What is the best way to modify Apple keyboards for alternate layouts? I would like to permanently modify my keyboard's button labels to match the non-default keyboard layout that I have set on an Apple computer, so that others who do not touch-type can use the keyboard.  How do I do this?

I have the "Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English)".

Why?  I don't use the QWERTY layout on my US-bought Apple computer, and Apple does not sell anything except QWERTY keyboards.  This is not a problem for me, as I touch-type, so the labels on the keys are basically unused by me.  But other people (mostly children) use my computer, and I would like to allow them to "hunt-and-peck" with the system-wide keyboard layout.

I have tried using stickers to "relabel" the keys, but this is obviously not very durable and looks terrible and makes it difficult to touch-type since it obscures the little nubs on the "home keys".  Most of the stickers have been worn off.

I am willing to disassemble the keyboard and reassemble it if the keys are physically separate from each other.  But I am not willing to disassemble the keyboard to discover if this is true or not.  I have looked at several Mac "tear down" articles, but none of them illustrate the keyboard mechanism.  If I could simply re-arrange the existing buttons, I would have to remove the "home key" nubs on the "F" and "J" keys and add something to the "U" and "H" keys, but I think I can handle that.

I am also willing to use paint and/or chemicals to modify the labels, but I know nothing about where to start here.  Are the labels painted on?  Or are they a different kind of plastic somehow injected into the button plastic?  Can I paint over the existing labels and then re-paint new ones?  Or would I have to somehow dye the keys to be some single color and then paint on my labels?  What would be a type of paint that is durable enough for a keyboard?

I am not willing to buy a third-party keyboard, unless it is nearly exactly equivalent to the Apple keyboard.  I suppose I am willing to buy a second third-party keyboard and rotate them if that is simple to do with OS X.  But ideally, I want one keyboard with labels that match the default layout, and touch-typers can use whatever layout they want, and hunt-and-peckers can still make do.

Are there any other options?

If you have a keyboard similar to the one described here, it sounds like you can just pop the keys off and push them back down in the new position.


Can't update my Macbook firmware Here is my very sad story.
I have a Macbook pro 13" retina early 2015 (MB 12,1).
My bootrom version is MBP121.0167.B07 and according to this ( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qGRVF1aRokQgm_LuTsFUN2Knrh0Sd3Gp0ziC_VIWqoM/htmlview ) table I'm running a veeery old firmware, updated to yosemite.

I found this problem while I tried to upgrade to mojave (I'm runnig Sierra right now). Error while verifying the firmware.
After many tries and repairs to the disk, I found the problem: my firmware.

So i tried many thing to update it. Install mojave on a external drive didn't help (same firmware error). I tried to boot with mojave using carbon clone (I cloned the hard drive from my girlfriend's macbook updated to mojave). I also tried to do a update while in mojave, but nothing.

I tried a fresh install of sierra, but no firmware updates. I tried to use El Capitan from a external drive, still nothing.

I tried some tool to install the firmware right from highsierra installer, nothing.

I tried to install it manually with bless command. The output was good, it sets the nvram to install the update after the reboot but nothing.

What should I do? Change the logic-board seems expensive and stupid if the problem is just a upgrade.

Thanks everyone.

Your question does miss some key details, so this answer makes the following assumptions:

You've correctly identified your current Boot ROM version
Your MBP still has the original Apple SSD installed
You've already tried (directly or indirectly) resetting the NVRAM
You've never installed macOS High Sierra on your MacBook Pro

Essentially, some years back Apple started automatically including firmware updates (if/when required) within macOS updates/upgrades. And, with the move to the APFS file system, firmware updates were required on pre-existing Macs with SSD drives to support macOS High Sierra (and above) as they required APFS to be installed. So, cutting a long story short, you're most likely missing this firmware update.

Since you've already gone through quite a bit of frustration, your best bet is to go through a total reinstall process. My recommendation would be to do as follows:

Make a full backup of your data using Time Machine (or your preferred backup solution)
Shut down your MBP
Switch on your MBP and immediately press and hold the OptionCommand ⌘R keys *
Let go of the keys once you see either the Apple logo, a spinning globe or a firmware password prompt
When the macOS Utilities window appears select the Disk Utility option
Proceed to erase your internal drive
Quit Disk Utility
The macOS Utilities window should reappear
Now select the Reinstall macOS option
Proceed to install macOS
Once the installation is complete, migrate your data across

* This specific key combination will install the latest version of macOS compatible with your model Mac, which presently is macOS Mojave.


Max Memory for Macbook Pro I'm planning on buying a new Macbook this fall. I fail to order more than 16GB RAM for any mobile device, but I remember that previously, with smaller memory limits, some machines would inofficially also with more than just the 8GB.

Is there any way to make any of the current/new devices work with more than 16GB memory? Are there rumors of a new Macbook specification that will allow for more RAM?

I know that this question has been asked previously , but I figure this is not a duplicate, as the boundary of technology and hardware is moving rapidly.*

Since retina Macbook Pro have their memory soldered to the mainboard I won't be possible to have more memory than sold by Apple.

About the last non retina MacBook Pro (mid-2012). It's 16GB


How can I tell when Turbo Boost is active on my MacBook? I have one of the core i7 MacBooks, and I'm wondering if there is a way to see when Turbo Boost is active (other than the fact that the laptop gets really hot and the fan kicks on).

I use iStat to monitor CPU activity, but that doesn't show Turbo Boost activity.

Check out the Intel Power Gadget. It provides info about the processor frequency in GHz and Processor Power in W.


Any proper list of Mac firmware versions (Boot ROM versions) and the corresponding macOS version? Any proper list of Mac firmware versions (Boot ROM versions) and the corresponding macOS version?

This can be useful if you receive a Mac with the storage damaged and the customer wants to have the same macOS version that was installed when the storage broke.

You’d start the mac with an external macOS volume and check the firmware version in System Information.

The official Apple article for this only lists the firmware that originally shipped with the Mac.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518

I found this one shows most, but doesn’t have a proper list of firmware version / corresponding macOS:
https://browser.geekbench.com

There is a blog from hoakley under "The Eclectic Light Company" webpage that tries to list the most recent firmware versions for different Macs and also tells with what OS update you can get them:

"Which EFI firmware should your Mac be using? (version 3)"

There are also two earlier versions of that page:

"Which EFI firmware should your Mac be using? (version 2)"
"Which EFI firmware should your Mac be using?"


Bought song on iTunes on iPhone, sync'd to iTunes computer, now won't play on iPhone? I bought two albums today on my iPhone, on my Apple ID, downloaded them to the iPhone, I then sync'd the phone this afternoon.

Now the albums will not show on my iPhone and it's saying that they're associated with a different Apple ID?

Which it can't be since I haven't changed it?

I think you should sign out of the appstore, then sign in again.
Then, don't use syncing, just re-download the songs from the Purchased section.


Quick Look: How to return to unindexed view using mouse After selecting some images and pressing ≪Spacebar≫, I click on the index button:

This is what I see:

Without the keyboard (Ctrl-Enter), how do I get back to the unindexed view?

Testing it on 10.13 it seems you have to double click on the image you want to return to the full size preview of.


How do I unlock someone's iPhone 6 without providing the owner's Apple ID and password? How do I unlock someone's iPhone 6 without providing the owner's Apple ID and password?
I can not contact the owner to find out the Apple ID and password.

You can not unlock the owner's iPhone 6 without providing the owner's Apple ID and password, or, if the owner created one, the passcode or password.  Apple does not keep that information, either.

The only thing you can do is to restore the owner's iPhone 6 from a previous backup, or set it up as a "new" iPhone.


Tcl/tk for Mac OS X 10.6, not possible to download? I've upgraded git today and in its README file I found the following excerpt:

  If you don't already have Tcl/Tk Aqua
  installed on your computer (most MacOS
  X installs have it), you will get this
  error message. To resolve it, simply
  go to the website for Tcl / Tk Aqua
  and download the latest version:

  http://www.categorifiedcoder.info/tcltk/

  If you have an older version of Tcl /
  Tk Aqua, you'll benefit from
  upgrading. There have been many
  usability improvements since the
  version that comes shipped with MacOS
  X Leopard.

I tried the link and it redirects to Daniel A. Steffen LinkedIn page, who is the lead developer of Tcl/Tk for Mac, as far as I understand. I tried googling to find alternative links, but they all redirect to the same LinkedIn page. From this I gather that either this alternative version is already included in the Mac OS X, or there is some ongoing conflict. Can anybody enlighten the situation?

Tcl/Tk Aqua is available from this page

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcltkaqua/

This page has the latest version.


iPhone 4 volume is really quiet I have a used iPhone 4 with 16GB of memory in it, running IOS 7.1.2. The problem with this iPhone is that the volume is really quiet whenever i'm playing music or making a call and setting the caller on the speaker.

The volume is currently at it's max (by tapping the buttons on the side).

Note: I haven't used the "broken" iPhone for this screenshot, this was just for showing what I did to increase the volume to the max.

I have tried rebooting the device a couple of times already, this didn't work.

What do (or can) I have to do to make the speaker play at a decent volume again? Do I have to replace it?

For Music anyways, check your EQ in the Music tab of Settings. Some sound quieter then others and vice versa.

For Speaker Phone I'm not so sure, but as a universal problem it may be Volume Limit, also found in the Music tab of Settings.


Connect to SMB trought hostname instead IP When i try to connect in Finder to SMB share with hostname URL (like smb://hostname.synology.me linked to my IP) i can't access, but if i put my local IP, i can access.

How i can connect with hostname?

You'll need to have / run a DNS server or modify your local hosts file to have the names resolve properly. Or you'll need a service to do this for you - Apple's Find My Mac service through iCloud is but one option there.

If you go the host file or DNS option, from terminal, use the host command to see what is resolving:

host hostname.synology.me

You might be able to get bonjour to work as well. This is more complicated - since the host tool and some others don't handle bonjour well.

List the SMB mounts that bonjour has found on the local network:

dns-sd -B _smb

You need to use control + C to cancel the browse command. Take the names at the end of the listing and put them in quotes if they have spaces or other punctuation in the names. Get the local name for the service:

dns-sd -L "Epson Stylus NX430" _smb

That will show you the bonjour name and what local host name and port to communicate to the SMB server in question. Here's the output of the above command since it's a bit dense to read the first few times you try this "trick".

mac:~ me$ dns-sd -L "Epson Stylus NX430" _smb
Lookup Epson Stylus NX430._smb._tcp.local
DATE: ---Sat 14 Nov 2015---
 9:39:36.912  ...STARTING...
 9:39:37.471  Epson\032Stylus\032NX430._smb._tcp.local. can be reached at Epson.local.:445 (interface 4)

So, in the above example. The host name is Epson.local which you would substitute for smb://hostname.synology.me as smb://Epson.local


GRAB utility invisible in FINDER I use the utility GRAB occasionally.  It does not show in the utility list under applications in Finder.  However, I know it is there because when I search I find it -

How can I make it appear on the list?

It's on a folder called Utilities inside Applications.


Terminal freezes with beach ball on High Sierra My terminal frequently freeze with a spinning beach ball of doom. I've tested using both iTerm2 and the default Terminal, and it happens with both. And it doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing. I've had it freeze while nothing is running in any terminal, as well as while running a myriad of different programs (npm, webpack, gulp etc.).

When the terminals freeze, I'm able to force quit the app, but unable to start it again. And if one freeze, it seems to affect the other (if iTerm2 freeze and I force quit the app, I'm still unable to open Terminal). In order to use a terminal again I'm forced to reboot the machine.

While rebooting (after a terminal freeze) the machine also always hangs after closing all apps. I'm still able to move the cursor around on a black background, but that's it. The machine hangs there until I short circuit by holding down the power button.

What I've tried

I've tried resetting NVRAM and SMC to no avail.

You are likely being hit by a macOS 10.13.2 kernel bug, described here, and exposed pretty regularly by htop, described here.

Supposedly, macOS 10.13.4 beta has a kernel fix, and version 2.10.0 of htop was released to work around this bug.


How Apple Music and iTunes Match work together? I have subscriptions of both Apple Music and iTunes Match, but I was wondering if I can cancel iTunes Match...

What will happen if I cancel iTunes Match? Will I still have the benefits of iCloud Music?

Apple Music and iTunes Match are complementary:

both will allow you to match (and upload if unmatched) your locally owned songs
Apple Music allows you to stream those songs as well as a good deal (but not the whole) of the iTunes Store catalog without downloading them, or download the matched songs as 256kbps FairPlay-wrapped DRM-encrypted AAC as well as the unmatched ones in their original format.
iTunes Match allows you to download (and listen as it downloads, even if it is in a temporary cache, which makes it look like streaming) matched songs as DRM-free 256kbps AAC (still wrapped in an thin FairPlay container but inconsequential and unencrypted) as well as the unmatched ones in their original format.

So be very wary with Apple Music matched songs: be sure to back up your original files, or you'll be left with only DRMized ones. You can see the type of match by adding some info columns in the song list view in iTunes.


How to delete a file from Time Machine backups in Big Sur? I'd like to delete a file from my Time Machine backups, but there seems to be no option to do so in the Big Sur version of Time Machine.
I go to the Time Machine menu and select "Enter Time Machine". Then I see the view with the stack of windows. I browse to a file and select it. Now I want to delete it so it doesn't exist and take up space in backups. There is no option to delete it - either the action menu in the toolbar, or the control-click context menu.
How do I delete a file from Time Machine backups? There used to be a way to do this.
(I'd take a screenshot, but the key shortcuts for screenshots don't work in Time Machine. Not sure if this is just a Big Sur thing or if that's always the case.)
Update:
I should mention I'm using APFS for my Time Machine volume. That seems to be relevant. Also, I contacted Apple support about deleting entire snapshots (slightly different goal than the one here in this question). They said you can't do it anymore. It seems like there's some bugs here, because I have a "Move to Trash" option if I control-click one of my backups. It seems to work initially but then the backup comes back.

I don't like losing this much control over my files. I may look for another backup solution.

The history deletion and erasure tools are removed from Time Machine graphical interface on Big Sur.
If I had an HFS+ formatted drive and I needed to try and excise data surgically, I would find a Mac with an OS from before the deletion tools were removed. For APFS destinations, I’m not aware of any easy workaround.
At work, we typically take a drive out of rotation if it has problematic files and archive it under physical security until we erase it. Adding a new clean destination then erasing the old drive is how we are recycling or reclaiming drives now.


How to download a binary from brew without installing brew? I want a software package that exists in the Homebrew package manager, but I don't want to install brew for it.
How can I get a pre-built binary for my macOS?

Go to https://brew.sh  or https://formulae.brew.sh and search the tool of interest.
On the formula page, like Qt5 https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/qt#default, click the JSON file link: https://formulae.brew.sh/api/formula/qt.json
Find the link to the binary which is hosted at https://bintray.com as of now in the field named "url". Download the binary for your macOS version which can be found in the url itself.


How to sell comic books through Apple in-app purchase? I am working on a comic reader app which is almost same as other panel by panel readers. I planned to provide authors with a web interface where from they would be able to upload their contents and fix a price. But going through several articles, it seemed like Apple doesn't work in that way. Now I need to know, how can I provide a functionality like this. I was planning to collect all the books from the authors and login to Apple's portal to upload those books. But then also there is a restriction of 10k products on Apple's portal. I was wondering how giants like DC, Marvel or Comixology have overcame this. To be precise, I need to know if I want to achieve functionalities of comic selling as of Comixology, what approach should I follow to upload comics to store. Any help will be highly appreciated.

Apple thoroughly documents the requirements for participating in their stores at the developer website:

https://developer.apple.com/resources/

You should review the iBooks and In-App Purchase from the above page.

At that point, you should be ready to read and digest the actual App Store Resources themselves to figure out what sort of effort you'll need to expend to sell your content through Apple.

https://developer.apple.com/appstore/index.html

Assuming you are on iOS - you can skip the parts on the Mac App Store. The review guidelines have some of the information you'll need.


App to show keyboard shortcuts being used real-time In some screen recording software you can choose to show what keyboard shortcuts are being used or just keys in general that are being pressed. These show up as a semi-transparent dialog typically on the screen with the keys being pressed inside that.

When I'm pair programming it would be really helpful for someone that's looking at my screen in real-time to know what shortcuts I'm using. Is there any app that allows me to display this live on my own screen or anything that records the shortcuts I use?

Keycastr (Open-source, free)
Mouseposé (Annual subscription, additional mouse features, free trial available)
Keystroke Pro (Paid, no subscription, light/dark themes, focus on design, free trial available)

You can alternatively show the on-screen keyboard but this is extraneous for my use case.

Note: These apps are all listed in this question which specifically refers to screen recording.


My Macbook can connect to ethernet over Ubuntu but not OS X I'm currently dual booting Ubuntu 14.04 and OS X Mavericks (10.9.4) on my 2014 Macbook Pro. When running Ubuntu, I can plug in the Ethernet cable and instantly be connected. But when running OS X, there's no Ethernet connection detected.

Since I was able to connect on Ubuntu instantly, I shouldn't have the issue of having to set up additional configurations, such as a PPoE connection. Since I'm dual booting I'm obviously also using the same laptop, the same Ethernet cable, and the same Ethernet port so it doesn't seem like there should be a hardware issue either.

What could be the issue here?

When I run "ifconfig" in my terminal while booting OS X, this is what I get:

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether 80:e6:50:16:b0:c0
    inet6 fe80::82e6:50ff:fe16:b0c0%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
    inet 192.168.70.245 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.70.255
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
en1: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 72:00:05:04:94:20
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
en2: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 72:00:05:04:94:21
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 82:e6:50:61:cb:00
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en1 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 5 priority 0 path cost 0
    member: en2 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 6 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: <unknown type>
    status: inactive
p2p0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2304
    ether 02:e6:50:16:b0:c0
    media: autoselect
    status: inactive

After reinstalling OS X I can no longer see the rEFInd screen and thus cannot boot Ubuntu. However, I remember when I ran "ifconfig" earlier I saw an item that started with "eth0"

If you can see the interface in /Utilities/System Configration > "Ethernet Cards", try creating a new network location.

If the issue persists in a new location, you can reset OS X's detected network interfaces by (re)moving /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist.  If you want to play it absolutely safe, you could (re)move the entire SystemConfiguration folder, but this will affect other settings (like custom network authentication, power management settings, etc.). NOTE: this step supersedes testing it in a new user since it removes global preferences (which affect every user).

If you're still not seeing it, try booting to your Recovery Partition, launching Terminal, and running ifconfig to see if the Recovery partition can see the network interface.  If the Recovery Partition sees it, a reinstall of OS X might be needed.  If it doesn't, well then you did something that I've never seen... :)


MBP getting very hot Alright, so I think this is a fairly common problem with apple products that have closed in fans: I have a 2012/13 Mac Book Pro 15" that I got 5 months ago with the following specifications:

Processor:  2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory   :  16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics :  NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
Software :  OS X 10.9.1 (Mavericks)

I mainly use the system for programming, email and other work/school related projects.

My main problem/concern with it is how hot it gets right above the function keys and on the bottom of the computer. I have tried cooling pads & fans but they don't seem to make much of a difference by any means. I don't have excessive processes running either, for the most part I'll have a text editor, terminal and a web browser running.

Does anyone have solutions? And is it odd to see this happening with such a relatively new system?

I would also recommend the advice about using Activity Monitor to see what is using the processor and understand why the computer is getting hot.

A MacBook Pro is made from metal and the case conducts the heat well. It might feel hotter than it really is.

There are a number of temperature sensors in the laptop which can easily be read by software. A search on the internet showed this application which you could use to read the sensors and may give you some idea of where the heat is coming from (although it is probably going to be either the CPU or GPU): http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html


Can I replace my old hard drive with a formatted one from my old windows laptop My macs gpu failed and my hard drive decided to go with it, apple replaced the logic board for free but told me to buy a new hard drive. I found a working 80gb hard drive in an old laptop of mine and was wondering if i would be able to replace it without causing any issues (both the same brand).

My own experience is with PCs, but most of this advice should be helpful.

When replacing a hard drive, there are a lot of considerations to consider. You didn't say, so I'm assuming your Mac is not a laptop. If so, you need to examine if the placement of connectors is in the same location. Size is incredibly important for laptops, and most do NOT have a lot of room to play around. Check YouTube for how to open and install it properly. Don't go with the first one - check a couple out before you open up your Mac. And pay attention to safety tips.

You do say that the hard drives are the same brand. The next thing, though is to check the models. If there is a lot of time between the two HDs, the Mac may or may not be able to communicate with the controller board on the HD.

Most HD manufacturers list what they are compatible with. Like with Western Digital, the brand, are are several types - Caviars, Raptors, etc. Presumably, though, if the HD from the PC is older, this might not be an issue.

Hard drives have a power connector, a data cable, and there may be jumpers on it to set. If it is close to the same model, set the jumpers to match. Some motherboards require setting slave / master options on the hard drive.

If this is your first time opening up a machine, (1) UNPLUG the power cable from computer; and (2) Watch out for static electricity. A handy way to ground yourself is to touch the frame. Remember, AC out of the wall can hurt like the dickens. The power unit converts that to direct current (DC).

* I will say this to others who read this - working on PCs and Macs are fine, and you proceed at your own risk to your hardware. But only qualified techs should attempt to do anything with monitors; messing with them can be fatal to you. It only takes 1 amp to kill you. *

Recommend not working on a carpeted area, as you can build static as your feet move around. If you do have to work on a carpet, take off your shoes and socks. Touch the frame often, as it doesn't take much to damage the more fragile components. Most modern PCs and Macs are pretty hardy inside, but there are limits. As I recall, Apple/Macs are pretty easy to disconnect parts. So you are lucky there.

Another tip. After disconnecting the power, wait 60 seconds before touching parts or components. Modern computers use high refresh rates instead of steady power flow, and it takes that long for all the power through the system to dissipate. The power to your system will NOT go away if you have it turned off. Since the mid2000's, modern motherboards keep a low charge running through it, for things like remote startups and such. Some computers have NIC lights, and that can be an indicator for you.

UNPLUG it, and wait 60 seconds before opening up the machine. Touch the frame to dissipate any electric charge you might have built up.

So, in summary, see if the manufacturer lists the hard drive as compatible with Macs (it should be; it might just need to be formatted for the Mac to use it first). Check YouTube - enter model of Mac and hard drive. Someone may have done your exact setup, or one close enough to help.

If the PC is older than the Mac, again, it SHOULD be able to talk, but I recommend checking the mfg list to make sure. No sense taking it out if it's not. Lastly, pay attention to connectors and jumpers.

I like a good, multi-head screwdriver. NON-magnetic! Magnetic screwdrivers are handy around cars. They are probable death to computer innards. Jeweler screwdrivers can get the real tiny screws...

Anyway, hope this helps. Good luck! And be safe!


iPhone 5 case for parkour I am looking for a good iPhone 5 case for parkour. As I often climb up walls and something like this the iPhone should be protected well. I found the Griffin Survivor, which is actually perfekt but very very thick... Is there an alternative to Griffin Survivor, which is protecting well (also the screen) but smaller?

As you are aware, everything is a trade-off. Smaller case typically means less protection. Bigger usually equals more, obviously.

With that in mind, I have used an Otterbox, for rough going, and really like it:

Otterbox Defender

It seems to be a solid build, and, although the rubber casing has gotten somewhat more loose over time, Otterbox does have a good warranty.

Now, this next thing is no match for a pocket, and likely as big as the Survivor, but perhaps you would like it:

Otterbox Armor

If you desire an even more minimalistic approach and would consider carrying the phone in a pocket you could always go with my all-time case favorite:

An Otterbox Clearly Protected -> Viewing Vibrant Screen Protector
Speck Candyshell (or similar)

This setup doesn't have a belt clip, but the case feels very natural in your hand - so you don't lose the iPhone feel, but also don't give up too much protection. Note that the back of the case does scratch some, but most of that is aesthetics. And the screen protector is terrific.


How do I programmatically and reliably get the AirPort's interface name? I need the en0, en1, enN, enWhatever name of my Airport in a script.

How do I get it reliably?

Here is what I put together, but it looks ugly and brittle as it's "text parsing":

airport_hardware_name='Hardware Port: Wi-Fi'
networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk -v p="$airport_hardware_name" '$0 ~ p { getline; print $2; }'

If you need to support old versions of OS X, the Wi-Fi network service was called Airport in 10.6 and earlier.

networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/^Hardware Port: (Wi-Fi|AirPort)$/{getline;print $2}'

You could also use -listnetworkserviceorder:

networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder | sed -En 's/^\(Hardware Port: (Wi-Fi|AirPort), Device: (en.)\)$/\2/p'

Or read /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist:

ruby -e 'require "plist";puts Plist::parse_xml("/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist")["Interfaces"].select{|i|i["SCNetworkInterfaceType"]=="IEEE80211"}[0]["BSD Name"]'


Mac Ports keeps on re-installing Perl, Python, etc Every time I want to install something, mac ports keeps on re-installing Perl, Python, etc. although the same packages are already installed on the system. Is there some setting to avoid this?

What you are seeing there are most probably upgrades for your ports. MacPorts will automatically upgrade all dependencies before installing new ports. Check port outdated to see a list of available upgrades and sudo port upgrade outdated to install them.

It is usually recommended to let MacPorts upgrade dependencies before installing new ports to get the latest fixes. However, if you really need to install a port quickly, you can use sudo port -n install to avoid this behavior and just install the new port only.


How do I get out of a boot loop with an iPhone with a broken power button? How do I get out of a boot loop with an iPhone with a broken power button?

Things I have tried that didn't work:

I've tried draining the battery and then restarting it;
I've tried connecting it to the computer but the computer doesn't recognize it as a device.

It's an iPhone 4 running iOS 7 if that additional information helps.

ok, now i have this same problem but have found a solution that is not for the people who are shallow to technology...

Step 1: Connect your iPhone 30-Pin cable to your computer. (lightning adapter for iPhone 5 and up)

Step 2: Wait for the device to begin another loop.

Step 3: When another loop begins, hold the home button, volume up button, and plug the charger in.

Step 4: Fix whatever is making the device loop.


Sometimes right-clicking on magic mouse does not work I'm using Mac and magic mouse.
Left-clicking on the mouse always works. But sometimes, when I right click on the magic mouse, it just does not work. So I have to right click again or again and again.
It was not very very harmful, but now I'm making videos and recording screens, everything needs to be perfect. So I'm wondering why sometimes my right-clicking does not work. Is it the way I right-click wrong?
Has anyone experienced the same problem?

I have that problem too. You are not right-clicking on the correct position on your mouse. You should play with it and make a note or put a mark on your mouse to show where on the mouse you need to press to get a right-click. I found placing your finger on the right side of the mouse near the edge and towards to top works best for me.


Is com.apple.madrid.plist a suspicious plist? I have a Plist called

com.apple.madrid.plist

in ~/Library/Preferences

that was updated just yesterday (not by me)

I do not use FaceTime, iMessages.

What is it ?

I lived in Spain for a while and visited Madrid, but that can not be it :)

OS 10.13.6

"Madrid" was the internal codename for iMessage before the iMessage product name was used.

The above is from @pytey on Twitter. You can find many references to Madrid within iMessage, many of which are detailed in Messages on theiphonewiki.com.

Even if you don't use iMessage, the plist still exists as part of iCloud communication. It stores simple metadata, mostly around syncing and CloudKit per the keys in the file.


How to turn on spell checking in iOS 8.4 I am using an iPad (4th gen) with iOS 8.4.  I would like to have it support spell checking. By spell checking I mean that misspelled words should be underlined in red (or otherwise distinctlively marked) when they appear in editable text fields.

My General>>Keyboard settings are shown here

The reason is that when I type I make plentitudenous spelling mistakes.

For example.  I am entering this question into a <textarea> element on a web page. After I type the "word" plentitudenous, it should be indicated that it it misspelled.  And it should remain so indicated after I have changed it to plenitudenous. Only after I change it to plenitudinous, should the marking go away.

Similarly, if I runtwo words together while composing an email in the Mail app, it should be so indicated.

I have a  iOS 8.4 (12H143) Ipad model A1458.  I sometimes use a logitech bluetooth keyboard.

Try to turn on " Auto Correction " and close settings then go to settings you'll find the option now. Turn on the check spelling then turn off Auto Correction.


Saving macOS Catalina Screen Recordings Cache to External Drive Im macOS Catalina, screen recordings are temporarily stored in ~Library/ScreenRecordings before being saved on the target location. However, on systems with minimal available system storage, this can cause the recording to stop when disk space is full. Is there any way to link ~Library/ScreenRecordings to an external drive such as /Volumes/External\ Drive/ScreenRecordings?

I have tried using symbolic links, however the screen recording crashed immediately. Is there any other way to do this?

You can try the following option:

$ cd ~/Library/Containers/
$ mv com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/ com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.backup/
$ ln -s /Volumes/<NAME_OF_VOLUME>/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/ .

If the above option didn't help, then I would suggest you to:

Check the first comment on this page shared by bmike.


Dock only shows on the primary display I have a two display setup arranged as shown in figure.

I can see the dock only on my primary display and only when the application it hosts is not in fullscreen mode.
My dock is configured to appear only when I move the pointer to the bottom of the screen.

Can I configure my Mac to display the dock on the display I am currently working, even if it hosts a fullscreen application?

I just figured out that there is a special gesture to do that.

I need to swipe all the way to the bottom of the touchpad and then hold my finger for a while.

That gesture does the trick both on the secondary screen and on fullscreen applications.


Spam sent from my email address A relative told me that he received an email from me this morning, that arrived in his spam folder. He opened it and apparently there was some porn related things inside. Obviously, I didn't send this email, and it doesn't appear in my sent message.

What also surprised me is that apparently, another of my contacts was also in CC, even though these 2 persons know each other and probably have each other's email in their contact list.

Sadly I don't know more about the email itself, if it was my real address that was used or simply something like "John Doe <spam@email.com>"

My email (@icloud.com) is only setup in the Mail app of my Mac and iPhone. When reading my mails from a browser, I have 2-step authentication activated, so I can't have been hacked.

I'm not familiar with this kind of spam, so I have a few questions:

Could it be sent from my Mac? I had the (perhaps wrong) idea that Mac were less prone to this kind of annoyance than Windows computer.
If not my Mac, then could it possibly be my iPhone?
Is there an efficient way to protect yourself against this kind of spam? I already have an antivirus installed on my Mac, and I make sure never to install anything from untrusted source.

It is unlikely either your Mac or iPhone was used to send the e-mail. Regrettably it is difficult to protect yourself from this problem.

See Receiving spam from myself for a related question and answers about this subject. For a more technical overview, start with this spoof email search of the StackExchange network.

Spoofed E-mails

How Spammers Spoof Your Email Address (and How to Protect Yourself) – article from LifeHacks in 2014 helps explain the sitation:

  Most of us know spam when we see it, but seeing a strange email from a friend—or worse, from ourselves—in our inbox is pretty disconcerting. If you've seen an email that looks like it's from a friend, it doesn't mean they've been hacked. Spammers spoof those addresses all the time, and it's not hard to do. Here's how they do it, and how you can protect yourself.

  Spammers have been spoofing email addresses for a long time. Years ago, they used to get contact lists from malware-infected PCs. Today's data thieves choose their targets carefully, and phish them with messages that look like they came from friends, trustworthy sources, or even their own account.


Shader tester iOS App? Will Apple reject an app which renders a 3D scene that allows you to modify and compile GLSL ES shaders by editing them in the app? (something not unlike e.g. http://shadertoy.com, but native OpenGL ES 2)

What about if it registers for a file type and opens .vsh and .fsh files as documents?

I know that it may be problematic if the app automatically downloads shader code from a server (and then runs it), but the answer is not so clear for these other approaches.

Shaderific allows you to "import shader files with Dropbox or iTunes Document Sharing" so they were allowed, but the bad news is that you have at least one strong competitor.


How can I create an installer for individual files? I would like to create an installer (.app, .pkg?) for a selection of data files.

I need to place them in ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw

I've been playing around with WhiteBox Packages and I'm able to successfully create a .pkg that will install a file to the desktop, but for some reason it will not place the same file in the Library directory I specified above. The installer runs without error, but it does not copy the payload into the CameraRaw directory.

What am I doing wrong? Why does it successfully copy a file to the desktop but not to the CameraRaw directory?

In my case, this was it:

The installer was working as it should, but it was placing my files into

Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/...

instead of

Macintosh HD/users/<username>/Library/Application Support/...

now I just need to modify the destination to point to the correct folder.


Does it make sense to Quit apps before Sleep? Will quitting (Cmd+Q) large apps before closing the MacBook lid make getting up and running again faster?

I have the impression that my MacBook needs more time to recover from sleep if I have large, memory-hungry (LibreOffice, heh) applications open, but that doesn't make much sense from what I believe sleep mode is (e.g., powering down disk and screen but not memory).

Yes and no.

Without knowing the model of MacBook and level of Mac OS X - you may have safe sleep enabled by default. Safe sleep writes the entire contents of RAM to the hard drive, so anything that is still hitting the hard drive for IO might slow things down until the OS has suspended all the active applications in preparation for this write. It is theoretically possible this suspending process could take more time - but in practice I have never seen reports that it is measurable.

Recovering from sleep is the same since that means that power was not removed and the RAM contents were maintained. I would guess that the number of apps running does affect greatly how long it takes for the mac to become responsive again. Every app will start processing events (keyboard, mouse, periodic checks to save) so there will be a burst of activity to "catch" up to the current time. Newer OS also use launchd to kick off processes that should have been started while the machine was asleep. For example, the daily clean up script runs daily at 3:15 AM - so if the mac was asleep at that time, waking it up at 10am means the 3:15 script gets started as part of the waking from sleep which might slow things down. Add in several other processes on a full mac - and you get the slowness you are observing.

The no would be if you don't have it asleep over a time when events are started by launchd and if your apps are efficient or don't need to "catch up" - it really depends on your mac and the specific programs running.

In the end - if you want a more responsive mac when waking it and quitting apps makes that happen - do it! Don't worry of other people have different experiences. The apps you quit are most likely still in virtual memory (which is saved during sleep) so launching them again will be faster than an initial launch which is the entire reason why sleep exists. (unless you have less than 1/4 total RAM listed as inactive RAM in Activity Monitor).


How do I prevent iTunes from playing the next track in an album or playlist I have a gig in about 23 days and I'm using iTunes to play the clips for each speaker.  I'm wondering if there is a sure fire way to stop iTunes from going to the next track? I tried to do my own research, however I'm kind of stumped as to what I can do as no one seems to have an answer. I don't want to use another program to do this. Of course I'll need to reverse the process after I'm done with the 3 day gig.

Thanks all.

I can confirm this works. It will be a bit hard to hear my screen reader. (Oh by the way I'm visually impaired) but I will have it turned way up in my ears through another sound card.  Oh fun. It's kind of odd I have to tab to that clear button though. Oh well. Thanks thanks for such a quick answer. To reiterate what that link said if you need to see it at a glance do the following

start a track playing.
hit command option u to get to the next up window
tab to clear and either click it or hit space.

I hope this also helps someone.


Bootcamp load at startup with VMware I have bootcamp loaded with Windows and would like it to boot and login at startup through VMware Fusion instead of starting manually after OSX 10.6.7 loads.

Any ideas on how this functionality can be turned on or off?

If you have setup VMware Fusion to run your Windows in Bootcamp, then you just have to do one of two options.

Right click on the VM to run when Fusion starts, and then select Open When VMware Fusion Starts.

or just select the star next to the VM in question.

Then the next you have to do is to add VMware Fusion to your Login Items - System Preferences->Accounts->[THE LOGIN USER]->Login Items


How can I change my sender name in iCloud email? I want to correct how my 'sender' name appears when I write mail with my iCloud account.

For some reason, iCloud shows my first name in all caps & I can't edit it.

iCloud is linked directly to your Apple account. You should be able to edit the details on your Apple ID here: https://appleid.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MyAppleId.woa/


Risks of Opening iWork '09 files in iWork 2013? Ever since last year's iWork update I've been hesitant to use it, on the basis that it made it clear that simply opening iWork '09 files would result in destructive changes that would become permanent if saved, and which still wouldn't be restored if exported.

I'm aware that since that time Apple has also done an update to restore some of what was lost.

The question for now is, is there a comprehensive list anywhere that tracks what's going to be lost when opening iWork '09 files in the current version of iWork?

Here is the list published by Apple.

Changes that occur when exporting to iWork ’09

All Apps

Curved shadows and contact shadows are converted to drop shadows.
Comments on objects are removed.
Anchored objects are converted to floating or inline objects.
The following formulas are removed: INTERSECT.RANGES, POLYNOMIAL, SERIESSUM, UNION.RANGES, WEIBULL. Note: The last calculated values are exported.
Interactive charts are converted to regular charts.
Bubble charts are converted to scatter charts.
Vertical text—such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean—isn’t fully supported in iWork ’09.

Pages

Tables of contents are converted to plain text. They won’t update automatically in Pages ’09.
Right-to-left text—such as Arabic and Hebrew—isn’t fully supported in Pages ’09.

Numbers

If a document contains "OR" filters within a column and "AND" filters across columns, all filter rules are exported; "AND" filters are converted to "OR".
Duration-based filters and conditional highlights are removed.

Keynote

The following transitions are converted to Dissolve: Clothesline, Object Cube, Object Pop, Object Revolve, and Switch.
The Object Flip transition is renamed Revolve.
The following build-in effects are converted to Dissolve: Blur, Drift and Scale, Fade and Scale, Twist and Scale, Fireworks, Skid.
The following build-out effects are converted to Dissolve: Blur, Crumble, Fade and Scale, Skid, Twist and Scale, Vanish.
Emphasis builds are removed. Emphasis builds are Blink, Bounce, Flip, Jiggle, Pop, and Pulse.
Comments on table cells are removed.

I think I got the previous version so here is the newer one-moving from iWorks 09 to iWorks 2013 as of April 1. 2014

Changes that occur when importing from iWork ’09

All Apps

Rotation is removed from tables and charts.
Table fills are removed.
Grouped wedges in pie charts are ungrouped.
OS X search (Spotlight) metadata is removed.

Pages

Change tracking is only supported for body text. Other tracked changes are accepted as final.
Linked text boxes are unlinked.
Links to other Pages files are removed.
Bookmarks are hidden in Pages for Mac, but if you export your document back to Pages ’09, they'll reappear.

Numbers

Table categories are removed.

Keynote

The “Require password to exit show” setting is removed. To set a new password, choose Keynote > Preferences > Slideshow, and then select “Require password to exit slideshows.” Enter a password when prompted, and then click Set Password. This password will apply to all presentations played on this computer.
Slides indented more than six levels are promoted to level six.
Links to other Keynote files are removed.
Rotation is removed from object placeholders.
The following transitions are converted to Dissolve: Blur, Burn, Falling Tiles, Flash, Motion Dissolve, Radial, Shutter.
The Revolve transition is renamed Object Flip.
Convergence builds are converted to Dissolve.
The following types of builds are removed: Builds on master slides, smart builds, builds on chart legends.


Recovery of deleted SMS I have never backed up or sync'd my iPhone 4S and need to recover deleted text messages.

Are these stored until they are overwritten?  When would the overwriting occur on a 32GB iPhone?

Text Messages are stored in a Database format, and not as individual files.  It's unlikely that they will ever be "overwritten" in the sense you ask, but may well remain in the database tables either forever, or until such regular purge mechanism clears them out on a schedule.

Depending on your OS version, you may be able to open and inspect the files.  See this question for more details.


Square brackets on Swedish Keyboard - MacBook Pro with Catalina MacOs Each time I need to use square brackets '[]' I need to find them somewhere else and Copy & Paste them. I could add an extra language to my keyboard and switch languages every time I need to use square brackets but it would be nice to find simpler way that works with the Swedish keyboard.
I use Catalina MacOS and I've tried both using the keyboard of my MacBook Pro and and external Logitech keyboard but so far no success.

Simplest way to find anything like this is from the Keyboard Viewer, available as an option for the menu bar in System Prefs > Keyboard > Input sources [or also in that pref itself]
Finding the Swedish layout in that panel shows [ & ] on Opt 8 & 9 respectively.


Built-in touchpad functional but not detected by System Preferences after installing macOS High Sierra I completely erased the HDD and reinstalled macOS (High Sierra), but the touchpad is not detected in System Preferences, which shows me the error "No touchpad detected."

The touchpad is working though, I just can't use System Preferences to make any modifications to the settings.

I yet again reinstalled it from a flash disk and have the same problem.

As per the asker's comment:

  This happens while laptop didn't have a battery installed , after installing the battery everything worked as normal .

I had the same "trackpad not found" error on a MacBook Pro 13 inch mid-2010 running macOS 10.13 "High Sierra" and now 10.14 "Mojave" beta 2. I removed the 8-year-old battery because it swelled to the point the trackpad couldn't physically click. I reconnected the battery and the Trackpad preferences work again.

I'm inclined to see if the hackintosh community has found any methods which  force the Trackpad preference pane to appear (e.g. fooling macOS into thinking there's a battery installed). If allowed by Ask Different, I'll update my answer with such workarounds.

Digression:

I consider this behavior a bug, because it wrongly assumes "all MacBooks have batteries installed". The presence of a battery doesn't indicate presence of a trackpad; the presence of a trackpad indicates presence of a trackpad.

But, Apple could argue that the user was warned by the sticker on the battery itself to not remove it; so what happens after removing or replacing it is somehow the user's responsibility.

The last MacBooks with removable batteries (2008 Unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro) were last supported by OS X 10.11 "El Capitan"; I do not know if it contains this bug; even if it did, it would not get fixed (10.11 now receives security updates only).

The only "legitimate" scenario I've thought of that would cause this issue is if the battery electronics, the logic board's battery circuitry, or the connections between the two are faulty, causing macOS to think there's no battery installed. As this scenario is unlikely (hopefully), I think the behavior of macOS is unlikely to be fixed.


Can I boot OS X or Windows Boot Camp from an external USB Type-C drive? Currently I boot OS X and Windows Boot Camp from an external Thunderbolt HDD. LaCie just announced a new external USB-C (USB 3.1) hard drive enclosure. Will I be able to boot OS X or Windows Boot Camp from this or any other external USB-C HDD on the new MacBook?

Considering the just announced new MacBook isn't yet generally available there are very few people, if any, that can say they've actually connected a LaCie USB-C (USB 3.0) external drive to the just announced new MacBook and booted either OS X or Windows from the external drive.  That said, I'd be very shocked if one was not able to boot any OS that supports booting from an external USB device while connected to the just announced new MacBook that isn't yet generally available.  Especially considering the just announced new MacBook only has only the USB-C port (and an audio jack) for any type of physical expansion capacity it would be insane that past normal functionality was not capable.


How can I delete saved configuration passwords from AirPort Utility for iOS? I've tried deleting and reinstalling AirPort Utility, but I can still manage base stations without being asked for a configuration password.

I'm thinking of selecting not to back up data from AirPort Utility, then making a backup to iCloud and wiping and restoring the device. Has anyone tried this?

Since iOS doesn't have a keychain utility to go in and surgically remove the stored password, you would have to either:

change the password on the base station to effectively lock out all clients with the old password.
erase the iOS device and refrain from restoring a backup that contained saved passwords onto the device. (Encrypted backups of the device typically store keychain items, non-encrypted backups don't save those passwords, so you might try an unencrypted backup, restore the backup and then test if the password was saved in the application bundle as opposed to a keychain).
As a long shot, try enabling iCloud keychain syncing and see if you can clean things on a Mac that has iCloud keychain syncing enabled as well by opening the iCloud keychain in Keychain Utility.


USB keyboard no longer works in one USB port on a MacBook I recently got a Apple USB keyboard, and have been using it on my late 2013 MacBook Pro 13". It worked fine in either the left or right USB ports.

However, yesterday it stopped working in the left USB port and now it only works in the right USB port. I've tried it on other (non-Apple) computers and it works fine.

I've checked System Information, and it shows up when plugged into the right USB port but not when plugged into the left one. I've tried Safe Boot and also logging into the Safari-only guest account.

It isn't the USB port that isn't working as I can plug in my Nexus 7 and iPhone into the left USB port and they both still work.

What else could I try to get it working again? I'd like to use the keyboard in the left port since it fits better with my desk layout.

I have the same problem. Have you tried resetting SMC and NVRAM?

Sometimes a SMC and NVRAM reset might solve weird issues, but in my case they didn't fix the problem.


How to output tilde (~) directly I would like to be able to type the character ~ directly, without having to follow up with a space.
Currently, if I type the tilde character, at first I get a ˜, which becomes a ~ only if I follow it up with a space.
The same question extends to ', " and `, but I presume the solution is the same for all of them.
I am using a M1 Macbook Air, with a "U.S. International PC" keyboard layout.

Get rid of the "US International PC" layout and instead use "US" or "ABC".  You do this in system preferences > keyboard > input sources.
(US International PC is a special layout adopted from Windows which is intended to make it easy to write the accents needed in common European languages.)


Ipad Gmail links no longer open I am enquiring about my wife's gmail account on her iPad.
Until recently all links worked satisfactorily and opened in Google easily.
Suddenly this has ceased and whenever she clicks on a link in gmail, google opens but it goes to the default page and does not open to the link.
I have been through all the settings that I can find but i don't seem to be able to get it working again.

I had the same problem.  One suggestion on the web was deleting the gmail app from my iPad and downloading it again.  I tried that, but I couldn't download the app again because it said the new version of gmail didn't work on my old iPad.
So now we know why the links weren't working.

So then I went into Google on my iPad and opened my gmail account from there.  It's not as convenient as using the app, but at least the links work fine.


Is there an App for Browsing on iOS and watching on OS X? I would like to browse video website on my iPhone and start watching videos on my Mac. I don't want to use Airplay as my Wifi connection is not good. I would like to just send an URL to a video player like VLC on my Mac which streams the video itself.

This is the sort of thing that Handoff (part of Continuity) would ideally be used for, but third-parties have been very slow to adopt it. And you presumably want something better than pasting URLs into the built-in Notes app, with iCloud syncing turned on.

If it's always URLs you want to send, your best bet is possibly a third-party tool for sharing and syncing clipboard items between iOS and Mac, such as Cloud Clip.


VirtualBox: Bridged Connection Not Working - High Sierra I just bought my first Macbook today (long time Windows user) but I am running into issues loading in the .OVA of Rapid 7's "Hackazon" vulnerable web app into VirtualBox and getting a bridged connection so that I can scan it and connect to it. I know there are lots of these questions that have been posted about networking with VMs in other forms, but I have followed all of the suggestions from a dozen pages and nothing seems to work, and I would really like to not regret buying this machine.

Here is my setup:

VirtualBox Settings Screenshot:

Screenshot of error on VM load

Screenshot of ifconfig on the VM

Since this is a brand new machine, are there any Mac permissions networking configurations that I should be aware of? Am I missing something dumb? This generally worked when I used VMs in the past on Windows.

Thanks in advance!

Huh--strange! So it turns out that it was something with that particular .ova file. I just downloaded Ubuntu and it was able to bridge no problem. I guess that's something that I need to report to Rapid7.


Export OS X Lion Blog / Wiki We have a blog on OS X Lion Server with about 750 Entries and would like to export them in order to migrate to a different platform (Confluence).

Although I found a solution to export a Snow Leopard Blog/Wiki to CSV, I couldn't find anything to export the Blog Data of a Lion Server installation.

There is no ready-made solution for this AFAIK. This article tells how to backup and restore the whole wiki or just a single wiki (or blog?), but the output created by "wikiadmin export" seems to be some binary dump of the database which can be fed only to "wikiadmin import".

The Lion Server Blog/Wiki itself is kept in a Postgres database named "collab", which you can access from the server's command line: sudo -u _postgres psql collab. The table structure seems quite complex, though - I have a test wiki with 2 documents and it still has 67 tables. You might want to try some graphical frontend for Postgres
 to look through the tables and export those needed.


Need to burn FAT32 CD from Snow Leopard Please tell me how to burn a FAT32 CD under Snow Leopard (10.6.8).  I have tried multiple approaches, including creating a FAT32 .dmg properly sized for the disc, and burning from the Finder or from Disk Utility.  The thread at How to burn Windows compatible CD on Mac OS X Mountain Lion did not help me.

The image correctly shows up as type FAT32 in Disk Utility, but the resulting disc invariably shows up as type Mac OS Extended.  I am trying to do this because some Windows users are reporting not seeing anything on the disc I sent them.  It was my understanding that the Mac automatically creates CDs that can be read by both OS X and Windows.

You cannot make a FAT32 CD. Windows does not use that format for CD/DVDs.

Normally, when burning a bunch of files, both Mac and Windows use ISO 9660 (Joliet) for CDs and Universal Disk Format (UDF) for DVD media. Format is automatically chosen once media is detected.

Also there is no need to make an image first. You just

select the files in Finder
right click on the selected files
select Burn.


How to force Siri to use ONLY internal microphone I have a Bluetooth receiver in my car for playing music from my phone. It's great for that. But also has a microphone that sucks.

My iPhone 7 automatically pairs with the device when I get in the car so I can listen to music. But when I go to Siri (by holding the home button down -- I don't use Hey, Siri) it is routed through that crappy microphone and therefore never understands what I'm saying.

I finally figured out that I can enact Siri, then click on the little button on the lower right (in the 'Siri View') and be given a choice of what microphone to use. I can go back to internal and all is right with the world. But... then next time I get back in my car it's all reset over to the crappy microphone again and I have to go through the process to get it back to internal.

This is crappy. I like using Siri when I drive and the iPhone's microphone isn't too bad in picking up my voice. How do I ALWAYS keep Siri coming through my device's microphone instead of constantly resetting back to an external Bluetooth one?

Much obliged to whoever has figured this out and willing to share:)

This is an often-asked question on many sites.  Unfortunately, all those sites say the same thing: this isn't possible.

As long as you're connected to a Bluetooth device that has a microphone, the iPhone will use that mic for Siri unless you specifically change it (like you mentioned) each time you use it.  I think your best option is use a Bluetooth device that doesn't have a mic.  No mic, no problem.

I don't know if this is part of the Bluetooth specifications and can't be changed or if it's an Apple-controlled thing.  I would recommend providing feedback to Apple and letting them know this is something you want.


Mac is flashing screen when pressing keys If I press keys that don't do anything on the focused app then the whole screen flashes white, as if the option to flash the screen on alerts (in accessibility preferences) was on, but it is not.

For example typing this question the screen does not flash, because pressing the keys is doing something, but If I'm on an app where there is no text field that can be focused pressing keys will make the screen flash white.

I think there's an option in System Preferences.
Go toSystem Preferences > Accessibility > Audio and uncheck the box that says Flash the screen when an alert occurs.

Hope this helped!


Reset 'Top' command default view on Mac OSX I met a problem when using linux top command on macOS. The default top open view now looks like

It displays too many unnecessary columns and didn't sort by CPU or MEM by default. I remember it used to be like

Anyone know how to change it back? I've checked my home folder that there is no .toprc file.

Thanks in advance.

top will generally display as many columns as the width of your window will allow. But to change the sort to cpu (high to low), you can type the following within top:

o to select primary sort

-cpu to sort by decreasing CPU usage

You can add a secondary sort if desired:

O to select secondary sort

-mem to sort by decreasing memory usage

? will show you all options, along with the current sort selections - see below image:

You can also call these options explicitly from the command line, if desired, like this:

To see your longest running processes

top -o time -user $(whoami)


g-5 2005 or 2006 is dual core intel a 2005 or 2006 G-5 dual core a intel can snow lep be loaded on it or is quad core intel can snow lep be loaded thanks just need to no the answer

From Apple's Support Article:

Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard system requirements

To install Snow Leopard for the first time, you must have a Mac with:

An Intel processor
An internal or external DVD drive, or DVD or CD Sharing
At least 1 GB of RAM (additional RAM is recommended)
A built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
At least 5 GB of disk space available, or 7 GB of disk space if you install the developer tools


my passport for Mac on a PC I have photos on My Pass0port for Mac and attempted without success to download other photos using my Acer which uses Windows 10

By default the Mac formats external drives with HFS+ format. You'd need to load software on your PC to read that filesystem or return the drive to the Mac to change around the settings.

Search here for things in filesystem and with HFS and windows for more information.

Transfer files between bootcamp partitions
Why I can not see mac partition under windows installed with bootcamp?


Can I share my internet connection and redirect clients to my web server? I often share my internet connection with other Macs and devices and want to know if I can redirect client's web requests to my local web server.

Is it as simple as having them use my client's IP address or do I need to set up a proxy or otherwise configure things on my Mac or my client's devices?

If you really want to configure your network in such a way,
here are a few bricks I'd advise to start with:

Install Squid version 3 and configure it in transparent
mode. You may use MacPorts to build, configure and install it.
With MacPorts you would do it with: port install squid3.
Install Apache. With the same Macports, you would have to
do it with: port install apache2.

You will find many documents on the web to help to build this, but I didn't find any one complete and good enough to recommand it.


Can iOS' builtin dictionary be accessed/browsed as an independent app? If you select some text in whatever application, there's a "define" option that will open a builtin dictionary screen:

Can this dictionary be accessed/browsed? As in, an actual application?

iOS 6.0

There used to be a nice little app (that luckily I still have) that did exactly that: let you search for definitions directly. It was called Dictionary+ (link no longer available), Apple removed it reportedly for violating the UIReferenceLibraryViewController's terms of use, which states that it should not be used to display wordlists, create a standalone dictionary app, or republish the content in any form.
There's a replacement open source app that you can build, sign and install it manually, I haven't tried it, though: https://github.com/josh-/DictionaryPlusPlus
In recent iOS version you can also access definitions from the phone’s search (Spotlight) but for some reason sometimes it doesn’t work and may require internet.


Where is the dividing line (mount point) of the two iOS partitions? I know that iOS has two partitions, but I've never found anywhere that gives clues as to where they split. Is one partition on / and the other on /var/mobile/, or are all the user profiles (/var/root/, /var/wireless/, etc) on the second partition (at /var)? Is it possible to resize these partitions? On the same note, is /var a symbolic link to /private/var/ or is it the other way around?

/ is the mount point for /dev/disk0s1s1; /private/var is the mount point for /dev/disk0s1s2.

disk0s1s1 is reserved for iOS system files. It is equivalent to OS X's /System and /Library directories. It is the smaller of the two partitions (the size can be set using Redsn0w or Sn0wbreeze during the jailbreak process). The default size is set to 1 GB for iOS 5 and around 600-700 MB in previous versions.

disk0s1s2 is reserved (as of iOS 1.1.3) for user data (3rd party applications, music, photos, etc.). It is the larger of the two and varies depending on the flash memory available (which is dependent on the device purchased).

The layout of the disk is stored in /etc/fstab, which is also used by jailbreak tools to make the system partition writable.

Source: iOS Forensic Analysis
Additional reading: The iPhone Wiki


Are there Greasemonkey scripts for Safari? There's the wonderful Greasemonkey to run user-defined JavaScript on web pages.

Is there such a thing as Greasemonkey for Safari? Or would one instead write a Safari Extension to customize behavior on other web pages? Maybe there's an alternative that runs on AppleScript instead of JavaScript?

Another option to run GreaseMonkey scripts is NinjaKit (which is what I use). It's a Safari 5 extension, which means it's just a tad safer than GreaseKit.


How do I use/enable Tor when using Terminal? I live in a country that blocks most types Internet access and protocols so I need to utilize Tor from the command line. I haven't come across much useful information in this regard, so any information would be helpful.

I've already downloaded the Tor/Vidalia bundle, although it appears to only work through the provided web-browser that it utilizes. That is great for searching the web, etc. but I need to ssh and use curl, etc., too.

Running Tor provides a standard proxy you can connect to at localhost:9050 with anything that supports the SOCKS protocol. Just search online for something like "SSH over Tor", or if that fails, "SSH through SOCKS proxy".

Two examples:

SSH:

ssh -o ProxyCommand="nc -X 4 -x localhost:9050 %h %p" example.com
curl:

curl --socks4a localhost:9050 example.com


Audio echoes for a few seconds Every so often, sometimes once a day, sometimes two or three times in ten minutes, my audio will reverb at 100% for about 3 seconds. It's very random, with no clues it's about to happen.

This has happened while watching youtube, while using Reason, and while using Logic Pro X, so I don't think it's the applications. It didn't start until Catalina.

The system, an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), is running macOS 10.15.3, the sound is going through a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 (first edition), which I've been using for years now with little problem. I don't have any other devices, virtual or physical. All inputs and outputs go through the focusrite, and the microphone is selected off, and nothing is registering on meters.

Does anyone have any insights? It's not the end of the world, but it certainly is annoying.

The tool I would start with is MicroSnitch if no one has a hunch or guess what would enable intermittent sound input.

https://obdev.at/products/microsnitch/index.html (Free trial and more details here)

Another thing that's quick to check is Siri. That could trigger a short and intermittent mic active event (and doesn't show in the Microphone section/tab of Security & Privacy). Other apps should show in system preferences for all other apps entitled to mic input before you redo or tear down the main sound processing setup.


How does a Google iOS app save and restore active accounts across app deletion? On an iOS 8 device, I installed Google Hangouts and upon first launch, it pre-populated an account that was previously associated with a different, and long ago deleted, Google app.

Since I had just Reset Advertising Identifier, I assumed it must be the Vendor ID (there was another Google app installed on the device). So, I deleted both (all) Google apps on the device, which should reset the Vendor ID.

I then re-installed Google Hangouts and launched it. It STILL had the old account active. This is not only mysterious behavior, but is also a pretty serious security and privacy vulnerability. When an app is deleted, and especially when all apps from a vendor are deleted, there should be no active accounts or data left on the device.

Any ideas on how Google Hangouts knows about the old account?

Apple advises developers to store app login credentials in the encrypted iOS Keychain. When you delete an app from your phone it doesn't delete the related records from the Keychain.

  Keychains are secure storage containers, which means
  that when the keychain is locked, no one can access its protected
  contents. In OS X, users can unlock a keychain—thus providing trusted
  applications access to the contents—by entering a single master
  password. In iOS, each application always has access to its own
  keychain items; the user is never asked to unlock the keychain.
  Whereas in OS X any application can access any keychain item provided
  the user gives permission, in iOS an application can access only its
  own keychain items.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Security/Conceptual/keychainServConcepts/01introduction/introduction.html


Can't login in Mac App Store or iCloud - login loading forever After updating to latest developer release for OS X El Capitan, I can't login in Mac App Store or OS X iCloud settings. If I try incorrect password, a message is shown that the password is not correct. When I try my real password, the loading icon just spins forever.

I already tried to remove Network settings plist file and some other things found on forums. System log file shows a lot of these few messages, especially when doing something with iCloud login.

SOSAccountThisDeviceCanSyncWithCircle sync with device failure: Error Domain=com.apple.security.sos.error Code=1035 "Account identity not set"

and

01/10/15 00:11:52,599 storeaccountd[591]: XPC error for connection com.apple.backupd.sandbox.xpc: Connection invalid

and

01/10/15 00:11:52,931 sandboxd[226]: ([591]) storeaccountd(591) deny mach-lookup com.apple.backupd.sandbox.xpc

Unfortunately I do not have backup of my previous installation. Also I can't update to latest El Capitan version, because App Store login is not working.

NOTE: This solution is primarily meant for users of physical Apple devices, such as MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Pros, etc. While I will mention a link to a solution for virtual machine users as well, that is not the primary objective of this post. As such, that will not be posted here, for succinctness.

Also, while NVRAM (non-volatile RAM) does save certain settings and parameters for long-term, iCloud settings don't appear to be among the settings saved in NVRAM.

The solution will sound simple - but it's not. The full-out solution is a three-step process, which will force OS X to do the following:

Wipe the existing, problematic settings file(s), and force OS X to reproduce valid ones in there place.
(Re)Start the iCloud service and/or its required related Daemons.
Validate/rewrite (hardware) machine details if required.

We’ll start by deleting the following file (admin permission required):
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist

We’ll then ensure that the proper LaunchDaemons are running - in this case, Push Notifications. iCloud needs this running to operate. Enter the following into Terminal:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.apsd.plist

Finally, please check to make sure that your OS X device has a (valid) Serial Number. Whether it’s real or virtual machine, the Serial must be less than 12 chars - otherwise, iCloud -based services like FaceTime and iMessage won’t be able to sign in (or will ‘hang-up’ at sign in attempt). Check this in your Mac’s ‘About’ section. If you have either a NULL or invalid Serial Number, please do one of the following:

Either use your Apple Care/Warranty to contact Apple. Have them set your hardware Serial Number, seeing that they were supposed to do this when they were done servicing your machine.

OR

Use the following application to change this (if you can't go to Apple for any reason, and aren't worried about voiding the device's warranty). Please do NOT use this tool if you have Apple Care or would like to preserve your Apple Warranty:

Blank Board Serializer -
Downloadable from here:

http://rogersm.net/icloud-problems-mountain-lion-serial-number

Now, for those of you using a virtual machine, please go here to complete the third step (Serial Number reset). You'll need to generate a valid, new Serial Number that is NOT currently in-use:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/292170-how-to-spoof-real-mac-in-vmware/

That should fix any issues with iCloud sign in and use of its related services for El Capitan. Works for most physical Mac OS X devices and VMware Workstation installations.


Do you have a backup policy that covers the Worst Case Scenario? I've a lot of photos and videos of my children. I feel that losing those pictures would be a real pain for me and my family.

In the past I use to make, from time to time, a DVD with all my digital photos, but nowadays, my gallery is just too large to make DVDs of it.

So the way to go is to have a backup on Hard Drive. That's right. I have a external USB Disk dedicated to Time Machine. This situation is safe. For disk failure. But not for instance for robbery, or a fire/water damaging both disks at the same time, since thay are almost located at the same place.

Some of you are almost ready to tell me about the cloud, but I don't to go that way.

So my question is: What kind of procedure do you use to keep a safe copy of your stuff?

I have one hard drive connected to my iMac for use with Time Machine. In addition to the Time Machine backup, I maintain a bootable clone of my iMac's hard drive using SuperDuper. The hard drive with the bootable backup is stored at my in-laws' house (you could just as easily store it at a friend's house or at work). The off-site clone is updated once a week.

With this setup, I can recover individual files from Time Machine if necessary, but I have an off-site backup in case of a catastrophe (fire, burglary, etc.). Some people maintain a much more redundant backup scheme, but I think this provides adequate protection with relatively little effort.


Using SD Card as external storage for Macbook Pro retina I am getting a new Macbook Pro retina display with 256GB flash storage. The capacity may be a little bit too tight, but I should be able to manage it. I am considering to get a 128GB SD card as a secondary storage. I'd store files that I do not frequently use in the SD card. It would be less bulky than an external HDD.

I heard that different SD cards can perform very differently with the MBP, so was seeking some advice on which product has the best performance. Does anyone know what models of SD cards have the best read/write speed when used with a Macbook Pro (with or without retina)?

SD cards are categorized in different classes according to their speed. Generally, SD cards perform even slower than a normal HDD drive which is why I do not recommend using them as a major storage option.

You should invest in the most expensive type of SD to have an acceptable I/O performance. E.g. an Ultra High Speed SD card (UHS) such as this one.

For $179 you get 128GB storage which is even more expensive than some SSDs models at that capacity. But the I/O throughput is much lower. The minimum guarantee is only 60MB/s for this particular model. SSDs in the same prize category offer up to 550MB/s of transfer speeds.

In sum, you're better off using an external SSD an connect it via USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt for best I/O throughput.


iTunes says I have more photos than I really do I have a 5th generation, 16GB iPod Touch that has iOS 8.1.0. I have a fairly recent version of iTunes.

I recently deleted over 1000 photos off my iPod and also deleted them out of the Recently Deleted section. (Note: I also have the photo streaming thing turned off.) When I plug my iPod into my computer, it still says that I have over 2000 pictures that are taking up 4GB of space on my iPod!

I have found the solution to the problem.

Quoting the solution from txforever from Apple forum.

Im not sure why is this happening, but i just know how to get rid of the prob.

  It has something to do with the Recently Deleted folder in the iPhone.

  You need to change the date of the phone to earlier mayb a year
  earlier as in 2014. Then go into your Photos>Recently Deleted folders
  to clear all the photo manually.

  Note, when you go into photo, the Recently Folder might show 0, but if
  you go into it, there is actually photo in it.


Bug? 'nice time' disables $PATH search With ~/bin at the beginning of my $PATH, I still have to name the directory if I put 'nice time' in front of the filename.  Also, 'which' doesn't find it yet it still runs if I invoke it without 'nice time bin/'.  This was not the case at some time in the recent past.  Is it a bug introduced recently, or a "feature" that Apple failed to support until recently?

MBP:~ user$ nice time copy_websites
copy_websites: No such file or directory
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
MBP:~ user$ echo $PATH
~/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/bin:/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin
MBP:~ user$ which copy_websites
MBP:~ user$ which bash
/bin/bash
MBP:~ user$ head -1 bin/copy_websites
#!/bin/bash
MBP:~ user$ ls -lat@e bin/co*
-rwx------@ 1 user  staff  747 Mar 10 13:36 bin/copy_websites
    com.apple.TextEncoding   15
    com.apple.metadata:kMDLabel_zla7g6mgqwkmgzlaez4j64ql5q   89

The problem here is that the handling of ~ differs between the shell and the macOS kernel. If you run your command directly from the prompt, PATH expansion is handled by the shell which knows how to expand ~. If you run your command through nice, the command is passed to the macOS kernel for path expansion:

pse@Mithos:~$ mkdir foo
pse@Mithos:~$ cat >foo/foo.sh
#!/bin/sh
echo foo here
pse@Mithos:~$ chmod +x foo/foo.sh
pse@Mithos:~$ foo/foo.sh
foo here
pse@Mithos:~$ PATH='~/foo':$PATH
pse@Mithos:~$ echo $PATH
~/foo:/Users/pse/.bin/script:/Users/pse/.bin/i386:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin
pse@Mithos:~$ foo.sh
foo here
pse@Mithos:~$ time foo.sh
foo here

real    0m0.007s
user    0m0.002s
sys 0m0.002s
pse@Mithos:~$ nice time foo.sh
foo.sh: No such file or directory
        0.00 real         0.00 user         0.00 sys
pse@Mithos:~$ nice foo.sh
nice: foo.sh: No such file or directory
pse@Mithos:~$

To avoid this, always make sure that your assigned PATH contains neither ~ nor any nonexpanded variables.

PS: Additionally there are different time commands called for time foo and nice time foo.  To get the same output format in both cases, use /usr/bin/time foo instead.


can’t link C++ code to .dylib in Xcode 12.2 (release build only) I recently upgraded from Xcode 12.1 to 12.2, on macOS Catalina 10.15.7. My C++ project (which uses OpenCV) compiled without problem with Xcode 12.1. After the upgrade I get a lot of these:
ld: warning: ignoring file /usr/local/Cellar/opencv/4.5.0_5/lib/libopencv_gapi.dylib, building for macOS-arm64 but attempting to link with file built for macOS-x86_64
(I would have been unable to work but luckily I noticed that changing the “My Mac” Scheme to use Debug instead of Release for Build Configuration allows it to build without issue. Just runs much slower.)
My web searching suggests this might be related to “universal binary” compilation? Apparently the Apple approved solution is to wait for OpenCV to release a “universal binary” version of the .dylib? Until then:

is there a way to say that, for now, I only care about the x86_64 machine I am
developing on?
is it possible to roll back to Xcode 12.1?

I did not intend to do a question-and-answer format. But after posting my question above, I tried searching harder in the main stackoverflow. I found a question by Oscar with an answer to my question by Yi Hu. To restate Yi Hu’s answer:

go to Project Settings
select the executable (“texsyn” in my case)
select Build Settings tab
search for Architectures
change Build Active Architecture Only to be Yes for BOTH Debug and Release

This totally solved my problem. Now builds without error and runs about twice as fast.
Before:

After:


How to resolve "mpirun: command not found" error on Mac I'm running scientific simulation software (lammps) and whenever I try to submit the job by using a shell script which contains...

mpirun -np 2 /Users/mustafaaslamy/Downloads/lammps-16Mar18/src/lmp_serial -in in.airebo

...it throws the error of mpirun:command not found.

How do I resolve this?

I'm using a MacBook Air (early 2014), processor 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5, software OS X 10.9.5 (13F34).

You are trying to use a program but the Mac does not find the program. It's probably because it's not installed. The program you are trying to use is called Open MPI, here is how to install it: https://intothewave.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/install-open-mpi-on-mac-os-x/

After installing it you will be able to use the mpirun command. Because Open MPI isn't an Apple product, I recommend you to go to stackoverflow.com if you have questions regarding Open MPI.


High Sierra - Terminal lags if background opacity is set After upgrading, I noticed my terminal got extremely slow (MBP 2013). There is a noticeable input delay, moving the window or switching to another application lags and skips the animation. I noticed the background needs around 1s to recreate the opacity/blur effect after window switching, so I tried disabling the effect in the settings, which restored previous performance completely.
Is this a known issue? I'd like to have my transparent, blurred background back.

So, for completeness' sake since there doesn't seem to be a better answer as of yet, I'll add my solution.
If your Terminal.app started showing the behavior outlined in the question and you have modified the blur/opacity settings, turning these off will restore previous performance. To do so, open the terminal settings (⌘ + ,), switch to the Profile tab and click on the background color picker next to color & effects. Here, set the faders for opacity and blur to 100%.

If someone finds a way to enable transparency again without trashing performance, I'll be happy to accept their answer.


Macbook Pro w/ USB-C and multiple monitors occasionally swap non-main screens My Macbook Pro (15", 2017 model) running High Sierra has a multi monitor setup involving my laptop on the left, an external monitor to its right (and configured to be the main screen with the menu bar and dock), and another monitor to the right of that. Both external monitors (same brand and same resolution) are connected via HDMI cables that attach to Thunderbolt/USB-C plugs that go into an Elgato dock which then connects to the laptop via a Thunderbolt/USB-C cable.

I frequently will disconnect the laptop to go to a meeting and occasionally when I reconnect, my leftmost and rightmost screens become reversed, what I used to see on the laptop screen is now on the right external monitor. This goes for not only floating windows but also full screen apps. I then need to go into Mission Control to move the windows and full screen apps back to their preferred positions.

So firstly I want to know why this is happening and secondly how I can prevent that from occurring or a tool I can use to restore the windows as expected. I have seen some mention online that it could be related to which monitors are recognized by the computer first, and for sure for about 20 seconds after I plug in the cable I see a crazy dance of windows being resized and sometimes they all restore correctly. Could this be an issue with the dock or is it related to the OS and how it recognizes external monitors?

Thank you in advance!

So one "solution" is to unplug the USB-C cable from the computer and replug it in.  I have at times had to do this several times before it picks up the correct configuration. Its totally anecdotal but I have found better results by unplugging and plugging it back in immediately before the computer has a chance to reorganize the windows on the laptop. So its not like the information is somehow corrupt or lost, it must be triggered by the order in which it recognizes the monitors.


Can you add an accented characters to the querty keyboard on the iPad? I'm looking to add another layer to the querty keyboard on the iPad so I can get accented characters.  Can I do that?

An even simpler way to access the most commonly accented characters is to hold down that letter and you are given options.

To see what I mean, just click and hold on the letter "o" and you'll be given a lot of choices.

The standard keyboard on a USA iPad will have accented characters for e, y, u, i, o, a, s, z, c and n.


Stop iOS opening last session in browser How can I stop the browser(s) in iOS 9 on my iPad from restoring the last session when I open them?

When I'm browsing, I generally stay in Safari until I'm done. I then double press the home button, and swipe up on Safari to close it. But next time I open Safari, it starts loading my tabs from when I closed it. How can I stop this? I just want it to open the new tab page and that's it.

I've tried installing Chrome & FireFox and they both do the same thing as Safari.

Alternatively, is there another browser that will do this?

You misunderstand what swiping up on an app does. Swiping up on an app from the app switcher causes its temporary data to be unloaded from your device's RAM (RAM, short for random-access memory, is your device's short-term memory). However, data from tabs in any browser is stored as permanent data (just like game data and text messages are permanently stored, tabs are too), and this permanent data is unaffected by a RAM unload. Unloading an app from the RAM (swiping up on it) is designed to fix issues caused by app data in the device's short-term memory, not to unload data from an app's place in your device's long-term memory, which is where browser data is stored.

Unlike the common myth goes, apps like Facebook and Google Maps can still run in the background even after being closed (swiped-up upon); it is up to them to stop using background data. Force-closing an app by swiping up on it unloads short-term data (like how UI elements moved or changed after app-launch) but does not affect any stored data or background app usage. Swiping up doesn't shut an app down.

In iOS 10, Apple's upcoming version of iOS set to be released in the fall, there will be a button accessed by long-pressing on the tab-button to close all tabs. Why this doesn't exist in iOS 7-9 is a mystery.

So for now, you'll just have to close your tabs one-by-one or just leave them all open*.

*or switch to Android, where the default browser (Chrome) lets you close all tabs at once. And sadly, Chrome for iPad does not have this feature.

Edit: My advice is to try other iPad browsers (I personally like Brave Browser and Dolphin Browser) and check if they have a similar option to close all tabs at once; try long-pressing on the X of one tab, or going into the tab switcher.


Mac open file dialog - "search" function - does not show all matching files When considering the contents of the /shared directory - and specifically the files whose names begin with driversLicense:

16:12:48/shared $ll driversLicense.*

-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 steve  staff  567710 Aug  1  2011 driversLicense.pdf
-rw-r--r--@ 1 steve  staff    6476 Aug 27  2013 driversLicense.2013.jpg
-rw-r--r--@ 1 steve  staff  314030 Nov 10  2014 driversLicense.jpg

Then in Finder I type in first few letters - specifically driversLicense: here is the screenshot of the result (I have done this a half dozen times to ensure it were repeatable):

Why is it that "driversLicense.2013.jpg" appears but not "driversLicense.jpg and driversLicense.pdf" ??

Typing directly into a Finder window doesn't generate a 'search' as such;  there is no filter generated, it merely selects the first match to your typed string.

So, if your folder is sorted by anything other than Name, then it will find the first match, yet not necessarily the first alphabetically - in your case it should find the newest match.

Setting the sort to Name, the same string will find & select the first match alphabetically - the others will be directly beneath it, unselected.


How can I restrict apps from using WiFi? As we know that we can "use mobile data for" a particular app so WhatsApp for instance can be allowed to use mobile data while other apps can't.

How can I accomplish the same for WiFi data use?

There is no ios level switch for preventing WiFi or USB tethered  data connections on a per app basis. Disabling WiFi you don’t trust is the first step.

The next practical method to do this is control the network with firewalls, proxies and DNS / routing to block whatever access patterns you need to control or monitor.

Unless the specific app has a sign off / sign out/ disable feature or configuration option, deleting the app entirely is the last lever available if you cannot control the network.


how to make an "archive" button for Mail.app in mac os x mountain lion to work with gmail accounts? has anyone tried to build an "archive" button for apple mail to move mails from the Inbox to All Mail in Mail.app (Mountain lion)?

there is this page: http://stl.techinno.nl/archive/
but it wont work with the mail version on mountain lion.

Thanks!

You could assign a shortcut to a script like this:

tell application "Mail" to tell account "Gmail"
    messages of mailbox "INBOX" whose flagged status is false and read status is true
    move result to mailbox "[Gmail]/All Mail"
end tell

This would only move selected messages:

tell application "Mail"
    selected messages of message viewer 1
    move result to mailbox "[Gmail]/All Mail" of account "Gmail"
end tell


Is there an offline RSS Reader for Mac OS X? I'm looking for an offline RSS reader, which also downloads images embedded into the feed.
I've tried (and liked) NetNewsWire (and the Lite Version of it), but it does not seem to store embedded images for offline viewing, which is a must for me.
I've no other requirements except this, so it doesn't matter if it syncs to Google Reader or to iOS.

Does anybody know of an application that can actually accomplish this?

Reeder supports offline reading of your RSS feed. It will fetch and cache a configurable amount of feed history for you to peruse while you aren't connected to the web. And it'll look darn good while doing it. (Can you tell I'm a fan?)


Hacked Gmail-reset pass-fowarding to Icloud Srry for my bad english.

Hi, i need to ask for help. Iff someone hacked my gmail, but i reset pass(log out all devices) after 2 hours(and add sms verification), but i didnt notice that is IMAP-turned on. Can someone still recieve emails from my gmail to his Icloud? or after reset pass(log out all devices+ add second verification) he coulnt recieved it ? Thank a lot for help.

he sync gmail with his apple mail/icloud and he could recieve all my email to his mail/icloud and storage it. And after i reset my gmail pass if there some chance that he could still recieving my emails or he lost sync with his icloud to storage it. ( i dont understand exactly ho working imap between gmail and apple mail/icloud ..changed gmail pass reseting imap to sending emails to apple mail/icloud or ? there is still sync?) Thank a lot

iCloud (or iCloud Mail) itself can't access mail accounts on other providers via IMAP (or any other means). But I see at least two options how somebody with temporary access to your Gmail account can try to put a tap on your emails:

By adding your Gmail account as an additional account to whatever mail application he uses. This only works while your Gmail password doesn't get changed (so you should be safe here)
By setting up a mail forwarding rule in Gmail which forwards (copies) all your incoming mail to another email address. To verify and disable, please look inside Gmail (don't know the details and we are not a Gmail support site)


Stop screenshots on my macbook appearing on my ipad I often take screenshots or partial screenshots on my MacBook.
For some reason, these immediately appear on my iPad - the screen turns on showing them, and they are stored on there.
This is annoying. I want it to stop.
So... Any ideas how I can prevent this happening? Thanks!

This is probably universal clipboard as described in Use Universal Clipboard to copy and paste between your Apple devices:

The content is automatically added to the clipboard of your other
nearby device. It remains there briefly, or until you replace it by
copying something else on either device.

It also mentioned in last paragraph of Take a screenshot on your Mac:

To copy a screenshot to the Clipboard, press and hold the Control key
while you take the screenshot. You can then paste the screenshot
somewhere else. Or use Universal Clipboard to paste it on another
Apple device.


Apple OS X Yosemite Email Viewing Preferences Previous versions of OS X had a dropdown menu under Viewing in Mail Preferences that allowed you to choose the type of heading or no heading at all when viewing an email.  The drop down menu is still there but now there is only one choice available: "headers".  I can find no mention of this issue on any Apple forums.  Maybe no one else uses it?  Or am I the only one with this issue?  Would appreciate any suggestions for a fix.  I often save emails as PDFs and prefer not to have header info showing.

I do not have Yosemite to confirm but found this:

10.10.2 Update

  The button to show or hide headers when composing mail messages has moved to the toolbar of the composition window.