Apple Contacts- creating a group with only one of the addresses in Contact card I want to create a Christmas card group from my Contacts list. However, I only want to use the home address and NOT the work address or alternate address. Is there any way I can just pick one of the addresses when I add them to the group?

If members of a group in Contacts have multiple addresses or phone
  numbers, you can select which address or number to use when sending
  email to that group or when printing contact information.

Choose Edit > Edit Distribution List.
Select the group.
You can’t select Smart Groups.
Click the rightmost column header to choose the information to manage: email (address), phone (number), or (street) address.
Select an address or number for each member.

Source: From the Help menu in Contacts on Mavericks.


Install new NANO (2.4) using BREW but still uses old versions (symbolic link not created?) I installed NANO 2.4 but my OS X is still using 2.0. I beleive its something to do with the symbolic link that wasn't created.

I first tapped the homebrew/dupes so i could brew install nano

~  brew tap homebrew/dupes
==> Tapping homebrew/dupes

~  brew install nano
==> Installing nano from homebrew/homebrew-dupes

If I do a

which nano

I get

/usr/bin/nano

but the brew installed in the directory below and I have it confirmed as 2.4 by running the program directlt from here

/usr/local/Cellar/nano/2.4.2_1/bin

I think a symbolic link wasn't created becasue nano is already included with mac os x, is it safe to override it ?

I got the following warning on the brew install from

==> Downloading https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-6.0.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ncurses/6.0 --enable-pc-files --enable
==> make install
==> Caveats This formula is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local.

OS X already provides this software and installing another version in
parallel can cause all kinds of trouble.

Generally there are no consequences of this for you. If you build your
own software and it requires this formula, you'll need to add to your
build variables:

    LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/opt/ncurses/lib
    CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/ncurses/include

==> Summary   /usr/local/Cellar/ncurses/6.0: 1970 files, 21M, built in 114 seconds

You can always create a symlink in /usr/local/bin manually, which (depending on the order of path components in $PATH) will then shadow the standard binary in /usr/bin. As nano is used interactively only, the risk of breaking anything is probably rather small.


iPad 3 max framerate Has anyone tried to test the maximum frame rate one an iPad 3 connected to a 120Hz screen for example?

I would like to know if it's possible to achieve more than the 60fps using the any benchmark/test application or a custom test app using CADisplayLink on an external monitor.

Please report the application or game you tested with - I am leaving this wide open in terms of which app so as to get some initial data on what frame rate the hardware is capable of pushing.


Same Apple ID but want different apps I have an iPhone, iPad and iPad mini - all using one single Apple ID and is synced with one iTunes account in my laptop. When I sync my devices all the apps and files go to individual devices. But if don't want to have a particular app, can I delete only in one device but be as is in others?

One option would be the manual selection of apps for each device.

So instead of syncing all apps with all devices, you could select here which apps to install/remove from each device


iChat Download For OS X 10.6.8 I foolishly deleted iChat Application from my Mac with version of 10.6.8 for free disk space. Now am trying to download the .dmg file for the iChat app. Can anyone help me in this by sending any link to download the file?

The solution is reported on this discussion on the Apple Support Communities.

They report several ways to do that.
The easiest way seems to be:

  Insert your Tiger/Leopard/Snow Leopard DVD into your drive. Once the
  DVD loads, open the "Optional Installs" folder and then the .mpkg of
  the same name. This will launch an Installer. Click through until you
  get the option of choosing what you'd like to install. (this is after
  the Licence Agreement part)

  Open the "Applications" by using the tick box and triangle for the
  drop down menu in the panel of software to install, simply choose
  iChat (only) and let the installer do the work.


Cycle application windows changed in recent update (2019) I am used to pressing CMD+ ` on my mac to cycle through windows of the same application.

In recent updates, I am not sure if this was when updating to Mojave, maybe later, maybe before, this behavoiur changed.

I have 3 windows of an IDE (PhpStorm) and I used to be able to cycle reliably and predictably through them, similar to how you cycle between apps with CMD+TAB, but this behaviour is now very broken (or I don't understand it anymore)

It seems to choose a random window every time I press the combination instead of simply going the previously opened window.

Has anybody else noticed this? Can someone explain to me what is the logic behind? so I can wrap my brain around it and perhaps be agile again :p

ps. I mentioned my IDE because IDEs tend to overwrite OS shortcuts, so I am only about 90% sure it is macOs's fault, but it could be the IDE's fault.

I use PhpStorm 2019.2 on macOS 10.14.6 Mojave. The behavior/logic for CMD + ` is not any different from how it has been in any relatively recent version of macOS or PhpStorm.

Pressing CMD + ` switches to the most recently used window, unless you haven't done anything in the currently active window, in which case it switches to the next most recently opened window (and this pattern continues for however many windows you have open).

For example, let's say you have a file open in PhpStorm in window A, then open another file in window B, and finally a third file in window C. If you're working in window C and then press CMD + `, you'll be switched to window B. If you press CMD + ` again before doing anything else, you'll be switched to window A. However, if, instead, you work on the file in window B first, then when you press CMD + `, you'll be switched back to window C (the most recently open window). In order to reach window A, you must press CMD + ` twice without doing anything in the window that comes up after the first window switch.


How do I set the working directory as the tab title in Terminal for Mac? One of my Macs is running Mac OS Mojave and so for parity with my Catalina machine I switched the shell to zsh. Not sure exactly when but at some point I noticed the current working directory was never being displayed either in the prompt itself or in the title of the tab.

I found I way to restore the title to the prompt by adding this to my ~/.zprofile file: PROMPT='%~ '. However, I have not been able to restore the directory name to the tab title:

This is quite frustrating when dealing with multiple tabs, as I do daily. It would seem to me that everything in the Terminal's settings is correct:

Am I missing something or have I encountered a strange bug?

Solution: Copy the zsh setup files (/etc/zshrc and /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal) from a Catalina system to the older system (preferably after backing up the original equivalent(s)).

I haven't tested this in Mojave, but I did in High Sierra, and it works fine there.

Explanation of the problem: Setting the Terminal window/tab title requires running some code (e.g. a shell function) to send the appropriate escape sequences, encoded version of the directory name, etc to the Terminal. In older versions of macOS, this was handled in bash by having /etc/bashrc run /etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal, which defined a suitable function and set PROMPT_COMMAND to tell bash to run it each time it prompted for a new command. But since zsh wasn't the default shell, Apple didn't bother to create the equivalent setup scripts for zsh.

In Catalina, zsh is the default shell, so they wrote analogous setup steps and added them to /etc/zshrc and /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal. The mechanics are different (for example, zsh uses add-zsh-hook precmd instead of the PROMPT_COMMAND variable), but it does essentially the same thing. These files are not dependent on anything in Catalina; you can simply copy them to older systems, and they should work the same as they do in Catalina.


iPhone alarm clock sometimes doesn't work I can't count how often I overslept since I'm using my iPhone as my main alarm clock. I can't reproduce it and it's happening without any observable frequency of occurrence. Here is all I know:

My iPhone is not jailbroken and I've already done a complete reset for several times.
The volume is loud enough. I test the volume of the alarm clock before I go to sleep and it's definitely loud enough. In addition, the iPhone is lying in a distance of 15 inches from my head.
I'm not sleepwalking, so it's impossible that I turn off the alarm clocks at night. ;)
Most of the time I set three or four alarm clocks with intervals of 15 or 20 minutes. Just to get that I'm so glad I can sleep another 15 minutes - feeling.
As I already mentioned, the malfunction does not always occur. The alarm clock does work sometimes. The first alarm clock goes off at 5:30, another one at 5:45, I get up and go to work. But in 30 % to 50 % of the cases, it does not go off and I'm late for work, in a bad mood and really stressed.
When I realize I have overslept I first have a look at my iPhone. When I unlock it, I see that there is still the message I programmed for the alarm clock to display when activated! Like Get up! or something. That's very strange because it implies that the alarm has been activated but only the message is shown and no sound.
I've got no other problems with my iPhone (besides a synchronizing issue I got the Tumbleweed badge for). Sound is working fine, settings are always applied.
It's not an issue of push-messages being displayed. I first assumed that it could be a push message from Google+ or a news-app I'm using but the malfunction is also occurring without any push-messages being displayed.
I've been searching the net for a solution and found the issue of iPhone alarm clocks going off one hour late. That is not my problem, because - as I already said - the alarm seems to go off, but without sound.
I'm not deaf.

The iPhone:

iPhone 4 32GB
iOS 4.3.5
No jailbreak

I hope one of you has a solution for this problem, because I would feel very strange buying an old school alarm clock. :) But I think I have to, if I can't fix this malfunction of my iPhone.

Thanks in advance.

I have written up a procedure for you to try:

Restore your phone.
Test - if successful go to last.
Take your iPhone to the nearest Apple store and tell them what's happening.
Test the issue with the refurbished iPhone they gave you to replace the one that was malfunctioning - if successful go to last.
Enjoy your "15 more minutes" feeling.

Failing all of these, your alarm is going off and you're sleeping through it because you stayed up too late playing WoW, drinking, coding, whatever. It eventually stops making noise and leaves the message on the screen. Try placing the phone across the room so you have to get up to turn it off. See if that helps. Either way, now you have a newly refurbished iPhone 4.

Please forgive the snarky nature of this answer. I wrote it after my alarm didn't go off in the morning due to a push notification.


Unable to use Gmail on Safari for Windows Why is Google Gmail telling me they no longer support my version of safari when I already have the most current version, 5.1.7, for Windows 8? Then they point me to a Safari web page that has no download link. Am I missing something?

As shown on this Wikipedia page, Safari for Windows has not updated in over two years. There is much speculation as to why, but in terms of the Web, a browser that is over two years old is ancient.

Gmail likely requires features that are not available in Safari v5.1.7. Therefore you will need to use an alternate browser, such as Chrome or Firefox.


Same external hard drive for time machine and storage I have a MacBook Pro (250GB with about 100GB free). I'm planning to get an external hard drive (1 TB). Is it possible to use the external hard drive for both time machine's purposes and as a general storage device (for movies and games)?

Yes, That is exactly what I have done.

The important thing to be aware of is that Time Machine will try to manage itself using all of the volume it is on.

What you need to do is decide how large a TM you need to hold your data together with old versions of it. Then partition the disk using Disk Utility so the TM is on one partition and the movies etc are on the other.


How can use ssh to connect to my university network over VPN I am still a beginner with using terminal. I am trying to ssh from my mac at home to a linux at my university. I am using VPN to connect to the network. When I ping the IP address of the computer I want to connect to it responds. I can connect when I am on campus, but not when I'm off. When I try ssh -v username@IP this is what I get:

debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh_config line 20: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to 10.36.0.250 [10.36.0.250] port 22.
debug1: connect to address 10.36.0.250 port 22: Operation timed out
ssh: connect to host 10.36.0.250 port 22: Operation timed out

Running traceroute gives

traceroute to 10.36.0.250 (10.36.0.250), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  host141-129.vpnhosts.csulb.edu (134.139.141.129)  30.269 ms  29.085 ms  27.597 ms
 2  * * *
 3  * * *
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *

Any help would be much appreciated.

It turns out that I did I was being denied access, so I spoke to IT at school and got access. Thank you everyone for your help.


How do I schedule Mac OS X Leopard to wake up multiple times in one day? The "Energy Saver" panel in System Preferences allows the user to schedule wake ups. The only problem is is that the most frequent it allows for this to happen is ONCE per day. Is there any way or any tool or any software that can make it wake up at any custom interval? I'm running Mac OS X 10.5.8.

This app seems to be the solution to your problem. http://www.ibeezz.com/en/

Haven't tested it myself though.


Apps won’t restore from backup I backed up my iPhone 5s, and when I try to restore my new iPhone 6s from that same backup, the apps won’t transfer over. How do I fix this?

The same thing happened to me and my iPhone 5S yesterday when I tried to restore that backup onto my iPhone 6S. You just have to install all of the apps again from the App Store. They will function just as you left them, will all game saves and app data in place, as all your app data was restored, just not the apps themselves.


Hide "This iPhone is managed by your organization" message from the lock screen I upgraded my iPhone 6S to iOS 9.3 today and now there appears a message on my lock screen

  This iPhone is managed by your organization.

Of course, I already knew that - it's a company phone!  I don't want to see this message on my lock screen every day, how can I acknowledge the message and disable it?

Removing the management profile

Someone else mentioned how to remove the management profile from the phone. That has some potential issues:

Your boss may not want you to remove the profile, which may lead to undesired consequences like being fired
You may lose access to any resources the profile allows you to access
You may start sending things unprotected directly over the Internet rather than through the VPN your profile sets up for you

Why the message probably can't be removed

As far as leaving the profile there, it's very likely that you can't remove the message because a lot of people are used to their personal iPhones being secure and private and they need to be informed when their privacy may be at stake because they may be being watched.

If they're issued a work phone, they may incorrectly assume that the security and privacy are just as good as their own iPhone.

If they let an untrustworthy acquaintance use their personal iPhone, they may have no idea that it's even possible for the acquaintance to take a few minutes to begin managing the phone and to then spy on them later.

Imagine if the boss or the untrustworthy acquaintance could just turn off the warning right after beginning to manage the phone. The user of the phone would then be kept in the dark about potential spying.

There's no easy way for an iPhone to distinguish between a spy disabling the message and the user disabling the message, so there's no easy way to allow for what you want while still ensuring users receive that vital information.


Does iPhone 5 have a low battery warning tone? My friend has an iPhone 5 (Verizon), she hears a low battery alert tone when on a call at 10% and 20%. My iPhone 5 (Sprint) has no such tone, anyway I can't find how to enable it if it does.

So if a Verizon iPhone has a low battery alert tone (trill sounding), why doesn't a Sprint iPhone5 have the low battery tone???

No it doesn't have but you can install "Battery Alert" app and it will enable it.


Forgot to turn off Hotspot, tethered via USB along with direct Ethernet, end result? What happens if I forget to turn off hotspot tethering on my iOS device and connect it via USB to a computer that is already connected to the Internet via Ethernet? Which internet / network gateway gets priority?

I'm concerned because I may have inadvertently wasted large amounts of my carrier's data usage allotment for the month.  Is there a way to avoid this from happening in case I forget to disable the hotspot again? (this is on a Windows PC)

EDIT: As a follow up, how can I configure Windows to require manual input from the User before initiating tethering via a USB-connected iOS device?

I actually think there's little reason to be concerned, provided in Settings > Network, your Wi-Fi or Ethernet is ahead of iPhone USB in the left-hand list. OS X will go down the list and pick the first network provider that it needs to. So long as your WiFi stays up, you're fine.

I confirmed this by opening Network Utility and examining the transfer stats. You can see in the attached screenshots that all the action (packets) are happening over WiFi, hardly anything over iPhone USB.


What does "link: false" mean in my Brewfile? My Brewfile created with brew bundle dump contains one line with link: false:
...
brew "git"
brew "python@3.8", link: false
brew "glib"
...

I don't see any kind of --link option for the brew install command, so I don't think it's a record of some install option for python@3.8. The only potentially relevant thing about it I see in either the brew and homebrew-bundle documentation is the brew link command, which I have not used.
And as far as I can tell, the python3.8 command is installed and works the same as any of the other packages listed in the Brewfile.

The link:false in the Brewfile appears to skip linking the installed binary in /usr/local/Cellar/... into /usr/local/bin (and thus my user $PATH) during bulk installation with brew bundle install.
I am guessing since python@3.8 was installed both as a dependency for something else (and thus not linked?) and it was also installed manually, it somehow erroneously was being output in the Brewfile as link: false though it should not have been.
Getting brew bundle dump to stop outputting the link: false was accomplished by forcibly uninstalling and reinstalling:
$ brew uninstall --ignore-dependencies python@3.8
$ brew install python@3.8
$ brew bundle dump


El Capitan media keys not responding My media keys are not working on my Mac. Pressing play doesn't open iTunes automatically. This issue occurs across all users, even newly created users, and all applications.

Here's what I've done so far:

Checked to ensure "Use all F1, F2 keys as standard functions keys" is
disabled. I've enabled and disabled this also.
I don't have chrome installed. I did, but did not use Google Play (I see this is common).
Booted into known good operating system, the keys work here.
Deleted most preference files from the system preferences that I feel could be affecting it
Copied across the rcd.app from my known good install, along with the associating launch agent
Unloaded and loaded the rcd kext from launchagent
Used safe mode and Onyx to clear all caches.
Ran fsck and used Onyx to reset file permissions
Reset ACLs for my user
Removed Plex, iControl and Adobe Premier Pro

I'm running 10.11.5 beta 4 (build 15f31a). This issue has been occurring on non-beta releases as well. I cannot think of when the issue begun, just that it's been ongoing for a few months now. I'm getting to the point where I should probably do a fresh install, but wanted to see if anyone else had any suggestions first.

The only way I could resolve this was to do a complete reinstall. I restored all data from my Time Machine backup using Migration Assistant, so I'm assuming an archive and install would work as well.


Why does the same colour appear different in different apps? I've configured VSCode and iTerm2 to use the Solarized Dark colour scheme.

As far as I can tell, they are both using the same RGB colour specification for the background colour, but to my eye they appear slightly different.

I used Digital Colour Meter to inspect both windows, and found that in sRGB they both report (0,44,55), while in "native values" VSCode reports (0,43,54), while iTerm2 reports (13,43,54). See pictures below.

Why does this discrepancy exist?
What are "native values"?
Can I get these apps to look the same?

The discrepancy exists because something/someone messed up handling of color spaces and/or color profiles.

A very short and crude explanation:

Colors on computers are expressed as numbers - for example here as RGB with each color ranging from 0 to 255 (i.e. 24 bit color).

Computer displays are not all alike - they can display different ranges of colors. This doesn't mean that some displays do not display anything when asked to show certain combinations of R, G and B. Instead a different color will be displayed. These are called "native values".

If you choose a certain color on your computer display and send that color code to your neighbour - you would ideally want him to be able to see the same exact color on his computer. If he has a different type of display, chances are that he would see a completely different color (here we're not even taking into account calibrating individual displays of the same type).

In order to solve this problem, you have the concept of color spaces and mappings between them:

When you create the original color codes, you have to specify in which colour space you have defined them. I.e. for example define that the background color of this theme needs to be RGB (0,43,54) in sRGB. This is exactly what the Solarized Dark theme does.

When you create a program to load in color codes, you'll need to take into account the color space of the color codes you read from an external source. I.e. the program needs to convert or map the color code from the colour space of the original file into an internal representation.

Furthermore when that program wants to display the color on screen, it needs to map it to the color space of the connected monitor.

To show an example: Imagine you're using a MacBook Pro with a color space of Display P3 and load in the color RGB (0,43,54) in the sRGB color space.

If you look at an illustration of color spaces, you'll see that Display P3 is "larger than" (i.e. fully includes) sRGB. Therefore if something is defined as having a red value of 255 (max) in sRGB, it needs to have a lower value when mapped to Display P3 in order to leave room for those extra colors that Display P3 can display that aren't included in sRGB.

This means that (0,43,54) will need to be sent out to the display as a "darker" color code in order to achieve the same physical color when viewed by a human.

In addition to this color space management, there is the variation between individual displays of the same type. It is simply not possible to produce displays at the costs consumers are used to that are exactly alike in color reproduction.

Therefore the displays are "calibrated" - meaning that their actual displayed colours are measured and compared against what they were supposed to be displaying - and a mapping to compensate for that discrepancy is made. That is stored as a "color profile" on your computer.

If a program doesn't support color spaces when reading in colours or when displaying them, or it doesn't support color profiles correctly - then you can end up with situations like this where the same color is displayed differently in different applications.


nsurlsessiond downloads too much data I did this command in terminal and got this results. Is anything suspicious here that why nsurlsessiond is hugging the bandwidth? (I have turned off iCloud Drive and Stuff)

sudo lsof | grep nsurlsessiond

 UserEvent    17            root  txt       REG               1,2      19152 16564038 /System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.nsurlsessiond.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.nsurlsessiond
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond  cwd       DIR               1,2       1190        2 /
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond  txt       REG               1,2     433584 16602450 /usr/libexec/nsurlsessiond
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond  txt       REG               1,2      32768 37043674 /private/var/db/mds/messages/se_SecurityMessages
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond  txt       REG               1,2    3334144 36961452 /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/0/com.apple.LaunchServices-1030.csstore
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond  txt       REG               1,2     622896 16259470 /usr/lib/dyld
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond  txt       REG               1,2  381434142 16648622 /private/var/db/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    0r      CHR               3,2        0t0      302 /dev/null
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    1u      CHR               3,2        0t0      302 /dev/null
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    2u      CHR               3,2      0t150      302 /dev/null
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    3u   KQUEUE                                       count=2, state=0x2
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    4u     unix 0x954683f445eec9d        0t0          ->0x954683f3d417e95
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    5u    systm                          0t0
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    7u     IPv4 0x954683f4c140735        0t0      TCP 192.168.107.135:57938->defra3-vip-bx-006.aaplimg.com:http (ESTABLISHED)
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    8u     unix 0x954683f3d417e95        0t0          ->0x954683f445eec9d
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond    9u     IPv4 0x954683f4c140735        0t0      TCP 192.168.107.135:57938->defra3-vip-bx-006.aaplimg.com:http (ESTABLISHED)
nsurlsess   166  _nsurlsessiond   10w      REG               1,2  134202708 37151618 /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/CFNetworkDownload_7ergSw.tmp
UserEvent   207   miladghattavi  txt       REG               1,2      19152 16564038 /System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.nsurlsessiond.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.nsurlsessiond
UserEvent   207   miladghattavi   35r      DIR               1,2         68 16654163 /Users/miladghattavi/Library/com.apple.nsurlsessiond
nsurlsess   299   miladghattavi  txt       REG               1,2     433584 16602450 /usr/libexec/nsurlsessiond

I entered the command twice; while nsurlsessiond was downloading stuff and the data didn't seem to have change. So I'm guessing this is not the amount of data downloaded by this process, right? Is there anyway to have the information of what it's downloading/downloaded?

There are a lot of posts about this in regards to Yosemite/El Capitan. I personally have a machine w/ OS 10.11.6 and it constantly dl's at 5-10 Mb/sec. I turned off iCloud, tried every reasonable suggestion. I ended up getting little snitch and just denying the culprit, which is the iCloud drive process of nsurlsessiond "isync-edge.icloud-content.com". Even though I have all processes in the OS disabled, this process is being blocked almost every second (I've had my machine on for an hour with thousands of blocked attempts). Granted, this is my old machine I do not use for my primary workflow, so I can afford to do this. If you can update to Sierra, you may not have theses issues, I don't, and I am using the same apple ID on Sierra as I was on the machine that was eating all my bandwidth until manually blocking.


Why is my Apple TV returning errors when I watch movies rented from Apple? Movies start, but a few times per movie, returns an error: "An error occurred while loading this content".  It will allow me to start it again, but it's really frustrating.    Internet connection seems solid enough- movies in hd start almost instantly, and nothing else on the network hiccups when it occurs.

Any ideas?

I had this problem with comcast internet. I believe their "speed boost" traffic shaping tricked the Apple TV into thinking I had something like a 22 megabit pipe - so the movies started playing instantly. When the boost expired, the data rate was much reduced and eventually the movie played past the delivery of the content which means my overall download wasn't fast enough to get the whole movie to my set before the movie ended.

When I changed internet providers the issues have been resolved for me. I stumbled on this by realizing I never got this error when taking my Apple TV to a friend's house with "slower" internet. The confusing part was most of the time - comcast was fast enough - but when it wasn't I still got a great initial "boost" but couldn't really watch the rental due to poor bandwidth.


Assigning new device to child's account I am setting up a new Apple device (iPad) for a child. I have already created a children's account under family sharing on another device. However, it's not clear if on the new device I should set the Apple ID to the child's or mine.

From the Apple docs, it seems like the device is setup up under my account and then is set to the child under screen time, but that doesn't seem right.

Trying to sign in directly on the new device with the child's account gives a "Verification Error", but testing the username/password on icloud.com works.

You can do this either way, you can use your account or your child's, but the steps to take to set up Screen Time will vary depending on which one you use.

It sounds like the iPad is for your child to use primarily, in which case I would recommend using his/her account, since it makes it more streamlined and intuitive to use the parental management features. (usually, that is) It is also the only way to take advantage of features like ask to purchase, etc.

The Apple ID that is used device-wide, i.e. for the iCloud features, iTunes/App Stores, etc. should be the child's account – the top of the Settings app should display your child's name and account for the Apple ID settings menu.

When you set up screen time, or other parental management feature, a login prompt will come up, probably somewhere around when you set up the management passcode. Here, you need to log into the guardian or family organizer Apple ID.

But you can avoid this confusion by configuring Screen Time for your child's device from your own Mac, iOS device, or iPad, if you have one. Turn on Screen Time in family sharing and it will allow you to manage your child's device from the Settings app or System Preferences on your own device remotely, kind of like a cute mini version of an MDM deployment :)


Omit “.DS_Store” from “ls -a” results MacOS puts “.DS_Store” files in directories. How do you omit them from all “ls -a” results?

ls -a specifically tells ls to list all files/directories and especially those starting with ., there is no direct way to suppress them. Of course there is always
ls -a | fgrep -v .DS_Store

but this may be rather cumbersome.


alternative keyboards I use the latest wireless keyboard for my iMac at home. Since I use it for programming most of the time, the little laptop style arrow keys are inadequate. Are there any GOOD alternative apple keyboards available?

EDIT:

Sorry Dori, I should have been more clear. I would specifically like a keyboard which is made for Apple, with the appropriate "command" and extra keys (like F13 - F15, and the volume keys).

Virtually all USB and Bluetooth keyboards work just fine with Macs.

There are about a zillion Mac-compatible keyboards, and just because one person loves a given model doesn't mean it will suit another (I still use my Apple Extended Keyboard, for instance). Some of the bigger makers in the field are Kensington, Logitech, Macally, Matias1, and Adesso.

What in particular (besides bigger arrow keys) matters to you? What do you hate? What do you love? Do you want wireless, or is USB ok?

You might want to check out these two Macworld articles:

Review Roundup: Keyboards and mice
Keyboards buying guide

1 I bought a Matias keyboard. I hated it. I don't recommend them.


How to give access to guest network to machines on the main LAN with an Airport Extreme? I have an Airport Extreme Base Station with two networks: my main network and a guest network. Is it possible to set it up so that devices on the main network have access to devices on the guest network, but not the contrary?

I would like to give access to some devices to people on my guest network, so the easiest way is to have these devices connected to the guest network. However, my devices on my private network do not have access to devices on the guest network, and this is not what I want. I guess I could add routes to all devices on my private network to fix that, but I was hoping there would be an easier solution by setting this up on the Airport Extreme.

According to this article, it is not possible. All devices on the guest network can only see the Internet and nothing else. Two devices on the guest network cannot even see each other.


Shortcut For Adding Bullet Point In Mac's Notes Application Does anyone know if there is a way I can start a bullet point list in the updated Notes app that comes with the MacOS with a keyboard shortcut that looks

like this

or this

I use the app in class a lot because I like the snappy UI and, would like to add them quicker to improve my workflow.
I know that in Microsoft Word the shortcuts would be..

a. Start a bullet point list * then tab

b. Insert a LISTNUM ⌘ + ⌥ + shift + L Microsoft Support

c. Most times ⌥ + 8 can be used to insert a bullet too Discussion Shortcut Insert bullet

⌘ + shift + L gives me a pretty button list but not just a plain old list. My guess is that this link contains all shortcuts and for a simple

bullet point

I'll have to do it manually.

Opt ⌥   8  at the start of a new line will generate a bullet list.

Adding further new lines will add more bullets, until you add 2 new lines, then it will revert to 'plain'

Same for a numbered list, but start new line 1. then space


OS X Automator send mail I would like to create an Automator application that reads the address book and sends an email from the default email account with the content of the addr. book search result.

Everything works except before sending the email the use is asked to press the send button.
Is it possible to achieve this with no user interaction ?

you can directly do an applescript to send an email and call it from automator:

   tell application "Mail"
      activate
      set newMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {account:"Account Detail", subject:"Mail Subject", content:"Content"}
      tell newMessage
        make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:theRecipient}
        set visible to true
      end tell
      send newMessage
    end tell

You would just need to get theRecipient from the input passed to the AppleScript action. Also, you need to replace the properties on the third line with details of your Mail account.

set theRecipient to (item 1 of input)

should do it.


What will happen if I export a 720p video in Photos to 1080p? I'm considering exporting all the videos currently stored in my Apple Photos library. These are made up of a mix of different video "qualities," including 1080p and 720p.

When I choose the File > Export > Export [number] Videos command, a dialog box appears prompting me to specify a quality of the exported files, e.g., 720p, 1080p, etc.

If I choose 1080p, I presume that my 1080p videos will be preserved in a lossless way. That is what I want.

However, I don't understand what will happen to my 720p videos. Will the software export them in a lossless way as 720p, i.e., keep the files as-is, or will the software do something else? Will it try to re-encode them to "up" the 1080p format, potentially increasing the file size?

You've only got so many 'real' pixels to play with, so when you stretch that out to 1080p, you've got quite a few holes.

From there it all comes down to what approach the software you are using takes to create the missing pixels.  Typically the stretch it out to the edges, and then interpolate back to fill the holes, based on what the two pixels look like either side of the gap.

Some software does this better than others, and the best method to use can depend on the image content also.  Typically it makes things look softer, blocker if bad, and highlights poor quality issues such as moire etc.

Premiere Pro includes a simple algorithm as standard, and you can use plugging more targeted to the task if you want also.
There's no right or wrong.  A full HD TV will be doing this 720p to 1080p conversion ever time you watch anything less than full HD anyway for example.

Here is a simple graphics showing what happens


Why can't ripped movies import to into iTunes on Windows XP when they work on Mac? I am unable to copy movies or videos into my iTunes library. I have had the concerned videos converted using Handbrake (version ??) with Apple presets but still when I try drag and drop to iTunes (10.1 on Windows XP) it shows no error (like "cannot be played" etc) and neither does it show up on the list.

I can copy songs/ebooks/apps got a problem with video only.

So I updated to iTunes v 10.5.3 still can't drag drop video/movies. I even tried adding the files to the Automatically add to iTunes folder (as suggested in one of the comments) but got a Not Added folder. The files work when copied to the library on a friend's, so I can't tell if the problem is iTunes or Windows XP or my computer.

Am I missing something?

I have been facing the same problem with iTunes (both 10.5 and 11). You need to upgrade to iTunes version 10.5 or 11, and you would need Quick Time to play older media or videos.


Are there any options to control organization for the new photo app? Whichever way we set 'Summarize Photos', my wife's iphone shows the same unwieldy display of the thousands of pictures she has synced from iPhoto to her iPhone. Organized by date with tiny thumbnails. No sign of her events or albums.

Is there any way to make 'Photos' respect an organization from iPhoto?

There are three types of organizations in iPhone now in iOS 7.

According to Years, months and dates and it is not a replication of iPhoto as well.

and when you can make an album of what ever pic's you wanted, you can see them in albums tab.


Final Cut Pro video downloaded to flash drive I recently made a wedding video for my cousin, its about 6 minutes long. I can get it downloaded onto the flash drive but when I play it back it is really slow and laggy and doesnt really work? does anyone know why this is?

Without all the details of your hardware (both the Mac and flash drive), the most likely cause is the transfer speed available from the flash drive to your Mac.

In this scenario you typically wouldn't opt to play the video from a flash drive, but rather just use the flash drive to transfer the video onto another device (such as your cousin's computer).

You should find that playing the video directly from a computer's internal drive, or from any modern external drive, should be fine. Note that by external drive I'm not referring to flash drives, but external HDDs or SSDs.

By way of a similar example, I recently had to produce an 8 minute video in FCP that needed to be viewable on a MS Surface device. It played fine on my Mac and fine on the Surface, but trying to play it from their 32GB flash drive resulted in a bad experience!


Can't browse internet from browser after connecting to VPN. Skype still works I am connecting my office VPN using Cisco AnyConnect. After connecting to VPN I can't connect to internet from browsers. However, skype still works. How to resolve ?

I would recommend you to change your DNS of the connected network to the internet for the following Google's IP.

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

If this didn't help, then I guess it is also due to your office IT policy.


How is data added to the Health app? I've been very late at updating my phones / OSes.
Now there's a new app called "health" that I have no idea how to use. I usually understand Apple products and apps very quickly, but I am at loss of ideas on how one adds data to the graphs in the Health app. Can the iPhone itself track your steps / physical activity? Or do I need other hardware such as watches and things like that?

It depends on your iPhone model. The iPhone 5S and later is equipped with a motion co-processor, such as the M7 in the 5S or the M8 in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. You can give Health permission to read data from the motion co-processor.

Also, any data from your Apple Watch (if you own one) is stored in Health. So heart rate, steps taken, walking + running distance, active calories, etc. are counted automatically.

Additionally, 3rd-party apps can use Health to log any appropriate info about your health and activity into the app, such as Nike Running or an app that can detect your pulse using the camera in your iPhone.

You can also log data into Heath and modify data yourself within the app.


Auto change keyboard layout based on application focus I basically use US keyboard for programming and Spanish for everything else, and I´m always switching keyboard layout when I change from browser to VIM or console.

In Linux (gnome), keyboard layout was a per application preference, that the window manager remembered automatically, so for every application, if you switched keyboard layout, when you focus back to that application the keyboard layout would change for you.

Is there any way of doing this in OSX Lion?

If you go to System Preferences -> Language & Text -> Input Sources, you should have the option to "Allow a different one for each document" under Input source options.

The change is per document and not per application, but unless you change the setting for one document when you have several open you might not even notice the difference.


Disable cross-screen shadows I have a dual-screen setup, which works fine, but there's one annoyance, the window shadows.

If I maximize a window on one screen (or just make its edge touch the edge of one of the monitors), the shadow from that window "crosses" the screen and goes to the other one, creating a useless visual effect which just looks weird, since the monitors are not exactly touching, so the shadow has no usefulness or relevance there.

Is there a way to disable it (but not disable all window shadows)?

In OS X Mavericks there no longer are cross-screen shadows.
You can get this system update from the App store for free.


SD card not detected through a USB hub on a newer intel-based Mac This is my first time trying out an SD card via a USB hub on my new Mac (since there's no port for SD card on newer Macs) and I can't seem to detect the SD card; it doesn't show in disk utility and nor in finder.Does anyone know what could potentially be the cause?
This is my setup

You won't see it in disk utils or finder until it is mounted. The primary causes of this are (in my experience):

Inadequate power in the USB-C hub. Typically, power needs to pass through the hub rather than the hub being a stub. (Sorry, couldn't resist the rhyme). I think I saw the hub plugged in by itself...
Now, that said, with nothing else, that shouldn't be a problem, but try it. It's quite common with USB hard drives that are USB powered.

Bad connection or damaged card. Check the card contacts, make sure they are clean and undamaged.

A corrupted card (or a card image that looks corrupted due to 1 or 2). Check to see if an fsck process is running on the card; this is done for 'dirty' disk images that aren't known to be cleanly ejected. It won't mount until that completes. If the process is hung, or dies repeatedly, then it's likely that it's having a hard time reading the card, again, see 1 and 2. If it's hung, kill it, and eject the card and try again.


How to organise photos in Apple Ok I've just converted to a Mac from Windows and I am totally stumped by Apple iCloud and Apple Photos (Running Mojave 10.14.2) In Windows I had all my photos organised by date (eg filename 2018-12-20, y/m/d)then a description (ex: a photo of my 9 month old would be 2018-12-20 - Wallace 8 Months - Australia Zoo) but I can't figure out how to organise or change filenames on Mac. Changing the title doesn't change the file name and I NEED it to!! I want to back up to an external hard drive but everything recent will all be jumble when I do with not being able to change the file names. Help please!!!

Photos imported into Photos.app go into a large .photolibrary resource. You should consider it to be a black hole. You can't (and shouldn't) organize the the photos there in the Finder or rename them.

However, Photos.app will automatically show you photos by date (among other sorting styles). Also by geolocation (e.g. Australia Zoo), Faces (e.g. Wallace), and more. Separate metadata for each of these is much more organized and useful than one filename which happens to include all the data.

You state in the comments that you have a 'control-freak' nature. Well, fighting Photos is only going to make things worse. Either use Photos as it is, or don't use it, and organize your Photos manually, or by using some other app.


How to I delete a song from ITunes and re-download all...I'm having trouble with a song I downloaded from iTunes.  I fixed it once before, but I can't remember what I did.

I have a song that I bought and it only partially downloaded (only the first 40 seconds play).  I paid for the song, so I can download it again to my iPhone and computer, but not until I figure out how to delete the one that only partially plays.  Otherwise, I don't get the option to download, only to "play".  Anyone know how I can delete the incomplete song from my iPhone so I can download it from scratch again?

I'm able to delete it from my computer, but when I synch, the stupid partial song gets added back.

Thanks!
Michele

You should be able to right click on the song in iTunes and "Delete" - it will then ask you if you want to delete the song from your computer as well, which you will allow. Then sync your device, which will remove the song that is on it (or just open up the music on your device and delete that individual song) - redownload the song, and put it back on your iPhone.


KeyChain Access and GPG Keychain - should those be running simultaneously? I have installed GPG Suite and found out also during this time that my OS X has some app that stores all my passwords under my screenlock password - total news to me.  Can I get rid of Apple app if I now have GPG? Really need help with this Apple app.. Thank you.

No.  You have no reason to remove Keychain Access and doing so would break important parts of the OS.


Faulty 2006 iMac - what is it useful for? I own a 2006 iMac, which, alas, has a known manufacturing fault. Because of the poorly-designed cooling system, the graphics card (soldered to the motherboard) has become defective and the system shuts down spontaneously minutes or seconds after being turned on.

I have used a different computer for three years and I have really no need of this iMac at the moment.

However, I'd like know if I can nevertheless do something with it. It has a processor, lots of RAM, and a good hard disk. Can I use its computational power and its hard drive without employing the graphics card? I'd like the idea of turning it into a file server and being able to run non-graphical programs in it. The best would be being able to run X11 programs in it and see their graphics on another computer.

Everytime I turn the computer on it only worsens the problem, damaging the graphic card even more. So far, it didn't shut down when I put it in "single user mode", but I am afraid that even this little workload could damage the graphics card more and more. Basically I do not want to use the graphics card at all. I am prepared even to install a different operating system. (But how would I do so when the computer keeps shutting down?)

Edit: The problem is also reported in this petiton

Recycle or sell it for parts. Since the GPU is soldered, you likely cannot bypass the temperature sensors that the system monitors to ensure safe operation with consumer skills at soldering. Have you looked into a logic board repair or buying a Mac with a shattered screen at low cost to assemble one workable Mac?

Operating a machine where you know the protection mechanisms are shutting it down to prevent overheating and persist in doing so, being frugal crosses a line into taking risks with fire if you don't go to great lengths to protect yourself and other property nearby.

Also - your characterization of design flaws seems unsupported with one link to a 540 entry discussion thread. A six year old computer having failures seems more like a car needing an engine rebuild after things start failing and not so much a design failure, but perhaps the link wasn't correct.


What is the difference between an "aggregate" and a "multi-output" device? For those who might not be familiar with it, OS X gives us an option to output audio to more than one device through the Audio MIDI Setup utility. As a matter of fact, two options; creating an aggregate device or a multi-output device. What's the different between them?

I have a mid-2011 Mac Mini, connected to a Dell LCD via (MiniDP - DVI) and a Samsung TV via HDMI (which in turn is connected to an older A/V receiver via toslink). The Mac Mini is also connected to a 2.1 desktop speaker system. Given this setup I managed to get the audio to work, first by creating a multi-output device, then I realised that most guides mention using an aggregate device, which I am not sure I understand what it really is. Is there really a difference, if so what's the right way to achieve audio output through multiple devices?

A multi-output device allows you to mirror audio output to multiple devices at the same time.

An aggregate device allows you to tie multiple devices together to appear as one, single, device with more I/O than any one single device has.

Aggregation has a lot of applications in music production where you might want to use more than one audio capture device at the same time from Logic Audio or GarageBand. To do this, you aggregate devices in to one new, virtual device and access the single device from within Logic.

Some examples might help illustrate the difference.

Example 1: Multi-Output Device

Let's say I wanted to play music in iTunes and have the audio go to my iMac's built-in speakers and my AppleTV via AirPlay at the same time. How would I do this? I would create a new, multi-output device. Assign both my Built-In Output and AirPlay sources to this device and then select it as my output device for audio on my iMac.

Now audio played in iTunes goes to both my iMac's speakers and my AppleTV at the same time -- it's mirrored.

Example 1: Aggregate Device

Let's say I wanted to record 4 streams of mono audio at the same time but all I have are two audio input devices that each have 2 mono streams on them (they're basically stereo capture devices). I could create an aggregate device out of the two devices (assuming their drivers support aggregation in OS X) and use this new, aggregate device in GarageBand or Logic and now, instead of seeing 2 channels of input, I'd see 4 channels of input and the devices would function as one, bigger "virtual device".

It works in a similar fashion for their outputs. They all act as independent outputs on one virtual device.


How can I check USB drive contents safely? I would like to check the contents of a USB stick drive from a not-quite trusted source (my sister): is there a safe way to do this in OSX 10.9.5 or 10.10.1?

What I typically do is mount the USB drive in an isolated virtual machine. But this requires you have a hypervisor installed and a guest operation system configured, etc. This works because I can snapshot the VM state as well as isolate at the network level. But it's too complicated to explain here.

Probably the easiest way to do this is to mount the drive as read-only. You can do this by using diskutil from Terminal.

Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
Insert the drive into a USB port.
Run diskutil list from Terminal and note the disk number for your USB drive. Here's what my output looked like

  $ diskutil list
  /dev/disk0
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
    1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
    2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         250.1 GB   disk0s2
    3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
  /dev/disk1
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *249.8 GB   disk1
                                  Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                  5F6A08FD-AD5D-4C63-9DF2-8C1DE409F264
                                  Unencrypted
  /dev/disk2
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *32.7 GB    disk2
    1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
    2:                  Apple_HFS TomThumb                32.4 GB    disk2s2

So my USB drive is disk2.

Eject the disk by running diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX (which would be "disk2" for me)
Remount disk in read only mode by running diskutil mountDisk readOnly /dev/diskX
Use Finder or Terminal to examine the disk.

Note that if you eject the drive, you'd need to run this sequence again to have it mount as read only. There are other apps that automate mounting disks as read only but the command line is the only real UI for any OS! ;-) #opinion


OSX Big Sur Window UI turns purple when moved to desktop two The UI on my Macbook Air M1 turns into purple beautifully when the window is moved to Desktop 2.
This does not seems to be the tinting feature of Big Sur, since the color turns to black again when moved back to desktop 1.
Does any one know what's going on?
My purple safari

My purple settings

Same issue here. Filed a bug report to apple.
Specially XCode looks annoying .... but only when shown in fullscreen or on a second desktop. The main desktop is fine.
I worked around it by:
System Preferences -> General -> DISABLE: "Allow wallpaper tinting in windows"


How do iPhones get carrier locked remotely? My original iPhone 5 came directly from Virgin Mobile. As such, it's carrier locked.

A few months back, I had what seemed like a hardware issue, and in the process of troubleshooting it, Apple replaced my handset. They brought me a brand new iPhone 5 out of the storage area in the back of the retail store.

Apple does not have a Virgin Mobile "version" of the iPhone. Your options are AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, or no carrier. This means that Apple could not have replaced my iPhone with one that was already locked to Virgin. Additionally, Virgin Mobile has never touched my phone. It went from the Apple Store directly to my pocket.

This indicates to me that the process of carrier locking takes place when you place a Virgin SIM card in the phone and call the company to activate it. Is this correct? Or if I had taken the brand new iPhone from the store and tried to set it up on some other service, would I have found it locked somehow? Does it have to do with restoring my settings from backup?

How does this remote carrier lock work?

Per Virgin Mobile's Unlocking FAQ (emphasis mine):

What does it mean for my device to be "locked"?
The term "locked" means that either Virgin Mobile software or the manufacturers' device designs restrict the device to use with a carrier operating on Sprint's network, such as Virgin Mobile.

They gave you a Sprint model at the Apple store.


Unable to download the newest bootcamp drivers for my windows partition Bootcamp assistant is giving me this error :

The Startup disk must be formatted as a single mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

I’m trying to update the boot camp drivers for my MacBook Pro 2018 running Mojave and Windows 10. I’m trying to follow the instructions to update the bootcamp drivers for my windows side. Hitting the above error when trying to download the new software. Ideas?

Updating any drivers for Windows 10 can be accomplished through the following methods.

While booted to Windows, run Apple Software Update.
While booted to Windows, run Windows Update.
While booted to macOS, run the Boot Camp Assistant. Look for Download Windows Support Software under Action on the menu bar. Copy the files to a FAT32 or ExFAT formatted flash drive. Boot to Windows and run the setup application in the BootCamp folder.
Download the Windows Support Software directly from Apple. The procedure is outlined in Chris F Carroll's answer. Unfortunately, your question does not provide enough information to determine which PKG file to download.


Activating Mountain Lion screen saver from Applescript, part 2 This example was shown earlier:

tell application "System Events"
    set ss to screen saver "Random"
    start ss
end tell

Is there an incantation instead of "Random" to display a slideshow from the selected folder in the screen saver preferences?

On Mountain Lion (10.8)

This AppleScript will start the screen saver with the selected folder.

tell application "System Events"
    set ss to screen saver "iLifeSlideshows"
    start ss
end tell

Lion (10.7) and earlier

First select the appropriate sources/folders by clicking the Shuffle item in the screen savers list, then checking one or more items in the dialog that appears.

Then start the screen saver as as in the Mountain Lion section, but change iLifeSlideshows to screensaver.shuffle.


After Windows 10 Update, ICloud no longer installs. Hangs at removing backup files After Windows 10 Update, ICloud no longer installs. Hangs at removing backup files.  At this point, ICloud is installed and operating, but the windows installer hangs and requires a reboot if any install or uninstall is needed.  After a reboot, ICloud is automatically uninstalled.  I have tried all fixes recommended on the web, but nothing works.

I was told by a Microsoft technician that if your computer had Windows 10 installed as a virtual copy to your computer as opposed to having the physical install disc and installing from disc then the iCloud installation cannot remove the the backup files as they don't exist in reality, they only exist in the virtual copy of the program.  I may not be explaining this completely accurately but the jist is that if your original set up was from the factory where they used a "photo" copy of the program data to your hard disc in lieu of doing an actual install, then iCloud will always have problems.


TextEdit keeps crashing I am using TextEdit to edit some tcl files. periodically, or even frequently, but not always, when I go to save the file, I get a spinning beach ball. I tried launching text-edit via the command-line, but i was not imparted with any additional error information.

So what might be making TextEdit crash?
I have OSX 10.6.8 on an imac. I have all the updates my computer will allow.

To figure out why TextEdit is crashing, your best bet is to pull up Console and look for error messages from TextEdit.

That said, there are so many better text editors available on OS X.  Unless you have a really good reason for using TextEdit, I'd suggest trying any of these:

Sublime Text: http://www.sublimetext.com/
Atom: http://atom.io/
TextMate: https://macromates.com/download
Brackets: http://brackets.io/
Text Wrangler: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/
BBEdit: http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/


Does Coda 2 support Markdown? Is there a plugin for Coda 2 that interprets the Markdown langage please ?

From the Coda plugins page:

  Markdown.codaplugin - A Markdown plugin for Coda

  Usage

  Use CTRL+ALT+CMD+C to convert to HTML
  Use CTRL+ALT+CMD+P to preview


configtest error AH00526: Syntax error in httpd-autoindex.conf I've been using the tutorials here as well as here in order to host a web page using Apache on macOS Catalina Version 10.15.1. The problem was that I couldn't access the localhost and kept getting a 404 error.

Upon entering the line sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl configtest in the terminal, I get the following error message:

  AH00526: Syntax error on line 21 of /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-autoindex.conf:
  Invalid command 'Alias', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration.

This was the line that was giving me trouble:

Alias /icons/ "/usr/share/apache2/icons/"

TL;DR I turned the offending line into a comment by adding a ˋ#ˋ in the first column and restarted Apache.

To fix this, I followed the Youtube tutorial and opened up the file "httpd-autoindex.conf" using Finder and navigated down to line 21 which has the error. It reads Alias /icons/ "/usr/share/httpd/icons/".

Then I found this tutorial by just searching the erroring line in the file on Google. I followed the instructions up until the fourth step because upon trying that line in the terminal I get the message "-bash: service: command not found". So then I simply restarted the apache web server by entering sudo apachectl restart.

Finally, I tried writing sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl configtest and received the "Syntax OK" message, so I went back to the final step in the first tutorial. I entered

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist

At last, I type "localhost" into the search bar, hit enter, and get the "It works!" message.


Use F12 to open Developer Tools on Chrome I have already configured so that F keys act as "standard function keys" (just regular F1-F12).

How can I configure F12 to open the Developer Tools on Chrome?

Open Keyboard Shortcuts Preferences
Click "Mission Control" from the list
Untick "Show Dashboard" (disable default beahviour of F12)
Click "Application Shortcuts" from the list
Click the "+" below the right-hand list
Select Google Chrome from the drop down list
In "Menu Title", type Developer Tools
Click in "Keyboard Shortcut", then press F12


How should I troubleshoot Wi-fi timeout issues? I am having some Wi-fi issues at home and am looking for some advice on how to troubleshoot it.

The setup.
Comcast Modem connected to Airport Extreme Basestation which has a NAS drive and MacMini hardwired to, and my Macbook Pro which connects via Wi-fi.

The problem.
My internet will work for a couple minutes to 10 minutes and then I start getting lots of timeout errors.

Things I have tried.
My laptop's Wi-fi works perfectly all day at the office.
Hardwiring my laptop into the Comcast Modem internet works fine.
Unplugging the Basestation from the modem local network works fine, (swapped some filed around between machines)

Anyone have any ideas what is going on? Or what else I should be checking?

You don't say what OS you are using but I would suggest looking at the LAN to see if there is any WiFi channel or address conflict with your en1 connection (Mac mini airport or NAS?); also check that the AP has a channel that does not conflict with a nearby neighbor and is at least 2 channels away from its nearest competitor (if AP is 6, any neighbors should be 8 or 4). After that, try deleting your connection on the laptop and adding the AP and network info including the DNS.
You might also check that your LAN AP is the first in line in preferred networks and that there is no other Bluetooth, FireWire, etc. network enabled.


QuickLook for files with no extension or an unknown extension I'm a programmer, and I find Mac's QuickLook a really great feature for quickly becoming familiar with a particular code base.  Basically, I open up a Finder window in the directory where my code files are, I push the spacebar (to evoke QuickLook), and then I arrow key up/down/left/right through all the files and scroll within QuickLook as needed.

The problem that I run into are files with no extension and files with unknown extension.  How can I convince the Mac to attempt to QuickLook these files as text files (which they usually are).  Also, it's really nice how QuickLook automatically colors the code based upon the type of code it thinks it is.  How can I extend the types of code files that the Mac recognizes?  For instance, I want to be able to QuickLook the code in a *.html.erb file or a *.js.erb file.

Take a look at the QuickLook Stephen plugin, it opens almost everything I throw at it (as long as it is text based).


Adding a startup script on Big Sur I want to install a startup item in OS X Big Sur which runs a shell script as a user on my machine and connects via ssh to a remote machine I maintain.  I use ssh keys so no password is required for this script to succeed.  It will linger in the background.  How would I accomplish this in Big Sur?  My understanding is that the old /Library/Startup Items/xxx.plist trick is deprecated.  What is used in its place?
Thanks!

Don't have macOS Big Sur yet; however, in previous version of macOS there is System Preferences > Users & Groups > you > Login Items, or use a Launch Agent. (I assume these methods are still available in macOS Big Sur.)
Have a look at:

Open items automatically when you log in on Mac

Creating Launch Daemons and Agents

See also the manual pages for launchd and launchctl in Terminal.

You can read the manual page for command in Terminal by typing command and then right-click on it and select: Open man Page

Update:
To refute the claim made by Vihung in a comment: "While you answer, in general, is correct, it doesn't apply to shell scripts"
The example AppleScript code, show below, used as a shell script with a #!/usr/bin/osascript shebang, and added to the Login Items tab of my account in System Preferences > Users & Groups, opens a new window in Terminal with an ssh session to another computer and automatically closes the original window that opened the ssh session in the new window.
This was tested under macOS Big Sur with Language & Region settings in System Preferences set to English (US) — Primary and worked for me without issue1.

1 Assumes necessary and appropriate setting in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy have been set/addressed as needed.

Example AppleScript code:
      Note: Change ssh user@hostname to a properly formed ssh command for your required usage.
#!/usr/bin/osascript

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "ssh user@hostname"
    delay 0.5
    close window 2
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "Terminal"
        tell its front window
            set i to 0
            repeat until (exists button "Terminate" of sheet 1)
                delay 0.1
                set i to i + 1
                if i ≥ 30 then return
            end repeat
            click button "Terminate" of sheet 1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Notes:
This requires Terminal to be added to: System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility
It also requires System Events to be checked under Terminal in: System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Automation

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and sans any included error handling does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


How to delete partially downloaded updates in High Sierra? I'm trying to update my Macbook Pro to the latest security update for High Sierra but the download doesn't seem to finish and is working in a really weird way. I tried to cancel the current update, and it does cancel, but when I try to start it again, it doesn't start from the very beginning and shows an entirely different progress than what it showed before I cancelled it. For instance, I cancelled the download at around 700mb, but when I tried up update again, it shows that only 300mb has been downloaded.
I want to start the download from the start, from 0%, which I think will fix the issue but I can't seem to do that, too. Can anybody please help me? I tried to wait it out already, but it just gave me a connection error around 1.6GB. When I tried to start again, it started at around 738mb.

Sorry, but I only have a partial answer to your question:

First off I would try a different approach and download from here: https://support.apple.com/downloads

Also a safe boot (pressing and holding the shift button at boot until the Apple symbol appears) with an installation attempt there often succeeds.

As far as I know High Sierra downloads tmp system updates to a file, or files similar to this: /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/CFNetworkDownload_XxxXxX.tmp
...then assembles them into a subdirectory, within...
/private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/...before moving them to... /Library/Updates/.

You can always boot into "Recovery", which should let you browse all directories in Terminal (to be found under the "Utilities" menu).


Mac book pro 10.13.6 clean install on a year or two old machine I want to remove the "remote disk" not just from the side bar. I found on this site that from the terminal

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool false
killall Finder

This worked on older build. But with the new install /com.apple.NetworkBrowser is no longer in the /Library/Preferences directory.

I will never need or want to use "remote disk" can someone tell me how to get rid of it? Thank you.

First, I'd be wary of removing it. I know that "no one uses CDs/DVDs any more" but every once in a while, someone breaks one out, like at a conference or a gift shop, etc.

So, Remote Disc allows you - using a laptop with no internal optical drive - to use a nearby computer (Windows or Mac) that does have an optical drive as your optical drive. Very practical. (You have to install CD or DVD Sharing for Windows 1.0)

But, if you really want to remove it from the sidebar, it's quite simple. Very Mac-like.

Just right-click the Remote disc and select "remove from sidebar."


Apple Store Diagnostics say my hard drive failed but my computer works fine - Should I replace it? I had my MacBook Pro 17", late 2011, in for a replacement of the motherboard. The technician in the Apple Store told me that their diagnostics said that not only my mainboard had failed, but also both my hard drives (SSD and HDD in SuperDrive slot). I asked them to NOT replace the hard drives. When I got the laptop back, I can boot up normally and all my data is still there and accessible. Should I nonetheless replace my hard drive? Is there any possible damage the hard drives could have that I can't see, despite them working from what I can see?

Thank you!

First and foremost make sure you have a backup regime in place (e.g. using Time Machine).

Also, ensure you're backing up both the SSD and HDD.

My answers to your questions below assume you do have backups in place!

  Should I nonetheless replace my hard drive?

You're asking for an opinion here, so you risk getting different answers. However, if it was me I'd test both the hard drive and SSD with something better than Disk Utility (but that's easy for me to do as I own a whole range of diagnostic packages). In fact I'd test both of them at least twice, using different software.

Then, assuming all was okay, I'd likely replace the HDD with a fusion/hybrid drive and put the existing HDD in an external enclosure.

  Is there any possible damage the hard drives could have that I can't
  see, despite them working from what I can see?

Yes.


Remove iterm from cmd+tab apps I was using TotalTerminal to get visor like terminal on a shortcut. But TotalTerminal is abandoned so I have switched to the iTerm2. My problem is that when I use a shortcut to trigger iTerms visor behavior and profile it also gets activated like a normal app and gets into Cmd+Tab list of apps and I do not want that. Is there a way to prevent such behavior for visor profile of iTerm2?

Currently as of October 2016 iTerm2 has enabled this functionality.
Go to Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Hide iTerm2 from the dock and from the ⌘-Tab app switcher.


How to properly use scaling on an external display (from MacBook Pro 2016)? I have a MacBook Pro 2016 (with Thunderbolt 3 ports on macOS 10.13.6) and I need an external display.
I bought an ASUS VP28U (4K), connected it with an HDMI to USB-C adapter and, generally, it works. The problem is that everything is super-small, I guess because of the 4K.

Why doesn’t this display have any scaling option?
or...
How can I adjust the scaling of an external display while still using the full 4K resolution quality?
The only options given to me were to reduce it to 1080p, with obvious results...

Am I making something wrong? Using the wrong cables? Missing some options?

Or is the display a bad one?
Anyone with experience with my same configuration may help in sharing his setup?

Thank you

You need to set it to 1080p in order to get the scaling. A bit counter-intuitive this actually means that the display is using the full 4k resolution, but font sizes, window decorations, etc. is scaled to have the same size as with a 1080p display. This is what Apple calls "Retina Mode": Video, photos, etc. will display in their full resolution.

So try setting it to 1080p and then check on your monitor's on screen display that the incoming signal is actually 4k!

Note that the list of resolution in System Preferences > Display will also contain resolutions such as "1920 x 1080 (low resolution)". The added "(low resolution)" means that these are actual 1920x1080 resolutions, and not scaled like in Retina Mode.

If you do not see the list of resolutions, then hold down the Option-key and click the "Scaled" radio-button besides "Resolution:".


PDF in Preview id blurry on scrolling after upgrading to 10.9 I upgraded my system to 10.9 Mavericks. Preview works not as good as before. I have the same trouble with that post. What will the problem be? Lack of memory? New configurations of Preview? I hope to use it smoothly as before. What can I do with it?

I am using Macbook Air 2013.

It could be a caching bug in 10.9.0. If you have not transferred any files to this computer from a another Mac (via Time Machine for example) then you should be okay.

I doubt you have an actual hardware issue or limitation. If you were running a 2007 MacBook and you performed an upgrade I would expect this before due to the grandfathering of certain files/preferences/caches.

In a fresh system and new model your issue would not be tolerated by Apple. I would suggest submitting some feedback to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ and get them aware of this issue.

If this starts to show up in other apps or with other file types then it might be a good idea to go to an Apple Store or AASP and let them do a check on it.


Apps disappeared since installing Mavericks Since updating to Mavericks, I ran Purge King as I normally would and now all apps e.g. App Store have disappeared.

I managed to get most of them back into the dock but the App Store has gone totally and the Mail.app won't work now either. Now all my apps in Launchpad are missing.

Any ideas how to get the apps back? I have since uninstalled purge king.

A quick google search for purge king came up with no results so the following answer is simply me going out on a limb here picturing the worst case scenario where said application deleted all applications including 3rd party apps and built in stock applications.

Your best bet in this case would be to restore from a time machine backup. As I don't know what purge king exactly did the best way would be to do the following

Connect your time machine backup drive directly to your machine (if
it is an Apple Time Capsule then you can skip this step)
Enter the time machine and delete any backup that has been created after your apps disappeared
Restart your Mac and hold down the "R" key on your keyboard while it is turning on.
Follow the on screen prompts to choose your language etc.
Choose the "Restore from Time Machine Backup" option and click Continue.
Select the backup drive on the presented list and restore your computer

This will essentially wipe your drive clean and put onto it your most recent backup from the drive, in this case, the most recent backup that you left undeleted from step 2.

If you don't have a Time Machine backup, from my knowledge (and I could be wrong) I am unaware of another way to retrieve the stock mac applications back without doing a complete system format and reinstall. Airdropping the applications from another Mac may work but it sounds like other information that the applications require to operate are also missing/damaged (which is the most likely scenario for the Mail app). Your last resort option if you don't have a time machine backup would be to:

Setup a time machine drive (either on an Apple Time Capsule or an external drive)
Backup your entire computer.
Restart your Mac and hold down the "R" key on your keyboard while it is turning on.
Follow the onscreen prompts to choose your language etc.
Choose the "Reinstall OSX" option and click Continue.
Once OSX has finished reinstalling and you are on your desktop, connect your backup drive to your Mac, enter Time Machine and restore all your personal data and anything else you would need.

The only problem to this approach is that your applications will be erased. You could restore them from the time machine backup but this could possibly cause similar problems that you encountered with the Mail app.

If you don't have a Time Machine backup from the very beginning, this would be a good lesson to ALWAYS have a plan B. Time Machine is the best plan B for Mac users that exists to date as it not only backs up your personal information, but your entire hard drive so even if your operating system became corrupt or your internal hard drive died, you could clone the backup onto a new drive, boot from it, and it will be as if nothing ever happened.


How can I set the default alert settings for calendar events added from Mail By hovering over a date or time in Mail, you can add a calendar event. However, by default, all of the events I add in this way do not give me any kind of notification before they occur. The only way I have found to change this setting is to click details, and then manually add an alert. Is there any way to add an alert by default, to all events created in this way?

Yes, go to Calendar settings where you can choose defaults:


Escape space character in pathfile? I'm trying to set an environment variable for Anki's media folder, in .bash_profile.

The line is export ANKI_MEDIA='/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Anki2/me/collection.media'.

Once sourced, I try echo $ANKI_MEDIA which correctly returns the full path but if I do cd $ANKI_MEDIA I get back -bash: cd: "/Users/<username>/Library/Application\: No such file or directory

I've tried different combos of single and double quotes -- to no avail.
Please advice, thank  you in advance.

EDIT 1

I've tried writing the pathfile in .bash_profile within backticks. After sourcing it, I immediate get back -bash: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Anki2/me/collection.media: is a directory

EDIT 2

For future reference, I created a link in the home directory of the User and pointed it to the collection.media folder. This just a workaround, I would greatly appreciate it if someone helped me solve this puzzle.

The shell uses a space character as a separator between words, so paths containing spaces always must be put in "" when used (which implies that it is recommended/best practice to ensure that all paths and file names in shell scripts and init files are properly quoted):

ANKI_MEDIA="/Users/<username>/Library/Application\ Support/Anki2/me/collection.media"
cd "$ANKI_MEDIA"

You can also use \ to protect a space but this only works for literal paths, not for variables:

cd /Users/<username>/Library/Application\ Support/Anki2/me/collection.media

If applying quotes each time you change into this directory is inconvenient you can use an alias instead:

alias cdanki="cd '$ANKI_MEDIA'"


How do I check my Apple Watch model? A while back I received an Apple Watch as a gift. I can’t tell whether or not the Watch is an original First Generation or a Series 1.

How do I check which model of Apple Watch I have?

The engraving on the back of the watch will tell you. The original Apple Watch just has ‘Watch’ engraved and is sometimes called “Series 0” since it is one generation earlier than “Series 1”. All subsequent watch models have ‘Watch • Series x’ where x is the series of the watch.

Click to enlarge.
Left: Apple Support How to find the serial number or IMEI for your Apple Watch
Right: 9to5Mac Top new Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 features

You can also look up the model number on the Identify your Apple Watch Apple Support page. You can find the model number in the iPhone Watch app under My Watch → General → About.


Copy Selected Text, Paste on Google Translate App (Fluid App) and Translate It with Automater/Service I have a Google Translate app created with Fluid App. I want to translate any selected text with this my Google Translate Fluid App.

So, for this purpose how do I create a service with Automator/AppleScript?

Here is the AppleScript code I use in a Run AppleScript action, in an Automator Service workflow in conjunction with my Google Translate Fluid App, which is named Google Translate.

Create an Automator Service workflow with the settings as shown in the image below, while replacing the default AppleScript code with the AppleScript code found below the Automator image. Note that I saved it as Translate with Google Translate and this is what shows on the Services menu and context menu when I have selected text that I want to translate.

AppleScript Code:

on run {input, parameters}

    set textToTranslate to item 1 of input as string
    set windowName to "Google Translate"
    set targetURL to "https://translate.google.com/"

    tell current application
        do shell script "open -a " & quoted form of windowName
    end tell

    tell application "Google Translate"
        repeat while (loading) of front browser window
            delay 0.5
        end repeat
        if (get title of front window) does not contain windowName then
            open location targetURL
            repeat while (loading) of front browser window
                delay 0.5
            end repeat
        end if
        tell front browser window
            activate
            try
                do JavaScript "document.getElementById('source').value = \"" & textToTranslate & "\";"
            on error
                set the clipboard to textToTranslate as string
                delay 1
                activate
                do JavaScript "document.getElementById('source').value = ''; document.getElementById('source').focus();"
                tell application "System Events"
                    keystroke "v" using command down
                end tell
            end try
        end tell
    end tell

end run

Note: My Translate with Google Translate Automator Service tries to use JavaScript to change the value of the source text area, as this is IMO a better method then literally programmatically pasting the text to translate to the source text area, however if it can't, it then copies the selected text to the clipboard and then pastes it to the source text area. Before pasting, via programmatically pressing ⌘V, JavaScript is used to both clear the source text area and set focus to it, so the paste will occur as intended in the right location.

The use of do shell script "open -a " ... is necessary because a Fluid App with default Preferences, one created with Fluid, by default when opened from the macOS UI shows its Home Page. However, when programmatically opened via AppleScript, example case, tell application "Google Translate" to activate, only the Dock Tile appears, no browser window, i.e. no Home Page is displayed. This is in part why I originally coded it the way I did. However, since your comment, I found out that if I programmatically opened via AppleScript using do shell script "open -a " ..., it opens with a browser window, not just the Dock Tile and as such was able to recode the Service differently because the use of do shell script "open -a " ... also would bring a minimize window back up without the need to account for that with additional coding.

Hopefully the new code will eliminate two Google Translate tabs from appearing when starting from a closed state. (Although depending on timings, it may occasionally happen.)


How can I add my iCloud email account in Windows Live Mail? I have an iCloud account: name@me.com and I try to add it in Windows Live Mail but it gives an error message that my username or password are incorrect.

I found this http://www.apple.com/mobileme/setup/pc/windowsmail.html, but it's online for Windows Vista, my OS is Windows 7.

The recomended way to sync iCloud email is through Outlook, as per Apple's iCloud PC setup guide

However as you are asking about Windows Mail I'm assuming you do not have Outlook. In this case you have the option to forward iCloud emails to your other email address (the one you used to setup iCloud perhaps) and route this into Windows Mail.

You should also check that all the fields are correct. Use the iCloud Mail server information for this.


How to properly use MacVim on OS X? (And, to delete the duplicative *.app via Finder)? I use Gvim on Windows platforms on an hourly basis, and it really bothers me that I cannot make MacVim work properly when I need to move around with the MacBook Air. A bunch of things are going wrong on the OS X system:

That there are a lot of MacVim.app left overs in my system, as follows. They are all accessible (I can open a file through any one of the following 5)

That the Vim opened through my Terminal is of a different version (Vim 8.0, 1-543).
Worst still, I got Python compatibility issue across all versions of the MacVim and Vim. I have asked this compatibility issue in another post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46718585/using-vim-to-edit-r-script-why-python-keeps-complaining . To note,

I have solved the Python problem that has to do with R and Python script on my Windows machines. Detailed steps are in the link above.

Questions:

Can I delete the outdated MacVim.app's from my OS X system?
How to let the Terminal use the correct version Vim? I may need to build the Vim + MacVim locally?
Fundamentally, how to address this incompatibility issue? Based on my fix on Windows platforms, the errors are thrown when the "bit" version of Vim is not the same as the Python. Moving everything to 64-bit solves the problem even on a Windows machine. However, I don't even see a "bit"-version from either Vim builds on my Mac system: be it MacVim or Vim through Terminal.

First, you can certainly delete all the outdated version of MacVim leaving only the newest.

To run MacVim from the command line you need to call the mvim script which is in the app itself, somewhere like /Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim. The best way to do this is to use a bash alias in your .bash_profile file, alias mvim='/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim


Deleting all copies of a photo If I delete a photo from both Camera Roll and Photo Stream, is there still another copy on my Mac or elsewhere that Photo Stream placed there?

It depends on the order of sequence.

When a photo enters Photo Stream, all devices that are on and running and set to download a copy can get the photo. In the case of your Mac, iPhoto can be set to automatically import the photo, so yes - it could have a copy stored in the library even though you have deleted it from the stream.

Deleting the photo from the camera roll doesn't have any influence on the stream or other devices other than perhaps if you were to connect the device over USB to a computer and import later, but I'm guessing that's not your concern.

In practice, there is some delay so if you took a photo on the phone and then deleted it almost as soon as you took it from Photo Stream, the delete likely would prevent another device from seeing the photo, but if your network is fast - the photo could be elsewhere.


How can I test a display resolution that's not listed? I'm planning to give a talk at a conference, and I've been told that slides will be displayed on a screen with a resolution of "2048 x 1080 (16:9 aspect ratio)".

I want to see how my slides look at that resolution. I have a Macbook Pro (non-retina screen) running OSX Mavericks and no external display.

In System Preferences, I can choose between only two "scaled" resolutions: 1280 x 800 and 1024 x 640.

Is there a way that I can use an unlisted resolution?

To see all graphics supported modes use the alt key before clicking on Scaled in display preferences.

To see it in 19:9 use a Thunderbolt cable to a TV. (assuming you have those)

If you have a Mac like I do (MBA 2012) then using the Thunderbolt you can get up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on your HDTV.

Intel HD Graphics 4000
Dual display and video mirroring:
Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors


How to generate Templates with Apples Pages? I want to create a template, which is conform to the German business style DIN 676. Somehow I can't figure out how to achieve this. Is there a good Documentation for creating templates within pages?

Are you asking how to turn an existing document into a template, or are you needing advise on how to make the document?

If it's the former, you just need to save your document as a template using quite simply File > Save as template.

If it's the latter, then judging by the link you mentioned, I would start with a blank document in page layout format.  Select View > Show Layout and Show Rulers.  Start with your page margins, and set them to that shown in your example.  Then add text boxes that you can size and align against the rulers to make sure that they are in the correct places for the addresses etc.  For the section under the address that is 5 columns, you could use a table, using the cell properties to ensure the middle column is the desired width.

I can't read German, so am unsure what a lot of the notes mean, but I hope this is a start for you.


Mac app to show cumulative CPU usage? Activity Monitor will show you how much CPU time the current instances of each process have taken. I want an app that will show the total CPU time all instances of each process have taken, so I can (for instance) see what's draining my MacBook's battery the most on average.

If this exists, I can't find it. Does it exist?

You'll want sa and accton commands to dump accounting information to a file.

Here's an article that's a bit old. The perl script at the end works well - look out for * characters in the shell - those might need to get filtered or the input sanitized if the perl script doesn't show you totals.


Replace vertical line with ">" in text copied from Mail and pasted to plain-text When I copy the text of an email from Mail into a plain-text document, it loses the vertical lines marking replied text. Is there any way to replace those vertical lines with ">" (greater-than signs)?

An OS X Service that reformats a forwarded Mail message with Markdown-style '>' quotes — https://github.com/smokris/MailToMarkdown


Should I restore my data before or after upgrading the OS? (Part 3 in my ongoing Lion upgrade/hard drive replacement saga...)

When I get my computer back in a few days, it will have a brand new hard drive with a clean Snow Leopard install. I will be upgrading the OS on the new drive to Lion. I have complete backups of my old drive on a Time Capsule, automatically backed up now and then by Time Machine. Should I restore this data before or after upgrading the OS? Would restoring Snow Leopard backups to a drive running Lion cause any problems?

(I am leaning toward getting the Lion upgrade out of the way first, just in case anything goes wrong, and then restoring my data to its new home.)

It won't matter as far as the software goes since Lion runs the migration script one time only on your Snow Leopard data whether you migrate it in from a backup or it's there when you do the upgrade to Lion.

From a human standpoint, I would encourage you to make a "test" account (pick a different short name to prevent conflict or confusion when migrating your "real" account later)

Updating and testing Lion lets you build confidence the Lion is working on your repaired hardware.

Run Snow Leopard updates to 10.6.6 at least to get the App Store if needed
Install Lion
Run all updates
Test Lion in the test user. Once you're happy it works, migrate in your user data.

There's no right or wrong here - so do whatever makes the most sense to you. You've had a rough spell with the first upgrade / hardware failure - no need to over complicate things unless you really feel more steps is better.


Can I use automator to launch a keystroke when program is idle Can I use automator to launch a keystroke (cmd+R) when program PremierePro CS6 is idle for 1 minute. This keystroke would start program to Render videofiles.
Many Thanks, Jan.

I don't know how well it would work, but you could try running something like this in AppleScript Editor.

repeat
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Safari"
        set p to properties of UI elements of UI elements
        delay 10
        if properties of UI elements of UI elements is p then
            set frontmost to true
            keystroke "r" using command down
            --return
            delay 20
        end if
    end tell
end repeat


How to query the history record of when the USB driver which has been used? I always use one USB flash disk on my MacBook Air (OS X 10.10.3), but I lost it recently. I need a way to view when the last date & time the USB device was connected to the computer.

Unfortunately peripheral connections are simply something that isn't logged by your Mac. Just think - why would it need to keep a written log of when a USB drive is plugged in?

Hope you end up finding it again!


Is there a firewall on an iPad on iOS 10, and is it configurable? I have an iPad Air 2. I've been using a comic book reader called Bookman for years. It allows importing books over FTP on a set port (2121). It has worked for years without an issue, but ever since I updated to iOS 10.0.2, I keep getting "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server" trying to connect to the iPad's IP.

A ping to the iPad's IP works, and connecting to another app that uses port 80 works. I verified it's not a client side issue, by trying from several machines. At this point, I think something in iOS is blocking the port.

Is there a firewall, or any other configurable part that I can allow traffic through?

There is no firewall on iOS and it does not block any ports that I am aware of.

I'd guess your issue has more to do with the fact that Bookman hasn't been updated in over three years and some change in iOS 10 finally broke it. I'm actually shocked it works at all.

It sounds like you can use iTunes file sharing as an alternative, presuming that a recent iTunes update hasn't caused that to stop working with this particular app.


Windows iTunes: Where are the lyrics saved to? In iTunes, we can right click a track and do "Get Info" and add some lyrics to the track.

I have a text file that is roughly 500 kB.

My MP3 file is 3.47 MB. For some reason, when I set the lyrics to the contents of the text file (in other words, roughly half a megabyte), my MP3 file size is still 3.47 MB.

Where are the information for the lyrics saved to?

(Windows Vista 32-bit SP2)

It is entirely possible that you have iTunes set to copy files to its own media folder, in which case the original audio files are not changed.

To find the location of the audio file iTunes is using, look under the "Where:" label in the "Summary" tab.

iTunes (both Windows and Mac) does use the lyrics field in MP3s to store lyrics, and will cause the modification date and time, as well as the size, to change.