using the web cam? Is it possible to add a signature e.g. from PDF files or from JPEG images instead of using a web cam? The problem is that I don't have a web cam and I would like to use this feature in spite of that.

It appears that at present, that isn't an option. When I created a signature file using the FaceTime camera, I see that first of all, there is no unencrypted graphic file created by Preview. Preview did a new key in Keychain titled "Preview signature privacy", suggesting that the signature files go directly from Preview's camera interface to an encrypted file. There isn't a supported way to add a graphic as a signature, and the encryption makes it difficult to bypass the approved new signature process.


Format Linux partition USB SD I have a Transcend SD Card 256GB

I was installing CentOS in one partition of my SD Card, testing the OS in my MacBook Air.

Now I can't remove the partition and restore my SD.

sh-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            120.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +120.1 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 7887C476-CBE0-4D10-B95A-5C79F83B20D7
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *15.4 GB    disk2

/dev/disk3 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *259.7 GB   disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:       Microsoft Basic Data ExFAT                   99.5 GB    disk3s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data W                       84.9 GB    disk3s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data DEL                     1.1 GB     disk3s4
   5:                  Linux LVM                         73.9 GB    disk3s5

/dev/disk4 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *7.5 GB     disk4
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk4s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS Untitled0               7.5 GB     disk4s2

/dev/disk5 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *44.6 GB    disk5
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk5s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS Untitled1               44.6 GB    disk5s2

/dev/disk6 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *21.8 GB    disk6
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk6s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS Untitled2               21.8 GB    disk6s2

/dev/disk7 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk7
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk7s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HD710A                  999.9 GB   disk7s2

sh-3.2#

I have problem with:

5:                  Linux LVM                         73.9 GB    disk3s5

I'm using macOS Sierra 10.12.6

I got:

sh-3.2# sudo diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ ExLinux disk3s5
Started erase on disk3s5
Unmounting disk
Error: -69879: Couldn't open disk
sh-3.2#

This will erase the partition to make it visible in Disk Utility(change PartitionName to whatever you want and see below to get DiskIdentifier):

sudo diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ PartitionName DiskIdentifier

To get DiskIdentifier, Run diskutil list and find the partition you want to remove. DiskIdentifier is in the IDENTIFIER column.

Now you should be able to remove the partition in Disk Utility like normal.


What can be done more with an old ipod touch(First generation) Hi I had an I pod touch (first generation) with version : 1.1.5(4B1) which I bought from EBAy
long time back in 2008

I had installed latest ITunes and browsing if
I can find any applications that can be run on this 1st gen iPod.
But most of the apps are generally compatible with 3 and greater.

Are there really any  for 1st gen? If no, what else can be done apart from
playing music and videos..

I had seen http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2052 which
says can be updated to iOS3.1. Has anyone done ...any problems faced..

Any other suggestion you have apart from selling it :-)

Maybe not the best iOS device nowadays but it still makes a nifty remote!
I have an Ipod Touch (2nd gen though) that I use to control my mac-mini media center.
It's very intuitive to manage your playlist (iTunes DJ mode) with the Remote app.
And I use Mobile Mouse Pro to use my Ipod as a mouse. User experience  is not as sweet as Remote but still a great app which eliminates the need for keyboard.


How to fix menus and windows in macOS 10.14.6 that do not show any items? I am using a 13-inch MacBook Pro with macOS 10.14.6 (Mojave) installed. I am trying to utilize the Terminal, however, I cannot see any information in the terminal window. For example if I type vim and press ⏎ Return, I can see that the program is open; it's identified in the window title, but nothing is displayed.

I have tried to restart my computer but this had not effect. To make matters worse the Apple menu with the shutdown commands is now blank when I open it and I am unable to shut down the computer safely.

I was able to fix my issue. It turned out that my fonts were corrupted and I had to open Font Book and Restore Standard Fonts.


If I hold a letter, my keyboard stops working for that app I can reliably reproduce this in several programs. If I hold a letter such as a to type aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, it doesn't repeat, it just types it once. But then when I try to input text in the app after that it doesn't work. Keyboard shortcuts still work in the app, but input no longer works. In Chrome, input in the page fails but I can input in the address bar ok.

What on earth could cause this and how do I fix it?

This is on a MacBook Pro 15 inch Mid 2015, OSX 10.12.2 (Sierra).

Here's a screencast of it happening:

Note how I type h a few times individually, then hit space and hold the h key. From that point on the keyboard completely fails to input any characters, though (as demonstrated) I can use the keyboard to copy/paste just fine. In Chrome, the keyboard is only broken in that tab (even through a refresh--the only way to get the keyboard back is to open a new tab). In text editors like PHPStorm, it's broken in all tabs and the entire app must be restarted to unbreak the keyboard.

I cannot reproduce the issue on my end but it sounds like you may have an issue with an Accessibility feature, seeing as how it's happening in multiple applications. Have you tried toggling 'System
Preferences > Accessibility > Keyboard > Sticky Keys' (or Slow Keys) on and off and trying to reproduce the issue?

Second option might just be that your keyboard settings were somehow changed from the preset delays that you're used to. You could check 'System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard' and check the delay sliders. Setting the first one to 'Fast' and the second one to 'Short' should actually allow you to press and hold a non-alpha-numeric key for multiple entries (such as the punctuation keys or keys like =, +, -, _, etc.)

Note: The Mac keyboard does not allow you to press and hold letters because certain letters such as 'a' and 'e' trigger an accent menu to create characters such as 'à' or 'ē'.