Apple script to change main display I have 3 displays, MacBook and 2x4k. My main display is one of 4k. The issue is when I lock computer often 2nd 4k Display (not main) move all full screen apps to MacBook, MacBook to this 4k. Only main display have apps on place.
To solve this issue I have to open preferences/ display/ arrangement and move white bar from main display to MacBook, than "not main 4k" and to "main" 4k. In conclusion I have to move white bar 3 times. This is really uncomfortable and I wonder how to do it wit apple script. Right now I find solution to open system preferences-> display -> arrangement, however I have no idea how to move white bar around displays. My code is here:

-- QUIT SYSTEM PREFERENCCES APPLICATION
if application "System Preferences" is running then
    tell application "System Preferences" to quit
    delay 1
end if
tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        click radio button "Rozmieszczenie" of tab group 1 of window "LG Ultra HD (1)" of application process "System Preferences"
    end tell
end tell

Can anyone help me how to finish script?

Thank you!

I wrote a command line tool called displayplacer that will help with this. You can specify the resolution and positioning of your various monitor setups. Setting a screen with origin:(0,0) will make it the main display with the white bar in the settings.

Execute displayplacer list to get your screen ids.

Example profile 1 with MacBook screen
displayplacer "id:<4kScreen1> res:3840x2160 scaling:off origin:(0,0) degree:0" "id:<4kScreen2> res:3840x2160 scaling:off origin:(-3840,0) degree:0" "id:<MacBook> res:1440x900 scaling:on origin:(3840,0) degree:0"

Example profile 2 without MacBook Screen
displayplacer "id:<4kScreen1> res:3840x2160 scaling:off origin:(0,0) degree:0" "id:<4kScreen2> res:3840x2160 scaling:off origin:(-3840,0) degree:0"

Also available via Homebrew brew tap jakehilborn/jakehilborn && brew install displayplacer


Split Screen with certain applications: Does it only work on the primary display? I'm running El Capitan with two displays.

I am trying split screen and it works fine for all applications on the primary screen (when enabling that each screen has their own spaces), but for some applications it doesn't work on my secondary display.

For instance, when trying to add iTunes and Mail to the same split screen, the cursor turns into a white circle with an 'X' in the middle, and they won't join up in the same screen.

Is this expected behaviour?

Primary screen: External 27'' HP display.
Secondary screen: 15'' internal retina display.

It works fine in both my displays.
What happens if you try to move a split screen from your primary display to your secondary display?


Applescript "Can’t make {x:651.0, y:675.0} into type real." number -1700 from {x:651.0, y:675.0} to real I get the error: "Can’t make {x:651.0, y:675.0} into type real." number -1700 from {x:651.0, y:675.0} to real"" when I run this script.
I don't know why this happens! Comes from an autoclicker I made, Very simple, but it works with slightly obscure methods (Credit: Clicker, Mouse Position) . Code:

use framework "Foundation"
use scripting additions

set theList to current application's NSEvent's mouseLocation()

(*
set xCoord to theList's x
set yCoord to theList's y
*)
round (theList)
tell application "System Events"
    click at {theList}
end tell

The error you're getting is because you can't round() a structure as a whole, so you need to round its individual components. Replace this:

round (theList)

set theList's x to round (theList's x)
set theList's y to round (theList's y)

Then you'll need to fix a subsequent error caused by theList having x and y keys. Replace this:

  click at {theList}

    click at {theList's x, theList's y}


Can I use an Xbox 360 controller with the 4th Gen Apple TV (2015)? Can I use my Xbox 360 controller with the 2015 (4th Gen) Apple TV?

No, you can't connect an Xbox controller to an Apple TV at this point.


iPod less than 1 year old battery life My less than 1 year old iPod touch (A1421) lasts about 8 hours with no use other than listening to podcasts.

Is this level low enough to justify an in-warranty battery replacement?

If so, do I need to do anything to provide proof or will they just set it to play and see the power gone after 8-9 hours?

It may be worth backing up your iPod and performing a factory restore. We recently had an iPad that would discharge to flat in around 8 hours, where the rest of the set would still be going strong a couple of days later. Restarting the unit made no difference. The last thing we decided to try before returning the iPad to our supplier was a factory restore, and it was this that returned the iPad power consumption back to normal.


iMessage and FaceTime not working with Apple ID any more My iMessage and FaceTime suddenly stopped working with my Apple ID on my Macbook Pro (OS X 10.9.5) during my vacation at NYC.

Even on my iPhone (iOS 10.3.3) I can now only use iMessage and FaceTime with my phone number, but not with my Apple ID independent from my location.

Everytime I try to activate iMessage and FaceTime on my MacBook and my iPhone following error is shown:

  An error occurred during activation

I've checked my Date & Time settings and the current location to be true, reset NVRAM and checked all my settings, but there is no solution in sight. I also deleted my Apple ID accounts from all my Apple devices and reconnected them after a reboot of each device, like recommended by Apple and several other webpages.

Does anyone know a possible solution, or has similar problems?

I don't want to update my Mac or iPhone. The solutions provided to the question Messages won't let me sign in to iMessage suggesting to clear NVRAM and to delete the keychain don't work for me, and iMessage and FaceTime do work but only with my phone number.

This sometimes happened to me when I reset my iPhone/iPad and have to activate them again. Most of the time it was due to connection issues with Apple activation servers. I would just switch from WiFi to 4G/LTE (vice versa) and it works. Or maybe you can test with another Apple ID, or try to reset your network setting.


How can I upgrade from Mac OS X Tiger 10.4? If I buy a regular retail Snow Leopard disc (i.e. the £25 version), can I use it to upgrade a Mac from Tiger (10.4)?

This answer on the Apple Store’s Q&A site suggests it’ll work, but Apple seem to imply that you need the (significantly more expensive) Mac Box Set (“the Mac Box Set is the best way to upgrade your Mac experience, especially if you're still using Mac OS X Tiger.”).

Apple wants you to buy the Box Set in order to upgrade from Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 to Snow Leopard. Technically, you the Snow Leopard retail package will upgrade intel based Macs running Mac OS X Tiger 10.4, however it is against the terms of the End User License Agreement (EULA).
The Box Set includes additional software that typically comes with a new Mac (and some that doesn't) and it is recommended by Apple to 'upgrade your Mac experience' because it is more like buying a new Mac than just upgrading the operating system.
To hear it straight from Apple, here are the answers from Alan Eyzaguire, director of software product marketing at Apple Europe to this question.

"We just think that Apple customers could really benefit from having those. They're great software."
"it's great when people get the full experience"
"if you have Snow Leopard it's great to have the latest iWork and iLife"
"we wanted to make that [upgrade] as attractive as possible"
"you get it almost for free"
"it's a steal!"
"Technically, yes, it would upgrade a Tiger install, but in the licensing, no." (citation)


Weird Mac Application Behaviour I have been suffering from some weird issues on my MacBook Pro after periods of usage.

These are a few of the problems which occur once the problem starts.

Software starts behaving weird/stops working correctly
The Mac will sometimes say it can't start the software
Messages semi logs out, it receives messages but doesn't let you send them.

All issues resolve with a restart.

I previously faced an issue with the Mac crashing, except the cursor. After reading the log files, I found Xcode was causing some issue in the background, I therefore removed it. Following this, I have no longer faced the issue.

There is no real pattern other than the issue usually occurring after a period of usage. The issue started in Sierra but has carried through to High Sierra.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

This is the kind of task I'd give to Onyx (freeware). Get the version appropriate to your system.

Run the entirety of the Maintenance tab - Structure [which it will ask to do on launch) then Permissions & Scripts. Be a little more circumspect with Rebuilding, but all options are 'safe' to run.
Reboot afterwards.

If it is still misbehaving, next check would be for rogue 3rd party kexts. How can I identify 3rd party kernel extensions in macOS? will help with that.


Force wider viewport size in iOS Safari? Is there any way in iOS Safari (or third party app) to force a larger viewport? I'm fine scrolling around a website to see content but I'm not fine with sites hiding content when I use a narrower than desktop device.

Ideally I would like to set my width (say 1024) and then have my iPhone browse with that width and drag around to see the page. Kind of like magnifier but in reverse.

You can use the aptly named iOS app, Desktop Browser to do this. Here's what a site looks like in Safari on an iPhone:

Here's what the same site looks like in the aforementioned app on the same iPhone:

I'll bet there are other apps out there that do this. Albeit a little rough around the edges and ad-supported, this one is free and gets the job done.


Create hotkey to open a menubar app? Is it possible to create a hotkey (or other trigger) that opens a menubar app?  I don't mean launch.  I mean, cause the menubar app to display its contents.

Let's say, for example, I wanted to create a hotkey to open a menubar weather app.  Can this be done?

The app I'm trying to open is open source on Github, so I'm open to coding the trigger into the app if need be, but I have no clue how to do that, which means I'd prefer a simpler solution.

I'm using Mountain Lion.

You can assign a shortcut to a script like this:

ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "QuickHue"
        click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
    end tell
end ignoring

There is a bug where clicking some status menu items causes scripts to be blocked for about 5 seconds. One workaround is to terminate System Events after the click command:

launch application "System Events"
delay 0.2
ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Time Tracker"
        click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
    end tell
end ignoring
do shell script "killall System\\ Events"
delay 0.1
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Time Tracker"
    tell menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
        click menu item 2 of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

The first two lines are needed when System Events is not already running. System Events supports sudden termination, so it should be safe to even send it a KILL signal.


Do prices of older iPhones decrease after the release of a new model? I want to buy an iPhone 8. However, in a few days new iPhone 11 will be released. Can I expect older models to become cheaper at that moment or soon afterwards? Or does the price drop happen before the release?

Since shopping questions aren’t encouraged here - the scope of this is official Apple list price - historical behaviors, and not speculation about some future Apple release cycle even if one is imminent.

During the iPhone 11 announcement, Apple said they were reducing the price of the iPhone 8 to starting at $449 and the iPhone XR to starting at $599. These price changes are currently effective on Apple's website.

Historically, Apple announces new models and pricing and at the same time, refreshes their official pricing the same day as the keynote / press release. Additionally, look online and at Apple stores as they then sell (often at further discount) any now “discontinued” models in the Certified Refurbished / Clearance section:

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished


Can't get Safenote to open; freezes on loading screen I've had the Safenote app for quite a while now and have a lot of useful notes in there. But now it won't open—it's frozen on the loading screen. Is there any way of getting it working again?

I'm using an iPhone 4 running iOS 5.

If Lizzan's suggestion doesn't work try rebooting your phone by holding down the power button and sliding to power off. That can free up additional memory that may allow you to run it again.


How to put a Macbook Air into "Target Disk Mode"? I have an older Macbook Air. I'm trying to transfer the data onto my new Macbook Air using a Thunderbolt cable. The Apple Store employee assured me that you can connect a Thunderbolt cable to a mini display port. However, using Migration Assistant does not recognize that the two Macbook Airs are connected via the Thunderbolt cable. I learned that you might be able to put the old one into "Target Disk Mode" and treat it like an external start-up disk. However, I can't seem to get it to work. I have shut down the old Macbook Air and started it up while holding down the T key. I have also tried enabling it through System Preferences, but there is no Target Disk Mode option. Both Macbook Airs are running Mavericks.

How can I enable target disk mode so this migration doesn't take days?

In the "startup disk" section of system preferences, you should have a button to restart in target disk mode. If this is missing/ disabled then the machine doesn't support Target Disk Mode.


Will upgrading to Mavericks break my Macports? I have a late 2010 Macbook Pro 15", running 10.7.5, with a configured dev environment, containing tons of installed ports (specifically Apache/PHP5.4/MySQL/Mongo/Node etc).

Apparently, the only way to update XCode further is to upgrade to Mavericks. Can anyone tell me how painful would the upgrade be in terms of needing to reinstall/reconfigure all the ports? Would I have to start from scratch, or will my current configuration be preserved?

Macports provides a guide to migration to a new OS.

Basically you need to uninstall all the ports, install a new Macports and Xcode (although only the command line tools are needed for most ports), then reinstall the ports. If you don;t do this then you might well have issues which Macports community can't help you with.

If you put your configurations in new files rather than directly edit files installed by macports these files will not be overwritten. If you directly edited the config files then you will need to copy them from a backup after the reinstall.

Note on the upgrade. Xcode does not provide a gcc compiler for OSX 10.9 and Macports is now using the corresponding C++ standard library. This means that any C++ based port could well have problems if you just kept your old Macports and did not go through the migration. I suspect that other code is likely to carry on running but when you upgrade a port or add a new one things will get confused.


OS X: Can I track what files are being accessed on a disk? I have several external hard drives.  They're consumer drives which "go to sleep" (spin down) automatically when unused; I can't (and don't want to) run them 24x7.  I use them strictly for backup and long-term storage.

Very often, I'll use some irrelevant feature of a program (like "Undo" in Microsoft Word on a doc that's on the main drive) -- the application will freeze, and I'll hear an external hard drive spin up.  (Or every single drive spin up, one at a time.)  Then the program will unfreeze.   The program does not seem to be bothered if I unmount the drives; it simply stops doing that.

And I am wondering: What on earth is it looking for?  So I can figure out how to stop this annoyance.  For instance if it's tapping fonts it found on the external drive, I can make sure they're inaccessible inside ZIP files.

My question is: How can I have a persistent log of accesses to files by applications? I've tried using lsof | grep /Volumes/ but it is only a snapshot of currently open files; it always seems to miss the moment when that app has that file open.

I tried the fs_usage approach, got bursts of this message: fs-usage: buffer overrun, events generated too quickly: 123456  But eventually this surfaced:

23:32:47  getattrlist       /Volumes/Teeny/RSreorg                                                         0.000006   Microsoft Ex
23:32:47  getattrlist       /Volumes/Teeny/RSreorg                                                         0.000002   Microsoft Ex
23:32:59  getattrlist       /Volumes/Teeny/RSreorg                                                         0.000005   Microsoft Ex
23:32:59  getattrlist       /Volumes/Teeny/RSreorg                                                         0.000002   Microsoft Ex
23:32:59  getattrlist       /Volumes/Teeny/RSreorg                                                         0.000003   Microsoft Ex
23:32:59  getattrlist       /Volumes/Teeny/RSreorg                                                         0.000002   Microsoft Ex

This happened as I was closing an Excel spreadsheet.  That's a scratchpad disk, and that directory was deleted years ago. The spreadsheet was a new file that had nothing to do with that location.

Searching the drive for the text string RSreorg revealed only 2 files, both ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.plist, one with gibberish at the end (temporary file?)... Web search reveals Microsoft stores my license keys there, but text scan reveals hundreds of other useless and wrong directories.  What on earth is Microsoft doing?

And apparently this answer endorses deleting the file outright.

You can use fs_usage to see all system calls related to filesystem activities. Output is quite large, so you probably need to redirect it to a file

Run sudo fs_usage > fs.out in Terminal
Start Word and wait for the external drive to spin up
Switch to Terminal, press Ctrl-C and look through fs.out

You can also limit the output to certain processes, see the man page for details on that.


Connect to Bluetooth device via terminal I am struggling to find some (elegant) way to connect my Mac to a (previously paired) Bluetooth device via terminal.

There is a solution using Applescript simulating mouse clicks, but it has some major issues:

Bluetooth menu needs to be visible in the Menu bar
Terminal needs access to the Accessibility Controls
Does not work reliably
It is slow as hell
When you use the mouse while the script is running, it fails.

So, this is more or less a no-go..

I don't need to switch Bluetooth on and off in general, I don't need any pairing mechanism, I just need some way to trigger the connection to known devices via terminal.

My use case is a Bluetooth Sound Module - for example I called it "NoiseBox". What I want is this:

./magic-script.sh connect NoiseBox

or

./magic-script.sh disconnect NoiseBox

Can you help me?

PS: Is it possible to write some small Application in Swift or ObjC which does this?

As there are some upvotes and many views, I will answer my own question there:

Yes, it is possible to write some small application in Swift or ObjC which does this. And some people did that already:

BluetoothConnector
blueutil

BluetoothConnector is written in Swift, which does (currently) only support connecting and disconnecting (It seems to be pretty new, so more features may follow some day).

blueutil is written in Objective-C. In addition to (dis-)connecting it can also toggle power, discoverability, show if you are already connected, etc.

I tried both, and both worked well, currently I'll stick with blueutil - it has more features, which come in handy in shell scripts.


Where can I purchase Female Thunderbolt to HDMI cable? I have a Apple Thunderbolt Display 27 which I want to use on a Windows machine with only an HDMI port. So I basically need to cable which will have female Thunderbolt port in one side and male HDMI port in other side of the cable.

There's no such thing as a female Thunderbolt to male HDMI cable.  Consequently, you cannot connect an HDMI Source to a Thunderbolt Display

DisplayPort (DP) and mini DisplayPort (mDP) can drive HDMI devices, but not the other way around.

  I also want to connect it to my Windows laptop via HDMI. I bought this
  converter, which converts the HDMI signal to DisplayPort. Everything
  plugs in just fine, but the display just does not turn on.

Source:  how do I connect an Apple Thunderbolt display to a PC?

In short, HDMI simply cannot create the "signaling" required for a DP or mDP signal.  The Thunderbolt display is more than a display; it's a Thunderbolt hub/dock with a display attached to it.

From this picture, you can see all the ports that the display comes with:

3 USB ports
1 Firewire Port
1 Ethernet Port
1 Thunderbolt Port

As such, this is not a mDP or DP monitor.  You need a Thunderbolt signal to drive this monitor and HDMI simply can't do it.

What will drive this monitor?

Per Apple's Support Page on the Thunderbolt Display....


Display a notification with AppleScript I would like to trigger a notification with AppleScript.

I have seen How can I trigger a Notification Center notification from an AppleScript or shell script? but I would like to have a native AppleScript solution if it exists.

Growl has an AppleScript dictionary. I didn't find any way to show a single notification in Notification Center, but they are shown in it by default you've enabled forwarding all notifications.

tell application id "com.Growl.GrowlHelperApp"
    register as application "Scripts" all notifications "test" default notifications "test"
    notify with name "test" title "title" description "description" application name "Scripts"
end tell


iTunes pauses and does random things when my headphones move I am using iTunes on Mac.  I suppose there might be a problem with my headphones and it is sending random commands to the computer.  When I move my head, my iTunes pauses and sometimes it goes to a different podcast.  Is there anything I can do to simply disable the headphones from controlling iTunes?

This problem is related to the microswitch located at the very bottom inside the speaker jack. Whenever you get this problem, make sure your speaker cable is fully inserted into the speaker jack. Even the slightest depress on the microswitch can create interference, causing itunes to start and random songs to start playing. I also recommend bringing your computer to an apple store and getting the speaker jack cleaned, since dust or other contaminants can cause this issue. They can also make sure that nothing is wrong with your microswitch. A friend of mine had to have his motherboard replaced due to a faulty microswitch. This is covered by warrantee as long as your mac isn't too old to be covered.

link: https://discussions.apple.com/message/15803561#15803561


How can I download a iOS Shortcuts file to my Mac? I have created a iOS shortcuts (Workflow) on a iPad. Finally, I would like to save and send a backup to Mac. This has been really easy in the past. Unfortunately it is no longer possible to share any Shortcuts via eMail, ftp client or other non iCloud services. It looks like Apple locked down Shortcuts to iCloud. Users are forced to use iCloud. Anyway, when I click the iCloud 'Get Shortcut' link it won't download the workflow://shortcuts file.
How can I download a iOS shortcut to my Mac?

You can save a shortcut you have on your iOS device to a .shortcut file using this shortcut: Save .shortcut. This works with shortcuts you’ve created or imported from iCloud.
Run the shortcut to be prompted to choose a shortcut from your list of shortcuts, then the Quick Look action opens the shortcut as a file, and you can share the file using the Share button in the top-right to Save to Files, AirDrop or elsewhere.
Unfortunately it’s no longer possible to import .shortcut files back into the Shortcuts app by opening them on iOS.


Terminal/iTerm Autocomplete "greyed" functionality? Not too sure how to describe this... but I saw this on a person's computer a cafe today and didn't get a chance to ask him what plugin/application he was using --

I think it best to illustrate with an example:

Say there's a directory with three folders, 'kitty', 'doggie', and 'frog'.

Typing cd f would make the letters rog appear after the 'f', but rog would be in a lighter color of text (a greyed color) -- it was a sort of "visible autocomplete", not sure what else to call it. Anyone know how to achieve this? Thanks.

This is a feature of the fish shell (Friendly Interactive Shell).

fish's scripting syntax is also quite a bit different from bash and zsh's. If you use zsh, you can also try the zsh-autosuggestions plugin on Github.


How change option+key result in macOS Big Sur En-Us keyboard? I wanna add another result for pressing ⌥+s, now I'm seeing ß but I want to see ş. I don't want change my source input to other language.
I just want to add special characters to some keys and see them with pressing option (⌥) key.
system:

macOS 11.3.1
M1
En-US keyboard
En-US layout

You need Ukelele (freeware).

Ukelele is a Unicode Keyboard Layout Editor for the macOS.
Ukelele aims to simplify keyboard layout editing by providing a graphical interface to .keylayout files, where the desired characters can simply be dragged onto keys as needed. (The Character Viewer or Character Palette, available in the Input menu if it has been enabled in System Preferences, and shown with Show Emoji & Symbols, is a great place to find the characters.)


Why are my images exported to flickr at a lower resolution when I asked for "Actual size"? When I export a bunch of images to Flickr by using the built-in share to flickr, I see the images getting exported but they all appear as max 1024 pixels on either side. I did select "Actual size" when exporting so it should use the full resolution. And I think it did work fine in a previous export.

Just wait a little longer. What happens is that it starts by uploading 1024-sized images, and then later replaces them with high-resolution versione. So if you check flickr while it is still working you will see the lower-resolution versions but wait and reload and it will be high-resolution.


Safari Web Developer Tools - how to edit a cookie? Is it possible to edit cookie values in Safari, either by using the Web Developer tool or another 3rd party extension?

You cannot use Safari's Web Developer tools to edit cookies (at least not yet?).

Entries in this table are read-only; if you want to edit a cookie’s value, you need to do so with the document.cookie object in JavaScript (you can use the Quick Console at the bottom of the content browser to modify the cookie and see the results update in real time). Pressing the Delete key while a cookie is selected deletes the cookie.

Ref: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleApplications/Conceptual/Safari_Developer_Guide/ResourcesandtheDOM/ResourcesandtheDOM.html


Prevent App Store from putting apps on the Dock in Snow Leopard In Snow Leopard, when I install an app from the App Store it automatically places it on the Dock with the "Keep in Dock" option enabled.

Due to my poor mouse skills I've made the Dock immutable, so when I install an app from the store I cannot remove it! I have to unlock it, remove the app and relock it again.

It has happened enough times by now that it is starting to get on my nerves.

Any way to stop the Dock from automatically keeping new items or  stop the App Store from putting them there?

The app is added to the dock by manipulation of the Dock's preference file, then restarting the Dock, thereby bypassing the contents-immutable lock. To counter this, you can lock the Dock's preference file:

chflags uchg ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Dock.plist

Note: I don't have Snow Leopard to test this on, so keep backups, etc.

Undo with:

chflags nouchg ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Dock.plist


Security update 2016-003 10.11.6 issues I'm not sure whether this is a request for a fix, a warning to others, or just a 'did you see this too?'

Mac Pro 4,1 [firmware upgraded to 5,1]
2 x 3.46GHz X5690
Aftermarket Samsung 1TB Evo 840, AMD 7950
All behaving nicely before the update.

App store this morning wanted to update Safari & a new Security update 2016-003 10.11.6
As usual, I let it do its thing & allowed it to go ahead & restart.

After restart I noticed the usual grey screen Apple logo + 'thermometer' rather than ticking through for a few steps then going to my auto-login, instead stared with the thermometer completely full.
It then went to a total light grey screen + [working] mouse cursor... where it stayed until I forcibly shut it down.

Things I tried with no joy...

NVRAM & SMC resets
Single user fsck
Verbose boot [couldn't see anything useful]
Safe Boot [same symptoms]
From TTP eDrive:-
TechTool Pro
DiskWarrior
DiskUtility
all showed no problems
Restored the entire OS from the Recovery Partition... no improvement.

Then some news
Safe boot gave me the opportunity to log to another admin account
which surprisingly had no issues.

I used that account to disable the auto-login & tried again, with many variations.
I ran Onyx & did a lot of cleaning, checking.
I watched Console & Activity Monitor.

From a regular boot, logging to the spare admin account had no issues, logging to my main account I could barely move. The Finder spent an hour trying to draw the contents of the Applications folder, & even then wouldn't launch anything, claiming every app was damaged.
I could switch to the other account & launch the same app with no issues.

Console showed constant crash reports in launchd each time with a new PID
I couldn't find which process coresponded to any given PID as it was changing too fast but it looked like mdworker was also struggling.
I used Activity Monitor from the other account to kill all mdworkers & also spotlight & things settled down - though I couldn't go back to the main account without it starting over.

Eventually I gave up & did a full restore from Time Machine.
Fine. Worked.

I then split the updates & tried again.
Safari update, OK.
Security Update... back to square one.

[fade to black]

I'm now on another Time Machine restore & am not going near that Security Update on any machine in the building until I hear better news from elsewhere.

[I have probably missed 42 steps in my exploratory method, it's been 12+ hours... please ask for clarification - bearing in mind I don't have the console logs as they were wiped with each restore]

(I would add this as a comment, not an answer, but the system won't let me comment.)

I installed Security update 2016-003 on my iMac running OS 10.11.6 (El Capitan) on Dec 13. Since then I have had two kernel panics, one on trying to wake the computer and one today on startup.

The panic on startup occurred with the Apple logo and progress bar still on screen. There was a single line of text at upper left of the screen announcing the panic. No panic report in logs for that one.

Apple diagnostic test says there are no hardware problems, so I strongly suspect the security update is causing these panics.

Update Dec 21: In my case the kernel panics stopped occurring after I updated Little Snitch from 3.6.4 to 3.7.1. Compatibility with Sierra was added at v3.7.0. Perhaps that also provides compatibility with the El Capitan security update 2016-003. Or perhaps it was just the Little Snitch reinstall process that fixed things.


How to check what communication mode is being used with an external monitor over the USB-C/Thunderbolt plug If I understand correctly, if you connect an external monitor to a Mac there is more than one way the signals can be sent to the monitor.
It could be HDMI, it could be USB Two-lane Displayport, it could be USB four-lane DisplayPort Alternate Mode, it could be Thunderbolt Displayport, it could be Displaylink.
Is there some place on the Mac it will tell me which mode is being used?

Yes.  System Report.  Click on the Apple Logo (top left of Menu Bar) *About this Mac → System Report → Graphics/Displays

That said.....

It could be HDMI, it could be USB 2 lane Displayport, it could be USB 4 lane DisplayPort Alternate Mode, it could be Thunderbolt Displayport, it could be Displaylink.

You're confusing/conflating a bunch of things all into one big lump.  Let's see if we can sort through the confusion - and yes, the industry doesn't help at all in making things less confusing.
The technology...

USB-C describes the physical port attributes (connector type) not the actual port itself.  It's actually a USB 3.x port or a Thunderbolt 3 port with a Type C connector, but we've been saying USB-C for short; and yes, doing things this way made everything overly complex and confusing

Your Mac (assuming 2018 or later because you referenced USB-C), natively outputs a DisplayPort signal.  Period.

"Lanes" just refers to the bandwidth of the USB or Thunderbolt signal.

USB Alt or Alternate Mode is when the DisplayPort signal is "added" or embedded in the USB signaling.  USB by itself doesn't have display capability so if your computer manufacturer enabled this capability (i.e. Apple 12" MacBook), you will be able to connect an external display to your MacBook via the USB-C port.  From the Texas Instruments PDF linked above:

This configuration enables other protocols such as DisplayPort (DP) ... ... to transfer over Type-C cables

Thunderbolt is actually several signals all in one: PCIe, USB 3 (soon will be 4.0), DisplayPort 3.2 and Power Delivery.  If you connect your external display to a Thunderbolt 3 port, you're still connecting it to DisplayPort.

DisplayLink is a technology that allows manufacturers to embed the video signals on USB/Thunderbolt, Ethernet and WiFi connections.  This is something at the manufacturer level and really, the only time consumers actually get involved with this is when Apple doesn't include the drivers or there's an issue with it supporting something like daisy-chaining.

What you connect to...

If I understand correctly, if you connect an external monitor to a Mac there is more than one way the signals can be sent to the monitor.

Not exactly.  Generally speaking there's only one way signals are sent to your Mac and that's from a DisplayPort signal.  There are Macs with HDMI ports (Mac mini for, example) but since we're referring to the USB-C port - there's only one connection - DisplayPort.
Your end device (monitor) may be HDMI, however, and depending on how that signal was converted, it my be unidirectional.  In other words, it won't communicate back that it's using HDMI.
Yes, you can use a USB-C to HDMI or DVI or even VGA adapter. The DisplayPort signal can be converted to these formats with passive or active adapters (I suggest active).
From the Comments....

It would seem it would be nice to know is it (a) 2 lane and so I'm limited to 30hz at 4k (b) 4 lane and so all my USB bandwidth is being eaten and external storage will be slow, or (c) thunderbolt and so everything is good.

That's not how it works.  It's not just one big pipe where everything is shoved through and if you use so much of USB you reduce your video or frame rate.
The "lanes" that you're referring to have to do with the data lanes that can be sent.  This is not something that can modified nor utilized by the user in any way.  If you have a USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, using a USB 3 cable with "4 lanes" isn't going to improve your video or USB throughput in  any way.  What you need to focus on is the specifications of your hardware.  Looking at the specs

If your Mac has stated specifications, it has to meet those specifications.  Your peripherals also have to meet these specifications.  Whether you have 2 lanes or 4 lanes makes no difference.


In TextEdit, if I type two `-` it is converted to one longer `-` I use TextEdit to edit my text.

If I type in a double -, it is converted to one longer -.

How to avoid this?

Go to Edit → Substitutions and disable Smart Dashes.

You can disable this globally in System Preferences: Keyboard → Text. Disable ‘Use smart quotes and dashes’.

To only disable the dash substitution globally whilst leaving smart quotes enabled by adding the substitution to System Preferences: Keyboard → Text. Add a new entry set to -- for both ‘replace’ and ‘with’ to disable the substitution. This works because entries here override the OS regardless of whether substitutions are enabled.

To disable the dash substitution globally without this workaround, you can disable NSAutomaticDashSubstitutionEnabled:

defaults write -g NSAutomaticDashSubstitutionEnabled 0


Flickering Pink background on all windows. Yosemite 10.10.1 Ever since upgrading my mid 2009 MacBook Pro from OS 10.6.8 to 10.10.1 Yosemite, the backgrounds to all my windows are vibrating flickering pink which is quite undesirable. At first I thought it was the acid flashbacks they promised me in high school but it's definitely only on my computer

Seriously, though, any idea as to why and any fixes?

I have reset my PRAM

Sounds like a GPU/driver mismatch, back buffer issue, or potential imminent failure.

Or it could be that GPU just isn't up to the task, running out of memory & refilling the buffers constantly.

Try System Prefs > Accessibility > Display & Reduce Transparency.


Can you restore deleted messages on iPhone 6 from iPad? While trying to delete a few messages, I accidentally deleted all messages from a contact on my iPhone, but they're all still there on my iPad. For some reason, iCloud backup doesn't include the messages. Can I restore the deleted messages on the iPhone using my iPad? And how do I include messages in iCloud backup for the future?

The only way to get your messages back on your iPhone is to restore your iPhone from a backup that predates when you deleted the messages.

Right now there is no option to include messages in iCloud backups. Starting with iOS 11, however, there will be. In iOS 11 beta 1, there's an option in Settings to enable full chat archive synchronization in iCloud.


How to create installable app with setuid bit set owned by root I have inherited a codebase that needs updating, but I don't have the build scripts that created the final pkg file.

The code needs to access a connected USB device (treated as a drive) to read and write bits to, and so it needs escalated privelidges. Due to the non technical nature of the end users, they need to be able to click on the app, and can't be expected to run it from the command line with sudo.

The current installer installs to /Applications/myapp.app, with myapp.app/Contents/MacOS/myapp being set to -rwsr-xr-x root:staff permissions. When installed, this app runs just fine without complaint.

I managed to make a similar pkg file using pkgbuild, and it creates a similar folder in /Applications, with the same permissions, newapp.app/Contents/MacOS/newapp -rwsr-xr-x root:staff. But if I try to run the app without sudo, then I get "The application with bundle ID newapp is running setugid(), which is not allowed."

The mac I have is running macos 10.13.6
The app is python that have been packaged into a binary.

How am I supposed to package this code so it runs as root after it's been installed?

This is just the task suite to a shell script to be packaged with your installer package.

Just package all your files as you do and then review this script only package. Since there are no files, all the steps in this guide will show you how to craft the post install script.

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/creating-payload-free-packages-with-pkgbuild/
http://macinstallers.blogspot.com/2012/07/scripting-in-installer-packages.html
Configure the OS X Server from .pkg postinstall script

The first guide is the densest, so read it and then hit up the next links, then return to the first for when you’re ready to use pkgbuild tool to install and script.


Macbook pro 15", late 2013: internet stopped working I have a macbook pro 15", late 2013 with Catalina (10.15.4). It was working flawlessly until few hours ago, now internet won't work. I can't find any trace of hardware issue, the wifi card works fine and it connects to wifi networks. Unfortunately even with full signal internet doesn't work, even pinging from the terminal return the "unknown host" error. I don't have the ethernet adapter so I can't test it.

I tried different wifi networks, I tried forgetting the networking and connecting to it again, I have tried the wireless diagnostic, rebooting the laptop...no results so far...is there something else I can do?

EDIT: to add some context, I know that the wifi is working fine because two other computers and the phone have internet access via the same wifi network

EDIT: output of the command ipconfig getpacket en0 | grep "yiaddr\|router":

yiaddr = 192.168.1.63
router (ip_mult): {192.168.1.254}

EDIT: result of the various pings:

ping 192.168.1.254

PING 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time 1.891ms
...

it seems to work, same thing for ping 8.8.8.8:

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time 9.997ms
...

sadly, ping www.google.com still results in ping: cannot resolve www.google.com: Unknown host

Thanks to Allan I found the answer. I had to change my dns with the following command:
networksetup -setdnsservers Wi-Fi 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
after that internet was back!


Choosing native screen resolution aspect ratio when screen sharing I have two Macs both running Lion:

iMac (early 2009, iMac9,1 with NVIDIA GeForce GT 120)
MacBook Air (Early 2011, first of the new shape 11.6")

I often screen share using the Macbook Air as the client, and presenting the screen from my iMac onto it.  When this happens the original iMac screen resolution is used and scaled down to fit into the lower resolution on the Macbook Air.

The iMac resolution native resolution is 1900x1200 (16:10), so when scaled down to Airs 1366x768 (16:9) it looks bad and doesn't fill the screen (even after using "full screen").

When I am in though, I can change the resolution, and have elected to put the display preferences menu bar item in to allow me to change quickly.

If I screen share using the normal physical display, I get the following choice of screen resolutions:

If I select to use the virtual display instead my choice of available screen resolutions changes to the following:

Oddly these are "extra" resolutions, but none of the available choices match the 16:9 aspect ratio of the Air, or equate to any of the supported 16:10 ratio resolutions of the Air, I only get options for the 4:3 aspect ratio.

Macbook Air Supported resolutions:

1366x768 (native), 1344x756 and 1280x720 pixels at 16:9 aspect ratio

1152x720 and 1024x640 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio

1024x768 and 800x600 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio

I want to avoid scaling wherever possible, and use one of the 16:9 ratios that my Air supports to get full screen non scaled viewing.  I can get native vertical with horizontal borders at 1024x768, or I can get close to full screen after scaling with slim borders by using 1680x1050, but neither of these are ideal.

Is there any way to set my iMac to use these resolutions when I am connected via Screen Sharing?  I know the root cause is a fundamental mismatch in aspect ratios, but surely the iMac can support a 16:9 external display, so why not for a virtual display?

After half a year and 2 bounties, no-one genuine solution, so the answer appears to be a simple "You can't do that".


How do I refresh / check new mail in Mail? How do I refresh / check new mail in Mail?

By default, I don't see a toolbar button to do so in Mail 5.1 on Lion.

Apple Mail's check for mail icon looks like a new mail message icon, and can be found here:

If it can't be found you can add by right-clicking on the toolbar and choosing customize:

You can then select the icon from the list and drag it to the toolbar at the top:

You can also use "Mailbox" -> "Get All New Mail" which has a shortcut ⌘ + ⇧ + N.

You don't need to synchronize. Synchronize does more than a new mail check (see this answer)


What Macs do when verifying applications I am asking this out of curiosity. When I download an app by an unidentified developer:

1) What does it mean that the app is by an "unidentified developer"? How is a developer identified?

2) What is the Mac doing when I am opening that app for the first time and I see "Verifying.." (or something similar)?

Apple provides digital 'certificates' to registered developers, who pay $99 per year to register. Any applications signed with those certificates will be 'verified'.

It's nothing to do with the App Store as such. Registered developers can make certified apps available on their own websites.

Apple can remove the certificate from developers who are found to be shipping malware or being naughty in some other way.

When you first open an application, MacOS checks that the certificate is valid. If the app was made by a developer who is not registered with Apple, then you will get the message that the app is unknown to Apple, and therefore potentially risky. Of course, lots of very good software is written by developers who don't register with Apple.


Safari crashing on WSJ.com In the last few days, Safari suddenly started crashing on WSJ.com. Particularly when opening articles with lots of ads, the page reloads several times then crashes saying “a problem repeatedly occurred”.
On the Mac, it says that it is using a significant amount of memory, on the iPad it just says website crashed.
I can load the articles when I disable JavaScript in Settings, but that is not an ideal solution.
Website works fine on Chrome and Firefox on the Mac, but does not work on Safari on Mac, or on iPad or iPhone.
I already tried:

clearing cache, history, cookies

deleting website data

force restarting

incognito mode

both WiFi and cellular data

deleting all content and settings in the iPad, and setting up as new device (!)

family member’s iPad - same issue

Any tips? WSJ customer support thinks it’s a problem with my devices.
This started shortly after last iOS update.
OS versions:

iPad Air 3 - iOS 14.2
MacBook Air - macOS Catalina
iPhone SE - iOS 13.3.1

WSJ website now behaves normal
WSJ must have updated their website. I can't reproduce the huge RAM usage on the website and have not done any Safari or macOS updates. Therefore it was not an issue with Safari but with the WSJ website itself.

This is not a very technical answer but WSJ customer support is sort of correct.
I just loaded WSJ website myself and after a few seconds the RAM usage was way too high:

This will be too much for any iOS device and even for lower-speced Macs.

I can't tell you if the WSJ has made significant changes to their website the last days or if it is Apples fault. Either way I would - if its that important to you - write to both Apple and WSJ about this.


Keynote slides orientation Is it possible to make vertical slides with keynote? Can they be turned around? I'm trying to make a slideshow for an installation using monitors placed vertically.... but I'm not sure if that's possible. Thank you for your help!

You can specify a custom size for your slides by going to Document in the top right corner, it wil open a box on the right side of your screen and there wil be an entry regarding the size of your slides, the default is 1024 x 768.
Open this selector and you see "custom size".
If you enter 768 x 1024 in the resulting window the slides wil be in a vertical orientation.

ps. my keynote version is 6.2 and it is in dutch so I don't know what the menu items will be called in your version


Bind shortcut to applications Possible Duplicate:
  Can I create a shortcut to open a specific application on OS X?

I would like to bind a shortcut to Google Chrome and another shortcut to Finder... I configure as follows, but neither of them seems to work:

Could anyone help?

Keyboard Shortcuts can't be used to create shortcuts to open applications. It's used to create shortcuts to existing menu items within applications.

I personally use Quicksilver for rapid access to applications, but you also use applications like Keyboard Maestro or QuicKeys.

Apptivate is another hot key manager that is specifically targeted towards activating, hiding and unhiding applications.


Will I be able to use cellular data when i'm connected to another device via WiFi Direct? If a phone is connected to another device through WiFi direct, will that connection prevent the phone from using cellular data?

Edit:

An iPhone is connected to a dash cam using WiFi Direct (the dash cam shows as a WiFi network when turned on and the iPhone connects with the dash cam by joining the network and putting in the password).

I've read somewhere that iOS can't connect to both WiFi and cellular data at the same time. I just wanted to know if using WiFi directs prevents an iOS device from utilizing cellular data.

From experience and I hope design, Wi-Fi is prioritised above cellular when it comes to connection. Only Wi-Fi assist can be used to use cellular despite Wi-Fi. Also, battery discharge rate drops when on Wi-Fi even when cellular is ON, I believe it is not being used. I cannot provide references.

Now since dash cam is using Wi-Fi to stream video, not for internet, apps cannot detect the purpose. They'll treat it as logged-out network, or simply a disconnected from internet network.


Move dock between displays keyboard shortcut (or keep on both displays) I would like to move my dock via keyboard shortcut between displays.  When I connect my second display (which I use as my active display) and try to use the pad to 'learn' this new display is the main one it takes probably 20-30 seconds of moving my mouse up and down before the display finally jumps.

I was wondering if there is a keyboard shortcut that exists or I could create that could handle this action?

I thought perhaps the default [Opt + Cmd +D] to toggle Turn Dock Hiding On/Off would work. I considered that, depending on which display was active, that toggling the dock would cause it to appear on whichever display was active at the time. However, I find that dock remains on the given display.

However, I believe the solution is simply to explain how the mouse or trackpad is used to move the dock.

The rule is that by moving the cursor 1" below the bottom of the given display, the dock will then move.


Connecting Macbook to WiFi network breaks internet for everyone I have a 2015 Macbook pro, which I bought about 3 months ago.

Some days ago, when I was using it, and connected it to my house's wifi network, everyone's internet connection suddenly dropped (as in they couldn't load anything, but wifi was intact). It didn't just happen in my house, so it makes me think something is wrong with my Mac.

If it helps, it's running Sierra.

I found out that this has happened to other people: http://www.mac-forums.com/internet-networking-and-wireless/183185-macbook-airport-breaks-internet-connection-entire-network.html

But nothing there was helpful.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

IMPORTANT EDIT: I believe I've found the cause of the problem: I'm using the program Parallels to run ubuntu, ** and if the program is not on, I can't lose all my internet connection.**
I've uninstalled the program and now I'm on a bigger problem now: I still can't connect to internet and I can't reinstall the program... help pleas

If I were you, I would backup all your important files, reformat the disk and reinstall the macOS unless you would have a better clue of what the problem is. It might be something as simple as a corrupted preferences file or as difficult as a faulty hardware component. If you try this approach and you find out that everything is working as it should then at least you can exclude any hardware problem.


Contact photo not showing in Messages after update I updated my iPhone 5 to iOS 10.2 and after the update my contact photos are not showing in Messages. Even the bubbles are not showing the contact photo just the name. What can I do?

This feature has been disabled in small screen iphones by apple. You can see photos only if you have iphone 6 or above


Keyboard shortcut to switch between Activity Monitor tabs? Are there keyboard shortcuts to switch between or select specific Activity Monitor View, e.g. CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk & Network?

Use case example, instead of clicking with the mouse, it'd be nice to toggle between two Views while examining a specific process like Opera, Chrome helper, bash, etc. Instead or mousing around between the view tabs, it'd be faster to use a keyboard shortcut to toggle between and check the process CPU and Memory loads:

You don't need that actually. It's better to see both things at the same time - that's why you can add new columns to the current view. Just click View -> Columns and choose the one you need. You can also drag them around.


All Tags Not Showing on Mac Right Click Ok, this is a simple one that has been bugging me for months. I've searched here, Google, everywhere for an answer. There is plenty of info about creating tags, changing the names/colors, assigning tags to Finder folders, even customizing the right click menu itself.

My tags just disappeared from the right click, not the tags section, just the tag color bubbles themselves. I could always click on the 'Tags...' button and that would load a tags dialog that I could then select the tags I wanted, but to more quickly tag I should see them below that.

Finally, just annoyed one night I called Apple support since I still have coverage on my new Macbook. The lady struggled just like me, no articles there about it, couldn't figure out. But after about 30 mins of poking around, she figured it out. And it's WAY simple.

Go to Finder > Preferences
Click on the Tags menu option
Here you will see a list where you can show/hide in your sidebar
Below that there is a little box, you can DRAG the tags from the upper section to the lower section which determines which tags show in your right click.

That's it. Simple. I'm dumb. Hopefully this helps someone.


Can I make push notifications for some email addresses only and not others on my iphone? I have one email address i use to sign up for random stuff. and One that I only give out to people i trust. Over the years the one i use to sign up for stuff has gotten riddled with spam. the other one has all my important emails.

I would like to get push notifications from the important email address and not from the one with all the spam.

In the iphone settings it seems like you can only turn this on or off for all email addresses at once.

Is there any way to turn on push notifications for only certain inboxes and not others?

Go to

  Settings > Mails, ... > Fetch New Data > Advanced

From there, you can chose how to get new email from each account.

It could be push, fetch (every X minutes) or manual (only when you open the app)


How to get list of installed apps via iTunes? I need to know what applications are installed or were installed on devices which are associated with iTunes account. I don't have access to the devices. Is it possible?

You can see all purchases made through the iOS App Store within iTunes (on OSX or Windows):

Start iTunes
Log into the Store in the Store menu
Show Account Details (in the Store menu as well)
Shopping Statistics (don't know how it's called in the english version, it's the third block from the top)


Can an Xbox 360 be hooked up to a Thunderbolt display? Having both the video and audio going to the display would be optimal, but if I can just get the video on the display and use headphones plugged into the Xbox, that's perfectly fine and probably easier to achieve.

I have an HDMI to mini DisplayPort adapter, so I tried using that and plugging it into the Thunderbolt port, unfortunately I didn't get sound or video that way.

The Thunderbolt display expects a full Thunderbolt signal (that is, muxed PCI-Express and DisplayPort). It will not work with DisplayPort-only sources.

To date, I've not heard of any announced (let alone released) adapters that could drive a Thunderbolt display from a non-Thunderbolt source.

If you really need to do this, you might be able to hook the Xbox up to an HDMI capture card (it needs to support HDCP) that is connected to a Thunderbolt-equipped computer to which the display is connected. These capture cards are usually used by professional video editors and can be quite expensive.


How is "--" changed to "—" within Mail, TextEdit…? I just incidentally discovered that within Mail, TextEdit when typing two dashes in a row, the string "--" is instantaneously changed to "—" (i.e. a long dash).

This magic is mostly loathsome when you need to type exactly "--",
you didn't notice this magic and wasted hours searching why a correct syntax isn't where you typed it. With small fonts this magic change is hard to notice.

This function doesn't exist on Lion and Mountain Lion.

This magic but as unwanted as ununderstood feature raises 3 questions.

Where is this function configured?

How may I get rid of it?

Is this magic useful?

Edit > Substitutions > Untick "Smart dashes". Then relaunch "TextEdit". Same with "Mail".

To your third q: It is simply more beautiful. Personally I don't like when people type long dashes by using two short ones.

A tip: you can type long one even with "smart dashes" disabled with Option+- (short dash).


iPhone 4 receiver won't work I've got an iPhone 4. One sunny day the receiver stopped working (the headset. the part where I hear the other side).

The speaker mode will work just fine, the headphones will work just fine, in any case the other side hears me as needed.

The only problem - I can't hear the other side if I don't use headphones or speaker mode.

I've tried restarting the iPhone - didn't help.

Any ideas? :)

To rule out any software issues, make a backup of your device using iTunes. Disconnect the device and put it in DFU (Deep Firmware Update) mode. This will force the phone into a recovery state (note this results in a different restore than using the option found with iTunes). Connect the device to iTunes again and it will notify you that the device is in recovery mode. From there, following the prompts and install the latest firmware (4.3.5). Activate the phone once the process is complete, but do not restore the device or set it up as a new iPhone just yet. Try making a call. If the receiver still doesn't work, then it is a hardware failure.

I strongly encourage you to bring it to an Apple Store (not a certified Apple repair store) and talk a Genius on hand. If it is still under warranty, they will happily fix it. If it is out of warranty, they will diagnose the fault and give you a quote for the price of repair.

Sometimes, depending on how long it's been since the warranty has expired, they will either repair it for free regardless, or fix it for free should you purchase Apple Care (which adds an additional year to the warranty).

Apple's customer service is truly amazing. Go and see for yourself.


Wireless Keyboard disconnects I am having a little trouble with my wireless keyboard.

In the past 3 weeks it has disconnected 3 times and then reconnected after a few moments. The Magic Mouse is working fine alongside it, and the power is up over 70%.

Any advice for when this happens or why this happens would be appreciated.

Mine did this for a bit - turn it off, pull out the batteries, and turn it on again. Failing that, un-pair it from your computer (ideally, pair it with something else too) and then re-pair - this solved my problem (although it was never as regular as yours).


Can't log in to FaceTime I have a problem with FaceTime. On my MacBook, when I try to log in into my FaceTime  it says Your Apple ID "my e-mail-address" can not be used for FaceTime.

Now, on my iPad & iPhone it does work. Any ideas?

There are a couple of things to try.

In System Preferences > iCloud, log out and then log back in.
If that doesn't work, contact Apple Support, per this post in the Apple Discussion Forums:

  You need to call Apple. The problem is NOT on your end! I spoke with an Apple representative and they said that it is a "registration issue" and that THEY need to reset security settings. I waited 14 minutes but the representative found the issue then reset it and I was able to sign in.

  Call 1-800-275-2273 (It's free in the US or on Skype if you're in Europe!)  When you call, you'll get the standard automated secretary.  DO NOT SAY ANYTHING.  If you say anything, you will be told that you either need to purchase a protection plan for $19.99 or literally "end the call". Just stay on the line until you're asked if you wish to speak with a representative. Do that and you'll be connected (for free).  They will ask for you Macbook Pro serial number and a "Customer Code" if you have one.  Tell them how long that you've had this issue and they'll confirm your Apple ID.

  Once they confirm your Apple ID, they reset everything on their end and you should be set. Make sure that you are able to send messages/make calls before hanging up.


1080p upload to youtube? I just captured a video with my new iPad, then used the iPad's built-in tools to upload it to youtube.  I selected "high quality" but it appears to be only a 720p video on youtube (caution: kids and baby chicks herein).

Is there a way to upload a 1080p video from the iPad to Youtube?

Did you try the YouTube iOS app? You may need to change a few settings first, but I believe the YouTube app supports full quality videos - including 4K. Apple's built-in uploader from the share menu doesn't work that well.

In the YouTube iOS app, click your user image, then on the window that slides up, select Settings. Scroll down to uploads and confirm that full quality is selected for upload quality. Press the X on the top left to return to the main part of the app.

You may now press the camera button (next to the search button) on the top bar. It will ask for appropriate permissions. Try uploading from there and see if it works for you.

(I just tested this method and can confirm HD+ resolutions - also, I just noticed that this was a really necro'd post.)


I'm not able to remotely connect with other Macs using Screen Sharing by default VNC feature I've a MBP with OS X Yosemite & I want to remotely connect with other Macs over internet, primarily for troubleshooting purpose.
I currently use TeamViewer but I'm not satisfied with it.

Did the other side have the 5900 port open? Every machine you want to connect using screen sharing must be in a network with this port open.

Did you tried Messages app feature to do it? You just need to select a contact, click on Details and Ask to Share Screen.

Once approved in the other side, you can see the other screen. And you can talk with the other side if you want.

To control the other screen, from the other side must select the connection icon and allow you to control it.

I used to have installed Team Viewer until I discover this functionality.


How do I delete Java application preferences? I am running Jabref v2.10 on Mac OS X 10.9.2. After changing some parts of the configuration file manually, I seem to have broken the preferences and now it fails to start. The application stores the application preferences using the java.util.prefs library. Is there a way I can delete java's stored preferences in Mac? (E.g., in linux, I would just delete the ~/.java folder)

From Apple Developer Connection:

  The preferences files generated by the Preferences API are named com.apple.java.util.prefs. The user’s preferences file is stored in their home directory (~/Library/Preferences/). The system preferences are stored in  /Library/Preferences/ and are only persisted to disk if the user is an administrator.

I do not know if you can simply delete them though.


securityd goes nuts every 4 minutes & 30 seconds securityd spams my console with the following :

19/04/2012 16:23:17.405 com.apple.securityd: Value of bTransmit: 00000001

repeated 563 times (after disabling the default mps_limit of 500).

4 minutes and 30 seconds later (give or take a couple of seconds), it does it all over again.  Oddly, the message is split over that boundary :

04/05/2012 09:32:16.092 com.apple.securityd: Value of bTransmit: 00000001
04/05/2012 09:32:16.092 com.apple.securityd: Value of bTransmit: 00000001
04/05/2012 09:32:16.092 com.apple.securityd: Value
04/05/2012 09:36:19.470 com.apple.securityd: of bTransmit: 00000001
04/05/2012 09:36:19.470 com.apple.securityd: Value of bTransmit: 00000001
04/05/2012 09:36:19.470 com.apple.securityd: Value of bTransmit: 00000001

It's pretty annoying.  Anyone know what causes it, or what bTransmit might be?  There seems to be no mention of it on Google.

You are facing a continuous flow of information messages.
This flow is truncated by chunck of 500, which is the default value of
mps_limit in /etc/asl.conf. This means that your flow of security related messages is at a rate > 500 / s. This is huge.

Could you open:

/var/log/secure.log
/var/log/kernel.log

and check which message could be related with this continuous
flow of information messages?

Could you type the following command (in an xterm or Terminal window):

top -o msgsent

to check if the culprit could be a local process and tracked down through its huge level of messages sent? You will have to enlarge
your window to more than 152 characters large to see the film.


How to change TextEdit keyboard shortcuts? I would like to change TextEdit shortcuts which are visible in the menu, but are not listed in Keyboard shortcuts in System preferences. I tried adding new shortcut, assigned to TextEdit, but it doesn't work for some reason...
This is what I want to have:

Jump to Selection  ->  ⌥ Space

Select Line        ->  ⌘ J

Not sure how the first one should work, but I was able to assign both custom shortcuts using this:

Navigate to System Preferences->Keyboard->Keyboard Shortcuts
Click "+" button
Select TextEdit as an application
Enter "Jump to Selection" or "Select Line…" (note that there is special … symbol used, not three periods, you can just copy and paste it from here I believe) as a menu title
Press shortcut you'd like to use
Test it and enjoy!

Hope this helps.


Limit list of apps user can launch? In Windows it is possible to configure system so, that user runs only some list of applications (for example Word, Excel, PowerPoint...) and user can't launch anything else.

How can I configure OS X the same way? (For example permit to launch office applications, Mail, Safari and forbid to launch any other application).

Parental Controls allows you to limit the applications that the user can use.

This knowledge base article from Apple shows how to set up parental controls on a per user basis.

This article goes into the specifics of limiting apps that the user can use.

The basics are:

Restrict other apps a user can open

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Parental Controls.
Click the lock if it’s not unlocked, and enter an administrator name and password.
Select a user in the list of users, and then click Apps.
Select Limit Applications.
In the Allowed Apps list, select any category whose apps you want to view, and then click the disclosure triangle to list the apps in the category. To search for an app, enter its name in the search field.
Select the checkbox for each app you want to let the user open.


aptX Bluetooth Headphones (B&O H8) Drop Sound - Yosemite The B&O H8s work great some of the time wirelessly (iPhone) and wired, but not with MacBook Pro 15 early 2011 (Airport/Bluetooth card upgraded to BT4.0). However, sometimes, they will start to skip and drop in and out (as if I were plugging and unplugging an audio cable). The speed of the audio will increase after it skips to "catch up".  None of the online fixes seem to help this out. Can't get the RSSI above -60 dBm.  Appreciate any help at all.  Thanks.

They are working perfect with OS X Yosemite 10.10.2. After upgrading to  10.10.3 (beta or final) the problem that you described appear. The headphones are working perfect first time after adding to bluetooth list, but is not a solution to delete and add again.
Bang & Olufsen post this to their website:

Can I connect my BeoPlay H8 headphones with my MAC/PC using Bluetooth?
In most cases BeoPlay H8 is able to connect to a PC/MAC with Bluetooth 4.0 and a A2DP Bluetooth profile, provided that the hardware and drivers of the computer are also compatible. However, the computer protocols in the market are inconsistent and we cannot guarantee that BeoPlay H8 is able to connect using Bluetooth to all PC/MACs.


One text file is not being backed up by Time Machine I have this strange problem where a single text file (Notes.txt, where I keep random notes) is, as of yesterday, not being backed up by Time Machine. It exists in the many backups that I have dating several months back, but since yesterday, it hasn't changed in Time Machine even though I edit the file almost every hour.

Anyone know what could be causing this? I'm pretty sure that if I deleted the file (after backing it up somewhere else) then moving it back there will probably force Time Machine to back it up again, but I'm really curious as to what is causing this, just in case it happens again. It's a good thing I happnened to notice this, because I needed to look back at a previous version, but now I'm very worried that it might happen to another file that I am never aware is being missed by Time Machine.

There are a couple of things you can do to narrow down if the system is being told to ignore that file or if there is a problem with the disk structures or some other bug at play.

If you like programs with icons and controls - go get Backup Loupe and use it to track that file across your backups. The program will pause itself if Time Machine is running, so you might do one backup and then turn Time Machine off for the time it takes the Loupe to scan a few backups.

Similarly, Apple has a diagnostic tool that they use to capture information that could show a bug or a problem with time machine and spotlight indexing - it's called tmdiagnose. If you are comfortable with zip files with lots of diagnostic data and text files, start here.

Lastly, you could run tmutil compare from the terminal to just let the system tell you which files are in need of a backup the next "time the machine" runs.

As written, you have four places to look to narrow things down:

Time Machine is being told to ignore that file and you can learn all the exclusion rules and patterns and check for that.
Spotlight is messing up and Time Machine depends on that to know what has changed.
Time Machine itself is messing up.
The disks / hardware / file system are messing up - general troubleshooting of that might be needed once you've ruled out the above three potential causes.


Can my mum set my iMessages to be received on her phone if we have separate Apple ids? Me and my mum have separate Apple ids, and I was wondering can she set it so she can see my messages? Because we used to share an Apple ID, and she could do it then. But with us now having separate one can she still do this? Thankyou to anybody who helps!

No she cannot see your iMessages with separate Apple ID's. Even if you are in a iCloud family.


Change channel in Airport Express when extending network I have a Airport Time Capsule running my WiFi network at home, but have a bit of a weaker area near my bedroom (upstairs) so got an Airport Express to help it out.  I set it up using Airport Utility to extend the network, and that seems good so far.  It's connecting wirelessly, for now, which I'm comfortable with (not concerned with actual downstream speed, at the moment).

Unfortunately, the Airport Express seems to have picked a poor channel.  I used NetSpot to see how its coverage was, and the answer was more-or-less terrible: while the Time Capsule still is in the green-ish (~40-50 db) range even in the 'poor' areas, the Airport Express is twenty feet away and still no better than that.

I notice from the channels that the Express is on the very overused near me Channel 11, while the main Time Capsule is on Channel 1 (both for 2.5Ghz, which is the one I'd expect it to mostly use).  Is there a way to change that?  I go into Airport Utility, and I can change the channel the Time Capsule is using (under Wireless Options), but that setting isn't there for the Airport Express.  My understanding of how a Wi-Fi Extender should work is that it should not use the same channel; so I don't see why Apple would force this to automatic.  Is it so (forced) or is there a way to work around this?  (Also, the 5Ghz channel is identical for both devices, which again I'd think is bad.)

I have both Mac and Windows computers available, if that's relevant.

You've identified the big problem with WiFi backhaul. You have to have both radios on the same channel and half the time the radios are sending traffic between each other and the other half talking to clients.

Since wifi is half duplex and everyone has to wait for the last person to finish talking before the next can speak - you run into serious limitation once you're at the 10 to 30 client number.

For almost all cases where you want channel diversity - run a wire so that your backhaul is over power line / ethernet / coax cable - anything but WiFi will make your network so much faster and easier to manage.

For corporate settings, you almost need a third radio dedicated to the backhaul to make most mesh networks work best or bite the bullet and run wired backhaul there as well. Normally power over ethernet means wired backhaul is doable for large deployments as well as for small home / office situations.


Disable screensaver password requirement from command line I am trying to enable and disable the screensaver password requirement from the command line.

defaults read com.apple.screensaver

shows a variable askForPassword set to either 0 or 1, depending on whether I configured a password requirement in System Preferences or not.

defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword 1

and

defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword 0

enable and disable the password setting, or so I thought.

What I find instead is that the commands indeed check and uncheck the checkbox in System Preferences under Security but do not affect the screensaver at all.

If I enable the password in System Preferences and then disable it using the second defaults write command, the checkbox in System Preferences is unchecked, but the screensaver will still ask for a password. Only checking and unchecking the checkbox in System Preferences can change this behaviour now.

And if I disable the password in System Preferences and then enable it using the first defaults write command, the checkbox in System Preferences is checked, but the screensave won't ask for a password. Only unchecking and checking the checking the checkbox in System Preferences changes the behaviour afterwards.

What's going on?

I can imagine that this is a global setting and I should modify /Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver instead of the user domain. But in that case, why is there an effect on the System Preferences checkbox?

If you are not forced to use defaults write you can use the following command. It interacts with the OS the same as if you were to utilize System Preferences.

TESTED ON:

10.5.x
10.6.x
10.7.x
10.8.x
10.9.x

sudo osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to set require password to wake of security preferences to false'

NOTE: If the command is being run inside of a script that has been given root privileges you would not need the sudo.

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to set require password to wake of security preferences to false'


How do i see the size of my trash in iPhoto '11? I'm just curious how much space I'll retrieve by deleting them.

It's not that easy since iPhoto uses a database to track the files. When you trash the file, it simply removes the reference to that photo in whatever events and albums it used to be included.

It makes a reference to the original and modified files, so they don't actually get moved into a folder that you can get a quick estimate on the total trash size.

These pointers to a photo are so small that they are a rounding error compared even to the size of a small thumbnail of your photo.

The best way is to just get an estimate how large the typical picture you take is and see how much space a thousand of them take. You'll then be able to know if emptying the trash has any chance on making a difference size wise.


How do I turn off the built in macOSD shortcut for Minimise ('Opt' + 'Cmd' + "M") I want to use the built in Google Docs shortcut for "Add Comment…" (I don't think I can change those). It is the same as the one Apple assigned for minimise documents ('Opt' + 'Cmd' + "M").

I've been through all the System Prefs tabs relating to keyboard shortcuts I can find and I cannot find a way to change or disable this built in behaviour. Is there a way?

Setting a new custom shortcut frees the old one to pass through to the application.

What if you set minimize to be triggered by Control + Option + Command + Shift + L in Apple Keyboard Preferences?

You can set that just for your web browser(s) for using Google Docs or you can set it system wide as you find works best for your brain.


Any point in waiting for Samsung 850 EVO? I'm about to upgrade my MacBook Pro (13" mid 2012) with 16GB of RAM and an SSD. According to this news article Samsung's new 850 SSD series might be around the corner, and I'd much appreciate your opinion on whether I should wait for it or go with the current 840 EVO?

Is there really any more speed to be had over the MBP's SATA III interface than what the 840 EVO already delivers? The fact that the 850 series will still use SATA III would suggest so, but on the other hand this post doesn't think so.

Ask yourself this, do you need a performance boost now or can you wait an unknown amount of time for a possibly unnoticeable difference between the 840 and 850 EVO?

I personally have an 840 EVO, install them all day long and before my EVO I had an Intel SSD. EVOs are great but the decision should be as simple as do you want it now or do it you want it later. No matter what you won't regret your decision.


format/Erase Equivalence Disk Utility and Terminal Command diskutil What is the diskutil equivalence from Disk Utility of

Format/Erase with Format MS-DOS(FAT) and Scheme GUID Partition Map.
Format/Erase with Format MS-DOS(FAT) and Scheme Master Boot Record.

In other words how do format/erase a disk with Console/Terminal?

The equivalent commands are given below.

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS GPT diskX
diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS MBR diskX

Where diskX is the identifier for the drive. The value of X needs to be replaced with a integer of 0 or higher. The command diskutil list will list all the current disk identifiers. The command diskutil listfilesystems will list the available formats.


Creating a new user account using iCloud password I am trying to create a new OS X user account using iCloud password but the option to do that isn't displayed.

I am on OS X 10.11.4

According to this support document I should see an option to pick the kind of password and set the iCloud ID.

FileVault is turned off, so I can't think of a reason for this to be happening.

I also don't have the option to change the iCloud ID on my current account.

If I create the account I can't set the iCloud ID on it either.
Any help would greatly be appreciated.

The linked iCloud/OS X Password feature appears have been removed in 10.11.4

The Change Password Dialogue box used to ask if you wanted to link your iCloud password with your account, now it goes directly to "Old password/New Password"


My volume icon disappeared after I updated to Yosemite. My volume icon disappeared after I updated to OS X Yosemite 10.10.  I still have sound.  resetting the PRAM didn't work.
I have refurbished 2012 Macbook Air

Go to System Preferences then Sound, then put a check on "Show volume in menu bar".


What to do if OS X Facebook notifications are unreliable? with the release of OS X 10.8.2, Facebook notifications have been introduced. But so far, I'm having problems with the reliability of those: they only appear randomly. Compared to the amount of Notification Center pop ups I should get, I estimate I only receive 10% of all notifications.

Is this the same for you?
Do you have any idea how to fix this?

I've been using http://glowforfb.com for two weeks now and haven't missed one notification since then :)!

Cheers


How do I submit xcode app to store? I have made an app using XCode and I'm planning on uploading to Apple iOS store. Only question is:
How do you do it?!

I have made all licences however in iTunes connect, I can't find manage apps. I have looked at YouTube videos but they are all too old due to the fact Apple changes their website often.

Can someone please give step by step instructions how to add the actual app?

Thanks

Also I am distributing for iOS

Log in to iTunes Connect
Select My Apps

Press the '+' button at the top left and choose "New App" (for iOS) or "New Mac App" (for OS X)


On iPhone, how do you back up only contacts not photos without paying for the iCloud subscription? On iPhone, how do you back up only your telephone contacts and not your photos or other stuff without paying for the monthly iCloud subscription?

Assuming you are talking about backing up through iCloud, you can exclude the data of specific apps from a backup; the Apple Support article “Manage Your iCloud Storage” explains this in more detail. I am not entirely sure, but I believe you can also exclude the photo library from this list as well, assuming you are not using iCloud Photo Library. Most apps don’t put that much data in a backup, so you should be able to stay within the limits of the free 5 GB iCloud subscription by excluding the few exceptions.

Another option is to not use iCloud for backup at all, as explained in the article “How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch”, you can make a backup on a Mac or Windows PC through iTunes.


Is there anyway to avoid redundant cleanups of photos across apple devices? If I take a picture on my iPhone, it shows up when I open up "Photos" app on my mac when I click on "Photos" in the upper left.  This integration is quite nice to avoid having to do a manual sync but it has created a bit of overhead and confusion.

In most cases I like to groom my photos to get rid of lots of fuzzy or duplicate pictures but since it seems like a copy of the photo on my mac, If I cleanup these bad pictures on my iPhone, i also have to clean then up on my mac.

First, I am trying to confirm that my mac has a "copy" of the picture (or a reference to the picture on the phone) and if I go and delete that picture on my phone, can I also get it to delete that picture on my mac.

Is this behavior configurable?

I am trying to find a balance between enjoying the integration of things showing in mac photos without me having to do a manual sync with the overhead of doing these redundant cleanups.

If using iCloud sync, deleting a photo on one device will generate an alert notifying you that you are removing it from ALL of your devices, not just that one. You shouldn't have to worry about manually rectifying changes between devices.


How to change Sound device without visiting System Preferences? Are there any alternative ways to switch your Input/Output sound device in OS X?  My goal is to avoid going through System Preferences and have as few keystrokes/steps as possible.

To enable the sound icon on the top menu bar, only once you have to go to System Preferences-> Sound-> Show volume in menu bar

alt/option + click on the Sound icon on the menu bar to get this dropdown and select the desired output or input device


Alternative to iTunes Album Art I'm looking for an alternative to iTunes' Album Art. I liked it so far but since the upgrade to Lion / latest iTunes I see some annoying bugs.

To be worth considering, the alternative I'm looking for must have at least these three features:

Automatic lyrics download and saving in the ID3 tag;
Automatic cover download (iTunes is confused when the album title is missing);
Display cover/title/artist on the desktop.

Any suggestions?

For the lyrics part, I would recommend Get Lyrical. It can actively tag songs, tag specific songs, or tag a playlist. It gets all of its lyrics from Lyrics Wiki. This is a great little application and I highly recommend it. It has a simple, clean interface that is really easy to use:


Where to submit ticket about printing PDF issue I was not able to print a password-protected PDF with Preview even though I have the password.

But I'm able to print with Adobe Acrobat Reader

Where is Apple's bug tracker to submit issue?

File bugs at https://bugreport.apple.com

Start with https://developer.apple.com/programs/which-program/ and at the bottom of the page is a free option to start up a developer account (which will need an  AppleID) you want to use for bug reporting.

Lastly, check out QuickRadar and http://openradar.appspot.com/ if you want others to see your bug report.


FaceTime application not available I bought my iPhone 6 Plus in Georgia. I am using the phone in Georgia. FaceTime is not available on my iPhone. Please tell me how to get it to work.

You should check with your service provider to see if FaceTime is supported.

From Apple Support:

  You might have issues using FaceTime for one of these reasons:

  FaceTime Audio or Video calling might not be available for all countries, regions, or carriers.
  FaceTime isn't available or might not appear on devices purchased in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan.
  Call forwarding isn't supported by FaceTime.
  Phone calls end when switching to or answering a FaceTime call.
  You can't switch from a FaceTime call to a voice call, or from a FaceTime Video call to a FaceTime Audio call.


How to get macOS Server download code in Apple Developer Portal? As I recall, macOS Server used to be available to download for free via a redeem code to Apple Developers enrolled in paid Apple Developer Program. However, after the latest redesign of the Apple Developer portal during mid 2019, I'm not able to find the redeem code anymore.

It used to be possible to get the download code after logging in to the iOS Developer Center and opening the downloads page. There used to be a Get Download Code button which is not there anymore. Here is a picture showing how it looked like.

Now It's only possible to download the macOS server beta, but not the latest released version.

Does anyone know how can I get the redeem code nowadays?

You can download OS X Server from the Mac App Store.  Per this Apple Support page:

  OS X Server brings even more power to your business, home office, or school. Designed for OS X and iOS, OS X Server makes it easy to collaborate, develop software, host websites and wikis, configure Mac and iOS devices, and remotely access a network. It’s also remarkably simple to install, set up, and manage. Add OS X Server to your Mac from the Mac App Store.

I think the name has been changed to macOS Server but I'm not sure.  If someone knows for sure they can edit this answer.

Update: per discussion in comments, it appears Apple has discontinued offering a code to developers for a free copy.  All downloads, except for betas or discontinued versions, are in the MAS now and must be purchased (if applicable).


Mid 2013 MacBook Pro displaying multi color My MacBook Pro was displaying normally until recently. Now when I boot it up it  displays different colors, sometimes white on the screen, but when I hook it up to a TV screen it displays normally.

I need help as to what could be causing this problem and how to fix it?

So far I've tried resetting NVRAM and reseating the RAM, but this didn't help. I also haven't upgraded any software nor added any new items of hardware, so this change in behaviour cannot be attributed to any known actions on my behalf.

This could be one of two things:

a bad LCD
a failure of a logic board component, possibly the video mux chip.

A bad LCD is quite easy to diagnose; simply plug that LCD into a known working MacBook. If it continues to fail, it's the LCD.

Alternatively, you can plug in a known working LCD into your Mac and if it continues to fail, you've narrowed it down to your logic board.

If it so happens that your LCD tests good, the likely cause is the circuitry that sends display signals to the LCD itself.

Cable
Video Mux chip
related circuitry (capacitors, resistors, traces, connectors, etc.)

What's a video mux?  It's a fancy switch.  It takes multiple inputs, in this case video,  and sends them to the appropriate output; the internal LCD and/or external TV/monitor.

That chip could be faulty given that it's only sending video to one display while sending garbage to another.

Bottom line:  Take it in for service.

Swapping out LCD's is not too difficult, but you have to have either a spare LCD or a spare Mac with the same display connector.  I don't imagine you have spare Mac parts just casually laying around.

Doing a board level diagnostic isn't something you'll be able to do without the proper tools.

It can be fixed, but it needs to be done by a pro.


How can I jailbreak 8.1.3 Is it possible to jailbreak the 64 bit iPad Air 2 with 8.1.3?

Not currently. You can read about how 8.1.3 has patched the loopholes required to jailbreak 8.1.2 and 8.1.1 on jailbreak nation's web site:

Version 8.1.3 patches the exploits used in TaiG and PP Ghost causing a permanent loss in jailbreaking until another exploit is found (which can easily take months).

I'm sure someone will update things if another exploit is possible, but unless you can revert to 8.1.2 you might be out of luck indefinitely.


Deb packages on MacOS I've been trying to run steam, and more specifically Saints Row 3 on my MacBook air, to no avail. I was wondering if there was a way to install Deb packages on Mac so I could run a Linux version of steam? Sort of like Wine.

You can't install/run Debian packages natively, the kernel and a lot of required data structures are vastly different. Usually people who want to run Linux code

set up a VM and install Linux within in. VirtualBox is a (good) cost-free solution here, there are also Parallels and VMware which offer more features but aren't free
install Linux in a second partition and dual-boot either Linux or macOS. Install instructions depend on Mac hardware, macOS version and Linux distribution.

Neither way will compensate for underpowered hardware though (the graphics to run the game in your case).


how to install stunnel on mountain lion? I currently bought an Mac, so I'm a noob :). I used to connect to my server using stunnel on windows & ubuntu. I'm also a noob in networking.

I check website download section, and there's no mac version, but in users-community mailing list I see some posts about running it under mac os. but they didn't help to figure out what should I do.

so anyone can help me install stunnel on mountain lion (10.8.2), or tell me is there any alternative app?

This can be installed using homebrew:

brew install stunnel


Macbook Pro constant artifacts in the screen I'm Currently using MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013, OSX Mojave). I was getting the artifacts occasionally only while I was viewing photos, processing videos in FCP and artifacts won't show up when I edit photos(Adobe Illustrator) or do some programming. Then I figured out my iGPU was the culprit and downloaded gfx App to force it to use dGPU, then when I view photos or process videos, it fixed the issue. Now all of a sudden when I log in my entire screen goes haywire all over artifacts are rendered in the screen and once I login and when I force dGPU it goes off!

When I plug it in HDMI, it works fine because it automatically switches to dGPU.

Will Forcing dGPU everytime I login affect logic board?
Is this the starting symptoms of complete logic board failure?
Can I continue using like this?
Logic board replacement costs hefty 600 Dollars in my country? Is it worth to replace it?

Kindly help me in this scenario. If anyone has experienced this issue let me know the process/fix you did.

Thanks in advance.

This sounds awfully close to the issue addressed in in this recall: https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

The bad news is that even the extended warranty program has likely run out (see last paragraph). You may want to try asking anyway, and then very nicely asking for an exception when they turn you down.


Update apps with home-brew (youtube-dl) Mainly i want to update youtube-dl on my mac. I have used Linux so for that updating any app is very simple: apt-get update youtube-dl. But how to do it on Mac using home-brew. Is there any kind of general command or something which will work for all the apps?

Run brew update first, then you can use brew upgrade to update all packages, or brew upgrade youtube-dl to update only youtube-dl.


Mail.app - Shortcut to switch signatures? Is there a keyboard shortcut (or way to set one) that allows to easily switch between different email signatures in mail.app ?

Sorry to dig up an old question, but I had the identical issue today and this was the first result for my google search for “mac mail signature shortcut”. While these answers weren’t what I was looking for, the 3rd google result was a MacWorld hint, which offered the perfect solution.

Here’s the answer: you can assign keyboard shortcuts for your email signatures, “From:” account selection, and even SMTP account from System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Application Shortcuts. To set up your shortcut, click the + icon, select “Mail.app” from the Application drop down, enter the text of the signature (or other option) as it appears in the New Message window drop down, and give it a keyboard shortcut. Rob Griffiths, the author of the MacWorld hint, advises using ⌃ (control) in combination with your desired keys to avoid conflicts with existing Mail shortcuts, which seems smart.

In my case, I created a shortcut in Mail.app for the menu title “None” (the first option under signatures) and assigned it the shortcut ⌃X. It is now exceedingly easy for me to clear my default email signature when it doesn’t seem appropriate.

For the purposes of illustration, here is the System Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts pane (it’s the last item):

And here is what it looks like in Mail’s New Message window:


How to Command-X files on OS X El Capitan? I noticed that Command-X (cut and paste) is greyed out on finder in El Capitan.
Is there any way to get it back?

EDIT: WITHOUT Command-Option-V.
If possible, way to map command-option-v to command-x would be great....

Just copy the file as normal with command+c and then when you past use
command+option+v and it will paste the file, and also cut it from its original location


How do I find path for Messages and WhatsApp messages backup data in iCloud? I need to retrieve Messages and WhatsApp messages backup data from iCloud but I can't find the path. Is there any possibilities to find Messages and WhatsApp messages backup data location in iCloud?

iMessage data is not currently accessible via iCloud. This will be coming in macOS 10.13/iOS 11. You can currently only restore files from iCloud Drive, contacts, calendars/reminders and bookmarks, all from the Advanced section in iCloud.

WhatsApp messages can be restored from Google Drive if you turned this feature on.

Alternatively, if you turned on the device backup for iOS, either to you local Mac/PC or to iCloud, you could do a full restore to get your data back.


list files by date added in terminal with function or script or another I found this in another post but would like to be able to call a script of function to reduce the amount of typing.

ls -a | \
grep -v '^\.$\|^\.\.$' | \
xargs -I {} mdls -name kMDItemFSName -name kMDItemDateAdded {} | \
sed 'N;s/\n//' | grep -v '(null)' | \
awk '{print $3 " " $4 " " substr($0,index($0,$7))}' | \
sort -r

This is the other post
Can I list files ordered by date added to a folder from a command-line tool like ls?

Simply create .bash_profile in your home folder or open it, if it already exists:

nano .bash_profile

and add the following lines:

function added {
    ls -a | grep -v '^\.$\|^\.\.$' | xargs -I {} mdls -name kMDItemFSName -name kMDItemDateAdded {} | sed 'N;s/\n//' | grep -v '(null)' | awk '{print $3 " " $4 " " substr($0,index($0,$7))}' | sort -r;
}

Save the mods with ctrl-o, Enter and quit nano with ctrl-x.

Close the Terminal window, open a new one and then simply enter added and you'll get the sorted list of files and folders in your home folder with some glitches though.

The accepted answer in the linked question presents a much faster solution:

function added2 {
    mdls -name kMDItemFSName -name kMDItemDateAdded -raw * | xargs -0 -I {} echo {} | sed 'N;s/\n/ /' | sort;
}


How to change the color scheme in KeyNote 6? In Keynote 6, each Theme comes with a color scheme. I cannot figure out where this color scheme is defined, nor how to change it.

How to change the color scheme?

Or this one from a different template:

By looking at the images you’ve posted it seams that the second palette is obtained by opening a PowerPoint presentation via Keynote: the arrangement of the dark to light shades/tints is opposite and the shades of white-grey-black at the bottom of the palette are quite different.

I assume that you have to create a palette in PowerPoint (the so called Accent colours), save the presentation (it can contain a single blank slide) as .pptx. Then open it with Keynote and save it as .key file.

The original Accent colours (i.e. the last six colours that appear in the first raw of the colour palette in PowerPoint - for example when you want to change the fill colour of some shape) in the Keynote's scheme colours will be placed in the second raw. Now you have a brand new palette to work with. Just check the Master slides in the converted presentation (personally I don’t like the "conversion") and modify them (if necessary).