How do I select a song in a playlist in my library in iTunes 10? In iTunes 9 and earlier, I could go to a playlist and hold down option and click the small arrow next to the name of any song in that playlist to select that song in the main library instead of the playlist. This was very useful, for example if I wanted to remove a song from my library, I could use this to "reveal" the song in the main library and remove it from there.

(This little icon, when clicked on without option, would open the iTunes store for purchasing the selected song)

In iTunes 10, there is no more arrow for me to option click on. How can I select a song in a playlist and go to that same song file in the main library in iTunes 10?

One way to do this is through the context menu on the selected song. Ctrl + Click (right click), go to the "Show in Playlist" item, and select the "Music" option. You should then be taken to the song in the main library list.


How can I refresh the macOS dictionary? Consider the following workflow:

Open TextEdit.
Type a word that's not in the dictionary.
Right-click on that word and select 'Learn Spelling'.
Observe the squiggly underline disappears, as the word is now recognised.
Observe the word is added to the ~/Spelling/LocalDictionary file.
Quit TextEdit.
Remove the word from the ~/Spelling/LocalDictionary file.
Reopen TextEdit.
Type the same word again.
Observe it is still recognised (not squiggly-underlined), despite no longer being in the local dictionary.

It seems the problem here is that there is some sort of cache maintained by macOS that is not refreshed. If I right-click on the word in TextEdit to remove it from the local dictionary instead of editing the file, it is indeed no longer recognised; i.e., this appears to update the cache.
Is there any way I can manually refresh the cache of local dictionary words?

I figured this out myself in the end. One needs to relaunch the com.apple.applespell service (from the command line).
launchctl stop com.apple.applespell
launchctl start com.apple.applespell


Deleting or permanently halting old automator scripts How can I delete or stop old automator scripts from starting at startup?

I do not know where they are located and neither do I remember their names. Can I locate them by some sort of extension perhaps?

The most common place to put a workflow is System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Items. Select the workflow and click the – button to remove it from the list.


Connecting 4 DVI (or VGA) monitors to the Macbook Pro Retina I have an existing four monitor set up connected to my PC via two video cards. If I move to a Macbook Pro retina, what is the most strait forward way to preserve this monitor set up?

These monitors are all Dell monitors that only have connectors for DVI or VGA (although my largest appears to support HDMI).

You could run 2 DVI/VGA montiors via the thunderbolt ports with adapters, and 1 via HDMI. I believe the 4th would need to be connected with a USB-to-vdeo adapter.

Check out this question for some more information:
How many external displays can I power with the 15" retina MacBook Pro?


Safari can't connect to the server "localhost" Okay, I am a beginner with all this, so don't expect me know much. Let me know if this is the wrong place to ask this. What tags should I have used? THANKS a lot for your time.

Background

I have a CGI script saved in /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables.

I used to be able to run the script using the URL: http://localhost/cgi-bin/filename,

Problem

But now, Safari can't connect to the server?!  Once or twice it begins to load then stays for a long time and eventually the same error comes up.

What could the problem be?

Extra Q's

I found my apache2 folder in /private/log/apache2 should this be moved?

Can I somehow run this script on something else without a server? Terminal works, but it is too hard to read.

It seems like you are using Mac's built-in server and maybe somewhere along the line, web sharing was disabled.

Go to your System Preferences and enable Web Sharing.

To be sure httpd has started do what @Kerri mentioned in the comments

ps -eaf | grep httpd

which will display all processes that contain httpd as well as the Process ID

if you only get something like the following

501 22299 22030   0   0:00.00 ttys001    0:00.00 grep httpd

grep is the only process running referencing httpd

At this point try stopping and restarting the server manually

sudo httpd -k stop
sudo httpd -k restart

Look also into the Console.app log and filter to see what information you can get from there.

If it is enabled you should get the following on pointing to localhost within a browser

  It works!

So far so good, the server is running.

Now to navigate to the cgi-bin folder, if you used the scripts before then it should be mapped already in your configuration.

You could get

  Forbidden

  You don't have permission to access
  /cgi-bin/ on this server.

or an Internal Server Error if you went straight to the script

and you can chmod 755 the script and that should give you the correct permission to run it.

You can also check the access and error logs to see what's up

/var/log/apache2/access_log
/var/log/apache2/error_log

/var is the symbolic link to private/var


Unknown error (-41) - file transfer using vpn Well, the following error occurs every time I try to copy a file from the university's file server when I use a VPN connection. That happens since the update to Yoseminte a few days ago, didn't occurred on Mavericks.

"Task could not be completed due to an unknown error (-41)"

We had this on upgrade to Yosemite. For us it was fixed by deleting the VPN service from Network Preference and putting it in fresh with all the same details. I assume it flushes some corrupt cache or something.


Can one use Apple's Bootcamp drivers on a Parallels VM? So this just occurred to me: What if I installed Windows as a Parallels VM and used bootcamps drivers instead of the parallels drivers, would this work?

Something tells me it won't, and that this is a really stupid question, in part because the VM is not actually your machine, but then again, it's a VM working ON the actual machine... no?

This is unlikely to work, though I haven't tried it. If I may esplain...

The bootcamp drivers are for windows running on a specific number of Apple Macintosh computer models. In other words the drivers are for specific computers.

The Parallels VM is an emulated PC that may or may not have any compatibility with the Apple hardware.

It's kind of like going to the Dell drivers download site, downloading drivers for an (lets say...) Optiplex 9020 and than hoping those drivers will work on the new HP you just brought.


Identifying iPhone GPS issues I own an iPhone X, purchased a few months after its release (November 2017).  I'm getting close to the end of my AppleCare+ window, and as such have some urgency to identifying whether the following issue is legitimate (and needs to be/can be fixed) or not.  I'm not looking for support for the issue itself, but for how to identify/troubleshoot it.

The last few days, my GPS location accuracy has been ... bad.  Very bad.  I was driving home on Sunday, and asked Siri for directions out of the strip mall I was having lunch in back to the highway; Siri started telling me things that made no sense, multiple different sets of things, and was very far off track (and moving about wildly).  My wife, who also has an iPhone X purchased at the same time on the same service, set up her directions and had no issues with drift.

The rest of the trip home I continued to experience far more frequent "course  corrections" (while I was driving along a deserted freeway) than is typical - tens of corrections, even in fairly open areas, as opposed to the typical two or three.  My wife's phone had nearly no issues.

I also play some location-aware games, and have had multiple instances where they were far, far worse than usual.  I'm familiar with normal GPS drift, but this seems different.

Is there any way for me to identify this as an actual problem (as opposed to just normal GPS drift that I'm just noticing more for whatever reason)?  An app, a log, something like that where I can either diagnose the problem or collect data on the problem so I can 1) prove if this is a problem or not, and 2) show it to Apple support so they can identify the (hardware/software) problem?

If it's relevant, the issues occurred on iOS 12.4 and iOS 13.0 (but I've since upgraded to 13.1).  Never on a beta, always on release versions.

The best bet is to take it into an Apple Store and have them run diagnostics on the device. This won't take long to do, and there'll also be a record of it on their systems.

If an Apple Store (or authorised repairer) is not convenient to you, Apple can also run diagnostics while you're on the phone to them.

Regardless, the diagnostics will identify any hardware related issues on your iPhone and that's really the best way to troubleshoot it.


Updating software from App Store not available for purchased items. I have recently purchased Growl for handling my notifications. I had enabled my account from Greece since I was living there years ago before I got my mac. Now I have moved to Denmark and I followed the relevant procedure for changing country. Finally I purchased software after I switched my account to Denmark.

The issues come when there are updates for the software I bought. I am getting a message saying:

To update this application, sign in to the account you used to upgrade it.

I followed the instructions from here and now App Store doesn't even recognize I have spend money on software and asks me again to purchase it.

How can I configure my App Store account properly so I don't have these issues?

The solution is to keep 2 separate AppleID accounts:

One for the country you used to live in, with a valid address for that country. Credit Card may be expired as it's not needed for updates.
Another for the country you live in now with your current details.

I've had a long email conversation with Apple re the subject, but they don't allow for purchase transfers between countries. They treat each country's store as a separate entity with no option to transfer purchases between.

Unfortunately this means, that in order to get an update for the apps which are attached to different AppleIDs you have to log out and log back in with different details. This is a bit of an inconvenience, but still cheaper than buying all the apps again.


Full screen mode in two monitors I have a MBP with an external monitor running ML. When I enter full screen mode, the other monitor isn't usable. Is it possible to have the full screen on one monitor and to use the other monitor as well?

It is not possible to use one screen in full screen mode while having an different application on the second screen.
But it is also not true that the second screen isn't "usable". You can have different windows of the SAME application on the second display (e.g. the equalizer window in iTunes, or the fonts dialog in pages or whatever).

I would also prefer to have a second application on my second screen, but I mentioned the ability to have at least other windows of the same application just in case that someone didn't knew.


Right-click on a MacBook Pro running Windows 7? I've got a Macbook Pro whizzing it's way through the postal system towards me which I intend to run Mac OS X and Windows 7 On.

I was wondering how the MacBook Pro does right clicks in windows, I'm lead to believe that clicking with two fingers rather than one will right click in Mac OS but does the same apply to Windows on a MacBook?

In Windows 7 running in bootcamp:

To right-click using a trackpad:
Place three fingers on the trackpad and click the trackpad button.

Just make sure you install the Bootcamp drivers that are on the OS X Installation DVD


How does one NOT save Messages history upon new login in El Capitan on iMac? "save history when conversations are closed"

That is a preferences option in Message app on El Capitan. I do NOT have this box checked, yet every time I log into Messages EVERY conversation from at least the last week, if not longer, populates the app. How do I get this to stop happening and start fresh each new login session? And is it possible to have the Messages app synced with the iOS Messages for when I delete a conversation - having it deleted on both?

Thanks!

The pref doesn't say "Save history when you quit or logout" it says "Save history when conversations are closed" - i.e., when you hit the X to get rid of them - either permanently, or temporarily, depending on that pref.

If you want to delete the archive itself, you'd have to do that manually.
Files live in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages


Is it worth upgrading to SSD or just to buy new? I'm deciding whether or not to upgrade to SSD's in my Late 2011 15" MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz i7, or if its finally starting to come to that time where I need to just fork out and buy a new MacBook.

I'm not sure whether upgrading to SSD will solve my problems for long, as my laptop is taking around 20 - 30 minutes from a cold start to just open applications... I have tried everything, even a complete wipe of the HHD and a fresh install of the OS.

Thoughts?

I have a Late 2011 MacBook Pro too. After upgrading to Yosemite last year, I was thinking on buying a new Mac, since performance was very bad.
Every kind of application was incredibly slow to open, even working with more than one app at time was impossible. Also just opening a simple PDF took a lot of time.

At the end, I decided to install a SSD on my Mac. A new world. Now everything works properly and my laptop seems to be reborn. I also updated to El Capitan and performance is even better.

So I advise you to buy a SSD, before giving up with your Mac. I have a Samsung SSD SATA 250 GB and I am very satisfied. You can spend less that 120-130 $ and you will have a completely new experience.


How can I keep System Events from deactivating? I'm using more and more Applescripts for home automation that rely on System Events being active.  The problem is that System Events shuts down if it hasn't been used for a while.  I'm not sure how long the time is though.  15 min?  5 min?  Regardless...  if System Events isn't active, there's either a pause or an error while it launches, meanwhile I wonder what happened.  I don't want to build delays into the Applescripts because many of them are for remote control type actions (imagine if your TV required a 10 second delay every time you tried to use your remote.  That'd be annoying).

Is there a way to keep System Events active?  Is there a reason to NOT keep System Events active?

I'm on Mavericks, if that matters.

Save this plist as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/systemevents.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>systemevents</string>
  <key>Program</key>
  <string>/System/Library/CoreServices/System Events.app/Contents/MacOS/System Events</string>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Then run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/systemevents.plist.

It doesn't fix the glitches in the QuickHue script though. I was probably wrong when I said that the error was caused by System Events not being open.


How can I block Nmap scanning on macOS? I would like to stop others from using Nmap to scanning my Mac.
How can I do that ?

The nmap tool is tricky and designed to evade firewalls, so you might need a hardware firewall or assistance from a network administrator based on how skilled the operator of nmap is.
You can’t be on a network and remain totally invisible.
That being said, enabling the firewall and configuring it to drop incoming connections is usually good enough.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201642

Be sure to go into advanced and choose Block all incoming connections
This breaks many functions for sharing out, which is precisely what nmap detects.


How to force Mountain Lion "NetworkAuthorization" prompt I remember being able to make the edit

defaults write com.apple.NetworkAuthorization ShowAuthUI -bool YES

back in the day, in order to force username/password prompt for users connecting to AFP file servers. I'm experiencing an issue with multiple computers; when trying to connect to a file server on a different domain the user's domain credentials from their current domain are being used, and not the domain credentials needed for that specific file server on the mentioned domain.

That's why I would like a solution like the one above known to work with Mountain Lion, which that one is not.

I've also tried clearing out and removing the keychain, browsing bonjour through Finder (which still allows a "connect as" login box to be pulled up) but the server, being on a seperate domain, is not showing up.

Any known solutions or suggestion? My workaround currently is to "connect to server" using afp://username:password@fileserver.domain.com doing that allows proper authentication to occur and/or pops up the username/password dialog prompt. That is a fine workaround for me, but our hundreds of users would not appreciate the added complexity.

I just found that if you use IP address instead of name of server 10.8 does prompt you for username / password!
Why? I have no idea.


How to prevent iTunes from trashing older versions of apps on updates? Recent versions of iTunes have incorporated a new behavior which is to automatically move any previous version of a mobile app to the trash when those apps are updated. As far as I can tell, there is no setting to for the user to change this behavior.

I do not want iTunes to automatically throw away all older versions of my apps. Frequently, mobile app updates are buggy or remove functionality and I want to retain the ability to regress to previous versions. I, also, do not want to have to continue repeatedly dragging hundreds of apps from the trash back into my Mobile Applications folder.

What can I do to prevent this automatic trashing of my apps? Is there a way to change this setting through the Terminal? Or an AppleScript that will override this behavior?

I solved this by setting up a folder action using Hazel to automatically move any file in the trash with the extension .ipa or which is otherwise recognized by the system as a Mobile App to my iTunes/Mobile Applications folder. I'm sure you could set this up without using Hazel, just using folder actions. You will need to make invisible files visible before setting the action so you can at Trash as location A.


How can I enter a shortcode on a 4G iPad? I'm using a prepaid wireless carrier with my iPad.  I can buy codes for the carrier that add credit to my account.  On a cell phone, I'd dial these codes using something like *101*(digits)#.  The iPad doesn't appear to have a "dialer" -- is it possible to enter this sort of code somewhere?

Everything I've seen seems to indicate that no, there's no way to send a shortcode to your network provider on any iPad.  This is dumb, but apparently par for the course :(


How to limit search only to file name instead the content of files? Possible Duplicate:
  Searching by file name (as opposed to name and contents) in Lion

I have a "server" with OS X Lion and a shared hard disk, and some clients with various version of OS X (10.4 to 10.7).

When a client search for a file, I would like to limit the search to the file name and not the content of the files.

Is there a way to do this?

When you're in the Finder, hit Command + F. Notice under the Search: bar there's some options. Use the pulldown to select Name. Then set the next to Matches, Contains... and type in your search string.


Remove redownloadable song form Itunes how do I remove a redownloadable song.  I down loaded a song and it keeps charging me for it per month.  I want to remove it.

You may have subscribed to Apple Music, and are getting a charge for the monthly fee.
To cancel your subscription, follow the advice from this Apple Support article:

On the Home screen, tap Settings.
Tap iTunes & App Store.
Tap your Apple ID at the top of the screen.
Tap View Apple ID. You might need to sign in.

Under Subscriptions, tap Manage.
If you don't see a subscription in iTunes and are still being charged, make sure that you're signed in with the correct Apple ID. If so, you might have subscribed directly with the provider and not through iTunes. In this case, contact the content publisher or app developer directly to cancel your subscription.

Tap the subscription that you want to manage.
Use the options to manage your subscription. You can choose a different subscription period, or turn off Automatic Renewal.
Turn off Automatic Renewal to cancel a subscription. Your subscription will stop at the end of the current billing cycle.


Why do my internet browsers stop working? I have a 13″ mid 2009 MacBook Pro.

For a long time now my browsers just decide to stop working. The 1st occasion Safari kept crashing every 10 minutes so I downloaded Firefox but after a while the same thing kept happening.

I thought it was something to do with Flash so I downloaded a newer version of Flash but that didn't solve anything. I then downloaded Chrome which was fine for a while but now from time to time any browser I use just stops working. I find myself either having to switch my wifi off and on and restart which ever browser I'm using or if that doesn't work, when Safari stops working I switch to Chrome and vice versa.

The first step in narrowing this down is to look at the crash log and the event log in Console.app (under /Applications/Utilities) to look for relevant error messages.

Usually it is a dns related error, but if that doesn't work, then run the network diagnostics to make sure it isn't just a web browser issue.


LIGHTROOM: Missing files on ThunderBay Raid Drive after internal Hard Drive crash I'm looking for options and would appreciate any ideas.

I'm a photographer w/a MacBook Pro & an OWC upgraded SSD internal drive that crashed. Lightroom is my main application and I use an OWC ThunderBay RAID drive as my main data hard drive (imports of images go directly here).

Upon the abrupt crash of my Internal SSD HD, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to backup the HD  and restore* (some manual restoration was necessary), and then reformatted the internal drive. Upon reinstalling OS Mojave and Lightroom, I discovered to my horror that my catalog in Lightroom can't locate 80,000 of my images! (these are images that I know exist on the drive, as I was just using many of them).

I'm thinking that this has something to do with my messy restoration (created a new user by accident) that is hiding folders and files via security permissions. Even though I've used Terminal to broadly change the drive's permissions etc... gone through folder by folder... there are still these thousands of important missing and I believe "hidden" files.

Looking for suggestions... I am really in a dilly of a pickle. (-Flandersism

Lightroom doesn't store images in the Lightroom catalog, it only stores the editing metadata. If Lightroom can not locate the images, they may be missing (!) or simply not where Lightroom is expecting them. The first step is to manually locate your images to confirm they are still in place on your harddrive (or wherever you had them). If the images are NOT where you expect them, and you can not find them manually, you may have lost or destroyed the images.  Lightroom can not help recover the images, as it does not store the images in the catalog.

But if you find the images, then perhaps the Lightroom catalog has lost track of them, or they are in a renamed location (you changed the user name, which changes the top level directory in MacOS). The first step is to look at the menu tree on the left in the Library module. If any images or folders are listed as "missing' (with an exclamation mark: "!"), then inspect them to see what folder/drive they are attempting to connect to.  Make sure the location in Lightroom matches the location on your drive.

This article is extremely good instruction on how to reattach images to the Lightroom catalog, and I will simply point you to it rather than reproduce all intricate instructions here. However, this article guides you on reconnecting images to the Lightroom catalog.


How do I sign out of iCloud on iOS6 How do I sign out of iCloud on iOS6.

I have created a 2nd AppleID I want to use for iCloud synching, but the only option I get is "Delete Account". I don't want to delete the AppleID (which is used on other devices), just change to the new account

My old link for this dried up, but delete account is really "delete this account from my device".    The text of this article confirms that, but unfortunately I can't find an apple.com link currently.

Reading this thread will also confirm it for you, although indirectly.


Why am I getting Facebook push notifications even though I have all Facebook push notifications disabled? I have an iPhone 4S. No Facebook push notifications are activated on my phone. Nevertheless, several times a day I receive a push notification that I have been invited to X event or Y person is in my vicinity. I can't seem to figure out why I'm receiving these notifications and I would rather not get them. Any clue what's behind this mystery?

The answer Matthew Frederick gave should do the trick, but if you want to disable them from within the Facebook app itself, the alternative approach is to:

Open the Facebook app
Press the ≡ button in the upper left and scroll down to Settings
Select Account Settings
Select Facebook Notifications
Select Push Notifications
Uncheck any of the four boxes there

Close Friends List Activity
Group Posts and Comments
Tags You in a Post
Mentions You in a Comment

If you are receiving additional notifications, they may be coming from the Facebook Messenger app which is separate from the main Facebook app and I believe has it's own settings for push notifications relating to private messages.


Disable SpeechRecognitionCore edit: I don't use this feature, don't need nor want it running in the background.

Is there a way to deactivate the service?

I've seen so far this command:

killall -9 com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore.speechrecognitiond

But wouldn't like having to remember doing so manually.

You probably have Dictation enabled.

This setting is under Keyboard System Preferences.


Can I dual boot Snow Leopard and Lion? I own a Mac Mini 3.1 with Snow Leopard installed. I would like to dual boot with Lion for development purposes.

I have partitioned my hardisk as described in Point (1) in this tutorial

How to Install Dual Boot Mac OSX Lion and Snow Leopard

Can I now buy and download Lion from the apple store and then install it on the new partition?

You'll need to make your own bootable DVD/USB of the Lion installer to do so. This can be made from the AppStore download and is documented well by OSXDaily.

Lion USB Installer
Lion DVD Installer

Then hold ALT at system boot (before chime & Apple logo) and select your install volume.


Can one buy an Ethernet and HDMI Thunderbolt adapter? I need both of them and I am wondering if it is possible to buy them together or if I have to get two separate items?

Also I am seeing a lot of third party Thunderbolt>HDMI adapters for cheap and then no generic Ethernet adapters, only the stock (expensive) Apple ones. Is there a way to get an off brand Ethernet adapter?

Yes - there are quite a few docks to connect one cable to a Mac and have gigabit ethernet as well as HDMI out (and some even support 4K resolution on the HDMI).

Elgato https://www.elgato.com/en/thunderbolt-2-dock
Belkin http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F4U085/
Sonnet http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo15thunderboltdock.html
OWC https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/Dock/OWC/Thunderbolt2-Dock/

I've linked to the top of the line thunderbolt 2 versions of the docks. If you don't need the fastest speed look for older models of 10 Gbps thunderbolt as refurb/used or still new stock which are discounted in price from the faster 20 Gbps models.

It's far cheaper to buy two single use adapters, though - the electronics are smaller and less complicated than needed for a full dock that takes one cable and splits into multiple functions.


How to recover photos from iPhone 7 deleted via Windows Explorer? My mom deleted some photos from an iPhone 7.
She deleted them via Windows Explorer.
There is no backup as she took them just a few days ago.
Is it possible to recover them?

Thanks.

iPhone spec: iOS 10.0.3

In short, no.

Recovering files deleted from an encrypted hardware device is generally considered not possible, especially as they didn't go through iOS Photos' own deletion system, which would have kept them for 30 days.


Start Chrome in Application Mode How do I do the following equivalent of Windows on a Mac?

"path\to\chrome\chrome.exe" --app=http://facebook.com

Link to Windows question.

There used to be a lifehacker guide to do this but unfortunately some of the links in the guide are dead.

This will open Google Chrome with the specified URL:

/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --app="https://example.com"


Creating a folder with one icon in iOS 4 Is it possible to create a folder containing a single icon? I guess you could drag one icon onto another, then remove the second one, but is there a more "elegant" solution?

You describe the only way to achieve this.

Create a folder by dragging one app on top of another, then drag one of them out of the folder again. It doesn't get any simpler than that.


Can I know the technical specifications of a Mac mini without an OS? I just bought a Mac mini 2011 to replace my iMac 2011 and want to make sure before I plug my Time Machine drive into it that the Mac mini's hard drive has the capacity I need.
I tried restarting it with the R key pressed, but it didn't work, it went to the install prompts.
Can I boot the Mac mini (which doesn't have an OS yet, so booting up prompts install steps) in a way to know what HD it has?

You’ve got a few options here:

Lookup the machine exact hard drive capacity by entering the serial number on the Every Mac website.

Boot the Mac Mini while holding down the ⌘ CommandR keys to enter recovery mode and then chose the Disk Utility option (normally at the bottom of the menu) this will show you the capacity of the installed hard drive.

I’ve never tried it before but I would also expect Time Machine to warn you if you attempt to restore your backups to a disk that’s too small.


Difference between installing an application on OS X and Windows I've been using Windows for many years so far but just started using a MacBook with OS X.

As far as I'm concerned when I install applications on Windows they just go into Program files (by default). App preferences usually stored in user's folder and probably in the registry.

How do apps get installed on OS X? Do they just go into /Applications directory? Where are the preferences stored? And how using a package manager such as homebrew is different from simply dragging an app to /Applications?

Installing Apps
There are several ways to install applications on OS X.

The App Store: Another way to install applications is from the App Store. Apps from the App Store are first downloaded as a .dmg to a system directory, and then installed to the /Applications/ directory.
Apps downloaded from the App Store are sandboxed, which means that they can only read from and write to specific folders. They're also managed a bit better when it comes to the installation and uninstall process.

From the Web/Drag-and-Drop: OS X applications are sometimes distributed as standalone folders with a .app extension or inside of an installer with a .pkg extension. Sometime programs are distributed on a .dmg, which is a disk image containing the .app and perhaps a Readme. Apps downloaded outside of the App Store might not run unless you secondary-click on them to run, and then grant permission. This is a security feature. (It's similar in appearance to the Windows UAC, but it works differently.)
Applications are typically installed into /Applications/ but each user can have their own applications directory inside of their home folder, located at /Users/{user}/Applications/, or ~/Applications/ for short. Apps placed into the personal ~/Applications directory will show up in Launchpad and Spotlight searches.

Package Managers/The Command Line: It's fairly common (especially for developers) to install apps via the command line with homebrew, macports, or even as Ruby gems. These sometimes land in other directories, such as /usr/local/bin/ If you're not sure where a package manager is putting your files, that information is readily available on the internet.

User Data
The closest thing you have to the windows registry on OS X is the notion of a "property list." Property lists are small files saved by each application, and unlike the windows registry, they aren't centralized.  Property list files end in a .plist extension. (Interestingly enough, unlike Windows, file extensions don't define what a file is on OS X as much as they do on Windows. Finder does rely extensions for information on how to display a file, but the file meta-data is treated with more significance on OS X than on Windows.)
Sometimes they're saved in  /Users/{user}/Library/Preferences/, but they can be saved in a  variety of places, depending on the app and the kind of information being stored. For example, Safari stores your pinned tabs and last session in ~/Library/Safari/LastSession.plist
Uninstalling Apps
I had questions about uninstalling apps when I got my first Mac. The simplest answer is that you can just delete the .app bundle from the /Applications/ directory. As noted above, there may be some plist files left behind.
On older version of OS X, there were third-party uninstaller apps that tried to clean up for you. They are still available, but I don't know how well they work, because newer versions of OS X are stricter about security. (You can try AppZapper if you'd like.)
Apple has a knowledge base article that covers installing and deleting apps from outside the App Store.


If an iPhone stolen and they restart it can it be tracked? If my iPhone was stolen and they reset and everything got deleted will I still be able to track it if everything has be deleted?

If they deleted everything, then no... I guess you could then contact the police or something, resetting the iphone will cause the "find my iphone" feature to be disabled so yeah...


Wifi hangs on early 2015 MacBook Pro? It happens regardless of what network I'm connected to. Every hour or so, the internet connection will just load forever. Nothing else changes as far as I can tell, the wifi menu still says "connected" and "internet reachable" but webpages will not load. Reconnecting to the network / turning wifi off and on will always fix it. Early 2015 13" MacBook Pro Retina.

You can try this site http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/16/fix-wi-fi-problems-mac-os-x-el-capitan/  . For me it doesn't work:(.


App Exposé Window Ordering? When App Exposé shows my browser windows (i.e., 4-finger swipe down or Control-↓), the order of the windows changes from one time to the next, and I cannot find the window I'm looking for easily. (What I'm really after is an efficient way to flip back and forth between the two or three most recently used windows in an application, but that's another story.) Can anyone tell me if there is any logic to the ordering of the application windows in App Exposé, or if it is just random?

I myself was looking for the answer to this this afternoon, but unfortunately it wasn't answered here, so I tried to figure it out myself with some experimentation, and this answer is what I came up with.  FYI, I was doing this with OS 10.9 with somewhere between 2-9 windows open.

The application windows, in what I'll call "view mode", are presented, more or less, in a rectangular grid.  If I have 8 windows open, view mode is a 2x4 grid.  The main preference for the algorithm seems to be to try to approximate the relative positions of the windows on the screen.  If the windows are cleanly ordered on the screen, then the position of the windows in view mode will be completely determined by their order on screen (e.g., the top left window will be the top left window), regardless of how they are layered (e.g., which is currently on top (in front)).

However, it often happens, particularly if you have a lot of overlapping windows open, that their positions cannot be cleanly put in a rectangular grid.  (Think about the case where you have 2 windows open, one small and one big, where the small window is positions completely in the center of the big window.)  In this case, the layering comes into play.  I tried with just 2 windows of the same size open, occupying the exact same position on screen.  In this case the one in front (on top) appeared on the left.  (If they were not in the same position, which one is currently in front does not affect this.)

Now if you have many windows open, and there is a lot of overlapping with ill-defined relative positioning, then these rules combine in a way such that changing which windows are in front may not change the order in the "view mode" at all, or it can mix things up quite a bit, so that the order changes in an apparently random way.  My guess is that the order in view mode is completely determined by the "3-d positions" of the windows (2-d positions on screen + positions in layers), but it becomes complicated to understand completely when you have more than a few windows open.


iPod touch stuck on restore screen My iPod touch (2G 32GB iOS 4.1) is stuck on this screen

(image from the iPhone restore assistant page). I guess that means that I need to sync with iTunes, but unfortunately when I try I get

There's no way I can enter the passcode, and (as far as I can see) there's no way I can reset the device without connecting it to iTunes somehow.

I have followed the troubleshooting steps on that page to no avail, and there's no mention of passcodes there. I've tried this on the usual sync PC and on my laptop. I'm hamstrung a little in that it's an old device and none of the side buttons work anymore so I can't try power off / reset but I've tried letting the battery run out and restarting it to no avail. I do still see pop-ups for my calendar appointments over the iTunes sync image. I've tried pretending the keypad is there and entering my passcode but no luck.

What does that screen mean? Is there any way to forcibly reset the software in iTunes even though it won't connect because of the passcode, or is there any way I can reset the software from outside iTunes? (I can't find anything on the Apple support website or in the manuals.)

I've seen this thread on MacRumours which has the same problem; it sounds like it was fixed by resetting the iPod. As above my top button is broken so I can't do that, but I did try letting it run flat which I assumed would do the same thing and that didn't help. There's also this thread in the Apple forums but there's no solution there: just that the restore worked the next day, whereas I can't even get that far.

It sounds like the home button still works, which is the only button you need to have iTunes recover the iPod for you. Note that recovering the iPod will wipe all of its data completely.

I tried this with an iPhone which I believe was in much worse shape than this and it worked. In my case my phone never got past the Apple logo and would shut down shortly after. Even a hard-drive restoration company wasn't able to access the data, yet the recovery through iTunes did work, so there is hope.

Apple calls this recovery mode.

All you need to do is press and hold the home button on the iPod while connecting it to the PC. iTunes should detect an iPod in recovery mode and allow you to recover the device (again, this wipes out all data completely).


Swap is growing fast, I think I know which app is causing it, how can I check? My swapfile has been growing fast lately, and I think I know which app is responsible, but I'm not sure.

Is there a way for a non-developer to check something like that, or would you need a version of the app which has debugging enabled?

n.b. I have Xcode/Developer tools installed. Running 10.8 on a MacBook Air.

You don't need any special tools like xcode or a debugger to pick apart the virtual memory system in terms of allocation and summary statistics.

I would start with sysdiagnose from the command line and perhaps pass in the PID or process name you care about. It samples that app, but you also have the PID and information on that suspect program with all the diagnostic information. Passing in the process ID will run vmmap, heap and (perhaps) other good diagnostics or added details on the program in question.

You'll want to focus on the zprint.txt and allmemory.txt first. The sysctl.txt has some vm information as well and fs_usage.txt shows file access, but generally not swapping.

There are unix manual pages for most of these tools as well as the sysdiagnose script is readable so you can see what it does or change it to collect. You might want to enable thorough mode on the script in case that added information on the PID helps you isolate the cause.

Happy hunting...


Just got a new SSD installed into my macbook pro, how to use? I have a mid 2012 macbook pro

I just took out the optical drive put my main hdd in its place and installed a 525 gb ssd in the original hard drive slot.

I've been trying to install osx on it for the past 2 hours using alt/option but the computer just boots up on the hdd hard drive even after selecting the usb

Any help is greatly appreciated...as I'm close to throwing my computer out the window.

fyi this did not work.
How to Install OS X on new hard drive on a Late 2012 Mac mini

First boot into your old system. With the SSD plugged in to your system you'll need to run Disk Utility to partition the drive with GUID and format it with a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition.
Then Shut down your mac and press the powerbutton again.

Immediately after hearing the Mac boot chime, hold down Command+Option+R – if you see the Apple logo you waited too long and need to reboot and try again.

When you see a spinning globe icon, Internet Recovery mode has been entered with a message saying it can take a while, a progress bar appears as the recovery functions are downloaded.

When finished downloading, you’ll see the “OS X Utilities” screen, choose “Reinstall OS X” to begin the re-installation process of the Mac operating system

Select the destination(SSD) and complete the installation.


Safari on ipad, how to tell browser to ignore mobile stylesheet How can I specify through the browser when to use the mobile stylesheet for a website, and when not to.

This is a specific issue for me on the ipad running Safari.

If this can't be done through the browswer, are any generic User-Agent spoofing tools for ipad that I can employ to accomplish this?

UserAgent Faker for jailbroken devices (in Cydia) changes the User Agent to ones of a desktop browser. Probably some third party browsers too, e.g. User Agent Browser (free ad supported or $.99 to remove the ads), but haven't used them.


Keyboard shortcut to move tabs around in Firefox on a Mac The equivalent of it in Windows would be Ctrl + Shift + PgUp / PgDn. To reiterate, I am trying to move a tab's position forward and back within the windows via keyboard shortcut using Firefox v82 on macOS 10.15.7.
Can FireFox cycle tabs like it does in Windows 10?

There is no PgUp and PgDn on Mac keyboard but you can get them with fn+↑ and fn+↓ respectively.
So proper combo for moving is ⌃+⇧+fn+↑ (or in another direction last key should be ↓)
It's actually easier than it looks because first three keys are in left corner next to each other.


What are the FPS of the FaceTime Camera for the iPhone 6S vs 7+ vs X vs iPad Pro? We are capturing video from iOS devices and processing it using OpenGL but are encountering a FPS difference between the devices when trying to set them at their maximum rate.

The iPhone 6S and iPad Pro FaceTime cameras are maxing at 60 fps.

The 7+ and iPhone X however are maxing at 30 fps.

It seems unusual that the FPS would decrease with later versions of Apple's hardware. We are trying to figure out if this is a software issue or simply the technical specifications for the frame rate for the FaceTime camera.

We looked on Apple's technical specifications page but the frame rates of the FaceTime cameras aren't listed (though the rear cameras are.) For example:
https://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/specs/
https://www.apple.com/iphone-x/specs/

What are the FPS of the FaceTime Camera for the iPhone 6S vs 7+ vs X vs iPad Pro?

Here is the beginning of an answer.

We found a private library method of Apple's (not allowed in the app store) called CAMCaptureCapabilities which has a read only property called front1080pMaxFPS.

We were able to run this on an iPhone X and found the front camera maximum to be 30fps.

On the iPhone 6S/6S+ we have an app that is able to set the camera to 60fps.

We still need to test on other phone models to see their maximum (i.e. particular iPhone 7 and 8.)

Interestingly, this means the iPhone X's front camera is slower than an iPhone 6S/6S+.


Do you still need iPhone when running with Apple Watch? Are you able to use the Apple Watch when running or jogging without taking the iPhone out? The iPhone is bulky and I don't like running with it.

You are able to use the Apple Watch when running without taking your iPhone with you. The caveat to do doing so is that you won't have access to any online services but the included fitness apps will work just fine!

This article at MacWorld has actually summarised exactly what you can and cannot do when your watch isn't connected to your phone. The paragraph that might be of most interest to you is:

  If you want to go for a run without having to tote a bulky phone, the Apple Watch’s exercise capabilities are pretty much self-sufficient. All of the watch’s onboard sensors, such as the accelerometer and the heart rate monitor, keep on trucking even when your phone’s not around. Just fire up the Workout app, pick your exercise type and goal, and leave the iPhone at home.

References:
What can your Apple Watch do without your iPhone? | MacWorld


I can no longer boot into macOS after resizing my bootcamp partition The Problem: My macOS partition doesn't appear as an option at boot
Background: I had a main el capitan partition and a bootcamp partition. I used the EaseUS program to resize the bootcamp partition from 90GB to 45GB and after rebooting, I could no longer see any option but 'Windows' when holding alt at boot.
My Initial Investigation:  I took a look at my paritions in three different places: The EaseUS program, diskpart on windows, and the disk utility on macOS Recovery Mode.
On both EaseUS and diskpart, my partitions look fine:

However, in disk utility in recovery mode, it looks a bit different. On the sidebar I can only see one child partition of the SSD (BOOTCAMP). However when inspecting the disk, it shows three partitions (Untitled : 145.36GB, Untitled: 650MB, BOOTCAMP: 48.32GB) and a 'Child count' of 4. I wish I could provide a screen shot, but AFAIK this is not possible with recovery mode.
I also ran first aid on the SSD from disk utility and everything verified as OK.
Additional Comments: I'm a bit out of my depth here  and would really appreciate any advice as to how I can boot into macOS again
Edit #1:
In response to @DavidAnderson
I am using a an early 2015 13" Retina MacbookPro (MacbookPro 12,1).
My Volume 2 details are as following:
Partition 2
Type    : de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
Hidden  : Yes
Required: No
Attrib  : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 209735680

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 2         Macintosh H  HFS    Partition    135 GB  Healthy    Hidden

And my volume 3 details are:
Partition 3
Type    : de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
Hidden  : Yes
Required: No
Attrib  : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 145570975744

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 3         Recovery HD  HFS    Partition    619 MB  Healthy    Hidden

Edit #2:
I was able to fix it with the accepted answer!
I used gdisk and the t command to set the GUIDs as recommended and then used the the expert command a (expert commands are accessed with x) to set the attribute field #49 to get the attribute value recommended. Works perfectly now!

Your second partition should have GUID (Type) of 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC. The third partition should have a GUID (Type) of 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC and an attribute (Attib) value of 0002000000000000. You will need to correct these values.

A good third party tool used to edit the GPT is gdisk.

Once downloaded, you invoke the command by entering the following in an Administrator Command Prompt window.

gdisk64 \\.\PhysicalDrive0

The command gdisk abbreviates the GUID values. Below are some of the abbreviations.

GUID                                  Abbreviation
------------------------------------  ------------
48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC     AF00
426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC     AB00
DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC     2700

  Note: If you make a mistake while using gdisk, you can enter a controlC to exit without saving your changes.

Below is an example of the commands to enter into gdisk. What you need to enter may vary slightly.

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): t
Partition number (1-3): 2
Current type is 'Windows RE'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 700): AF00
Changed type of partition to 'Apple HFS/HFS+'

Command (? for help): t
Partition number (1-3): 3
Current type is 'Windows RE'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 700): AB00
Changed type of partition to 'Recovery HD'

Command (? for help): x

Expert command (? for help): a
Partition number (1-3): 3
Known attributes are:
0: system partition
1: hide from EFI
2: legacy BIOS bootable
60: read-only
62: hidden
63: do not automount

Attribute value is 0000000000000000. Set fields are:
  No fields set

Toggle which attribute field (0-63, 64 or <Enter> to exit): 49
Have enabled the 'Undefined bit #49' attribute.
Attribute value is 0002000000000000. Set fields are:
49 (Undefined bit #49)

Toggle which attribute field (0-63, 64 or <Enter> to exit):

Expert command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to \\.\PhysicalDrive1.
Disk synchronization succeeded! The computer should now use the new
partition table.
The operation has completed successfully.

The Mac firmware and El Capitan OS X operation system both rely on the GUID values in the GUID Partition Table (GPT) to aid in determining the format of a volume stored in a partition. Since the GPT contains the wrong GUID value for both partitions 2 and 3, you can not boot your Mac from either of these partitions.

The Windows 10 operating system is a little less restrictive. Windows 10 will look at the contents of a partition and try to determine format of the volume. Windows may do this even if the partition has the wrong GUID value in the GPT. This is why windows detects the HFS formatted "Macintosh HD" and "Recovery HD" volumes while the firmware used to boot the Mac does not.

The GUID of DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC represents a Windows Recovery Environment partition. Evidently, you do not have such a partition. When I install Windows 10 on my 2013 iMac, a partition of this  type was created. It is about 450 MB in size and followed after the
Windows 10 partition. Other users have posted their installation of Windows 10 did not create this partition. So if you had this partition, it is possible EaseUS erased it. Anyway, you do not need a Windows Recovery Environment partition for normal use of Windows 10.


Can’t reinstall Mac OS el capital because Recovery HD disk is locked. Anyone know how to bypass this? I'm trying to reinstall Mac OS X El Capitan on my 2009 MacBook pro. Disk Utility lists a single SSD with a capacity of 250.06GB and a single partition (OS X Base system) that is taking up 249.85GB. When I try to create another partition it says that I need to enable journaling, but the option is greyed out. I also can't reinstall from the internet because the OS X Base System partition is locked.

Do you have any data that you would like to keep? If not, then I would recommend erasing everything and resintalling macOS from Internet Recovery. If not, then try running First Aid. If none of these work, use fsck from Single-User Mode.


Display facebook profile pictures full size on call I synced my friends' Facebook profile pictures with the facebook iPhone app. When I get a call from someone it has the picture displayed in small in the top right corner.

When someone calls whose contact photo I've taken with the iPhone itself, however, it looks like this:

 — the picture is "full screen".

Is there a way to (automatically) get the Facebook profile pictures displayed this way? My iPhone is a 3G jailbroken on 4.2.1, so a Cydia tweak would be absolutely fine.

I am still learning iPhone development so hopefully someone more knowledgeable pitches in on this idea surrounding phone calls and pictures and makes it known to the Facebook Dev. Team that the sync is not how people expect it, I ran this experiment:

Go to a contact
Edit the contact
Edit the photo (Don't Move or Scale just tap Choose)

Now when you try, though the picture is the same, it is maximized to the edges of the screen. Though if you have huge friend lists 500+ , it could a lot of data though going through the sync (so maybe getting the high quality version may not be a good idea). Also notice the edited photo is not saved in your Photo Library. So I am thinking that where "Facebook Sync" saves the photo is different from where edited Photos are stored.

I dont know if this is a restriction/security with the OS SDK such that pictures saved from apps for contacts are stored differently than those taken via the Camera or the Photo Library.


2nd hand mac purchased, can't load os x Firstly to let you know I am a mac dummy/newbie and I'm hoping
to get some advice on a 2nd hand mac I purchased on ebay
(while I wait the 3 weeks for my appointment at my local Genius Bar.)
20inch (Mid 2007) - From googling I think it shipped with Tiger os ?
I can't seem to load/reinstall the operating system.
Every time I start it up I get taken to OS X Utilities(Recovery?) for Mountain Lion.
If I select reinstall OS X I can't get past the appleid/password prompt
(I'm entering my details but I think I need the appleid of the previous owner as he was the one who upgraded to mountain lion??) This is not possible
I don't have original installation discs either.
Do I have any other options or have I bought a large and expensive paperweight(joke).
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

Buy an older version of OSX on CD

How to install Mac OS X without OS X Recovery or the DVD that came with the Mac?

or

Install Linux on your Mac

http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/how-install-linux-on-mac-3637265/

(excerpt)

"Here's how to go about installing Linux on a Mac"

Download your Linux distribution to the Mac. We recommend Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS if this is your first Linux install. Save the file to your Downloads folder.

Download and install an app called Etcher from Etcher.io. This will be used to copy the Linux install .ISO file to your USB drive.

Open Etcher and click the Settings icon in the top-right. Place a tick in Unsafe Mode and click Yes, Continue. Then Click Back.

Click Select Image. Choose ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso (or the image you downloaded in Step 1).

Insert your USB Thumb Drive. A reminder that the US Flash drive will be erased during this installation process. Make sure you've got nothing you want on it.

Click Change under Select Drive. Look carefully and pick the drive that matches your USB Thumb Drive in size. It should be  /dev/disk1 if you only have a single hard drive in your Mac. Or /dev/disk2, /dev/disk3 and so on (if you have more drives attached). Do not pick /dev/disk0. That's your hard drive. Pick /dev/disk0 and you'll wipe your macOS hard drive You've been warned!

Click Flash! Wait for the iso file to be copied to the USB Flash Drive.
Remove the USB Flash Drive from your Mac.

Shut down the Mac you want to install Linux on and attach the USB stick.
Power up the Mac while holding down the Option key.

Choose the EFI Boot option from the startup screen and press Return.
You will see a black and white screen with options to Try Ubuntu and Install Ubuntu. Don't choose either yet, press "e" to edit the boot entry.
Edit the line that begins with Linux and place the word "nomodeset" after "quiet splash". The whole line should read: "linux /casper/vmlinuz.efi            file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash nomodeset --. (See screenshot, below.)

Press F10.

Ubuntu boots into trial mode.

Double-click the icon marked "Install Ubuntu".

Select English and choose Continue.

Select "Install this third-party software" option and click Continue.

Click Yes to the /dev/sdb alert.

Select "Erase disk and install Ubuntu" and click Continue.

Ensure that Select Drive is displaying the main hard drive. Click Install Now. Click Continue in the alert window.

Select your location on the map and click Continue.

Choosing your keyboard layout and click Continue.

Enter the name and password you want to use.

Click Continue and Linux will begin installing.


How do I use the "right-to-left override" in Safari for Mac? I'd like to use the "right-to-left override" (unicode character 202E) in Safari. How do I make it work?

Open up the Web Inspector with Command+Shift+I and type in this:

copy('\u202e');

If this won't throw an error, the right-to-left override is copied to your clipboard. You can try it even in the console, just press Command+V and then type some text.

This works cross-platform (just be sure to use Ctrl in Windows), in all WebKit browsers, but only inside the console.

Update: I've just installed Safari 5 on Win7 x64, and it seems that the character is copied to the clipboard, but Safari can't handle it. The HTML entity that Dori suggested will work in any HTML document. There, it will work in questions and answers, but not in chat and comments.


How to eject a unmounted disk? I was using the dd command to burn a .img file to a micro SD card which was connected to my mac through a usb SD card adaptor. I need to unmount(not eject) the device first before I could use dd to burn the image file. I did that with the umount command. After the burning was done, I unplugged the SD card adaptor when it prompted me that the device was not ejected properly.

I was worried that I was doing it wrong. I tried to eject the device but couldn't find any icon in finder after the unmount. How should eject a unmounted device correctly?

Thanks.

You can either use diskutil eject /dev/diskN, or in Disk Utility.app you can select the disk and choose File menu > Eject (Command-E).


How to add a caption to an image in Pages How does one create a caption for an image in Pages? In Word it is easy, you simply right click on the image and “Insert Caption…”, but I cannot find any way to do it at all in Pages?

You can set a ‘Description’ on an image, however that only affects voiceover, which I do appreciate! But I also want the ability to move the image and it’s caption together.

I am using Pages 5.5.2, I understand that this is easier in Pages ’09, but I don't have that version anymore…

Edit: The only method that I have found that vaguely works is to create a new text box, manually make the text box the same size as the image, and text, set the paragraph style to caption, and, finally, group the image and the text box together so that they are treated as a unit. I hope that there is a simpler way that I have just missed somehow!

There's no automatic way of adding a caption.

If your image is inline, add the text below using the Caption text style.
If your image is floating, you'll need to add a text box below the image. You can group these if you wish.


Seeing SMS messages on iPad and iMessages on iPhone I receive iMessages on my iPad and not on my iPhone. I receive SMS messages on my phone but not on my iPad. This is really bad and has caused me to miss 2 work leads in the last 24 hours. Where's the syncing in that?
I've read through loads of posts and what people seem to be saying is that as iPads don't do phone numbers, SMS messages will only show up on a phone.  Don't ask me why iMessages can't make it to my phone too. I have spent hours trawling around and have come to the conclusion that my only option to reliably receive all messages is to turn iMessage off.

If I understand you question correctly you want to receive SMS  and iMessages on both your iPad and iPhone.
If so follow these steps.

If you haven't already done so upgrade both your device to the latest iOS 8 firmware (iOS 8.1)
To fix your iMessage problem, on the iPhone go to Settings > Scroll down to messages > Toggle iMessage on and enter your Apple ID credentials
To get your iPad receiving SMS messages with your phone's number go on your iPad unlock it and keep it on.
Then go back on your iPhone and stay on the page I told you to go in step 2 and tap 'Text Message Forwarding' you should see your iPad and any other Apple devices you have if they are on the same iCloud account (which they will need to be for this too work).

If they are:
Toggle the button next to the name of your iPad and it will ask you for a code which should popup on the iPad.

If not: Go back to the main settings on the device not correctly set with iCloud scroll back up to 'iCloud' tap it and sign out if already signed in and sign in the with the Apple ID used on the other device.


What is CoreRAID? What is the function of com.apple.CoreRAID.plist in LaunchDaemons? What is the function of com.apple.CoreRAID.plist in LaunchDaemons? What happens if I disable it? In general terms what is CoreRAID?

Thank you in advance

CoreRAID is a Framework to manipulate RAID devices.

The com.apple.CoreRAID.plist file in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ is used to start the CoreRAIDServer used in managing RAID devices.

Although I do have RAID Attached Storage Devices even if I didn't I would not disable the com.apple.CoreRAID.plist so as to be able to work with RAID devices as/when necessary.


Increasing video memory on an older macbook I have a 2,1 macbook with 4GB ram of which 64mb are dedicated to the video card. Can I increase this to at least 512?

Generally, VRAM is soldered on/in somewhere.  I suppose you could, if you had the know how, but the short answer is, no.

Edit:  That is, VRAM is not (usually) taken from the pool of "available RAM," it's actually separate RAM entirely.  And dedicated to the GPU, only.


How can I find my Linksys wifi network from my iPhone I have a wireless network that I set up using a Linksys WRT54G router. There I can add MAC addresses of client devices that can access my network.

I've added my iPhone's MAC address to this list, but my iPhone doesn't detect my network. What can I do to allow my phone to detect my network?

If you don't see your network's SSID in the iPhone's list of Wi-Fi networks, you can always try the Other option in the Wi-Fi settings screen to manually input the SSID and security settings.

If that doesn't work, you'll probably want to turn on SSID broadcast and temporarily disable your MAC filtering to troubleshoot the issue.


What is a good Apple podcast to listen to on a daily basis? If I have time to listen to just one podcast a day or every other day about Apple stuff, which one should I listen to?  I know there's a lot of different specialized Apple podcasts out there (i.e. Mac downloads, iOS apps, Apple news, etc.), but can anyone recommend a general podcast which has elements of all of these?  I'd also be interested in the best podcasts in certain specialized areas, but mostly I'm looking for one that I can listen to consistently and find out most of what is going on in the Apple world.

MacBreak Weekly seems to fit the bill except it's, er, weekly. I don't know of any daily podcasts.


Connecting iMac + External Monitor to Win 7 Desktop My question is 2-part, but first some background.
I have a Windows 7 machine, an iMac (27" Sept. 2013 model) and an Apple Cinema 27" display. I'd like to link all of these together. The Windows 7 machine has Mini DisplayPort on the graphics card. The Cinema Display uses one Mini DisplayPort only.
First, Using this Apple support post, can I link the Cinema to the iMac, link the iMac to the Windows 7 machine, and basically Cmd+F2 to swap BOTH displays between the iMac and the PC?
Second, must the Windows 7 machine be a Thunderbolt port, or will Mini Displayport suffice?
Answer: In the specifics from PacoSF's link the following answers have been transcribed for future readers, as well as for clarity:

Can I use the iMac in Target Display Mode as a display for my gaming console, DVD player, or other device?
The Mini DisplayPort port on a supported iMac can receive DisplayPort compliant video and audio signals. Converters not made by Apple may provide options to convert other electrical, video, and audio protocols to Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt compliant signals.
Can I use the built-in camera or connect USB, ThunderBolt, or FireWire devices to my iMac when in Target Display Mode and have them work on my main computer?
A supported iMac works like any other external display while it is in Target Display Mode, except that you cannot access its built-in camera or USB, ThunderBolt, and FireWire ports. To use external devices while in Target Display Mode mode, connect those devices to the computer the iMac in Target Display Mode is connecting to.

Edit: As a follow-up to this question, I have been following procedure and speaking with specialists. The newest iMac models in fact DO NOT support Thunderbolt-to-non-Thunderbolt video display in any capacity. I was advised submit this feature as feedback to Apple's Product Feedback page (apple.com/feedback). They also advised that if others desire this feature to submit as well, so that it gets enough momentum to provide a Firmware update to provide this feature.

Target Display Mode is the term.  Seems every iMac has a different way of handling this.

If the Win7 machine has a display port output, you should be able to do this?

Here's some more info

Can I use the iMac in TDM as a display for my gaming console, DVD player, or other device?
The Mini DisplayPort port on a supported iMac can receive DisplayPort compliant video and audio signals. Converters not made by Apple may provide options to convert other electrical, video, and audio protocols to Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt compliant signals.


System size is 8 GB after Clean Install of Sierra After I did a clean install of Sierra it first showed as 14 GB in size in "About My Mac Storage". After some few weeks it shows as 8 GB in size.

Why does happen like this and how do I fix it?

The difference in size is similar to the High Sierra Installer, if you deleted the installer after the upgrade that might explain it


locate command with regex equivalent in OSX I'm learning linux bash on my mac.  Is there an equivalent to this command in OSX?

locate --regex 'bin/(bz|gz|zip)'

The macOS version of locate doesn’t have a regex option. You can use * and ? in the search pattern but that’s it.

Before you can use locate you will have to enable it (i. e. have the locate database built) using the following command—by default it is disabled:

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


Virtual Machine on IOS? Are there any virtual machine emulators for the Ios? When I mean virtual machine emulator for the Ios, I mean virtual machine software that can be used on an Ios to emulate something like a mac or linux. (like a port of qemu) Can anybody help me?

Not without jailbreaking. However, you could use something like TeamViewer to control your Mac or PC. I know it's not the same, but it's as close as you'll get without jailbreaking. I hope this helps!


Using the same HDD with macOS and Windows Is it possible to use the same external HDD for both macOS and Windows? For example, can I use it as backup storage for both systems?

If so, should it have at least 2 partitions?

I am doing this with TWO External HDs so I can guarantee my advice is correct.

It's possible IF you have (third party) software installed that let's MacOS, Windows, or both READ AND WRITE the other filesystem (the driver's that come with Mac OS are READ-ONLY).

Otherwise you will need separate partitions for each OS. If you are using Time Machine I VERY STRONGLY RECOMMEND you give it a dedicated partition regardless of drivers!


How to change which Aiport Express a MBP is connected to? So I have a Time Capsule which creates my wireless network, and I have an airport express which extends the network. However, when I open Airport Utility, it says that my Macbook Pro is connected to the Time Capsule, not the Airport Express, even when I'm sitting right next to it. How do I change it so that it connects to the Express?
Thanks.

There are multiple ways to change which access point you connect to.

Using the GUI

Open network in your system preference
use the Join other networks and find the airport Express in your WiFi choices
check the Automatically join this network.
click on Advanced and move that access point to the top of your list.

If for some reason this does not work then use the Terminal

There are 2 or more ways to select the network using Terminal.

There is the ifconfig command line, which is in depth network setting, I would not use that one right now.

the other is Networksetup command line which is replacement for the GUI method mentioned above.

You would use the output from the airport command and the networksetup utility to adjust properties such as connecting to a new Wi-Fi network.

First, scan for networks with the "airport -s" option (you can skip this if you know your SSID you want to use.

and then use the SSID of the listed networks with the

networksetup -setairportnetwork <device name> <network> [password] command.

 should be the "en0" which is your WiFi

or

networksetup -switchtolocation "location name"


Downscale a iMac 5K screenshot to 50% using commandline Open the Screenshot in Preview
Select “Adjust Size…” from the Tools menu
Change the Width and Height to 50 percent of the original
Change the Resolution to 72 pixels/inch

I wish to do this on CLI with a generic command (percent, not actual width and height).

GUI instructions with Preview

Take a look at the 'sips' command:

man sips

It is much simpler than GUI-scripting Preview and it's part of OSX. So you don't have to install anything. Example:

full_w=$(/usr/bin/sips -g pixelWidth image.jpg | /usr/bin/grep -Eo "[[:digit:]]+")
full_h=$(/usr/bin/sips -g pixelHeight image.jpg | /usr/bin/grep -Eo "[[:digit:]]+")
half_w=$(/bin/expr full_w / 2)
half_h=$(/bin/expr full_h / 2)
sips -z half_h half_w image.jpg


Can I connect two 27 inch (Thunderbolt-2) mac monitors to a 13" 2016 Macbook Pro with touch bar? I want to run my laptop screen and both 27" Apple displays at the same time. Basically achieve this setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPoGnm7PZQc but with my hardware.

I'm seeing some conflicting reports about my laptop's ability to run two monitors at the same time. There are also bad reviews for the official adapter: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter?fnode=16b1c754f291e8a4b528715c470463e53359bb4b85ab8f7a3c17a9ca31404b5b0777165ed94086997d7f2f62a908c8e4917dd4622b9fb13f692c13d5db7714673162075736e96e72357cb968f859f469ceabe10ebc138a172aa06414d935cd6d

Is what I'm trying to do possible? And if it is, assuming I have the laptop and two monitors in my possession and I would be buying some sort of adapter anyway, what's my best course of action?

That model of Mac will take two 4K or one 5K display. And since those monitors are 2560 x 1440 (nowhere near 4K) then yes it should work just fine


How do I block a website on my iPhone 5? Like how you put 127.0.0.1 example.com in the hosts file on a real computer.

To block a website on iOS 7 or later, go to Settings > General > Restrictions > Enable Restrictions then Restrictions > Websites > Limit Adult Content then Restrictions > Websites > Never Allow > Add a Website and add the website you wish to block.


Trackpad on early 2015 13" MacBook Air keeps losing its "click" The trackpad on my MacBook Air keeps losing its physical "click". It still works fine, and pressing the trackpad down still works, it just doesn't move.

I've tried adjusting the relevant screw two or three times and on each occasion this has worked, but after a short time the trackpad reverts to not clicking.

Short of changing out the entire trackpad, what can I try in order to fix this?

The trackpad doesn’t actually move or have a physical click on any 2015 MacBook Air — it uses a haptic device to tap back at you when you touch it to simulate a click. So I guess that your Taptic Engine has failed.


1 and 2 keys to change tabs in Safari (like in Opera) In Opera browser 1 and 2 keys can be used to change between tabs. Is it possible to set up this shortcut in Safari? I tried adding a "Show Previous Tab" shortcut in keyboard preferences but is does not allow me to set a shortcut without a modifier key (ctrl/alt/cmd).

You wouldn't make the shortcut from keyboard preferences. I believe that you would add this shortcut from Automator however I am not on my computer right now so I think that will work but I haven't tested this specific shortcut. If that dosent work then there is always the option of "⌘+`/⌘+Shift+' " to go to the next or previous tab. Hope this helps!


How do I change Mac OS X's sleep behavior with respect to USB plugging/unplugging? If a USB device is plugged or unplugged, my MacBook Pro wakes up from sleep. Can this behavior be changed somehow? That is to say, I do not want my Mac to wake up when a USB device is unplugged.

The reason why the Mac awakes is because the USB device is drawing power from the Mac’s USB port. When you disconnect it, there’s a change in the voltage and the Mac awakes (same goes when you plug one).

Curiously, there’s a way to do it in Windows.

According to the guys at Super User, this is not possible on a Mac. At least not that we’ve discovered yet.


Safari Autofill is using the wrong Contacts card I am using Safari 7. The Autofill feature is using the wrong card in my Contacts list. How can I get Safari to use my Contacts card?

Check that the correct card is selected as your "Me" card in Contacts. Open Contacts and select "Go to My Card" from the Card menu. If the wrong one is selected, find the correct one, select it and mark it with "Mark This My Card" from the card menu.

Within Safari Preferences you could also check the AutoFill tab. Make sure "Using info from my Contacts card" is ticked.


How to remap Mac keyboard with Xmodmap I was trying to remap my Mac's keyboard with Xmodmap, but it was only somewhat successful. The remapping works when I look for the keycodes with the event tester, but when I actually type the keyboard is not remapped. The code I'm using isnano .Xmodmap
keycode 10 = e
keycode 11 = t
keycode 12 = y
keycode 49 = h
keycode 39 = o
keycode 48 = i
keycode 46 = n
keycode 22 = d
keycode 23 = f
keycode 25 = k
keycode 24 = j
keycode 42 = r
keycode 39 = l
keycode 53 = p
keycode 43 = semicolon
keycode 45 = o
keycode 65 = BackSpace
clear lock

xmodmap .Xmodmap
A similar program (with different keycodes) works on my raspberry pi, so I'm wondering if there's any additional steps needed to be taken on a Mac in order to have the xmodmap keyboard be the one to actually send the keypresses.

Xmodmap only works for X11 applications, the ones you've listed for sure are not X11 applications. Most likely you don't use any X11 at all.
To remap keys on macOS see the answer on Karabiner quit working in Sierra. How do I map my menu/application key to be Command? instead.
Another app commonly used to remap MacOS keys is Ukelele.


Let Finder display files with a user-defined extension I have defined myself a file extension .ev, they are actually text files, which can be opened by TextEdit.

In Finder, by Column view, a .txt document can be displayed directly on the right hand side. Does anyone know if it is possible to let Finder show .ev as well, it will be more handy:

Download the latest QLStephen.qlgenerator (direct download!) from the QuicklookStephen GitHub project. Unzip the file and move it either to /Library/Quicklook or ~/Library/Quicklook.

Now you should get a file preview either in Finder column view or by choosing the file and hitting the space bar.


What is the correct behaviour of the "down arrow with horizontal line" key on an iMac keyboard? I have an iMac with a full-size keyboard as shown below. I'm curious if there is some webpage that explains what each key actually does (apart from the obvious querty keys, etc.)
However, I'm particularly confused by the two sets of up/down keys beside the fn key.
The key with arrow pointing downward toward a horizontal line is driving me crazy. Say I'm editing a document and I press this key, it scroll down a page (but doesn't move the cursor). If I press the key again, it scrolls back up a page, and moves the cursor to the end of the line.
Is this what's supposed to happen? Ideally I want this key to behave like a traditional 'end' key.

It was formerly labeled "end" and should function exactly as you described.
Its function is app-specific. While it's up to the developer to interpret its meaning and implement it in code, exactly what it's supposed to do is not strictly defined anywhere. You can peruse Apple's Human Interface Guidelines but it won't tell you exactly what to do with that particular key, but that document's general principles state user input should always do something the user expects.
Lacking specific guidance it's reasonable to look to the examples Apple provides in their own apps. Using Safari as an example (because I happen to be using it right now) that particular key will scroll to the end of the webpage, no matter how long it might be. In other words, exactly as you expect and not as you experienced in the example you provided. Pressing it again should do nothing assuming the displayed webpage is still at its end. That suggests the app in question is not following Apple's Human Interface Guidelines.
What can you determine from Apple's Human Interface Guidelines? Whereas it does not define that particular key, it provide suggested actions for Down Arrow, Control-Down Arrow, etc. By trial and error I determined that ⌘ Down Arrow performs the same function as the End key—the one you're asking about. I suppose that's relevant if the user doesn't have a full size keyboard as in your picture.
Finally, even Apple occasionally fails to observe their own Human Interface Guidelines. Calling their attention to that fact in a bug report might get them to address such an oversight... eventually.


How to color code individual data points in line chart This is a question about using charts in Numbers and color coding individual data points in a series.
I have two series of data (blood pressure readings) that I plot in a chart. The series may contain multiple readings made at different times on a day, or there may be a single reading.
Is there a way to color code the data points in each series to indicate which part of the day the reading was taken? e.g. 6am-10am = purple, 10am-2pm = orange, 2pm-6pm = blue, etc.
The reason I want to do this is to distinguish between readings taken before and after taking medication.

Welcome to Ask Different!
Unfortunately, I am not aware of an easy way to do what you are asking for in Numbers. Below is how it could be done in case you wish to do it no matter how:

In the example above, the data for both high and low blood pressures are shown in three separate columns, assuming there are three time zones in a day to be highlighted. I used the formula shown in the picture to separate the readings by time zone (you can do all of the separation manually if you like but doing it all manually might turn out to be extra tedious and it might be cumbersome to apply new time zone limits if you change your mind). Of course, the formula is slightly changed for each column so that it refers to the correct cells. In addition, the first non-zero reading in each second and third columns is overwritten manually with the number to its left to get continuity in chart lines (the second 73, 72, 143 and 142).
I used the Format -> Style sidebar menu option to set the high and low lines with the same color after selecting the respective part of each line as shown in the picture below:

I used a relatively old version of Numbers (6.1) to produce the table and the chart above but I reckon you would have no trouble producing them as well in case you have a newer version.
Hope these help!


MacBook Air takes an eternity to come out of sleep For the past few years I've been using a 2008 aluminum MacBook. The day the new airs came out I decided to switch so I purchased one to replace my well used MB. Lion has had its bugs, most of which aren't to bad, but one thing that is really annoying me is how long it takes the MBA to come out of sleep. I don't know if this is a MBA issue, or a Lion issue in general, but my MBA takes about 5 sec for the keyboard to light up, and then another 5 for the screen to light up. My old MB never took more than 5 sec. I would assume that an SSD would cause things to go lightning fast. What's causing it to take so long? Are there ways to make a computer wake up faster?

Notes:

This happens everyday even after restart
The time varies slightly, but just being asleep for a few minutes it takes just as long to wake as leaving it asleep all night.
Typically 4-5 applications open
Only 50GB of 256 GB HD used, has 4GB of RAM and 1.8Ghz i7 Processor

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 should disable "smart sleep" mode.


Swapping the dollar sign for a euro, American english keyboard I know that the keyboard shortcut to use for the Euro symbol is Option + Shift + 2. But I'm now using the $ key, why can't I just re-assign or reprogram the Shift + 4 key combo to give me €?

Does anyone know a way this can be done?

Two apps for remapping keys are Ukelele and Karabiner.

Also the Dutch keyboard layout is the same as US but has € at Option 2, if that is easier.

You can also set up a text replacement in system preferences/keyboard/text/replace with, so that for example $$ gives you €.


Voice Control is launching on its own,also since updating to ios10 there is no menu to turn off Siri between Sounds and Touch id and password Since updating to ios10, voice control intermittently launches itself,also between Sounds and Touch id/password under settings the menu for Siri has disappeared.

Siri is disabled under Restrictions. To re-enable Siri, go into Settings > General > Restrictions, enter your Restrictions password, and enable Siri and Dictation.


Automator won't execute my bash shell script I have a bash script that works like a thread. Now I'd like to turn it into a service with Automator.

Input is set to Image Files in Automator and the shell script action is set to Pass input as arguments.

The problem:

Automator takes issue with two things:

The function
The if condition

However, no error shows up in the log and the shell script result is empty:

(
  ""
)

What the script does:

The function createDatePath checks if the passed image is formated like 2020-08-10-demo_image.jpg and creates a folder YEAR/MONTH/ in the target directory. The if condition performs actions on the input depending on whether it's an JPEG or an PNG, and whether the date string is followed by a -qq- string. This is a trimmed down version of the script (I have some of more if conditions, but we don't need them here I guess).

The script:

backup=/Users/me/Desktop/A/backup/
targetPath=/Users/me/Desktop/A/output/

function createDatePath {
    [[ "$i" =~ ^([0-9]{4})-([0-9]{2}) ]] && \
    mkdir -p "$targetPath${BASH_REMATCH[1]}/${BASH_REMATCH[2]}";
}
for i in "$@"; do
    cp "$i" "$backup"
    if [[ "$i" =~ ^([0-9]{4})-([0-9]{2})-([0-9]{2})-([^q]{2}).+\.((jpg)|(jpeg))$ ]]; then
        createDatePath;
    else
        exit 0;
    fi
done

Screen shot:

Link to complete shell script: https://gist.github.com/pattulus/a89be63478174853d667

If anyone could explain to me why this doesn't work and how to make it work that'd be great.

PS: In the non-Automator script the first thing I did was cd into the source path, but I since this will end up as a service which takes files as input my guess was that I can omit this (adding cd "$@" didn't do any good).

The arguments Automator passes to the script are absolute paths. You can convert them to basenames with something like i=${i##*/}.


MD711B, MD711LLA... How do I figure out which version is newer? I am getting many offers from stores for Macbook air but I don't know how to choose the newest model.
Is there any place where I can check based on the model num (e.g., MD711B)
I have tried on Apple website to see what is their latest version is but couldn't find

Go to the Mac App Store and download Mactracker. It has a database of pretty much every Apple product ever made, its history and full specifications.


Yosemite freezing/lagging constantly on 13" MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) I'm running OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 on a mid 2012 13" MacBook Pro with the 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM.  The hard drive (the 500 GB, regular HDD) was replaced about a year ago (close to 10 months after purchase) following a failure.

One morning, after waking up and waking the computer from sleep mode I encountered a strange amount of lag.  It was bizarre because I was using the machine the night before without any problems, and now it was constantly stuttering while trying to play a movie on Netflix.  Sound would play while the video froze every few seconds.

I restarted the computer, and the problem persisted.  Moreover, it lags no matter what I do.  iTunes can't make it through a song without freezing up 6-7 times, VLC constantly stutters too. The rainbow wheel pops up and spins any time I load a new page in Safari or Chrome, search with Spotlight, change pages in SimpleComic, change tabs in Finder, try and drag a file from one folder to another, etc.

It's constantly stuttering, freezing, and hanging any time I try and do just about anything.  It usually only lasts 10-20 seconds, but it happens repeatedly.  I've tried every remedy I know: restarting, repairing disk/permissions, turning off transparency, reinstalling OS X, restoring a Time Machine backup from before the problem, even clean reinstalling OS X.  Nothing seems to work, there are no error messages, and I'm really annoyed.

I'd think it's a hardware problem, since a clean reinstall didn't work, but I ran the Apple Diagnostic Test and it found no problem.  Moreover, everything works, just with crazy lag system-wide.

I'm wondering if anyone else has this problem, knows what it is, or if there's anything I can try that I haven't.

--EDIT--

After a few tests, I've ruled out the logic board and HDD.  I tried running the hard drive through an older Macbook, and it seemed to work alright (a little slower than normal, but it's a 2008 machine that hasn't been turned on in about a year so that's to be expected).  I also started running OS X off an external hard drive, and it runs perfectly (which is why I think the logic board is fine).

Right now I think the issue stems from the SATA cable, which may be failing.  I've ordered a replacement and I'll update this again once I've installed it.

Thanks for all the help so far!

It turns out that the issue here was a failing SATA cable.  It hadn't totally kicked the bucket, hence the computer could still boot and run fairly normally from the internal hard drive.  I believe the intermittent lag was caused by the faulty cable.

The good news is, replacing it was easy (albeit a little pricey at $40).  It's only a few more steps than removing a hard drive, and iFixit has a nice guide for anyone who has this problem.

Be sure you know it's the SATA cable before replacing it.  I ruled out the hard drive and logic board like this:

Hard Drive - I tested my hard drive in another Macbook.  You could also try a USB enclosure or, in a pinch, remove your optical drive and try it there.
Logic Board - I installed OS X on a USB drive and booted from it.  Performance was normal (expect it to be a little slower).

If you have a USB enclosure for your internal drive, you can rule these both out at once.

Thanks everyone for their comments.  I hope this helps anybody who hits a similar problem.


Were there changes to AppStore 'password caching' in iOS 7? Ever since I updated my iPad mini to iOS 7, my son (4 y.o.) has been making sneaky in-app purchases. What's worse is he knows how he's doing it, but won't spill the beans when I ask him how. Whatever his 'trick' is, it doesn't seem to work on our other iPad, which has not been updated to iOS 7.

I think I figured it out last night. After I input my password to install a (free) application, it seems he can hop in to an app and make a purchase using the 'cached' password. In the past I thought the password would be requested again for in-app purchases.

Have there been any changes to AppStore passwords in iOS 7, specifically the length of time before the password will be asked for again, or a change that allows in-app purchases during the 'caching' period? Or is this simply a change in his behavior?

I've disabled in-app purchases now. Slightly annoying but it does solve the problem.

You can leave in-app purchases on if you wish.

Once you have enabled Restrictions then at the bottom of the second section, Allowed Content you will see Require Password and underneath they even have a little prompt Require password for purchases.

Change this from the default of 15 minutes to Immediately and your problem is fixed.


Is there an easy way in Mavericks to share a PDF file directly from Safari into iBooks? Safari loads and displays .PDF files nicely. iBooks is Apple's PDF reader app for sync'd and offline access. To move files currently, I have to:

right-click in Safari to open the PDF in Preview;
use Preview File menu to Move PDF file to Desktop (or anywhere more accessible than Preview's private store);
Open iBooks and drag the PDF file into iBooks.

Not hard, but a bit cumbersome for something I want to do fairly often. I could probably set up something with Automator / AppleScript, but is there an easier way given a factory install? Am I missing something obvious?

Yes, there is a simpler way. Right-mouse click (or control-click) on the .pdf and Open With iBooks:


How to play all songs I own by an artist in itunes? After I upgraded iTunes to 12.5.3.17, when I click on an artist it only shows the albums of that artist. It does not show the songs that I own of that artist from various compilations. If I click "Shuffle All" it will not ever play or show the extra songs I have of that artist. The mp3s by this artist which are not on their albums but are correctly tagged to this particular artist under the "artist" field in the "get info" window (it is not set to various artists) of each mp3.

I have the same problem on my iPhone now after upgrading. There's no way to play or see the song I want at all besides searching for its exact name. The compilation album that it's on doesn't even show up in the all albums list, nor in the albums list of the song's artist. Also the song doesn't show up anywhere in the "songs" list of supposedly all my songs, which used to be sorted alphabetically by the names of all my songs.

tap on Songs
tap on Sort - sort by Artist


weird behavior of right-shift key in combination with semicolon or quotemark key I'm having trouble with my Apple bluetooth keyboard for several days after upgrading my system to Lion.  In a weird way, neither right shift+; nor right shift+' is working.  I have no trouble with the left shift key, or the right shift key with any other keys.  Can anybody give me some suggestion to solve this?

The most common cause of one key not functioning is that it has been somehow set as the trigger for Text to Speech or Speech Recognition in system preferences/speech.


Control when Reminders show in Notification Center In OSX 10.9.2 I have set reminders to show in the Notification Center. These are often for mundane tasks such as taking out the recycling. I want these tasks to appear maybe 10 mins before the due time - ideally I would like to have options the same way iCal alerts work.

However I can't find any options for when the reminders show up - they seem to show 24 hours in advance. This is confusing because for small tasks I often don't look at the time/date (where it says "tomorrow") and end up take out the recycling one day early!

Is there an option for this? I have tried setting iCal events aswell, and they also show 24 hours early.

You can set a specific time for a reminder: mouse over the entry in Reminders and a circled "i" for "Information" will appear, upon which you should click.  Then select the checkmark box, "Remind me: On a Day," and fill in the date and time for the reminder.

The Reminders functionality in OSX and iOS is minimal; Apple seems to have wanted to include a product to be able to say they did, but not one that actually competes with any of the third-party vendors, to avoid strangling the software ecosystem like Microsoft did with Outlook.  You might look at a third-party software package to meet your needs better.


Should I worry about my iPhone 4's loose back panel? A few weeks ago I got my iPhone 4 replaced by Apple because of a fault. The replacement now seems to have a loose back panel. If I try to slide it sideways it will move a bit. None of the other people I know with an iPhone 4 have encountered this and I'm not sure if I should be bothered taking it back to the store or just keeping it.

Should the loose panel be cause for concern, or is it nothing to worry about?

Considering how much an iPhone costs, take it back. If not for the fact that a loose panel will eventually expose the interior of the phone, thus requiring you to take it back anyway, then for the simple fact that we, as a customer base, expect better of Apple products.


iMac cleanup: can I delete these files? Using Omni Disk Sweeper, I have listed the very heavy files in my computer in order to, if possible, delete them and free up some space.

Of course, I am not going to risk tampering with my system folder, but there are some pretty big files about which I would like to know whether or not it is safe to delete them. Let me know if you know what these files are, and whether it's safe or not to delete them:

Private -> var -> vm -> sleepimage (6Gb) and swapfile0 (1Gb)

Private -> var -> folders (1Gb)

Private -> var -> db (1.4Gb)

Library -> Printers (1.6Gb): (I believe I can re-download the needed drivers if I ever purchase a printer from the System Preferences?)

Library -> Application Support -> iDVD (140mb) and iPhoto (591mb), not so large but I am not a user of these apps

Users -> Shared -> Adobe - 200Mb (is this even accessible by the main user's system?)

Users -> Shared -> Library -> Application Support (is this in use?)

Users -> Fabrice -> Music -> iTunes -> iTunes Media -> Mobile Applications - 25Gb - (I believe if an app was backed up from my iPhone there, it's either currently in my phone, or not supported anymore, or I can get it from the store again if I've already paid for it?)

Users -> Fabrice -> Library -> Mobile Documents (400 Mb)

Users -> Fabrice -> Library -> Caches (600 Mb)

Users -> Fabrice -> Library -> iTunes (900 Mb)

Users -> Fabrice -> Library -> Developer -> Shared (2 Gb)

Library -> Application Support: how can I find easily which applications are not installed on my system anymore?

In total, more than 50 Gb is used by very voluminous elements whose purpose I am unsure of. I wouldn't ask such a question if I hadn't been using Mac computers for the past 20 years and been able to explore and modify System files for many years; I believe modifying the System files can lead to problems... However some of these files look like they can be rebuilt by the system whenever needed, or are backups files/folders that one can easily part with without any consequences.

Thanks for any help!

Looking just at the big parts

You shouldn't touch anything in /private, as these are files used by OSX.
Removing unneeded drivers from /Library/Printers shouldn't pose a problem (I only have the Canon drivers for the model I'm actually using in there)
.../iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications contains all the apps you've ever purchased. You can, if you want to, delete those which you are not using anymore (and reload them again if necessary), but anything installed in your phone will most probably get resynced on the next sync
In .../Library/iTunes there might be some old iPhone updates left in iPhone Software Update which can be removed without problems
.../Library/Developer/Shared contains the Xcode and Development documentation, which can be managed via Xcode directly (or you just remove it and use the web-based version)

I wouldn't bother with the smaller stuff (including iDVD and iPhoto).


Do the iPad 2 and the 6th generation iPod Nano have the same docking connector? I am looking to purchase a Speaker docking system for an iPad2, I also want to be able to use a 6th generation iPod Nano with the same dock connection.

Is the connection on the iPad 2 the same as the connection on the iPod Nano?

The iPod Nano 6th gen uses a 32 pin connector, the same found on iPod classic, iPhones, and more importantly in your case the iPad/2  you will find all the specficatons for docks on the Apple support website. Although it doesn't mention the 6th gen Nano.

This omission makes things slightly unclear however if you check out the product description for the Apple dock connector to USB cable you will see it is compatible with the 6th Gen iPod nano.