Rating or reviewing an app from the App Store on iOS always silently fails. How to fix? Whenever I rate or review an app on from the App Store on iOS, it never saves the rating or review. It only appears to save the rating/review initially, then if I view another app in the store and go back to the previous one, the review isn't saved. If I close the App Store and reopen it, the rating/review disappears.

I can tell that I'm definitely logged in to the App Store as I can see all of my purchases and register new apps to my account.

How do I get the rating/review system to work properly?

Got a working solution after filing a support ticket.

Click "Write a review" to open the long-form review UI. Don't click on the stars at the top; if any number of them are already highlighted when you open the long-form review UI, click to the left of the first one (just like if you wanted to give the app an invisible 0 stars rating) to clear it.

Write the title and explanation on your review as normal, click Send, and you will be prompted to assign a number of stars. Now you can click the number of stars and save/send the review.


Can a bluetooth device open an app? Can a bluetooth device, like a panic button, launch an app when pressed and have the app call a pre-programmed number or does the app have to be running for it to be accessed by the device?

iOS apps are allowed to monitor for specific Bluetooth LE(Low Energy)/4.0 device services in the background.  But not regular (non-LE/4.x) Bluetooth devices.

However, iOS apps are not allowed to start a cellular phone call without specific user interaction (for obvious security reasons).


View and delete individual messages directly from POP server in OS X Mail There is/was a feature in OS X Mail that allowed to fetch the list of messages from the server in a configured POP account. This fetched only message headers - all at once - and displayed the list in a window then allowed to individually select messages and delete them directly from the server. Not all messages via the Preferences - Accounts - Advanced - Remove now option but individually.

I can't seem to find this option any more. Was this removed from Mail or just well hidden?

If accounts are inside a global Inbox, open the Inbox reveal arrow
Right Click the individual account Inbox > Get Account Info

Select the Messages on Server tab
Wait for it to load, then you can select & delete any/all messages on the server


Sophos AV always runs double instances of it's app. How do I just have 1 running? I run Sophos Anti-Virus on macOS Mojave and it always runs two instances of the app. It has 2 menu bar icons and it runs as 2 separate processes. When I attempt to quit or force quit either of the apps in Activity Monitor, it automatically just runs them again (I assume as a security measure).

Is there a way to just have 1 running?

Simple ... Uninstall Sophos.   Check with Sophos on how to uninstall.

Simple put,  Apple attempts to provide all the malware detection and removal you need in Mac OS X.

"Effective defenses against malware and other threats" by John Galt
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-8841

"Avoid phishing emails, fake 'virus' alerts, phony support calls, and other scams"
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204759

"MalwareBytes Anti-Malware for Mac Removes adware and malware Revives your Mac."  MalwareBytes has a more restrictive filter for adware than Apple. MalwareBytes has come to be accepted as the only malware detector you should consider.  For those pestered by browser attacks consider MalwareBytes.

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/


Embedding Web Snippets in Wiki Server and Security Settings I want to edit the embed security settings in Mountain Lion Server's Wiki Service because with the default settings you can't embed anything on pages, which makes it a lot less useful. We're in a school environment where embedding flash apps, video etc. is the norm - and Wiki Server will normally strip out these tags from web snippets for security reasons.

I seems that to do this you change:

/Library/Server/Wiki/Config/whitelist.plist

but I'm not sure how to change it to allow all types of embeds. I'm aware of the security risks but I trust my users on this Server to embed what they need to embed.

I found the Lion Server Advanced Admin Guide which mentioned changing the key  FiltersEnabled to False /etc/collabd/collabd.plist.
Once I figured that this plist has been moved to /Library/Server/Wiki/Config in Mountain Lion Server from /etc/collabd/ in Lion Server I changed the preference - and we can embed to our hearts' content.


How to determine which apps iTunes will copy from iOS, to stop a deleted app being resurrected? I don't sync my iPad often, but when I do I almost always get the following question from iTunes: ' iTunes has found purchased items on the iPad [or iPhone] "[device name]" that are not present in your iTunes library. Do you want to transfer these items... ', as in:

This creates a problem because I intentionally delete apps from iTunes that I no longer want. Then, if I answer "Transfer" to the question (as I often do since I'm worried about losing something else that I actually did buy on the iPad), then iTunes transfers the deleted-in-iTunes apps back into iTunes, doh!, even though those apps were not purchased recently on the iPad.  So:

Is there a way to find out which apps iTunes wants to sync before answering the question, so I can purge the unwanted ones from the iPad before sync and avoid the resurrection?
To fully delete an app without resurrecting it and without potentially losing anything else, must I delete it in iTunes and across all iOS devices it lives on or is there an easier way I'm missing?
If I check the "Do not ask me again" box, what does iTunes do the next time it encounters this issue:  (a) always Don't Transfer, (b) always Transfer, or (c) always what I answered the time I selected the checkbox?  Where might I see/change this option in iTunes, if I ever change my mind?

To answer your specific questions:

No, there is no way to find out which apps iTunes would like to sync over before answering the question. Technically I suppose you could look at your iTunes App Library and your iPad's installed apps, but that is not a very realistic option if you have more than a few apps.
As far as I've been able to tell, yes you must delete this app from all devices (iTunes and iOS devices) when you have app syncing enabled. Otherwise it will continue to copy back and forth as devices are plugged in.
Checking the "Do not ask me again" box will have iTunes always perform whichever option you selected the time you selected the checkbox. To reset any such settings, you can go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, and click the button that says "Reset all dialog warnings".

In general, given the problem you are having with app syncing, I recommend that you simply disable app syncing. There is no practical benefit for most users in having the apps saved to your computer. Your computer is incapable of playing the apps and generally your iOS device can remove and re-download the app directly from Apple as needed. I disabled my app syncing for the very same reason.


iCloud removes my third-party ePubs and PDFs from my iPad without permission — how do I stop this? I had to pawn my iPad for a bit, so I uploaded all of my third-party books to iCloud and of course, when I turned iCloud off, the material was removed from the device. Now that I have it back I naturally want to download my entire library to my device again. At first it let me download about half of my library, but when I tried to download any more, suddenly all of my books were pulled back onto the Cloud. I assumed it was a storage issue, and gave myself another gigabyte of space... NOW, not only did the problem continue but it’s actually gotten worse: iCloud periodically pulls back any book I try to download. It doesn’t even notify me, let alone asks permission — it just does it and the cloud symbol suddenly appears.

Is there some setting I got jacked up or what?

It sounds like you have "Automatically Manage Storage" turned on in the preferences. If the device is almost filled up, then iOS could be deleting iBooks that are available from your iCloud account from the device.

You can re-download them from iCloud when needed. Bookmarks, placemarks, etc. are also saved into iCloud.


What are the dangers of running Flash on Mac? I've heard a lot of articles say how bad Flash is, but what can it actually do? I've played browser games that use Flash in Chrome, and now Firefox. I know I have a real version of Flash, and I haven't ever noticed anything suspicious on my computer. What can Flash do just by being run? (My Flash is up to date, but I've been using it for years, so I've used different versions at different times).

Is there anything specific I should look for? (MacBook running latest version of Mojave)

While it's a bit dated, the below linked document may help address your question. This letter titled Thoughts on Flash was written by Steve Jobs in April 2010. While it was written to address why iOS doesn't support Adobe Flash, few points are also relevant for reliability, security and performance on macOS. I have quoted them below:

  Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now.

As stated by Apple, security and reliability concerns, and availability of open and standards compliant alternatives have propelled them to discourage use of Flash. Flash still continues to be available for macOS for those who need it.


AppleScript and Numbers: How do I add a row? This has to be simple: I want to use AppleScript to add a new row at the top of a Numbers sheet called WorkoutSheet in a table called WorkoutDB in a Numbers document call Workout.numbers. (Using Numbers 5.01 on macOS Sierra).

This AppleScript throws the error "Can’t get sheet "WorkoutSheet".

tell application "Numbers"
    activate
    open "/Users/username/Desktop/Workout.numbers"
    delay 2 --- added, but doesn't help
    tell table "WorkoutDB" of sheet "WorkoutSheet"
        add row above first row
    end tell
end tell

Edit: this works; the key was the use of of `document 1' in the tell block:

tell table "WorkoutDB" of sheet "WorkoutSheet" of document 1

And the delay 2 doesn't make a difference; Applescript waits for Numbers to launch and the document to open.

I also added the tell block

tell column "A"
set value of cell 1 to short date string of (current date)
end tell

to add the current date to the first colun of the new row.

tell application "Numbers"
    activate
    open "/Users/markr/Desktop/Workout.numbers"
    tell table "WorkoutDB" of sheet "WorkoutSheet" of document 1
        add row above first row
        tell column "A"
            set value of cell 1 to short date string of (current date)
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Instead of:

tell table "WorkoutDB" of sheet "WorkoutSheet"

Use:

tell table "WorkoutDB" of sheet "WorkoutSheet" of document 1

This way Numbers know which document to communicate with.


Wallpaper settings keep resetting? I added a folder with some wallpapers to the Desktop settings and also applied Change Picture every 30 mins. However, the folder randomly disappears and the wallpaper switches back to the Galaxy one for unknown reasons. I tried multiple settings and even without adding the folder (using the default folder but with rotation), but still get the same weird result after some time. I am not sure why this happens, but was wondering if there is a way to fix it ?

Any ideas ? I tried one of the answers but I still have the same problem ..

UPDATE

Okay I managed to find something new today !! I was working with multiple desktops and noticed that Desktop 2 still changes the backgrounds at set intervals! Is there a glitch with my first desktop or something ?

UPDATE 2

Apparently desktop 3 did not change wallpapers ... unless I change the settings. So why did desktop 2 decide to change its wallpapers without me changing its settings ? Could this be creating a conflict ?

Just open you Library folder by holding down the option key (alt) and select Library from the Go menu in Finder.
Navigate to the Preferences folder and delete com.apple.systempreferences.plist

Empty your trash then restart.  Then try adding the folder and changing your wallpaper again.  There's a stuck setting.

*Apple Certified Mac Technician


Is it safe to delete folder com.apple.appstore? I am running extremely low on disk space and trying to clean up my Mac. Disk Inventory X shows me having over 20gb of space in .pkg (installer package) files in
    /private/var/folders/pj/_(random)_/C/com.apple.appstore/*

I am wondering if these are safe to delete (they are in /private after all)? However I really don't want to give up 20 gigabytes to installer files.

Also, is there any built-in way to delete them (meaning through appstore menu or something, not via finder)?

That is the Download folder for App Store; where it saves apps as it downloads them.

It should be perfectly safe to delete them.

However, I have to say that it is a little strange that the files aren't being deleted automatically, either when you close App Store or when you restart - that is what I would expect. I haven't come across a case where they build up over time.


How to decrease .pdf size without losing quality Background

I want to decrease size of the .pdf filled with images.
In Preview in can be dome through Export and set Quartz Filter-> Reduce File Size before saving.

Problem

The file indeed decreased from ~30MB to 0.37MB.

But the result has such poor quality that images are barely readable.

Question

I saw an examples of using Image Magic to achieve that - but can it be done by Preview without any external software?

The problem is - the default filter used during conversion has very low conversion settings.

Thankfully, a custom filter can be added.

Adding custom filter step by step

Create new directory (if you don't have it) - /Library/Filters
Add there new filter file with unique filter - f.e. Reduce Size with good quality.qfilter
The file should contain XML with new filter - you can base on the /System/Library/Filters/Reduce File Size.qfilter file or use my below example. Change compression setting, image size and add unique display name for your filter.

Filter file structure/example

I marked key settings by comments.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Domains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Applications</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Printing</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
    <key>FilterData</key>
    <dict>
        <key>ColorSettings</key>
        <dict>
            <key>DocumentColorSettings</key>
            <dict>
                <key>CustomLHSCorrection</key>
                <array>
                    <integer>8</integer>
                    <integer>8</integer>
                    <integer>8</integer>
                </array>
            </dict>
            <key>ImageSettings</key>
            <dict>
                <key>Compression Quality</key>
    <!-- ====== Set your custom quality <0,1> ======= -->
                <real>0.75</real>
                <key>ImageCompression</key>
                <string>ImageJPEGCompress</string>
                <key>ImageScaleSettings</key>
                <dict>
                    <key>ImageScaleFactor</key>
    <!-- ====== Set your scale factor <0,1> ======= -->
                    <real>0.75</real>
                    <key>ImageScaleInterpolate</key>
                    <true/>
    <!-- ====== Set what sizes your images can reach ======= -->
                    <key>ImageSizeMax</key>
                    <integer>1684</integer>
                    <key>ImageSizeMin</key>
                    <integer>1200</integer>
                </dict>
            </dict>
        </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>FilterType</key>
    <integer>1</integer>
    <key>Name</key>
<!-- ====== Set unique display name for your filter ======= -->
    <string>Reduce Size Good Quality</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Result

Select your new filter when exporting file.

Helpful articles:

https://www.macworld.com/article/1168311/software/shrink-preview-files-without-ruining-image-quality.html


Command+S At Boot Doesn't Activate Single-User Mode 10.6.8. Hold down Cmd+S throughout the entire boot process. It always goes to the regular login screen and starts doing the "stop holding down buttons" chime. Why?

Figured it out. I'd changed my keyboard layout to Dvorak which apparently isn't honored at boot, defaulting to QWERTY. I pressed Cmd+O (where the S would've been) and it worked.


Using the iPad Pro with Apple digital AV Adapter and headphone jack adapter I am using the digital AV USB-C to connect my iPad to an external display via HDMI.
Now I want to connect external speakers via a headphone jack.
I plugged the AV adapter into the iPad, plugged HDMI into the adapter and plugged the headphone jack in the AV adapter using the USB-C headphone jack adapter from apple. (I used the USB-C Port of the AV adapter).

The iPad does not recognize the external speakers, and the audio is coming out of the iPad speakers. I cannot change this in the control center.

Is the AV Adapter capable of routing audio to its USB-C port?
Or am I missing something?

The USB-C port on the Digital AV Multiport adapter is for charging only. It doesn't carry any data at all - and therefore also not sound.


Can I use FaceTime video with an MacBook and email address only? I have a MacBook and set up FaceTime with an Apple ID, email only.

I can call from the MacBook FaceTime to another iPhone FaceTime user.

However, the iPhone FaceTime cannot make call the to MacBook's FaceTime, as the video icon is dimmed.

Is email-only FaceTime a/c not good for receiving video calls?

You need to add your email account in your Macbook's FaceTime app and then get it verified from the verification email that you will receive.


Sync iPad & Dumbphone Contacts via Bluetooth? My Mom's main computing device is now an iPad. It's been working great for several months, but I'm trying to do what I can to get her to make use of its full capabilities.

One of the things I wanted to do was help her organize her contacts. Right now she's just using a dumb phone, but it's got Bluetooth and I'd love to find a way to transfer contacts from her iPad to the phones address book. I'm pretty sure this is a no-go with the built-in iOS functionality, but are there any apps that can do this?

This is not likely to happen, as you need to mannualy accept a bluetooth data transfer, so it will not sync exactly, what you are doing is basicly sending a contact card to the phone.

Source - my Mom and her really dumbphone.


iPhone only forwarding a few, random, notifications to watch. Sometime around the upgrade to iOS 11 my phone (6s) stopped delivering some notifications to my watch. It seems random, not by app, just random. E.g. some email notifications appear on my watch, others don’t.

At first it was only the occasional one, but over time it’s been getting worse.  Now, I would estimate that only 25% of the notifications appear on the watch.

I have no idea how to even start to diagnose this. Has anyone seen this before?  Any ideas how to solve?

Thanks.

My first thought would be that it's a connection issue. Have you noticed any other symptoms that could also be explained by that possibility?

Also, you could go through the process of unpairing and then restoring your Apple Watch to see if that resolves the issue. See: How to unpair and restore the Apple Watch.

Another option is to call Apple Support. They can actually run diagnostics on your Apple Watch remotely (you will need to have your iPhone with you as well in order for them to do this). It doesn't take long to do and will help identify if there are any hardware issues.


Why do playlists I create in the iPod app disappear? Every playlist I have made in the iPod app has at some point vanished. What causes this and how do I make them persist?

When you create playlists on an iOS device, those playlists get added to your iTunes Library whenever you sync. Once this happens, the fact that they were created on the iOS device doesn't matter anymore as far as iTunes is concerned--they're just more playlists that need to be synced back and forth according to your sync settings for said device.

On iTunes, plug in and then select your device in the Devices section. Then, in the Music tab make sure that you have enabled the option to select individual playlists. As long as this option is enabled, you will be able to select and deselect individual playlists. Make sure any new playlists are selected there as well.

Another (less common) scenario is when your iOS device is running a much older version of iOS. Previous versions (back when it was still called iPhone OS) had the concept of "On The Go" playlists as it existed on the original iPod. If your device still has "On The Go" playlists, then the behavior is much different: Those playlists get added to your iTunes library as "On-the-go 1", "On-the-go 2", etc; on which case they may not be synced up if they're not re-selected on sync screen (Music tab) for your device. The original iPhone and iPod Touch still had "On The Go" playlists.

Those are the two scenarios I know of that would lead to playlists not being synced back. Could you elaborate on what your device type and iOS version is? That may help us troubleshoot your problem better. Hope this helps.


What determines the relevant version of OpenSSL in a given network connection? My own system is I think fully "up to date" as far as Apple security updates through the App Store, but the version of OpenSSL installed on my system is 0.9.8zg, a version that was current during the past year, but lost all security support as of Dec 31, 2015.

https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv/20160128.txt

I read elsewhere that, when one uses a VPN, and that VPN client comes bundled with a different, later version of OpenSSL (say, version 1.0.1r), that VPN client's version will supersede--that is, the more up-to-date version will mediate the negotiation with a network connection in a browser.

My two, related questions are:

(1) is this accurate? If so, it would seem that running a VPN with a current version of OpenSSL would nominally 'protect' the user better than a deprecated version installed on the OS, correct?

(2) If a user has no VPN, is the user then relying on the vulnerable version of OpenSSL in the OS alone for that layer of security? Or are later versions of OpenSSL somehow 'bundled' within specific applications--the browser, Skype, iTunes, etc.--just as it is 'bundled' with a VPN client?

Having done further research, I see the following appears to answer my questions:

OpenSSL is just one of many SSL/TLS implementations
OS X does not rely solely on OpenSSL (though the deprecated version of same is still installed with the OS), but rather its own implementation called "Secure Transport"
Depending on the application in use (Firefox, iTunes, Mail, etc.), either OpenSSL (firefox), Secure Transport (iTunes, Mail), or yet some other SSL/TLS implementation may be utilised for the secure handshake
Because the VPN adds just one 'layer' of security, independent of the security implemented by the application, the TLS implementation at the VPN layer in no way affects that used at the application layer (a useful analogy is the layered 'tubes' analogy provided here:
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/27891/how-do-a-vpns-route-ssl-traffic-and-do-they-compromise-security


Battery issue with MacBook Pro 13 inch (Early 2011) So, around June 2011 I finally had the chance to buy my first Macbook Pro (13 inches, i5)

But recently, I've noticed something wrong with my battery!

Actually with only 2 months of use, I was under Boot Camp doing random stuff when I saw something like "98% fully charged" (battery icon in the menu bar)and didn't pay attention to that until now.

Now, with around 40 cycles, my battery is showing 94/95% (5412-5450 mAh)

Any ideas? I think my battery is defective =/

The built-in battery of your MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air is designed to deliver up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles before it reaches 80 percent of its original capacity.
  Link.

Little differences in capacity are normal and are no indicator for a defect battery. Only contact Apple when your battery performes worse than the design capacity.


Will XCode break if I change AppleID? For the past year I have had my old appleid that I used with my own personal IOS developer portal account at Apple. Recently I joined a new company and want to get onto their developer program. When I joined the company, I received a new Mac and I used my old AppleID to install XCode. In other words, now my Mac only knows about my old AppledID.

Since I now want to join my new company's IOS developer account at Apple, I have two choices: either continue to use my old AppleID (still associated with my personal IOS dev acctount) or create a new AppleID (using my new work email).

If I use my old AppleID, how does Apple know which dev account I want when I log in? Will this cause problems?

Or if I create and use a new AppleID, will XCode stop working for me (since it was downloaded using the old AppleID)? What would I have to do to fix the problem? Which route is easier?

You can log in to iTunes with multiple Apple ID accounts. In my case I have a personal account and a work account with dev access.

Once the xcode (or any app) is installed it doesn't case who's Apple ID is logged in, however you may have to do some bouncing between accounts if you have installed apps from both accounts and you need to update them. other then that two accounts works fine.


How can I boot my MBP into normal mode despite shift key being broken (and on)? I recently went to the Apple store with my laptop because it would only boot into safe mode and would not accept my password. While there, they said some liquid ruined something in the inside of my laptop. They said that the shift key was internally broken and will cost up to $700 to fix. Now, in order to use my laptop, I need to use an external USB keyboard.

But, whenever I turn my laptop on, it boots into Safe mode. Is there a way to disable it? I have tried holding down Esc and C and space but nothing has worked for me. Does anyone have anysuggestions?

Did you try holding the option key through the power-on?  On my MacBook Pro, the combination of option + shift seems to boot normally; while, just shift goes to safe mode as expected.


How can I copy a playlist from my iPod to iTunes? I have some playlists which exist on my iPod only; I lost them in iTunes the last time I did a backup.  How can I get these (non-smart) playlists out of the iPod, and restore them to iTunes?

I have a 2nd gen iPod Nano, which I connect via USB to iTunes (v10.6.0.40) on a Windows 7 PC.

There are several applications for doing this:
Yamipod
Yamipod is a freeware application that works on Windows, OS X, and Linux. It has a simple interface and looks very easy to use. There is a document on how to transfer songs from your iPod to your computer here. It is also an iPod manager and an alternative to using iTunes.

Transferpod

Transferpod is avaiable for both Windows and OS X. However, it is not free. It supports the iPod shuffle, the iPod mini, the iPod nano, the iPod classic, the iPod with video, the iPod touch, and the iPhone.
Key features:

iPod to computer transfer
Manage iPod playlists in an easy way
Organize entire iPod music/video for your convenience
Browse iPod file information in detail
Quick search your music and video file on iPod

iPod2iTunes
iPod2iTunes is for Windows. It also is not free.

Features include:

Connect multiple iPods.
Drag and Drop Songs, Playlists or Video   back to iTunes.
Move entire genres, albums and artists.
Keeps your playlists intact.
Enhanced searching and grouping of songs.
Find duplicate songs within iTunes and remove them quickly.
Optimizes iPod storage space.
Supports Virtual iPods.
Support for the latest 6th generation iPods.   (excluding iPod
Touch/iPhone)


Prioritise spotlight search results in El Capitan It seems this feature has been scrapped for el capitan. I'm a designer so I want all images to appear at the top of the search results. Anyone worked out a hack for this?

In System Settings > Spotlight > Search Results, disable as many items as you can.


Easy way to copy paste file paths on Macs I am working on some long procedures that will need to reference a lot of file paths of documents located locally and on various external drives and servers. In all cases we are using Apple Macs with either El Capitan or Sierra installed.

My problem - it is taking me a long time to manually type and double-check the file paths are correct.

Preferred solution - I would love it if there was just a way to copy and paste the file paths into these procedures.

I did try using the Get Info option, but couldn’t see a file path listed anywhere that I could copy and paste.

I also read this question: Get components (path and filename) of POSIX filepath and did have a go of using the script. This was promising, but it doesn’t quite do what I need.

Is there an easy way for me to just copy and paste file paths as I need them?

For example, if I have an image called “Serial Number.jpg” located on an external drive called Server1 the file path would be: /Volumes/Server1/Serial Number.jpg.

I think this is an option that will do exactly what you want. Using your Serial Number.jpg example, do as follows:

In the Finder browse to the image called “Serial Number.jpg” located on Server1
Right-click on the file to display the context menu
Now press and hold the option key down
Select the Copy “Serial Number.jpg” as Pathname option
Now go to the procedure you’re editing and paste the pathname you just copied

This should result in your document having the /Volumes/Server1/Serial Number.jpg path pasted into it.

Just use the same steps for any file, regardless of whether it’s stored locally, on an external drive, or on a server. This also works to get the file path of folders.

Keyboard shortcut

Thanks to Mateusz Szlosek for pointing out you can also use a keyboard shortcut. Instead of Steps 2 to 4 above, once you've selected the file you can use the option+command+C shortcut to copy the file path. Then you can paste it as usual.

Windows etc files

There are custom built utilities to format shares for other operating systems and sub/afp as well:

PathSnagger 2 works very well for this


What folders can be safely excluded from Time Machine backup? I want to know list of folders that can be safely excluded from Time Machine backups while ensuring that full restore can get me a same machine running immediately.

The reason why I want to do this is because Time Machine will backup all the files no matter what it contains. So far, I’ve excluded these paths from my backup:

~/Library/Caches
~/Library/Logs
~/Downloads

Caches and Logs don’t need to be backed up because they’re generated when needed. I’m also excluding ~/Downloads folder because those files are usually stored temporarily.

Is there any more folders that I can exclude? What is your Time Machine’s exclusion rules?

The simple answer is to exclude any files that you create or download that you won't need for a restore (this includes files that you're able to re-download or restore/rebuild from another source if necessary).

Time Machine does not actually backup everything. On the contrary, by default it is configured intelligently to exclude folders like ~/Library/Caches, ~/Library/Logs and many others that are temporary in nature, can be rebuilt from available data and are not required during a system restore. Adding these folders to your exclusion list is not necessary and is redundant.

The default list of files and folders that Time Machine excludes from its backup is listed in /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist. You can verify that the caches and logs folders are in this exclusion list.

For more information, see:

What should I exclude, and what should I not exclude?.
How can I find exactly what files are included in my last Time Machine backup?
On OS X, what files are excluded by rule from a Time Machine backup?

Personally, I exclude two kinds of folders:

Folders that contain temporarily used files that I can get from another source if I need them.
Folders containing large files that may change frequently. For example, large media files that I may add and delete often are excluded from Time Machine because they would fill up the backup disk very quickly. Those are, however, covered in a full disk clone (that I manage with a limited backup of older files).


Cannot delete or merge old boot camp partition in El Capitan So i've battled with this for quite some time, look up various topics with various solutions, however i have yet to succeed with merging my partitions into one. I had previously installed windows 10 on it, but after i partitioned for a mutual accessible drive (for dropbox), windows stalled and i had to reformat it, resulting in a sort of "locked" partition.

If i click on "Partition" in Disk Utility, there are two major partitions, where neither of them have the "-" option available(greyed out). I have tried to partition DeleteThis into both ExFat, Fat and Journaled OS X, with no difference.

diskutil list reveals this:

and gpt -r show -l /dev/disk0 shows this:

I've also tried to reboot into recovery mode and use the Disk Utility there, with no different result than from normal.

EDIT: I have of course also tried using Boot Camp Assistant, but it just says "The start disk cannot be partitioned or restored as a single partition".

The answer is so simple. Forget terminals and internet recovery. Here's what you gotta do:

Format the BOOTCAMP-partition through disk utility to MS-DOS (FAT)
Press cmd + space and write bootcamp-assistant, open bootcamp
Erase windows and merge the partitions as one mac HD-partition.


Cannot access a specific remote IP address on Mac Os X 10.7.5 I cannot reach a certain remote IP address from my Mac. Pinging it gives "Request timeout" and after 4 or 5 pings "No route to host" and "Host is down".
The weird fact is that other Macs on my same local network can access it without problems.
I don't have any firewall active, nor Little Snitch or similar, nor proxies, nor /etc/hosts tricks (which deal only with host name resolutions, anyway, but I have to reach the IPv4 address).
I have a 2011 13" MacBook Air with OS X 10.7.5.
Can you point me to some other obscure network settings or blocking lists that may be active on Mac Os X or maybe some software that may interfere with network settings?
Thank you.

The problem lies on the LogMeIn Hamachi network which, on IPv4, tries to get all the 5.0.0.0/8 netblock even if there are classes opf public IP addresses in there.
Solved by setting LogMeIn to use IPv6 only.

See:

http://community.logmein.com/t5/Hamachi/Hamachi-and-the-5-0-0-0-8-netblock/td-p/55826

and

http://community.logmein.com/t5/Hamachi/5-x-x-x-Address-Range/td-p/83996


Wipe the SSD of a barely-booting MacBook Air I have a Macbook Air (mid 2011) that had a RAM problem.

Sometimes it turns on, and while still booting macOS it would crash and hang forever due to bad RAM.

I want to sell the machine for parts, but I am worried about my data getting in bad hands.

I have a backup of every data stored in it but the disk isn't encrypted and it didn't had a login password.

I have it registered with iCloud but It seems that the remote wipe option wasn't set.

I NEED a way to do a wipe of the contents stored on the SSD, is there a way I can do that without opening the machine?

There is a sequence of characters that will wipe the machine while booting? or maybe a Linux USB drive that does that? The machine is sometimes up for 5 seconds or so until it freezes and turns itself off.

You could try to hold down Command + R as soon as you start up your MacBook. This will get you into recovery mode. From there you can start the Disk Utility and format your disk.


What is wrong with this drive? I've tried to create this partition and use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy over everything from one Mac. However, it shows this error on another Mac when I launch Disk Utility and try to repair it:

In technical terms it is "messed up too much" for disk utility to handle. You now have two choices. Do as it suggests, back up and reformat or use a third party disk utility that might fix the issue.

I'd do the latter but then I always have an up to date copy of diskwarrior already on hand. There are other disk repair utilities, that one is my personal favorite YMMV.


Embed Keynote presentation on website Is there any way to get a Keynote presentation up on the web somewhere? There are things like SlideShare, but they seem to only work with PowerPoint.

I see that Keynote provides a variety of export options, but each one is problematic in one way or another:

PowerPoint: things get cropped weird, transitions are awful
HTML: weird DHTML format that only seems to work in Safari
PDF: not really a presentation
Quicktime: umm... no

My presentation has a lot of precise formatting and transitions (nothing too over the top, but things do move around) that I'd like to preserve. Also presenter's notes would be nice.

Is there anything out there that I can use?

My answer is No. I have been looking for weeks. I have tried many programs, read many articles, and even called apple. Apple said, "We do not make our software with web development in mind."


Translate an app on the fly I want to use apps that are in Mandarin Chinese but I can’t speak that language. Are there any app translation apps? I’m picturing an app that translates text shown by another app on the fly. At present I’m limited to copying/pasting or taking a screenshot and passing that through a translation app. Are there any slicker solutions available now or foreseeable?

Right now no automatic solution exists. Also, I don't see any new solutions coming up in the short term.

This is mainly due to the fact that Apple does not allow apps to take screenshots of other apps running on your device. Therefore it is hard to get the information into the translation app. With the newest iOS versions it is possible for an app to record the screen of the iOS device as a video - given that the user has to enable it each time, and has to permit it. Video does not provide a good input source for this use case, as screenshots are much easier to process for OCR and automatic translation.

So unless Apple provides their own solution for this, it does seem that a slick solution is still some time away. However, it is always hard to predict - especially about the future.


How to restore Mac without deleting files I must have run an "rm -rf *" command in my root file system (noob mistake I know) as all my files and apps on my mac were deleted, but the computer was still functioning. I've continued working on the mac, and noticed there is no /System/ folder, so I'm thinking maybe I deleted the system folder. Is there a way to restore the file system but keep the apps and files I'm working with?

You can boot into macOS Recovery by pressing Cmd-R at startup, from there you can reinstall macOS. This should leave your files intact, it's nevertheless not a bad idea to do a backkup first.

Apple has described the procedure in detail in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314 and https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204904.


Deleted the files in /private/etc/apache2/other/ I deleted files in /private/etc/apache2/other/ by mistake.  Then I tried to copy files from /private/etc/apache2/original/extra to /private/etc/apache2/other/ to recover my httpd, but it failed.

Now I get the error message from apache:

  "You don't have permission to access the requested directory. There is
  either no index document or the directory is read-protected. You don't
  have permission to access the requested object. It is either
  read-protected or not readable by the server."

So, there are two questions:

Can anyone can tell me what files in the "other" folder. How to produce these files.
How can I fix the 403 error without reproduce the files in "other" folder.

The file that is in your /private/etc/apache2/other directory is your php5.conf file.

What's in your /private/etc/apache2/original/extra directory are sample httpd conf files to configure your apache server.

I have made my untouched php5.conf file available for download.  Since I don't use the AMP stack on my Mac for any dev work, it should be the same one that gets installed with macOS.  It won't have any of the modifications/customizations yours had, if you made any.

Copy that file to the 'other' directory.  Make sure you se the correct owner and  permissions:

sudo chmod 444 /private/etc/apache2/other/php5.conf
sudo chown root:wheel /private/etc/apache2/other/php5.conf


Finder doesn't show thumbnails for Alias in OS 10.14.2 Since upgrading to 10.14.2, the Finder doesn't make thumbnails for aliases of jpeg image files, instead, it only displays the generic JPEG icon.
Is this a new bug, or is there a hidden setting somewhere that would correct this?

From this Apple discussion:

How the Alias-icon will look, depends on what you see in the "Get
Info" panel of the original file,
see the above example:
If the "GetInfo" icon of the original file shows the custom icon, the
alias icon also will. If the "GetInfo" icon of the original file only
shows a generic icon, the alias icon also only will show the generic
icon.
To recreate the proper custom icon for an image, open the image in
Preview or any other image browser, select all of the image (or any
rectangular selection) with cmd-A, and copy the selection to the
clipboard. Then paste the clipboard contents into the icon well of the
image's "Get Info" panel. After that also the aliases should show your
proper custom icons.


Google DNS doesn't work I have trouble using Google DNS under my 2017 MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave.. I want to point in advance that:

I don't have access to the router settings.
I'm using kind of host network that my landlord provided to me. I would like to avoid to contact him.

I can ping the DNS server I want to use:

$ ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from
8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=120 time=11.034 ms

I can resolve names without Google DNS:

$ nslookup www.apple.com
Server:     192.168.179.1
Address:    192.168.179.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.apple.com   canonical name = www.apple.com.edgekey.net.
www.apple.com.edgekey.net   canonical name = www.apple.com.edgekey.net.globalredir.akadns.net.
www.apple.com.edgekey.net.globalredir.akadns.net    canonical name = e6858.dsce9.akamaiedge.net.
Name:   e6858.dsce9.akamaiedge.net
Address: 184.25.247.151

I cannot resolve names with Google DNS:

$ nslookup www.apple.com 8.8.8.8
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

Setting up the DNS addresses in a new location does not help.

Yes, you can make a network setting and override the dns on each Mac easily given that the dns isn’t blocked on the network and is just not chosen / advertised.

Google has steps - scroll down to macOS section: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using

I also encourage you to try cloudflare dns. Setup is just as easy and the config app and setup screens are easier for me to recommend, and you could sub the google values as you please if this setup guide is simpler:

https://1.1.1.1/dns/


Transferring app account ownership Is it possible to transfer an app from one app store account to another? I want to be able to update some apps that my father bought on his account that are currently on my iPhone, but I'm pretty sure that I'd have to transfer those apps to my account first. Do I need to transfer the apps to be able to update them? If so, how would I do that?

Edits

From looking at this question, I guess that the only option that I have is to transfer app account ownership to my account in order to update those apps.

Like it's stated in the linked question, this isn't possible... As a matter of fact, a lot of users are suffering from this issue and some of them even have contacted Apple about it and here is what Apple said:

  ... they told me to reset my password so that both userids have the same
  password. When you get notification that an app is to be upgraded, you
  will get a prompt to enter your password. The prompt will indicate
  which userid you bought the app under. I have not had to logon to
  either id's to see which apps are updated. But you do have to log off
  and logon in iTunes to see the apps you purchased under that specific
  userid.

I have multiple accounts myself (one for the US App Store and one for my own country) and I switch accounts in the Settings < Store menu in order to get to donwload/update apps from the different stores.
In my opinion, that's the only way to get/update apps bought with different accounts.


How can I write-protect (make read-only) a USB drive in OS X? I have a USB drive with some archive data on it that I'd like to access from a Mac running Snow Leopard. However, I want to ensure that the data on the drive is preserved and no modifications are made to the drive. The drive is FAT32 formatted and does not have a write-protect switch on it. How can I make the drive read-only or otherwise write-protect it by the OS so that I can ensure nothing is modified on the drive?

Option 1: Mount drive read-only

You can mount the USB drive read-only by using Diskutil.

First, insert/mount the drive once, run diskutil list from Terminal.app and take note of the device representing the drive (should be something like /dev/diskN with N being any number).
Eject the disk by running diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN replacing N by the number noted in the first step
Mount the disk read-only by running diskutil mountDisk readOnly /dev/diskN

This of course requires that you actively run these commands every time you want to use the archive stick. For an automated solution, have a look at MarcoPolo or write a launchd command (see e.g. here for inspiration).

Option 2: Use access control on the drive

Does the drive really need to be formatted in FAT32 or do you only access it from a Mac OSX system anyway? In the later case, you can save the drive content on another drive, reformat it as a Mac OSX drive, move/copy the content back and take away any write rights from anybody.


Safari drag drop download On previous versions of OS X I used to be able to go to a file in Safari, click and drag on the favicon and take it over to my downloads window, which would then download that file.

So for instance if i was listening to this file and wanted to download it in Lion. All I had to do was drag the icon in the address bar over to the download window.

Now I can't do that anymore. In fact I have no idea how to download that file except to make a webpage with the a href and then right click the link.

Actually, in Safari 6.x when the location bar has focus, ⌘+S brings up the export dialog to save the current page as an archive.

That's not what you want, however.

You want to download some component from a site like an mp3 or a Java jar that you know the path to, but there's no exposed link.

⌥+↩ (option-return) to the rescue. Edit the URL in the location bar and press ⌥+↩. It will magically transfer over to the download view, just like you used to be able to drag it.


How do I install Windows 10 on an external drive? I'd like to use an external USB3 drive for Windows 10, but I don't know how to install it. Booting the Windows installer errors out saying that it can't be installed on an external device.

You'll need to install Windows in a virtual machine and then copy the virtual disk to the target disk. The free trial of Parallels Desktop worked for me.

Once you get your Windows installed in the virtual machine, go into Parallels' settings and shrink the virtual disk as much as possible (I shrunk mine to 32GB but you could probably go with even less). Once that's done attach a bootable Linux ISO (Ubuntu) or something like CloneZilla to the VM and boot the VM from it that instead of Windows.

Once the VM is booted, pass-through your target USB drive to the VM, and then clone the (virtual) Windows disk to the external drive from within the VM. On an Ubuntu 17.04, I used the following terminal commands to do it:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

/dev/sda being the virtual Windows disk, /dev/sdb being the target drive attached to the VM.

Once that's done you can power down the VM, then reboot your Mac and hold the Option/Alt key while rebooting until you see a boot menu asking which device you want to boot from. Select "EFI boot" and Windows should be loading from the target drive.

Once you are in Windows it's a good idea to check for updates, check your privacy settings to make sure everything is correct and most of the privacy-invading stuff is disabled, and use Disk Management to enlarge your disk partition to take the entire space of the target drive (a bit by bit copy of the virtual disk means the partition on the target drive is just as small despite the drive being larger).

Finally you might want to install the Boot Camp drivers to make sure all hardware is recognized by Windows. To do so reboot back in macOS and run the Boot Camp assistant to create a Windows bootable USB from your ISO image. We don't actually care about the Windows part anymore since it's now installed, but the assistant will also put drivers on that USB and this is what we want. Once that's finished reboot back onto your target drive, then insert the Boot Camp USB and you should see a "Boot Camp" folder there, with a "setup.exe" inside. Run that and you should be good to go.


Xcode 4.6.1 install hangs at "Installing - less than one minute" on Lion I have been trying to update to Xcode 4.6.1 (from 4.6) on OS X 10.7.5.  The install gets most of the way through, then hangs out at "Installing - less than one minute" indefinitely.  Based on old threads about similar problems I've ensured iTunes and iTunesHelper are both not running.  I've restarted and tried again.  What else can I try or look into?

...

and I wonder if this has anything to do with it?

The problem in this case appears to be that the developer site was down.  Once it came up, install proceeded without problem.


How to select the text in the address bar while browsing Google search results in Safari I don't know why Safari 7 doesn't allow me to select the text in the address bar in one step while browsing google search results.

In other sites I just have to click once on the address bar and that's it, the whole text is selected.

Google search results instead makes Safari to put the caret in the address bar but won't select the text, also double-clicking (or clicking N times) won't select the text either, what I have to do is click once, wait and triple-click to select the whole text.


What's peculiar about F21-F24 keys on MacOS? I observed some questions on the Internet concerning this.

F20-F24 keys do not respond, but are mapped
https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/f-keys-f13-to-f24/8953
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1090226

Karabiner-Elements can map from F1~F24, but can only map to F1~F20
And you can tell the OS is aware of there keys from this reply: https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/f-keys-f13-to-f24/8953/7
So what's peculiar about F21~F24 on MacOS?

If this post at the Hammerspoon GitHub site is right:

then macOS does not handle F21~F24 (0x70~0x73) at all.
And it makes sense for Karabiner to not deliver any of these keys to the OS because of that.


Submitting a podcast to Apple results in "Can't read your feed" I have a podcast that works in iTunes, but when I submit it to the iTunes store via podcastsconnect.apple.com, I receive "Validation failed" together with "Can't read your feed". It works when I open it directly in iTunes, and it appears to be a valid feed. Is there anything else I could try?

It turns out the iTunes Store doesn't support certificates from Let's Encrypt, after discussion with Apple Support.


How to stop iPhone from making a specific autocorrection? My iPhone almost always replaces the word make (lower-case) with the word Male (yes, with a capital M). I don't get auto-correct suggestion in a bubble. The change happens automatically immediately after I press the Space key after typing make.

I think this has been going on about 3-4 months. I’m wondering if I’m losing my mind. Almost every time I type the word make (including just there; I am typing this on my phone) it just magically changes to Male, and I have to select the word and manually retype it.

I‘ve checked in Settings app → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement, and there’s no such replacement defined.

So it seems my iPhone has just learned to do this, but I can’t think of any time I would have made this substitution myself.

Question: How can I fix this (without globally disabling auto-correction)?

Bonus points for curiosity: Why has my iPhone started doing this? I can’t see how it could learn to replace a very common word with a much less common word (with nonstandard capitalisation, at that). Seems like some kind of broken machine learning algorithm stuck in a weird self-affirming loop. But if so, why would this bug only manifest in a single persistent unwanted substitution? (My iPhone does seem to have reluctantly accepted that I rarely meant to type ducking, so clearly it can learn.)

If iOS is persistent in making this correction, make a text replacement:

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-text-replacements-iph6d01d862/ios

Put the correct text as both the replacement and the shortcut.


Is there a way to automatically add a tag to a song once its added to a smart playlist in itunes? I have a playlist folder called Stars. Inside it I have 5 smart playlists. one playlist for each star rating. 1 star, 2 stars...etc. is there a way for itunes to automatically write a '1' in the grouping tag when i rate a track with one star? thanks!

Short answer: No.

Long answer, still no, but there are workaround. You cannot have the label added in the grouping tag as soon as you rate the track. However, you can write a small Apple-Script that you would setup to run everyday (or every hour, or anything else) that would scan your iTunes library and write the tag to the tracks, depending on their rating.


quick search using quick silver? just got my first mac os computer.

installed quick silver. (I rely heavily on launchy in windows)

so, the cool feature i was able to achieve on windows using launchy, is that after saving "quick search" i can search any site before even opening the browser.

i.e.

alt+space "g (tab) mac forum"

this will open my browser with search results for "mac forum"

this is because i saved google quick search under "g" but it will also work with any other search i.e. "a" for amazon "wp" for wikipedia etc..

how can i recreate this in mac os?

This is easy and commonly done in Quicksilver.

Make sure you have the newest Web Search plug-in from qsapp.com.

There are some predefined searches you can use, or you can add your own. Look around page 90 of the manual. You might also want to see this post.


Cannot open or update iPhoto I bought a used Macbook Pro running macOS Sierra.
It came after the previous owners reset it and installed the iLife pack (iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand). I couldn't use those apps since it came with Mac OS X 10.9, and those apps versions were to low to use on macOS Sierra.

I had a problem updating GarageBand and iMovie, but I managed to do that after uninstalling those and re-installing them from the Mac App Store. The problem is with iPhoto. I can't open it or uninstall it. I only see this in the Launchpad:

When I click it I get a message saying that I need to update it, but I can't because according to the Mac App Store, it is not available on my local App Store.

What can I do in order to install it?

As you know, since the previous owners installed a version of the iLife pack you couldn't run on macOS Sierra, you've had to update the individual apps to their current versions.

Where you've fallen down a little, is that while you could install current versions of GarageBand and iMovie, there is no current version of iPhoto as it was superseded by the launch of the Photos app. More specifically, iPhoto was discontinued in April 2015 and has not appeared on the Mac App Store since.

Instead, what you need to do is use the Photos app. This should be on your MacBook Pro as it would've been installed as part of macOS Sierra. By default it should be on your Dock, but if it isn't you should be able to find it within your Applications folder.

If you have an old iPhoto library, Photos can convert it to a Photos photo library.

For more information, refer to Photos Help.


Which iPod has the best sound quality? I'd like to know if an iPod classic is a better investment than an iPod touch? I am really more into music than apps and games. If you have some other suggestions about great-sounding mp3 players I'd like to hear it.

The 5th generation and earlier have the best sound because they use the Wolfson chips. (see this article for more info)


How to change network connection order? I have multiple network access in the same area.

How can I reorder the priority to which the connections are made ?

Go to your System Preferences → Network.

Alternatively, you could click the WiFi icon in the menu bar, then choose Open Network Preferences.

In the preference pane, you can make your Mac prefer Ethernet connections over WiFi, for example, or the other way around.

If you click the “settings” symbol next to the + and - buttons, you’ll be able to select “Set Service Order”:

If you continue to WiFi → Advanced you can set the order of WiFi networks specifically by dragging them around:


Caveats and which upgrade path from Mountain Lion My 2010 i7 iMac running off an internal SSD is currently on OS X 10.8.5. I need to upgrade it to at least 10.9 to use a certain software package because they stuck fixes for a 10.8 compatible version in with a feature that necessitated a higher OS version!

My question is this:

I have a simple choice between 10.9.5 and 10.10.2 are there an major issues/gotchas with either of these versions that I should take into consideration? Privacy? Network issues? Compatibility issues?

The trouble with all the searches I have done so far is that they mainly turn up puff-piece reviews by kool-aid drinkers that evangelise any and every upgrade and cloud integration whereas I want the warts and all info.

I have noticed the Spotlight sends queries to Apple and Bing which can be switched off.
The continuity/handoff stuff isn't applicable as the iMac is pre-BT4.0.

Is there anything privacy invading or regime/doctrine changing between Mavericks and Yosemite that may lead me to choose the former over the latter rather than just use the latest?

I am in the process of testing with each but, as you can guess, that is a highly involved and long-winded process that will likely leave some stone or other unturned.

So, I have performed my testing and taken the leap of faith albeit with a disk image to roll back to. I performed the update by way of a fresh install and data restore from Time Machine.

iMovie 10.0 is somewhat problematic. It offers the ability to read in my XAVC files but simply refuses to convert my iMovie v9 events. It'll do a handful then leave the others without mention of why. This seems a common issue. I have opted instead to use Media Converter - a free application - with a preset (Re-wrap AVCHD for Quicktime - uncompressed Audio) to enable iMovie v9 to utilise the files. I also do not like the way the new iMovie utilises an iPhoto-esque hide inside way of dealing with movies. That it doesn't convert existing events just ices the cake. My preference is for how iMovie v9, Lightroom etc work.

With regards other software I have had to switch from Zevo (no longer maintained) to Open ZFS. The latter doesn't auto-mount the drives but the switch is a blessing in disguise. It is actively maintained and utilised less CPU for the same work.
Parallels is fine as long as you've updated to the latest version. MS Office is all good. The iLife and iWork suites update but leave behind the previous versions which is a nice touch. I am yet to find any issues. I am not a major user of iCloud other than appointments/reminders which is all good.

Please feel free to tag onto this posting with notes of issues you have found. iMovie is my only item of note.


iTunes iPhone Update Error Code 45 I'm trying to update my iPhone 5S to iOS 10.1.1 (current: iOS 9.3.2). I downloaded the ipsw through iTunes and tried updating my iPhone.
However, I am getting error code 45 after iTunes says "extracting software".
My iTunes is up-to-date, and so is my Mac. I did check Apple's error code page but 45 isn't listed there.

Any idea what I could do w/o restoring my iPhone? (I forgot to back it up before updating)

Take a look at The iPhone Wiki's website where it states that Error 45 is:

  Same with Error 6, in terms of resizing partition issue. But this may occur at the very beginning of restore process.

Whereas on Error 6 they write:

  Not enter the downgrading mode, change USB port (the back one of chassis is better) and restart computer.
  Unable to resize partition due to full storage problem at final stage of updating firmware. The error may be bypassed (restart and do exit recovery) but you probably need to re-update it one more time.


Applescript : String to Date I'm extracting different date formats from a web page.

E.g. Sunday 10 September 2017 / 09/10/2017 /  September 10th, 2017.

  in the example the date is the same, but in live, the dates are
  completely random and different. This could be  01/2/1985 /  November
  10th, 2005

The first one doesn't matter too much as this is the current date, which I'm generating myself and I can change it:

tell (current date)
    set strMonth to (its month as integer)
    set strDay to (its day as integer)
    set stryear to (its year as integer)
end tell

set myOwnDate to strMonth & "/" & strDay & "/" & stryear as string

The format I want is integer day/month/year so 10/09/2017.

Can I change the two other strings (09/10/2017 /  September 10th, 2017) to this format?

You can use the NSDataDetector (a cocoa method) for parsing date from a string.

Here's the script (tested on macOS Sierra):

Warning: on a string which contains "digit/digit/year", the script does not work with a string in the  "day/month/year" format, the string must be in the  "month/day/year" format

use framework "Foundation"
use scripting additions

(* this script works on these formats:
"Sunday 10th September 2017", "Sunday 10 September 2017", "Sunday 10 September 17", "September 10th, 2017", "September 10th 2017", "September 10 2017"
 "10th September 2017", "10 September 2017", "10 Sep 17"
 also work with the abbreviation ( e.g. Sep instead of September and Sun instead of Sunday)
 also work with the localized name of (the month and the day)

"09/10/2017", "09.10.2017", "09-10-2017" : month_day_year only,  or "2016/05/22", "2016-05-22", "2016.05.22" : year_month_day only
( month and days could be one or two digits)
*)

set myString to "Nov 5th, 2005"
set dateString to my stringToDate(myString) --> "05/11/2005"

on stringToDate(thisString) --
    tell current application
        -- **  finds all the matches for a date, the result is a NSArray **
        set m to its ((NSDataDetector's dataDetectorWithTypes:(its NSTextCheckingTypeDate) |error|:(missing value))'s matchesInString:thisString options:0 range:{0, length of thisString})
        if (count m) > 0 then
            set d to (item 1 of m)'s |date|() -- get the NSDate of the first item
            set df to its NSDateFormatter's new() -- create a NSDateFormatter
            df's setDateFormat:"dd/MM/yyyy" -- a specified output format: "day/month/year" (day and month = two digits, year = 4 digits)
            return (df's stringFromDate:d) as text
        end if
    end tell
    return "" -- no match in this string
end stringToDate


Can't empty trash on Mac Recently every time I try to delete files, my OS asks me to type in a password.  After I type in password, the files are deleted from the folder, but it doesn't free up space and the files don't show up in the trash, so I can't empty the trash.  I've tried troubleshooting different ways from searching on Google and Apple forums:

I don't have Time Machine enabled.
I have OS X 10.7.5.
I've deleted over 100 GB of files, but I still only have 7 GB.
I've tried typing in Terminal:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

I've tried typing in Terminal:

resetpassword

I've tried typing in Terminal:

sudo rm -r /.cleverfiles

Any other suggestions will be much appreciated.

I have faced similar problem on one of the Macs in my office.

I couldn't solve it directly, so I chose to delete the account, by backing up of all the important folders/files into another partition. Alternatively, you may move it out of the home folder to another folder (e.g. /Users/Shared/) temporarily. I deleted the user account and created a new one, which will solve problems with permissions, clear hidden data in the account and/or configuration problems like you are currently experiencing.


Hardware requirements for HomeKit compatibility? I bought some wifi enabled color changing "smart" lights that work with the Google Home app and Amazon Alexa but not with Apple HomeKit. As someone who's heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem, this came as a disappointment and it made me wonder if it's possible for manufacturers to make their devices compatible simply by pushing a firmware update or if there are specific hardware requirements that have to be met.

Manufacturers can add HomeKit support through post-purchase updates but not many have as there are licensing and customer support costs associated with integrating with another smart home ecosystem.
You should look into HomeBridge. It’s a service that runs on a home server (iMac or Mac mini work great) and “bridges” the gap between non-HomeKit devices and HomeKit. For example, I have it setup and am able to control my Nest thermostat (temp and fan) from the Home app.


zsh array from variable does not work I using macos 10.14.2 (18C54) with zsh (latest version I couldn't find any versioning with zsh). If I create an array from a string it works. But If i use a variable containing the string split does not work. Is this expected behavior or something wrong with my environment? What is the correct way to do this if I am doing it wrong?

~ arr=(foo bar)
~ echo $arr[1]
foo
~ val='foo bar'
~ arr=($val)
~ echo $arr[1]
foo bar

I suppose if you wanted to do this in zsh, you would do the following.

~ arr=(foo bar)
~ echo $arr[1]
foo
~ val='foo bar'
~ eval "arr=($val)"
~ echo $arr[1]
foo

When you entered arr=($val), zsh interpreted this to mean arr=("foo bar") even though you did not explicitly put a pair of " around $val. When I entered eval "arr=($val)", zsh interpreted this to mean arr=(foo bar). Using eval can be confusing. When in doubt, you can use the following experiment.

Say you want to know what eval sees and therefore what really will be executed. Start with the statement shown below. Here, I assume you have already entered val='foo bar'.

eval "arr=($val)"

Now replace eval with echo as shown below.

echo "arr=($val)"

Entering the above command produces the following result.

arr=(foo bar)

This what zsh will actually be executing.


Buying music for iphone I usually don't buy content from Apple. I bought some iBooks, only to later find out that these can't be opened on other platforms.

Now, I want to buy some music, and I wonder where I should buy it from. I may buy from iTunes, if it allows me to transfer and play songs on other platforms at a future date.

I usually just buy content from Amazon, at least with Kindle, they allow you to enjoy your content across various platforms. So, I also wanted to know if it is possible to buy songs from Amazon and play them on iPhone from iPhone's music app. I downloaded Amazon's music app, but it does not have any songs. I know that's weird, but the search didn't show any of the songs I searched for, and they were all popular songs.

So, really, given that I want to platform-proof my musical content, and yet play it on the iphone, where it should I purchase it from?

iTunes is surely the most complete music online catalog for buying songs. Musics purchased from iTunes are linked to your iTunes account and can be re-download as long as you have access to your account on authorized device (iDevices or computers). Moreover from iTunes on a PC or Mac you can create an aac version of your track that remove your email address from the metadata of the track, the songs created this way can be transfered to other aac compatible devices.

One of the iTunes drawbacks is song quality : max 256kb/s, it's good for most people but not audiophile-proof.


What iOS games use multi-touch in an innovative way? I am looking for iOS games which use multi-touch in such a way that is not possible to emulate on other systems. This does not include games that use multi-touch to emulate a button and analog stick controller. So far I have found these apps:

Eliss - pinch in and out to combine planets
Sway - Left/Right side of screen to dedicated to each arm of the character
Cross Fingers - Must use multiple fingers on some levels to hold blocks out of the way

After more research I have found these games:

Galcon - Swiping multiple weapons to different enemy planets at the same time
Bed Bugs - Swiping away multiple enemys
Pinch 'n Pop - Very similar to Eliss
Pinch - Looks similar to Eliss but with a maze component
Touchgrind - It is also available for OSX but way harder due to not being able to touch the screen directly
Touchgrind BMX - From the makers of Touchgrind
Buggled - hold down as many bugs as you can?

I made this a community wiki so edit away.

Meeblings - Using two fingers, you can activate two of those little guys at once.


Synchronize from iPhone to Mac The situation: My HDD crashed, I didn't have any backups. I get a new SSD. I had my iPhone synced with the old HDD as usual.

The problem: How can I sync Apps/Music/Podcasts from my iPhone (where everything is normal) back to my Mac (where iTunes is clean)?

If I just check the boxes for synchronisation in the "new" iTunes, it will override the data on my iPhone.

The solution: ?

You can easily take a backup of your iPhone on your new Mac.

To transfer your media to your new iTunes, follow this tutorial in order to do so. If I understand your question correctly, this is what you need.


Can I use Macbook Pro as a wireless router? The only internet connection point in my current apartment is PPPoE service(via cable). I can plug it into my Macbook Pro to get internet connection. The problem is how to bring the internet connection to my iPad. Is it possible to configure my Macbook Pro as a wireless rounter for my iPad?

Or, if I have a separate wireless router with the PPPoE cable plugged in, how can I get it to work?

Try this...

Sharing your Internet connection - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8156.html

Your mac will basically create a WiFi network for the iPad to join and then it will share traffic from the ethernet connector/PPPoE/cable.

Your mac's buit in help might be newer than the link I provided, so check there first. Also, be sure you turn off any firewalls if you don't know how or what holes to poke in them. You may be less secure, but it's a bit harder to set up the firewall on one interface and not the other.


how can I convert the values of a table into percentage values rather than absolute values? In Numbers, how can I convert the values of a table into percentage values rather than absolute values ?

The percentage are computed per column. The sum of the cells in a column is 100%.

i.e. http://d.pr/NNwn

thanks

If I'm not mistaken you could do that more or less easily:

Say for example column comedy.

The total is 534 (sum).

132 (1st row) is the 24.71% (132 x 100 / 534).
3 (2nd Row) is the 0.56%…
1 is the 0.18%
398 is the 74.53%.

The sum of 24.71+0.56+0.18+74.53 == 100% (minus rounding, add more decimals for more precision).

So if you add a final ROW with the SUM  (below technology for example) you can cause each cell to perform a Cell * 100 / TOTAL_OF_COLUMN and get your %.

What am I missing?


Changing email addresses on my @me.com and @icloud.com When I was married I started both my @me.com and @icloud.com accounts.  The accounts are my first name and last (previously married) name run together.  Now that I am divorced I don't want that as my email.  I would rather have a different name at the front of my email.  How do I go about changing both accounts to another name and getting all my devices and itunes accounts moved over.

Unfortunately, as was stated, you cannot change your @me.com or @icloud.com email addresses independently of your Apple ID. What I would recommend doing is setting up a Gmail (or other) address and using that as your primary Apple ID email (as well as all your normal email for that matter).

If you have a Mac you can even move all the email from your @icloud.com/@me.com account to your new Gmail account simply by setting up both and dragging the folders from one mail account to the other.

After you set up a Gmail email address you can edit your Apple ID preferences at this site. That way, all you ever basically see is the new Gmail account.


Bluetooth won't turn on my iPhone XR? Have a very odd bug--I can't turn Bluetooth on or off. This isn't at a device level--when click Bluetooth in Settings, there is just a spinning rule of death next to "Bluetooth." In the Control Center, Bluetooth is off. If I tap it, it turns on, but the Settings screen is still spinning. I also cannot tap it off in Control Center once I tap it on.

Anyone have a sense if this is a software or hardware issue? My Bluetooth was working an hour or so ago. I saw some articles suggesting this was a hardware issue but it seemed like those were mostly issues affecting iPhone 5Cs; I also saw some suggesting it was a software issue with an old iOS release from 2017, which is obviously not relevant.

I've done all the obvious things, like restart the phone, soft reset, and even reset all my network settings.

I had previously had AirPods Pro, an iPad, and Bose headphones in the saved pairings. All three were not connected. AirDrop also tells me that Bluetooth is off (even when it is "on" in Control Center).

Just to close out the answer—as Allan noted in the comment, the Bluetooth radio itself was broken.


sync sent mail between iPhone and mail.app Can I set up my mac/iPhone/mobile me to sync the mails I've sent on my iPhone back to my mail.app on my mac?

I use two email addresses: an IMAP (gmail) address and a microsoft exchange address.

On the other hand, I can't even see the mails I've sent on my iPhone in the mail app on the iPhone, it only shows mail.app sent mails.

Solution for Gmail:
Gesendet must the the label of the mailbox that you use for sent mail on the iPhone. (info: gesendet is German for sent)
I believe the default label is named Sent Messages created once you set up Gmail on your iPhone using IMAP.


Prompted to enter system lock PIN code to unlock Mac A former terminated employee Fedex'ed us his company Macbook Air. When we turn it on we get this screen you see in the photo below. We do not have this 6 digit "system pin", never set it up, and are unsure how to re-format it. I've never seen this before.

  Enter your system lock PIN code to unlock this Mac.
  Account Locked.

We do have proof of purchase from Apple for this computer and as I understand all Apple stores are closed now. Can anyone advise what can be done to unlock this laptop?

You have only two options:

Convince your former terminated employee to provide the 6 digit PIN. If you have a legal department or legal consult, they may be able to provide additional convincing with threat of a civil suit.
Schedule an in-person service appointment with an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. Bring your Mac to the appointment, and bring your original receipt or invoice as proof of purchase. (apple.com - How to set a firmware password on your Mac) If you choose this option, then you better hurry because Apple says "You can look up your passcode for a limited time".

Although first-party Apple Stores are closed right now because of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, some Authorized Apple Service Providers are still open. You can find one here: https://getsupport.apple.com/

This happened because your former employee attached an iCloud account to the Mac, enabled the Find my Mac feature, and then initiated a remote lock sequence from iCloud. The lock status is stored in the system firmware, and cannot be bypassed even by replacing the boot disk.

Apple has a great page showing all the possible boot screens for a modern Mac.


Windows 8.1 Boot Camp automatic repair loop After successfully installing Windows 8.1 on my 2010 MacBook, running Yosemite as its primary OS, my Windows OS rebooted 5 minutes after a fresh install and now I'm stuck in the "automatic repair loop". I also get this error after trying to repair:

  The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again.

Also even after I installed the Bootcamp drivers my system was still void of this "boot camp control panel" which leads me to think this maybe a driver issue.

This is the second time I've gotten this issue so I don't think another install will resolve anything.

Is there anything I can do to stabilize my Windows OS and successfully get the Boot Camp control panel to work as well?

If you did not use the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows, then you likely installed Windows 8.1 in UEFI mode, which neither Apple nor Microsoft support on a Mac.

If you don't want to use the Boot Camp assistant, then the trick here is to have created an empty FAT partition on the drive with Disk Utility BEFORE you attempt to install Windows.  Disk Utility will create a hybrid MBR on the disk, and the presence of the hybrid MBR causes the Mac firmware to use BIOS emulation which is required for Windows to run correctly.

The use of Windows 8.1 in UEFI mode on a Mac is possible, but it's asking for trouble and you should only run it that way it if you really know what you are doing.


Ipad Mini 2 Warranty for Damage I bought my daughter her ipad for Christmas (7 months ago) and she dropped it the other day cracking the screen; you can actually see inside of it at the top.

Does this come with a manufacture warranty and will it cover accidental damage?

AppleCare does not cover damage.  However, AppleCare+ covers up to two incidents of damage:

  AppleCare+ for iPhone Every iPhone comes with one year of hardware
  repair coverage through its limited warranty and up to 90 days of
  complimentary support. AppleCare+ for iPhone extends your coverage to
  two years from the original purchase date of your iPhone(1) and adds
  up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage, each subject to a
  service fee plus applicable tax ($79 for iPhone SE or iPhone 6 or
  earlier models, $99 for iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus).

So, if you don't have an AppleCare+ agreement, you will have to cover the damages out of pocket.


MacBook Pro Boots only with a pressed key I'm having a bizarre issue with my early 2011 Macbook 15'. I grabbed it today without battery power só the first thing I diz was to plug the MagSafe adapter. Afterwards I pressed the power button. It chimed as usual but then I noticed it rebooted by itself after a few seconds then  shutdown for good again.

I noticed by now pressing the power button had no effect. I tried resetting the SMC and the laptop powered for a few seconds then shut down again. After a few attempts I noticed the laptop remained on as long as I kept a key pressed (any key, like Option).

Since I can't boot by normally pressing the power button I can't do a PRAM reset.

Can anyone help me solve this mistery?

The laptop was serviced 5 months ago with a new logic board and new Keyboard...

I just found out it seems the power button is "stuck" and pressing option seems to prevent the laptop going into shutdown, as when I booted into El Capitan, a few seconds after I let the option key go, I saw the shutdown dialog for a couple of seconds... I'm going to take it to the repair warranty to recheck the keyboard topcase.

Update: The problem was with a faulty logic board power button circuit. In my case the whole board was replaced as it was still in the warranty period.


Cannot Log Out of guest User Ever since I upgraded one of our schools student MacBook Airs to Mojave, logging out of the Guest User account is broken.  The cursor remains over a blank, black screen and nothing ever happens from there.  To get it back I need to force a shut down by holding down the power button.  I tried booting into Safe mode to see if that would help. It does not.

Disabling SIP with 'csrutil disable' solved the problem for me, although that doesn't reflect well on Apple or MacOS.


iPad 3 with USB hard drive is it possible to use a USB hard drive with the iPad 3? Do I need to download an app to use it (assuming I have the camera connection kit)?

You can with the iPad Camera Connection Kit, but in a very limited manner. You can import photos or videos on an external drive to the Photos app, if you set up the file structure to emulate a USB-connected camera - I believe you need a folder in the root directory named DCIM with the photo and video files within named DCIM_1234.jpg (or .mp4, etc. as appropriate).

You may find this article useful: CNet: Secrets of the iPad Camera Connection Kit


Apple Numbers: how to change a date format to a number format In Apple Numbers the app can work out the number of days between dates, but then if I times this by a number (ie, a %interest rate and an amount of money) Numbers insists that the answer is a number of days!  Even if I go to Cell>Date Format and change it.  The system ignores this and returns to displaying the answer as a number of days.  How do I force the system to show this cell as a number and not in the date / days format?

You can use a function to convert the duration to a plain number.  For example, if difference between the dates in in E4, and it's 10 days, then...

=DUR2HOURS(E4) × 0.1

Shows a number, 24.0. There are other functions that you might use: DUR2DAYS, etc.


Apple ID replaced with someone else's after iOS 6 upgrade (Security breach) I just updated my iPad retina (3rd generation) with iOS 6 and now my Apple ID has been replaced with someone else's ID.

And its not jailbroken either. How did someone manage to do that? This is a serious security breach, I think.

I logged out of that Apple ID but how can I be sure that they are not tracking anything and won't be able to purchase through my account?

This is not as serious as it appears as signing into a device using a different Apple ID does not give one access to all the data on your device. What happens when you launch an app that you have officially purchased from the App Store? If it asks for the password of your proper Apple ID, then I would skip to the end of this answer and call Apple because that means the rogue account is actually signed in. If, however, it launches, then you are in fact logged into your proper account.

First, sign out of that Apple ID. Then sign into your existing (proper) one. Once done, sign out and then proceed to change the password on your Apple ID: https://appleid.apple.com/ as a proactive measure. And I would strongly advise you to use Apple's two-step verification if it is available in your country.

There exists no known way to hack into an OTA firmware update and hijack a system. iOS is actually quite secure. While I can explain how that email got there, I can say that it's likely an Apple server side error. Or someone local got a hold of your device and is messing with you.

Lastly, if you are 100% sure it occurred without explanation, I would contact Apple and not send emails to the iTunes Team, as they falls outside the scope of anything they can help you with. International contact info can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/he57


How do I play selected albums in iTunes 11 This was absurdly easy in iTunes 10.

I select a Playlist (generally a smart one)
I command click albums.
I want to play those albums.

Further I may want to be able to play songs within those albums randomly.
[Creating a play list from the selection each time is not really a viable solution]

For example in the image below, 3 albums are selected. I just want to play them.

Select your albums as usual.
Clear the Up Next queue (using button at top right of queue)
Right-click on one of your selected albums, and choose 'Add to Up Next' from the popup Menu.
That'll add all the songs from all the albums you've selected.
Click the play button.

If you check the up next queue, you see all the songs from all the albums you selected.

Songs are grouped by albums though. I'm not seeing a way to get the songs in the queue shuffled


Is there a way to show if I have more than one Google Chrome window open in the Dock? Yes, I know I can use tabs, but there are times where I will need to open a new Google Chrome window. Unfortunately, I have bad memory and I always forget that I have a second Chrome window opened.

In Windows 10, the taskbar will show you if you have two Chrome windows open, which appears like this

.

Is there a way macOS can notify me if I have two of the same apps open?

You can right click/control click on an app's icon in the Dock to determine the number of open windows for the app. Here's a screenshot from a Google Chrome session:

A list of all the open windows for the app are shown at the top in the context menu presented on right clicking/control clicking.


Why is it still not possible to cut files to paste them elsewhere in Catalina? I find it weird that this simple functionality doesn't exist in macOS, as it does in other OS. IIRC, it used to exist in the System 7 era.
What would be the rationale to get this simple functionality out of the window (I should say Apple here, I know ;) )?

Because the Pasteboard, to which all data is Cut, is inherently transient and unsafe. If you could Cut a document in the Finder, that document would only reside in the Pasteboard, and any new Copy/Cut action would cause it to be lost.
You could never Cut a file in Pre-OS X Mac operating systems.
However, you can achieve the same result by Copying (CMD+C), and then Moving (Option+CMD+V).


transfering contacts from my old phone to iPhone via Bluetooth Is it possible to transfer all my contacts from my old phone to iPhone via Bluetooth?

No, unfortunately this isn't possible as the iPhone lacks the necessary Bluetooth services for address book transfer. If both your iPhone and previous phone are GSM phones, you can transfer the contacts to the SIM and transfer them off with the iPhone.


Use AirDrop between iPhone and older Macs (need "Don't see who you're looking for?" button on Mac) I have a new Mac Mini, an old MacBook (which supports AirDrop but has on old Bluetooth module) and an iPhone.

When I need to AirDrop between my macs, in Mac Mini's AirDrop panel appear a button "Don't see who you're looking for?" which allow to work even with Macs with old Bluetooth module and Macs see each other.

Now I need to AirDrop between my MacBook and iPhone but, on my iPhone I can't find the "Don't see who you're looking for?" button so AirDrop doesn't work.

I tried this but it doesn't work...

Is there a way to solve?

There are two versions of AirDrop. The Mac-to-Mac AirDrop that was introduced in Lion works with old Bluetooth modules. The Mac-to-iDevice AirDrop that was introduced in Yosemite only works with newer modules (2012 or later). If you really want to get Mac-to-iDevice AirDrop, you'll need to either upgrade your AirPort card or get a dongle. Continuity Activation Tool is a great app for enabling that feature, and they made a handy chart telling you what hardware you need to put on your computer to make it work with Mac-to-iDevice AirDrop.


clear Safari cache from script Here is a Python script that clears cookies from Safari (OS X):

from Foundation import *
store = NSHTTPCookieStorage.sharedHTTPCookieStorage()
L = store.cookies()
print len(L)
for c in L:
    store.deleteCookie_(c)
print len(store.cookies())

Is there a similar API to clear Safari's Cache and LocalStorage?

For the cache, you would be looking at NSURLCache and the method(s) removeAllCachedResponses and removeCachedResponseForRequest

For the LocalStorage, there does not appear to be an API for talking directly to Safari LocalStorage except through JS.

I did find this AppleScript however which basically circumvents the API and deletes the SQLite databases directly, obviously replace USERNAME with your username.

tell application "Finder"

select every item of folder "LocalStorage" of folder "Safari" of folder "Library" of folder "USERNAME" of folder "Users" of startup disk
move selection to the trash
end tell

Finally, there's a project on SourceForge called SafariCleaner which does all that you are trying to do in a set of AppleScripts.


Updating the Wi-Fi/Ethernet toggle script for Mavericks & new MBP So I used to use this script from MacOSXHints to automatically toggle my Wi-Fi whenever I connected my OS X 10.6 and 10.8 MBPs into Ethernet or my 27" TB Display:

Ever been annoyed to be on both wireless AND wired network at the same time, without the opportunity to automatically disable AirPort when plugging in a cable?
Well this little script and launchd agent will auto-disable AirPort on active ethernet.

Since installing Mavericks on my new Late 2013 retina MBP 15, even after editing the interface names to the new system's (en5, for example) the script no longer works; I think that the old /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration folder is no longer used or working the same in Mavs as in previous releases..

Have a look to a different script for the same purpose, but with a slightly different approach. It uses the same SystemConfiguration trigger, thus. The problem on Mavericks seem rather to be respawning the original script over and over by launchd. I'm successfully running it on Mavericks 10.9.3. The Script can be found here: http://www.computernetworkbasics.com/2012/12/automatically-turn-off-wireless-in-osx-including-mountain-lion/


Can't seem to remove or alter website blocking restrictions on iPhone 6 having given my daughter an old iPhone 6 (latest ios12) to use around the house I'm struggling to unblock certain websites. The error messages are slightly different whether in Safari directly or an in-app browser -
In-app browser says 'You cannot browse this page at "...." because it is restricted'
Safari says 'Safari cannot open the page. The error was: "The URL was blocked by a content filter".'
She was previously using a 1st gen iPad mini (ios9) and has her own limited/child Apple ID. On the iPad she would attempt to visit a website and upon being notified it was blocked, you could click a link to enter the parental password and unblock that site. Since restoring onto the iPhone it seems some of those restrictions have been passed on, in that some sites are accessible but others aren't. The problem is that when seeing an inaccessible site on iOS12, there is no direct link to unblock it.
Screen time was not set up initially, however upon turning this on, and either setting content restrictions to completely disabled, or having it enabled but having web contact set to unrestricted, or having web content limited but with specific urls in the 'always allow' section, I'm seeing the same behaviour whatever I do.
Where else can I adjust these types of settings?
Edit: I've noticed in settings/safari that favourites are greyed out and set to 'allowed sites' I can view any site which is already listed in favourites but cannot find anywhere to edit the favourites.

You are using the new ScreenTime for iCloud (this is different from the local ScreenTime you have disabled). It sounds like the local restrictions on the iPad has been passed on to the limited Apple-ID and then stored on iCloud. The limited Apple-ID has a builtin ScreenTime which stores its settings on iCloud and overrides the local ScreenTime.
There are two ways of controlling ScreenTime for iCloud.

From another iPhone with a parent account signed in with. Open settings app, click on parent name at the top. Scroll down to Family Sharing and select your child's limited Apple-ID. At the bottom you can turn off ScreenTime for iCloud. You may also from this screen change limits (e.g. allowing websites e.t.c.).
From the limited iPhone. Open settings app, click on the name of the child at the top. Scroll down to ScreenTime and select the child name again. Here you can control ScreenTime, but not disable it.

The setting you are looking to change is located in "Content & Privacy Restrictions"/"Content Restrictions"/"Web Content" user the subpage described above.
The name "ScreenTime for iCloud" is a name I made up in order to distinguish with the local ScreenTime in this answer.


How to check the frequency bands of 3G and LTE carriers to make sure they are supported by iPhone 4s, 5, 5s, 5c? Suppose you am living outside US & you want to buy iphone like 4s,5, 5s,5c in US.

Then How can you check the frequency bands of 3G and 4G LTE carriers (in the place u r living) to make sure they are supported by iPhone 4s, 5, 5s, 5c?

So, Each carrier use just 1 band right? or

is there any carrier that require your iPhone to suppose 2 bands?

also, are there 2 or more carriers that use the same band?

Quite confused.

One place would be to look on Apple's own page here.

There is way too much detail on that page for me to summarise here, but it covers most (all?) countries and carriers where the iPhone is currently available, including those in the US.

So find any models that are supported by your current (non-US) carrier, and see whether those models work with any US carriers.


What different Stack Exchange apps exist for iOS? How do you access apple.stackexchange.com from your iOS devices?

What apps do you use and what is good/bad about them?

We have now the official Stack Exchange app available on the App Store. Enjoy.


AppleScript application as a Safari Webpage I currently using an AppleScript application that launches a website (phpMyAdmin) in Safari. I keep it in my dock for easy access.

What I am looking for

When clicking on the ASA (AppleScript Application) it opens to the safari page
When I move to a different window and click the ASA again, it will bring the safari window to the front instead of reopening it in a new window/tab
If I quit the ASA the safari page will close
If I X out the tab where the website is, the the ASA will quit

If anyone has any idea how to do this it that would be great!

As other users have noted, the third and fourth bullet points are probably not worth holding on to, as it makes the first two difficult to implement:

use S : application "Safari"
property PHPMyAdminURL : "http://xxxxx/ppmya"

on run
    if S is not running then return openPHPMyAdmin()

    set _T to a reference to (every tab of every window of S whose ¬
        name contains "PHPMyAdmin" and ¬
        URL contains "/ppmya")

    if (count _T) > 0 then return viewPHPMyAdmin(_T)

    openPHPMyAdmin()
end run

to openPHPMyAdmin()
    tell S
        if (count windows) = 0 then
            make new document with properties ¬
                {URL:PHPMyAdminURL}
        else
            make new tab at end of tabs of S's window 1 ¬
                with properties ¬
                {URL:PHPMyAdminURL}
            set current tab of S's window 1 to the result
        end if

        activate
    end tell
end openPHPMyAdmin

to viewPHPMyAdmin(T)
    set [T] to T
    set W to the first window of S whose tabs contains T

    set current tab of W to T
    activate S
    set the index of W to 1
end viewPHPMyAdmin

After some initial feedback from @user3439894, I removed the on quit handler as trying to use the script as a stay-open application prevents item 2 from being effectively implemented.


Does GPS tagging for camera images work without wifi connection with iphone 5? I want to make pictures with the iphone 5 and want the position information (GPS) in it.
Is it possible to tag pictures without any internet connection?

Yes. It does extremely well with geo-tagging photos without an internet connection. The phone simply saves the lat/longitude in the photo file.

What one needs a data connection for is viewing the images on a map - one must download the map to display the pins.


Windows 10 Boot Camp USB boots but throws 0xc0000225 before being able to install anything I have a MBP 2014 15" with all the latest updates installed
I downloaded the official Windows 10 ISO 64bit (20 november 2019 update)
I verified that this ISO works, using Virtualbox
I got a new Kingston 16GB USB stick
After a few tries I managed to get Boot Camp Assistant (BCA) to

install the ISO on the USB
copy over the windows support files
and make a partition

BCA chooses to format the USB to exFAT and the partition to NTFS
It restarts, boots the USB using EFI and it show the windows logo for a while. Then it crashes with a 0xc0000225 error code

I've tried the process a few times, because sometimes it failed and the USB got ejected. Maybe the USB is broken? I've also tried manually formatting the drive and copying over the ISO / Windows support files manually. The resulting USB also booted, but with the same error code.

Worth to note is that my macbook might not be a standard 2014 anymore, since I replaced the battery and with that they replaced many other components (like the trackpad / keyboard).

Who can help me on a path towards solving this?

Turns out the (new) USB stick was broken from the start. Bought one at a more trustworthy store and it worked out of te box.