OSX Server File Sharing allowing more access than configured I am working on a computer used as a server running 10.10.5.

I created a folder on the server as follows.

Folder List
Shared-Folder1
Shared-Folder2
Shared-Folder3
Shared-Folder4

User List
UserA
UserB
UserC

Permissions List (Read/write)
Shared-Folder1: UserA, UserB
Shared-Folder2: UserB, UserC
Shared-Folder3: UserA, UserC

When I login to the server using UserA's credentials using my Windows 10 computer over the network, I see Shared-Folder1, Shared-Folder2, Shared-Folder3.

I made sure that every folder's pre-defined groups in the permissions section is set to "No Access" and all permissions are assigned by username and not by groups.

When I make changes to Shared-Folder2, UserA also sees the changes.

The problem is that UserA should NOT be able to see Shared-Folder2 at all but they clearly have access to it.

Is this a bug in OSX 10.10.5?

Does anybody know how to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

ls -lae "Shared-Folder2" output:

Mini-Server:Raid Storage Admin-User$ ls -lae "Shared-Folder2"       total 16
drwx------+  3 Admin-User         staff   102 Oct 10 16:03 .
 0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 1: group:com.apple.sharepoint.group.3 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 2: user:UserA allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 3: user:Shared-Folder2 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxrwxr-x  18 Admin-User         staff   680 Oct 10 16:04 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 Shared-Folder2  staff  6148 Oct 10 16:03 .DS_Store
 0: user:_spotlight inherited allow read,execute,readextattr
 1: group:com.apple.sharepoint.group.3 inherited allow read,write,execute,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:UserA inherited allow read,write,execute,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
 3: user:Shared-Folder2 inherited allow read,write,execute,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
Mini-Server:Raid Storage Admin-User$

You probably made a mistake and got the permutations wrong.

After creating a new share use the defaults and set the standard POSIX permissions for the group and everyone to "No Access". Then add the two users (here UserA and UserB) with the +-button.

Example: Shared-Folder1

In the Terminal it looks like this for all three folders:

host:~ admin$ sudo ls -lae /Volumes/Data/Shared-Folder1/
total 0
drwx------+  2 admin     staff  -  68 Oct 12 01:07 .
 0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 1: user:usera allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 2: user:userb allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxrwxr-x  11 admin  staff  - 442 Oct 12 01:11 ..

host:~ admin$ sudo ls -lae /Volumes/Data/Shared-Folder2/
total 0
drwx------+  2 admin     staff  -  68 Oct 12 01:07 .
 0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 1: user:userb allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 2: user:userc allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxrwxr-x  11 admin  staff  - 442 Oct 12 01:11 ..

host:~ admin$ sudo ls -lae /Volumes/Data/Shared-Folder3/
total 0
drwx------+  2 admin     staff  -  68 Oct 12 01:07 .
 0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 1: user:usera allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
 2: user:userc allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxrwxr-x  11 admin  staff  - 442 Oct 12 01:11 ..

If you try to access the share from a remote host as UserA it will look like this on a Mac:

and a Windows 10 host:


Looking for a 360° object view iPhone app I'm looking for a 360° iPhone app that models one object from either a level path around the object or perhaps even a true 360 view from any angle looking in at the object.

This is different than the usual panorama 360° that captures what you see from one point in all directions, but one that allows the illusion of a central object to move and not the point of view (camera) moving.

How about 123D Catch? It is free and allows you to turn your photos into a 3D object.

See a demo here.

I just recently found another one called Relievos.

  Relievos is a fun and creative tool that turns any picture into a 3D image, just like a sculpture.


How many lithium-ion batteries does a M1 MacBook Air (2020) have? I would like to ship a MacBook Air (M1 model released in 2020) from Japan to South Korea via EMS, but the EMS website says it is not possible to send a machine that has more than 2 lithium-ion batteries.
How many lithium-ion batteries the M1 MacBook Air contain? Also, does the adapter that one finds in the box have any lithium-ion batteries?

The answer is zero batteries in the adapter and the assembled laptop qualifies as UN 3481 product for shipping purposes.

The M1 Air has a built-in 49.9‑watt‑hour lithium‑polymer battery, so it falls under UN 3481, Section II IMP:ELI

To elaborate, you are shipping a computer (portable electronic equipment) that contains one battery with multiple cells and this assembly is regulated differently than loose batteries included in a box (or spare parts for repair of an Air).
Here is the relevant section from a 30 page guide from UPS.  Ask your carrier how they define portable electronic equipment if you are not sure if the shipping standard I have quoted doesn’t govern EMS website or staff.

https://www.ups.com/media/en/lithium_batteries_guidance.pdf


Unidentified hard disk space getting in OS X apps section Last night I got an issue with my MacBook Pro. After updating the OS to El Captain it shows the 50+ GB storage space for the Apps section. But after a couple of hours it shows 160 GB space. It's totally abnormal because OS capacity is not like 100+ GB, I didn't even install any other high capacity apps like Photoshop etc.. After I checked the forums thoroughly I installed an app called DaisyDisk to analyse the disk space. But the thing is it shows my filled hard disk space is 50 +GB . Now I'm struggling with these issue.

Actually I'm a newbie to the OS X operating systems. After long time scavenging through the forums I finally found a answer for that. Most of the people said it's a normal issue in the mac operating systems. It's because of the Spotlight indexing issue. If you guys have any trouble like this, use this method to solve your issues. I dropped here the link that I have found for my issue: Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac. Hope this will help.


Cannot alter MBP Power Management Settings I've got this problem where I can't alter some pmset values in Terminal.
I can change them, the changes are registered with pmset -g, but they are ignored.

Example:

pmset acwake 0

but Mac still wakes if unplugged.

pmset hibernatemode 0

but it still hibernates after a few hours of sleep.

I've reset PRAM and NVRAM. I've switched off SIP. I've moved on to pulling my hair out.

Any advice in terms of solutions or diagnostic options would be greatly appreciated.

Late 2012 13"MBP
2.9 GHz i7
OSX10.13.2
2 TB Crucial SSD
16 Gb RAM

I identified a serious problem between power management and sleep states management
in version 10.13.4 of MacOS X (I had regular crashes on sleep and hibernate exit: around 5 times a day, and files modifications lost).
I thoroughly tested 10.3.5 and Apple seems to have fixed many problems.
standby 1 isn't anymore causing a crash on encrypted filesystem on hybernate exit and on sleep exit,
acwake 0 is working as expected.
But lidwake 0 is still not working, thus potentially causing the MacBook Pro overheating in a bag around the lower part of the screen and the upper part of the keyboard.
The DestroyFVKeyOnStandby 1 isn't yet in the documentation and causes a crash on hibernate exit.
The documentation (man pmset) isn't appropriate for the pmset command:

some options aren't documented,
others aren't behaving as documented.

pmset -g pslog is pretty useful to understand this behaviour which is changed without notice and without documentation.
I advise you to download MacOS X 10.13.5 combo update
Now I recovered a MacBook Pro I could use to work.
NB: I didn't tested 10.13.0..3 nor 10.13.6 nor 10.14.... (nothing needed, not yet a free dayfull of work to waste on tests, and no time to spend for an editor who doesn't make a correct documentation).


How can I select all files within a directory with subfolders? I'm in the process of cleaning up my wickedly bad "Digital Photos" folder. I've got a workflow I like, but I need a better way of selecting the files. What I'd like to be able to do is select a top-level folder and somehow automagically select all the *.jpg files within both that folder AND any subfolders. I need to move all the *.jpg files to a single directory for easier processing, and having to do it one folder at a time after 10+ years of mis-matched filing systems is just taking way too long.

You could also restrict Spotlight to specific folders or file types and then move all the result files.


Adding a second monitor via ethernet My DisplayPort connection is buggy and will only work when in a position that I can't ever seem to find. I've sent it off to repairs and the guy said that the board connecting to the socket is cracked and needs to be replaced, but he couldn't find a new board to replace it with.

Because of that, I'm wondering if I can connect my MBP to my TV monitor using the other outputs on my MBP instead of using the DisplayPort. This has led me to this and has left me wondering, is it possible to just connect an ethernet cable from my mac into that and then my TV?

There is an option listed in the hardware settings of the Ethernet section in the network settings pane that mentions AVB/EAV Mode, which it apparently allows streaming audio / video over ethernet?

To me it sounds like it would work, but I want confirmation before I go out and buy these adapters.

I'm not sure if macOS supports video over AVB, I've only seen AVB audio products in use w/ macOS so far.

Probably a viable alternative would be to hook up an Apple TV to your TV and use it for display mirroring/extending via AirPlay.


Blutooth audio choppy during backup I use a Bluetooth speaker with a 2016 MacBook Pro. Sometimes the sound would become unlistenably choppy unless I moved the speaker as close as 1 m to the computer.  Normally I use it from a distance of 4-5 metres.

Finally, I discovered what triggers the problem: an in-progress Time Machine backup to a directly connected external hard drive. The sound becomes choppy only when the external disk is being used. It is not correlated with CPU usage, which is never high.

Is this behaviour expected? Is there anything I can do to maintain the quality of the Bluetooth connection even when running a backup?  Is the problem caused by radio interference from the hard drive, or some sort of "slowdown" of the computer (e.g. too many hardware interrupts)?

I should note that the speaker has a perfect Bluetooth connection to other devices (such as mobile phone), even when those devices are placed next to the computer during a running backup. This led me to believe that the problem is not simply due to radio interference, and gave me hope that there may be a fix.

This is one of those trial and error situations that you'll just have to explore.  I know for sure that Read/Write from backing up do consume both CPU and Memory. So if your backing up a ton of data and especially if your Hard Drive is the mechanical kind not SSD then in my experience playback of music from iTunes or files actually on the computer.
The only way to really know is first you must take out some variables. If your internet connection is solid use youtube or another streaming service so that we can somewhat negate the read/write of a file being played off the Hard Drive (buffering does do some of that for streaming but I'd wager not as much). Ok now to test!
1. Make sure your Mac has all it's updates and firmware updated. With very few exceptions all newer bluetooth revisions can speak with older bluetooth. Backwards compatible that is. But it would be good to make sure it's not an OS issue first.
2. If you have another bluetooth speaker try and recreate the issue by using it instead and then doing a backup.  If nothing happens then great you have just figured out that it's probably your bluetooth speaker that's failing somehow. (which would be weird but hey stranger things have happened) If it still cuts out move to step #3.
3. To figure out if interference is the cause get the longest cord you have that connects to your external backup and move it as far away from the Mac. Be sure to put it away from "line of sight" path of your bluetooth speaker.  Now do a backup. If it was the issue I'd really consider getting a new backup drive as that would be crazy that it was putting out that much interference.
I hope this gave you some guidance on maybe where to start. I know there wasn't a solution nor was there a bunch of technical OS stuff you could try because honestly there shouldn't be a correlation to bluetooth acting up when doing a backup between the OS and your speaker. I listen from a bluetooth speaker all day with 4 external backup drives and a ton of audio gear (grounded mind you but still making tons of interference).  So the only thing I can see it being is either speaker, OS or Hard Drive hurting while doing a backup so it can't play properly.


How to close all Finder inspector windows? In Finder, I had a ton of files selected, and I ran Get Info instead of Show Inspector. This opens an info window for each file, instead of a single multiple info window.

How can I close every info window without restarting Finder ?

You could also run this in AppleScript Editor:

tell application "Finder" to close every information window


External Monitor not detected after upgrade to Mojave 10.14.5 I have a MacBook Air 13-inch, 2018. I updated the software to Mojave 10.14.5 and the laptop has stopped recognizing the external monitor after the update. Is there a way out of this mess?

I've hit the same wall with both my old and new Mac Minis when I upgraded to 10.14.5 this week. They're both ok with the HDMI cable to the monitor (so at least one is useable), but don't play nice with the HDMI/VGA adaptor/cable that I've also used to enable a second feed to the screen.

Screen sharing between them is the only workaround, and I note this an issue with Mojave that pre-dates 10.14.5 (such as here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8625812 and here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/no-signal-on-external-displays-after-mojave-update-2018.2128056/).


Copy Time Machine network backup (SMB) to USB dirve I have Time Machine backup on SMB dirve (Synology). Now in order to restore it faster I would like to copy this backup into USB drive.

I've created GUID Partition and copied there folder MyBackuo.backupbundle.

Now when I boot into recovery mode and select "Restore from Time Machine Backup" it does not show my usb drive.

I can see this drive in /Volumes (from terminal)

Any help is appreciated.

I've found the problem..... I've created backup on latest OSX version and the computer where I wanted to restore it had older version. After updating to latest version all works fine.


How do I install gnu sc on my mac? I want to install the command line spreadsheet sc.  I would prefer to do with homebrew.  I need both psc and sc commands.  Is there a homebrew package?  If not other methods would be good.

Your wish is my command!

Homebrew Formula: sc.rb

I'll try to get the formula merged into homebrew proper sometime this week.

In the meantime, you can simply:

brew install https://gist.github.com/geoff-codes/d8c16ada1de10e6387b3/raw/sc.rb


After enabling iOS COVID exposure notifications, why was I not prompted to enable Bluetooth? After enabling COVID exposure notifications on my iPhone, I was not prompted to enable Bluetooth which was turned off in the control center at the time. I thought Bluetooth need to be on for this service to work.
If I turn off Bluetooth, will this service stop working?
iPhone 11
iOS 14.2
This is about the new exposure notification service that does not require a separate app to work (like it did previously). These are the "exposure notifications" built into iOS that were not available prior to iOS 14.

I would go back to basics. How are you disabling Bluetooth? The radio is active for system services in almost all cases and I would expect enabling COVID 19 exposure notifications implies that each device hardware listens and broadcasts on a separate hardware channel than any other Bluetooth emanation or pairing.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/10/ios-11s-misleading-ish-setting-bluetooth-and-wi-fi-bad-user-security
https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/current/static/contact-tracing/pdf/ExposureNotification-BluetoothSpecificationv1.2.pdf

Both Google and Apple have the same design document up and someone with a Bluetooth sniffer could validate this as well.


Is it possible to update the itunes without updating Xcode? I am having updates for both itunes and xcode in the App store.

When I click update to itunes, it asks me to close both the itunes and xcode.
I don't want to update xcode.

Is it possible update the itunes without updating Xcode?

What will happen if I click continue on the below image?

If you have both iTunes and Xcode installed, Xcode needs to be closed to update iTunes even if Xcode itself is not getting updated. There are some dependencies between iTunes and Xcode for app provisioning and such and closing Xcode ensures that the installation will run through.

All that you need to do it quit iTunes and Xcode to make the update continue. Xcode will not get updated from the Store by that.

By the way, if you're not a developer, consider to remove Xcode from your Mac to save space and hassles.


Copy an iPhone's disk contents (filesystem) to a computer I like to get a clear view at how an iPhone's file system. Especially in the case of damaged data.

Apart from using a professional (and costly) data recovery service, what other ways do exist to transfer (dump) the disk data from an iPhone to a computer.

In particular, what options are there when the disk data is damaged to the point that it can't boot iOS any more, i.e. when the iPhone is in recovery mode but can not reboot, even with a tool such as iRecovery).

I am not looking into breaking into someone else's data here. Assume that I know the iPhone locking password (I understand that this user-settable code is not the actual encryption key, but I hope that there is a way to get to the key when knowing the password).

I am quite proficient with low level disk formats (partitions, HFS, etc.), for instance, I've written a disk editor (iBored), that's why I like to look at what's actually stored on the disk.

One way to copy the data is to jailbreak the iOS device, then using a terminal program on the device or log in via ssh from a remote computer, then copy the data with the dd command, as explained here. But that only works if

The iOS is bootable and
The iOS can be jailbroken.

So, this is not the answer I am looking for but it's still an option that fits the above question, somewhat.


iPhone 6 upgraded to iOS 10 and now Outlook calendar not syncing I have a Micosoft Outlook 2013 calendar account synched on my iPhone.  Since I upgraded the iPhone to iOS 10.0.1, the calendar is not upating.  I tried changing the calendar setting from push to fetch and back, and turning off the calendar in the account and re-adding it and neither worked.  Email for the same account is updating routinely with no issues.  It has been nearly 2 days, and because turning the calendar account temporarily off wiped the old data and it has not synched since I turned it back on again, I have nothing.  Please help me!

It looks like a minor iOS bug preventing iPhone from working with Outlook data. I think the best way is to wait for a week or two till Apple will fix the problem in one of the upcoming updates.

If you need to solve this issue asap, try Akruto: http://www.akruto.com/sync-iphone-with-outlook/

It works like an Exchange server, so if that wouldn't work that means Apple messed up with Exchange ActiveSync technology in iOS 10.0.1 and you still need to wait for a new iOS release.


How to set cumulative Screen Time Allowances? I am setting up screen time with parental controls for our family.
I would like to grant the following allowance to a user:

All apps and categories: 30mins
Camera app + 15mins
Photos app + 15mins

What happens now is that the "All apps" allowance seems to include camera and photo time – even if the user hasn't touched camera in 30 minutes of usage, access is blocked after this time. So it seems to rather read:

All apps and categories: 30mins
-- of which:
-- Camera app not more than 15mins
-- Photos app not more than 15mins

This is not what I intended. But I also don't want to fully allow Camera and Photos. How can I add time for a specific app "on top" of the general allowance?

Not sure if it's always been like that, but with current macOS Catalina 10.15 it's possible to combine app groups. Just DON'T use "All apps".

The first limit is "Everything" (all groups except social networks), the second limit is "social networks". This will then be added.

Also, it has become very easy to select single apps:


iTunes Sync Error: iPhone cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (-54) Starting up iTunes on my Windows 8.1 computer to sync iPhone 4 via USB immediately brings up the error message:

  The iPhone can't be synced. An unknown error occurred (-54)

Any ideas how to overcome the error?

Error -54 is a file permissions issue.
Here are a couple of methods to reset common errors...
Fix the iTunes folder permissions
Open the Start menu & type %userprofile% (including both % symbols) then hit Enter you should see the My Music folder, which is the default location for iTunes music files.
Open My Music, select the iTunes folder
Then, make sure you have sufficient control over the contents of that folder -

right-click on the folder, go to Properties
Security tab, Advanced..
Permissions tab, Change Permissions...
click your account name in the list, make sure it says 'Full Control' [if not, reply to that effect & we will need to revise this answer]
check the box underneath for "Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object"
click OK. That should recursively give correct permissions right down the folder hierarchy.

Try your sync again…

Additional method, if the first doesn't work…
Restore TrustedInstaller permissions

Right click on the file or directory.
Click on “Properties” on the right click menu.
Click on “Security” tab.
Click on “Advanced” button at the bottom.
In Advanced Security Dialog window, click on “Owner” tab.
Here you will be able to see current owner (i.e. Trusted Installer).
To take ownership of the object, click on the Edit button. Give permission to UAC. Then highlight the user name in the “Change owner to” box that you want to assign as the owner for the object. Click “OK” to finish the process.
Back in Advanced Security Settings window, you will see the current owner has changed to the user you just selected.
Click “OK” button to exit this window.
Click “OK” again to exit completely from the Properties window.
Repeat step 1 to 4 to open the object’s Properties window again.
Back in object’s Properties window, click on Edit button, and confirm the UAC elevation request.
Highlight the Administrators in the “Group or user names” box. If the user ID or group that you want to manage the permissions for the object doesn’t exist, click on “Add” button, and type in the user name or group name desired into the “Enter object names to select (Can use Everyone as user Name)” box, and finish off by clicking on “OK”.
In the Permissions for Administrators box below (or any other user name or group name you chose), click on “Full Control” under the “Allow” column to assign full access rights control permissions to Administrators group.
Also refer this link
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Troubleshoot-access-denied-when-opening-files-or-folders

Update June 2016
Apparently, the layout of the perms windows has changed in Win 8 & later - see
Set Folder Permissions in Windows 8 or 8.1 Computer or
How to Take Full Ownership of Files & Folders in Windows 8 / 10 for further info.
If neither of the above methods works...
There is a utility called Windows Repair (All-in-One) by tweaking.com which I would highly recommend for a non-expert way to ensure Windows has all its correct defaults.
It is not any kind of "go-faster" tool, it doesn't speed up your machine in some 'magical' way. It just makes sure everything is as it should be. It won't break anything, so long as you follow the instructions precisely.
The free version is all you need, though personally I bought the pro version just to reward the author. [I have no affiliation, it's just saved my neck enough times to be worth recommending]


Airport extreme after linsys router not finding my synology disc/sonos system My airport extreme is configured as bridge after a linksys (wifi) router. Using the airport I don't see the shared folders on my synology(DSM 4.2) in finder, except by connecting through the IP. This also means timemachine doesn't work using the airport network. Synology has fixed ip in network. Using the linksys wifi network or networkcable everything works fine. Same problem for my sonos system that isn't discovered  through the airport network except after switching to the linksys network first.

Your AirPort Extreme will need to "control" the network in order for this setup the way you expect. The Linksys would have to be configured as a bridge with the AirPort Extreme as the router/DHCP server.

Do not that the way you have things setup currently, Time Machine will still work; however you will need to connect to the server/disk by IP address. Other features like Bonjour Sleep Proxy and Back To My Mac just won't work.


Syncing photos doesn't appear to do anything I have a ton of photos on my iPhone (4S, although most were taken with my previous 3G). I am trying to sync them to my computer (Windows Vista) but they are not appearing there.

I went to my iPhone in iTunes, clicked the "Photos" tab at the top and selected a folder. After synching, that folder now has a subfolder "iPod Photo Cache" with one file "Photo Database" that is 892 bytes.

Where are the photos? Do I need to do something different to actually copy the photos to this folder?

The "photos" tab in iTunes is for syncing photos on your computer to your iPhone. To download the photos off your iPhone, use some software that downloads photos off cameras, such as Windows Photo Gallery.


Saving .htacess passwords on iPad I know it is possible to save form username/passwords on the iPad's Safari browser. The thing I can't do is to save .htaccess username and passwords. In case you don't know what those are, it's when a webpage is protected and you can't even see the page without authenticating. It usually displays a popup window so you can authenticate.

Is it possible to save this type of credentials?

This is HTTP Authentication and the iPad cannot "remember" the credentials of these sorts of logins.  It has no problems with a normal web form however.

If you are happy to have your username and password stored in plain text on a bookmark in Safari however, there is a way to allow you to login without filling out those details again.

Just visit the site with the following formatted url :

http://username:password@domain.com/

Rememer to change the 3 obvious variables (username, password and domain).  This should log you straight in.  You can save this as a book mark and then use that going forward.

The username and password must be URL encoded if they contain any special characters.

Just remember that anyone who picks up your iPad could view the bookmarks and see the clear text username and password, so I wouldn't use this on your banks website :)

Hope this helps.


Is there a way to control ringer volume with siri? I can't get siri to change the ringer volume. When I ask "increase the ringer volume" (or anything similar) I get the answer "You don't seem to be playing anything at the moment".

Siri can't change the phone's ringer volume.

Here's a good list of commands you can use with Siri.


MAMP installation change password I changed the root user password in phpMyAdmin and now it cannot connect to the database. Does anyone know where, in the MAMP folder structure, where to hardcode the new password in?

Inside: /Applications/MAMP/bin/phpMyAdmin, there is a file named config.inc.php.

Inside of that file in your favorite text editor, you should be able to search for $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] and then modify the text in single quotes. (Which is 'root' by default.) Change that to whatever you changed your password to, ensure it's quoted as necessary, and refresh. You should instantly be connected!


How do I access the built-in dictionaries on iOS without hitting "Define..."? Right now, when I need to check a word in the dictionary, I open Notes, type in something, select the word and hit "Define..."

I'd like to directly type in a word and check something, similar to how I can just type stuff into Spotlight & look up definitions in OS X.

How do I do this?

This is currently not possible. Apple also forbids third party developers to create a simple wrapper around the dictionary, which means that there will probably not be any applications that do just that. There are, however, several other third party dictionaries which are quite good.

A UIReferenceLibraryViewController object provides a dictionary service to look up the definition of a word or term from within an app. It should not be used to display wordlists, create a standalone dictionary app, or republish the content in any form.

According to this answer Can iOS' builtin dictionary be accessed/browsed as an independent app? you can download the application DictionaryPlusPlus, which does just that, here https://github.com/josh-/DictionaryPlusPlus, it is open source and you will have to compile and sign it yourself.


sudoers Entry Won't Take Big Sur won't take my user entry into sudoers for some reason.  I've used both sudo visudo and nano and the entry remains.  Here's the entry:
phil            ALL = (ALL) ALL

I test it with sudo echo alpha and it asks me for my password.
Anybody know what I'm doing wrong? I can't live this way.

Yes, you should get asked for your password when you use sudo, based on the entry in sudoers you've posted - it's asking for your password to raise privilege to make sure it is really you. This is expected behaviour.
If you enter your password, and it then works, your sudoers entries are valid.


How to extract keyboard layout icon I need to get those flag icons:

Question is How do I do it?

As far I've tried :

searching the web for them (duh..),
extracting them from Ukelele package (only non-retina ones are there),
(Unsuccessfully) trying to extract it from this file: /System/Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/AppleKeyboardLayouts.bundle/Contents/Resources/AppleKeyboardLayouts-L.dat

Either pointing me to this resource or any hint on how to "open" this .dat file will be really helpful. Thanks!

You can use apple-kbd-dat-icon-extract.py from https://github.com/phible/scripts:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/phible/scripts/master/apple-kbd-dat-icon-extract.py -o a.py;mkdir icons;python a.py -o icons


How do you move ALL the data from an old drive to a new drive So, I'm going to replace the drive in a mid-2012 macbook pro with an ssd. What would be the easiest way to transfer all the data (files) from the drive to the ssd? Is it possible to have all the programs transfer over also? Do I have to reinstall the OS?

Provided you have an enclosure for the HDD or SSD that you can connect via USB, you could use a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner. (CCC has a 30-day trial and is $39.99 to purchase after that. I've had good experience with CCC, but other free or paid utilities may work better for you.)

The convenient part of using CCC or another utility is that it can make the disk bootable, which is required for swapping the disks like you are asking. If you don't make the disk bootable, it won't boot.

If you don't have an enclosure, you can use an empty external hard drive as a middleman. Use your utility to make a bootable copy of your HDD on your external drive, physically swap out the HDD and SSD, boot to macOS from the external drive, then make a bootable copy from the external drive to the new SSD.

If you don't have an external drive or an enclosure, you may have to reinstall macOS and all your other applications and replace your data.


Loginwindow tried to hijack service? I was looking at my system.log for another issue I was trying to fix, and noticed after a reboot that I had a service hijack attempt, I then noticed that the process that was trying to hijack was called loginwindow.107. Below is the terminal output for relevant lines in system.log:

Nick@MacBook-Pro:/var/log$ cat system.log | grep loginwindow
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.loginwindow.107.4294967295): Service sets EnableTransactions=false and EnablePressuredExit=true, which makes no sense. Enabling Transactions.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.loginwindow.107.4294967295): Service sets EnableTransactions=false and EnablePressuredExit=true, which makes no sense. Enabling Transactions.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.loginwindow.107.4294967295): Service sets EnableTransactions=false and EnablePressuredExit=true, which makes no sense. Enabling Transactions.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.loginwindow.107.4294967295): Service sets EnableTransactions=false and EnablePressuredExit=true, which makes no sense. Enabling Transactions.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.loginwindow.107.4294967295): com.apple.noticeboard.agent: EnablePressuredExit is not compatible with KeepAlive=true. Ignoring EnablePressuredExit.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.loginwindow.107.4294967295): Service sets EnableTransactions=false and EnablePressuredExit=true, which makes no sense. Enabling Transactions.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.loginwindow.107.4294967295): Service sets EnableTransactions=false and EnablePressuredExit=true, which makes no sense. Enabling Transactions.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP loginwindow[107]: objc[107]: Class AMSupportURLConnectionDelegate is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/MobileDevice (0x7fffb5eca6e0) and /usr/lib/libFDR_osx.dylib (0x10ac56ad8). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Mar  5 02:46:43 NicksMBP loginwindow[107]: objc[107]: Class AMSupportURLConnectionDelegate is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/MobileDevice (0x7fffb5eca6e0) and /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/EmbeddedOSInstall.framework/EmbeddedOSInstall (0x10abbfde8). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
Mar  5 02:46:51 MacBook-Pro loginwindow[107]: USER_PROCESS: 107 console
Mar  5 02:46:51 MacBook-Pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.501.100007.Aqua): Caller tried to hijack service: path = /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.pluginkit.pkd.plist, caller = loginwindow.107
Mar  5 02:46:51 MacBook-Pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.501.100007.Aqua): Caller tried to hijack service: path = /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.storeinstallagent.plist, caller = loginwindow.107
Mar  5 02:46:51 MacBook-Pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.501.100007.Aqua): Caller tried to hijack service: path = /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.trustd.agent.plist, caller = loginwindow.107
Nick@MacBook-Pro:/var/log$

Is this normal? Can someone help me understand what is happening here?

This is normal and something that Apple clears up most of the time and is almost always harmless when it’s Apple code dropping two versions of the library.

See this other example - How to fix the error: "AppleSpell" tried to hijack endpoint "it (Apple)_OpenStep" from owner?

XPC is an inter-process call where one part of a program calls out to another to do something, so these frameworks have a default location - see the actual warning that the same “name” is defined in two places, so Apple would patch that up going forward when you apply updates.

I’d focus on anything actually not working and then we can dig into it - you could get breakage if older code calls a newer version, so perhaps Apple shipped this during a transition period from older usage to a newer implementation.


Does FileVault hurt responsiveness on a spinning HDD? I have a 5k iMac (Late 2015), with a spinning hard disc, running El Capitan.

I'm considering enabling FileVault, but I'm concerned if it will hurt responsiveness. Will it? I understand that it doesn't on a SSD, but this machine has a spinning hard disc.

Once the initial encryption has finished you are very unlikely to notice any difference in day-to-day usage.

Your iMac's CPU also contains specific features that assist with encryption (AES).


El Capitan: Strange folder names on Synology NAS We've upgraded some MacBooks to El Capitan, all the workstations here are connected to a NAS through AFP. All upgraded workstations now show a small amount of folders with strange names like;

SBAK7C~3
GE3HHX~F
DWBENE~Y

These folders are still accessible for El Capitan. The non-El Capitan (Yosemite) workstations show the normal names.

What could be wrong?

Are you sure that all workstations are connected via AFP?

I bet you get the strange folder names because of mangled names = yes (the default) in the samba server configuration. Check Synology bad filenames or Samba name mangling for more information. One solution is to disable SMB on the NAS another is to force OS X to connect via AFP e.g. afp://user@servername/folder via "Finder->Go->Connect to Server".

Of course you can set mangled names = no in the Samba configuration but this creates problems when you connect via SMB to the server.

Samba (SMB) creates the strange names when the file or pathname contains the characters / ? < > \ : * | ", with AFP it's not a problem to read or write file or pathnames with these characters but not with SMB (Samba).

Since Mavericks (10.9) Apple prefers the SMB protocol over the AFP protocol, check Mavericks Core Technology Overview PDF for more information. For Mavericks (10.9) it is SMB2, for Yosemite (10.10) and El Capitan (10.11) it is SMB3.

From the PDF-Dokument:

  SMB2 is the new default protocol for sharing files in OS X Mavericks.
  SMB2 is superfast, increases security, and improves Windows
  compatibility.

So the future is SMB3 not AFP but the problem is that you have already files with the characters / ? < > \ : * | " somewhere on the NAS because with AFP it was not a problem to create such files but when you read these files via SMB you get the mangled names, so first you have to fix the filenames via AFP or go directly on the NAS (via ssh) and fix the filenames there.

Better is a newer version of the Samba-Server >= 4.2 (maybe with DSM 6.0 from Synology?) with the module vfs_fruit which adds Apples SMB2+ extension to Samba. SMB on the Synology NAS is slow for Macs because of the missing module vfs_fruit (and because the Samba-Server has the version 4.1). So if you use only Macs, turn off SMB on the Synology NAS and use AFP only (for the moment) but if you need SMB on the Synology NAS, well... fix the filenames, turn off AFP and try SMB but... test if the speed of the SMB share is good enough for you.


How do I know which Bluetooth chipset is being used by the iphone? How do I know which Bluetooth chipset is being used by the iPhone 11. I would like to know if the Bluetooth chip has changed between iPhone 11 series and iPhone 12 series.
I know I can get the Bluetooth version from apple website. But I would like to get mode details including the chipset manufacturer, model number etc.

I would like to know if the Bluetooth chip has changed between iPhone 11 series and iPhone 12 series

The chip is likely to be slightly different than last year's model due to the natural progression of technology, but the vendors are likely to be the same.  Since 5G is being rolled out, that increases the odds of the chip itself being different.
Broadcom strikes $15 billion deal with Apple to sell it iPhone parts

I would like to get mode details including the chipset manufacturer, model number etc.

A tear down is always a good source for this type of info

Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max Teardown
iPhone 12 teardown reveals simpler internal design, 5G radio details

Keep in mind it has been Apple's prerogative and practice to obfuscate this information so while you might get model numbers, you may not be able to access data sheets on these chips due to contractual agreements.


Trying to find the /etc/resolve I'm trying to connect a Macbook Air running 10.8.4 to a Windows 2008 R2 server. I have run into trouble as we use a company.local.
I think this may be the problem: http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/01/04/mac-os-x-and-local-domains/.

So, I have gone into terminal and typed open /private and navigated to the etc folder but can not find a resolve folder, only a resolv.conf file.

How do I go about adding the name server?

That is a 7 year old link!  Try just opening the resolv.conf file which is a text file that contains a list of DNS servers.  It may be blank, in which case you can just add lines using the following format as an example:

nameserver 172.16.1.254
nameserver 172.16.2.254

Check this link for a bit more


Is it possible to stop the execution of a script temporarily on macOS? I have a Python script that learns a Deep Learning model. It takes so much time to execute (usually more than 6 hours).

Now, the problem is it is MacBook Pro and I frequently go out with it, and sometimes cafes lack outlets. In such cases the Mac is going to run out just in 90 minutes even from 100% battery, as the Python program uses all the resources available.

I would rather like to stop or at least restrict the program while I'm on cafes without charging the laptop, and later make it start learning again. Is this possible in macOS? I use High Sierra.

If executed from the shell you can type

CTRL + Z

this will send the "terminal stop" signal (SIGTSTP) to the process and the system  won't schedule any more CPU time to the process.

You can then restart it by typing

fg

on the same shell.


How to really exclude Time Machine Backups from Spotlight-indexing? I try to exclude my TimeMachine-backup-storage from being indexed by spotlight and got some weird behaviour. The backup storage is a Time Capsule.
To exclude it, i did the following in terminal:
sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups

Output was:
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups:
2016-04-25 11:05:25.036 mdutil[2896:441987] mdutil disabling Spotlight: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
     Indexing and searching disabled.

Seems pretty fine. But when switching spotlight-indexing from on to off, the following lines will be printed out indicating, that the Time Machine subfolder for my machine will still be enabled for being indexed:

(The spoton-command is an alias for "sudo mdutil -a -i on")
However, i tried to exclude also explicitly the subfolder "Backups.backupdb":
sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb

The weird output is:
$ sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb:
2016-04-25 11:05:28.815 mdutil[2914:442054] mdutil disabling Spotlight: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
    Indexing enabled.

Please note: "Indexing enabled".

In preferences pane of Spotlight one can see, that the Time Machine Drive is excluded as expected:

My Questions:
Is the output just a "wrong" output since the parent folder is disabled for spotlight? Or is the spotlight index essentially for TimeMachine to work properly? And if both questions will be answered with "No", how to finally stop spotlight from index my time machine backups?

According to Apple, at https://web.archive.org/web/20180101183140/https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21902?locale=en_US

If you add a Time Machine backup disk to the privacy list, you will
continue to see messages that Spotlight is indexing your backup disk.
This indexing is necessary for Time Machine to function properly and
can’t be disabled. Spotlight does exclude from searches any items you
store on your backup disk that are not part of a Time Machine backup.


Can't see logical Windows NTFS partition in OS X I have already asked this question over here

https://superuser.com/questions/323414/cant-see-logical-windows-ntfs-partition-in-os-x

and I got one answer thats satisfying but risky to attempt such action, so anyone else can up with less risky alternative?

Mac OS X does not natively support RW access to NTFS partitions.

You'll need a combination of MacFUSE:

http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

and Amit Singh's NTFS RW driver:

http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/


Can I remove the "Log Out" item from the Apple menu? Is it possible to remove "Log Out" from the Apple Menu? I know there used to be a tool that let you customize the Apple Menu (can't remember the name) but I doubt it's still working on Lion.

Preferably I'd like a Terminal command or something.

I've been looking at removing the Sleep and Shut Down options from the Apple Menu on our lab Macs. My focus was OS X 10.7.3.

I found that just removing the objects, as Daniel Lawson has suggested, also caused the Apple menu to crash when I clicked it.

After closer examination, I noticed that there were references to the Shut Down and Sleep objects elsewhere in the objects.xib file. After I removed both the objects and the references, the Apple menu behaved as expected, and did not show the Shut Down and Sleep options.

Here are my changes to the 10.7.3 objects.xib file:

File:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/StandardMenus.nib/objects.xib

Changes:

# diff objects.xib ../StandardMenus.nib.ORIG/objects.xib
185a186,189
>         <object class="IBCarbonMenuItem" id="236">
>           <string name="title">Sleep</string>
>           <ostype name="command">slep</ostype>
>         </object>
196a201,212
>         <object class="IBCarbonMenuItem" id="238">
>           <string name="title">Shut Down…</string>
>           <boolean name="dynamic">TRUE</boolean>
>           <boolean name="notPreviousAlternate">TRUE</boolean>
>           <ostype name="command">rsdn</ostype>
>         </object>
>         <object class="IBCarbonMenuItem" id="285">
>           <string name="title">Shut Down</string>
>           <boolean name="dynamic">TRUE</boolean>
>           <int name="keyEquivalentModifier">1572864</int>
>           <ostype name="command">shut</ostype>
>         </object>
242a259
>     <reference idRef="236"/>
358a376
>     <reference idRef="285"/>
401a420
>     <reference idRef="238"/>


How can I get all my open TextEdit documents back? I have a bad habit of having zillions of open documents in TextEdit, containing brief notes that I've made. Most of these are unsaved, so they have titles like "Untitled 67".

Usually this isn't a problem, because if my Macbook crashes and reboots, TextEdit restores its state, and the unsaved files are not lost. However, just now I rebooted on purpose, and TextEdit gave me a dialogue asking if I wanted to quit with unsaved changes. I clicked "save and quit" (or words to that effect) and my machine rebooted.

Unfortunately, upon re-opening TextEdit, there are no longer any documents open. The "Recent documents" menu has only ten entries, but I had well over fifty open before I quit.

How can I get these "untitled" files back? Ideally I would like to restore the state of TextEdit, so that they will still be open windows (I close them once the issue has been dealt with), but if I can at least get back the one called "Untitled 8" it would be a big help. Since I did click "save and quit" I would hope it would be saved somewhere, but where?

The answers to Unsaved Files in OS X Lion suggest that the unsaved files can be found in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.TextEdit/Data/Library/Autosave Information/. However, on my system that folder is empty. In any case, manually messing around in ~/Library doesn't seem like the right solution to this problem, and strikes me as a recipe for disaster. If I could find the autosave files I could copy them somewhere else, but then they wouldn't be unsaved files anymore, and it would all get a bit confusing. Given what most users would expect from "save and quit", I'm hoping there will be a more "official" way to get these documents back.

I'm using Mountain Lion if it makes any difference.

I searched in Spotlight as well, using the term “Untitled” and reopened all the Rich Text Format documents from iCloud. Yes, it was unnerving that these are all in the cloud but I am grateful that I was able to recover them all. And now I have the task of saving 120 untitled docs!


Microsoft Wireless 900 Desktop and iMac running 10.11.6 Will this desktop setup work with the iMac running 10.11.6?

It "should" work.  From the technical specifications page:

Computer
Requires a PC that meets the requirements for and has installed one of
these operating systems:

Windows 10 / 8 / 7
Mac OS X v10.4 – 10.7

It's just an USB HID (Human Interface Device).  Now, there may be certain keyboard/mouse functions that are not available due to the limited availability.


Malware and Viruses on Mac In most of the places, the Mac computers are protected against the malware and viruses, but not all of them. This means that even Mac computers may be infected with these dangerous things.

How can we understand that mac computer is infected with a malware or virus ? This is very easy for the computer with windows operating system because antivirus programs detect all dangerous things in the computer. On the other hand, anybody do not advise me to install a Mac protecter program because most of them are malware itself.

It's generally upto you to keep a watch for any suspicious activity on your Mac to detect presence of a malware or virus. If you are tech savvy and follow news around Apple, you should be able to hear about any newly discovered threat. Apple software engineering team is quite prompt and quickly releases patches fixing any newly uncovered serious iOS and macOS threats.

It is highly recommended to always keep your OS up to date.


Unused iPhone 5 not restarting I powered off my old iPhone 5 after getting the iPhone 6 six months ago. Today, I tried to turn it on and the iPhone will not start.

Even when you switch off you iPhone the system clock draws power from the battery to keep the time and date function on your phone. Addionally the clock needs much lower voltage to keep working while the kernel on iphone wont work or even display the "charging" graphic until a minimum threshold of voltage is reached by the battery.

I would suggest charging a minimum of 30 mins from a wall charger.
Also note, the older iphone including the iPhone 5 do not charge with USB 3.0 ports (0.95A) so avoid doing this with a newer laptop with USB 3.0 port as there wont be an indicator to let you know that its actually not charging.
I hope this helps and answers your question.


iPhone SE: USB sound input -> bluetooth speaker? I would like to hear the output from my old turntable in my bluetooth speaker through an iPhone or iPad.  I need help on how to get it working.

I have an iPhone SE, a bluetooth speaker which is paired with the iPhone (music works), a UFO202 USB RIAA amplifier connected with a newly purchased Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter (to have enough power for the USB device and also keep the phone charged)

I can hear the audio when the UFO202 is attached to my MacBook Pro (and transmit it if the Mac is paired with the speaker).

I installed Garageband on the iPhone and the UFO202 appears to be recognized as Garageband send modified sound back into the UFO202 (which I can hear in the headphone jack there).  This did not appear to send anything over bluetooth but I am not familiar with Garageband.

So the only piece missing is how I can make the iPhone take the USB input sound and send to the bluetooth speaker?  Can Garageband do it?  Memos?  Do I need a third part app?

Audiobus v3 has been launched and this may be all you need.

The app already supports Garageband (along with hundreds of others) and they provide an SDK (software development kit) for other app developers. This too has been updated to support new functionality included in version 3.

What I do know

I know of someone who owns the Behringer UCA202 (not the Behringer UFO202) and has used that to route incoming audio from a guitar via a genuine Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter to an iPad 4 and then outputting that audio via GarageBand using the Audiobus app.
While it's not the same Behringer unit as you have, my understanding is that the only real difference is that the Behringer UFO202 you have foregoes the digital stereo out to provide a switchable PHONO input for old turntables such as yours.
Also, I remember them having issues at first until they used a genuine Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter. They couldn't get it to work with a cheaper 3rd party adapter.

What I don't know

Whether this person has ever used this process to route the audio from the iPad to an external Bluetooth speaker. This is something I will try to determine.
The only other thing I'm not 100% certain of is whether they used anything else to get this to work, but from memory it was just a combination of the Behringer UCA202, a genuine Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter, the Audiobus app and GarageBand.

If that's the case, then you should find that what you want to do is possible with Audiobus and GarageBand.

[Update]

Okay, this is what I've since learnt after originally posting this answer.

As I mentioned previously, I know of someone who owns a Behringer UCA202. Now, it seems they did try for a little while to route music to a Bluetooth speaker, but with mixed (mainly not good) results. They tried doing this via Audiobus directly and in conjunction with other apps.

This prompted direct contact with Audiobus support and below is a quote from the support email they got back:

  Sorry, Audiobus does not play well with Bluetooth speakers. I cannot
  recommend using Audiobus for this use case. Bluetooth audio is always
  terrible for live audio, because it adds latency. That’s why we’re not
  supporting it. Any wired speaker will do - they don’t have any issues.

As routing music wasn't their main use case (they were mainly interested in recording guitars), they didn't pursue it. However, if I was in your shoes, it may be worth trying Audiobus in conjunction with a 3.5mm to Bluetooth transmitter. I'd wait for Audiobus 3 to be released first, and then I'd look at transmitters such as this. (Note: This is just one I picked at random - I have no affiliation with the seller or product).

My thinking is that Audiobus will see something like this as a wired speaker and that this could result in you achieving what you want.

Obviously, only you can decide whether the costs of buying the app and transmitter are worth the expense, especially since it's purely to experiment with and with no guarantee of success.

Hopefully someone else will come up with a confirmed solution, but if not this may be it. All the best with it.


I can't record my voice using GarageBand, but can still record instruments I installed v2.0.7 of GarageBand to my iPad a few months ago.

I've just tried recording my voice using the audio option and it told me I did not have enough free storage. However, I can still record using the other instruments provided by GarageBand, so space doesn't seem to be the issue.

How can I troubleshoot this to determine why I can't do a voice recording using GarageBand?

I'm assuming the Instruments are already-loaded samples, you're just lining up along a track, or as a midi track to fire single note samples.

If so, that requires very little additional storage - the samples are already there, it just needs to remember what order they go in.

An actual audio recording, on the other hand, is going to eat about 5MB data per minute, mono, or 10MB/m stereo.


In the event of a Jailbreak, Which I'm considering, What website/s should I trust? And do the risks out weigh the benefits? Some of my friends have jailbroken their Apple devices, but I'm not sure myself. Here, I'll give you some background info: I got my Ipod 4th Gen. as a Christmas present last year from my parents, and I am extremely reluctant about messing up my device. I have recently updated my Ipod to Version 5.1/ iOS 5, and I have done some reading on multiple sites, stating that they have just jailbroken that software. I've seen the benefits of jailbroken Ipods, but I terrified about messing up my device. Please notify me of trusted websites and useful information. Thanks!

You shouldn't be too worried about it. I've jailbroken lots of iPhones and iPods and nothing has gone horribly wrong. Most if not everything is reversible so don't worry. As for places to go, redmondpie.com has a good guide, lifehacker.com also has one. Most of the things that you find on the Internet are good as long as they aren't asking you to pay for it. blog.iphone-dev.org is the official dev-team site so that's always a good starting place.


Problems with Internet connection on my Mac - Gmail, calendar and Skype work but some websites will not open I am using OS X Yosemite version 10.10 on my iMac.

For about a week now, I've had problems with my Internet connection. I am connected via ethernet. I can use Gmail, Skype and Google Calendar without problems but when I access other websites, I often get "website doesn't respond" kind of answer. It helps when I restart the computer but the problem returns after a while.

When I do the diagnostic test in System Preferences > Network > Assist me, it tells me that all is fine with my connection. I also tried to restart my router but that did not help either. Other devices that work on wifi (iPad, Dell laptop) work fine on the same Internet network. Also, when I switch connection from Ethernet to wifi, it is the same problem again.

I followed the advice given by Martín Marconcini to this question on the forum: "I cannot connect to internet but my MacBook Pro detects the network and my HP computer works fine on the same network" (Jun 30 '12 at 9:33) but it did not solve the issue. When I go to TCP/IP I see that I am using DHCP. Following the advice by  Martín Marconcini I changed my DNS to 8.8.8.8. So that is what I see in the DNS tab now (the others I had there disappeared). Also, everything is unchecked in the Proxies tab.

My IP address is: 192.168.0.13. Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 Router: 192.168.0.1.

This could be caused by Path MTU Discovery.

Test by changing MTU

To test this, go to System Preferences > Network, click on Ethernet then Advanced... and finally select the Hardware tab.

In there, you should see a Configure option and the drop down menu next to it most likely is set to Automatic. Choose Manual then you'll see the other options become available. Leave all options as they are, but change the bottom one, MTU, from Standard (1500) to Custom and in the field that shows up below type 1400.

Accept all changes and see if you have any more success while browsing.

Test using ping in Terminal

A more definitive test you can do is in the Terminal.app and using the ping command.

If the website that gives you trouble has a URL http://www.troublesomewebsite.com/, you can do the following:

Ping the website by typing: ping www.troublesomewebsite.com. If you get responses, proceed to the next point below; if not, replace the www.troublesomewebsite.com with an address of another website you're having issues with and repeat.
When you find a site that does respond, type the following command and see if you get responses: ping -s 1472 -D www.troublesomewebsite.com. If you DO get responses, then it's NOT a Path MTU Discovery issue.
If you DON'T get responses, decrease the number 1472 to say 1464 and run the command again, like so: ping -s 1464 -D www.troublesomewebsite.com. Keep doing that until you start getting responses. Most likely, if this IS the PMTUd problem, you should get responses again with the packet size set to somewhere between 1464-1456 bytes. Add 28 to the number at which you start getting the responses and that's the MTU you can set on your computer to work around your issue.

Background Information

Path MTU discovery is a mechanism that manifests itself by frequent and seemingly intermittent timeouts when browsing some websites but not others. This has to do with misconfigured firewall rules on the website side, which prevent ICMP traffic to go through, specifically the ICMP unreachable message. That in turn breaks the pmtud behaviour, which is how most of the TCP/IP stacks have been working for at least the last 20 years or so.

The MTU becomes an issue especially if your broadband connection uses DSL - in such case, there is an extra 8 bytes of PPP header that need to be used, and if the Service Provider didn't configure their links to use larger frames, this results in a smaller payload available to your packets - hence the need to decrease the MTU on your computer.

More information available in RFC1191 and this Wikipedia Article


Reinstalling OS X 10.6 without losing any data My MacBook Pro 13' (mid 2009) won't boot. It doesn't get past the initial grey boot up-screen - and nothing I've tried seems to help that. The only way to get the computer started up is via the installation disc. And through that I've been able to verify that the Hard drive is not corrupt and still functional. But unfortunately I only have access to terminal there - and me being a terminal newbie -I have not been able to send the most critical of my files to another computer.

This would have been desirable as I plan to reinstall the OS to (hopefully) solve the problem.

So my question is: will I be able to reinstall my computer without losing my files. And if not, what kind of files will I be losing?

Also, I've phrased my question to be about reinstalling the OS without losing important files - but of any of you have any other ideas or tips for solving the ubderlying problem (without reinstalling the OS or by backing up important files) I welcome that too!

I would strongly recommend against starting any recovery/reinstallation attempt without having a valid (and verified) backup available on another disk. As you are still able to boot the system with the Install DVD you can

use Disk Utility on the Install DVD to create a full backup copy of your internal disk to an external one
copy /Applications and /Users to an external drive (which should cover "all" critical data)

Then just proceed with an reinstallation attempt.


Hide the source code for an Automator quick action / service I have created an Automator quick action. The quick action listens for highlighted text on any application and runs some shell script based on the highlighted text.
The quick action can be triggered by:

selecting text on any application
right click Services
click on name of the Quick Action

The quick action or service works fine
However, I would like to disable everyone from reading the source code of this quick action. For eg. if I install this quick action on another person's MAC, the person can go to the Library folder and view the source code of this "quick action". I would like the source code to be private.
Is there any way I can achieve this?
Note that the "quick action" should still work as it is without anyone looking at the source code of the quick action.

Yeah, no. When you deliver an interpreted script, people always get to see the code - by design.  This is the same for workflows and Automator and shortcuts as it is for perl and bash and python.
Unless and until there is a compiler to convert your source code into machine language and then strip the source names (or obfuscate and tokenize them) even compiled code often comes with source code to aid in debugging.
This is one of the most powerful aspects of scripts that people can see them and know what they do. This enables security validation, “fitness for purpose” checks and easy iteration / comprehension / debugging / adaptation. If you don’t want people to check your work a compiled program allows that on a technical level (or at least requires more work to analyze a binary).
Transparency is baked into this tool chain so you might need another setup if your needs dictate privacy of the code.


What hardware fix would resolve no usb connection from an iPhone that won’t boot? I was downloading apps, and also was doing other stuff, on my iPhone when the screen suddenly went blank. I couldn't turn it on after that.

When I plugged it into a power source, it showed an 'infinite loop' of the Apple logo until I unplugged it.

I've tried to do a restore but iTunes doesn't recognized the iPhone.  I've tried putting it into DFU mode but nothing was displayed on the screen.

Are there any other ways to fix this?  If not, should I considering replacing some parts (like either the battery or the charging port)?

You should try to replace the battery possibly. Otherwise take it to the official Apple Store & ask them what to do. If you want to do every possible solution non-money wise. Clean out the power port, Use an official iPhone charger to charge it & try a hard reset/restart. If none of those work yeah take it to an Apple store and they can take a look at it and tell you what to do and whats wrong.


USB C hub temperature I just replaced my 6 year old MBP with a new 16" MBP which requires the addition of adapters to connect just about anything external. So I got a USB-C hub with HDMI, RJ-45, USB-3.1 and SD card connectors. If it helps, it is from Networx, model no. Y-9115-S. It works, but gets ridiculously hot (40 - 50˚C) with only a USB stick or an ethernet cable plugged in.

No, I am not running ffmpeg on the hub's internal processor.

This happens with the hub on both the left and right side ports. It comes with its own power supply but I don't use it and run the hub unpowered. The hub temperature certainly is a design flaw in a first-generation product, but I wonder if it is normal. Have others experienced the same or is my hub defective?

As usual, the flood of different converters uses only a few board designs, and the most popular one seems to use cheap components, most likely for power conversion from 5V to 3.3V for its internal electronics. A step-down converter (similar to a switching power supply) costs more than converting the excess voltage to heat via resistors, after all.

I have now found a product made by iTeknic (model # IK-UC001) which actually carries a warning that it might heat up to 130 F in use, but so far it has stayed cool in tasks where the other adapters would heat up close to those 130 F. I have not looked inside (yet) but suspect it uses a step-down converter. They cost about 0.1% of the hub's purchase price, after all.

I guess the Networkx hub's external power supply (for a device meant for portable use!) should had been a warning. The iTeknic hub comes without such a power supply.


How to make a command line executable an application? I have a command line executable (specifically JMeter), which opens a GUI application when launched from the terminal.  However, I would like to create a link to it that would wrap it up to become a proper Mac application (included in /Applications directory and all that).  How do I do that?

Use Automator.

Open Automator and double-click on Application.
In the "Name" search box, type Apple and you should see "Run AppleScript".
Drag "Run AppleScript" into the right-hand window.
Where it says (* Your script goes here *), replace that text with the following code:

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    do script with command "JMeter"
end tell

File > Save and enter a name, and choose where to save the application.
Double-click on the newly created application.


Texting is very sluggish on 2020 iMac running Big Sur I have a new iMac 2020 64 GB, running Big Sur. The computer has been very good and very responsive. In the past few days, I've run into a problem. Writing a text message is very sluggish. I'm a one-finger typist and I'm pretty slow. When I type a text message maybe the first few characters in a word that appears in my window but I can finish typing a word and look up in time to see the remaining characters appear. When they do appear I'll send the message and have to wait for the send to occur.  I've checked the activity monitor and nothing stressing is happening. I didn't see this behavior with Catalina.  I can live with this but I've never had this problem and I'd like to fix it. Thanks in advance.  The sluggish response doesn't occur while typing this message or emails. As far as I know, this only occurs while texting.
I've tried restarting my computer and it got better for a few hours but started being sluggish again. I don't know what else to try. A site I found said to check the activity monitor for something that was using a lot of memory. I tried that but still no help,

If it's just in Messages.app, I would check two things:

network traffic to/from the app,
try doing an 'inspect' of the process while it is exhibiting the behavior (in Activity Monitor). Do one before it has the problem, so that you have a baseline.
your keyboard connection (bluetooth or USB) and see if something else is interfering with it.

Since it's new, you should also definitely contact Apple, in case there's a hardware issue, which would be a warranty-covered problem. Also, their support specialists are quite good on the phone, in my experience; I've been happy to refer clients there and have not been embarrassed by the support they get. You are entitled to the support, you paid for it, enjoy it.


Is there a way to force OS X / Finder to use Windows File naming conventions? We have a number of Mac workstations (OS X Mavericks) which connect to a fiber attached SAN.  This SAN is also accessed by a number of Windows workstations.

Windows file naming conventions (and path depth rules) are stricter than OS X's.  This means the Macs can cause problems for the Windows workstations if they name files or folders in ways which Windows doesn't understand.

As such, is there a way to enforce Windows file naming conventions on OS X?  Thus preventing the Mac clients from screwing up the Windows ones.  I'm thinking some kind of Finder plugin or script that prevents users from naming a file or folder in a way which Windows can't cope with.

Any thoughts?

I'm not sure such a plugin exists, but A Better Finder Rename is a very powerful app which, in addition to a million and one ways to rename files, has a function to translate OS X filenames for Windows NTFS/SMB compatibility:

I used it a few years ago to process ~35,000 PDF files made on a Mac, but which needed to be stored on a SMB server. Worked like a charm, and it is FAST!


Downgrading from Safari 12 (beta) to Safari 11 Installing Safari beta version is apparently only possible by replacing the builtin Safari version. In this case version 11.1.2 with 12. If beta version does not work, gives too much trouble or is just unpleasant:

How do we downgrade to an official stable version, currently Safari 11.1.2 for 10.12.6 Sierra?

I tried to restore everything relating to 11.1.2 from a backup (going by what is found that is in the installer package), I located and re-applied the 11.1.2_Sierra.pkg. Yet Safari now refuses to work entirely.

Crashed Thread:        3  Dispatch queue: com.apple.SafariCore.RemotePlistController.internalQueue

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:
*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -[_NSPlaceholderData initWithContentsOfURL:options:error:]: nil URL argument'
terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException
abort() called

Is there any way around re-installing the entire system?

This applies to Safari 12 final as well.

Overview of options

Restore your machine from backup.
Depending on methods this might take a while. You also have to make sure to turn off Auto-Update in System Preferences > App Store or your joy with good ole Safari 11 will be short lasting. You may want to this either before or while you restore. It might be a nice idea to disconnect form any network to make sure that auto-updates really do not come through. (Disconnect from ethernet or turn off Wi-Fi.)
Re-install your OS.
That is up to the latest update but excluding  the very latest one that contains Safari 12. Which one depends on the OS you are using. This usually takes even longer and you also have to make sure to not re-install Safari 12. That means take control away from auto-update as soon as possible in the process, but be sure to manually install all other updates.
Keyhole surgery to replace really only files that are strictly necessary. This is much faster than both options above, but a bit more complicated. System Integrity Protection needs to be disabled temporarily. Procedure is outlined below.

All three cases require you to turn off auto-updating.
All three cases require you to manually install all future updates that Apple offers to you via the AppStore application, including security updates.

Keyhole surgery

for reverting the files associated to Safari 12 back to Safari 11

Simply deleting the application or replacing the application with a previous version will not work. The (beta) version 12 is not self-contained but distributed as an installer that writes a lot of files into locations different from /Applications.

To do this downgrade you may need to have a recent backup of the system or an installer package of for example Safari 11.1.2 for Sierra (link might change quickly or disappear altogether. Also, try to use the latest applicable version) ready and an application like Pacifist. (High Sierra users might have to revert to download http://updates-http.cdn-apple.com/2018/macos/091-94327-20180709-5409BA12-7C10-11E8-84CF-4F47544C24EB/macOSUpdCombo10.13.6.dmg and extract the files from there. Still quicker than restoring from TimeMachine or a full downgrading re-sinstall.)

This is necessary because simply re-running the Safari 11.1.2 over the version 12 (beta) installation will not work either. The Safari (beta) installer writes many more files than the installer for the regular version 11.1.2 –– and these do not play nice with the installation of 11.1.2.

Therefore you need to disable SIP, open the Safari 11.1.2 package with Pacifist and find the following locations upgraded by that update.

/Applications/Safari.app
/System/Library/Accounts/Notifications/CloudBookmarks/AccountsNotifier.bundle
/System/Library/CoreServices/SafariSupport.bundle
/System/Library/Frameworks/SafariServices.framework
/System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Safari*.plist
/System/Library/Preferences/Logging/Subsystems/com.apple.Safari*.plist
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/WebDriver.framework
/System/Library/StagedFrameworks/Safari

(Optional: Compare that with the installation package for the beta version.)
Delete exactly these files and folders with their contents, nothing more, nothing less.

Then restore these Safari files from backup or in this case better yet: simply re-run the 11.1.2 package installation.

Generally, the "restore from backup" version is preferred, as Apple often forgets to really include everything needed for a self-contained installation (like the occasional info.plist file) making the re-run 11.1.2 installer method alone potentially a bit dubious.

Now that Safari 12 is out of beta and forced out onto everyone's Mac with SoftwareUpdate you of course need to uncheck "install updates automatically" in System Preferences > App Store pane.
Otherwise the above procedure will be undone in a short amount of time.

Profit and surf on Safari 11 for as long as you can get away with not updating. Again: make sure to manually apply security and other updates if you previously relied on that procedure being done for you in the background.

The above seems to work fine for system up to macOS Sierra and High Sierra. Therefor comments regarding these procedures on Mojave are mmore than welcome.


Accessing an ipv6 NAT64 connection on my iPad, broadcast from Mac I'm trying to follow this tutorial on how to setup an ipv6 wi-fi connection, so I can test my app:

http://www.brianjcoleman.com/tutorial-how-to-test-your-app-for-ipv6-compatibility/

If I don't tick the "Created NAT64 Network", it works fine (and I can connect and use the wi-fi connection from my iPad). However, as soon as I tick that box I don't get anything (says "No Internet Connection" when trying to access from the iPad)

Setting it up with this works fine, but its on an ipv4 address:

Enabling NAT64 works, and shows the connection on the iPad, BUT there is no connection:

Here are the software versions of my iPad:

The Mac is running on 10.12.1, so should be a high enough version to do this.

I did the same a couple of days ago to control my app for ipv6 (even if I didn’t need to do so), you should also switch off WiFi on you router / modem and you need to switch on the airplane mode on you iPad.
Mind that in the latest version of Xcode your app must be compiled for ipv6 automatically.


Lion - override windows resizing restrictions for certain applications I am a long time user of a windows manager tool in osx (SizeUp) that I love as it allows me to tile several different windows on my laptop screen while having a full editing window open on my secondary screen for coding.

I recently made the move up to OSX Lion and noticed that certain applications now seem to have restrictions on them for how they resize.  The applications that I have noticed are, unfortunately, 3 of the apps I normally have open while working:

Skype
iTunes
Outlook

For all of these apps, when I resize them manually or using my windows manager tool, there seems to be a limit beneath which they won't go - i.e. they have limits set on their minimum height/width.  This means that I am unable to tile them effectively on my smaller screen.

I am wondering if there is a way of overriding these restrictions so that I am able to tell osx to ignore the settings globally (i.e. for all apps) or can I disable the restrictions on a per app basis?  Either solution would help.

Conversely, if there is another windows management tool that is able to universally override these restrictions, that would work as well,

Thanks.

I was hopeful that "moon" with it's custom resize window options would work, but if you set a custom window size lower than whatever iTunes doesn't want to go than, it ignores it and uses the iTunes minimum anyway.  It's looking like a "no"


Restored boot drive from Time Machine, data drive permissions are hosed I recently had a random and serious-seeming system failure, so chose to restore my boot drive (an SSD connected externally via thunderbolt).  Normally I back up with Time Machine locally, CrashPlan remotely, and I use CarbonCopyCloner weekly and store the images on an external drive not connected to my machine.

I thought this would be a cinch, since I had a clone from just a few days earlier.  However every restored clone exhibited the same issues, even when restoring from weeks before the issue began to appear.

So my fallback was to restore from Time Machine.  I nuked my boot drive and reinstalled Mavericks fresh, then restored from Time Machine.  Somehow that process removed my Recovery Partition so I installed Mavericks again on top of the restored drive, and everything appeared fine after that.  The previous issues all vanished.

Now the trouble is, Most of the directories on my separate "data drive" (the 1TB internal drive that came with my iMac) are set to "No Value" for the owner.  Of course I'm the admin on my system, so I can do a Get Info on every single one and change them, but then there are folders within folders within... you get the idea.  It's a total mess.

Now I can of course set the value of the top level folder to what I need it to be and apply to enclosed items, but that sets the user AND permissions of every single file and directory below, to the same thing.  This is merely a documents drive (symlinked from various user directories on the boot drive like Downloads, Documents, etc.) so I think it should be safe to do so, but I still really don't like the idea of giving every single file permissions of 755 along with the folders (or every folder set to 644 along with the files).

So, first is there any way I can get the permissions all back to what they were before and should be now?  Disk Utility won't do it since it's not a system volume.  And secondly, if there isn't a way to get the permission back to normal, is it safe to just make everything 755?  And by safe I don't mean in a security context (this is my personal machine at home, not worried about anyone accessing files they shouldn't), I just mean safe for the operation of OS X Mavericks.

You can change just the owner and leave the permissions alone. In fact, on the command line those are separate operations. If the problem is just ownership you can use something like:

sudo chown -R username /Volumes/blah/


Downgrade iOS 5.1 on my iPad to iOS 5.0 New version of iOS is out & I have upgraded my iPad to iOS 5.1 from iOS 5.0. I didn't realize that some other software will not work with iOS 5.1 so I would like to go back. How can I downgrade iOS version on my iPad?

Apple is still signing iOS 5.0.1. You will need to download the 5.0.1 ipfw and then place your device into DFU mode. From there, hold the ALT/OPTION key as you hit the restore button in iTunes. Then point iTunes to the newly downloaded firmware.

You must act fast. When Apple closes this window and stops signing the old firmware, it will not be possible to downgrade iOS.


Time Machine fails to backup certain files A few months back I did a clean install of Yosemite, followed by restoration of user files via Time Machine. Weeks later, I was horrified to find that several dozen files (seemingly random) were missing post-restore.

I manually checked for the missing files on the Time Machine backup, and they're not there; they were apparently never backed up, despite having existed on the source disk for years, and residing in folders with other files that were backed up just fine. These files were not on the "exclusions" list in TM; they were just ignored for some strange reason.

Since I'm generally paranoid about backups, I keep multiple TM disks around, as well as a Carbon Copy clone and Backblaze. So I was able to manually restore the missing files. But only because I happened to notice they were missing in the first place.

Since that experience I have taken to keeping a close eye on TM by occasionally comparing what makes it onto the backup vs what is ignored. Today,

tmutil compare -n

shows that yet again, I have a random list of files (different ones) that Time Machine is ignoring. I tried to "touch" each file to update the timestamp, followed by a manual TM run, and they are still ignored.

What would cause Time Machine to leave certain files off of the backup schedule? Is there any way to debug this? At this point I have no faith at all in Time Machine, as a faulty backup is in some ways worse than none at all.

The best way to debug this is with tmutil - since you mentioned using the touch command I'll briefly get others up to speed:

open terminal app
open finder to show the folder with the files in question
type tmutil isexcluded and then drag in the files and/or folders in question

Once you know if an item is excluded, you can programmatically remove exclusion or addexclusion as desired. The Time Machine preference pane also has an options button that allows similar modification of the exclusion rules, but no capacity to see if a file will be excluded or not.

Mac:~ me$ tmutil isexcluded /Users/me/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com\~apple\~CloudDocs/Certificate.pdf
[Included]  /Users/me/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Certificate.pdf
Mac:~ me$ tmutil isexcluded /Users/me/Library/Caches/1Password
[Excluded]  /Users/me/Library/Caches/1Password

Once you're comfortable with whether a file is supposed to be backed up, a tmdiagnose analysis might be required. Either by you, or someone that has done that or via support with Apple.


How do I disable the message: "Android Studio is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?" on my MacBook Pro? How do I disable the message: "Android Studio is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?" on my MacBook Pro?
I'm running macOS High Sierra 10.13.2.

You can't disable this kind of message. The reason is you have allowed to install apps from anywhere in the Security setting in System Preferences. If the app is from Mac App Store, you won't get any messages like this.


How do I stop automatic Bluetooth streaming? When my iPhone connects to Sync in my Ford truck it automatically starts playing music on my iPhone. This kills the battery. Autoplay on the Sync system is off.

Turn off bluetooth on the phone.
Unpair the phone from the truck.

When you pair your device, the truck is seen as a remote control in addition to all the other functions so if the truck wants to play, the phone is right to start playing. There is no switch to disable one remote some of the time in iOS or to edit the capabilities of a paired device.

You might need to go to the ford dealer and see if they have a firmware update for your truck :-) Seriously - they either need to disable or let you better control the situation where the "remote" asks the phone to play music.


Why is the wireless connection between my MacBook and AirPort Express so unstable? The wireless transmit rate of my MacBook Core 2 Duo is extremely unstable. That is, when I connect to my AirPort Express the transfer rate is good for about one minute and after that it suddenly drops (option click on the AirPort icon shows a transmit rate of 1...).

The strange thing is that when I then click on the AirPort icon next to the clock and new networks are being searched, the rate gets normal again for about 10 seconds. Then again all running downloads and page load stop until I click again.

I use the same network with a MacBook Pro without any problems. I've googled this issue, tried to switch wireless channels, switched back to 802.11g mode (it runs on n and g compatible mode normally) but nothing helped so far.

Any ideas what could cause these transfer rate drops?

Update

Not sure if that's of any use but in the AirPort Utility it says Signal -24, Noise -95 and Rate 1 (it raises when I click the AirPort icon).

Update II

One solution seems to be to switch to 802.11n only 5 GHz (2.4 GHz does not help). The downside: iPhone and many older notebooks don't support it...

Something to try is to turn off IPv6 support in your networking preference control panel for wireless, and even for ethernet if you are hardwired.

Mine would drop connections randomly and I'd have to mess around and eventually would pull its power and let it restart to restore sanity. Then, I read somewhere it was a problem with IPv6 support, and turn it off on our Macs. Now it's very stable.

I stopped using it for my wireless router, and now use it for AirTunes. Very seldom will it lag, and when it does it'll sync up again by itself. I really can't remember the last time it "weirded out" on me, even though some days I'll be playing music through it for most of the day.


How do I get text key binding "yankAndSelect" to work? macOS's text input system has long supported custom keyboard shortcuts via ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict. I have used this successfully for years to make text editing more Emacs-like, but there is one feature I have never been able to get to work: the yankAndSelect: method.  It never cycles through the kill ring for me; it always only yanks the last-killed item. I am looking for help to make it work.
Here is how I tested it.  First, I set NSTextKillRingSize using this command in a terminal:
defaults write -g NSTextKillRingSize -int 20

(I've also tried -string instead of -int in the command above, but it makes no difference in the behavior.)  Next, I removed everything from my DefaultKeyBinding.dict file and left only this:
{
  "^y" = (yankAndSelect:);
}

Note that I leave controlk bound to its default text system action (which is to kill to the end of the line).  Finally, I rebooted, just to be absolutely sure nothing unexpected persisted.
Based on many sources, such as Apple's documentation,  the two documents on customizing the Cocoa text system and the list of selectors by Jacob Rus from 2006, Brett Terpstra's KeyBindings, and random other people's pages on the web, it seems that the following behavior should be seen (as described by Brett Terpstra):

Open TextEdit (restart it if it was already open)
Type a line of text, move the cursor to the start of the line, type controlk
Write another line with different text, and repeat step 2
Do it one more time
On a blank line, type controly. This should paste the last line you killed
Type controly again, and the pasted text should be replaced by the second line you killed
Again, and you should see the first line. Continuing repetitions will cycle through the kill ring.

This is not what happens in my use.  Instead, what happens is that step #6 does not paste the 2nd-to-last kill, but rather the most recent (3rd) kill – always.  It is as if there is no kill ring at all, and yankAndSelect: always only yanks the most recent kill.
This is 100% repeatable behavior in every system (macOS 10.13, and an almost-fresh 10.14 VM) and every application that respects DefaultKeyBinding.dict (not only TextEdit) that I've tried.
What more must be done to get yankAndSelect: to cycle through the kill ring?

Update: It seems that on some versions of macOS, setting the configuration globally doesn't work; instead, use defaults write com.apple.TextEdit NSTextKillRingSize -string 6 (replacing com.apple.TextEdit with the desired application and 6 with the desired kill ring size) to set it on a per-app basis. Additionally, it appears that NSTextKillRingSize must be no greater than 16 or it will not work.

Original answer:
The issue appears to lie in how the defaults CLI handles the global defaults domain. Specifically, you want to write to the correct host's global defaults (i.e., yours), which it seems doesn't occur by default. (I still don't fully understand the intricacies of how all this works.) To accomplish this, replace your current defaults write command with the following:
defaults -currentHost write -g NSTextKillRingSize -string 6

This worked for me on Big Sur 11.1.


Unable to change the order of widgets in Yosemite Notification Center Today View I tried clicking on Edit and then dragging the widgets around. I also tried doing so from the System Preferences Extensions pane. And either ways, I am successfully able to change the order in which the widgets show up. However, once I restart my computer, they go back to where they were before I made the changes.

This is what my (widgets') order defaults to all the time:

Socials - Calculator - Calendar - Weather - Reminder (I have turned off Stocks and World Clock as I don't need them)

Whereas, I want them in the following order:

Socials - Reminder - Calendar - Weather - Calculator

It's mighty annoying because it's natural one would prefer to have Reminders on top of the list as it definitely has a higher priority over Calculator! Anything to fix this bug or am I the only one facing it?

I was having the exact same problem, and I think it started after installing an app which included a Today widget.
I've finally fixed it by trying a few things, so I'm not sure what actually solved the problem. I suggest you try these things in the same order:

Open the Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and paste the following lines there, then hit [Enter].

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/\
LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local\
-domain system -domain user -seed

This will rebuild the app cache, which includes all extensions.
A few extensions will probably be missing now (in the Extensions preference pane). That is no big deal; just quit and open all apps that come with extensions. Logging out and back in would do the trick too.
Go to System Preferences > Extensions > Today, and reorder the items to your liking. Make sure you keep all checked items together and move them to the top of the list! I suspect the Today view could get confused when enabled widgets are mixed with disabled ones.
Log out and back in and see if the widget order is correct.

Hopefully, this approach works for you too.


How to clean Mac OS X before selling (Lion from App Store) I have MacBook Pro (late 2007) which I planning to sell. Currently it's running Lion. Is it possible to clean all data but leave Lion?

Yes, Just hold down cmd+R during startup and Lion Recovery springs into action; It lets you choose from common utilities: You can choose to erase your hard drive and reinstall a fresh copy of Lion.

P.S: In order to reinstall OS X Lion, you will need to be connected to an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network


Revert killall -KILL Dock I'm playing around with Dock and until now I was using killall Dock command to relaunch it.

Now I used killall -KILL Dock and my Dock went down without relaunching itself. I tried restarting my mac but it did not help.

I tried to open also /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/MacOS/Dock but all I'm getting is:

2018-08-18 22:05:31.276 Dock[1061:44244] -[__NSCFNumber stringByExpandingTildeInPath]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0xe5cdf6a4f4b8bcfb
2018-08-18 22:05:31.277 Dock[1061:44244] *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[__NSCFNumber stringByExpandingTildeInPath]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0xe5cdf6a4f4b8bcfb'

Is there any way I can get my Dock back :(?

So, fortunately I found where the problem was - it was the desktoppicture.db file located in ~/Library/Application Support/Dock/. Probably a corrupted one. Removing it made the macOS replaced it automagically with a new one :)


Every time I try to empty my recycling bin it gets stuck I'm trying to empty my trash but everytime I do it gets stuck.

The only way to get it off the screen, even after hours is to force quit.

What's in the trash? Are you sure it's all stuff that can/should be deleted? If so...

Try right-clicking the trash icon, hold the option key, and then click Empty Trash. This should attempt to force-empty the trash.

If that doesn't work, open the Terminal and enter sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*. The command rm -rf is a dangerous one since it will immediately delete anything without worrying about what it is. In the case of emptying the trash, that's what you want. I suggest you use copy-and-paste to enter the command if you're not used to using it, just to make sure you don't instantly delete anything other than what's in the trash.


Why does the Terminal tab keep popping up on my MacBook Pro when I try to shut it down? Recently, I started having problems with my MacBook Pro. Everytime I try to shut it down, the Terminal tab opens and shows the message on the picture (root#/usr/local/VASCO/NativeBridge/startup.sh ; exit;)

I do not understand at all where the problem lies. I have tried to delete the VASCO plug-in, but it doesn't work.

Do you have an idea of what the problem might be?

Many thanks!

J.

Open terminal and under the Terminal menu item click on preferences. This will give you the pane shown below.

From this pane click on Profiles in the upper left corner of the pane and notice below the Profiles pane but to the right there is a set of tabs.  Click on the Shell tab.  This opens a pane shown below.

Notice that around the middle of this pane is the phrase: Ask before closing. I've drawn a red rectangle around this. Now make sure the Never button is checked.


Installing OpenConnect, Cisco VPN alternative Has anyone had any luck installing openconnect on OS X? I have downloaded the source code but I can't figure out how to build it.

The instructions on their website say to extract the code and run make, but doing so gives an error:

make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

My reasons for wanting this are:

The current version of Cisco AnyConnect is incompatible with OS X Lion
I'm interested in the idea of wrapping the vpn connection in a deployment shell script

Sorry; I forgot to update the web page when I switched to autoconf. I'll fix it.

Run ./configure and then make.

Why didn't you ask this on the mailing list though; I only happened to come across this question by pure chance.

It always confuses me when users ask questions about my software on random web fora instead of sending questions to me or the mailing list I specifically set up for them to use... :)