Battery life of iPhone 4 reduced dramatically since iOS 7 Since I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 7 (11A465), the battery began to drain really quickly, though the Bluetooth, GPS and the LTE are closed most of the time.

It makes me wonder whether there are operating system versions that are more economical with the battery usage.

There of course are more power efficient operating systems for a couple of reasons.

Some operating systems take alot of space for themselves to actually run the system
Apps might not always be turned off but suspended, leaving them running

And one of the major battery eaters (not because of OS) is the screen. Turning down the brightness to half-way from full can save about 2-3 hours of battery (sometimes more).

A good solution to the background app problem is exiting the apps by pressing the home button twice. You will see the apps you have active. You can swipe up to exit the apps, and home button or tap on an app to go back to it. However that no longer works.

  Quitting apps is not the way to do it. The old 'slide it off the screen' does nothing whatsoever unless an app is hung etc. Backgrounded apps set to no refresh was the replacement for that old voodoo, since iOS 7

-Tetsujin

Basically, that solution used to be a thing, but now background apps do not seem to be the issue at all anymore.

Just as some extra information, Androids have custome ROMs (OS) that attempt on being more lightweight operating system clones of android. However custom ROMs have yet to exist on Apple phones

Sudden battery drain is also not only a software problem, but it could be a hardware problem too. To maintain battery health, make sure to charge with your native adapter (not other ones for different phones), as sometimes they have higher voltage, therefore harming the battery. If suspending apps does not resolve your battery problem, you might want to bring your phone for a battery checkup just in case.

And finally, to answer your question with battery packs, there are some good ones. You can get ones in a separate "power bank", where you connect your phone and charge, or you can get ones that are built-in to the iPhone case, like in the example below:

Of course, there are also iPhone 4 cases, not just iPhone 6 ones.


Possible keylogger? How to remove? I'm tailing var/log/sys.log and I keep getting this message:

Jul 13 23:43:52 mac[redacted lol] syslogagent[19960]: Authentication String htt[space added]p://logsviewer.com/membermac/livedesk/arewelive.php?username=

Jul 13 23:43:53 mac[...] syslogagent[19960]: {

every 25 seconds or so.

Sometimes it'll include a string of numbers such as:

Jul 13 17:50:41 mac[...] syslogagent[19960]: Authentication String htt[space added]p://logsviewer.com/membermac/livedesk/arewelive.php?username=

Jul 13 17:50:41 mac[...] syslogagent[19960]: 2147483647

Jul 13 17:50:42 mac[...] syslogagent[19960]: {

And as I was writing this it changed (for the first time since I caught it about 9 hours ago today, although after the tail logfile turned over and I restarted it) its process ID number to [21174]

After some intensive googling I found out that this URL roughly matches that which occurs in the SniperSpy spyware program.

First of all, am I correct. Second of all, I ran Sophos and nothing came up. Third, is it even functionally installed because the message makes it seem like it maybe didn't get fully installed. Fourth, how do I remove it?

There's a huge possibility that you have a spyware.
Please check this link.

  It is an Application named "SysLogAgent" which is hidden in your home
  folder along with files to launch it at startup and when you log in
  and none of them were detected as infected.

How to remove (Spyware.SniperSpy.B - Removal)?
Please check this link.


Applescript: How to move a file after finishing processing it? I'm very new to writing applescript, but have been painfully working through it.

I have successfully written scripts to download specific csv attachments from an email inbox, then create an SQL insert statement from them. I'm now trying add a statement to move the original file to an archive folder so the SQL insert script does not act on those files the next time it runs. The variable"DEP_name" is the name of the file captured earlier in the script:

        tell application "Finder"
            set orgpath to "Macintosh HD:Users:me:Documents:source_folder:" as string
            set originalFolder to (orgpath & DEP_name) as string

            set newpath to "Macintosh HD:Users:me:Documents:Archive:" as string
            set newFolder to (newpath & DEP_name) as string

            move originalFolder to newFolder with replacing
        end tell

With this version I get the error: "Finder got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." I have also tried using the Posix file path, but I am getting a different error with that attempt. Any help would be appreciated.

Change the second to last line to:

move alias originalFolder to alias newpath with replacing

There are two things:

All four variables are just strings. In order to tell Finder that they are related to the filesystem, add alias (or file or folder) before the string.
The path where are are moving it to should be the path of the enclosing folder, not the path of the moved folder in its new location.


Opera blocked by OSX 10.8.5 Currently I am on OSX 10.8.5, I don't want to upgrade for multiple reasons.
Yesterday out of the blue, the OS stops running after rebooting the machine and tells me I cannot use Opera anymore unless I update to OSX 10.9

I started by downloading older versions of Opera (Currently on 42, downloaded each version back to 37) and in every download get the same install OS X 10.9 message.

Any idea anybody? Thanks for the support.

Note: Upgrading to a later version of macOS is not an option in this case - please do not suggest this as a solution.

You could install 10.8.5 clean on an external drive and just install the opera version you hope to use and test in a clean os. If that fails, you’ll know the program opera had a timer of sorts and can pursue disabling or modifying opera.

If it works, you can then migrate all your settings / apps / data (except opera) to the new os and test. Then restore that image over the broken internal install.

Splitting the troubleshooting up will save you time isolating and testing without risking your current setup that you wish to remain without an upgrade for reasons.


How do I prevent an internal partition from mounting at boot I have a HFS partition on my internal boot disk on a Mac Mini (High Sierra) that I would like to not automatically mount at boot time. Rather, I want to reserve it to raw-mount to a VirtualBox VM by default.

How do I configure the Mac to not automount the partition?

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            600.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:   ***           Apple_HFS Shared user data         199.6 GB   disk0s4
   5:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         199.6 GB   disk0s5
...

I want to reserve disk0s4.

I've seen some similar posts that suggest automountd is involved, but don't provide any help configuring it.

Traditionally, the file you have to edit to prevent automounting is /etc/fstab.

In your case, you would need to add the line shown below to this file.

LABEL=Shared\040user\040data none    hfs   rw,noauto

You can get more information on the /etc/fstab file, by entering the command man fstab.

This also works:

$ diskutil info disk1s4 | grep Volume
   Volume Name:              Shared user data
   Volume UUID:              3D9A5D0C-1307-3178-81FA-9245634906D5
   Volume Total Space:       0 B (0 Bytes) (exactly 0 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Free Space:        0 B (0 Bytes) (exactly 0 512-Byte-Units)
   Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (not mounted)
dmaestro$ cat /etc/fstab
UUID=3D9A5D0C-1307-3178-81FA-9245634906D5 /Volumes/Shared\040user\040data hfs rw,noauto

Note that the mount path must be created manually before using Disk Utilities to mount the partition manually, and Disk Utilities will destroy that mount directory when unmounting manually.


Will my Google Authenticator codes work if I restore my iPhone from a backup? The latest iOS update (11.1.1) bricked my iPhone, and it appears that I will need to reset the phone to factory settings and then restore from my (iTunes) backup. I have a fairly recent backup available, but by far the most important thing that I need to be sure will continue to work is my Google Authenticator codes.

I'm not changing devices, just reseting and restoring from backup to the same one. Will my Google Authenticator codes work if I restore my iPhone from a backup?

Source:

According to this Google Community answer, you should be able to restore from iCloud and it will work.

  If you back up your information using iCloud, you can restore your iPhone or iPad from iCloud, and you’ll be able to use the previous version of our Google Authenticator app.


Changing 10.6.8 from mounting ext4 as read-only to read-write with OSXFUSE & fuse-ext - in fstab? So I have OSXFUSE & fuse-ext installed (as in link: How can I mount an ext4 file system on OS X?), but after searching on these two device's websites, Stack Exchange, googling, etc. I cannot find the answer to my question:

My 10.6.8 mounts ext4 automatically but I can only read files - I wish to be able to write on there as well.

What I have been doing is unmounting the partition:

sudo umount /dev/disk0s4

and then remounting it with:

sudo fuse-ext2 /dev/disk0s4 /Volumes/disk0s4 -o rw+ -o allow_other

and it works. BUT, I tried to add the above line in /etc/fstab and Mac decides to ignore it and create a new mount point under Volumes - which I thought was something it shouldn't do...

Any ideas?

P.S. I know fuse-ext2 is supposed to only work with ext2 (maybe ext3) (maybe ext4) but I haven't looked into that...

I finally found something that worked, and I have verified it does as well. Please see the link: http://www.dbsysnet.com/how-to-mount-ext2ext3-linux-volumes-in-mac-os-x-snow-leopard-with-readwrite-access/

Basically there is a mount option that can be added "rw+" to the file:

/System/Library/Filesystems/fuse-ext2.fs/fuse-ext2.util

under the Macro() function.


How do I clone a dual-boot Macbook I have a Macbook Air set up for dual-boot (Lion & Windows 7) and am planning on buying a newer model. How would I go about cloning the entire hard drive to the new machine?

Do I need to separately clone the Mac & Windows halves? Or is there a tool to move the whole thing verbatim?

I would highly recommend Carbon Copy Cloner. I believe it copies invisible files.


MacOS Calendar App - Default reminders For my calendar alerts, I like to receive reminders with sound:

1 day before the event
2 days before the event
7 days before the event
1 hour before the event

Is there any way to set these as default for all events that belong to a "calendar" group (by "calendar" group I mean the coloured label that you can apply to an event)

Going to Preferences > Alerts lets you set defaults, but not by calendar group (instead the same defaults are used for all calendar groups). It also only lets you set 1 default (so you cannot have multiple reminders per an event)

Not that I know of, but there's a potential workaround - I don't know whether this would be any use to you.

Make a new event, call it myDefault, set all your reminders as you want them to be.
Any time you make a new event, start typing myDefault - it will auto-suggest that previous entry, but at the date you double-clicked. It will fill it with the previous data, shifted to the new time.
Accept it, then change its name.

You can set several of these, named appropriately - the one thing you can't do is dictate which calendar group they belong to, so you'd have to make sure to generate the name to match the group it's going to belong in manually.


Installing an Apple TV 4 app on Apple TV 2 I have seen easy methods to jailbreak apple tv 2. I would like to know if anyone has tried to manually install an apple tv 4 app on a jailbroken apple tv 2. Is that possible at all?

Specific example: Bell Canada has introduced its Fibe Alt TV app to be used only on apple tv v4, I was wondering if that could be manually installed on an apple tv 2, or, I have to buy an Apple tv 4 anyways!

No, is the short answer.

Apple TV gen 2 and Apple TV 4 run completely different operating systems. There is no compatibility in software between them.


A problem with using the iphoto library upgrader tool I'm running OSX 10.9.4, and IPhoto 9.5.1. I have an old iphoto library (pre 7.0) on a time-machined backup external drive and wanted to access the photos on it.

I tried to 'Switch' to it in IPhoto, and was asked to run the iPhoto library upgrader tool (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1523) instead.

I did that, and at some point the upgrader declared my library ready to be upgraded by the "new" version of iPhoto. I asked it to do so, and then iPhoto starts up, complaining again that the library needs to be upgraded using the iPhoto library upgrader.

This keeps happening. What's worse, the Option/Alt trick to switch to a new library at iPhoto doesn't work, so once I've told iPhoto once to switch to the new (non-working) library, I can no longer run iPhoto unless I dismount the external drive.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I've also tried the Option-Cmd-start iPhoto attempt to repair the library, and that doesn't pop up any repair screen either.

Notes (based on other discussions on the web):

the external drive is formatted Mac OSX extended (journaled, case sensitive)
I can't use Time Machine directly since this backup is from a different machine.
I have NOT tried first copying the library to the local drive, but I doubt that would make a difference.

After a fair number of tears thinking apple had stolen a decade of my photos, I found a work around too which might be the exact same thing jvans said, but brought down to my novice level.

Right click on the iPhoto Library that won't open, and go to "show package contents"---
inside there is a folder called "Originals" that holds the actual .jpgs of the images
Copy this entire folder out onto the hard drive. Then, you can import the whole folder into your new "iphoto" or "Photos" library, or just have them for future use on your hard drive. Not ideal, but much better than losing your entire library.


How to see 6-digit file permissions? I have an application that complains about the permissions of its directory inside of /Applications.  It wants to be set to 040775.  I can fix it by running chmod 040775, but I do not understand what the first 2 digits mean.  Just running chmod 775 does not work, so apparently these first 2 digits are wrong.  What are these 2 digits, and how can I view them in macOS?  I'm looking for something like ls -l.  I'm running High Sierra.

The short answer is stat and ask for permissions field:

stat -f "%p" file

That application or instructions or memory is likely wrong. From the manual page, there are 4 digits in the octal representation for modes on macOS:

 Modes may be absolute or symbolic.  An absolute mode is an octal number
 constructed from the sum of one or more of the following values:

       4000    (the set-user-ID-on-execution bit) Executable files with
               this bit set will run with effective uid set to the uid of
               the file owner.  Directories with the set-user-id bit set
               will force all files and sub-directories created in them to
               be owned by the directory owner and not by the uid of the
               creating process, if the underlying file system supports
               this feature: see chmod(2) and the suiddir option to
               mount(8).
       2000    (the set-group-ID-on-execution bit) Executable files with
               this bit set will run with effective gid set to the gid of
               the file owner.
       1000    (the sticky bit) See chmod(2) and sticky(8).
       0400    Allow read by owner.
       0200    Allow write by owner.
       0100    For files, allow execution by owner.  For directories,
               allow the owner to search in the directory.
       0040    Allow read by group members.
       0020    Allow write by group members.
       0010    For files, allow execution by group members.  For directo-
               ries, allow group members to search in the directory.
       0004    Allow read by others.
       0002    Allow write by others.
       0001    For files, allow execution by others.  For directories
               allow others to search in the directory.

 For example, the absolute mode that permits read, write and execute by
 the owner, read and execute by group members, read and execute by others,
 and no set-uid or set-gid behaviour is 755 (400+200+100+040+010+004+001).

I've made a file conveniently named 040775 and applied permissions - you can see the 040 clears all sticky (as it’s 0775 part that matters), setUID, setGID bits so you get 0775 if you try to set 040775.

mac:foo me$ touch 040775
mac:foo me$ stat -f "%p" 040775
100644
mac:foo me$ chmod 040775 040775
mac:foo me$ stat -f "%p" 040775
100775
mac:foo me$ chmod 4775 040775
mac:foo me$ ls -l
-rwsrwxr-x  1 me  wheel  0 May 10 20:30 040775
mac:foo me$ chmod 040775 040775
mac:foo me$ ls -l
-rwxrwxr-x  1 me  wheel  0 May 10 20:30 040775

I've edited the above a bit and didn't do all the stat and ls but it should help you poke around at existing files and test out whether my experience that only the last 4 digits are interpreted as an octal bit mask to set permissions as documented in the chmod man page.


How can I gain screen share/ssh access to a G5 connected by ethernet to a Mac Mini on my wireless Airport Extreme Network from my MacBook Pro? Ok, so the scenario is this:

I have a G5 Quad (running Leopard) with no wireless card.
The G5 is connected by ethernet to a Mac-Mini (running Lion), which is picking up my AirPort Extreme network over WiFi. The Mac-Mini shares it's internet connection over ethernet to the G5 enabling it to connect to the internet perfectly. I can also screen share or ssh into the G5 from the Mac-Mini without any problems.

Now comes the trouble:

I have a MacBook Pro (running Lion) which also connects to the same WiFi network as the Mac-Mini. I can see (and connect to) the Mac-Mini from the MBP without trouble, but I cannot see or connect to the G5 from the MBP. How can I configure this so that I can ssh or screen share the G5 from my MBP?

IPs and subnets of machines:

Mac-Mini
IP: 10.0.0.9
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

MBP
IP: 10.0.0.4
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

G5
IP: 192.168.2.3
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

This is happening because the two machines are not on the same subnet.

The G5 is on the Mac Mini's subnet, while the Mac Mini is on your Wi-Fi's subnet. The IP address of the G5 has been handed out by the Internet Sharing DHCP service on your Mac Mini, while the Mac Mini's IP address has been handed out by the DHCP service on your router.

Your best bet would be to connect your G5 via Ethernet to your router.

If that is not possible because of location constraints, there is a piece of software for Mac called IPNetRouterX that may do the job. It allows Ethernet bridging, which is what you want. The only problem with this software is that it costs money. It seems like there might be a free trial of it, however.


.app appended to all apps in Applications folder When I open my applications folder, all the apps inside have their name below the icons appended with the text .app. I don't think it used to be this way, is there a way to remove the .app text? I'm on OS X snow leopard.

Go to Finder->Preferences->Advanced->Show all filename extensions


Keeping the dock visible without affecting window size? Is there any way to keep the dock visible without it affecting the size of windows?

On my MBP 13" I have the dock hidden since it simply takes to much screen real estate, but working with a tablet I feel the need to have it visible at times. And I don't want to hide/unhide with a shortcut, I just want it to show on top of my windows.

Most apps dont allow that. Some, like excel, allow you to resize the window as you like... even if you dont like the shortcut, you can use it to achieve what you are looking for... although its not very convenient.. you can hide the dock, maximize the window and then unhide it.. it will show ontop of the window.


External display on MacBook Pro Retina (Mountain Lion) remains blank after screen timeout or waking up from sleep I have a retina MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion with a 23" external display attached through the Thunderbolt port (DVI/Display Port adapter). I have the monitor configured as an extension to my internal display (arranged just above as it actually is placed on my desk).

The arrangement works very well. However, sometimes (~30-40% of the time) the external display remains blank if the MacBook Pro screens have timed out or the MacBook Pro has gone to sleep and I then wake the MacBook Pro (by pressing a key). The MacBook Pro still thinks that the external display is connected as the screen remains in extended mode and apps are also there (though invisible, if that's where they were placed before the screen/MacBook Pro went to sleep). If I disconnect/reconnect the display port (Thunderbolt), it does go to internal only, but I cannot get the external display back unless I restart the Mac. Any ideas?

To get the display back without rebooting, I've had success doing this:

Disconnect the display
Wait until the display goes to sleep (set the timeout to 1 minute first)
Reconnect the display

To avoid the issue altogether, I've gotten into the habit of disconnecting the display before I leave the Mac.


Is it possible to change the Finder sidebar icons I know you can change the icons of files, folders, etc, but in the sidebar folders appear the same. Is it possible to give them a custom icon for the sidebar like the Music, Photo's, Movies, etc folders have?


Is the iPod touch 6g compatible with Vista? I lost my precious iPod Touch 4g. It seems I can't live without an iPod anymore and must replace it. But. The 4g worked with my obsolete Windows Vista. If I buy the state-of-art iPod Touch 6g, will it be compatible with Vista? Otherwise, will I have to go for a 5g? And no, I can't upgrade Vista.

I doubt the iPod itself will be the stumbling block, however, the minimum requirement for iTunes itself is now Windows 7, so you might struggle with anything new that will require authorisation or sync via iTunes.

Ref: http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/download/

On the other hand, this article has fixes for if you have difficulty with installation on Windows & appears to cover Oses right back to XP - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201668

So - I guess the first test will be to see if you can get iTunes 12 onto the computer.


Connecting to a device console using screen shows no output I am trying to access a network device console from my mac using a Prolific Technology USB-serial adapter to the device's console. After installing the relevant driver, the adapter is correctly shown:
$ ioreg -p IOUSB -l
...
    +-o USB-Serial Controller@14200000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x10000034a, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (101 ms), retain 11>
    |   {
    |     "sessionID" = 1402970206
    |     ...
    |     "bDeviceSubClass" = 0
    |     "bcdUSB" = 272
    |     "USB Product Name" = "USB-Serial Controller"
    |     "PortNum" = 2
    |     "non-removable" = "no"
    |     "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}
    |     "bDeviceProtocol" = 0
    |     "IOUserClientClass" = "IOUSBDeviceUserClientV2"
    |     "IOPowerManagement" = {"DevicePowerState"=0,"CurrentPowerState"=3,"CapabilityFlags"=65536,"MaxPowerState"=4,"DriverPowerState"=3$
    |     "kUSBCurrentConfiguration" = 1
    |     "Device Speed" = 1
    |     "USB Vendor Name" = "Prolific Technology Inc."
    |     "idVendor" = 1659
    |     "IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
    |     "IOClassNameOverride" = "IOUSBDevice"
    |   }

To access the console, I started screen from Terminal as per below:
$ screen /dev/tty.usbserial 9600

When I power on the connected network device, I can see the cursor bounces around randomly as if responding to the device console output, however no characters appear on Terminal at all. I know the USB-serial adapter is working fine, as using it on a Windows machine, I am able to access the same network device console without any issue. Any idea how to address this?
Thank you.

Since I couldn't get this working on my mac after multiple days, I decided to try my luck with a Debian 9 VM running in VMware Fusion within this mac. As soon as I made the device available within Debian VM, it was automatically detected and an associated tty* device was created:
# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0e0f:000b VMware, Inc.
...
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
...
$ ll /dev/ttyU*
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 Dec 29 14:30 /dev/ttyUSB0

Unlike /dev/tty.usbserial within macOS which was open for group others, device /dev/ttyUSB0 wasn't. So, I started screen with sudo:
$ sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 9600

And voila, it worked, as per the following screenshot!

I guess this is still a workaround. Checking the screen status (Ctrl-a + Ctrl-i (macos), Ctrl-a + i (Linux)), the latter had CD in brackets, implying signal CD was in effect:

That is the only significant difference that I could spot. Hope this helps others.


How can I make all folders in Finder "snap to grid"? I don't like that files can be placed anywhere, even overlapping other files, in Finder. The files also don't reorganize to fit when resizing the window.

I do realize I can right click and select "Clean up", but I don't want to do that every time I drag and drop a file.

I found this setting to make everything "snap to grid" so it will stay organized in the Show View Options window. However, it only works for that specific folder. Is there any way to make it apply across everything in Finder? I tried clicking "Use as Defaults" but it appears to only apply to new folders.

The following steps applied "Snap to Grid" even for previously created folders.
Tested on:

10.6.x
10.7.3
10.8.x
10.9.x
10.12.5
10.15.7

Go to any folder control
Control click on the empty space
Click on Show View Options
In the "Sort by" drop down bar select "Snap to Grid"
At the bottom of the window click on the "Use as Defaults"
button

NOTE: Because this will become the default setup for ALL Finder windows you may consider manipulating the Icon size, Grid spacing, Text size, Label position, Background, etc... accordingly.
ALSO: If folders do not appear to have snapped to grid on a previously created folder, Relaunch Finder or you could try to toggle the "Icon size" down and back up too refresh the current window.
This is where it is on 10.15 Catalina:


Copy pasting italicized content in Pages Pages is my word processor. I'm trying to copy a paragraph text from a docx file opened in Pages. Some words in the paragraph are italicized.

I'd like to paste it in a target doc which has paragraph styles set. When I paste I'd like to retain the italics of those words in the source doc.

The source and target docs used different styles for paragraph.

How do I paste it correctly?

Copy the text normally, then paste using ⇧⌥⌘V. This preserves character styles such as bold and italic but uses the destination paragraph styles.


SSD reporting incorrect amount of free space, not due to local snapshots I recently created a file of just over 20GB and then deleted it shortly after, however my free space did not increase at all. I am using a 2012 MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD and I've had problems before with inaccurate free disk space (even when accounting for Time Machine's Local Snapshots). Usually though I can fix the problem by verifying the disk in disk utility, which then shows Invalid volume free block count and orphaned blocks errors, which I could then repair in recovery mode, but now disk utility repeatedly insists the volume is OK, and its S.M.A.R.T. status is verified.

I suppose I will have to just reformat the drive, reinstall OS X and restore from my backups, but is there anything else I can try first? Also, since this has happened a few times before (mainly when I delete a large amount of space in one go), should I suspect the SSD of having problems, in spite of its verified S.M.A.R.T. status?

UPDATE: I initially thought there was a 26.2 GB discrepancy. Interestingly though, whilst System Information reports that backups are taking up 12.65 GB, sudo du -csh /.MobileBackups gives 31 GB. In total, this adds up to 94 GB of used space, which still amounts to a 7 GB discrepancy which I can't account for.

Ok, so after posting this question I had some major breakthroughs, most of which are posted in the update to my question. By then remembering that du still reports in units of 1024 whilst OS X now uses 1000, the final 7 GB was accounted for (well, there's still a potential 500 MB missing judging by Disk Utility, but that's probably just an artefact of du counting in blocks). Now the only question left is why System Information is reporting a substantially lower value for Backups than it should be, and whether or not it will remember to eventually clean up the other 18 GB of local snapshots.


Can I remove Recovery HD partition? We replaced the hard drive with a Patriot SSD in our iMac at work. I messed up while cloning the drive to the new SSD using a GPartEd CD. Everything works but there is about 40 GB unpartitioned that I want to recover. I cannot extend the main Macintosh HD partition using Disk Utility because the Recovery HD partition is "in the way", it is right after the Macintosh HD partition and all the free space is after the Recovery HD partition.

So, in short, is it safe to delete the Recovery HD partition? If not is there an easy way for me to remove it, resize my main partition, and then create a new Recovery HD partition?

Also, just out of curiosity, what does the Recovery HD partition do? Disk Utility seems to imply it has something to do with the bootloader but that doesn't make sense to me.

Edit: Partial duplicate of Can I repartition my primary hard drive without removing the Lion recovery partition?

Start by reading this document from Apple, which explains the recovery partition in Lion. From the article:

  OS X Lion includes a new feature called Lion Recovery that includes
  all of the tools you need to reinstall Lion, repair your disk, and
  even restore from a Time Machine backup without the need for optical
  discs.

In short, if you remove this partition you'll need a Lion USB drive, or physical media to perform the actions described by Apple above.

To reclaim the space of the recovery partition follow the steps below:

Open Terminal.app
Run the commands below (omit the # and everything after)

$ diskutil list                                   # list disk partitions
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Nymeria                 499.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3 <---
$ diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ Blank /dev/disk0s3    # Erase Recovery HD
$ diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ "Nymeria" disk0s2 disk0s3  # Merge partitions / reclaim space

One thing to note here, you can only merge consecutive partitions. If you have disk0s2 and disk0s4 running diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ "Nymeria" disk0s2 disk0s4 will merge partitions disk02s2, disk02s3, disk02s4. Also, only the data on the first partition will be preserved when merging. As an example, if your Recovery HD is disk0s3 and your OS partition is disk0s4, merging using diskutil is not possible. Use extreme caution modifying your partition table, and I'd highly recommend taking a full backup before hand.


Is there any way to output to two 1920x1200 external monitors with any of MacBook Pro or Air? I understand that you can output to one 1920x1200 monitor while still using the laptop's screen, and one 2560x1600 monitor using the dual-DVI adapter.

But can you output to two external 1920x1200 monitors?

I don't care if you can still use the laptop's screen in that case.

Yes you can, you can run one monitor from the normal monitor port and another from a USB port but you need a special connector which makes the Air think it has a 2nd monitor attached.  Here's an example on YouTube

You need something like the Matrox Dual Head 2 Go which allows you to have multiple monitors with your MacBook.  The performance of USB-attached monitors tends to be worse than those connected with display cables so they would be fine for regular computer use but probably not for gaming for example.

EDIT

With the release of Thunderbolt-capable Macs, you can now drive dual external Thunderbolt displays from MacBooks which have a separate graphics card.


A problem when changing the language There's is a problem when changing the language  on my MacBook Air, if I need to change the language I have to press ⌘+space not once, but I have to press it twice if I need to change the language from English to Arabic!

How can I fix this so I only have press it once?

You might be able to fix the problem by going into system preferences > keyboard > shortcuts, and find out if any other keyboard shortcuts using ⌘+space. I know that ⌘+space is used for the spotlight search or Siri by default on my mac. you could try disabling Siri and see if that fixes the problem.


How to control manual double-side printing on Mac OS X Lion? I have an HP 1022 printer attached to my Mac OS X Lion.

When I try to print a 4-page PDF file from Preview or Adobe Reader, it prints pages 1 and 3 and then all 3 lights on the HP 1022 printer start blinking.

I suspect that perhaps the printer or the system is in some kind of manual double-side printing mode, but I could not find where I can turn it on or off using the Mac OS printing dialogs.

How can one control manual double-side printing on a Mac OS X Lion?

You can go to Print & Scan in the system preferences and select Options & Supplies for your printer. In there, you should see an option for Duplex Unit (if your printer supports it). If that is checked, you can use the automatic double-side printing (by checking the Two-sided box next to Copies). If not, or if that option is unavailable, you can't.

In case you can't select that option, here's how you can manually print double-sided pages.

Manual double-side printing

You can control manual double-side printing (i.e., you physically turn the sheets over) using the Paper Handling setting in the print dialog.

If you select Paper Handling, you'll find a Pages to Print option that lets you print either only the odd pages or only the even pages (default is both). To print double side manually, select Odd Only first and when it finishes printing, flip the pages over and select Even Only

Instead of flipping each page over to its blank side before printing the even pages, you have a more convenient option of flipping the entire block of pages, so that the last sheet is on top (useful when you have a lot of pages to be printed). With this, you can then choose Reverse in Page Order to print the even numbered pages backwards. (Note: be careful that if you have an odd-number of pages in total, you might have to leave the last one out before printing the even ones.)


Voice control custom command with variable? I'd like to be able to declaim "Keyword foo" and have voice control, on hearing this, type :foo for me.
Many of the built-in commands take 'parameters' (i.e., some following speech), so if it were possible to make a user defined command as such it would look like keyword <phrase>, i.e., a 'variable' goes into the command (that variable being "phrase").
Is there a way to make a user-defined command which takes a variable as input, as many of the built-in commands do?  That would be super useful.
I'm looking into whether it would be feasible to write code in an IDE (in my case, Clojure & Intellij) using only voice control (and perhaps an on screen control pad for help where needed e.g. that provided by the wacom cintiq), thus, keyboard free! - it would be amazing if this were possible.
I haven't yet explored what can be done with "run workflow".
(I don't see any indication as yet that those can take variables, though).
I've found the location of the default workflows:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SpeechObjects.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/DictationServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Workflows
mbp:Workflows m$ ll
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  12 root  wheel   384B 14 Dec  2019 ./
drwxr-xr-x  65 root  wheel   2.0K 12 Oct 16:30 ../
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 New Audio Recording.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 New Screen Recording.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 New Video Recording.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 Show Me Apple Website.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 Show Me Top Albums.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 Show Me Top Family Movies.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 Show Me Top Movies.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 Show Me Top Music Videos.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 Show Me Top Songs.workflow/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96B 14 Dec  2019 Take My Picture.workflow/

Update: realised I may be able to get half way to this by defining a command "To keyword", which could issue Alt+<- , press ':', then issue Alt+->.
But that's not just a 'keyboard shortcut', it's three presses. I haven't used automator yet but guess that might be able to do this.

I've got something workable by using "Run Workflow" and the following Apple Script":
on run {input, parameters}
    activate application "IntelliJ IDEA CE"
    tell application "System Events" to key code 123 using {option down} -- left arrow for back word
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke ":"
    tell application "System Events" to key code 124 using {option down} -- right arrow for fwd word
    -- https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/36943/how-do-i-automate-a-key-press-in-applescript
    return input
end run

I just have to say the word "foo" as normal then speak a subsequent command "to keyword", which converts the previous word to a keyword using a sequence of three key presses as above.


OS X how to disable Command P Shortcut I would like to disable Command P shortcuts or change it to something i would not accidentally hit

But i do not see options in Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts

Regards

Keyboard shortcuts such as the "Print Document" shortcut are baked into each application, so unfortunately it isn't something that is system-wide and can be disabled in one place.

Here's an excerpt from Apple's Keyboard Shortcut page:

  To learn more shortcuts, check the menus of the app you're using.
  Every app can have its own shortcuts, and shortcuts that work in one
  app may not work in another.

However there is still a workaround to get shortcuts from working, and that would be by using another application that binds shortcuts. By binding Command+P to do nothing on another application you would essentially block it from being able to do anything else. To learn more on how to do this, check out this very similar question: How to disable keyboard shortcuts in mac os x


Does iOS app developer have access to my iCloud billing info? I see this data in my iCloud purchase history. There are my credit card number, my first and last name, my address, and iPhone's name.

Which of this are accessible to the developer of the app?
Is it possible for developers to track reinstallation of their apps thought this data? How is that conforms with Uber's case?

No, the iOS app developers do not have access to your billing info.

When an app is sold through the App Store, the third party developer does not get access to the credit card number, first or last names, your address nor the iPhone's name.

As a consequence of this, the developer cannot track reinstallations through the means of the above mentioned data.


Can I use the Mac OS X Install DVD that came with my Mac Mini on my Macbook? I just bought a new hard drive for my Macbook and want to install a fresh OS X 10.6. I looked through all the CDs that I have and I could only find the Mac OS X Install DVD that came with a new Mac Mini I bought a couple of months ago.

Can I use that disc to install Mac OS X 10.6 for my Macbook?

Normally I would think it'd be no problem, but the install disk prominently says "Mac mini" on it. I'm wondering if the OS is specially tailored for Mac Mini's and won't have the drivers necessary for Macbooks.

The rest of the disc says:

Mac Mini
Mac OS X Install DVD
Mac OS version 10.6.4
Disc version 1.0

Any thoughts?

The installation disk coming with a computer is for that computer model only, and I would not expect this to work.

If your MacBook runs 10.5 you are eligible for the 10.6 upgrade for $29.  I can highly recommend it, if nothing else, for the fixes in Time Machine.


Mac thinks mouse is a keyboard Whenever I plug in my usb wireless mouse, my Macbook Air and Mac Pro both think that the mouse is a keyboard and won't register the mouse's movements at all. Is there a way to fix this?

The mouse is a cheapy Gigaware wireless usb mouse and I'm running OS X Mavericks.

This restored the default mouse behavior for me, though it looks like I had a different problem.

Open keyboard settings in System Preferences > Keyboard
Click Modifier Keys... button in bottom right of panel
Select your mouse from the dropdown
Click Restore Defaults button to restore default behavior.

If that doesn't work, you might also try these instructions for removing your keyboard profiles and then restarting.


macOS Mail app takes ~60 seconds to send emails but only for one SMTP server Recently I've noticed that the Apple Mail app on macOS takes about 60 seconds to send emails via a certain SMTP server (my primary mail server). I don't recall any particular upgrade to either my operating system or mail server that may have triggered this, so I'm not sure why it's started happening as Mail has been happily using this mail server for many years.
I've performed a connection test from within the Mail app and looked at the Mail logs and the mail server (postfix) logs and this is what I can see:
Logs from Mail.app:
INITIATING CONNECTION Aug 07 19:12:06.024 host:<my-mail-server> -- port:<port> -- socket:0x0 -- thread:0x6000002e2fc0

CONNECTED Aug 07 19:13:07.110 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelNone] -- host:<my-mail-server> -- port:<port> -- socket:0x6000032c4420 -- thread:0x6000002e2fc0

READ Aug 07 19:13:07.260 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelNone] -- host:<my-mail-server> -- port:<port> -- socket:0x6000032c4420 -- thread:0x6000002e2fc0
220 <my-mail-server> ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu)

WROTE Aug 07 19:13:07.272 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelNone] -- host:<my-mail-server> -- port:<port> -- socket:0x6000032c4420 -- thread:0x6000002e2fc0
EHLO [<my-ip-address>]

// Followed by the basic SMTP handshake and connection test.

Logs from postfix:
Aug  7 19:12:06 <server> postfix/smtpd[23750]: connect from unknown[<my-ip-address>]
Aug  7 19:13:01 <server> postfix/master[1324]: warning: master_wakeup_timer_event: service pickup(public/pickup): Connection refused
Aug  7 19:13:07 <server> postfix/smtpd[23750]: lost connection after UNKNOWN from unknown[<my-ip-address>]
Aug  7 19:13:07 <server> postfix/smtpd[23750]: disconnect from unknown[<my-ip-address>] unknown=0/3 commands=0/3
Aug  7 19:13:07 <server> postfix/smtpd[23750]: connect from unknown[<my-ip-address>]
Aug  7 19:13:08 <server> postfix/smtpd[23750]: disconnect from unknown[<my-ip-address>] ehlo=2 starttls=1 auth=1 quit=1 commands=5

From the mail server logs it seems like the client connects, times out after 60 seconds, connects again and then instantly succeeds, whereas from the Mail logs it looks like it just takes 60 seconds to connect in the first place.
I've tested the same mail server and credentials with both an iPhone and an iPad and neither of them have the same issue.
Is there anything I can do to resolve this?
Edit: I have just updated my operating system to macOS 10.15.6 and restarted but the issue still persists.
Edit 2: I've just set up a new 2019 MacBook Pro and continue to experience the same issue, which suggests that it is an issue with the mailserver, but doesn't explain why it works fine on an iPhone and iPad.

I only managed to solve this by changing the port that I was using on my mail server to send emails (I was using a non-standard port to bypass ISP filtering). When I changed to using TCP port 587 (the Message Submission port) the issue was resolved.
I'm still not convinced that Mail and/or macOS (or possibly my mail server) is doing something weird as other devices (iPhone and iPad) use the non-standard SMTP port just fine.


How to decrease size of macbook pro (early 2011) boot partition? My macbook pro early 2011 has an SSD with 2 partitions (disk0s1 = 50Gb for time machine backups and disk0s2 =206Gb boot and data).
I have somehow managed to totally fill up my boot partition to over 205GB and the macbook does not boot. Using the diskutility I cannot decrease the 50GB disk0s1 partition and increase the disk0s2 partition. The repair tool ends with an error also.

What can I do to either copy the data from the partition or decrease the partition so that the mac can boot again?

I think it's impossible (pre-APFS) to delete the first partition. You can expand a partition 'upwards' into free space, but you can't move down a later partition.

If you think that stuff on the boot volume could be deleted until there's sufficient free space, then that might be enough to get you up and running for the time being.
Easiest would be to boot from an external drive and then explore the internal volume from there. (Or using Target Mode from another Mac.) Alternatively, you could mount the boot volume in Recovery's Terminal and delete files from there, if you're comfortable with that.

But most solutions will require you to copy everything off, wipe the disk and then put it all back. A utility like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! can make disk images easily.

IMPORTANT WARNING

Before attempting any adjustment to the disk partition, you need to make a backup of the boot volume on a separate device, in case it goes wrong and you wipe the disk.

There is absolutely no value in having a backup partition on the same device as the source data. If the SSD fails or you wipe it; if the laptop gets stolen or catches fire: you've got nothing.

Backups need to be on a separate physical device.


I think my HD is failing. Can't backup files from recovery mode. How can I preserve my data? I'm really worried, and I'm hoping that you guys can help me salvage some files. Here's what happened:

This morning I woke my iMac up from sleep, but it was hardly responding. I would click something and it would show the colorwheel spinning for 30 seconds before responding. So I rebooted, but then it got stuck on the apple logo with the loading symbol for about 15 minutes, then it started osx but it responded even less and the desktop background disappeared every 20 seconds and turned grey.

So I booted into recovery mode and tried to verify the HD, which failed. Then I tried repairing it but it failed again, saying that I should backup my files and repartition my HD. I have an external HD, but it doesn't have enough space for me to save an image of my entire HD to it. So I'm trying to backup files manually through the terminal, but that's not working either. At first I couldn't even see my HD from the terminal in recovery mode (like it wasn't mounted). After rebooting a couple of times I can now access my HD from the terminal in recovery, but when I try to copy a file to my external drive it gives an "input/output error" most of the time.

This all sounds really bad to me. Is there anything I can do?

ps: I tried booting into my windows bootcamp partition but that didn't work. The error message said something about inserting a boot cd if I remember correctly.

I had this problem too, the best thing you can do is replace the harddrive since it will eventually break beyond repair.
Macs are quite sensitive to faulty hdd's so there is a good chance you can still use the drive as external drive and get your data from it.

so:
Replace the drive yourself if you can (ifixit) or have it replaced
Get a hard drive enclosure for your old drive
plug it in your imac and drag back the files you still need

Once you've removed the failing/failed drive, you can then use an inexpensive USB to SATA adapter and see if any of the off-the-shelf file recovery software can read some of your data from the drive. Data Rescue might be a good tool to start with since the free demo will tell you what it might be able to recover before you have to spend $$ on the software.

Lastly, sending the failed drive into a professional will cost $$$ but if you really need the files or pictures back, that's often the best chance of success.


Message effects no longer work on my iPhone So I’m not sure if this is due to iOS 13.2 or not because I’ve only just realized that I’m not getting message effects, those bubble messages or the balloons, pew pew lasers people can send you and which you can send.

I did update my iPhone today from iOS 12.4.2 to iOS 13.2
I’ve already tried rebooting my phone.

Is there a way to fix this?

There are settings that can enable or disable these. Even if you don't recall selecting this - checking that you're enabled would be a good first step.

My guess is at some point you enabled (intentionally or otherwise) the Reduce Motion option in your settings.

To check this:

Go to Settings > Accessibility
At the top, if Reduce Motion is enabled then the following effects won’t work at all:

Bubble effects
Full-screen effects

The other setting you can check on this screen is the Auto-Play Message Effects option. If this is on they play automatically, if it’s off you have to play them manually by tapping the circular arrow button below the message.

Further reading

The following pages on Apple's website may be of interest:

Use message effects with iMessage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
Reduce screen motion on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


How to tell if the MBA (Mavericks) is connected to the 2.4 or 5 ghz network? I've been having issues connecting to wifi access points, and I am wondering if the band is messing things up.  How do I tell what band a wifi connection is using on the laptop if I don't have access to the router settings?

Option + Wifi Menu

Hold the Option key down and select your WiFi icon in the menu bar ( ⌥ +  ).

Additional information in the menu includes “Channel:” and (5 GHz) or (2.4 GHz) for the current radio settings.

As seen in Yosemite:

Wireless Diagnostics.app

You can get even more information from System Information. But I usually open the Wireless Diagnostics app (in Applications > Utilities folder). Choose Window > Info to get more detailed WiFi networking or scan for better channels, check for interference, etc.


How can I find the passphrase in the keychain after adding it with ssh-add -K I have added my ssh passphrase to my keychain with ssh-add -K option but I cannot seem to find it in the keychain. I have looked at login keychain and icloud keychain. I used the command line application security without luck. I even looked at every single entry in the login keychain to see which applications are allowed to read in case I stumble on ssh-agent. Any tips for finding it?

AFAIK the security command line tool does not work with icloud keychain but with an independent keychain. I can find my ssh key using keychain access (the desktop app) and searching for the filename or the file path.


What's the difference between DFU and iTunes restore in iPhone? The articles I've read regarding this aren't very clarifying.

Does an iTunes restore restore the firmware?  At the end of the iTunes restore (not DFU), I can see "restoring iPhone firmware", but I had a chat with Apple through GSX and the technician told me that this is just "a misnomer", the firmware is only restored in DFU mode.

DFU writes the firmware and then the OS.
Restore writes the OS only.

My guess is the misnomer is firmware like carrier updates and modem scripts will be layered on after either OS restore. Also, these names originated when the iOS devices were far simpler. Secure enclave, secure boot chain, forward secrecy and encryption at rest make the update procedure far more uniform. Maybe that's also what GSX is alluding to - you don't really write all the firmware anymore on current / modern iOS devices.


Reset Activity Calibration on Apple Watch I went for a jog with my Apple Watch and iPhone in order to calibrate my Apple Watch activity monitoring. Annoyingly, I must've chosen the Outdoor Walk activity and not Outdoor Run. Where I used to get excercise minutes for brisk walks, I no longer do.

Is there anyway to reset the calibration so that I can do it again?

Cheers.

Unpairing and re-pairing your WATCH used to reset your calibration data. However, as of watchOS 2.x, this is no longer the case, as that data now gets backed up to your iPhone.

It seems you are left with three options:

Take your WATCH on a few walks with the Workout app, hoping it eventually recalibrates itself.
Reset your WATCH as new by going into the Settings app on your WATCH.
Unpair your WATCH and perform an unencrypted backup of your iPhone to iTunes. Then restore your iPhone from backup, and pair your WATCH once again. You will lose all health data, passwords, etc. from your iPhone as well.

Seems #2 would be the most straightforward approach, although you could try #1 for a while and see if that’s enough.

I added #3 for completeness’s sake only


disable SIP on a remote/headless machine running Sierra? I have a remote 2012 mac mini running Sierra.  Long ago I was doing some troubleshooting and had created a secondary copy of the system on the machine.  Once I had finished whatever I was doing (which I don't even remember anymore) I got my working system running again and deleted the alternate one.  Trouble is since it contains system files, they are locked down by SIP and can't be deleted without disabling SIP.  Which of course can only be done from recovery mode, which requires having a display and keyboard attached to the machine in question.  Which I don't have.
Is there any way to:

Disable SIP without using recovery mode at all?  I have found other threads (such as here and here) about this and the consensus appears to be "no", but I thought I would reiterate the question here to be thorough.  Or,
Empty the trash of protected items without having to disable SIP first?

The machine is running Sierra and SIP is definitely enabled currently (csrutil status).

Disable SIP without using recovery mode at all? I have found other threads (such as here and here) about this and the consensus appears to be "no", but I thought I would reiterate the question here to be thorough.

System Integrity Protection cannot be disabled from a normal mode boot (from ones's Desktop). The Apple provided method is to use csrutil disable from Terminal while booted to macOS Recovery. What good would it be if it could be disabled from a normal mode boot? (Rhetorical question!)
As mentioned by David Anderson in a comment, one could use rEFInd to disable SIP, however, this cannot be done from a normal mode boot (from ones's Desktop) and would require having rEFInd installed and rebooting the system to rEFInd, which you'd have no control of from a headless-system without a keyboard.

Empty the trash of protected items without having to disable SIP first?

From a normal mode boot (from one's Desktop), no, however one can delete the various .Trashes and .Trash directories from Terminal in macOS Recovery without disabling SIP and then reboot back to normal mode boot and those directories will be recreated.
What good would SIP be if one could bypass its restrictions from a normal mode boot? (Rhetorical question!)
Obviously, you'll need to temporarily add a keyboard and monitor to the Mac mini to boot to macOS Recovery in order to resolve the issue.


How do i clean inside of my iMac? I want to clean the inside of my iMac. The mac : iMac Mid-2007

How do i clean the dust from inside or clean inside of it. Basically im saying how do I open the mac?

There's an access door on the bottom of the Mac which can be unscrewed.

For further access, you need to take the glass off, which is fixed with fourteen magnets.

Source: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+20-Inch+EMC+2133+and+2210+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1008


Large files in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion I have constant problems moving large files in Mountain Lion.  When I say large I would say roughly 2GB or larger, which means nearly every iso and vmdk I touch.  This can occur moving a file to or from a USB disk, a FW800 disk, a samba share, a netatalk share.

For instance, here is the latest error: "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso" can't be read or written. (Error code -36)"

I know the data is not corrupt because I can use rsync to copy this file to the exact same destination and it will succeed, just that finder will fail to copy it.  I've also used the same file to install a vm which worked fine as well as moved the file with a USB stick which for no apparent reason succeeded.  On top of that when I share out files using SMB from the same Mac and try to move the file from a windows server the connection will hang up halfway through the copy for no apparent reason.  Is anyone aware of a larger bug or problem with large files in 10.8?

We had the same problem.  Communication stops briefly on extended transfers of any kind.

I contacted Apple Senior support who were actually able to reproduce the problem. I was told that Apple will release an update after they solve the issue.

Obviously until then we all must wait.


Is there a way to export chat history in Skype 5.2.x for OS X? Duplicate of:
  Is there a way to export chat history in Skype 5.2.x for OS X?

I'm currently running 5.2.x on OS X 10.6.8 and I need to some deep searching of the past history in a conversation with a colleague. Skype tells me the term I'm looking for is in the long-running chat we've had, but good luck getting it to show you the specific chat entry in time without manually scrolling backwards through months and months of back-and-forth.

I'd like to export the conversation as some format I can access programmatically (HTML, XML, etc.). The HTML export options that used to be present in Skype for OS X seem to have disappeared as of the 5.0 release.

Is there a way to export chat history in Skype 5.2.x for OS X?

try the SQLite export method @ http://billxinli.com/2011/07/28/export-skype-chat-history-and-other-meta-data/ =)


Negative affects from leaving iPhone plugged in at 100%? I usually plug in my phone at night when I go to bed but it’s almost always at around 70-80% so am I damaging my phone (iPhone 6S) from having it plugged in at 100% for a few hours every night?

Questions about batteries and charging often risk inviting a lot of opinion, so to try and keep this to the facts, you should read what Apple has to say about their batteries.

However, leaving your iPhone plugged into an AC source overnight causes no problems whatsoever. In fact, this is what millions of users do each night.

The only time you need to be concerned about storing an iPhone at 100% is if you're going to be storing it long-term. On storing devices long-term Apple says:

  Do not fully charge or fully discharge your device’s battery — charge
  it to around 50%. If you store a device when its battery is fully
  discharged, the battery could fall into a deep discharge state, which
  renders it incapable of holding a charge. Conversely, if you store it
  fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may lose
  some capacity, leading to shorter battery life.

Some other key points from Apple are:

Apple lithium-ion batteries use fast charging to reach 80% of their capacity and then switch to slower trickle charging to complete the charge.
Charge your iPhone whenever you want. Many people believe you need to let them discharge 100% before recharging. This is not true.
Ambient temperature is one of the biggest factors in battery health/life. iPhones are designed to work at their best when ambient temperatures are between 0° to 35° C (32° to 95° F).
Store your iPhone where the temperature is between -20º and 45º C (-4º to 113º F). Don’t leave it in your car, because temperatures in parked cars can exceed 45º C (113º F).


Gmail "On Behalf Of" Feature in Mail.app I use Gmail with Mail.app. As you know Gmail allows replying mails as someone else (by changing From header of the sent e-mail). If you don't know, you can register multiple mails to Gmail (your personal mail, work mail etc.) and you can send mail from them from one account.

Let's say you have 3 mails registered in GMail: g@gmail.com, a@a.a and b@b.b. Your account is g@gmail.com in this case. When you use GMail web interface, if you receive a mail redirected from a@a.a, when you press Reply, it sends your mail as a@a.a (or you can choose other accounts to mimic one of your e-mail addresses as sender).

However when I'm in Mail.app, I'm only able to send mail as g@gmail.com, any ideas to solve this?

Under Accounts in Preferences, there's a field there called "Email Address:".  You can put a comma-separated list of addresses in there, like this:

Now your "Compose" window will have a "From" popup menu that lets you choose your sending address:

AFAIK, this works for pretty much any mail account type, as long as your mail provider allows you to muck around with the From: header.


Rolling back to a previous version of OS X Mavericks I installed the latest version of Mavericks and it broke some stuff (instruments) which I cannot afford to have broken.  Is there a way to roll back to my previous release?  Am currently on 10.9.2 and want to go to 10.9.1 or 10.9.

Regards,

Mark

One of my pet peeves with O/S X is there is not an uninstall feature for patches, upgrades and even apps. One of the (VERY) few things that Windows has that I wish the Mac had.

Unfortunately the only real way to do this is to wipe the drive, install the pervisous version, assuming you have the installer or can find it and restore from backup.

What I usually do before a major OR point upgrade is to attach a USB HD and clone the drive. Then I verify it boots from the clone. Only then do I do an upgrade. So if the upgrade breaks something all I have to do is back up the few changed files and restore from my clone.

As for Time Machine, you can't restore an O/S from Time Machine as it does not backup system files. However once you have reinstalled the O/S Time Machine can take you the rest of the way.

Probably NOT what you want to hear but that's the only solution I have ever found...


The new software iOS 8.1.3 won't update I have the iPhone 5s which I bought like 2 months ago. The new software update iOS 8.1.3 wont install. I press the Agree button for terms and conditions and it just wont do anything.

Try updating through iTunes. This is useful for those times when there isn't enough free memory available for the update to install on the device itself.

The sequence is to back up the phone and then apply the update.

If there is an error, you will see it in the iTunes update error logs. You can also restore the device to factory settings (via iTunes or via the reset options in the settings app - erase all content and settings) and then update if the cause of the error is some corruption of the apps and data on the phone.


What other apps have secret debug menus? I'm aware that Reminders, Disk Utility, and App Store have debug menus. Are there any other apps that have a similar Terminal command for a secret debug menu?

Reminders

defaults write com.apple.reminders RemindersDebugMenu -bool true

Disk Utility

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled -bool true

App Store

defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true

Safari (not to be confused with Develop menu which can be enabled in Preferences)

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1

iCal

defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu -bool true

Contacts

defaults write com.apple.Contacts ABShowDebugMenu -bool YES


Startup iTunes to Shared Library / Home Sharing I've enabled iTunes Home Sharing on 2 Macs, and I want the remote iTunes to start up directly to the shared library instead of the default local library and manually selecting "Shared Library".

Much appreciated.

Unfortunately, you can't do this. THere might be a way to script it, but I doubt that; I don't think Apple wants people to be able to do this.


How do you mount -bind a local directory? In linux, one of the great things you could do (for developers, in particular) was to mount a folder and locally bind it to another folder on the system.

This had the advantage over symlinks due do the fact tools like Git didn't detect it as being a different type of node, and you didn't need to remove the original contents. When you were done, you could simple unmount and you were left with the original filesystem contents.

However, mount -bind or mount.local don't seem to exist on Mac (as of OS X 10.10.2, Yosemite).

How do you go about this?

As mentioned by another user on StackOverflow, you can use an NFS mount do to this. However, it requires a little bit of one-time setup.

First, you'll need to set up an /etc/exports file (if you haven't done so already).

$ sudo tee -a /etc/exports <<< "/ -alldirs -mapall=$USER localhost"

Secondly, you'll need to start the rpc and nfsd services.

$ sudo launchctl start com.apple.rpcbind
$ sudo nfsd start

From there, give NFSd a little bit to wake up and get breakfast, and you should be good to mount:

$ sudo mount localhost:/path/to/target ./mnt

To restore the original contents, just do

$ sudo umount ./mnt


After Big Sur 11.1 replaced beta, No Safari available No problem converting from Beta to Big Sur 11.1non 2016 MacBook 12 except for Safari. The beta Safari remains, is not compatible, and I haven’t been able to locate installer for the right Safari.
This is a new/clean install so there is no backup as none needed. How to remove the beta?
Chrome is installed and apparently healthy
Thank you.
C

You should re-install macOS 11.1 using the installer found in the App Store. This should restore all system components:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-big-sur/id1526878132?mt=12


Copy directory in server to directory in local machine My class requires for us to make the homework in a linux server, but i want to copy those files to my local machine. I've tried so far to to use the cp command but it doesn't seem to take my arguments. It always return with either the host directory does not exist or with the target directory does not exist.

My approach so far has been:

cp -R /chapter2 ~/Documents/Projects

Keep in mind that i'm connected to a remote server on ssh.

I got it to work with the help of @klanomath. It never occurred to me that the command is supposed to be executed without connection to the host@IP:. I just added -r and /*file. to the command to get all files in one instance.

scp -r host@IP:/home/username/chapter2/*.c ~/Documents/Projects


Using Automator to set up Finder windows I use Finder windows to display pictures of the my company's employees on a TV screen. A Finder window for every department. The different Finder windows are adjusted to fit in to two 4K TV screens. Is there a way to use Automator or AppleScript to save and recall this exact configuration when needed?

The sample script below is coded with the following assumptions, you want the target Finder windows to be as plain as possible, i.e. no Path Bar, Preview pane, Toolbar, Sidebar or Status Bar showing, just a plain window in Icon view with the Title Bar showing the Department name with the picture icons showing a preview of the image and set to a given size with the label shown below the image. Other configurations will require additional logic and or coding. Note: See comments in the code if wanting to set a picture or color for a common background of all target folder Finder windows wanting to be displayed and arranged.

For the test environment I used my MacBook Pro and Thunderbolt Display configured with the MacBook Pro as the main screen with Menu bar and the Thunderbolt Display to its right. The script opens the four example target Finder windows, sets the view requirements and arranges them on the Thunderbolt Display as shown in the image below.

To use this script you'll need to gather information from your fully configured scenario and make the necessary code changes and to do that, do the following:

First, open the target folders and arrange them on the screen(s) to suite your needs/wants.
Note: To make it easier, by having less information to parse in the next step, close all other Finder windows.
Open Script Editor and in a new window that has no code in it, use the following command to get the proprieties of the arranged opened target Finder windows:

tell application "Finder" to get properties of windows
In the Results pane, you'll see a lot of information that may look impossible to discern, however it won't be that difficult. You might want to copy and paste this info into TextEdit to do a bit of parsing and have the info ready to copy and paste into the script, as will be needed.

From the information gathered you'll primarily want two pieces of info for each target Finder window, its name and bounds. You can see in the code what the bounds info looks like and how it's applied.
You'll get the additional view properties needed from Show View Options by selecting a target window and then click 'Finder > View > Show View Options  ⌘J' or just press ⌘J after selecting a target window. See comments in the code about the 'Show View Options' information.
Copy and paste the code below from the Browser to a new window in Script Editor and then click the Compile button to ensure there are no initial errors in the current code. The comments and code will now be much easier to discern as the Script Editor will apply proper syntactical highlighting to the code, something the Browser just doesn't properly do.

You should be able to follow the comments throughout the script in order to modify it for your use case. If you have any questions, just ask.

#
##        READ COMMENTS FOR AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THE CODE IS DOING
##        AND WHAT INFORMATION YOU'LL NEED TO PROVIDE AND OR MODIFY.
#
#
#    The 'gTargetPath' variable is a global (to the script only) variable being set for
#    the path to the target folders Finder is to open and arrange, that which contain
#    the Company's employee pictures which are arranged in separate folders by
#    their respective Departments.
#
#    It's assuming a logical hierarchical folder structure where the starting point
#    is in the User's Picture folder (or other location) and progresses e.g.,
#    Company > Departments > Department Name. Obviously you'll need to
#    modify it to suite your needs. Note however, this script is coded with the
#    assumption that all target folders to be opened are all in a given parent
#    folder so as to only have to set the path to the containing parent folder.
#
#    Thus only having to provide the 'name' of each target folder and its
#    'bounds' info, for them to be programmatically opened and arranged
#    on the attached Display(s) per the other relevant setting in the script.
#
#    Note: If the target folders to be opened are not in a centralized parent
#    folder then create Aliases for the folders and place them in a centralized
#    parent folder so as to maintain a single path to use in this script.
#

global gTargetPath

set gTargetPath to (path to pictures folder as text) & "Company:Departments:"

#
#    This first 'tell application "Finder"' statement block is where
#    you'll set the 'name' of the target folders with its 'bounds' info.
#
#    The example settings should serve as a guide. Each Department
#    code block consists of two 'set' statements and the calling of the
#    'arrangeWindow(folder_name, window_bounds)' subroutine, which
#    itself does not need to be modified.
#
#    Just provide the info, as the example info for each folder shows.
#

tell application "Finder"
    activate

    ###    Accounting    ###

    set folder_name to "Accounting"
    set window_bounds to {1495, 36, 2252, 706}

    my arrangeWindow(folder_name, window_bounds)

    ###    Marketing    ###

    set folder_name to "Marketing"
    set window_bounds to {2321, 36, 3075, 706}

    my arrangeWindow(folder_name, window_bounds)

    ###    Production    ###

    set folder_name to "Production"
    set window_bounds to {3156, 36, 3912, 706}

    my arrangeWindow(folder_name, window_bounds)

    ###    Sales    ###

    set folder_name to "Sales"
    set window_bounds to {2320, 757, 3075, 1426}

    my arrangeWindow(folder_name, window_bounds)

end tell

#
##
###    Begin Subroutines        ###
##
#
#    ONLY THIS FIRST SUBROUTINE SHOULD NEED TO BE MODIFIED.
#
#    Read comments for an understanding of what the code is doing
#    and what information you'll need to provide and or modify.
#
#    The 'setFinderViewShowViewOptions(folder_name)' subroutine handles the setting
#    available when using 'Finder > View > Show View Options  ⌘J' and the values of
#    some may/will need to be modified to suite your use case.
#
#    The current setting are what were used in the test example and I'd imagine you'd
#    only have to change 'set icon size to' and 'set text size to', to the value you need.
#
#    The other setting are conducive to what I believe one would want and shouldn't
#    need adjusting. That is sans the settings if using a picture or other then default
#    color for the background in Icon view. See additional comments around each.
#

on setFinderViewShowViewOptions(folder_name)

    #    Finder > View > Show View Options  ⌘J

    tell application "Finder"
        activate window named folder_name
        tell icon view options of window folder_name
            set arrangement to arranged by name # See Finder's AppleScript Dictionary for other values.
            set icon size to 256
            set shows item info to false
            set shows icon preview to true
            set text size to 12 # Valid values: 10~16
            set label position to bottom # Valid values: [right|bottom]

            #
            ##
            ###    THE NEXT TWO PROPRIETIES CAN ONLY BE USED ONE AT A TIME!
            ##
            #
            #    For 'set background picture to (file)', remove '(*' and '*)' to
            #    activate the 'try' code block while modifying the example
            #    path to reflect the correct POSIX path to the target image file
            #    to be used for the background.
            #
            #    Note: If the image dimensions are larger then the window,
            #    it displays only the portion starting in the upper right corner
            #    of the image and starting in the upper right corner of the
            #    window. Right sizing the image to fit the size of the window
            #    ahead of time may be necessary.
            #

            (*
                try
                    set background picture to POSIX file "/Users/me/Pictures/IMG_0866.JPG"
                    tell application "Finder"
                        close Finder window named folder_name
                        open gTargetPath & folder_name
                    end tell
                end try
            *)

            #
            #    'set background color to {RGB color * 257 for each value of RGB.}'
            #
            #    For example, a color of 85% grayscale would be '217, 217, 217' in RGB color.
            #    Multiply each RGB value by 257, e.g, 217*257=55769 so the 'set ...' command
            #    below would set the background color to 85% grayscale.
            #
            #    Remove the '-- ' from in front of '-- set ...' to activate the code.
            #

            -- set background color to {55769, 55769, 55769}

        end tell
    end tell

end setFinderViewShowViewOptions

#
##
###    THE SUBROUTINES BELOW SHOULD NOT NEED TO BE MODIFIED.        ###
##
#
#    The 'setFinderView(folder_name)' subroutine programmatically handles setting
#    the 'Finder > View' menu setting for hiding the Toolbar and Status Bar.
#
#    All other [Hide/Show ...] 'View' menu commands require GUI Scripting and
#    are handled by the 'setFinderViewGUI()' subroutine following below this one.
#

on setFinderView(folder_name)

    #     Finder > View > [as Icons (icon) | as List (list) | as Columns  (column) | as Cover Flow (flow)]
    #     Finder > View > [Hide/Show Toolbar]
    #     Finder > View > [Hide/Show Status Bar]

    tell application "Finder"
        activate window named folder_name
        try
            set the current view of window folder_name to icon view
            set toolbar visible of window folder_name to false
            set statusbar visible of window folder_name to false
        end try
    end tell
end setFinderView

#
##
###      THE USE OF 'setFinderViewGUI()' REQUIRES PERMISSION FOR ASSISTIVE ACCESS.        ###
##
#
#    This subroutine handles clicking, as applicable, "Hide Tab Bar", "Hide Path Bar" and "Hide Preview"
#    on the View menu in Finder. These are not programmatically scriptable in the same manner as
#    selecting the current view to e.g. 'as Icons'. Or 'Hide/Show Toolbar' and 'Hide/Show Status Bar'
#    and as such requires GUI Scripting and thus requires permission to do so.
#
#    See https://support.apple.com/HT202802 for additional information and note while the article
#    is named "OS X: Using AppleScript with Accessibility and Security features in Mavericks",
#    nonetheless it's applicable to later versions of OS X too.
#

on setFinderViewGUI(folder_name)
    tell application "Finder"
        activate window named folder_name
        tell application "System Events"
            set menuViewItems to get name of menu items of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1 of process "Finder"
            try
                considering case
                    if menuViewItems contains {"Hide Tab Bar"} then
                        click menu item "Hide Tab Bar" of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1 of process "Finder"
                    end if
                    if menuViewItems contains {"Hide Path Bar"} then
                        click menu item "Hide Path Bar" of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1 of process "Finder"
                    end if
                    if menuViewItems contains {"Hide Preview"} then
                        click menu item "Hide Preview" of menu 1 of menu bar item "View" of menu bar 1 of process "Finder"
                    end if
                end considering
            end try
        end tell
    end tell
end setFinderViewGUI

#
#    The 'arrangeWindow(folder_name, window_bounds)' subroutine handles
#    the processing of the other subroutines so all settings are applied to each
#    Finder window for which a folder name and the window 'bounds' have been
#    supplied in the beginning of this script in the first 'tell application "Finder"'
#    statement block. This subroutine should not have to be modified.
#
#    Thus minimizing the amount of script modifications to achive what I think
#    would be for a reasonable appearance in the overall window that is
#    displaying the photos. Which is to hide all non-essential window controls
#    to provide a clean and uncluttered look giving the pictures better focus.
#

on arrangeWindow(folder_name, window_bounds)
    tell application "Finder"
        open gTargetPath & folder_name
        my setFinderView(folder_name)
        my setFinderViewGUI(folder_name)
        my setFinderViewShowViewOptions(folder_name)
        set bounds of window named folder_name to window_bounds
    end tell
end arrangeWindow

#
##
###    End Subroutines      ###
##
#


Meaning of square brackets in a Preview search I recently needed to search for a string enclosed in square brackets in a PDF document. So I typed [concept] into the search field (including the square brackets).

The result surprised me, as I got a list of pages containing the word concept with all letters contained in that word highlighted in yellow.

I haven't been able to find any documentation of this "feature" - or any other special syntax in the search field.

What is the straight explanation for this behaviour, if any?

Sounds like the search is actually a Regular Expression search, and by enclosing your search term in brackets, instead of searching for the word 'concept' you were searching for the presence of the letters 'c', 'o', 'n', 'e', 'p' and 't'.


What's the difference between alias and link? I see that the size of alias is 167.7kB, whereas symbolic link is just 4kB.

What's the difference between the two, or what's the purpose of them?
Which one is preferable? For the case that the link/alias is used only in one machine or networked.

ADDED

http://prosseek.blogspot.com/2012/12/symbolic-link-and-alias-in-mac.html

An alias contains two pieces of information: a unique identifier of the file it links to, and the path and file name of the file it links to.

If you rename or move a file, and then create a new file with the path and file name that the file originally had, then any alias that linked to the original file now links to the new file.

However, if you rename or move a file without replacing it, and then invoke an alias, the alias is updated to point to the new path and file name, making use of the unique identifier to do so.

A symbolic link, on the other hand, does not contain a unique identifier to a file, and would appear as broken if the file is renamed or moved and not replaced with a file of the same path and file name.

Your choice should depend on which scenario suits you best.


Turn layout in Pages into a template I have a layout in Pages that I want to turn into a template. Here is what I have so far:

The green rectangle is an inserted shape.  I'd like to use that as a title bar basically and put text on top of it.  The other thing, I'd like to be able to do create a "title" template of sorts and whenever I need a title page, insert that template page and go from there.

How do I do this?

When you have a Pages document, you can always go to File -> Save as Template

After you’ve saved it, whenever you chose New -> From Template Chooser, you have a small section that says “My Templates”:

Your “Custom” templates should appear there.

For the second part of your question, what you need is what Pages call a section. The steps for creating a new section are pretty straightforward and you can find a lot of information on google, see samples here and here (find the part where a new section is created).

In short: Insert a “Section Break”, edit it, change the styles, add what you want (see the links to see tips about different things you can do, like having a different ‘first page’ than the rest, etc.).

Once you’re happy with your “section”, make sure the ‘caret’ (cursor) is blinking in any part of the section and go to Format -> Advanced -> Capture Pages:

The result is a sheet dialog like this:

Give it a name, make sure it includes the pages you want (1, 2, 3 or all, depending upon the complexity of your idea, in your case it would be ‘First Page Only’) and finally save the document as a “Template”.

The page(s) you’ve used to create a Section can be safety deleted before you save the template (unless you want your template to always start with those pages by default), because you have captured them as a section, they will always be available under the new template.


Downloading unsigned applications Using MacOS Sierra, I have downloaded an unsigned app from a website.  When I open it, my security settings prevent me from running the app (it is from an unknown developer), but I can open it from the Security panel in Systems Preferences.  All as expected.

However, if I put the same .zip file I downloaded onto a different server, and download it from there, when I try to run it, I get a different dialog about running applications downloaded from the internet, and if I say to open it anyway, it fails, presenting a dialog saying there was an error (but nothing about what kind of error), and the option to check the console (which does not present anything obviously useful).

Can anyone explain this behavior, and what (if anything) I can do to prevent these problems when downloading from this second server?

To get around that, all you need to do is Right Click and Open This will now allow you to open up unsigned or 3rd party apps.

Its an automated safety feature within SIP (System Integrity Protection)


Exposé App Focus Loss issue macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

When I enter Exposé using any method, I select my desired window and it comes to the forefront, but then focus switches back to my previous app no matter what.

Example:

Doing something in Safari
Use Exposé to switch to Email (not app switcher)
Email comes to the front (or un-minimizes)
Safari comes back to the front

This also happens if I switch between windows of the same app. Meaning, if I switch from one email window to another email window via Expose, Safari again takes focus.

It's a simple bug with Exposé not giving focus to the correct app, but this all works perfectly on my other computer running Yosemite.

This is a bug that occurs when the app in question is assigned to "All Desktops".

Here's a work-around: right click the App in the dock and select Options > Assign to > This Desktop or None.


How can I change a section's title color by editing the template in iBooks Author? I'm trying to make a book with iBooks Author on my Mac by customizing the "Contemporary" template. When I switch the view mode from landscape to  portrait, the section title color is red - I want it green!

Since I can edit the section title in landscape mode I can't understand why I'm not able to edit its color as well.

Am I missing something?

The layouts easily editable when using the graphical interface of iBooks Author.

Close any documents you may have open to avoid confusion and then open a new document from the template chooser. Start with a template you like and …

View menu -> Show Layouts
make your changes to fonts, colors, layout, etc… on each type of page, working your way down the list.
File menu -> Save as Template…

At that point, save it in the default location and when you start a new document, you can choose your custom layout for starting a new book.


Server certificates are not properly validated by subversion/openssl I noticed that the svn cli fails to validate https certificates and always ask for manual validation using the certificate fingerprint:

mbp:~ user$ svn co https://svn.mysite.com/svn/testrepo
Error validating server certificate for 'https://svn.mysite.com:443':
 - The certificate is not issued by a trusted authority. Use the
   fingerprint to validate the certificate manually!
Certificate information:
 - Hostname: svn.mysite.com
 - Valid: from Fri, 21 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT until Mon, 20 Jun 2016 23:59:59 GMT
 - Issuer: ANISSUER, DE
 - Fingerprint: 37:7d:6a:a7:e9:4c:30:57:fe:45:32:ab:bb:71:6c:79:08:4d:72:0d

All the following clients were able to validate the certificate of my own svn server as well as that of an sf.net server:

svn cli on Linux
TortoiseSVN on Windows
Safari/Firefox/Chrome on OSX

The two svn cli versions which I tried on OSX (Mountain Lion) and failed to validate the certificates are:

/usr/bin/svn: 1.6.18 (r1303927) - Mountain Lion/Xcode
/opt/homebrew/bin/svn: 1.7.9 (r1462340) - Compiled using homebrew

Is there any way around this problem?

A friend (who was too lazy to write the answer here) hinted me that the root certificates in Mac OSX are stored in the keychain and suggested two different ways around the problem.

In order to make openssl library (used by svn) to locate them, you need to manually export them and store them in /System/Library/OpenSSL/cert.pm. The process is described step-by-step in the following blog post: http://jw35.blogspot.gr/2011/02/root-certificates-for-macos-openssl.html

If you are using homebrew, an alternative solution is to install curl-ca-bundle package and point openssl to the location of the certificates with the use of an environment variable.

brew install curl-ca-bundle
echo "export SSL_CERT_FILE=$(brew --prefix)/opt/curl-ca-bundle/share/ca-bundle.crt" >> ~/.bashrc


iTunes in 2 Countries I have an iTunes account in the UK but I am going to spend 2 months of the year in the US. Is it possible for me to download from the US iTunes Store but keep my UK credit card and billing address?

No, it's not, you'll need a separate credit card and billing address for each country.

A work around would be to use your US address and use gift cards for purchases.

I do this, as I don't live in the US, but want access to some content only available in the US store.


iPhone 4 is unable to connect to 3G network I am now unable to connect to a network to be able to use our internet provider or any other provider. It just keeps "looking" for a network however network options never appear. Despite manually asking to join a network we are still denied access to join despite entering in the correct network data and passcode. The phone is however capable of getting wi-fi but just exhausts all of our data on our plan. Any help to resolve this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Will better to do that issue is you need to try reset your network settings and its automaticaly regenarated from your network carrier..  Try it.. Maybe its work from your problem.


Show Library folder and subfolders in Spotlight Search As a software developer, I often need to look into files within the Library folder.

For quick access, I'd like to be able to see the files in my Spotlight searches.

How can I do that?

You can include System Files like those in the Library folders in a Spotlight search, if you use Spotlight within Finder via the search bar in the top right corner of each Finder window.

Just type in your search and click the small + appearing below the search bar.
In the opening window search for System files and tick it's box for In Menu and click OK.

Afterwards select System files from the dropdown menu on the left and select are included in the next dropdown.

The process is also described here: How to Search for Hidden, Packaged, and System Files in OS X

If you want a simpler method you can use an alternative for Spotlight like Alfred or LaunchBar. These tools work just like spotlight and can include System files within their search scope besides lots of other features.


Can Sierra be installed on a virtual machine created by Parallels Desktop 10? I’ve just stumbled across this site by accident and you good folk may be my last good hope before I abandon this endeavour.

My questions are simple:

Can Sierra be installed on a virtual
machine created by Parallels Desktop 10?
If 'yes' to 1, how do I do this?

—BACKGROUND—

I’ve heard a lot of conflicting stories about Sierra and would like to test it before taking the plunge of upgrading. I have a 27 inch mid 2011 iMac maxed out with 32GB RAM. I regularly run virtual machines in Parallels Desktop 10. These VMs (Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1) all work splendidly, so I figure I could try running Sierra on a virtual machine too.

I’ve read Apple’s licensing conditions and this is legal. Since my iMac is capable of running Sierra natively, my conclusion is my hardware will run Sierra fine in a virtual machine too.

Now the problem…I can’t seem to create a Sierra virtual machine in Parallels Desktop 10.

I’ve tried following and adapting the steps found at this discussion forum (https://forums.developer.apple.com/message/143196), but with no joy to be found. Only frustration!

I’ve searched online (including here!) and cannot find confirmation anywhere that I can even do this on Parallels 10. Nothing to say it can be done. Nothing to say it cannot be done.

Apparently I have to purchase Parallels Desktop 12, or get my hands on Parallels Desktop 11 (cheaper) and create an El Capitan virtual machine and then upgrade to Sierra from within the VM (see http://blog.parallels.com/2016/06/16/macos-sierra-vm/). Thing is, I have no reason to upgrade from Parelles Desktop 10 as it meets my needs otherwise. Besides, Apple doesn’t charge for Sierra so why should I spend money to install it on a virtual machine?

In principle I believe this should be possible somehow and I’m frustrated within myself that I can’t seem to do it!

Yes, this is possible.

It’s not actually too hard, but there’s a lot of steps (a couple of which can be fiddly) so be patient and read this carefully. I’ll try and outline all the steps involved, but feel free to let me know if you get stuck at all.

Also, some of these steps are not strictly necessary, but I’m trying to make this foolproof so that it's useful to other users, and also because I want to ensure that my Terminal command at Step 12 can just be copied and pasted.

On your iMac, download the macOS Sierra installer via the Mac App Store
After its downloaded, the installer will launch automatically. When it does, quit the installer.
Grab a USB flash drive of at least 8GB in size
Connect the USB flash drive to your Mac
Launch the Disk Utility app (by default it’s in the Applications > Utilities folder)
Select the USB flash drive on the lefthand side
Click on the Erase tab
Do not change the default name of Untitled
Click on the Erase button (do not worry about any of the other settings). Note this will totally erase your drive!
Quit Disk Utility
Launch the Terminal app (by default it’s in the Applications > Utilities folder)
Now enter the following command into Terminal. It may be best to just copy it from here (try triple-clicking) and paste it in.

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app
You will be prompted to enter your user password. Enter it now and press return (note that you won’t see the cursor move or display any of the characters you enter)
At the next prompt (about erasing your drive) press the Y key
Wait for your USB flash drive to be erased (you’ll see the progress via % values appearing within the Terminal window)
Once the erasure is complete, you will see a prompt that files are being copied to the disk. This may take a while, so be patient.
Eventually the copy process will be over and you should see a Done message in Terminal. You can now quit Terminal.
Now launch Parallels.
Go to File > New (or press commandN)
In the window that appears, select the Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file option
Click on the Continue button at bottom right
At the next window, ignore what Parallels is searching for and click on the Continue button again
At the next window, give your virtual machine a name and select the location you want it created in
Now, click on the checkbox to indicate you want to Customize settings before installation
Click on the Continue button
Parallels will now create your virtual machine
When complete, you will be presented with the configuration settings
Click on the Hardware tab
Select the Boot Order option in the left hand list
On the righthand side, tick the Select boot device on startup checkbox. This is a temporary, but critical step!
Feel free to configure your other settings for the virtual machine
Once you’ve configured everything, exit the configuration screen
Click on the Continue button
You should see a message that your virtual machine is starting. Wait until you see the Boot Menu appear (it’ll probably be a grey screen with blue and black text on it).
The Continue option will probably be selected. Ignore this and use your down arrow key to select the Boot Maintenance Manager option
Press return
Once the Boot Maintenance Manager window appears, use your down arrow key to select the Boot From File option
Press return
Once the File Explorer window appears, use your down arrow key to select the second file listed
Press return
In the next window, use your down arrow key to select the .IABootFiles option
Press return
In the next window boot.efi should be preselected
Press return
Shortly the Apple logo should appear on a black screen

Now you can follow the prompts to install macOS Sierra.

NOTE 1: - Once you’re within the Boot Menu screens (i.e. Steps 34 - 44) you can press the ESC key at any stage to go back to the previous screen if you need to.

NOTE 2: - Please be patient - the macOS Sierra installation process can take a long time within a virtual machine!

NOTE 3: - Once you're all set up, you will want to go back into the configuration settings for your macOS Sierra virtual machine and uncheck the Select boot device on startup checkbox you ticked at Step 30.

NOTE 4: - If you get stuck at any stage, feel free to post a comment below.


How to ignore iPad auto correct recommendation? iPad's typing auto correct sometimes can be useful, yet sometimes it provides the wrong recommendation. it's often inconvenient to break my hands from the typing position to tap the "x". I wonder aside from tapping the "x" next to the recommended word to ignore recommendation, what can I do on the keyboard to ignore it?

This is a bit of a workaround, but what I always do is just delete the last letter and type it again. iOS recognizes this as an assertion that that's how you wanted to type the word, and won't give the suggestion again.

Also, if you type a word and it gets corrected, the erase it and type it again, it won't correct you twice.

Finally, it seems that if you type a word that isn't in the dictionary and ignore or erase the correction, it won't offer that correction again in that text field. You can try this by just typing the same "wrong" word a few times and it will stop correcting you.

It's not exactly what you're asking for, but I find the autocorrect to be sufficiently intuitive for me. (As a matter if fact, I typed this on my iPhone with absolutely no regard for errors.)