MySQL fails to start after update I am on Yosemite 10.10.5 and just now I updated my outdated MySQL to the latest version. I made a copy of my existing databases /usr/local/mysql/data/ somewhere safe.

I have tried to setup MySQL both via brew & via the package installer, but seems I managed to mess up with both ways.

There is a new icon in preferences panel that was created via the package installer but it doesn't seem to start MySQL.

I tried running mysql.server start on terminal but i received the following error:

Starting MySQL
. ERROR! The server quit without updating PID file (/usr/local/var/mysql/myname.local.pid).

I tried brew services start mysql and I get:

==> Successfully started `mysql` (label: homebrew.mxcl.mysql)

But I can't access to it via Sequel Pro or via Terminal. Since brew services starts mysql, I try mysql but I get:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)

I have the following logs at /usr/local/var/mysql/myname.local.err

2016-03-30T21:58:53.6NZ mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql/data
2016-03-30T21:58:53.791807Z 0 [Warning] TIMESTAMP with implicit DEFAULT value is deprecated. Please use --explicit_defaults_for_timestamp server option (see documentation for more details).
2016-03-30T21:58:53.792478Z 0 [Warning] 'NO_ZERO_DATE', 'NO_ZERO_IN_DATE' and 'ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO' sql modes should be used with strict mode. They will be merged with strict mode in a future release.
2016-03-30T21:58:53.792493Z 0 [Warning] 'NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER' sql mode was not set.
2016-03-30T21:58:53.792573Z 0 [Warning] Insecure configuration for --secure-file-priv: Current value does not restrict location of generated files. Consider setting it to a valid, non-empty path.
2016-03-30T21:58:53.793639Z 0 [Note] /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld (mysqld 5.7.11) starting as process 5922 ...
2016-03-30T21:58:53.807159Z 0 [Warning] Setting lower_case_table_names=2 because file system for /usr/local/mysql/data/ is case insensitive
2016-03-30T21:58:53.829847Z 0 [ERROR] Plugin keyring_file reported: 'keyring_file initialization failure. Please check if the keyring_file_data points to readable keyring file or keyring file can be created in the specified location. The keyring_file will stay unusable until correct path to the keyring file gets provided'
2016-03-30T21:58:53.834848Z 0 [Note] InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
...
2016-03-30T21:58:54.063594Z 0 [Note] InnoDB: Loading buffer pool(s) from /usr/local/mysql-5.7.11-osx10.9-x86_64/data/ib_buffer_pool
2016-03-30T21:58:54.065139Z 0 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
2016-03-30T21:58:54.066443Z 0 [Note] InnoDB: Buffer pool(s) load completed at 160331  0:58:54
2016-03-30T21:58:54.073134Z 0 [Warning] System table 'plugin' is expected to be transactional.
2016-03-30T21:58:54.081061Z 0 [Warning] Gtid table is not ready to be used. Table 'mysql.gtid_executed' cannot be opened.
2016-03-30T21:58:54.083246Z 0 [Warning] Failed to set up SSL because of the following SSL library error: SSL context is not usable without certificate and private key
2016-03-30T21:58:54.090221Z 0 [Note] Server hostname (bind-address): '*'; port: 3306
2016-03-30T21:58:54.090273Z 0 [Note] IPv6 is available.
2016-03-30T21:58:54.090299Z 0 [Note]   - '::' resolves to '::';
2016-03-30T21:58:54.090310Z 0 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '::'.
2016-03-30T21:58:54.091554Z 0 [Warning] Failed to open optimizer cost constant tables

2016-03-30T21:58:54.099383Z 0 [ERROR] Fatal error: mysql.user table is damaged. Please run mysql_upgrade.
2016-03-30T21:58:54.099725Z 0 [ERROR] Aborting

2016-03-30T21:58:54.099763Z 0 [Note] Binlog end
2016-03-30T21:58:54.100531Z 0 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'ngram'
...
2016-03-30T21:58:55.476257Z 0 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'binlog'
2016-03-30T21:58:55.476370Z 0 [Note] /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld: Shutdown complete

2016-03-30T21:58:55.6NZ mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /usr/local/mysql/data/myuser.local.pid ended

Realized all this mess has been created because mysql has been installed via brew and via package from mysql site.

Solution for me was to remove mysql completely & reinstalled it via brew.

The new database data i created are located in /usr/local/var/mysql/

Running where mysql returns /usr/local/bin/mysql

Running mysql.server start|stop|restart seems to function ok. Also accessing db via sequel pro works ok but when i tried to setup my rails projects i run rake db:create but i received

  rake aborted! LoadError:
  dlopen(/Users/myuser/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.4/extensions/x86_64-darwin-14/2.2.0/mysql2-0.4.3/mysql2/mysql2.bundle,
  9): Library not loaded:
  /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.19/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib Referenced
  from:
  /Users/myuser/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.4/extensions/x86_64-darwin-14/2.2.0/mysql2-0.4.3/mysql2/mysql2.bundle
  Reason: image not found -
  /Users/myuser/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.4/extensions/x86_64-darwin-14/2.2.0/mysql2-0.4.3/mysql2/mysql2.bundle

libmysqlclient.18.dylib doesnt exist in my setup, nor the directory ..Cellar/mysql/5.5.19/..
There is usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.7.11/lib/
And there is libmysqlclient.dylib -> libmysqlclient.20.dylib but no ../libmysqlclient.18.dylib in my system.

In ~/.bash_profile there is export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

In ~/.bash_rc there

[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM into a shell session *as a function*

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.rvm/bin # Add RVM to PATH for scripting

and in ~/.zshrc there is

export PATH="/usr/local/sbin:$PATH"

Seems like i have messed up with my systems paths?


Which specs to consider when searching for graphics card compatible with Mac Pro 3.1 I have a Mac Pro 3.1 with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 video card which I need to replace. As I don't know much about video card specs: what do I need to look out for when searching for a replacement?

The Mac Pro 3,1 is an aging computer and your video card choices are limited. Using Photoshop on it doesn't effect that use much. Of greater concern would be a good monitor with accurate color reproduction.

That said if you start looking for PCI Express x16 video cards that is a good start. You will, however, need to verify with the manufacturer if it is compatible with your O/S and system.

Unless you were getting unacceptable performance out of the old one, I would just buy a direct replacement, same for same.


2 Clash of Clans account on the same Game Center account At first I started playing clash of clash of clans on my sister's iPad, with her Game Center account. As the months passed by my sister wanted to play on her phone, however her phone is also using the same game center and so whenever my elder sister wants to play Clash of Clans it prompts up on the screen

  Do You want to load "venneline Th8 base"?

which is on my iPad.

Is there a way I can transfer the account on my iPad to a new Game Center account?

Attach your old village to a new Game Center account:

Launch Game Center on your old device, create a new free account and login; while logged in, launch the game. If you get the "Welcome back, yourusername" message at the top of the screen, your village is now attached to your Game Center account!

Load your village on the new device:

Launch Game Center on your new device, and login with the same username and password you used in the old device; while logged in, launch the game, and you will get the following message:

Tap "Okay" to load your old village on the new device.  This will delete the new, unwanted village.


Automator Change to directory of dropped files before running Shell command Seems extremely simple, but I can't figure it out...

I want to be able to change to the directory (folder) where the dropped file is located before running my shell script on that file.

So either I change to the directory first with Automator, then pass that argument to Shell Script or Applescript

or I change to the directory inside of Applescript or Shell before running my Shell command.  pls help

This is very easy in zsh. You can use the :h option to a variable to refer to the head of its full path:

#!/usr/bin/env zsh -f

PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin"

for i in "$@"
do

    FILE="$i"

    cd "$FILE:h"

    # do other things here

done

In a shell like bash you would need to use the dirname command:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin"

for i in "$@"
do

    FILE="$i"

    DIR=$(dirname "$FILE")

    cd "$DIR"

    # do other things here

done


How can I transfer pictures from a USB flash drive with the Camera Connection Kit? I would like to transfer a bunch of photos onto my iPad without syncing through iTunes.

I had the idea of using a USB flash drive and the Camera Connection Kit, but simply dumping the pictures into the root directory of the drive doesn't work; the iPad says that there are no photos.

Is there any way to do this?

This can be done by imitating the folder structure of a camera's memory card.

First, find a flash drive that's compatible with the Camera Connection Kit (i.e. doesn't draw more than 100 mA).

Create a directory in the root of the USB drive named DCIM. Inside DCIM create a directory that has exactly 8 characters. Put your picture/video files inside this directory, ensuring that they have an 8.3 pattern filename (e.g. somepics.jpg).

You'll end up with a directory structure that looks like this:

USB drive root
  -\DCIM
    -\FAKECAM1
      -\pict0001.jpg
      -\pict0002.jpg
...


How to add a Google calendar shared with me, to my iCloud calendars A colleague has shared her Google calendar with me. It appears in Google calendar just fine. In the calendar settings I can see the iCal URL, but when I attempt to subscribe to that address in Apple Calendar, it says "A calendar wasn't found on ... Check the URL.".

I suspect this is because the calendar is shared with my via my Google account, rather than been made public. Is there anyway to sync the calendar with my Apple devices? Can I re-share it from my Google account so I can subscribe to it from iCloud?

I tried the syncselect option, which sounded promising, but couldn't see anything happen. I'm not sure how it would work anyway, since I can't see how it would have access to my iCloud account.

There are two methods:

Method 1:

When you open the link of the calendar shared with you. You could click the plus sign at the right corner to add it into your own google calendar.

Go to https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect and check the calendar shared with you.
Go to the Mac Calendar and you will find it in your calendar list just under your google account. Check it for display.

Method 2:

As step 1 in Method 1.
Go to the Google Calendar and the shared calendar appears in the "Other calendars", go to the setting of the shared calendar.
Scroll down and find the "Integrate calendar->public address in iCal format" and copy the address.
Open the Mac Calendar and go to "Files -> New Calendar Subscription" and paste the address into the "Calendar URL".

Hope this would work.


Trying to set a F8 pause/play dictation command So I'm what one would describe as ridiculously disabled. I've recently taken a liking to using the dictation functionality due to only having the use of one hand and often having to lie on my back.

I'd like to add the F8 play/pause key to the list of dictation commands, but unfortunately the dictation custom commands don't take single keypresses. It seems the solution is to create a workflow. However, upon trying automator to record the keypress I seem to have discovered that it doesn't recognise that key for some reason.

Just as a note, I use this play/pause functionality for iTunes AND Chrome Youtube videos at the same time. For example, I'll start iTunes playing, then start the Youtube video. Since the Youtube video was the last to be interacted with the play/pause affects Youtube, and not iTunes. That functionality I would like to keep if possible. So I guess if you can't just do a simple keypress it'd need to check if Youtube or iTunes is the current/last interacted with active app and act accordingly.

Does anyone have a possible solution or workaround they can think of?

Thank-you

Separated the two applications into two separate dictation commands using applescript in automator. The latter controls the Youtube video on the tab Chrome last interacted with, which is essentially perfect.

on is_running(appName)
    tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end is_running

if is_running("iTunes") then
    tell application "iTunes"
        playpause
    end tell
else if is_running("Spotify") then
    tell application "Spotify"
        playpause
    end tell
end if

to clickClassName(theClassName, elementnum)
    tell application "Google Chrome" to (tabs of window 1 whose URL contains "youtube")
    set youtubeTabs to item 1 of the result
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        execute youtubeTabs javascript "document.getElementsByClassName('" & theClassName & "')[" & elementnum & "].click();"
    end tell
end clickClassName

clickClassName("ytp-play-button ytp-button", 0)

--clickClassName("ytp-prev-button ytp-button", 0)
--clickClassName("ytp-next-button ytp-button", 0)


How can I make Ruby net::http stop stalling on ipv6? There are some tools critical to my workflow that talk to www.pivotaltracker.com using ruby.

Some combination of updating from Ruby 2.1.2 to Ruby 2.1.3, recent os x system updates, and brew updates caused them to start taking a very long time to function, and the reason is ipv6, which I can see by using curl to make similar api requests:

    curl -v -H "X-TrackerToken: $TOKEN" -X GET http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/projects
    * About to connect() to www.pivotaltracker.com port 80 (#0)
    *   Trying 2607:f700:1:1388:c856:ed01:e1bf:b0e0…

after a minute or two of timing out on all of www.pivotaltracker.com's ipv6 addresses, the ipv4 address is eventually tried, and the request completes sucessfully.

This is despite using sudo networksetup -setv6off Ethernet and verifying that ipv6 was "off" in Preferences>Networking. I've also tried putting a correct ipv4 entry in my /etc/hosts.

If I use curl --ipv4 the request completes immediately. However I can't figure out how to force ruby scripts that use net::http to skip ipv6

The deeply frustrating thing about this is that the same issue happened with a round of development environment upgrades in May or June, and I somehow resolved it, but I can't seem to re-discover how or find it by looking through my shell history files.

The issue is not unique to pivotaltracker.com, but is true of any domain that has ipv6 addresses. Os X tries the ipv6 addresses first unless told to do otherwise, which browsers and some other apps seem to do, but ruby and most unix apps do not. wget stalls as well.

I will eventually upgrade my router and get ipv6 working completely, but in the meantime I would like to find a workaround.

Output of ifconfig

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet6 fd3e:fe65:5a2c:ebe1:224:1dff:fe16:65d3 prefixlen 128
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether 00:24:1d:16:65:d3
    inet 192.168.0.47 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
    media: autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
    status: active
fw0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2030
    lladdr 00:19:a1:fa:00:00:24:1d
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
vnic0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    ether 00:1c:42:00:00:08
    inet 10.211.55.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.211.55.255
    inet6 fe80::21c:42ff:fe00:8%vnic0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x6
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 64
    media: autoselect
    status: active
vnic1: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    ether 00:1c:42:00:00:09
    inet 10.37.129.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.37.129.255
    inet6 fe80::21c:42ff:fe00:9%vnic1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 64
    media: autoselect
    status: active

netstat -r

when I run netstat -r, it has an Internet6 section, despite System Preferences>Network>Ethernet>Advanced…>Configure IPv6 being set to Off.

I am not sure that this is an Apple issue, but a Ruby issue. You can see a bug report here.

You might try specifying a ipv6-specific hostname upon initialization.

For example, TCPServer.new('::1', pivotal_tracker_address) should allow you to use curl without specifying the -ipv6. I can't see you Ruby code, so I am not sure if this will fix your problem.

Hope this helps.


Do Mac Pros use NUMA? Does Mac OS X make use of NUMA on Mac Pros with two (or more) CPUs?

This is a partial answer

The processors in the current mac pros use Xeon processors e5620 and x5670s with Intel's QuickPath Interconnect

QPI is Intel's implementation of NUMA and takes place fully within the processor just as HyperTransport is AMDs

I would have to admit in not being sure if that takes OSX out of the equation entirely or even mostly.  Modern processor architecture has improved since the original NUMA concept that the original requirement for software support is probably,now, immaterial.


How to reduce tooltip appearance delay in Xcode? When I hover some icon in Xcode I have to wait quite long for tooltip. How to reduce delay?

Tooltip delays can be adjusted globally from the command line. To reduce it to one millisecond (1/1000 second), fire up Terminal and enter:

defaults write -g NSInitialToolTipDelay -int 1

To only affect Xcode, tell the defaults command to only alter that value in the Xcode preferences domain, rather than setting it globally:

defaults write com.apple.dt.Xcode NSInitialToolTipDelay -int 1

I believe if you're running version 5 (?) or earlier of Xcode, the domain used to just be com.apple.Xcode , so:

defaults write com.apple.Xcode NSInitialToolTipDelay -int 1

If I am missing some other prefs domain they've used, this command will show the top contenders:

defaults domains | tr -s ', ' '\n' | grep -i 'xcode'

To reset anything you've changed, just run the same command above you used to shorten it, but change the 1 on the end to the "factory default" setting of 1000 (1000 milliseconds = 1 second), e.g.

defaults write com.apple.dt.Xcode NSInitialToolTipDelay -int 1000


iOS location based reminders not working accurately I created a location based reminder to notify me when I leave my house. However, the notification does not pop-up until I am about five miles away. What do I need to do to have the notification pop-up immediately after I leave the house? I am running iOS 9.

When you get to the view where you can see the map and have selected When I Leave you can pinch and zoom to set the radius of where the notification will be triggered.


Quick Look Preview of html files not working after iOS 13 upgrade in iPad After updating to iOS X 13, I can no longer use Quick Look on HTML files available in mail – I just get a blank preview window or enable javascript window, and the issue persists through a reboot. But all other files types work fine.

Is there a cache I can clear or something else I can try to get this working again?

Apple has disabled JavaScript in Quick Look for security/privacy reasons (this was used to track users previewing local files by pinging remote servers).

If you have your own app, use a WKWebView if you need JavaScript execution. If you are sending HTML content with JavaScript via email, send a link to a remote server instead. With a link people know they are contacting a remote server.


Terminal "open" any image results in "Preview quit unexpectedly" Whenever I hit open blah.png (any image type) in my terminal, I get a message "Preview quit unexpectedly" from Mac OS X. The solution is to just open the folder in Finder using open ., navigating to the file and opening it from there. Preview seems to work fine then. However, this is annoying.

Any ideas why I can't open images from the terminal?

My OS X version is 10.10.5 (14F1808). By the way, when I hit ``open receptor.png'' (where receptor.png is the filename), the terminal now also says: "LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Users/asdf/receptor.png." I don't know why I didn't notice that before.

There are a number of cache-type files that will clear most issues with Preview, if you delete them.  I've also heard of several similar issues arising out of ACL (Access Control Lists) being out of sync across your system.

First reset the ACL for your account, like this.  Use this as a more detailed reference as needed.  Just to remedy Preview.app  issues, You probably do not need to remove all the permissions on your account, so ignore their first step where they are using chmod in the terminal.  I would reccomend:

Restart the computer, and on the chime, hold down Cmd+R
At the top of the screen, chose "Utilities" --> "Terminal"
In Terminal type resetpassword (you can also use one of your old passwords)
Click on "Save"
Press "Reset" (just below), which resets the Access Control Lists.

Now login to your computer, and remove the Preview cache & preference files.  I've used this link as a reference to confirm the locations:

Open Finder and then navigate to your User Library by holding alt, and chosing from the "Go" menu at the top, "Library."  If you're confident with the terminal, of course you can also delete them that way.  For example:  cd $HOME/Library/ then rm -Rf [each file below].  Don't use terminal if you are not used to it!

clear the various caches and temporary files related to Preview by deleting:

'Containers/com.apple.Preview'
'Containers/com.apple.quicklook.ui.helper'
'Preferences/com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist'
'Preferences/com.apple.Preview.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist'
'Saved Application State/com.apple.Preview.savedState'

DO NOT OPEN PREVIEW BEFORE LOGGING OUT WITHOUT PERSISTANCE AND RESTARTING.

Now, do a complete shutdown of your system, bring it back up.  This fixes most non-critical issues with Preview.app.  Make sure that when you shutdown, the box is not checked "remember my open programs."

If these steps do not solve the problem, assuming you are not running cracked or unauthorized software, you should reinstall OSX or seek professional help from an Authorized Apple Support center, because the problem is quite unusual and could be serious.


Can CPU Speed Stepping be prevented? A while ago, I asked a question regarding the reason behind my computer slowing when it had ~5% battery or less. I was told that it was either CPU speed stepping or the Macbook Pro automatically scaling back the processing power to conserve battery power.
Building on that question, I'm wondering how I would prevent the computer from either undergoing CPU speed stepping or from scaling the processing power back?

It is unlikely you will find a reliable and trivial tool for changing the processor's low level power management away from Apple's recommendations.

As a user, you are limited to the options available in the Energy Saver panel of System Preferences and pmset.

To stop the processor stepping up or down depending on power available, will require a custom kernel extension.

OS X's power management is handled by a layer called IOKit within the kernel. Writing code within the IOKit is not trivial; mistakes can induce kernel panics and do serious harm to the system's stability.

As of 10.8.2, OS X considers 20% battery to be the first stage of a low battery warning.

If your battery is at 5%, it is likely your Mac will shortly be entering emergency sleep or hibernation mode in order to safeguard your data.


Scripting environment setup When I start a session programming on my macbook pro, I have a bunch of apps I'd like open and ready:

DevNull smtp java server (run from terminal with java -jar DevNull.jar)
Terminal shell in the tomcat/bin directory with startup.sh;tail -f ../logs/catalina.out running after rm -rf work and test webapp directories
IntelliJ running
after tomcat loads (fine with just having a timer), Firefox with my webapp loaded
after tomcat loads, Chrome with my webapp loaded
ForkLift
TextMate
Couple of Finder windows open in particular directories

Those are pretty core...  then it depends on what exactly I'm working on as far as other apps I need open.

So how do I write a script I can double click on and have all the above ready for me, saving me a couple minutes each day and being a little less annoying getting started?  Is there a nice app that can easily do the above for me?  Do I need to write a bash or python script for this? Or learn applescript?

I'd use a bash script for this as everything that you list can be opened in bash.  Use the open command pointing to the application to run the application or a folder location to open a particular folder with finder.


How do you access a subdomain on localhost with VMWare Fusion on a Mac? I am able to access localhost on a Mac through Windows XP on VMWare Fusion by using my Mac username like this:

http://username.local:3000/

But how do I do that with a subdomain, something like this:

http://username.subdomain.local:3000/

Any ideas?

I am able to access subdomains on my Mac no problem, by adding things like blog.localhost to /etc/hosts.  What is the equivalent on Windows?

Navigate to C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc where the 'hosts' file is located.


Play all songs by the same artist on iOS How can one play all the songs from a particular artist or group sequentially from different albums? Currently I have to open up the next album of the same artist or even the same album if songs from it were purchased at different times.

Open Music app
Tap (repeatly) on the Library button at bottom left until you get to the top level
Tap on Artists
Select the artist you want
Top row allows to play all titles across all albums at random, tap that
Open the currently playing view
Scroll down a bit and disable shuffle mode

PS: I didn't say it's easy that way but it works well for those artists you haven't defined a Smart Playlist for.


Backup Disk Not Available - Time Capsule After working fine for months, my wifi Time Capsule backups fail, returning a "back-up disk not available" message.  Time Capsule light is green, Airport Utility reveals no problems.  What do I do?  Thanks.

I see this every few months and all other features of the device seem to work fine when it happens. The short answer is a restart has always fixed it for me, either from the Airport Utility or if you must by cycling the power.


MacBook Pro RAM upgrade is causing beeping sound? I just upgraded the RAM in my MacBook Pro (15" 2 GHz Intel Core i7 - early 2011 model) from two 2gb modules to two 4gb modules. Started up just fine and ran great for about 10 minutes. Then the screen froze and the computer started beeping. After some google searches I found that it is caused by either a) bad RAM or b) the RAM is inserted incorrectly. My guess is that the computer shouldn't start if it's bad RAM. Others online report their computers beeping on startup. I tried repositioning the RAM to make sure it's in tight. The same thing happened.

The computer recognizes the RAM - it shows up in About My Mac. The RAM is Corsair 8gb 1333 MHz DDR3.

What's going on?

How many beeps are you hearing. A discussion thread on Apple's site suggests that 3 beeps is a sign of a bad memory bank. So maybe the connection is solid enough to display in About this Mac but "loose" enough for the MBP to see properly use the RAM? Trying to think of a better way to phrase that last bit.


Is there a Mac app that will open all images within a folder, regardless of the folder depth? I have a folder full of additional folders, each of which then contains images. The directory looks something like this:

folder0
    folder1
        image1.jpg
        image2.jpg
        image3.jpg
    folder2
        image4.png
        image5.png
        image6.png
        image7.png

...and so on. There are about 430 folders within the root one, and I'd estimate ≈20 images (with varying file types) within each subdirectory. Ideally I'd like to be able to browse through all the photos in order, but there doesn't seem to be a high-capacity image browser that can handle that.

The first solution that comes to mind would be to just merge all the folders into one, but the images have to remain in their respective folders.

Is there any app that can do this, or am I just grasping at thin air here?

Isn't this where you would want to utilize Smart Folders, and search for Images?

This tutorial gives an example, but I've outlined a basic overview below:

  Open New Smart Folder.

  Select the type of search (in this case, type in images, and choose    Kind:Images from the selections.)

  Locate the Save button and save the search.

  Choose a meaningful name for the search. Optionally, check the Add to Sidebar box.

  Note the presence of the saved Smart Folder search, presuming that you followed the above step.


Edit subject line of email in inbox in Apple Mail In Apple Mail is there a way to edit the subject line of an email that's in the Inbox? This is just for internal filing reasons.

Say, for example, you get sent an email with the subject line 'attn:sam'. That subject line doesn't really help me if I want to go back and find it, so could I rename that subject line somehow?

While technically it's possible, it's not trivial. You would have to write an applescript to search/replace the contents of your subject field and then use apple mail filters and run applescript based on your rule.

This is commonly done in the unix world via procmail, for example when spamassassin detects spam, procmail appends SPAM to the email subject message.

it might be better to set up rules based on subject to filter your mail into separate boxes for organization.


GPU restart Mac Pro 3rd Gen. Early 2009 with GTX 1070, how to diagnose? Frequent, almost daily GPU restarts. From the console, under System reports, there's a painful record of the Kernel panics. Here's the most recent one:

Thu Sep  7 15:10:19 2017

Event:               GPU Reset
Date/Time:           Thu Sep  7 15:10:19 2017
Application:         WindowServer
Path:
Tailspin:            /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/gpuRestart2017-09-07-151019.tailspin
GPUSubmission Trace ID: 0
OS Version:          Mac OS X Version 10.12.6 (Build 16G29)
Graphics Hardware:   NVIDIA Chip Model
Signature:           8

Report Data:

NVDA(Graphics): Channel exception! Exception type = 0x8 DMA Engine Error (FIFO Error 8)
Channel Info: [0, 0x2, 0x2, 0x9d7]
Version Info: [com.nvidia.web.GeForceWeb, 10.1.8, 0x4e554e, 22510759, 378.05.05.25f01, 1]

Resource Manager Info:
 4443564e 000000d0 a24a219a 697c239f 00000001 00000014 ......etc

Basically, I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Is it hardware related? Software? What else can I provide to help debug?

NVIDIA recommends that the system in which the card is installed should supply 500W: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/10series/geforce-gtx-1070/

However, Apple warns that across all the PCIe expansion slots, not to pull more than 300W: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp506?locale=en_US

So, my guess is that whenever the GPU power consumption spikes, perhaps when you're playing games or videos, the Logic Board shuts off as a precaution.


How can I find the PPPoE password configured in Airport I'm connecting to internet via PPPoE with a AirPort Express. Now I want to replace AirPort with another router, but I don't remember the password of my PPPoE account. So I'm wondering how can I extract the password from the provisioned AirPort Express.

If your PPPoE is provided by your ISP, so contact you ISP's help is short way than try to extract the account info from AE's settings.


MacOS - turning off the bash session restore I’ve tried editing /etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal as well as adding files such as .bash_profiles, etc to my home folder but my session history keeps showing - when I open terminal, it will open 3 windows with its history. What to do? Thanks!

Edit: SHELL_SESSION_HISTORY=0 does not work as well

If you want to discard your Terminal state, you have to quit with holding the Alt key. The menu will change from "Quit Terminal" to "Quit and close all windows".

You can also make it effective with the "normal" quit Cmd + Q, this way:

Open your terminal
Delete the content of the saved state folder: rm -rf
~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Terminal.savedState/*
Lock the folder: chflags uchg ~/Library/Saved\ Application\
State/com.apple.Terminal.savedState/
Now, every time you quit your terminal, it won't be saved


Has my iPhone been bricked? As of about 4 hours ago, my iPhone has refused to charge and the battery has drained, every time it gets enough power to turn on it displays the lock screen and "9%" battery before promptly dying after a second or two.

I have never had any issues with my battery before today and i'm using the same charger i've always used

EDIT:

It is an iPhone 5s, I have had it for about a year but is second hand, iOS 8.X, it no longer turns on at all, just displays one or other of "charging" or "needs charging" and can not reach the lock screen, I have tried 3 different charger with 2 different cables.

Find someone who can lend you a different charger, and a different cable. Your problem is one of charger, cable, battery, or something inside the phone. You try replacing charger and cable first because they are easiest to fix.


How to fix Photoshop CS3 startup error "One or more files in the Adobe Application Support folder" after upgrading to 10.6? After upgrading to 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Adobe Photoshop gives an error message on every start of the application:

  "One or more files in the Adobe Application Support folder, necessary
  for running Photoshop, are missing. Please run the Phtoshop installer
  and re-install Photoshop."

How to fix this Photoshop CS3 on every launch error "One or more files in the Adobe Application Support folder" message that start occurring after upgrading to 10.6?

The problem is that /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax isn’t loading. It’s possible the file is actually missing, but it’s more likely that you’ve upgraded to Snow Leopard.

Snow Leopard requires 64-bit versions of every plug-in, including OSAXes. The versions of Adobe Unit Types that shipped with CS3 and CS4 are 32-bit.

To fix this:

Download the 64-bit version of Adobe Unit Types.
Delete the old /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types file (when it's there).
Drag the downloaded Adobe Unit Types.osax file to your /Library/ScriptingAdditions/ folder.
Launch Photoshop.

sources:

http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/11/02/howto-fix-photoshops-missing-application-support-files-error/
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/unit-type-conversion-error-applescript.html


Why is sed outputting no text? I have a text file that I need to remove double quotes from. I found this question that suggested using the following:

sed 's/"//g' < infile > outfile

I understand what it's doing as I'm familiar with Vim. But the output file has zero bytes in it after the command is run.

I did try the other suggestion from that question:

tr -d \" < infile > outfile

This results in an error:

tr: Illegal byte sequence

Note that when I open the file in MacVim and use

:%s /"//g

it works perfectly.

Is there some difference in macOS's sed? Any other suggestion on how I can do this?

Apparently, the file is in UTF-16 format, but most of the text-manipulation tools in macOS don't know how to work with that and will garble files if they try. UTF-16 uses two bytes per character; for plain-ASCII characters like ", it's the single-byte ASCII code followed by a null byte. Something like tr -d \" will delete the first byte, leaving a stray null byte and throwing the entire rest of the file off by one byte.

I think you can get perl to work in UTF-16 (see here), but I'm not sure of the ins and outs. This might work (based on this):

perl -pe 'BEGIN { binmode $_, ":raw:encoding(UTF-16LE)" for *STDIN, *STDOUT }; s/"//g;' infile >outfile

You could also convert it to UTF-8 and back with

iconv -f UTF-16LE -t UTF-8 infile | tr -d \" | iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-16LE >outfile

If the output doesn't need to be in UTF-16, you can leave the last iconv out.


Safari cached "Failed to open page" Page I'm working with, accessible only via VPN.
My VPN connection drops when MacBook goes to sleep, and on wake it reconnects to VPN. But during this 5 seconds delay, Safari can't open this page, as VPN connection isn't connected yet, so Safari tells that the page isn't available.
After successful connection, Safari still can't open the page. However, Chrome can open it and other browsers too.

I tried to empty cache, but it didn't help. Clearing all history isn't a good solution, as a lot of data is stored there and I don't want to loose it.

Does someone know how to fix this bug?

I was able to fix this annoying behavior with flushing local DNS cache:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder


iMessage won't send? My messages on iMessage won't send. It allows me to type the message and hit the send button but it won't deliver. iMessage is on in settings and I've tried reseting network settings on my recently purchased iPad mini. And I have setup my email on it and so has the person I want to message.

Email and iMessages are generally speaking two entirely different things, with a few exceptions on iOS.

It is possible that this is because the person you are trying to iMessage either doesn't have an iMessage capable device, or doesn't have it enabled. However, because it will allow you to send, it I think it is more of a configuration question, potentially on their end.

First check to make sure the recipient has access to iMessage as well. Also, verify that you are sending it to their Apple ID email, if they are on an non-cellular device such as an iPad, or iPod Touch. You should also try iMessaging someone else, to test it.


Yosemite supplied curl stopped supporting https I am having the issue that curl is failing to deal with https, and thus I cannot update Homebrew:

brew update && brew upgrade
fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/': Protocol https not supported or disabled in libcurl
Error: Failure while executing: git pull -q origin refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master

This is incomprehensible to be, because it has just started happening today.  When I run

which curl
/usr/bin/curl

Then:

/usr/bin/curl --version
curl 7.37.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin14.0) libcurl/7.21.6
Protocols: dict file ftp gopher http imap pop3 smtp telnet tftp
Features: IPv6 Largefile

The HTTPS protocol is clearly missing but I cannot fathom why.  This is really puzzling -- what has happened (yesterday I could run brew update && brew upgrade without any errors.

I am on OS X 10.10.2, with the latest XCode and CL tools, and so on and so forth.  To the best of my knowledge I have never touched curl or installed something that might have (and the fact that the standard curl is the os supplied version makes things even more strange).

I realised what had happened.  I am trying to run BAPS, which requires the Matlab Runtime Compiler, though it is provided with BAPS and an ancillary installation.  Once you install the whole lot you need to let BAPS know where the MRC dynamic libraries are, and the 'recommended' method is to set $DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH to:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH='/Applications/MATLAB/MATLAB_Compiler_Runtime/v84/runtime/maci64:/Applications/MATLAB/MATLAB_Compiler_Runtime/v84/sys/os/maci64:/Applications/MATLAB/MATLAB_Compiler_Runtime/v84/bin/maci64'

That put the wrong libcurl in the way and hosed the system.  So, lesson learned:  figure out how to set the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH in a smarter way.


Accidental corrupted recovery mode partition and cannot longer boot to it I recently installed Ubuntu in a partition of my hard drive in a MacBook Pro (Early 2011) running macOS Sierra. My recovery partition was corrupted in the process and I cannot longer access recovery mode. Internet Recovery works fine, but it is the original recovery that came with my mac (OS X Lion Recovery) and I cannot disable SIP from there since Lion did not support it. What should I do?

I solved it by creating a bootable USB macOS installer with createinstallmedia from terminal. Then I booted from it and disabled System Integrity Protection and installed Refind from there. I tried booting to Recovey HD from Refind and it worked just fine.


Copy selected files from a Time Machine backup to iCloud? My wife's 2011 MacBook Pro died.  It had a 512GB hard drive that had about 350GB of stuff on it, about 200GB of it is irreplaceable pictures and movies.

She will get a new computer, but with Apple's new 2TB iCloud service for $10/mo I think it makes more sense to keep all of these infrequently-used files in the cloud along with our other backups rather than on her machine.  She doesn't need more than 128GB of space on the new computer if I can keep this other stuff in the cloud.

I have a Time Machine backup of her computer before it died, so I want to restore certain files from that backup and put them on the iCloud drive.

I tried mounting the drive, navigating to the "Latest" folder and simply dragging the files to the iCloud drive.  This did not work, Finder told me that I did not have enough space on the iCloud drive (not true since I now have 2TB and it was copying about 200GB).  I tried copying smaller folders and files one a time, some of these worked, but some did not, like the iPhoto Library which is about 170GB for the one file (which isn't really one file but a directory).

I started to copy the files to the cloud with the command line, by simply using "cp" (other options are rsync, tar, etc).  This works in the sense that it seems to copy the files, but I know that Time Machine backup files are "special" because they have internal links and versioning.  In my case I don't care about the history but really just want a copy of the latest version of these files.

I am looking at the backup drive on another computer, an iMac.  I can browse through the files and Time Machine can restore them, but it would try to restore them to this iMac, which I don't want. I can also use Migration Assistant to do the same thing.  My iMac has 85GB available, not enough to restore everything.  It has a 500GB drive though, so I could probably do something like copy a bunch of stuff from the iMac to the cloud, delete it from the iMac, restore the backup to the iMac, copy that to the cloud, then restore the iMac's files from the cloud.  Or I could use an external drive to do something similar. But that would take many hours and I'd be worried about losing something.

Also given the irreplaceable nature of the files in the Time Machine backup I want to make sure I do this the right way.  Is there a way to simply restore files from the backup directly to the iCloud drive?

EDIT: I just found "tmutil" which seems to be exactly what I need.  I tried to use that to restore the entire backup to the cloud.  It ran for a few minutes (nowhere near enough time to actually copy everything), reported that it restored everything, but after looking there wasn't anything actually copied. Why is that?

  iMac$ tmutil restore -v Latest/Macintosh\ HD/Users//
  /Users//Library/Mobile\ Documents/com\~apple\~CloudDocs/
  Total copied: 334453.70 MB (350700119382 bytes) Items copied: 562891

Since you say that the 200 GB of pictures and movies are irreplaceable, I submit that it's worth the small expense of buying a 200 GB or larger external hard disk, so that you can first extract the files you want to keep to this disk and verify they are present and correct before trying to transfer them to iCloud Drive.

I'm not familiar with tmutil but it sounds as if you should be able to access the files from the backup using Browse Other Backup Disks as described in various answers to this question:

  Before going into Time Machine, open a Finder window and choose
  "Computer" from the Finder's Go menu. (That's the key to being able to
  browse another computer's backup drive.) Then hold the option key and
  choose "Browse Other Backup Disks".

iCloud Drive used with the Store in iCloud option described here should be able to store your files in the way that you want but I don't know how it behaves if you try to copy a large amount of data (which is more than the free space on your local disk, if I understand correctly) in one go. You might have to copy the files in chunks that will fit on the local drive and wait for iCloud Drive to copy them and free up the space again before copying the next chunk. Alternatively you might want to look at alternative cloud storage services like Dropbox, where you can upload files through a web interface into a folder that doesn't automatically sync back to your local disk.


Attach unique attachment to email using apple script to send email to different users I'm new to apple script:
Does anyone have an example of using an AppleScript to send individual emails with unique attachments for each email using an excel list? (Lots of examples out there sending emails with an attachment, but no one seems to have done it with different attachments for each mail???)
Basically
I have an email list in excel which holds all email addresses and file names
and
a Folder with each excel file in it.
I want to send the email to user in email list and attach file to email and on a loop until complete. Each person should receive the same email but will have different file attached.
Can someone provide example please?

set theWorkbookFile to choose file with prompt "Please select an Excel workbook file:"
set theWorkbookName to name of (info for theWorkbookFile)
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
open theWorkbookFile
set theWorkbook to workbook theWorkbookName
set peremail to value of used range of active sheet
end tell
--This is the part that I am stuck on???--
tell application "Finder"
activate
set theAttachmentFile to every file of "Macintosh HD:Users:j:Box:Email test:"whose name contains (peremail as Unicode text) -- the attachment path
end tell
repeat with aRow in peremail
set {theEmail, theName} to aRow
tell application "Mail"
set newMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {sender:thesender, subject:"Order"}
tell newMessage
set content to "XXXX"
make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {name:theName, address:theEmail}
tell content of newMessage
            make new attachment with properties {file name:theAttachmentFile as alias} at after the last word of the last paragraph

        end tell
        delay 3

    end tell

end tell

end repeat


How to script a logout while screen is locked? I want to log out a user via a shell script, after a delay. However, there's a few other issues:

User does not have admin and/or root.
Logout must complete even if screen is locked.

Currently, I'm using the shell commands below to log out:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to log out'
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke return'

This works fine if the screen is active, but if the screen is locked, this fails, because it depends on triggering a window, and then firing an Enter keystroke. As a reminder, techniques like killing loginwindow fail because they require root.

I'm not convinced it's possible; any ideas would be much appreciated.

Can you get system events to do Shift-Option-Command-q ??
something like... (I don't know the exact syntax)

'tell application "System Events" to keystroke q with command down option down shift down'


Photostream/Photo import duplicates If I use photo stream and later plug my iPhone into the computer. Will I end up with a bunch of duplicates? Or will it import from my phone only any photos that weren't previously uploaded, for whatever reason, via photo stream?

No duplicates will be uploaded to Photo Stream—only media that didn't get uploaded will be uploaded. This general rule also applies to photos transferred to other devices; the other device won't upload duplicates either.


Compiling with clang in the terminal is extremely slow after seeing a message that my disk is almost full. How to restore performance? I removed files so I now have 18.7GB storage free after receiving the finder message that my storage is almost full.

Still, compiling is extremely slow. I’m wondering if there some setting that I missed.

How can I remedy this?

If you are on a spinning hard disk and you remove a large amount of files, you might have sub-optimal allocation of some files. If you have an SSD, you’ll need to profile the build process to determine the actual bottleneck.

Just to confirm, the df -g command lists 18.7 GB free for the OS volume? Assuming yes, you’ve missed no settings like cleaning up local snapshots in time machine or emptying the trash.

For the HDD situation, you can test that by shutting down the Mac after removing the source files or copying them to another drive.

After the restart, you might run for a day (set the Mac to never sleep) and the hot file optimization will start to move files that aren't accessed often off of the fastest portion of the hard drive.

Then - move your source code back and try a compile. At that point if you are still slow, you'll need to get into specifics - use the time command to time the compiles and then profile the system with vm_stat 5 or similar like Activity Monitor to see if you are constrained by RAM or by CPU or by IO. iostat also will be very helpful for measuring the iops and read/write aggregate transfer rates so you know how your storage is being accessed moment by moment while clang does it’s work.

The above steps on my machine show that io and storage has a very low impact on the compiler and instead CPU and threading the build would be how to speed it up but my code base is probably far different than yours.


What is the "On My Mac" folder in macOS Big Sur? I have recently upgraded to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 from macOS 10.15.7 on my 2016 MacBook Pro.
In Finder, there is a new (?) folder called "On My Mac" which I have never seen before.
It contains nothing useful, just an empty "PDF Expert" folder and a "BBEdit" folder with a file called "BBEdit Backups" which is of type "alias" (so I guess it's an alias of something).
This folder doesn't have any parent folder, it seems some kind of root folder (or very close to), but it for sure was not there in Catalina.
Does anyone know what it could be and if I should do something with it?
Following the suggestion in the comments I have dragged the folder on a Terminal window. Nothing happened but it disappeared from the Favourites sidebar in Finder. For the records, rebooting the Mac or logging out/in makes it reappear with the same contents.

In Big Sur, ~/Library/Containers shows in Finder as ‘On My Mac’.
This is a trimmed down version of the Documents from each of those containers, only showing apps which open their Documents on macOS like iOS for visibility in the Files app.

https://georgegarside.com/blog/macos/macos-big-sur-hidden-features/#finderapp (my blog)


Can ISPs monitor apps that one uses on iOS? Is it possible for an ISP to identify what iOS app I use based on network traffic?

Your ISP would be able to see what servers the app is connecting to, so most likely yes. If you wouldn't like this to be possible, you can use a VPN to reroute your connection through other computers and make it harder to trace.


Finding a drive adapter to re-use the old hard drive from a Macbook Pro early 2015 13" I recently upgraded the hard-drive on my Macbook Pro 13" early 2015 model. I'd like to use the old 128gb hard-drive as an external USB disk, but I'm having trouble finding the adapter to make it a USB drive. This MacBook Pro uses a proprietary storage drive connector.
So far I've bought the wrong adapter (for M.2 drives to fit the Macbook, which is the wrong direction.)

The model number of the old hard-drive is MZ-JPV1280/03 (Samsung).
I have this NGFF-to-USB3 box standing by:

It is quite possible that there may not be an adaptor. I don't believe Apple used these for very long, so...
I would think returning it and getting one of the OWC drive adapters for that specific drive would do the trick. Like this
eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MAU3ENPRPCI
And to destroy an old SSD? Take a hammer to the individual chips on the drive's circuit board, that should do it. Try and recover data from plastic and silicon shards...


iOS guidelines archive I'm researching historical changes of UI widgets.

Do you know if there's an archive with all the iOS interface guidelines published by Apple over the years?

People rehost the PDFs everywhere. You can find PDFs of the interface guidelines just by searching for "iOS interface guidelines pdf <year>" on Google. For example, here's the guidelines for 2011. There's no official archive.


Sharing screen with Messages.app on Mountain Lion Both computers are running OS X 10.8.4

When trying to initiate the screen sharing feature, the other computer gets the request, then clicks "Accept" but thats as far as we get.

Then we see this:

I have posted the contents of the "Details" section:

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=yWYYCbgv

I am thinking we may need to open some ports on the firewall. Anyone know which ports need to be open? Or if this is even the issue.

Try opening up port 5222 (for iChat/Messages).


prevent Lock Screen from showing user FullName Is there any way to prevent the lock screen from displaying my full name?

It's a privacy matter and I would like to keep my personal data away from other people.
I know I can turn my screen off, but if someone tries to unlock my computer, she/he will be able to read my Surname.
It's also a Company machine, so I have to keep my full name in the system settings, I cannot change the name within the system.

I would only like to not show the user surname in the lockscreen.

Can it be done?

Try this in Terminal

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add user1 user2 user3 user4

Change user1 and/or user2 ect. to actual user name

If there is only one user drop the others


Rename home directory without causing double Time Machine backup I want to rename the my home directory (/Users/thisone), using this technique.

However, I just started using Time Machine, and with 200 GB of data in my home directory; what will happen?

Will the entire 200 GB have to be backed up again, because Time Machine doesn't understand that the data is the same since the home folder name changed?

If so, as a panic resort, can I tamper with the Time Machine backup, renaming the home folder there too? (I have only a single backup so far).

If so, how do I do this? I seem to remember that even with sudo, OS X objects to any change in the Time Machine folder.

I just tried enabling Time Machine on a VM, saving one snapshot, renaming the home directory, and saving another snapshot, and Time Machine did save a second copy of the whole home directory.

When I tried it again but used bypass to rename the home directory on the Time Machine volume before saving another snapshot, Time Machine did not save a second copy of the whole home directory.

So try running a command like this after you rename the home directory:

for f in /Volumes/*/Backups.backupdb/*/*/*/Users/oldname; do sudo /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Helpers/bypass mv "$f" "${f%/*}/newname"; done


Manually managing songs and deleting from playlist I want to be able to delete songs off my iPhone by swiping in the Music.app. I know having 'Manually Manage songs' lets you delete songs without them returning after you re-sync everything, but I want it to delete songs from the playlist I have.

I have a playlist for the songs on my phone because I don't want to go through thousands of songs every time I reformat the phone. Manually managing songs just removes it from my phone but not from my playlist.

Is there any way around this?

Speaking for iOS 6 (not necessarily older versions):

Open Music.app
Select "Playlists" tab.
Create a new Playlist and put a few songs in there.
Sync your iPhone to to your computer (Wifi or USB)
Make sure iTunes is configured to sync your music and choose "Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres
My experience was that the playlist I created was automatically selected under "Playlists" in the Music tab of iTunes. If it isn't, select it.
You can now put any song you would like in there and sync.

While it doesn't automatically sync every time a change is made, any time you sync it will reflect changes made on your device. For example, put 10 songs into your new playlist and sync with your iPhone. Then, go into your iPhone and delete a few of those songs out. Sync with iTunes. They shouldn't be in the playlist on iTunes anymore.

I have personally performed the steps to ensure they work. It's not 100% automatic, but with Wifi sync, it is almost that way.


Using an iPad for doing web development and programming The iPad is my preferred computing device when I'm on the go, be it commuting or traveling. Sometimes I've got a Bluetooth keyboard with me, and sometimes I don't. So this may be crazy, but I would like to use my iPad for full-fledged web development and programming, and want I to know what my options are.

Cloud9 seems to be nearly perfect for this in concept except for a fatal flaw: the web interface does not fully work with iPad browsers Safari or Chrome. You cannot, for example, double click to open files.

What other options do I have? Ideally I would like to have command line access to my editor of choice (Vim), and be able to use web debugging tools like the developer tools in Chrome.

If you're just looking for a straight text editor, Textastic has a lot of nice features.

For full-fledged web development, check out Diet Coda. It has built-in SSH terminal, SFTP, a great text editor, etc.


Audio setup for Macbook and XBox? I have a one set of speakers, 2 macbooks (girlfriend and I), an iPod touch and a XBox.

Now, I struggle with the audio because anytime I want to listen music or use the xbox, I have to switch the RCA cables plugged into the speakers.

It seems that Airport Express could be a solution and airplay seems really nice, but I don't know how/if it will work with the XBox?

Do you see a solution to simplify that situation?

You are right that the AirPort Express would work for the iPod and Macs. It won't, however, work with the Xbox. For that, I recommend getting a little RCA switch and RCA-minijack adapter. Using the adapter, plug the AirPort's audio out into one of the input ports of the switch. Plug the Xbox another input port. Plug the speakers into the switch's output end.

When the switch is set to the AirPort's input, you can AirPlay music. When the switch is set to the Xbox's input, you'll hear sound from your Xbox.


Stuck after entering login user password so, i am using macbook pro 13”2017with touchbar and using the latest version of macos high sierra just today when i tried to open my macbook, entering login password as normally i got into my mac and then it hangs after i tried to open chrome. So i hold power button until the macbook shutdown and powering on it again but this time after entering login password i got and black screen with only cursor that can be move.

so i hold power button again and shutdown the mac, and tried to login again but this time after entering password normally it will show loading bar, and just when the loading bar will finish (just leaving a little gap until finish) it stuck there, nothing happens...

so again i hold power button and shutdown it again and do everything the internet tell like safe boot, reset thing with (opt+cmd+r+p), reset other thing with (shift+crt+opt+powerbutton) and even doing macos reinstall but not erase the disk yet... also tried to check disk at recovery mode, nothing fixed it

now i am at recovery mode and using terminal looking for error log or crash log and i find that at /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports there is alot of crash report with name:  xartstorageremoted_2018-05-29-130152_Tonys-Macbook-Pro.crash file.

after searching again xartstorageremoted is something that have to do with touchbar and camera... but can’t find anything regarding creating crash.

so maybe there is some expert here that can help me? Since in my city there is no apple store or any authorized service provider for apple device.

update
so I found out the problem is because my current user account is somewhat broken/corrupted still don't sure yet but after creating a new account by deleting .applesetupdone files then I finally can get into the Mac.... but because this is new account then the entire application setting and others is also different... so how do I migrate those things?

Okay so the problem is my user account is broken and in the end i need just to create a new user account but because there is so much to taken care of i end up doing erase all and reinstall mac...

and now everything is works just fine.


Rename iOS 10 Memories There is a memory I would like to save on my phone, but the name of it is just the name of my home town, which is quite boring. I know by default it looks like all the memory names are just the name of where the photo was taken.

I was wondering is there a way to change memory names?

Open the memory and tap on the existing title. The video will start playing. Tap again anywhere on the screen, then tap  and set the name as the title.


How do I cover up the color of my macbook? I have recently gotten a "old" macbook 12" (from 2018) from a family member, unfortunately the color is rose gold. It doesn't look that bad, but I would prefer a darker/space grey color. Is there any way I can cover up the rose gold color? I am wel aware of skins or slim cases, but non of those cover up every bit of the macbook (for example the edges of the screen or the space between the keys). If not everything is covered up I find it more ugly then the original and so not worth it for me. So I am looking for an other option to hide the color completely.
The reason I would like this change, is that it is now a pretty feminine computer and not a man's.
Thanks in advance for the answers!

This YouTube video uses the

air-dry, specialty rubber coating. In fact, it's the original peelable, flexible, insulating, non-slip, durable rubber coating

Plasti Dip® to color the macbook black.
You have to clean the macbook very well before application, and you will have to mask every key on the keyboard, the screen, and your ports of course. Be careful.
The YouTube video says

you're going to want to let it set for at least 24 hours out of direct sunlight in a room that is room temperature

I'm sure you can find other colors of air-dry spray-on rubber coatings.
Obviously the downside to this method is that your Macbook will no longer feel like metal, and will not look like metal either.


High Sierra permissions failing to modify recursively via Terminal Trying to change permissions via Terminal:

$~ sudo chmod -r 777 [DIRECTORY LOCATION HERE]

Before it can start diving into the subfolders, it comes back with:

chmod: 777: No such file or directory.

Looking at the files, the folder is now "Write-Only (Dropbox)" across the board.

Attempting to adjust batch permissions via Get Info panel does not recursively apply even when directed to do so.

Any ideas?

The letter used in the terminal command must be a capital "R", not a lower-case "r".

e.g. use:

    sudo chmod -R 777 [dir]

not:

    sudo chmod -r 777 [dir]


Check an iBook I'm making on a Mac? I'm making a book with iBooks Author, for the iBookstore.

It's a simple picture book; each page an image. No video. No sound.

I don't have an iPad or an iPhone.

Is there a way to check how the book is working, without using an iPad? – just on my Mac.

(I'm running OSX 10.8.5. on a MacBook Air.)

No, not until you can install OS 10.9, which will have the iBooks app.  Until then, books created with iBooks Author can only be read on an iPad (not an iPhone or any other platform).  If you want a book which can be read on all platforms, you need to use the .epub format.  iBooks Author cannot produce that, but Pages can.


Update Yosemite to El Captain : PANIC ERROR I have updated my MacBook pro Yosemite to El Captain. During the update my macbook put an error message saying it failed to load the update. So I rebooted the MacBook now he puts me this error message (see screenshot) and restarts repeatedly.

Do you have any ideas?

First get any files you need backed up. Check your backup drive if you're not sure you have one. The Mac can be connected to another in target disk mode or you could boot to recovery and reinstall an OS onto a USB drive (even thumb drive if it's large enough) to get backup completed.
Power off and start in safe mode - hold shift when starting. If you get there, you can try the patch again, try a normal boot again and/or back up files and then try reinstalling the OS.
Boot to recovery and reinstall the OS

These are in increasing levels of time, but none of the two options presented are designed to delete user files or apps, so you would only lose files if the cause of the initial difficulties were filesystem corruption or hardware errors.


iOS app store falsely claims I have no payment method while gifting app I want to gift an app from the iOS app store. I verified I have enough prepaid store credit, set up the gift purchase, and clicked the Buy button.

The iOS App Store gives a false error message:

  Payment Information Required

  A method of payment is required to buy an iTunes Gift. You can add a
  payment method from your Account Information Page.

I checked my account information and it has enough prepaid store credit to buy the app as a gift.

What's causing this and how do I fix it?

I called Apple Support and apparently prepaid codes (store credit) can't be used to buy gifts, although this restriction isn't documented anywhere. Posting this answer for everyone to know.

To gift apps without a real debit or credit card: most convenience stores and malls offer special prepaid cards that behave like debit or credit cards. You can buy one of these, plug them into your account as a "debit" or "credit" card, and use that instead.


Why can't some of my machines boot to my Lion install USB drive? I purchased and downloaded Lion yesterday. As always when there's a major release, I like to keep things clean as I have a huge tendency to fiddle with the system once installed and that might render future updates instable, so I'm going the full reformat-then-install route.

Well, so I "burned" InstallESD.dmg onto a reliable 8Gb USB thumb drive with Disc Utility. I just reformated and reinstalled my mid-2009 17" MacBook Pro, from which I'm writing this right now. Flawless install, nothing to say.

Then the problem arises : I've got two other machines, a 2008 white (plastic) 13" MacBook, and a 2008 MacPro. When I boot them from the USB drive by holding Alt, the kernel starts then halts with a "no go" sign. Booting the USB installer drive into Verbose mode tells me that's it's "still waiting for root device", whichever USB port I use on the MacBook or the Mac Pro.

I am just looking to get Lion installed several clean / erased macs while avoiding another download of the Lion package each time I start an install.

What should I do?

Try another USB drive.
Burn the .dmg to an optical disc? (haven't touched one in... well... ages).
Reinstall a fresh Snow Leopard on them, then perform the latest Software Updates, then install Lion the "official" way?

Thanks for any tips.

It sounds like the USB drive doesn't have the drivers to boot the other macs. :-(

The fastest path forward is to simply erase install a basic Snow Leopard OS onto the failed macs. While this is happening, do download the 10.6.8 Combo update to your USB drive just in case it's needed.

Don't bother running the updates unless the Lion installer forces you to get to a higher version than your 10.6 installer delivered.

Once you boot into Snow Leopard - you can try again to mount the USB and execute the Lion upgrade package. I don't know if it runs well from the USB or needs to be copied to the internal boot drive.

There's a little uncertainty in my brain - so I don't want to write too much without making sure this makes sense to you.

As an alternative - you could try instead to transfer the recovery partition, but this may not be universal (include the drivers the older macs) either.

There is a step-by-step recipe here for copying any bootable volume to one file on a USB drive.

If you are curious or feel it's worth a shot, image the recovery partition from your Lion mac.

You should be able to boot from DVD and use disk utility to make an equivalent partition on the "non bootable" mac and drop the recovery data to get a minimal bootable system and avoid a full Snow Leopard install.

Unless you are familiar with Disk Utility and the steps to capture, the reinstall option might be more likely to succeed on first attempt. I certainly don't know if this partition is customized by Lion and not universal so I've made it an aside for the curious.


How to select 2G as data network on iOS 8? It is stated on the iOS 8.1 release notes that users can now select 2G, 3G or 4G LTE as their data network.

I've since updated to iOS 8.1 but I could not find where the option is to select 2G data network.

Where can I find this setting option?

It can be found in Settings > Cellular > Voice & Data where in the option is available to select between 2G,3G and LTE.

If the voice option is not available for your iPhone. Please call and check with your respective service/carrier provider.

It's been noted that some of the carrier update for the iOS 8 has removed the "Voice & Data" option because Apple let the carriers to update the cellular settings. It's only a matter of reverting back the update from the service/carrier providers.


Where is Apple Health data "Exported"? After chasing the "Export Health Data" option in Apple Health, and waiting a long time without feedback or any notification the initial dialing that is presented (see below) disappears, and nothing appears to happen. This is worse than (already bad) past experiences I've had with this feature, and seems to produce no result at all.

Where should I look for the (alleged) export of Apple Health data?

As @fsb commented, you should get an options pane where you select where you want to store the export.zip file created by the Health App.  You can save it to one of many options including Airdrop, 'Files', Dropbox, Notes, or other options. If you didn't get the pane to select where to store your data, then maybe it wasn't finished preparing your data. On my iPhone 6 running iOS 12.4.1, the selection pane appears automatically after preparing your data.


how to reset mac local host name to defaults So I was messing around with Sharing Preferences and I accidentally changed the name of the local host name I don't remember the previous name so I would like to reset it back to what it was before and I also have a full time machine backup.

From any admin account:

Open Terminal
Run sudo gzcat /var/log/system.log.7.gz | head (admin password required)
The name as of seven days ago will be shown at the beginning of each line right after date/time.


After a Time Machine restore, now it won't do incremental back up Due to the Thunderbolt 1.2 update, I had to restore from a Time Machine Backup, but after that, Time Machine won't do incremental back up any more.

The hard drive has 250GB of free space... It was 1TB and is used for backing up the iMac 27 inch which has about 700GB for the Mac partition (the other 300GB is for Bootcamp).

So after the restore, it won't incrementally back up any more.  It would try to back up everything from scratch and will fail because it tries to back up about 600GB into the 250GB free space and will stop.

Is there a way to make it work again?

Four options are available for you - none of them is a clear winner that works in all cases:

Try to force the issue with the command line tmutil inheritbackup command
Ditch the backup history and start over (not good, but quick)
Use a tool like BackupLoupe and see if you can thin space on the drive to make enough room for the "estimated" amount of storage for the next backup.
Baby sit the backup, by excluding most of the drive and unexcluding it in less than 250 GB chunks.

This last option has gotten me over the hump several times when clients cannot afford to lose their backup. I image their backup drive before starting (just in case) and then use the Time Machine System Preference options to exclude most of the drive. The first option is the most precise if you are comfortable with the terminal application and command line tools.

By excluding everything except perhaps /Library and /System you should be between 10 and 30 GB for the estimated size of a Full Backup and Time Machine will let you make a new backup. Then the trick is to slowly remove items from the exclusion list in stages to not have the next backup estimate exceed the remaining free space on your backup volume.


Photos not synching from iPhone 5S to iCloud I am new to the Apple world and running into difficulty while attempting my Photos from my iPhone 5S (ios version 9.2.1) to iCloud.

In my Photos settings, I have the iCloud Photo Library option selected, yet when I log in to https://www.icloud.com/#photos I do not see any items whatsoever.

I've tried the usual options of restarting my phone, de-selecting and re-selecting etc.

I have noticed that underneath this option it says "Low Disk Space - Uploading 311 items"

What could be going wrong here? Items such as Mail etc are synched up so I'm at a loss

Try first by checking on your phone on how much your photos are using up in your iCloud by navigating to: Settings -> iCloud -> Storage xx GB Available -> Manage Storage -> iCloud photo library and there you'll see there amount of photos and videos you have available in your iCloud.
Uploading photos can take a very long time and there lower upload bandwidth you have the longer it'll take and sometimes it might seem like it stopped uploading but really it might just be uploading a long video clip which could sometimes be a few GB long.
What I've also realized at least with iOS 9.2.1 that navigating away from the photos app might cause they upload process to pause so I'd suggest you that if you feel comfortable to remove the auto lock feature on your iPhone that you should turn that off at least for the time that your doing the bulk uploading by navigating to: Settings -> General -> Auto-Lock and select "Never" and then leave your iPhone connected to power with the WiFi connected and within the photo app.
The final verification that you'd want to verify is that you have the adequate amount of storage available on the iCloud account that you're connecting to.


Is there a way to evaluate OS X without purchasing Macintosh hardware? I'd like to play with OS X to see what makes it tick under the covers for the purpose of IT support - at CWRU here we have a lot of Mac-using professors. However, I can't justify spending twice as much on hardware as I would purchasing from any other vendor. Therefore, I'd like to avoid getting Apple hardware. I know you do get something for that money (nobody else does anything like Apple's aluminum unibody), but I don't need that for what I'm doing.

(Even the cheapest MacBook Pro is $1,199.00 -- compare to Lenovo, which itself is one of the most expensive PC makers, $809.00 for the same specs. [Okay, the Lenovo has a bit smaller hard disk, but it has a faster CPU and discrete graphics, so it's kind of a wash.])

Is there any (supported) way to do that or am I forced to purchase Mac hardware?

You can't run Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. It's not allowed by the EULA for OS X and it is technologically enforced by having key parts of the OS in the copyrighted hardware ROM installed in the Apple hardware.  Furthermore, all versions of OS X prior to Leopard and non-server versions of Leopard and Snow Leopard had architectural issues that prevented virtualization even if you wanted to hack something like VirtualBox or VMware to virtualize them in violation of the EULA and copyrights.

Incidentally, while you can virtualize OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard Server as well as both versions of OS X Lion, the license still limits this to Apple Hardware.

VirtualBox supports virtualizing OS X Snow Leopard Server. You can find instructions for doing this here.  VMware Fusion supports virtualizing OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard Server as well as OS X Lion client and server versions.


Macbook Pro Mid 2010 not powering up after smc update Macbook Pro Mid 2010 after SMC update 1.7 shuts down and now by pressing power button front light turning on for a few seconds, optical drive makes it's usual noise but no activity on monitor happens and it's not powering up. Battery and Charger are working fine also resetting the SMC is not helping.

I Had the same and managed to fix it using this reference:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22024754#22024754

In summary, this is the fix:

  Disconnect power
  Open MBP and disconnect/remove the battery - close the back cover again
  While power is still disconnected, press and hold the power button for about 5 seconds and then while pressing and holding the power button, connect the power cable to the MBP.
  If you are lucky, your MBP will now power up with the fans blazing at 100% and keyboard backlight will be off.  This seems to be a recovery emergency mode or something.  If you MBP did not power up, try again. If your MBP does not power up then you have a different problem and don’t need to continue the following steps.
  Boot you OSX and go onto the Internet and Download the right SMC firmware version for your MBP from: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237
  Mount/Open the .dmg file and copy out the “Firmware” .pkg file.
  Use Pacifist or the command line to extract the content of the .pkg file.
  In my case the Apple SMC update had three models firmware in  the .pkg file and the correct one for the Mid-2010 15” model was in the folder SMC18 or something.
  Find your correct model firmware for your MBP and copy out the following two files:  SmcFlasher.efi and 2010MBP15.smc  (the 2010MBP15.smc will be different for other MBP models)
  Copy those two files onto the OSX disk drive to a location that you can remember like /User/username/Dowloads/smc  or where ever.
  Google and search for rEFIt .  This is a boot loader app the will take over the boot process when you start up your MBP to enable you to go into a shell utility.  Read up on how to install and how to activate the refit utility.  When installed and enabled, the next time you reboot your MBP you will see the utility start up before your OSX boots.
  If you see the rEFIt utility start after you rebooted the MBP, use the arrow on your keyboard and select shell and press enter.  The shell.efi utility will start to boot in a “DOS” like window and after you see something where it wants to configure or setup something, just press ESC to cancel that.
  After the util booted, you need to first change to your internel disk with the command fs1:  that is F S ONE Colon then Enter, standing for filesystem 1
  Now you can change to the folder to where you copied the two firmware files like:

  cd Users
  cd username
  cd Downloads
  cd smc

  There are different ways of going to the folder or find the place where you put the files.
  After finding the folder with the two files you can start the update process.
  First need to get the SMC into the right state
  SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1
  Your MBP fans should now quiet down.
  Lets Flash :-)
  SmcFlasher.efi -force -LoadApp 2010MBP15.smc -norestart

  Your SMC should now be flashing with the right version.  Once done, power down the MBP. Power the MBP back on and do a SMC reset and all should be fine now.  You can now connect the battery again and start using your MBP.


How do I silence FaceTime notifications without silencing others? With FaceTime on my iPad now notifying me of iPhone cellular calls, it is important to be able to silence FaceTime notifications, without silencing others (such as alarms or reminders); but there appears to be no way to do this.

How do I silence — not disable, just silence — FaceTime notifications without silencing others?

Either Settings > Notifications > FaceTime > Sounds > None or I have misunderstood your question. Do you mean to prevent the notifications from making noise or just dismissing a notification after its begun?


Can I remotely change home or lock screens on iPads? Is there a way of remotely changing multiple iPad's locks/homescreens to the same custom image all at once over the air (not via USB)? I currently compile profiles with Apple Configurator, but changing wallpaper is apparently not possible with MDM. Isn't there a app or something that can do this?

This is currently not possible OTA. You must connect the device over USB to change the wallpapers.


Mini DisplayPort to DVI/VGA Adaptor for projectors I was wondering if anyone could gimme some advice on buying a "mini-displayport to VGA adaptor" for my MAC BOOK PRO 13" to use with projectors for presentation purposes. The Apple price for the product is $29 while I can buy it cheap from Amazon. However, many reviews are against buying the $10 Amazon product as its inferior to that of the original Apple product. Any suggestions other than Amazon?

I'd also like to know about the quality of "Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adaptor" compared to VGA. I don't know if they are also widely used in projectors. Thanks.

I have the original one and it works just great. From my experience, ~99% of the projectors have a VGA port, some DVI. To be on the safe side, I would rather pick VGA than DVI if I'd had to choose one. I cannot say much about the non-official VGA adaptor, but I am using the original VGA adaptor for years now, and I am completely satisfied. But I also have a non-Apple Displayport to HDMI that is very reliable (Rocketfish).

In theory, DVI should have better quality than VGA if the beamer provides the appropriate output, though, since the former transmits the signal digitally, and VGA is analog. Principally, DVI is HDMI without sound.

I can remember some colleagues complaining that their generic once were sometimes not recognized. But this could also have other reasons and happen with the original one.


How can I run 3 4K monitors on my 2015 MBP I just seen a video of a guy on YouTube running 6 4K monitors natively on his MBP but it didn't go into details as far as cabling/hub setup. How could I run just 3 4K at 60hz? I am confused as to the best way to get 2 thunderbolt into 3 DisplayPort. I haven't picked out a specific monitor yet but they will be DisplayPort monitors.

I have a 2015 MBP with the AMD graphics card.

I am not interested in eGPU options.

The way you connect more than 2 external displays to a MacBook (or any laptop for that matter) is to use USB display adapters like the StarTech USB 3.0 to 4K DisplayPort External Multi Monitor Video Graphics Adapter

Each one of these adapters will function like a separate graphics card allowing you to hook up as many monitors as you have adapters.  So, to get your six external monitors, you can have two natively connected to your MacBook Pro and then you will need 4 of these adapters.

*Note:  It's important to note that this setup is not for gaming.  These are not high performance external GPUs.  This is for connecting an additional display.

Additionally, there are limitation with with OS X that will cause performance problems.  Some are limitations due to Apple, and others are limitations due to the driver.  Always check the Release Notes prior to purchase and/or installation.

If you're on a 2013 or later Mac Pro, you can natively connect 3 monitors without the need for special adapters.  However, there is a caveat with the Thunderbolt 0 bus and HDMI port.

See How do I connect a 3rd 4K monitor to my 2013 Mac Pro?


Time Machine bug - not enough space, folder cannot be deleted Backup is failing on a disk that is near its limit with the error message "not enough space". Weird as Time Machine is supposed to delete old backups as needed to store the new ones.
So, I tried to just reformat using Disk Utility and start fresh. That failed with the error message "disk could not be unmounted".
Next, I tried to make space myself by going into the backup folder and deleted a few of the older dated folders. It took forever to delete a folder via Cmd+Backspace, literally over 30min. :-( I tried instant delete (Cmd+Opt+Backspace) but it wasn't faster and failed on a folder with the the message "items had to be skipped" and the tip to unlock. The folder in question is not listed as locked though. On to the Terminal with "rm -rf folder" which resulted in "permission denied". Sudo of the same command just changed the error message to "operation not permitted".
It's also weird because the deleted folders are still shown in Finder - some processes still running. Only about 30GB on a 500GB disk have been freed so far (20 left initially to 50 now).
The especially troublesome folder I tried the "rm" on stands out as it has different permissions. All folders show "drwxr-xr-x@  3 root  wheel" while this one reads "drwxr-xrwx@  3 root  wheel". Some of the deletion processes are still shown in Finder as ongoing.
How can I just reformat that disk and be done with the nitty gritty?
Second best, how can I weed out by hand and delete some of the older backups, getting past the above snags?
System: Catalina 10.15.6

You can try this method. it has worked in the past. Open your Time Machine backup disk and then Enter Time Machine using the Time Machine icon in the menu bar. Now you should be in Time Machine with a list of the backups. Select one of the backups and then look for a gear icon near the header of the backup you selected. Click on this gear icon and it should have an option to delete that backup. If you open a Time Machine folder you can use the gear icon to delete that folder. Here is what the gear icon looks like:


Shortcut for subscript in PowerPoint Is there a keyboard shortcut to format as subscript in PowerPoint 2011?  Most sources point to command-= but this zooms out.  Is there a way to customize these shortcuts, or more importantly to discover them without spending a lot of time googling?

To see your system keyboard shortcuts go to:

System Preference >Keyboard >Shortcuts

To apply subscript formatting (automatic spacing) in PowerPoint 2011

⌘+SHIFT+MINUS SIGN

To see all PowerPoint shortcuts go here


How to sync my iTunes library to my iPhone while still using iCloud Music Library for Apple Music? Is it possible for me to keep iCloud Music Library turned on so I can actually use Apple Music (save tracks and playlists to the My Music playlist) while also maintaining the ability to sync any music I acquire the old-fashioned way (downloads, CDs, etc) and add to my iTunes library?

It's so damn annoying to have to turn on and off iCloud Music Library just to be able to sync music to my phone while using Apple Music.

Ok, I think there is a way to do this, but it is not my preferred method.

When you have iCloud Music Library turned on for your iPhone or iOS device, you will also need to make sure it is turned on for your iTunes library on the desktop. When you do so Apple automatically uploads your iTunes library to iCloud. Then, your iTunes library shows up on your iOS device. If you want to save those tracks locally, you must choose to do so within Apple Music on the device itself.

Basically, Apple has done away with the idea of syncing your music locally through a USB cable, you must do it over the air via your data connection or WiFi. Kind of stupid that it has to go through Apple's iCloud servers first and then back to your device...


How Do I associate all files with Emacs? I'd like to be able to open any file with emacs as a choice when I right click it, regardless of environment.

It appears that this apple.stackexchange topic covers how to add items to the "Open With" menu.


3180mAh battery for iPhone 5, is it safe to install? My battery is very weak in my iPhone 5, and I want stronger battery. I can buy double the size, around 2880mAh, but I want even stronger and I found one on eBay, battery for iPhone 5 with 3180mAh. Is it safe to install battery this durable into my iPhone 5? What would be the consequences, if any at all? Would be great if I could install this kind of battery and have no problems. Thanks for any advice guys!

Theoretically, everything that is not official can be dangerous. You should make sure the hardware in question is not bad quality and has positive reviews. To be more sure reviews are written from users and not "bots", it would be better to buy on sites like Amazon.com , but you will never be 100% sure. BE CAREFUL!


Contacts and Phone on iPhone think I'm in a different country Yesterday I got a call from my wife and the iPhone said "Maybe Mrs. SSteve". The phone number was the international version of a U.S. phone number and her custom ringtone didn't play:

Voicemail is also showing international versions of U.S. phone numbers and also shows "Maybe" (normally it just shows the name and no phone number at all):

Contacts isn't formatting phone numbers at all:

Contacts on my iPad still formats numbers the way I expect:

I'm running iOS 12.3.1 on an iPhone 6. I remember seeing recently that there was a carrier update. I must have installed it because Settings -> General -> About doesn't show an available carrier update.

I tried iPhone Contact List Default Country Wrong but dialing *228 says the number isn't allowed.

I tried setting my Region in Settings -> General -> Language & Region away from United States and back but that didn't work. Where else does iOS get the region for phone numbers?

When I was writing this question and was in Language & Region, I tried setting the iPhone Language even though I didn't expect it to do anything. It was already set to English but I went ahead and selected "English (US)". It went to a black screen that said "Setting Language" (or something similar) for a while and when it was done all the phone numbers are displaying correctly. So I guess it's possible the language wasn't set to "English (US)" but I can't imagine why. Anyway, since I already went through the effort of editing the screenshots and writing the question I figured I'd leave this here in case it's helpful to someone.


Simulate a 13 inch display on 15 inch MacBook Pro Is there any way to simulate a 13 inch display on a 15 inch MacBook Pro? Some tool that would resize all windows, the dock and menu to take up less space? Reason is I am thinking of buying a 13 inch MacBook Pro and want to see how it is working with a smaller screen.

Take a screenshot, change your desktop picture to just black. Use qucklook & drag the screenshot smaller.


iPad Mini and WiFi Connection I have an iPad Mini (64gb wifi only model running iOS 6) and it will periodically drop the WiFi connection and will take some time to reconnect. My other devices (laptop and iPhone 4 [iOS5]) do not seem to suffer from this issue. (I wonder if the iPhone does have this issue, however, when wifi drops the cellular data kicks in and I do not notice the drop). I am left to wonder why this is happening and what I can do about this issue?

My router is an Actiontec C1000A (ISP is Century Link).

With iOS6, the WiFi will drop when the iPad is put to sleep (via power button or closing the smart cover).  When you wake it up, it should automatically reconnect to the WiFi.  However depending on the WiFi environment (many WiFi networks to choose from, a slow/overloaded WiFi router, etc), this could take a few seconds.

If it isn't automatically reconnecting, go into the Settings>WiFi screen and choose your WiFi network.  If it is already checked, click the > on the right and choose to forget that network.  Then you can go back and set it again.


How to change the "Recovery HD" partition to type "Apple_Boot"? Typing in the terminal diskutil list gives me this...

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            499.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             629.1 MB   disk0s3

I try to change disk0s3 to type "Apple_Boot", by using...

sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk0s3 -settype "Apple_Boot"

But I keep getting the error...

asr: Volume adjustment failed: Operation not permitted

The partition isn't mounted. I have also tried the command as superuser.

At first:

umount -f "/Volumes/Recovery HD"

Then:

sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk0s3 -settype "Apple_Boot"


How can I boot an Intel Core i7 iMac in 64-bit mode? I have an iMac running OS X 10.6.8. The processor is a 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 and the machine has 4 GB of RAM. How can I boot the computer in 64-bit mode (instead of 32-bit mode) so that I can upgrade to OS X 10.9 and run Final Cut Pro 10.3?

To start up with a special kernel check this from Apple: Starting up with the 32-bit or 64-bit kernel in 10.6 and later:

  Startup key combination (for current startup only)

  If your Mac uses the 32-bit kernel by default, but supports the 64-bit
  kernel, you can start up using the 64-bit kernel by holding the
  6 and 4 keys during startup.

  If your Mac uses the 64-bit kernel by default, you can start up with
  the 32-bit kernel by holding the 3 and 2 keys
  during startup.

  Your Mac will revert to the default kernel the next time you reboot
  it.

  On-disk setting (persistent)

  To select the 64-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the
  following command in Terminal:

  sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64

  To select the 32-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the
  following command in Terminal:

  sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386

  Note: This setting is stored in the
  /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist file
  and will take effect every time you start up from this disk. If you
  start up from a different disk, the setting on that disk, or the
  hardware default, will take effect.

To determine your currently running kernel open Terminal.app and enter:
uname -a
Running with the 64-bit kernel, the output will end with RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64. Running with the 32-bit kernel, the output will end with RELEASE_I386 i386.

In your case you just have to update to Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9). Mavericks doesn't contain a 32-bit kernel anymore and since your i7-processor is 64-bit, everything just works right out of the box without key strokes or modifying com.apple.Boot.plist.


Ask for text, pass to terminal, in Automator I am trying to create a simple Automator service to quickly change metadata on photos. I would like to be able to select x amount of files, run the service, and get a popup that asks for the f-number I want to change to:

At the moment this is set up to grab selected files in finder, and run the following terminal command:

exiftool -FNumber="1.8" -overwrite_original_in_place "$@"

(exiftool us an application used to edit metadata)

This command works, but the FNumber is hardcoded to 1.8. I would like to be able to dynamically specify the f-number via the "Ask for text" command. However, I don't know how I can ask for text and use the selected files as inputs at the same time. Does anyo

If you're not particularly bound to using Automator's "Ask for text" command, you could do this:

In your service, have the action item be "Run AppleScript" rather than "Run Shell Script"

Use this AppleScript:

on run {input, parameters}
    set myvar to text returned of (display dialog "What F-stop do you want to set?" default answer "1.8")
    repeat with myitem in input
        set myscript to "exiftool -FNumber=\"" & myvar & "\" -overwrite_original_in_place \"" & (POSIX path of myitem) & "\""
        do shell script myscript
    end repeat
end run


How to stress a MacBook Pro Retina? I need to stress my rMBP components (e.g. CPU/GPU/RAM) without loading any additional software tools.

Background - My rMBP has a hardware fault (similar to this issue) which causes system freezes that only manifests itself once it has been in use for hours and is under daily load (freezes 4/5 times a day on average) - I can use geekbench which causes the system to freeze quite quickly but want to reproduce the error quickly with no 3rd party software installed so to show genius team that the problem can be reproducible of a fresh install of High Sierra & without any 3rd party software installed just to speed up the process of diagnoses & eliminate user error.

Currently I'm watching 4K youtube videos & visiting greensock.com to get Safari to stress & trying to open photos but the machine isn't even noticing the extra load!

Consuming All the CPU Cores

The command below runs a yes instance for each CPU core and consumes a near maximum of the computer's processing capability:

CPU=$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)
seq $CPU | xargs -I{} -P $CPU yes > /dev/null

The command builds upon Mike's answer, but runs multiple instances of yes with xargs. One yes process will max out a CPU core, so multiple processes are needed. Thanks to @lights0123 for refining this command.

This deals with the CPU but not GPU or RAM.

CPU + GPU = WebGL

To stress the CPU and GPU, visit ShibuyaCrowd, a WebGL experiment (open source).

A minute after running this site, your MacBook Pro should be under reasonable computational load.