Merge two accounts on iTunes? I just noticed that I have 2 different accounts on my computers. Is it possible to ask Apple to merge them and been able to share the music I bought on each account ?

Two days ago I received an email from apple support. The author told me

  Leider muss ich Ihnen mitteilen, dass es nicht möglich ist, iTunes Accounts miteinander zu verbinden.

which means

  Unfortunately I have to tell you that it is not possible to merge iTunes accounts.


Is there any way to quick pair my bluetooth headphone? To disconnect my bluetooth headset is easy and just turn off my bluetooth. But I need to switch 3 pages in 4 steps to pair my bluetooth headset.

Unlock my iPhone
Click Setting Icon
Click Bluetooth Option
Click My Headset device shown in the list.

Is there any way to quick pairing my bluetooth device in one or two step?
Is it possible to add a specific device pairing shortcut on the springboard?

Thanks.

Try:

Toggle on Bluetooth on your phone
Switch the headphones on
Press the play/pause button on your headphones
They should connect without having to do anything else. They should connect without step three but it doesn't hurt to force the headphone to go looking for the phone.


Can I disable font antialiasing in Terminal.app on Big Sur? I'm slightly addicted to how 10pt Monaco renders with antialiasing turned off in Terminal.app.
On upgrading to Big Sur, that checkbox in Preferences doesn't do anything.

Well, it does something, but it doesn't turn off antialiasing. It seems to just make the bold font less bold.
Does anyone know how to get Terminal.app to render without any antialiasing at all?

I've seen a similar problem - though it behaves differently when terminal is restarted. For me, if I untick, then restart terminal, the startup sessions will render correctly. Adding further tabs or windows after restart will use the aliased font. i.e. will be inconsistent across sessions


Is there a cell/mobile friendly site for Apple feedback? I have previously used:
https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
To send feedback. I was shocked that this web form is not CSS formatted correctly on safari for iPhone. It’s so annoying to fill in a form designed for a desktop browser on your cell/mobile. I expected more from Apple (in 2020 no less!).
Anyone know of a mobile friendly version of this site?

Apple recommends using their Feedback Assistant native app, but this requires installing a beta profile (on iOS, built into MacOS).
If you want a web form, and are willing to sign into your Apple ID, you can use the Feedback Assistant web app.


How to undo SetFile -a V? I used SetFile -a V "/Volumes/Backup di Time Machine"/ to get rid off the time machine's icon on the desktop but it seems that I don't see it in the finder too and Time Machine stops working, it can't find the drive!
So how to undo this?
Thanks

P.S. stay away from this devil trick ;)

I found the solution. Just type the attribute V lowercase and restart the Finder!:)


Using optical drive for boot I have an old MBP that refuses to see the HD in its normal slot , but I can boot from an HD in the optical drive slot using OSX 10.6.8. So far so good and it runs quite fast enough for my use , but if I put it to sleep it won't wake up. It won't respond to the power button either on a press or a hold. I have to power off and remove the battery to start it up again, and then it starts, switches itself off and then starts again and chimes. I have tried replacing the hall effect sensor for the sleep switch but the result is the same. One guess is that the computer needs to switch on the HD first and then the rest of the system follows on and without the HD in the main slot it hangs. Anyway , anyone else experienced this or can think of a solution?

My first thought would be to try and resolve the initial issue (i.e. the fact your MBP is not recognising the main drive slot), as that's what is most likely causing your current problem as well.

However, since you seem happy to work off the optical drive, I would try the following:

First reset the NVRAM and SMC (in that order)1
Boot up from the optical drive slot
Go to Apple > System Preference > Startup Disk
Ensure that the current boot drive is selected
Exit System Preferences and Restart your MBP

Now test to see if that has made any difference.

1. Since you haven't provided details of your exact MBP model I've included links to Apple's instructions. Make sure you read these carefully so that you're following the correct steps for your MBP.


Safari 6.0 Rendering problems I have a 2011 MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8 I have noticed a lot of rendering issues in Gmail, and Google instant. It seems related to JavaScript. Has anyone had this problem and is there a solution?

This is a common issue with Safari 6.0 (screen tearing, text not showing up, etc.). I've updated to 10.8.1 developer build and can confirm that I haven't had the issue pop up since I've updated.

The update will be going live in the next few weeks and that should help fix any tearing issues.


My iPhone 3GS battery went dead I bought a new sealed iPhone 3GS from the vodafone store. ( Yes brand new one, it seems that they got some old phones stored of different brands and models. )
The problem is that this iPhone won't charge by any possible way:

What happens when I connect it to the charger:  The red charging icon appears then iPhone starts up till the activation screen appears, the top right battery icon appears as charging for the 1st time and after a few seconds it appears as fully charged.
As soon as I remove it from the wall charger it turns off.
Connecting  with my pc/mac won't make it  turn on. ( not enough power)
I'm stuck at the activation screen due to the previous two points.

I went to the vodafone customer care and they told me they can't repair or replace it by the same model but I can  return the phone and can get my money back.
However, I love this classic phone and I want to keep it.

So my question is do you think that battery is dead because of being stored for more than 4 years or can it be something wrong with the iPhone charging circuit?
In this first case I can take the risk and pay for the new battery but I won't open the phone in the second case and I will return it.

Apple does offer a one year warranty, so if you are the first buyer, you should be able to register and get them to replace the battery for free. I don't know exactly when they discontinued selling that model, but start with trying to register that device to you at support.apple.com using the serial number from the box. You might need to call into support or fax them the receipt since it's so far past when they were expecting to enroll new owners, but once you know if Apple can/will service it, you can decide to repair it through them or on your own.

It's likely the lithium battery has failed permanently due to not being stored for long term with 50% charge. I typically get out my old devices once a year and charge then to 50% and then power it off. If the voltage drops too low then you will need to replace the battery as it will never charge or even hold but a fraction of the intended energy.

The customer care has given you good advice and it's great that they offered you the money back. I would say if you are happy with the price, look at repairing the battery yourself. That design was very easy to self-service - especially if you realize it's unique and will take your time with the service.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+3GS+Battery+Replacement/1545

The parts should be readily available and the tools are inexpensive. Older phones (original) and newer phones are much harder to replace the battery due to tools or design of the connectors and internals. I'd say keep the phone unless you really can't afford the replacement cost of the battery.


Macbook Pro 15, 2017 | Burned connector and no charge Is it possible to replace this two components.
(J4402, J3300) I saw some components on Aliexpress but I don't know anything about a motherboard.
or do I have to replace the whole logic board?

Thanks for the help!

It is possible to replace components on a circuit board. It is expensive to get the tools and expensive in time to train and expensive to test the boards once repaired to be sure they are in spec.

Realistically, for about 95% of repair shops (maybe 99.9% even) it’s cheaper to swap the entire logic board. Only Apple or the Factory that makes these in the first place likely get enough failed parts back to make it economical to refurbish and repair damage like that.

Also, how are you going to diagnose and fix what caused the power overload? Once you repair the connector, there’s more going on than a melted part.


Can I set custom album artwork that isn't included in one of the songs? I have a couple of albums in iTunes that are "Various Artists" compilations, and the kicker is that each song has it's own artwork.

Is it possible to add album artwork only to the "album", and not to any individual song, so that I'd see the logo for the game/album on the main iTunes/iOS album view, instead of the first song of the album's art?

Yes, you can do this a few different ways depending on whether you want to preserve the current artwork or are OK overwriting it.

Way 1 — Simple if you are OK overwriting the current artwork.

Select all of the songs you would like to share the same album artwork.
Type Command-I.
You may see a dialog asking "Are you sure you want to edit information for multiple items?" if so click, "Yes" to continue.
You will see a editor like this:
Drag the image you want as the album artwork for these songs onto the well labeled Artwork.
Click OK and you're done.

Way 2 — If you want to preserve the current artwork.

iTunes allows songs to have multiple artwork files associated with them. It displays the first artwork file as the album art for a particular song. Here's the slightly more painful way you could add your artwork to these songs.

In the main iTunes window make sure that you have the small album art window displayed in the lower left. You can toggle it's visibility by clicking the icon near the bottom left that looks like this:
Select the songs you want to add art to.
Drag your new art onto the cover in the lower left.
Your art has been appended to the end of the stack of images associated with this file.
Now the annoying part: you have to open the info panel for each file by selecting it and hitting Command-I.
For each file move the new image to the top of the stack to make it the default album image and click OK.
Once you complete step 5&6 for each file you're done.


Deployment of free enterprise apps in VPP I've read a lot about the B2B iOS apps distribution, VPP program, however I'd like to be able to verify my knowledge and hope you could help.

Let's suppose a company A develops an iOS application, publishes it to the Appstore as a B2B app (hidden for all normal users in Appstore), and adds a company B already enrolled in the VPP program to the list of entities eligible to buy the app. Furthermore, let's assume the app is free.

What's the easiest way for company B to install this free app on their devices?

The document states there are two ways (MDM and redeemable codes), however this page mentions that B2B apps can be distributed with MDM only, and yet another source I've found stated that only paid apps can be distributed with both MDM and redeemable codes (the free ones are MDM only).

So what is and what is not possible here? Can free apps be distributed by redeemable codes? I have several concerns:

Let's say a user within company B wants to install the app, using a redeemable code. How does he do that? Is it done by opening the App store, entering the code and the app will automatically become visible for that user (based on Apple ID)?
If yes, can users update the app through Appstore?
MDM can be problematic to set up, and I'm not sure why it's a better solution than redeemable codes (Apple deprecated codes for some reason). Also, I'm not aware of a free MDM (heard about Cisco's Meraki), not sure how free that thing really is.

I'd be grateful if you could answer any of the questions above.

From https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202995 :

  Free apps are available as redeemable codes solely for custom B2B apps.

That means you can distribute Free Apps with codes but only if the developer assigned your VPP Apple ID for a custom version of the App (might be the same as the generally available free version, but you need to contact the developer and request they publish it to you).


Intermittent Static / Garbage External Display On Wake and Boot? Picture included Intermittently (relatively frequent) when the MacBook wakes from sleep and it kicks the external displays on, one or all of them may be fuzzy like this.
I have one display in a Thunderbolt port, and the other one is Apple HDMI adapter in the HDMI port.

I've ruled out the adapters being the problem,
I've done a PRAM reset. (even after it booted from PRAM reset it did it at boot up on login screen)

To fix it, I have to unplug and plug it back in and cross my fingers that it doesn't happen again.

Any ideas?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

If you look in the Console log you will find that the WindowServer is having a hard time finding the right protocol for your monitor.

Usually that happens when the hardware (cable/converter) connection are not stable, to long or near interference source.

From your picture it does look like your cable is to long and to close to the external monitor screen, and the Apple adapter is pulling its weight on to the plug.


Apple Numbers '08: extending a formula How can I get a formula to apply to every cell in a column? (i.e., I want to subtract a number I just entered in one cell from a total I have in a previous cell and I want to do it each subsequent cell I enter)

Note: This works with all versions of Numbers.

To create a running total, if that is what you are asking, use two columns.  One for numbers to subtract, the other for the running total.
Add another column for numbers to add if desired.

In the example below, the starting number is in cell reference B2 and the number to subtract from it is in cell reference A3.  Cell B3 enter this formula: =B2 - A3 then, click and drag the yellow dot (shown in the illustration) to autofill the formula down into the cells below.  Numbers will update the cell references automatically.

Of course, this can be improved upon but this is the basic formula to answer the OP's question.


Is it possible to speed up Spotlight indexing? Since Spotlight did not find a number of files on my disk, I decided to rebuild its index using the suggested method.

Now Spotlight is reindexing my drive, which usually takes about 2–3 hours. However, the indexing processes mds* seem to run on low priority, because they never really use more than 50% of the CPU.

Is there a way to prioritise the indexing process, thus speeding up indexing?

Update

In relation to bmike's answer, also disk access seems rather slow - at least for a MacBook Pro SSD. The arrow indicates where I stopped other processes that were active.

I doubt your process is CPU bound so you would need to bring faster storage to have it progress faster.

The pragmatic answer to this is:

just quit other programs that contend with IO
log out if you have sync products like Dropbox, Box, OneDrive or backup software that also scans for all file changes
be more selective - rebuild the index on a subset of the system if you need that portion to be done sooner
schedule your rebuilds for when you can walk away and not care how long it takes
if kernel_task is high - keep your machine cool (extra cool room, airflow, etc...) but that addresses CPU bottlenecks - not IO or data.

You can confirm my thinking in the Disk section of Activity Monitor and see what the reads in and out per second are and the bandwidth. Spotlight spins up multiple workers and is pretty sophisticated about doing parallel rebuilds, so it's unlikely you'll be able to twiddle with anything or cajole it to chew through all the content in all the files for all the data detectors in the system.

You can see these processes named mds, mdworker, mdwrite and variants of those core functions.

If you're logged out you'll need to ssh in and use top -u -s 10 or iostat 60 to see the activity level off or just check back on the visual indicator when you log back in.


Ghost podcasts appearing on smart playlist When I create a smart playlist that should only have podcasts, a "ghost" podcasts appear then disappears when I am updating my podcasts subscriptions. I've tried downloading the podcast again and then deleting it, but it keeps coming back. I've also searched through my library, and these podcasts do no t exists. Please note that I am not using the Podcasts app.

I had been using the Podcast app, and then deleted it. I believe this left orphaned podcast episodes in the phone itself. I had to SSH into the phone and delete the orphaned files. I found this out when I switched to manually managing my music, and the "ghost" podcasts appeared on the phone (but not iTunes).

I had earlier attempted re-downloading the Podcast app and re-downloading the "ghost" podcasts, but that didn't solve it.


Wi-Fi Interfering with Bluetooth Mouse I have an issue with my Logitech MX Master when trying to connect to my Macbook Pro (Early 2015 retina base model) via Bluetooth. The mouse has a stable performance only when Wi-Fi is turned off. Once Wi-Fi is turned on, however, the mouse gets really laggy. The cursor skips/jumps randomly, and the mouse's connection becomes very spotty and sometimes flat out disconnects.

I've been reading other posts on Stack Exchange and Apple's forums, and it seems many other people have had similar issues. Is there any workaround? This issue is proving to be a huge inconvenience :(

Also, how come my mouse keeps having to reconnect as a new bluetooth device every time I pair it, instead of having it paired to the previously connected slot. Here's an image to show what I mean, since it's kind of confusing to put into words:

I moved over the MX to band 2, then turned my wifi  off and back on. Everything is fine now.


Mac Mini volume control disabled when using thunderbolt for display I have a Mac Mini (late 2012) running the currently latest osx, El Capitan, and as display I use a Dell U2713H connected via thunderbolt (to a DisplayPort on monitor). This configuration is needed to get the maximum output resolution of the monitor, but it seems like it disables the volume control somehow.

When accessing the Sound panel of the system settings, it has disabled the Sound off/mute button in the bottom, and on the Output tab it says (in Norwegian): The selected device has no output controls. And the volume control (on keyboard) doesn't do a thing, neither for the 'global' volume or when playing stuff in iTunes.

My actual audio output is connected through the monitor through to a set of external speakers. The reason for this connection is that I also use the monitor as TV display by utilising the HDMI port on the monitor.

Do you have any suggestion on how to re-enable the volume control with this configuration, if at all possible?  Or any alternate solution to enable be listening to sound (not simultaneously) from both the Mac mini and the TV with only one set of speakers (no dual input available on the speakers).

HDMI, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt carry a fixed volume digital audio signal so the external device controls the volume.  In the future Apple may implement HDMI-CEC which would allow your computer to control the external device volume via software, similarly some devices have drivers which allow them to do the same.

In the meantime, here's a workaround:

Install SoundFlower
Download SoundFlowerBed, copy to /Applications and run.
SoundFlowerBed menu item -> under SoundFlower (2ch) set output to HDMI.
System Preferences -> Sound -> select SoundFlower (2ch) as Output device.
System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Login Items -> Add SoundFlowerBed.

Now you have two volume controls: HDMI display volume control and via software on your mac. With this setup your mac is digitally resampling the output and so Mac 100% volume + display 50% volume will likely sound better than Mac 50% volume + display 100% volume.


Increasing fan speed of macbook pro is harmful? I wanted to know if increasing fan speed of macbook pro with applications such as CoreDuoTemp, smcFanControl or Fan Control is harmful or not. My macbook's cpu temp rises up to 80 degrees when I use ooVoo or mysql and I want to reduce it. Is it useful to use these applications to do that?
thanx.

I’ve used smcFanControl when I had a 1st Gen Macbook Pro 15’’. It’s not harmful in the sense that the fan is designed to be on, but of course, like any other mechanical device, the more you use it, the faster it wears out. If your Macbook Pro is getting too hot, try one of those utilities to see if it helps. In any case, getting a cooling pad is not a bad idea. Depending upon the type of work and conditions that you have, a Fanless may be enough.

I believe the “best” fanless was the iLap. And for cooling pads with a Fan, you’ll have to see and trust the power of Google Shop. These generally use a USB port to drive a couple of Fans. Among the best features you can look for are the provision of an extra USB (so you don’t lose your port), portability if you move and sound level of the fans, whether they can be turned on/off, etc.


My AppleCare is about to expire with my battery at 81%. Is there a good way to get it to 79% so I can get a new battery? AppleCare covers the replacement of a MacBook Pro battery if it drops below 80% capacity before 1000 cycles. I have until the end of the year and I'm at 81% and 300 cycles. It would be nice to get a new battery in exchange for the $379(?!!!) I spent for AppleCare. I'll get an extra year of warranty since I purchased it on my American Express, but I would like to get something out of what I paid for AppleCare+ rather than pay $200 for a new battery and harass my credit card company into reimbursing me.

Any thoughts on what to do? Will Apple give me a new battery if I tell them I'm 1% away?

What’s the harm in asking them to diagnose your battery and not even say anything about wanting a free swap? See what they say and document they had a chance to diagnose things before the warranty ends.

My feeling and expectation is Apple would not offer to replace things unless you have them perform diagnostics and they see something amiss or feel it’s about to fail. I also see +- 5% FCC estimate when I run things from day to day, so I wouldn’t worry about +- 1% either to be eligible for a swap on the pooled plan (you are pooling risk - so it’s not free, it’s paid for out of the pool). It’s also not free since you would waste a 80% good battery that might last for years if your assumption that the only thing wrong would be measured capacity below 80% FCC within 3 years of delivery.

The 80% FCC is the standard, so it’s understandable for you to look at things around that as a line, since Apple established that design line and goal, but in practice, 60% FCC still gives a lot of run time and sometimes it’s not even worth paying for batteries below 40% or less. For some needs 40% FCC is perfectly serviceable and causes no real harm.

AppleCare plans are pro-rated and you’re paying for the term benefit (just like paying in for insurance of any kind) and no one gets to collect for “close to needing care” or a refund if you don’t use the benefit. Of course, you can cancel the coverage any time before it ends (and then the return is pro-rated). If you really think through the coverage, I think you’ll join me in “not wanting to get something for your payments” since the FCC is just one aspect of performance.

I would hope Apple wouldn’t replace the battery unless they feel it’s not performing, so I would just get it service diagnosed now and then about 2 weeks before the end of the coverage (or anytime you see 75% FCC). Since Apple can run diagnostics remotely , you can get a quick diagnosis and chance Apple would want to swap out parts (maybe something other than the battery needs service).

In the end, I gladly pay for battery service when it’s needed and if it takes 3 years to get to 80% FCC you might have another 1-3 years before the charge falls off and only have AppleCare and a $90 or so service for 6 years of productive use of a Mac spanning one original battery.

So in the end I would recommend:

read up and learn what the numbers mean
talk about the trade offs - some are being green, some are being frugal and not wasting time / resources / materials
balance the potential harm if you don’t get it serviced - your time is also valuable - driving in or having to go back for a repeat test also wastes resources
my experience is that when batteries are just being exhausted, they don’t fall sharply and any 5 to 9% change is meaningless to the eventual out of service date.
my experience is that when batteries fail, they plummet in days or weeks and Apple still covers them even after since they were at 85% and now are at 45% within a short period of the end of warranty.


Will old Apple Watch models work with AirPower? Apple showed off its AirPower charging mat with an Series 3 Apple Watch. Will AirPower work with older Apple Watch models as well?

Yes!

  AirPower works with the new series 3 Apple Watch, as well as the Apple
  Watch Series 2, the original Apple Watch, the Appel Watch Edition,
  Apple Watch Hermes, and the Apple Watch Nike+.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3224389/mobile-accessories/apple-airpower-features-specs-price-faq.html


Trying to update WhatsApp with new Apple ID Trying to update WhatsApp with new Apple ID. When I enter my password, it keeps saying my account is disabled. So I have to reset it, and when I reset it, the same problem exist.

Apparently someone tried to get unauthorized access to your Apple account (by entering incorrect password many times, entering wrong answer for security questions etc.). In such instances, Apple disables the account to preserve the security of your account.

From the Apple Support document, If your Apple ID is locked or disabled:

  If you or someone else enters your password, security questions, or other account information incorrectly too many times, your Apple ID automatically locks to protect your security and you can't sign in to any Apple services. You can unlock your Apple ID after you verify your identity.

To unlock your account, regain access, and thereby continue to install/update apps, follow the on-screen instructions on your trusted device(s) to reset your password.


'Travelling Salesman Problem' solver app for iPhone Is there iPhone App to solve the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) for real world addresses?

I found solver for OSM data?

But I can not find in repo sources for iPhone.

Nothing is remotely close. I'd watch the Wolfram Alpha app as they'd be my obvious choice for someone that would enable a "mail the data" to their servers for a solution.

iOS is certainly powerful enough to solve this class of problems, but we're still waiting for someone to invest the time in releasing an "app for that".


Running 10.13.4 Beta (17E182a), what is "Messages in iCloud currently disabled" message I am getting? See picture below.
I am seeing "Messages in iCloud is currently disabled. Repair Account."
The "repair account" is not clickable. I have enabled Messages in iCloud and I have tried to sync several times but nothing happens. I am not sure what other steps to take. Any ideas?

Go to your settings and confirm your iCloud password, this worked for me, I had the same problem.Hope this works if you haven’t already figured it out!


Open homebrew version of emacs instead of Apple version I installed emacs 26.1 via brew install emacs, but when I try to start emacs via command line, only the outdated Apple-supplied version (22.1.1) opens.

However, emacs is apparently correctly linked:

$ which -a emacs
/usr/local/bin/emacs
/usr/bin/emacs

$ exa -l /usr/local/bin/emacs
lrwxr-xr-x 32 $USER 26 Aug 22:42 /usr/local/bin/emacs -> ../Cellar/emacs/26.1_1/bin/emacs

$ exa -l /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/26.1_1/bin/emacs
lrwxr-xr-x 10 $USER 25 May 18:41 /usr/local/Cellar/emacs/26.1_1/bin/emacs -> emacs-26.1

PATH also has /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin, so why does emacs still open /usr/bin/emacs?

The problem was that emacs was still hashed, so the old version was used even after installing the new one.
Therefore,

$ type emacs
emacs is hashed (/usr/bin/emacs)

This can be remedied by either logging out and then back in again, or forcing the shell to rehash by running hashemacs, which will result in

$ type emacs
emacs is hashed (/usr/local/bin/emacs)

Then, the correct version will be used.


What is a good, inexpensive HTML editor with FTP support? I just finished the two-week trial of Coda, and I really like it. The only issue is, I am a student, and the $99 license fee is a bit over my budget.

I do a lot of work on live sites, and an IDE with built-in FTP support really makes my workflow much faster.

My question is: Are there any free or cheap web code IDEs that have built-in FTP support? I have used TextWrangler, and that works passably. However, I would like something with an interface a bit more like Coda or HTML-Kit.

Aptana Studio, based on Eclipse, has support for additional protocols, not just FTP. It's free.


Display accents on Touch Bar when holding a letter under Mojave After upgrade to Mojave, a long press of any letter does bring up the accented character menu but not anymore on the Touch Bar (Mac Book Pro 15-inch, 2018 with US keyboard).

Do you have an idea to to get them back on the touchbar ?

There is a possible reason why this may be:

You've installed the third-party product Webroot SecureAnywhere.

  Webroot SecureAnywhere is made by Webroot Inc. When this software is
  installed on your Mac using its default settings, you might notice
  these symptoms:

  Text that you dictate doesn't appear as expected. You don't see any
  accented characters when you hold down a letter key. You can't select
  items such as emoji in the Touch Bar of your 2016 MacBook Pro.

  Follow these steps to fix the issue:

  Click the Webroot SecureAnywhere icon in the menu bar. Choose Pause
  Secure Keyboard Entry.


Can you restore a phone with an old version of iOS if that phone was never upgraded? I have a couple of iPhones running iOS 4 that I want to do a restore on. These phones have never been jailbroken, and I'm using the .ipsw that is the exact same version that's currently on the phone:

iPhone 4 - 4.3.5 (8L1)

iPhone 3GS - 4.3.2 (8H7)

When I try to restore from the .ipsw in Windows 7, I get the error:

The iPhone "myphone" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (3194).

This error means that I need to upgrade iTunes, but I'm running the latest version. Also, I'm able to restore my other iPhone 4 using 5.0.1 just fine.

When I try to do the same on my Mac, I get the error:

The iPhone "myphone" could not be restored. The device isn't eligible for the requested build.

When I click "More Information" I see that it's also error 3194.

I checked in WireShark, and I do get a TCP connection with apple just before the error. It's encrypted though, so I have no idea what it sends/receives, but I can confirm that there's two-way communication. I tried the restore both over my company's connection, and my 3G connection just to make sure it didn't have anything to do with the IP address I was using. Also, I verified that the phones are authorized for that iTunes installation.

Any ideas?

The official answer to this is no, you can not restore to a previous version of iOS other than the current one available from Apple. This is because iTunes is attempting to obtain tokens from the Apple signing servers to authorize the device when restoring.

The non official answer is yes, but requires some technical skills using iFaith. Post back if you require assistance down this path.


Security Update 2020-004: Apple Remote Desktop and Screen Sharing Not Working? Anyone else noticed? I just installed the security update on a remote computer and can no longer access that computer via Apple Remote Desktop or Screen Sharing?
Luckily I had Teamviewer as a backup...
Anyone else notice/got any ideas how to fix this?
I tried cycling everything on and off a few times, restarts, etc. SSH is working OK.
It seems to be exclusively the security update 2020-004 that broke it...I haven't changed anything else, and it's worked all year. Another computer on the network also on 10.14.6 is working fine (since I haven't installed that update on it yet...nor will I until I can resolve this).
Thanks.

No, we are not seeing that. Having ssh is key, you can log in and kickstart the ARD and self rescue most of the time. Even turn off remote access and turn it back on via ssh.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201710

Once you get ARD or physical hands on the Mac , I would reinstall Mojave from the App Store to be sure the OS is installed if you can’t suss out what happened.


I can't find Notes on iCloud I had an iPhone 5c, backed up to the computer.

Then I also backed up my new iPhone 6s Plus.

Everything restored to my new iPhone except my Notes. I can't find them on iCloud, or on the computer either. How can I restore my Notes?

First I want to know whether you can find notes on your iPhone 5c now, have you check your iPhone 5c? If the notes are still preserved on your iPhone 5c, upgrade iOS to the latest version and update iTunes. then you can try to backup them on your computer and iCloud again. If you have multiple email accounts each email account gets its own Notes account.


Can you lock your screen on OS X? Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a quick way to lock my Mac?

Does OS X have the option to allow you to lock your screen?

Yes set System Preferences->Security->General to require password after screen saver begins

And in System Preferences->Desktop & Screen Saver->Screen Saver hit the hot corners button and choose  one or more of the corners to Start Screen Saver

There are also Dashboard Widgets to help here. I have not used any recently.e.g.
a widget to lock and others to send the mac to sleep.


How to UNLOCK rotation of the iPad 2 non retina At the bottom of iPad screen, when I swipe up and that pop up appears, there's no picture of rotation lock. Then in settings under General there is a USE SIDE SWITCH TO:  Lock Rotation  (blue check). How do I unlock rotation? I click on the blue check but it doesn't disappear.

EDIT: Every app I click on that used to rotate orientation, now don't rotate.

The Lock Rotation and the Mute Under the USE SIDE SWITCH TO: act as radio buttons.

Selecting one deselects the other.

Depending on which one is selected determines what the side switch does.

Either Mute or  Mute or Lock Rotation.

The side switch is either On (showing an orange dot ) or off  (NOT showing an orange dot )

In Mute mode:

side switch ON = silent
side switch OFF = sound

In Lock Rotation mode:

side switch ON = No Rotation
side switch OFF = Rotation

The Control Center's  (when you swipe up) button that is used for  Mute or Lock Rotation will also change to either a Mute or Lock Rotation button depending what is selected in the settings.

So you have full control regardless of how you are setup.


Extending network with 2 airport express from another router I have two airport express devices. Is it possible to extend my one airport express with another airport express.

Yes it is, you have to configure your second airport express with the option to Extend Wireless Network.

This is how my network looks (names blurred just in case):

ANd this is the configuration for the Airport 2 (the one extending the network created by Airport 1:


Does it make sense to still use firewire? I have a macbook pro 2012 non-retina which has firewire and a 2007 macbook (a white plastic one) which I use as a local server and it also has firewire. In addition to that I have my desktop PC which is a hackintosh build. I know that firewire is kinda obsolete after apple killed it off but I know that firewire has good speeds and it would be great to use for copying big files (I often do). So does it make sense to invest in a PCI firewire card (for like 10-20€) for my desktop PC so I can copy things with good speeds even though firewire isn't used anymore?

Edit: Just ordered a Firewire PCI-E Card for my Desktop (11€) and a 1.8m Firewire cable (5€). I will let everybody know how it works out once I tested everything out.

I have firewire in production still and you can usually get excellent performance / $ by buying older technology.

The latency of FireWire is excellent - on par with Thunderbolt
The bandwidth of firewire is nearly that of gigabit ethernet and way faster than any source or destination of data that you will send on that era hardware.
The reliability of FireWire is excellent

Why spend more for a connection that won't limit your speeds and is very easy on the wallet and reliable? I say go for it unless you really want to spend more on the card and cables or could use gigabit ethernet instead.


Is it safe to shut down Mac while Spotlight is still indexing? Had some issues with Finder and Spotlight not finding files. Used the instructions to rebuild Spotlight index in Mac. Put entire Macintosh HD there. Checked and now it seems to find all the files again, but mdworker files are still active in Activity Monitor.

It has been almost 7 hours and I can't keep Mac going anymore.

My question is - could there be any damage or security risk if Spotlight is interrupted indexing everything? For example, would some important system files not find their data to function properly?

Does Mac's OS itself use Spotlight index for its own work or is it purely for user?

could there be any damage or security risk if Spotlight is interrupted
  indexing everything?

No.

  Is it safe to shut down Mac while Spotlight is still indexing?

Yes.


4s phone screen is frozen Screen on phone is frozen diplaying wall paper and slide to unlock.  Voice recognition works, but cannot enter passcode with frozen screen.  How can I get into the phone, need pictures.  Have not backed up phone.  Can pictures be retrieved from SIM?

Sometimes the homescreen seems to hang on iOS7.  Sliding up for the camera, or down for notifications centre etc can work, but sliding across to unlock doesn't.  It's very annoying.  You need to restart the phone to get past it.  You can either:

hold the power button until the slide to restart message appears, and if you can slide there then do that, or...
hold the power button and home buttons together until the Apple logo is shown.


Command+Click does not work in Google Scholar + Firefox For example, see this page:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=cancer&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C33&as_sdtp=

When I do command+click on the article titles, Firefox does neither open a link nor open a tab. In any other browsers, it works well. When I do right click and manually choose "Open Link in New Tab", it works well.

Is this only my problem, potentially a problem of one of my extensions?

Firefox 21.0, OS X Mountain Lion

No, it's not a problem restricted to your computer:

Other Mac users (including me) have experienced similar problems with scholar.google.com and other websites when using Firefox 19.0.2 and version 20.0, or, in my case, with the same setup as yours (OS X 10.8.3 and Firefox 21).
Windows users have also reported this issue, for example here and here.

I don't think it is not a problem caused by extensions, either. The problem seems rather related to how Firefox deals with some CSS code and Javascript plugins.

The extension NoScript can be used as a workaround at the cost of reducing functionality, because it blocks, among other things, JavaScript.

After installing NoScript scholar.google.com behaved as expected when I ⌘-clicked the links. NoScript displays a yellow bar at the bottom when active:

Important: You will need to exclude google.com from the whitelist for this to work. This will also block Javascript and other plugins on www.google.com, so you may wish to whitelist it:


Restore all Notes from iCloud I deleted numerous Notes from my phone that I want to get back from iCloud.  My phone has not updated to iCloud so the Notes are still good on the cloud.  How do I get all files from cloud back onto phone

First, access the notes in iCloud and copy their contents, just in case. Second, one solution that should work is to edit each of the notes slightly, giving them something that happened to them more recently than when you deleted the from your phone. Third, on to your iPhone, disable Notes from the iClouds portion of Settings which should make them local. Go online, turn the Notes syncing back on, and it should get them.


How can I revert to Snow Leopard? Lion is crashing on me all the time and I am sick of it.  I would like to do a clean install of Snow Leopard, but when I insert the dvd and hold 'c' on boot the computer just locks up and I have to do a hard reset.

What do I have to do?

The issue is likely due to the fact that the build of Snow Leopard you're using is incorrect and thus does not have the necessary drivers for your iMac. If it's a Mid 2011 or even Mid 2010 model, the reference release of Snow Leopard (10.6.3) was release before these models and does not have what is needed to use the hardware in your iMac.

If your iMac was purchased before or on Lion launch day, it should have come with some gray disks that will have the correct build of Snow Leopard on them. If you purchased your machine a few weeks after Lion launch, you may not have these disks.

If you don't' have these disks, I would suggest making an appointment at your local Genius Bar. Both Apple Stores I worked in always had reference releases of all major OS releases within the past 5 years, including a universal Snow Leopard build. They should be able to do a quick NetRestore and downgrade you to Snow Leopard (you will lost all files if they do it this way, so have a good backup!).

Hope this helps...good luck.


iCloud says that backups are using 3 GB of space, but there are no backups My iCloud account shows that I have ~3 GB of backups, but when I check on all devices using this account, backups are off and no backups are showing.

The storage bar.

The backups list... empty!

It appears you are looking at the iCloud info in System Preferences on an Apple laptop or desktop. Inside System Preferences, after you click on iCloud, you then click on Manage in the lower right corner. When that window comes up, the top option is highlighted but not necessarily selected. If it's not selected, the backups will not show in the right column. Click on Backups to make sure it is selected.

I also would recommend signing into www.iCloud.com and verifying that you have no backups in the cloud. As many of these devices back up on their own, it seems unlikely that you would have no backups unless you recently deleted them.


Import new signature without using isight My isight doesn't works, i use another mac for create my digital signature.

How can I import and set my signature on my mac ?

where storage it?

Send an email to yourself with the signature you made on the other
mac from the other mac.
Open the email on the mac with the broken iSight.
Select the signature and copy (cmd + c) it.
Go to Mail/preferences/signatures and create a new signature.
Paste (cmd + v) in the signature box.

Is this what you mean?


pbpaste, pbcopy using wrong pasteboard? I'm converting a shell script which xclip and similar tools on Linux, to use pbpaste and pbcopy on Mac. The problem is the default pasteboard ('general' according to the man-page) for these tools is not the one being used by Stickies / Safari / TextMate / all the GUI apps.

I've tried all the pasteboard names mentioned in 'man pbpaste' but none contain the data I copy in any GUI app. If I load data into the 'general' pboard using 'pbcopy' I can extract it fine via 'pbpaste' - but it's separate from the GUI pasteboard.

Note I'm not running any unusual shell, Terminal or WindowServer settings, this is standard 10.7 Terminal and bash.

Check your bash aliases - is something aliasing pbcopy/pbpaste to use one of the other pasteboards?

The manpage for these commands mentions four possible pasteboards that they can use - general, ruler, find, and font. Try pbcopy -pboard general to force it to use the general pasteboard.


MacBook Pro (2018) Overheating issues (Latest Mojave) I recently bought the Macbook Pro (2018) base model with the following specs -

2.2 Ghz 6 core i7
16 GB RAM
256 GB SSD
Radeon Pro 555X 4096 MB
Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
Mojave but this problem existed even in latest High Sierra

It overheats. The exact temperatures of each location are given here [
but the laptop is generally uncomfortably hot to touch.

Does anyone else here have the same problem?
How do I go about diagnosing this? Here is a screenshot of running processes.[

Your average body temp is 37.2 Celsius !

I do not see any surface area on your Laptop that is higher than 38 C, so you would not feel it as hot.

As for the diverse electronic devices and Integrated circuits (CPU), they are designed to withstand up to 110 Celsius.

Your Mac will turn off at 105 C.

None of your results come even close to been HOT.


Disable F14/F15 for Brightness Control My new iMac (2017, running 10.12.5) has by default F14/F15 bound to control the display brightness. I can't find any way to disable them, which means that binding them to other functions doesn't work. Using a third party tool like Keyboard Maestro can map the keys, but doesn't override the brightness adjustment, so you get two functions at once.

In my research it seems that some versions of Mac OS had a Display option under Keyboard Shortcuts that had the applicable options:

Unfortunately I don't have that.

So my question is: How do I get that Display section back, or how do I unbind the decrease/increase display brightness shortcuts?

The Display section in Keyboard Shortcuts shows up when a third-party (non-Apple) keyboard is attached (I used a USB one, I don't have a wireless one to test). From there I was able to disable the shortcut keys.

Once I was able to disable them, I did some digging to find where the preferences are stored behind the scenes. Turns out that they live in ~Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist.

Setting the enabled property to false for keys 53 through 56 of the AppleSymbolicHotKeys dictionary, will disable the F14/F15 brightness adjustments (this doesn't affect the F1/F2 keys on Apple keyboards).

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :AppleSymbolicHotKeys:53:enabled false" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :AppleSymbolicHotKeys:54:enabled false" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :AppleSymbolicHotKeys:55:enabled false" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :AppleSymbolicHotKeys:56:enabled false" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist

The change will take place after a logout or restart. If you want to re-enable them, change false to true.


Is it possible to use both the GPUs in a MacBook Pro at the same time? The Macbook Pros come with two graphical processing units, one is made by ATI and the other one by Intel.

Is it possible to use them both at the same time, to render one image/3D model/whatever on one GPU and at the same time another one on the other GPU?

It depends what you mean by:

  use them both at the same time

So, Apple's usage of two GPUs is based on using one or the other, not both. Meaning as a user, you cannot "use them both at the same time."

Now, if you're talking about using them both as a programmer, well then anything is possible, and you could probably target both GPUs using OpenCl.

Most applications written for OSX though will target GPUs using OpenCL, which is Apple's abstraction of the GPU. This means apps will call on the GPU when needed, and because Apple's implementation is one GPU at a time (not both), then most apps will only use one, not both.

NOTE:
This is in regards to using multiple GPU chipsets, not multiple core within a chipset. Obviously OSX and OpenCL can use multiple cores.


How to disable built-in keyboard and trackpad? after a recent drink spill on my MacBook, the keyboard is producing all sorts of random keystrokes and odd behavior such as holding spacebar, shift or arrow keys etc. Yes, I know this question has been asked before, but I can't comment or bump any old question due to the low reputation on the site so far.

I am looking for a cheap way to disable the keyboard. Could one remove the keyboard ribbon from the logic board to disable it? I use my laptop in a 100% external mouse and keyboard environment, so I don't need the built-in keyboard to work.

I know there is somewhere to disable the trackpad in System Preferences, but I could not find anything.

Also, I saw the old way of getting to disable the onboard keyboard was by unloading a KEXT file.

Since you already know the software way, how about permanent removal (the hardware way).

Open it and unplug the cable.

Find the instructions for your model on the ifixit web site.


How do I show all hidden & invisible files on the command line (both .files and invisible flagged files)? Is there a way to show only the hidden and invisible files in a directory using the command line?

For instance ls -a | grep "^\." will show all the files hidden by a period as the first character, but what about files hidden with the invisible flag or listed in .hidden (mostly deprecated in practice, don't worry about that one so much.)?

If the files are indexed by Spotlight and files in subdirectories can be included, you could use mdfind:

mdfind kMDItemFSInvisible=1 -onlyin .

Or test for both GetFileInfo -av (attribute invisible) and if the name starts with a period:

shopt -s dotglob nullglob
for f in *; do [[ $(GetFileInfo -av "$f") = 1 || $f = .* ]] && echo "$f"; done

GetFileInfo is part of the command line tools package that can be downloaded from Xcode's preferences or from developer.apple.com/downloads.

Different ways to list only files that start with a period:

shopt -s nullglob; printf %s\\n .[^.]* ..?*
shopt -s dotglob nullglob; GLOBIGNORE='. ..'; printf %s\\n *
ls -a | grep -E '^(\.[^.]|\.\.[^$])'


How do I delete attachments from mails I sent In Mountain Lion’s Mail app, I can delete attachments from mails others have sent me, but not from the mails I sent to others.

In the mailbox, the messages I have sent are not marked with the small paperclip, even when then have a attachments (however, their size is correct and includes the big attachments). When I select an individual message (or many), the "Delete attachements" menu item is grayed out.

How can I deleted attachments from mails I sent?

Based on the page
http://lifehacker.com/5841097/how-to-delete-or-archive-attachments-in-apple-mail-and-free-up-disk-space
I used the steps bellow.

** Method recommended only for those who feel comfortable using the Terminal **

open the terminal app (Applications > Utilities > Terminal)
change to the directory/folder with the emails typing in the terminal window

$ cd ~/Library/Mail/V2

list the folders you have

$ ls

or

$ ls -1

you will obtain something like:

$ ls -1
IMAP-info@furia.com.br@pop.furia.com.br
IMAP-infofuria@imap.gmail.com
MailData
Mailboxes

go to the folder of the account you want to clean, list the files and the result shows one or more mbox

$ cd IMAP-info@furia.com.br@pop.furia.com.br
$ ls -1
INBOX.mbox

or

$ ls -1
INBOX.mbox
INBOX0.mbox
INBOX1014.mbox

if you have only one mbox, go to this folder, list it and you will see

$ cd INBOX.mbox
$ ls
CE7AE9-C83C-410A-9406-4DEFB7034
Archive.mbox
Deleted Messages.mbox
Drafts.mbox
Info.plist
Junk.mbox
Sent Messages.mbox
Trash.mbox

change to the folder of the messages sent (note the backslash before the space) and list to see the files

$ cd Sent\ Messages.mbox
$ ls
CE7AE9-C83C-410A-9406-4DEFB7034
Info.plist

the first file is a folder and contains all the messages and attachments in a series of subfolders. Now you will use the powerful unix find command to find all the files to be deleted and delete them.
the find command can recursively descends the directory tree to search files by name and by size (among other options), so if you know that the attachmentes to be deleted are PDF files with more than 200k you can use the first command to find and list the files. Then if it's ok, delete them with the second command. The second example will find and delete zip files with more than 1 MB.

$ find . -iname "*.pdf" -size +200k
./77CE7AE9-C83C-410A-94/Data/Attachments/303/2/abc.pdf
./77CE7AE9-C83C-410A-94/Data/Attachments/305/2/xyz.pdf
$ find . -iname "*.pdf" -size +200k -delete
$ find . -iname "*.zip" -size +1M -delete

and if you want to delete all attachments bellow the present folder, you can use one simple command. To confirm that you are at the correct folder verify first printing the working directory. Then, remove every Attachments folders bellow it.

$ pwd
/Users/user/Library/Mail/v2/IMAP-info@furia.com.br@pop.furia.com.br/INBOX.mbox/Sent Messages.mbox
$ find . -iname Attachments -exec rm -R {} +

repeat these operations on all mbox of the account


Block an application's read/write access to a specific file in OS X? The premise is this:

I have an app which has been set in its code to only run on OS X versions 10.4 to 10.9.2. (When I try to install it, it gives a message "This version of ____ is for Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.9.2."). I have updated to 10.9.3, and the developer just needs to update the app to fix this restriction in his tool.

I'm actually in contact with the developer, who says he is 'too busy' to work on the app or issue an update right now.

I worked out that the app is just reading /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist to determine OS version, and I managed to bypass its installer restriction by temporarily editing the file using this guide. But after reverting the plist values to 10.9.3 and restarting the system to start (hopefully) using the app, I saw that it even checks SystemVersion.plist to even run as well - not just during installation.

I'm worried that if I keep SystemVersion.plist at 10.9.2 indefinitely it would ruin other parts of the system such as App Store updates and the like.

So my idea now, is to try and find some method or tool, to block the app from being able to even read SystemVersion.plist entirely - think of it as a 'file system' version of Little Snitch if you will - just some way to create custom rules, for specific processes, that disallow read and/or write access, to specific files/folders in the system.

Maybe it would just cause the app to throw an error and not run at all (I could probably test this by temporarily moving the plist file to Trash for just 30 seconds while trying to install/run it) - but in either case, I think it's a really useful thing to be able to have, for powerful security purposes - just like the custom-blocking network access for apps in Little Snitch.

So is there some awesome third party tool, or even native OS X / Xcode tool, that can do this? Any insights as to what would even need to happen anyway, system/programming-wise? Tweaking with 'Sharing & Persimmons' for a file in Finder lets me control user access, but not process.

You could just use the built-in sandboxing features of Mac OS X.

Create a custom profile that limits access to the SystemVersion.plist file, using syntax like this:

(version 1)
(deny file* (literal "/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist"))
(allow default)

Save that as for example ~/myprofile.sb and then run your program like this:

sandbox-exec -f ~/myprofile.sb "/Application/My Program.app/Contents/MacOS/My Program"


Use iPad as output device without iTunes? I have an iPad with limited capacity. I waste a lot of time using iTunes on my MacBook Pro to delete content from the iPad and then sync'ing new content from the MBP. Not only does it waste time, I have to select movies and TV shows in advance.

Queston: How do I use the iPad as an output device to watch the material from the MacBook Pro? In this case, the MacBook Pro will simply be my personal storage device.

Related: I'll be doing this while flying, so things like spacious desktops and internet connectivity are out of the question. The MacBook Pro will be under the seat, and the iPad will be on the tray table.

The MacBook Pro clam shell is too big to fully open on the tray table, so I can't watch movies on it or operate programs like iTunes. And the cable for the iPad to the MacBook is too short to physically tether it.

About the only thing I will be able to do is turn on both devices, and use apps like Videos and iTunes on the device.

Related: the iPad Mini is running iOS 8.2 (fully patched). The MacBook Pro is running OS X 10.8.5 (fully patched). I have an iTunes account but it won't be accessible. I don't have an iCloud account and I don't want one (I have actively refused it since the iOS 6/7 days).

Related: years ago I tried to solve the problem by writing my own program to play the movie I was licensed (purchased under my iTunes account, all the hardware authorized under my account, etc). But Apple has some serious anti-competitive practices in effect such that only their programs can play the content. See Playing Movies from ITunes using MPMoviePlayerController? on Stack Overflow.

What you call anti-competitive is kind of the point of DRM -- if it could overridden by simply writing a new program, it wouldn't be much of a stopping point.

In any event, you don't really say except at the bottom, but the implication is that you are trying to watch content purchased from iTunes. Is that correct? If so, you may be much more limited. If it's not purchased content, there are more options.

Next you will need a way to essentially broadcast content to the device. For years I used Air Video. You need to download the app to your device to act as the receiver, and the server app to your MacBook to act as the, well, server. Note the above app does not support DRMed content, such as items purchased in iTunes, but it does support most everything else you can throw at it.

Then, while on the plane, you will need to set up a direct WiFi connection. On your MacBook, go to the WiFi menu bar icon, click on it and choose Create Network. Give it a name, choose a channel, and enable a password for it.

On your device go to Settings > WiFi and tap on your new network. Enter the password, and you should be able to stream content using the Air Video client on your iPad.


Outlook 2011 reports incorrect font size My copy of Outlook 2011 is behaving oddly with respect to font sizes.

When I compose an email and set the text to be, for example, 12pt, the text I get when I type within the email composition window is actually 9pt. Moreover, when I send the email to myself and read it on a Windows computer the email is, again, 9pt.

Outlook 2011 therefore seems to be inacurately reporting/setting the font size. Does anyone know why it does this or have a solution?

Edit with some more information about my specific circumstances:

Outlook is set to default at 12pt Calibri, and this is what I am trying to compose in (i.e. its set to this size before I start typing).

The same issue affects all the other fonts in Outlook, but does not affect MS Word.

Outlook and Safari are both up to date.

I am running Mountain Lion on a Retina Macbook Pro 15".

As far as the difference in versions of outlook, MS actually has an official statement about that:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2783553

Summary
Email messages that are sent from Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 to
other operating systems may have with a different font size than the
original email message font size. For example, when text that has
Calibri font size 14 is sent from Outlook for Mac 2011 to Microsoft
Outlook or Outlook Web App, the text may be displayed as a font size
other than 14 when the message is received on the other operating
system.
More information
This is caused by the pixel-to-point or
point-to-pixel conversion that happens between the Mac and Windows
operating systems.

In other words they're using points in OSX and pixels in Windows.


How do I fix a file that crashes Numbers? A long time ago, I made a relatively simple Numbers document with some tables containing text and images. It lives in iCloud, and I can preview it using Quick Look.

But now when I try to open it, Numbers crashes, 100% of the time. Here's the crash log.

The file is only 1.4MB in size; its filename contains only ASCII characters; nothing else seems out of the ordinary. Another Numbers document, right alongside it in iCloud, opens just fine. The crash happens no matter whether I open it from Finder or the Numbers Open dialog.

What can I try in order to fix the file or work around the crash? (Unfortunately I'd rather not share the file here.)

Your best bet is to report a bug in Apple Numbers using this form:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/numbers.html

Be sure to include the exact version of Numbers you're running as well as the complete crash log, or at least this part of the stack trace:

  Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010e4ccbca 0x10d523000 + 16423882
1   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010e3e11ab 0x10d523000 + 15458731
2   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010e3e1061 0x10d523000 + 15458401
3   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010e3ca64c 0x10d523000 + 15365708
4   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010dd6a9c7 0x10d523000 + 8681927
5   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010e3ca5bc 0x10d523000 + 15365564
6   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010dc0124d 0x10d523000 + 7201357
7   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010dbebd2b 0x10d523000 + 7114027
8   com.apple.iWork.Numbers         0x000000010d5327ec 0x10d523000 + 63468

Apple will have the debug symbols that tells them, which specific functions are involved in the crash.

Then you have to sit tight and wait until a new version of Numbers comes out where the bug is hopefully fixed. It is entirely likely that the bug won't be fixed, so don't get your hopes up too high.

Fixing the file yourself requires intimate knowledge of the Numbers file format, as it sounds like you might have a valid file that crashes Numbers - and not a corrupted file. It is very hard to give advice on how to fix the file yourself when you're not sharing the file in question.


Very slow to start processes or open applications I have a Mac Mini (Mid 2011, 8GB RAM) with Yosemite which is getting slower and slower. But the weird thing is that only opening applications or starting new processes (from the terminal) is terribly slow.

Once an application is started (it can take up to 5 minutes to open Excel) then it works without any problem.

What I looked so far:

the log files seem normal
monitoring the system with opensnoop shows a lot of activity from Spotlight (mds_stores ist the process using more CPU time and mdworker)
in general the CPU is almost idle
disk seems healthy (no S.M.A.R.T. errors, no problems while checking it with Disk Utility)

Where could I look for a hint on what is making the machine slow?

First: Make sure you have an up-to-date backup.

Assuming no hard drive issues, this Sounds like Spotlight is having problems indexing. I have also seen slow app launching due to bad font caches.

I assume that you have let the system run for a while so that Spotlight can have a chance to update its databases. This can take a while, although on a relatively current Mac with an SSD drive, it should not take more than a few hours.

It is also possible that there are other cache's or background cleanup utilities that are not running properly.

You can try Onyx. Be sure to download the correct version of Oxny for your version of Mac OS X. Oxny is a GUI wrapper for a wide variety of command line tools to deal with these types of issues. After you run Oxny, you can expect the first startup time to be MUCH slower because various databases, caches and the like need to be rebuilt. There after, it should be back to full speed.


New 2.5" SSD won't fit - my MacBook pro says it's a mid 2012 15" model So I just paid £200 for a new SSD hard drive (Crucial said it was a suitable upgrade for my MacBook Pro 15" mid 2012).

But this isn't what I was expecting to see. :(

What am I looking at? Why didn't it look like the iFixit guide?

That definitely looks like a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro Retina.

From iFixit.com:


iPhone calendar app is stuck on Add Event page In Calendar app, I clicked the + button to add an event. When I'm done filling all the event details out, I click the blue Done button in upper right corner. It adds my event but it won't leave the Add Event page. I'm stuck on that page whenever I'm in the Calendar app.

This problem likely can be remedied by restarting the app (Double Tap the home button, tap and hold the calendar app icon until an X icon appears, tap the X icon). If that doesn't work, I would reboot the phone (hold the power and home button down until you see the Apple logo).

If this doesn't help, I would recommend posting screen shots.


I get an error sed: 1: "1~2d": invalid command code ~ when I use sed '1~2d' sample.txt On macOS version 11.2.2.
$ which sed
/usr/bin/sed

sed version: 4.8 SED(1)
When I run this code on Ubuntu, it works.
$ sed '1~2d' sample.txt
two
four
six

But when I run this on macOS, both in zsh and bash, it won't work.
$ sed '1~2d' sample.txt
sed: 1: "1~2d": invalid command code ~

Why doesn't it work on macOS?
How can I make it work?
[Update]
When I run man sed | grep GNU, it outputs telling that This is a GNU extension.

An adress like 1~2 is a GNU extension, it's not available in the BSD sed which is part of macOS.
The probably easiest way out of this is to install GNU sed with
brew install gnu-sed

and then run gsed '1~2d' sample.txt.
If you don't want to install additional software see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2560411/how-to-remove-every-other-line-with-sed for alternative approaches.


TrueCrypt alternative for Mac OS X I'd need to create an encrypted volume on my MacBook Pro running OS X El Capitan.

It's been a while since I needed to do something like that, I think it was 2010 when I used TrueCrypt.

I know that nowadays its development has been suspended or somehow discontinued, so I was wondering: how to have an encrypted volume with TrueCrypt-like level of security on Mac OS X?

Just use FileVault 2, which comes with El Capitan and is pretty secure.

If you need separate volumes or passwords for different projects, you can also use OS X encrypted disk images with 128 or 256 bit AES encryption. This allows you to choose to store the passphrase for each volume offline, in separate keychains or in the main keychain as you see fit.

The benefit of FileVault is whole disk hardware encryption so you should start there and then layer in encrypted disk images for projects that require even more protection or isolation.


macOS High Sierra unable to natively play videos encoded with HandBrake's H.265 setting I'm using HandBrake to encode some videos using the MP4 H.265 format, but the videos won't play using QuickTime or Quick Look on macOS High Sierra, which is supposed to have H.265/HEVC support. They work in VLC just fine. Anyone else have this problem or know why these videos won't play in the system-provided players?

High Sierra's H.265-capable apps want hvc1 instead of hev1. Handbrake's stable release as of now (September 26, 2017) does the latter. Nightly builds should do the former.

Relevant code change: https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake/commit/67dfaca7ac3ec56cc4ab3c7f9f60ab3b7c43a0db


Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (OS X) and Dropbox I was trying to share the saved games of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition using Dropbox (on OS X). Configuration files are stored in

~/Library/Containers/com.beamdog.baldursgateenhancededition/Data/Documents/Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition

The options file Baldur.ini should not be shared as it contains machine specific data but I tried to make the saves folder a symbolic link to a Dropbox folder but then data is not recognised.

My workaround is to manually copy the folder to and from Dropbox after and before playing but I would like to know if someone found a better alternative.

Edit

The goal is to share the saved games between two machines using Dropbox (or another cloud storage server). Sharing the whole container is not an option as the settings file is machine specific.

As it seems that the question is not clear: How do I share Baldur's Gate saved games using Dropbox?

It is because of the sandbox. If you will look in your console you will see errors like: ...kernel[0]: Sandbox: Baldur's Gate...deny file-write-data .../Dropbox/Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition/Baldur.ini

looking into how to allow this; I suspect that a hard link (instead of symbolic) would work. Best be sure you understand what that means before doing it.

Another way to do it would be to symlink the entire sandbox container for BGEE instead of linking a subpath. instead of a symbolic link for ~/Library/Containers/com.beamdog.baldursgateenhancededition/Data/Documents/Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition make one for `~/Library/Containers/com.beamdog.baldursgateenhancededition

I haven't tested this with BG:EE, but I've done it with other sandboxes and it works.


Archiving Apple Mail to an External Drive Thanks for reading - I'm not necessarily attached to using the "archive" function in Apple Mail: the important thing for me is to keep ancient emails on an external drive, so that if I want to read them back I may do so, but not take up lots of space on my main HD.

The archive function seems to compress them, but keep them "locally."

I don't want to do anything involving codes & commands: I just want to store my stuff externally, and retrievably.

Start by creating a new mailbox for the messages you intend on storing externally, be sure to name it something sensible so the it is easy to sort through when these mailboxes begin to pile up (ex. "Archive 2010 Jan-Jun). After you have filled said mailbox, perform a secondary click (right click) on the mailbox and select export mailbox. This will open a finder window asking for a destination. The exported file will be in the .mbox format. If you wish to view these messages again you will need to import them back into the mail app, keep this in mind when preparing your archive mailbox, try keep each one under 1-2 GB in size.

These instructions are provided you are running Mavericks mail with the sidebar enabled.

Hope this helps!


How can I tell what model iDevice is plugged into my USB via Terminal? This website has a useful list of the various iDevice models.  And the "identifier" column is helpful for any iOS developers, as this is the string you can fetch in your application to determine what kind of device your program is running on.

However, for reasons, I am interested in determining via Terminal what sort of devices is plugged into my OS X computer.

Using the following script in Terminal, I can grab the "version" of my device:

system_profiler SPUSBDataType | sed -n -e 's/  */ /g' -e '/iPad/,/Version/p' -e '/iPhone/,/Version/p' | grep 'iPad\|iPhone\|Version' | awk 'NR%2{printf $0;next;}1'

And for the devices I can get my hands on, these numbers somewhat line up.

My iPhone 5s gives me version 6.01 (versus "iPhone6,1").
My iPad 2 gives me version 2.40 (versus "iPad2,4").
My old iPhone 4 gives me version 3.10 (versus "iPhone3,1").

I've been able to also run this script for an iPad Mini which gave 2.50 (versus "iPad2,5").  Also, an iPad Air gave me 4.01 (versus "iPad4,1").

But that's all I've been able to test so far.  There's some correspondence between the website I linked and the results I've seen, but it's not enough that I can just build a list (6,1 to 6.01 versus 2,4 to 2.40 for example).  I need an exact matching.

Has someone compiled a complete list of these hardware versions already (I can find nothing official from Apple)?  If nothing else, it would be appreciated if people with various other devices could confirm what version number they get from that script.

As a sidenote, I only particularly care about iOS devices, but it should also be noted that I don't have an iPod to test this script with, so I have no idea whether or not iPods will show up with this exact script.

For all it's worth, I have ran the command line in Terminal with a few devices.

iPhone 4: iPhone: Version: 3.20

iPad 2: iPad: Version: 2.10

I have a 3GS somewhere but I can't find right now. I'll edit my answer if/when I find it.

My wife has a iPhone 4S and a friend has a 5, I will try to also update once I get to run it.


How do I get iTunes to actually PLAY songs at random once shuffle is turned on? I am in my iTunes library (not a playlist) and have "shuffle" turned on (songs, not albums). If I click on "play", it plays the song currently highlighted, then stops (it does not play another song afterwards).

The only way I get it to play several songs is by manually checking the songs I want to be played. Which obviously is the opposite of random shuffling.

Also, when I turn off shuffle, then turn it on again, I don't see any change in the order of songs in the library (whereas when I'm in a playlist, I do see a change in the order).

In all the help forums, I've only found answers to the question of how to turn "shuffle" on. I know that. But how do I get iTunes to play songs randomly once shuffle is turned on?

When iTunes shuffles through a playlist, library, or other list, it only will shuffle among items for which the "checkbox" column is checked. By default, this would include all the items in your library; only if you uncheck the box for a song would that remove it from the list of songs to shuffle.

It sounds as though your library is set up with all the songs unchecked. If no songs are checked to be included in shuffle, one gets the behavior you describe. The solution is to go to your library and make sure all your items are checked, not unchecked.


Collaborative spreadsheet application I'm looking for an application that will allow me to create fields that represent 'points' to keep tally on mod actions by my online community. Another mod or user who i give permissions to can update the points while mods without permissions to update the points have read only access.
Once points are updated, the 'total' column is updated.
While you get 1 point for every mod action, some column should be worth more or have a higher multiplier than others.
I'm not even sure if a spreadsheet is strictly needed or if it can be something else.
I've tried google sheets but that seems clunky.
I was wondering if there was a mac specific or ios specific app i could use that wouldn't require the participants of the spreadsheet to have a mac to view it.
maybe something with bot an ios and android app.

Create a Numbers spreadsheet with the appropriate function logic, then lock the cells that viewers shouldn't touch.

Then share a link from Numbers, with no protection so that anyone can use the web link.

I think you'll be pretty pleased with it.


Use Airport Express as a WIFI extender on non-Apple? I have a wireless router / modem from my cable provider and I was looking to use my existing Airport Express as a WIFI range extender. Is this possible? I currently have it connected directly with a cat6 cable but I rather use it wirelessly to get extra range.

Thank you in advance!

This is sadly not possible, you can only extend a network created by another Airport Extreme/Express.


What can I do with my locked iPhone? I bought an iPhone4 from ebay, and it was marked as UNLOCKED, but in fact it was not.. After couple of emails, I gave this up, and I want to sell it. It is AT&T. The questions are:

1) What would you do in my case? The untethered jailbreak came out, but needs iPhone to be activated. iOS was upgraded to 5.1.1 9B206, so also the baseband is quite new - no way to unlock it in the near future.

2) iPhone must be activated with the original AT&T SIM or just any AT&T SIM ? So that, I could write it in description in case I would sell it.

Thanks.

To answer your questions:

I haven't tested it myself (but I'll in the near future), but there are SIM cards available, comparable to the Gravy SIM (but here is no need to dial 112), which will unlock your iPhone. It's not that expensive, so I would give it a try.
Sorry, it looks like this SIM only supports the iPhone 4S.
You can unlock the iPhone with any AT&T card, no need for the original card. At least, that worked with my T-Mobile locked iPhone. So I would guess it's the same for your AT&T locked iPhone.

Do you know you have a return policy on eBay? And in a matter of fact, if you've paid with PayPal, you can set-up a conflict and ask for your money back... But this just for your information.


Address Book / Contacts.app AppleScript plugins no longer working in Mojave For years, I've relied on an AppleScript (.scpt) file placed in ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.AddressBook to provide click-to-dial functionality via our Asterisk PBX directly from macOS Contacts.app. Up until 10.13.6, this worked well.

Since Mojave 10.14 (also tested on 10.14.1 beta) the script's menu item no longer appear.

I've tried to inspect the running process in Activity Monitor's "Open Files & Ports" tab, thinking that maybe Apple moved the Plug-Ins folder—but that revealed nothing.

Does anyone know if this feature has been removed? Or any way restore this functionality?

I found this thread on Apple's forum (no answer yet): https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8552822

I heard back from a Developer Technical Support Engineer at Apple and he said:

"I’ve asked the engineering team about this and indeed, we have removed support for both compiled and AppleScript-based AddressBook plugins in Mojave 10.14."

His suggestion was to file an enhancement request via their Bug Reporter. Sorry for the bad news.


Macbook Air Caps Lock Delay in Windows 8 I have remapped Caps Lock to Backspace in Windows 8 using SharpKeys on my Macbook Air, but there is a noticeable delay that prevents me from quickly pressing the key to backspace. The Delete has no such delay.

I have installed the Boot Camp Windows Support software.

Apparently this is a hardware limitation to prevent people from hitting Caps Lock, but OS X can get around it.

How can I prevent this delay on Windows 8?

This has been asked on StackOverflow and SuperUser as well as here. Here's a link to the Ask Different answer that points you to other possible solutions.

How to remove caps lock delay on Apple MacBook Pro aluminum keyboard

The easiest solution would be to use a third party keyboard, although that can have its own disadvantages.


11” Mid 2012 MacBook Air Display issue My wife’s 11” MacBook Air Mid 2012:

has been having this display issue in the last 2 years or so: the screen will segment itself into rectangles, which are small, and are wider than they are tall:

These rectangles may represent what was on screen before, or be discolored, or moved from their original position, or contain completely unknown display data. There are also occasionally extra anomalies, such as vertical or horizontal lines and bars. The computer then is unresponsive until a hard manual reboot.
I can’t pinpoint any specific thing that triggers the problem, because it seems to happen during streaming, browsing the Internet, using normal applications like Microsoft apps, Adobe Lightroom.
I took it in to a local Apple specialist store, and based off of the pictures below and my description, in less than 5 min they diagnosed it as a GPU problem. My questions are:

Are they right?
Is there a fix?
Worth it to get repaired?
Better idea to get a new computer?

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookrepair/comments/k6l0kw/macbook_air_11_mid_2012_display_problem/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

This is not a perfect answer to all your questions but it might help you whatsoever.

Are they right?

From what I can tell, this actually looks like a hardware problem. However, without opening the MacBook it is very unlikely to find the actual cause. You should still try the different startup modes. D for hardware diagnose, opt cmd p r for NVRAM/PRAM reset.

Is there a fix?

This really depends on what's broken. It could be a defective GPU, but it could also just be a broken connector cable.

iMacs from that decade are known to have GPU overheating issues (my Dad experienced this as well).

To analyze this further you would have to take the computer apart and/or take it into a repair shop. If you think you can detect hardware problems yourself, I suggest following this iFixit guide and open the MacBook yourself. For example, a broken cable could be detected by basically anyone, motherboard repairs are obviously for Pros, but in general possible.

The last two questions are so close, I am going to answer them as one:

Worth it to repair/get a new one?

This very much depends on how much the repair would cost and how happy your wife is with this machine.
But as a general advice I would actually look into buying a new MacBook, since 8 years for laptop is not a bad age, especially for a low-speced MacBook Air 11". Even the cheapest new MacBook Air from this fall will feel lightyears faster and actually seems to be a pretty good package as early reviews indicate. However, if you want to get one of those shiny new M1 powered Macs, keep in mind that these are the first ARM processor Macs, so you might run into software compatibility issues, so always check that first!

More info about these new Macs: MBP, MBA or MacMini?; Another Review, A WIRED Review, why you might not want to buys these new Macs


How effective is Itunes "error correction" for CD imports? I have not been able to find out how the Itunes "error correction" option works. There are more effective programs out there for bit perfect rips but I prefer the speed and ease of use of Itunes. Does anyone know how this error correction works and how effective it is at getting quality rips from scratched CDs?

Besides the raw audio data, CDs come with error correction codes, which, usually, are not read, assuming the data integrity. This leads to the typical poping or clicking sound heard when the CD has any defects, such as scratches, fingerprints or even manufacturing defects.
By turning on Use Error Correction, iTunes will read and process these error correcting codes along with the audio samples, correcting any found errors.
These error codes are called Reed-Solomon and this Wikipedia's extract explains how it works:

In the CD, two layers of Reed–Solomon coding separated by a 28-way convolutional interleaver yields a scheme called Cross-Interleaved Reed Solomon Coding (CIRC). The first element of a CIRC decoder is a relatively weak inner (32,28) Reed–Solomon code, shortened from a (255,251) code with 8-bit symbols. This code can correct up to 2 byte errors per 32-byte block. More importantly, it flags as erasures any uncorrectable blocks, i.e., blocks with more than 2 byte errors. The decoded 28-byte blocks, with erasure indications, are then spread by the deinterleaver to different blocks of the (28,24) outer code. Thanks to the deinterleaving, an erased 28-byte block from the inner code becomes a single erased byte in each of 28 outer code blocks. The outer code easily corrects this, since it can handle up to 4 such erasures per block.
The result is a CIRC that can completely correct error bursts up to 4000 bits, or about 2.5 mm on the disc surface. This code is so strong that most CD playback errors are almost certainly caused by tracking errors that cause the laser to jump track, not by uncorrectable error bursts.


Install a package .pkg into a custom directory I need to install the gcc3.3 on my OS X 10.5.8 to try something. For that purpose, I need to install it into a custom directory, such as /usr/loca/gcc-3.3
By default, the gcc3.3.pkg installs itself directly into /usr/bin To change that default directory, I've tried this command line:
sudo installer -pkg ~/Downloads/gcc3.3.pkg -target /usr/local/gcc-3.3

but that didn't work and the installer installed it into /usr/bin
So how can I install a .pkg into a custom directory?

Try unpkg. It has  worked flawlessly for me for several years.
unpkg solves the problem of installing a .pkg outside its intended location. You still have to figure out how to run gcc from that location. I assume it's a matter of setting the correct environment variables or setting symbolic links in /usr/local .


Is it possible to have a Dvorak keyboard on the iPhone? I have a slight masochistic streak and would like to try learning the Dvorak keyboard layout.  I'd like to add the keyboard layout to my iPhone.  Unfortunately it does NOT appear as an option.  Is it possible to have a Dvorak keyboard layout on the iPhone?

App Store -> type "Dvorak" -> Dvorak for All -> Have fun!

There are also a couple of paid apps.


how do i uninstall an app in mountain lion? I'm trying to uninstall MAMP and MAMP pro from my mountain lion macbook and don't know how i should do that. I tried dragging the icon from my launchpad to the Trash, but it doesn't work.
What should i do?

MAMP has a specific uninstaller in the disk image you installed with. Mount that disk image and you should see the uninstaller. Go here for more information.

For the rest of your apps that don't have specific uninstallers, use AppZapper, which is a nice utility. There are a few alternatives (CleanMyMac has a built in function for this) http://www.appzapper.com/


Why do texts from my computer show that they come from "myname"@icloud.com? When I text people from my iPhone, people receive the texts from my cell number. However, when I text people from my laptop, it opens a new contact on their phones from "myname"@icloud.com. I can't seem to fix this annoying issue.

If you open Messages, then go to Messages -> Preferences -> Accounts -> "myname"@icloud.com, you can see the option to select where new conversations are started from. For me it lists my iCloud email, my personal email (which is my iCloud login), and my cell number. Choose your cell number from this list and everything should be OK.


A ton of RAM being used with nothing open Ok, so my Mac got a virus, two days later I came home and noticed a screen saying "your computer shut down because of a problem" and then stuff in (I'm pretty sure they were there) different languages. Apparently this is a kernel panic. So anyways, I got rid of the virus and thought everything was good, except the computer was very slow, so after a lot of Apple Support, I decided to wipe the hard drive, reinstalled OS X. By the way, I have macOS Sierra.

Anyways, problem is better but not fixed, at the moment I have Stickies, Safari, and Activity Monitor open. Here's a pic:

Is this normal..?

I am pretty sure, that using 5.92GB with 3 programs open is weird. Please help!

I see dozens (if not hundreds) of programs open. You may only have three that you are actively using, but there are dozens running in the background doing all sorts of things from indexing for Spotlight to watching for new software updates.

RAM being used is not a bad thing, especially when you have so much free (per your screenshot). You paid for it as part of your computer; why wouldn't you want to use it?

Apple's support article states that unless the graph to the left is showing red (or, to a lesser degree, yellow) that you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Given that your RAM usage is not particularly high, the sluggishness is likely coming from elsewhere. Even if you just look at pure numbers (which is absolutely not the way to read RAM information), you still have over a gigabyte of free RAM and zero swap-file usage.


Disfunctioning songs on Apple music Some songs in apple music can't be played. It is very weird cause in the start I could listen to these songs, and then suddenly they became unable to play. They just turned grey and it isn't possible to play them. It is very frustrating and I know that it hasn't something to do with my internet connection. It is like this at both my macbook and my iPhone. Have anyone else experienced this? And does anyone know if there is a way of fixing it?

Sometimes songs are removed from Apple Music at the request of the artist/ publisher.

If you do Get Info on a track you have a problem with, go to the File tab and see what it says for iCloud Status.

If it says No Longer Available then it is as I have described above and is shown in the screenshot I have attached.


How can stop or reduce music duplication in Itunes? I keep all of my music in a folder on my back up drive. I use Media player to edit and genre categorize the music. Then copy / transfer the folder to Itunes which converts the music to ACC format.

My problem is when I add a new song or album(s) to my master folder, Itunes wants to copy the whole folder again causing massive duplications and it wants to change my genre categorization on some songs.

It also sometimes takes songs in an album and separates them listing each separately. So instead of on e album listing 15 songs. I get 15  listings of the album with one song listed.

Open iTunes preferences and click advanced.

Uncheck the Copy line item...

You still have to clean up the old dupes, but any new imports will be left on the filesystem where you stored them and not copied or moved to where iTunes would like them to be stored.


Fastest way to split a video file into two? Does anyone know of software for OS X that can quickly split a 2 hour H.264 video file into two 1 hour files? iMovie estimates 2 hours just to import the file. I was hoping for something that could do it quicker.

You might also be able to do this using Quicktime X. Open the movie, then choose Edit -> Trim... Trim away the second part of the movie file and do a save as to get the first part in a separate file. Re-open the original file and trim away the first part, save as to get the second part in a separate file.

I've only been able to try it with a 5 minute long movie, which was quick enough, but I'm unsure of how quickly it'll work with a 2 hour movie.


2018 MacBook Pro + Dell U2718Q, single cable for display and USB data Can I connect a 2018 MacBook Pro to a Dell UltraSharp 27 4K Monitor (U2718Q) with a single cable that carries both the display data and the data for the USB ports of the display?

I tried a USB-C to DisplayPort cable, but none of the USB ports of the display would work until I also connected it to the MacBook Pro with a USB cable through one of it's USB upstream ports.

Note that I want to operate the display at full resolution (4K, 3840 x 2160) and a refresh rate of 60 Hz.

No.

Technically speaking, you have a Thunderbolt 3 Type C port.  "C" is the physical charastic of the port, not the USB specification.  Being that it's Thunderbolt 3, its carrying several signals:

PCIe
USB 3.1
DisplayPort
Power

Your "end" device is a monitor that has several different inputs

HDMI
DispayPort (DP)
Mini DisplayPort (mdP)
USB

When you go from your MacBook's TB 3 port to the video in, you're not passing the USB signal; this is why you need a second cable for the USB functionality.  If this was a monitor that accepted Thunderbolt as an input, you could do this with one cable.


Is my iPad not accurate enough or is it the stylus? I made some capacitive styli with my brother, following this video on Cnet.

I tried using it with the Wacom notebook app, and the handwriting is a teensy bit too large to work as well as a real live "dead tree" notebook.

At the moment, the app feels like a wide ruled notebook, and I'd love to be able to write as much as a college ruled notebook.

Is the problem the tip of the sponge on my styli, or is it the resolution of the iPad?

What can I do to improve the accuracy, so that I can fit more handwritten text on the page?

This is a limitation of the iPad screen. No stylus will feel like a real pen. Future versions will likely have more sensitive screens. The best you can do is think of it as a giant index card and a fat marker.

The Wacom software improves the situation a tiny bit by having the zoom mode when writing. You can find other software that allows more zoom, which would make the final product look like a normal page of text, but the act of writing will not be improved.


How to host webapps alongside the server.app based web tools? Assuming this is possible, what is the recommended method of running multiple webapps alongside the web based apps (wiki, etc) that come with osx server.app ?

Server.app provides a Websites service which can be used to publish your own web content. This service provides support for web apps (alongside normal websites) through the use of webapp.plist(8) and webappctl.

  You can define the web apps managed by webappctl by creating plist files and placing them in /Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/webapps/. For information about these plist files, enter man webapp.plist in Terminal.

https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/5.2/#/apd85e35fbb-8fc2-44ed-855f-bf4e67374de6


I can't download YouTube app from icloud I deleted the YouTube app about 3 or 4 months ago and I decided to download it again.
I went to the App Store and I looked for it and when I saw it the iCloud icon was not there, so I clicked on the app in the App Store. The iCloud icon is dull and when I click on it nothing happens!!! I tried uploading YouTube from Safari onto the home screen but still it just takes me to the website not the app.
I have a YouTube account and everything and I still get emails from YouTube but I can't download the app!!

It's because the app is 17+. Go to your restrictions settings and enable apps above this age limit. Then try it again


How do I turn off email alerts for find my iPhone I would like to stop receiving alerts every time I sign into find my iPhone. How do I turn off email alerts for find my iPhone?

Update Nov 2015 - El Capitan, iOS 9.1
This no longer appears to happen on each Find my iPhone access - just tested with both my own & my partner's phones - no email.

It's not possible. there have been a lot of queries on this recently

See  Find My iPhone Email Notification for more info


MacBook Pro suddenly started spinning fans at 100% while lid was closed for a couple of hours I've been noticing some issues with my MacBook for a while now. Firstly, kernel_task sometimes takes over extreme amounts of CPU and the whole computer starts acting slow even when I'm not using it for any heavy tasks.

Note that this is a 15" MBPro 2015, all specs maxed out.

Fans are also often at full speed for seemingly no reason (just browsing the net) but that has been going on forever since I bought it, and I heard that is relatively normal for those MBPros.

But last night the weirdest thing happened. I closed the lid and went to sleep. Several hours later in the morning, I was awoken to my MacBook fans going on at 100%.

I got up to check it out and the bottom plate was pretty hot and fans still going at 100%. I opened the lid and I couldn't get it to turn on. The screen would not show anything no matter how long I waited and how many keys I pressed.

I ended up force shutting it down (holding down the power button).

Any idea what could be causing this? Is there any way I can try to figure out the problem, or is taking it to Apple for repair the only option?

The first thing I'd do is a NVRAM and SMC reset (in that order). Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and that you're using the built-in keyboard.

Reset the NVRAM

Reset the NVRAM on your MBP as follows:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your MBP reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your MBP reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Reset the SMC

There's a couple of ways you can reset the SMC on your MBP, however I prefer the following steps:

Shut down your MBP
Keep the power cable plugged in
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button

After resetting both the NVRAM and SMC, use your computer to determine if the issues still persist.

If you're still having problems, the it's time to test your hardware with Apple Diagnostics.

Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.


Make light-grey text darker on Mac (white background) I have a MacBook Air running macOS High Sierra with a white desktop background.

My problem is that any light-grey text (e.g. the words "Answers for your Apple questions" under the Ask Different logo at top left) is so light I cannot read it.

What can I do to make any light-grey text a darker color?

Assuming I understand the question, the first thing I'd do is change your accessibility display settings. More specifically:

Go to Apple > System Preferences
Click on the Accessibility preference pane
Within the left-hand pane click the Display icon (it's usually the 4th one down)
Now to the right you'll see a number of checkboxes and sliders relating to accessibility display settings
Have a play with these to see if they improve the readability of light-grey text