Can a version of Windows newer than Vista be installed on MacBookPro2,2 2006 Core 2 Duo? Apple documents state my MacBookPro2,2 2006 Core 2 Duo 2.16 MHz will not run Windows versions newer than Vista. However, I burned a 32 bit Windows 7 ISO to a DVD, after converting the ISO to DVD/CD master in the Disk Utility. The resulting DVD worked. I tried same procedure with a 32 bit Windows 10 ISO. The Mac froze at a black screen with a message asking for a boot choice 1, 2. Why did booting from the Windows 10 DVD fail?
I understand that my Mac has a 32 bit EFI, but the processor is 64 bit. I also understand there are issues with booting from an USB flash drive, which is why I used a DVD. Are there other methods to install newer versions of Windows on my Mac?

You model Mac can only support only one boot method when booting from the optical drive. The 32 bit Windows 7 installer ISO provide by Microsoft can only be BIOS booted and therefore offers no problems when burn to a DVD. However, any of the Windows 10 installer ISO files provided by Microsoft can be either BIOS or UEFI booted. Using a DVD burned from one of these ISO files to boot your Mac will result in your Mac hanging as described in your question. This is true for both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the Windows 10 installer ISO file.
Several answers involving installing Windows 10 on your model Mac have already been posted. See the question Installing windows on a MacBook Pro 15-Inch “Core 2 Duo” without Mac OS X.
Note the following:

According to Microsoft, a computer needs at least 1 GB of RAM in order to install 32 bit Windows 10 and at least 2 GB of RAM in order to install 64 bit Windows 10. Your Mac was shipped with 1 GB of RAM, but is capable of being upgraded to at least 2 GB.
You do not need a license to install and test Windows 10. However, to continue using Windows 10 will require a license. You may be able to install a licensed Windows 7, then upgrade to Windows 10 for free. This was true as of early in 2020. I do not know if this is still true today. Also, if a licensed Windows 10 was previous installed on your Mac, then you will be able to use this existing license.
Apple only supports running 32 bit Windows XP SP2 or Vista on your model Mac. Therefore, the drivers provided by Apple may or may to work with a 32 or 64 bit Windows 10. However do to the age of your Mac, many of the necessary drivers will probably already be included in the Windows 10 installer software or will be downloaded automatically from Microsoft.

Using USB to Install Windows 10
The basic steps are outline below. An optical drive is not used to install Windows 10.

Use a USB port to install a 32 bit BIOS booting Debian Linux. This will include the Grub boot loader.
Use Debian Linux to copy the Windows 10 installation files to a NTFS formatted volume on the internal drive.
Use Grub to BIOS boot the Windows 10 installer on the internal drive.
Install a BIOS booting Windows 10. This will overwrite Grub and Debian Linux.
Expand the Windows 10 partition to consume the space occupied by the partitions containing the Windows 10 installer files and the Debian Linux swap space.

A more detailed version of above steps is given below. These steps can be used to install either a 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows 10.

Install 32 bit BIOS booting Debian Linux. Follow steps 1 through 4 given in this answer with the following exception. When asked to Configure the package manager, choose a Debian archive mirror country followed by a Debian archive mirror.

Prepare a partition for the Windows installation files. Start by booting to Debian. If the Mac does not boot to Debian (via Grub) by default, then restart the Mac and immediately hold option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Select the internal drive icon labeled Windows. If a Debian desktop environment was not installed, login as root. Otherwise, login using the default username, open a Terminal window and enter the command shown below.
su --login

The middle partition on the internal drive (/dev/sda3) contains an ext4 formatted volume. The command given below will replace this volume with a NTFS formatted volume. A connection to the internet is required.
apt update
apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils ntfs-3g parted
sed -i '/\/installation/d' /etc/fstab
umount /dev/sda3
sfdisk --part-type /dev/sda 3 7
partprobe
mkfs.ntfs -L WINSTALL -Q /dev/sda3
mount /dev/sda3 /installation

Create a Windows 10 installer on an internal drive partition.
Enter a following command to permit writing to the /home folder.
chmod a+w /home

Transfer, to the /home folder, the ISO file required to install Windows 10. In the case of this example, this would be the Win10_20H2_English_x64.iso file. If your file is different, then make the appropriate substitutions in this step. Below are various ways to transfer this file. Choose one way or find another way.

Note: A choice below can depend on which predefined collections of software are currently installed.

Use another computer to download and transfer the ISO file to a ExFAT formatted USB flash drive. Use either the cp command or the Files application to copy from the USB flash drive to the /home folder.
Use another computer to download the ISO file. Use sftp on this other computer to transfer the ISO file to the /home folder on the Mac. Enter the command hostname -I on the Mac to get an IP address.
Use the FireFox ESR application to download the ISO file from the web. Use either the mv command or the Files application to move the downloaded ISO file to the /home folder.

Next, enter the commands given below to copy the Windows 10 installation files from the mounted ISO file to the /installation mount point.

Note: The boot.wim and install.wim files are very large and therefore will take a while to be copied.

mkdir -p /media/iso
mount -o loop,ro /home/Win10_20H2_English_x64.iso /media/iso
cp -Rv /media/iso/* /installation

When finished, shutdown the Mac. If a Debian desktop environment was not installed, then enter the command below instead.
shutdown -P now

Remove any USB flash drives that may be plugged into the Mac.

Replace the 32 bit Debian with Windows 10. Start by booting to Grub. If the Mac does not boot to Grub by default, then restart the Mac and immediately hold option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Select the internal drive icon labeled Windows. When an image similar to the one shown below appears, press the C key.

Enter the commands given below to boot from the /dev/sda3 partition.
insmod part_msdos
insmod ntfs
insmod ntldr
set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
parttool (hd0,msdos1) type=7 boot+
ntldr /bootmgr
boot

Proceed with the installation of Windows.  When you reach the window shown in the image below, select Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).

When the window shown in the image below appears, leave Drive 0 Partition 1 highlighted and click on the Format button. Next, click on the OK button in the popup window. Finally, click on the Next button.

Proceed with the installation of Windows 10.

Install the Boot Camp Support Software (Windows Support Software). The Boot Camp Support Software is on the Snow Leopard installation DVD. The files can be accessed from Windows. Officially, only 32 bit versions of Windows can be installed on your Mac. Since I do not have your model Mac, I can not predict how difficult it will be to the adapt the software for use with a 64 bit Windows. You should consult lx07's answer for more information.
A Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) ISO file can be downloaded from the website Mac OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD. You should verify the download by computing the SHA256 hash value. The Get-FileHash Power Shell cmdlet can be used to compute a SHA256 hash value. Entering Get-FileHash along with the path to the downloaded file in a Power Shell window should produce the following SHA256 hash value.
CBEEB2378C40B20A9B06236F567DE593E9030A0A865515B50CF6D35833E25CD5

Under Windows 10, the Boot Camp Support Software can be accessed by mounting this ISO file.

Remove unnecessary partitions and extend the Windows 10 partition. Boot to Windows 10 desktop. Next, right click on the Start button and select Disk Management. A windows similar to the one shown below will appear.

Right click on the last partition shown for Disk 0. Select Delete Volume…, as shown below. In the popup window, click on the Yes button.

Right click on the free space shown for Disk 0. Select Delete Partition…. In the popup window, click on the Yes button.

Right click on the partition with the volume label WINSTALL. Select Delete Volume…. In the popup window, click on the Yes button.

Right click on the partition with the drive letter C:. Select Extend Volume…. In the popup window, click on the Next button. Again, in the next popup window, click on the Next button. In the next popup window, click on the Finish button.

The result is shown below.

Exit the Disk Management application.

Setting BIOS Booting as the Default
If a BIOS booting Windows is the only operating system installed on a Mac, then the Mac should automatically boot to Windows. However, if BIOS booting has not be set as the default, there may be a delay before booting begins. Otherwise, the Mac Startup Manager can be used to boot Windows. Below are two methods for setting BIOS booting as the default.

Method 1: Boot from an OS X (macOS) installation DVD or USB flash drive, open a Terminal window and enter the command given below.
 bless --device /dev/disk0 --setBoot --legacy

The version of OS X (macOS) chosen must be compatible with your Mac. The instructions for creating a Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) installation USB flash drive can be found here.

Method 2: A successful installation of the Boot Camp Support Software (Window Support Software) will include the creation of the Boot Camp control panel for Windows.
To set the default operating system in Windows:

In Windows, click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray and choose Boot Camp Control Panel.

Note: Your screen may look different, depending on which computer you’re using.

Select the startup disk with the Windows operating system as the default.
If you want to start up that operating system now, click Restart.


Why are some "updated app" dots brighter? Since updating to iOS 10, when I update my apps, some of the indicator dots are bright cyan instead of blue. For example, Deltek in the screenshot (compared to Sheets). Why?

edit: In response to IconDaemon's comment, first, the light color was constant as I swiped to and from the page, with the background stationary. Second, I just checked again, and it's now the normal dark blue (see below). I didn't change the background or transparency settings. It might just be a bug, but I don't think it's an illusion or background interaction.

edit 2: I just updated Facebook Messenger and it happened again. The dot is bright cyan, regardless of its position against the background. Then after I use the phone for a few minutes, it changes to the normal color. 3 images showing the bright color, followed by the dark color: http://imgur.com/a/evip7

I noticed some of the dots on mine were a lighter color several hours after an update was downloaded, which would blow my theory about timing, so I tested changing wallpapers to see how that affected the color. This showed that the color of the dot is impacted by the wallpaper. It may be semi-transparent or the color may simply be chosen by the system based on the color behind it.

The below images were taken within a minute of each other after changing the wallpaper. The first two show changing from a light wallpaper to a dark one. The second, third, and fourth images were all taken with the same wallpaper. You can see the color darkens as the background darkens. In the fourth image, it even varies slightly between rows based on the differing shades in the background.


Preview.app Find -> Done keyboard shortcut I've been able to configure a keyboard driven workflow in Preview.app using Karabiner and Keyboard->Shortcuts but there's one situation I can't seem to find a way to avoid using the mouse: Done to clear Find results.

To clarify:

Is it possible to trigger this via the keyboard? I'm on El Capitan (Preview.app version 8.1)

Esc  works for me - no Karabiner necessary.


How do I convert a suitcase font? I have a font set - Type: Font Suitcase

I am sure I have used a terminal command to convert it to a TTF or OTF. I don't really want to pay for software to do so. What is the best way of converting these types of font?

Font Suitcases can potentially hold 2 different kinds of fonts: bitmap fonts and TrueType fonts. Normally, font suitcases that hold bitmap font data are only one half of the font; to be usable you need to have the additional PostScript Outline font files (these will have an LWFN icon).

Otherwise, the font suitcase can represent a TrueType font, which compared to a "PostScript Type 1 Font Suitcase", is truly self-contained.

I'm not aware of command-line font converters for the Mac. The only type of conversion I could imagine using command line tools would be converting from a resource-fork-based Font Suitcase to a Datafork TrueType font (.dfont), and possibly from a Mac TrueType to a Windows TrueType font (basically you'd need to extract the 'sfnt' resource entries).

To try to figure out if the Mac Font Suitcase is a TrueType font, you can use the following command:

grep -c sfnt /Library/Fonts/BankGothic/..namedfork/rsrc

What this does is return the number of times 'sfnt' is found in the resource fork of the file in question. If this returns 0, the file is most likely not a TrueType font.

Note that by default, terminal command will only act on the data fork part of files. For example:

ls -la /Library/Fonts/BankGothic
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 root  admin  0 Mar  7  2007 /Library/Fonts/BankGothic

This shows that the file is empty (has a file size of 0). To specifically target the resource fork, you append /..namedfork/rsrc to the filename as in the following example:

ls -la /Library/Fonts/BankGothic/..namedfork/rsrc
-rw-rw-r--  1 root  admin  346937 Mar  7  2007 /Library/Fonts/BankGothic/..namedfork/rsrc

EDIT:
If it is a Mac TrueType font, I can convert it to one or more Windows TrueType fonts (.ttf) for you. (For this particular type of conversion, there's no need to use font software; a simple Mac resource editor (and knowledge of this process) should be sufficient. If I do convert it in this manner, I'll provide screenshots of what I'm doing for the record).

EDIT 2: See my answer on StackOverflow for "Using OS 9 resource fork fonts with CSS" for a tool I wrote that would allow drag and drop extracting of sfnt resource entries to individual ttf font files.


Sharing GUI windows between Macs I have two macs on the same local network. What I want to do is to ssh into one mac from the other and open GUI windows. I do not want to share the whole screen, just windows I open from the terminal.

Between Linux computers it is possible to do ssh -X user@host, an equivalent to this on mac is exactly what I want.

Is this possible? If so, how?

Well, if you start an Application that uses X11, just like that : ssh -X user@host

You can run most "Linux GUI" X11 applications on mac as described here using docker: How to run a Linux GUI application on OSX using Docker

Make sure to check out XPRA for Mac, too.
You can forward X11 apps on mac or forward the whole mac desktop using xpra, to install do

brew install Caskroom/cask/xpra

to shadow the desktop

/Applications/Xpra.app/Contents/Xpra_NoDock.app/Contents/MacOS/Xpra  shadow --bind-tcp=127.0.0.1:10000

etc.pp.


Show hidden all files, but hide some I am trying to show all files and hide some. I know about the command:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool YES

But that shows even files that I have hidden with chflags hidden. I want to hide those files. Is it possible to change its name into a ._ file, or is that not safe? I don't want to chflags nohidden manually one by one. Is there a way to do so?

Mac OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks)

The .filename was intended by unix to represent invisible file names. Even before there was GUI's, the ls command by default would not list these files for normal users. There is no reason you can not add a . prefix to your own file names.

On the other hand, using ._filename seems to be unique to OS X. One use of these filenames is to store addition information regarding files with the same name minus the ._ prefix. OS X even has a special command dot_clean to delete or merge these types of files.

In my option, I would not risk deliberately using the ._ prefix in my filenames. You may get acceptable results now, but future versions of OS X may interpret such names differently.

For example, let's say you create a file called ._dave. Later could OS X end up creating a file called ._._dave?

Just FYI:
It is possible to create a service that would allow you to set the hidden file flag for highlighted files using the Finder application. The instructions are given below.

Open the Automator application.
From the menu bar choose "File", then "New".
Select "Service" and click "Choose".
Drag the action "Run AppleScript" to where it says "Drag actions or
files here to build your workflow".
Set "Service receives selected text in any application" to
"Service receives selected files or folders in Finder".
Replace the code

on run {input, parameters}

    (* Your script goes here *)

    return input
end run

with

on run {input, parameters}
    try
        repeat with currentfile in input
            try
                do shell script "chflags hidden " & quoted form of POSIX path of currentfile
            end try
        end repeat
    end try
    return input
end run

Save service as "Set Hidden Flag".
Close all Automator windows and quit the Automator application.

The service should have been saved in the ~/Library/Services folder under the name Set Hidden Flag.workflow. If not, move it there.

Now when you highlight one or more files using the Finder application, you can right click and select "Set Hidden Flag" to hide from the Finder application.

A simular service named "Reset Hidden Flag" can be created using the same steps, with the following two exceptions. In step 6, change

do shell script "chflags hidden " & quoted form of POSIX path of current file

to

do shell script "chflags nohidden " & quoted form of POSIX path of current file

In step 7, change to save as "Reset Hidden Files".

Of course, you can not highlight the hidden files unless the Finder application displays them. To do this see my answer to Hotkey to show hidden files and folders in File Open dialog?


Mail on Big Sur does not reliably find dollar values As an online shopper, I regularly use Amazon to purchase lots of stuff.  When I reconcile my credit card spending, I use Mail.app to search all mailboxes for specific dollar figures (e.g. command-option F, then type 24.95).
Prior to Big Sur, finding dollar figures in Mail.app worked perfectly, whether the email messages resided "On My Mac" or on iCloud.  However, since Big Sur, doing a global Mail.app search for numeric strings, especially with a decimal point, doesn't work reliably.
For example, I'll do a global search in Mail.app for 65.88 and I'll get one result from a locally archived message from years ago, however a very recent message in my InBox containing that figure is not found.  When I do a single message search (command-F) looking for 65.88, the value IS found.
Unsurprisingly, using Spotlight delivers the exact same results.
Using mdutil, I've manually erased and rebuilt the Spotlight index, rebuilt my Mail.app mailboxes, deleted all ~/Library/Mail/V8/MailData/Envelope* files to force the Mail.app to re-import everything, and reinstalled Big Sur.  I've also confirmed all my Spotlight settings to assure that Mail and Messages are included in searches, and that the volume where my mail resides is not excluded.  Nothing worked.
I should note that I am using one SSD for macOS, and a separate SSD for my Home directory (c/o "Advanced Options" under Users & Groups).  I've had this setup well before Big Sur, again, without any issues.
Interestingly, I tried using the Spark email app, which DID successfully find dollar figures without any issue.  I suspect that Spark is not relying on Spotlight to obtain search results, and that's why it works.  (I would use Spark, however it doesn't support local mailboxes.)
I've already sent Apple a report using the Feedback Assistant, and I can only hope something will get fixed.
Can anyone else confirm this issue with Mail.app on Big Sur?  Any ideas on what else I can do?

I can confirm this is a real issue since Big Sur. I did talk with Apple Tech Support, she agreed it is a known issue. She told me to put problem in Feedback Assistance which I did a while back. I have not come up with any work around other then just searching for numbers to left of the decimal point as you mentioned.
In addition, various text and text strings are not found as well. Really want Apple to fix this asap.


com.apple.WebKit.Plugin.64.xpc Had the following appear when attempting to login to an account.  What does it mean & should I approve?
 com.apple.WebKit.Plugin.64.xpc wants to use your confidential information stored in "v4.services.acrobat.com" in your ketchain.
To allow this, enter the "login" keychain password.

Always Allow            Deny          Allow

Unless you trust that you understand what that app wants from the keychain (which could be a harmless - secure token generated to not track you but store a session or could be the password to a very important service and not harmless t all) - the best option is to deny the request and see what breaks.

Unless you have a good reason to allow access to keys, you shouldn't.


How can I disable XQuartz entirely and use Xorg with my own Desktop Environment? I want to use i3, which is available in Mac Ports. I've installed it and xorg (with ports install xorg). Now I want to boot into that. I've tried created an ~/.xinitrc and an ~/.xinitrc.d/99_i3 script (both had +x). But in neither occasion did X start up with the script. Is it possible to use Xorg on boot and jump into i3 instead of the normal OSX Window Manager?

You can find a very similar question on SuperUser here.

Just to be clear, I don't want any OSX functionality. I'm only not reformatting and installing GNU Linux because my company prohibits it. I want to bootstrap a parallel configuration with ports and boot into an i3 environment (ideally with no dock, Aqua, Finder).

If I have understood you correctly, what you actually want to do is to get rid of the Mac graphic environment, and run a "classic" X11 session instead. Correct?

I don't think you can get rid of the Mac graphic environment entirely (short of installing some other OS, like *BSD or Linux), but you can hide it to a certain extent.

Configure Xquartz to run in full-screen mode (it's in the settings somewhere...). This means you won't see any Mac stuff. Create an ~/.xinitrc file. Xquartz will run that file on start-up, just as would normally happen with startx or xinit. In that file, you can start any window manager you like. e.g. good old twm. (If you don't have an .xinitrc file, Quartz will start the quartz-wm window manager, which gives a "Mac look" to your X windows.) It should be theoretically possible to get an entire Gnome desktop running, but I have not tried that... You'll still have to boot into MacOS and log in to a Mac desktop, but after you have started Xquartz, you should be back in familiar X11 land.

(I get the impression that you believe Xquartz is the standard graphic Mac environment. It isn't. Xquartz is an X server that runs on top of the Mac graphic environment. I think Xquartz is just a packaging of the Xorg server, built for macOS, but I could be wrong on that.)


Which of the Apple provided free iPhone 4 cases has a large free area for dock connectors? I have an iPhone 4 and am contemplating which of the free cases I should get.

I bought a basic case at Best Buy when I bought my phone. The big problem I have with this one is that the opening at the bottom for the dock connector isn't large enough to connect the adaptor I have to play music in my car (GROM iPod connector -- highly recommended).

Can anyone advise on which of hte free cases has a larger dock connector? For reference, the Apple Bumper is definitely not big enough.

I got the Incase Snap Case through the free program, and it doesn't cover the bottom of the unit at all (except for the sides) so it should work for you, unless your dock connector is massive:


Where does f.lux install itself? I'm really puzzled here.  I just installed a new copy of Sierra on another partition, and as part of setting it up I double-clicked on my saved copy of f.lux that I keep in my "system rebuild" folder.  It asked me if I wanted to move it into Applications so I said yes, not thinking that it literally meant move and not copy, so it disappeared from my rebuild folder.  I figured it would now be in Applications, but it's not!

Even after a reboot, f/lux is running but it's not in Applications.  So where the heck did it put itself?

I'd presume it'd be in /Applications or ~/Applications, the latter being within your home directory?

You can find where the process is by sampling it in Activity Monitor.

In Activity Monitor's CPU tab, find and select f.lux.
From the gear menu, choose Sample Process.

Observe the path to the process.


El Capitan gives me a kernel panic error right after installing Almost immediately after the installation reboot, and seconds after the apple logo appears the following error shows up;

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff8017d263a6) : "zone_init;kmem_suballoc failed"@/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-3247.1.106/osfmkkern/zall oc.c:2199

This is a 2010 iMac running the latest Yosemite with all updates installed.

Any guesses for the cause?

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac11,3
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 12 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s

This is really basic memory allocation that's failing (zalloc.c) - and even if your install was completely trashed by outside forces, I'd expect a panic just about anywhere else in the system. This is a pretty low level failure.

If you can't get a recovery install to work, your next step is to call support, because this looks very much like a hardware problem.


Customize Change Spaces Shortcut in Mountain Lion I have a Logitech mouse that is supposedly "unsupported", but I'd like to be able to click the mouse wheel left and right to switch spaces left and right. I figured out that Mountain Lion is interpreting these clicks as control + page up (click mouse wheel left) and control + page down (click mouse wheel right), because my IDE (Eclipse) switches text editor tabs when I click left and right. (See https://stackoverflow.com/a/2332440).

How can I map control + page up / control + page down to change spaces left and right?

There isn't a clear way to do this in System Preferences. I'm comfortable doing some defaults writes from Terminal, but I don't know where to start.

Have you tried BetterTouchTool to achieve it?


OS X assumes hostname of other network computer: how to prevent this? I just came across a strange quirck:

I use my MacBook Pro in the office. Every computer is assigned their IP addresses by a DHCP server. It seems to be the case now, however, that my OS X changed my hostname by itself.

I am assuming this is done because of the fact that my current IP address was previously used by the user with this hostname, but obviously, I don't want OS X to change my hostname without asking me to do so.

How can I prevent this from happening?

This issue has been going on for years, and there is no way to "fix" it on the Mac.

What happens is the machine gets an address from DHCP, and then performs a reverse DNS lookup to see if there is a hostname associated with the IP in DNS.

If you are on a Windows network, all of the Windows machines are automatically registered in DNS when they connect to the Domain.

I went on and on with the techs at Apple about this... There is little that you can do at the level of your Mac.  It becomes an issue for your network administrator, and since there is nothing really wrong, he/she is likely to leave things as they are.


Screen Record my browser I need to record just my browser and nothing else on the desktop. Does anyone know how I can do that?  I know I can do a screen recording with QuickTime, but it takes the entire desktop.

I want to stick a demo of something into a presentation, therefore just want the browser visible.

Quicktime 10 (Lion) now allows you to record an area of your screen, not just the entire screen. Select "File → New Screen Recording," click the red "record" button, and Quicktime will tell you:


How can I extract Album Art from a track? I'd like to use iTunes to extract Album Art into standard image formats (such as .png or .jpg), so that I can back them up in a location external to the iTunes library.  How can I do this in iTunes?

In iTunes select the song and press ⌘+I to Get Info.
Go to the tab Artwork and press ⌘+C to copy the Artwork.
Open Preview.app.
Select File → New from Clipboard from the menu or press ⌘+N
Save the file to a custom location. (.png, .jpg, .pdf, .tiff, ...)

Alternative for 3 to 5 : just select the artwork, and drag and drop on you desktop (or elsewhere) (it will copy the original file there; eg : if the file inside was a PNG, you'll have a PNG, if it was a JPG, you'll get a JPG)


Same Wallpaper for every Display I have a Macbook Air (with OS X 10.10 Yosemite). I've set the wallpaper to a folder and let the wallpaper change randomly every 30min. When I work at my desk, I have an additional external Display, and what I want is that that screen has the same wallpaper like the main display.

Is there a way to do this or do I miss an option?

From the Preference pane I do not think you can do it.

But I just wrote an applescript that works on both my displays.

---------- UPDATE:

I was having a problem with the LaunchAgent loading on login.

Thislooks like it was because the system was trying to compile it and failing.

So I have updated the Answer to fix this by using a compiled Applescript instead of a plain text.

  NOTE: you must turn off the change picture settings in the system
  prefs when running this script. Otherwise you will get the right
  results.

Each desktop changes to the same image. If I switch to a new space on a desktop it's image will change when the time comes.

There are couple of ways to run the script.

But in my opinion using LaunchAgents is the best way.

This answer may look complicated but should only take a minute to set up and start using.

1,  Create paste this script into a new Script Editor document.

#!/usr/bin/osascript

tell application "System Events"
    (*Get a list of images in the pictures folder*)
    set DPFolder to ((POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures") as alias)
    set DP to every file of DPFolder
end tell

(*get a random number limited to the count of the image count in the pictures folder*)
set randomNumber to random number (count of DP)

    tell application "System Events"

        (*get each desktop*)
        set theDesktops to a reference to every desktop

        (* repeat with each desktop*)
        repeat with i from 1 to (count theDesktops)

            (* Change the picture to the random image*)
            set picture of item i of the theDesktops to (POSIX path of (item randomNumber of DP))
        end repeat
    end tell

2, change the path in the line

  set DPFolder to ((POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures") as
  alias)

to contain your pictures folder if it is not the standard one. Make sure what ever folder you use only has images in and no other type of file or folder.

3, Save  the document file format as a Script file (scpt)

4, In Terminal.app  type:

chmod +x /Users/USERNAME/path/to/your/foo.scpt

chmod +x will make the file executable. Chang the path to the path of your script file.

5, In TextEdit.app

Open a new Plain text document and paste:

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.markosx.randomDesktopImage</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>usr/bin/osascript</string>
       <string>/Users/USERNAME/path/to/your/foo.scpt</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>60</integer>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Change the line:

  /Users/USERNAME/path/to/your/foo.scpt

to contain the real path to your script file.

Change the line:

<integer>60</integer>

to contain the number of seconds you want the interval between runs.

6, save the file with the extension .plist in your users LaunchAgent folder.

~/Library/LaunchAgents

7, Now in terminal type and run:

  launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/foo.plist

Replace foo.plist with you real plist file name.

This will load the launchAgent to the system and start it running.

Or you can log out and back in.

To unload the launchAgent

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/foo.plist


Unable to include external media drive in time machine backup I have recently moved my apple photo library to an external hard drive to save space on my internal SSD, however i would obviously still like this external drive to backup with the rest of my computer. However it appears i am unable to take this drive off the excluded list (as shown below), does anyone know how i can remedy this?
Cheers.

Best guess is the drive is the wrong format.
Time Machine won't back up NTFS, FAT or ExFAT.
APFS should work, but 'safest' is HFS+ [MacOS Extended, Journaled] using GUID, not MBR. These options are available in Disk Utility.
You will not be able to change the format "live," you will need to copy this data elsewhere, then erase the drive & then copy back to it afterwards.


Apple hardware connectivity What licenses are required to connect and communicate over a non-Apple hardware to and from iPad/iPhone?

I have non-apple hardware which I want to connect to iPad and communicate with it by writing a program.

Hence I want to know all steps to be able to do that and how much will it cost.

You may need to join the Apple MFi Program, however this does require you to be a registered company that can pass a credit check.

Who should apply to the MFi Program?
Developers who wish to develop electronic accessories for iPhone, iPad
or iPod using licensed components and/or software should join the MFi
Program. Companies, organizations, government entities and educational
institutions are eligible to apply.
Case developers, app developers
and developers of accessories that only use standard technology (e.g.,
Bluetooth Low Energy or standard Bluetooth profiles) do not need to
join the MFi Program.

If you just connect your device via Bluetooth then you do not need to join the MFI program.
All you will need to do in this instance is join the Apple Developer program for iOS devices, the cost for this is $99 a year.
To be able to develop the iOS app to communicate with your device, you will need an Apple Mac capable of running Xcode and costs will vary.


Can I enable Remote Disc on a computer that shipped with an optical drive? I replaced the optical drive in my 2009 MacBook Pro with an SSD drive. I have enabled CD & DVD Sharing on another computer (running OS X 10.7.5) on my local network and inserted a data CD, but Remote Disc doesn't show up in the Finder sidebar on the MacBook Pro (running OS X 10.8.2). I'm assuming this is because the machine originally shipped with an optical drive. Can I enable Remote Disc on the MBP?

I've had to do this on an iMac with a failed optical drive before.

From http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2009/09/enable-remote-disc-drive-sharing-on-any-mac.html:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true
defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true

... then reboot, and hopefully the option will then show up in Finder > Preferences > Sidebar.


Can this RAM work with iMac 2010? http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Information-Ddr3-So-dimm-jm1333ksn-2g/dp/B007I5CMGK

It said it is a 2gb Ddr3 1333 So-dimm, is iMac support all Ddr3 1333 So-dimm?

From iMac (Mid 2010: Memory specifications):

  The iMac (Late 2010) computers have four SDRAM slots in the bottom of
  the computer and come with at least 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM installed as two
  2GB DIMMs into two slots.

  The maximum amount of RAM you can install in your computer is 16 GB (a
  4 GB SO-DIMM in each slot).

  You can use any Small-Outline dual inline memory modules (SO-DIMMS)
  that meet all of these criteria:

  PC3-10600
  Unbuffered
  Nonparity
  204-pin
  1333 MHz
  DDR3 SDRAM

  You can use RAM module sizes of 2 GB or 4 GB in each slot.

And from iMac: How to remove or install memory:


Input Method Keys not Firing Event I have recently purchased an external Japanese keyboard from FILCO.
In addition to the regular keys, it also has 3 keys specifically designated to switch between Western and Japanese character input.

Apple provides the same keys on its Japanese keyboards and they function as expected.

With a 3rd party keyboard however, these keys don't fire at all.
Even when viewed with tools like KeyRemap4MacBook's event viewer, key-presses are not detected as events.

Is this a common issue?
My written Japanese is weak, so my searches in Japanese didn't turn up any results.
Any direct advice or even links to articles in Japanese (or English ones I might have missed) would be greatly appreciated.

Maybe it's not recognized as a JIS keyboard. See http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2009/12/fixing-keyboard-type-problems.html:

  Sometimes a machine will forget which type keyboard is attached, with the result that certain keys get transposed from what the user expects. The fix for this is run the Keyboard Setup Assistant again. Sometimes there is a button for "Change Keyboard Type" visible in System Preferences/Keyboard. If not, you can try trashing the file

  /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist

  Another possibility may be to open Terminal and type:

  sudo open /System/Library/CoreServices/KeyboardSetupAssistant.app/Contents/MacOS/KeyboardSetupAssistant

  Sometimes, when JIS is involved on a laptop, one may have to follow the procedures in the PMU Resetting instructions.

If nothing else works, you can use KeyRemap4MacBook to map other keys to かな and 英数 keys:

<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F1, KeyCode::JIS_KANA</autogen>
<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F2, KeyCode::JIS_EISUU</autogen>


AppleScript read and trigger other script base on received notification Is they a way to read macOS Catalina notification from AppleScript?
it's seems that they are not longer stored with ~/Library/Application Support/ , I'm not even sure of the process name, "Notification Center" seems to failed
I would like to run an AppleScript which can detect and read new notification then trigger other script based on the notification

This following AppleScript code should work if you save it as a “stay open” application.  Just set the property values for scriptToRun and lookForThisText and it should be good to go.
Don’t forget to grant permissions in System Preferences for your new stay open application to control your computer
property scriptToRun : (path to desktop as text) & "your.scpt" -- your path to .scpt file
property lookForThisText : "Search For This Text In Notification Windows" -- your search term
property theseTitles : {}

on idle
    getNotificationTitles()
    delay 0.1
    if theseTitles contains lookForThisText then
        ---------------------------------------------------------------
        delay 6 -- Gives Banner Time To Self Close
        --tell current application to beep 5 -- Just For Testing
        run script alias scriptToRun
        ---------------------------------------------------------------
    end if
    return 1 -- in seconds
end idle

on quit
    --  Executed when the script quits
    continue quit -- allows the script to quit
end quit

on getNotificationTitles()
    -- This Gets The Titles Of The Currently Displaying Notification Alerts And Banners
    tell application id "com.apple.SystemEvents"
        tell (the first process whose bundle identifier = "com.apple.notificationcenterui")
            set theseWindows to every window whose subrole is ¬
                "AXNotificationCenterAlert" or subrole is "AXNotificationCenterBanner"
            set theseTitles to {}
            repeat with thisWindow in theseWindows
                set titleText to the value of static text 1 of thisWindow
                set the end of theseTitles to titleText
                set subTitleText to the value of static text 1 of scroll area 1 of thisWindow
                set the end of theseTitles to subTitleText
                set notificationText to the value of static text 2 of scroll area 1 of thisWindow
                set the end of theseTitles to notificationText
            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell
end getNotificationTitles

Here is a quick animation showing the process in action.  I created an AppleScript app named Test Notification.app whose only purpose is to display a notification… display notification "Blah" with title "BLAH BLAH" subtitle "DUH” Then, using the code I used as the answer to this post, I created a “Stay Open Application”, whose only purpose is to monitor all incoming notification windows for the text in which I define in the variable lookForThisText.  Once the text is identified, it triggers another script "Merge Every Finder Window.scpt" which as the name says… merges every Finder window.


How to subscribe to particular IMAP folders in Mac Mail I use Mac Mail to work with an IMAP account. Is it possible to subscribe only to a set of folders, e.g., synchronize only the folder "current" and all its subfolders, but not the folder "archive"? I tried right-click on folder > Account Information > Abonnements/Subscriptions but there no folders are listed.

I had this same issue. I am using Mail version 8.2.

I found this to be a fix for me.

When I create a new account in Mac Mail, it shows the account name under "Inbox."

Under that account name are four folders - Sent, Drafts, Junk, and Trash.

You have to click on one folder at a time to highlight it, then in the top menu, select Mailbox > Use This Mailbox As > and select the correct mailbox (Sent, Drafts, Junk, or Trash).

When I did this, my Sent, Trash, Junk, and Draft folders that were under my email account name, moved under the "Main" Sent, Trash, Junk, and Draft sections. It took a second or two for them to sync to the server and not show a warning sign next to the folder name.

Under Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced, I left the IMAP Path Prefix blank. I did change the Port from 143 to 993, checked the Use SSL box, and set the Authentication to Password. I used these settings because they match what my host provider provided me to use for my Incoming Server settings. I'm not sure this mattered or not.


Copying and pasting text between applications without style When pasting text, some applications (Chrome, Microsoft Office, etc.) will do what they can to re-render copied text with style, and some of those applications do not appear to offer an option to paste without style.

This results in spending lots of time removing formatting (where it is even possible) and then cleaning up the mess left behind, just to get clean text.

I want to prevent text styling from attaching itself to text that I copy and paste between applications. Is there an OS-level way to do this, i.e. one that can apply to all applications? Failing that, is there a per-application way to tell Chrome, Safari, Word etc. not to copy and/or paste with style?

O/S X does have a "universal" key combination to paste without any style, it's SHIFT-COMMAND-OPTION-V

Unfortunately Microsoft uses their own text engine rather than the Mac's built-in one so that does not work there. The only options I have found for word is to create a Macro to paste plain text. You could download one of this but the one's I found were for the PC version and I never got them to work in the Mac version.

But I just find it easier to paste it into a plain text editor (I use Bbedit or TextWrangler, the free version.) Then copy and paste that into my word document. Annoying but it works for me.

I believe there are a number of clipboard utilities that will do what you ask. A quick visit to macupdate.com should help with that.


Notes keeps prompting me for POP passwords The Apple Notes app (Mountain Lion) keeps asking me to enter passwords for my various email accounts (POP) that I've added to Mail. Mail does not prompt me to re-enter any passwords, but sometimes Notes will ask for the password twice before it accepts it. Thing is, I don't even want Notes to use my POP accounts, just iCloud. But there doesn't seem to be a way to turn notes off for a specific account.

Has anyone seen this issue? Is there a way to remove my POP accounts from Notes that I haven't discovered?

Thanks.

Does codesign -vv /Applications/Notes.app/ print something like a sealed resource is missing or invalid? If it does, the code signature is invalid, so the application isn't allowed to access the keychain automatically. Copying Notes.app from another Mac or a backup or upgrading to 10.9 would probably fix it.

You can disable email syncing in System Preferences:


Trouble accessing ntfs drives in mac os x I installed tuxera-ntfs in mac os x and am able to mount my external disks and use them without any issues.

I can delete files, copy files to my external disk and from my disk

But I am not able to cut the files(use the cmd+X) . Any files that I copied from my external disk to my mac, I face the same issue.

Also I am not able to change user permission by using chmod for any of the files.

I have two disks and the behaviour is the same in both of them

I want to know if this is a default behavior of using ntfs drives in mac or I am missing something.

i use this i have not problems http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26288/ntfs you can try !


Drawing glove for iPad I'd really like to draw more on my iPad but I like to rest my hand on the screen doing so, which registers as a stroke along with the pen.

I've been looking around for a proper gadget for this problem, some kind of drawing glove for the iPad, but haven't found any.

I tried a couple of gloves myself but they're either too thick (clumsy) or too thin (hand registers with screen).

Anyone here drawing frequently on the iPad with a good DIY glove suggestion or link to a product?

From a FAQ of Smudge Guard:

  Unfortunately, the current SG gloves are not compatible with the iPad
  at all. The SG glove does not prevent detection on the iPad. :(

  However, please note that recently, two other customers of mine bought
  the SG glove and tested it while sketching on the Autodesk Sketchbook
  Pro. They said it did not prevent accidental strokes with their palm
  because the material/fabric was not thick enough. But cleverly, my two
  other customers then tried slipping in a microfiber cloth, (folded in
  half) into the side of the glove. The microfiber they used, were those
  little rectangular shaped cloths that are made to clean eyeglasses.
  They inserted it into the glove (where the edge of the hand is) and
  they said it worked! The iPad didn't detect the side of their hand.

There is also an info they started working on a fully-iPad compatible glove. Microfiber option could work with any thin glove, perhaps.


How to fix AFP where some users connect after 4 minutes and others never connect (spinning progress bar and no authentication dialog)? I am having an issue for multiple (but not all) users whereby AFP connections are taking 4+ minutes to connect to the share. Some never connect. The spinning progress bar sits there but no auth window appears. So far I have:

Tested the network cable in a MBP which could connect instantly with correct credentials.
Power cycle
Ping AFP share - working
Ping server IP - working
Check DNS, added manually
PRAM reset
Tried connection over SMB and NFS, SMB would bring up the Auth window slightly faster but still a good 4 min wait
Created new local user account which was able to connect to the share instantly

Dumped network settings and location, which produced a strange result; with the AFP connection pending, ditching the Ethernet 2 interface in Network Settings brought about the connection. Upon ejecting the share and restarting the connection however, the same wait followed. Recreating the Ethernet 2 interface and dumping it again brings about the connection.

Pulling the cable out (with Airport off) brings up the authentication window instantly.

We have restarted the AFP server and all switches.

We have swapped out the Cat5e cabling between the AFP server and the switches.

It appears that all the machines are on 10.7.4.

I have read some posts on Google about NetAuthAgent maxing out CPU cycles, I am going to test the offending machines for that now.

How can I fix an issue with AFP where some users connect after 4 minutes and others never connect (spinning progress bar and no authentication dialog)?

Yup, we saw the same exact symptoms, only on 10.7.4 machines, and after some digging, it appears to be a preference file causing this behavior.

Backup then delete the following:

 ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

and

 ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist.lockfile

then reboot.

See the following link for more info:

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/odd-afp-and-smb-connection-problem-caused-by-idisk-going-away/

If you delete the files above you'll have to redo your Mouse preferences, and perhaps something else, from scratch, but it was no biggie as far as I could tell.


Why is Skype using over 1 GB of iCloud backup data? A few weeks ago I began getting notifications warning me that I was running low on iCloud space. I didn't think much of it until I checked my iCloud backups.

To my surprise, between my iPhone and iPad, Skype was inflating the size of my iCloud backups by over 1 GB.

Even more bizarre was that Skype's documents and data were using up 600 MB less on the devices themselves. (Screenshots from Settings -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage -> Storage -> Manage Storage)

iPhone data

iPad data

The low storage warnings stopped appearing once I stated excluding Skype data from my iCloud backups, but I'm still perplexed as to why it was using so much space to begin with.

Is there a reason why Skype would need over 1GB of storage space?

Because you are saving all conversations including attachments


internet connection sharing assigned IP Setting the internet connection sharing is straighforward from the OSX preferences. So I set the sharing via the ethernet cable so that when I ifconfig, I see some new entry bridge100 that is has 192.168.2.1 IP .
Then I connected my pi via the ethernet. Now, I try to find the IP that is assigned to the PI but when I ping the subnet 192.168.2.*, I get nothing else but 192.168.2.1. However, I notice that the ethernet cable is using en5 interface but with no IP. Do I need to set a static IP to en5 ?

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether a4:5e:60:d9:e4:51
    inet6 fe80::a65e:60ff:fed9:e451%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
    inet 192.168.43.14 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.43.255
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
en1: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 6a:00:00:1f:0c:50
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
en2: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether 6a:00:00:1f:0c:51
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6>
    ether a6:5e:60:9d:1f:00
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en1 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 5 priority 0 path cost 0
    member: en2 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 6 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: <unknown type>
    status: inactive
p2p0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2304
    ether 06:5e:60:d9:e4:51
    media: autoselect
    status: inactive
awdl0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1452
    ether d6:8c:e1:bd:55:69
    inet6 fe80::d48c:e1ff:febd:5569%awdl0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x9
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active
en5: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=4<VLAN_MTU>
    ether 20:c9:d0:2a:ee:68
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control>)
    status: active
bridge100: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    ether a6:5e:60:9d:1f:64
    inet 192.168.2.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
    inet6 fe80::a45e:60ff:fe9d:1f64%bridge100 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xb
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en5 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 10 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect
    status: active

Have you tried to display Internet-to-Ethernet address using the arp utility ? arp -a will display the connected devices to your network via ethernet.

It will show something like this :
(192.168.100.104) at xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx on en0 ifscope [ethernet]


Parallels with Windows 10 VM automatically shuts down after 30-40 min I have Parallels on my Macbook Pro. I'm have Windows 10 VM inside it and few month ago I noticed that it's shutting down by itself when I'm working in it. It's very annoying so I searched logs and found this one:

I think it might be related to my issue.

I didn't find any good solution in google..

Any idea?

The issue is that the VM itself is timing out. You have an Evaluation Edition only,  the Parallels page says "using an evaluation virtual machine".

The VM is actually from Microsoft.

I cannot find the exact details but from my memory Microsoft evaluation VMs time out after 30 minutes but other google results suggest that could be after the 90 days you are allowed.


iPhone 5s - What is the dot between rear camera and the LED flash? There is a visible dot on the iPhone 5s between the rear camera and the LED flash. What is it for? I imagine it is a sensor of some kind.

I'm concerned because my new iPhone 5s case covers it.

It's a microphone, useful for video recording using the rear camera and for digitally eliminating background noise when you're on a phone or FaceTime call. Source - Apple support.

Apple doesn't have an explicitly stated opinion on whether or not the rear microphone absolutely can't be covered, but in that support article,

  Remove screen protectors, films, or cases that cover the microphone, iSight mic, or iPhone receiver.

is the third recommended step for people experiencing microphone issues.


Prevent menu bar from dropping down while in fullscreen Though the menu bar is hidden in fullscreen, mousing to the top makes it drop down. This really bugs when switching between tabs on certain programs. Is there any way to change this setting?

There is no way to disable Menu Bar display when the mouse pointer is hovered towards the top while running an app full screen.

To alleviate the issue, you may consider switching between the tabs using a keyboard shortcut. Command + { and Command + } works with most of the apps.


What is a good web browser for OS X 10.4 Tiger? I have an old MacBook that can't run anything higher than 10.4, due to hardware limitations.

Is there any decent modern browser I can run?  Opera, Safari and Firefox all need at least 10.6.

I just want websites to work correctly. I am aware that there are security issues and that I should not be running such old software in the first place.

TenFourFox gives you the current version of Firefox in builds optimized for G3, G4 and G5 PowerPC processors that runs on Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5.


Retrieving contacts via old account to new one What if you bought a new iPhone so when you transferred your contacts your previous contacts via the old iCloud account, then you sign out of the old iCloud account into a new one. The contacts then disappeared, so how do you now retrieve the contacts?

You may retrieve them by doing the following.

Open any web browser, and go to icloud.com on your computer.
Log in with your iCloud account (Your Apple ID and password).
Click on Contacts. Click the gear shaped Settings button on the bottom left, and click Select All.
Click the gear button again, and click Export vCard… to download contacts from iCloud.

Then, you reupload by signing in with the other Apple ID following these steps.

In iCloud Contacts, click the Action pop-up menu  in the sidebar, then choose Import vCard.
Select a vCard to import.


Use mp3 in My Music as a ring tone I just got an iPhone5S and want to use an mp3 I have in My Music as a ring tone.

How can I do this. The manual only seems to talk about purchasing tones.

EDIT
I have made a 40 second m4r file and it is in My Music on the iPhone, but I can't find it in Ringtones.

I cannot find  "Sync Ringtones" in the phone sync options.

There a few ways to do that.

Follow instructions on this website.

Create free custom ringtones using your favorite songs

Important: the length of the ring tone can not be more than 40 seconds, so select the part of the song you prefer.


Sync iPhone with multiple Macs Is it possible to sync an iPhone with multiple computers? I know the music will be restricted, and I don't mind. I want the contacts, bookmarks, etc. to be in sync across my home iMac and my MacBook.

The best way to synchronize contacts and bookmarks between several Mac and/or iPhone is to use MobileMe (now iCloud). It will sync all as you need where you want.


XAMPP VM and text editors I recently installed XAMPP for OS X (XAMPP VM PHP 7.2.1) which now virtualizes the entire box for obvious benefits of higher security. Although I admire the new concept and see its benefits, I cannot put my head around one thing that puzzles me.

I would like to enable the PHPMyAdmin tool, which requires me to change a file, based on this well described set of instructions:

http://localhost:8080/dashboard/docs/access-phpmyadmin-remotely.html

This document basically describes the steps needed to relax the security concept that prevents directly accessing the PHPMyAdmin login. It asks you to edit the /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf file in order to allow access to PHPMyAdmin. One can get to the file system via the stack manager. In this file, the following block:

<Directory "/opt/lampp/phpmyadmin">
  AllowOverride AuthConfig
  Require local
  ...

needs to be changed into:

<Directory "/opt/lampp/phpmyadmin">
  AllowOverride AuthConfig
  Require all granted
  ...

Strangely, and I am extremely puzzled by it and cannot actually believe it, I seem to not be able to find neither pico, vi, vim, or nano (all very standard editors in any Linux distribution) on this virtual machine. Since I am on the VM, I have no access to tools on my own machine (i.e. everything in /Applications).

Did I overlook something? What is going on?

As the documentation suggests, you need to locate and edit the file: /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf

The hard part for me was locating this file. The solution I found was to ensure the stack volume was mounted:

From there, you can click the explore button, which will open /opt/lampp/. You can then navigate to etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf from the Finder window that is opened and edit with any editor you want.

Alternatively, once the drive is mounted, you should be able to access the volume through Finder:

Hopefully, this helps.


Does "Erase all content and settings" help with potential Data partition file system issues? Recently I have become concerned about the fact that there is no way of checking the filesystem integrity on the iOS platform short of rooting the device and running a manual fsck. If I were to handle some files that are important for me using my iPad (5th Gen, currently running iPadOS 13.4), I would like to make sure that the underlying filesystem is in clean state before doing any file operations. And because currently there is no macOS Disk Utility equivalent for checking the partition for errors on iOS/iPadOS, I figured that the next best way to make sure that the filesystem is clean is to wipe my user data and start from scratch.

Would "Erase all content and settings" be enough to rebuild the Data partition filesystem and solve potential issues, or would I need to reinstall fresh system image using iTunes recovery for this task?

I am having a hard time understanding what "Erase all content and settings" does under the hood. Reading the Apple Platform Security doc I understand that what it does is purge the user data encryption key, rendering the data unrecoverable:

  When stored, the encrypted file system key is additionally wrapped by an “effaceable key” stored in Effaceable Storage. This key doesnʼt
  provide additional confidentiality of data. Instead, itʼs designed to
  be quickly erased on demand (by the user with the “Erase All Content
  and Settings” option). Erasing the key in this manner renders all
  files cryptographically inaccessible.
  Source: https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/apple-platform-security-guide.pdf

Does this mean that the filesystem on Data partition in itself is untouched by this process short of removing the encryption keys, i.e. the user data is left on the partition but unaccessible after wipe? Or does it also do a quick format of the user partition, thus rebuilding the filesystem?

Note: I currently do not experience any particular problems with my device. However, I haven't wiped it even once since the purchase 3 years ago, and since that time it went through multiple updates, app crashes, etc. I know that APFS should theoretically be resistant to filesystem corruption, but at the same time I believe that no software is perfect and there is always risk of some bugs happening that could silently cause problems. I use a MacBook Air as my work PC and I did experience some consistency errors on my user partition that uses APFS, which did not cause any noticeable issues but were solved only by going into Recovery mode and running diskutil manually. So I am concerned that similar issues could be happening on the iPad in the background without attracting attention.

Thanks!

Erasing the key in this manner renders all files cryptographically inaccessible.

The data is still there - but no-one is ever going to be able to read it.

Let me take a distant example…

You lose your house keys. All the furniture is still there, you just cannot get to it.
The difference in this case is the ease with which you could actually break a window to get in, or you could call a locksmith.

The locksmith required to decrypt your iOS data is not available on the other end of a phone call. It would require the involvement of probably something as rich & powerful as a government agency, determined to prove you are a terrorist.

Because of this encryption & the way that solid state storage works to spread the load, if you then restore or set up a brand new install, your old data is more than just un-decryptable, it's also been randomly overwritten too. Solid State storage doesn't write sequentially like an old hard drive. The concept of 'bad blocks' is not the same.

Of course, you would never store the only copy of any data in a single location, especially not a fragile mobile device. Far more likely than file corruption is serious physical damage to the entire unit.


Mac Pro not detecting Windows install DVD I have Mac Pro 1,1 (2006 version) running Lion 10.7.5. Bootcamp on this model officially supports up to Windows 7 x86 though people have reported being able to run Windows 10 x64. I downloaded a Windows 7 Pro x86 ISO and checked its integrity by creating a virtual machine and getting it to load the installer. Then, I burned the ISO to DVD on a Windows 10 PC. The DVD is detected on my MacBook (7,1 running a Mojave patch) but not on the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro DVD drive works since it can play movies and load other software install DVDs. Could someone explain why this isn't working and how to get this model to load a Windows installer?

I tried a bootable USB but the default boot loader wouldn't detect it. I tried refit as an alternative boot loader but it still didn't work. I tried creating a bootable USB from within the Mac Pro OS by editing the flags of supported USB boot models to get the "create USB install disk" option to appear in the boot camp installer. It still doesn't work.

I tried enabling access to an external Apple "superdrive" and performing the normal terminal patch to get it to work. The external superdrive spits out discs.

I figured out a workaround that is probably more unconventional and useless to most people.

The things I used:

Clean Lion installer
A random Windows 7 Pro x86 ISO found online and burned to DVD
Doner install machine (MacBook 7,1)
Target machine (MacPro1,1)
Empty 128GB SSD disk (any disk smaller than target will work)
HDD cloning machine

The steps:

Swap the disk with all my personal files out of the MacBook and install an empty disk (must be smaller than the target disk).
Made a clean installation of Lion on the disk.
Ran through bootcamp on the MacBook (the DVD I burned earlier worked perfectly which is further evidence of something really weird interfering with detection of the Windows install DVD on the Mac Pro). I reached the Windows 7 desktop. It's important to not install any drivers as this could make the installation useless when moving to the target machine. Windows will automatically install drivers for a few things which will later need to be disabled.
Removed the SSD disk and cloned it to the target 1TB 3.5" HDD with a cloning machine. Installed the 1TB HDD in the Mac Pro.
Booted Windows 7 Pro x86 (only worked in safe mode)
Disabled drivers for non-critical hardware and unplugged all peripheral devices except mouse and keyboard). This fixed the boot issues with normal Windows and now I could boot normally without needing to use safe mode.
I haven't done this yet but I need to resize the Windows and macOS partitions to use the entire disk (right now I have 2x64GB partitions). This is doable but a little harder since Disk Utility will not resize/interact with partitions with a Windows partition on the disk. This is probably because of the different file system. Then, I just run the bootcamp 4 support drivers and everything should be normal.

Hope this helps someone though I doubt it because most people don't have access to the equipment that I used. There are other methods involving what appears to be cloning virtual machine images to HDDs but I haven't attempted. This solution seemed easier to me.

The problem still puzzles me. The Mac Pro DVD drive works fine as it is able to play movies and install software. However, it just gives a finder popup for a "blank DVD" with the Windows install DVD inserted. On the other hand, my MacBook 7,1 recognizes the DVD perfectly. I didn't have a spare IDE DVD drive to try in the Mac Pro but I think the drive is fine. Generally, I've found the Mac Pro to be subject to more issues than other Apple products because of its ability to be customized. I suspect this is just another example. This Mac Pro should have been easily able to perform this bootcamp installation as it is officially supported to run bootcamp with Windows 7 x86.


Remove user account under OS X El Capitan I would like to remove a user account under El Capitan by following this recipe:

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Users & Groups.
Click the lock icon to unlock it, then enter an administrator name and password.
Select the user you want to delete, then click Remove below the list of users.
...

What happens is that I cannot select the to-be-deleted user at this point (I can only select the current account plus "Guest User"). What could be wrong. (And yes, I am using an account with administrator privileges.)

Make sure that the user you want to delete is actually logged out. You can't force delete a currently logged in user.


Why is Safari ignoring my /etc/hosts file? I added some domains to block (127.0.0.1 mydomain.com) to my /etc/hosts file and for some reason, Safari seems to be ignoring them.

I have tried:

disabling Safari extensions,
clearing the cache (sudo dscacheutil -flushcache),
restarting Safari and the Mac altogether.

Chrome respects the /etc/hosts changes, but Safari does not. Attached is a sample of my /etc/hosts file.

I am running Safari 6.0.4 with Mountain Lion 10.8.3

Any ideas?

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost
127.0.0.1       facebook.com

I had a slightly different version of the same problem, and thought I'd mention what worked for me.

I develop websites.  To do that, I have a complete copy of each site running on my local network.  When I wish to work locally, I have always just added an entry for "example.com" to my local /etc/hosts file, and that has always overridden DNS, making it possible for me to access the local copy of the website in any browser, including Safari and Firefox.  I can work without affecting the actual live site, then upload changes when they're complete.

Recently, however, this technique stopped working for both Safari and Firefox, but not for Chrome, so for a while I was limited to using Chrome for local development.  I searched google and tried all the suggested fixes -- CR at the end of the hosts file, only one entry per line, various Firefox configuration changes using "about:config", etc.  Nothing worked.

Then I tried this simple thing:  in addition to putting the IPV4 version of the address in the /etc/hosts file, I also put the IPV6 version.

Before:

10.0.1.23       example.com

After:

10.0.1.23       example.com
0:0:0:0:0:FFFF:0A00:0117        example.com

As soon as I added the IPV6 entry, both Firefox and Safari started hitting the correct (local) server.

There are various websites that will translate IPV4 addresses to IPV6; just do a google search on "ipv4 to ipv6".


"arrange by date created" doesn't work I'm trying to order old folders and old files using "arrange by date created" from the View menu, but that choice is greyed out. How do I do this, and why doesn't it want to allow me to do this?

I'm running OS 10.6.8 on an iMac.

Thanks,
R

You have to have the Date Created column displaying in Finder, for that option to be available.
In the View menu, select Show View Options, then tick the Date Created box.  If you have a Finder window open, you'll see that column pop into view. (If you haven't, it will be shown in subsequent Finder windows).

After that, the Arrange By > Date Created option should work.


concatenate text files in multiple folders I have hundreds of folders with a few text files in each folder.  I'm trying to concatenate the files of each folder into a single text file.  One file for each folder.    Ideally, the concatenated files would be saved to another location.

You can do with a simple script:

#!/bin/bash

directories="/your/path/dir1 /your/path/dir2 /your/path/dir3"

for d in $directories
do
        cat $(find $d -name "*.txt") > $(echo $d | sed 's/\///g').txt
done

This script will concatenate every txt file on /your/path/dir1 and saves it as yourpathdir1.txt in your actual path. Then will do the same with dir2 and dir3.


A better configuration to do development? currently I have a mac mini:

  Hardware Overview :

  Model Name: Mac mini
  Model Identifier: Macmini2,1
  Processor Name:   Intel Core 2 Duo
  Processor Speed:  1,83 GHz
  Number Of Processor:  1
  Total Number Of Core: 2
  L2 Cache: 2 Mo
  Memory:   1 Go
  Bus Speed:    667 MHz

Basically it is a 2 years old mac mini.

I installed XCode 4 recently. I want to leave Xcode 3 aside. And I am fed up with the slowness of that setup! What is your own experience of a configuration suitable to perform development with Xcode 4?

To give you an idea of my budget, I am considering buying a 27" quad core iMac.

The iMac you are considering will be much faster than your mini. One tip I have is to upgrade your RAM, Xcode will use it.


Most optimal way of recovering files from a non-bootable MacBook in Recovery Mode Let me first mention that a related question and answer is given in Backup to External in Recovery Mode (Terminal or Time Machine) . For the sake of completeness, I will tell the complete story about my recent nightmare.

Some days ago, I was trying to update my MacBook Pro (13 inch version from 2011) from Sierra (the latest version of it) to High Sierra. However the installation failed and I received a message that I should restart my computer. By clicking the (unique) option "Restart", I ended up with a prohibitory sign after some time.

I tried to use First Aid on Macintosh HD from Recovery Mode. It failed miserably and the details contained a bunch of "Missing thread record" followed by some numbers. The final message after the failed process was the following "First Aid process has failed. If possible backup the data on this volume. Click Done to continue".

I tried to access the Internet Recovery Mode following the advice of the Apple support. It failed giving the error -2002F.

My third attempt was to use the Single User Mode in order to apply the fsck command. However I could not even start to write in the terminal since it was going crazy in a loop by giving the message that the Root could not be found (the number of the error if relevant was probably 19). After some time, everything stopped and the background got white, while the letters got black.

As I understand, now my only option is to backup through Recovery Mode following the options mentioned in the above cited question and, then, erase my Hard Drive through Disk Utility. If I have any other available options, please, let me know.

The problem is that I don't have an external hard drive and also I don't have another MacBook. I will try soon to borrow an external hard drive from a friend.

Now, I shall ask my questions.

1) Suppose that I can have access to another MacBook. By using First Aid through another MacBook in my Hard Drive in the Target Disk Mode, would I obtain a better result? In other words, does the First Aid of Disk Utility acts differently when applied through another MacBook than when applied through my Recovery partition (assuming that my Recovery partition is fully functional)?

2) Suppose that I transfer my files to an external HD through any of the methods in the above cited question and, when trying to access the transferred files, discover that they are actually corrupted. Would they also be corrupted if I have instead performed the transference by using another MacBook and the Target Disk Mode?

3) More generally, what would be the better method of recovering my files that would optimize the amount of fully functioning files recovered?

4) In general, when such failures in installation occurs, what folders and files are likely to have been overwritten or erased? More precisely, what folders are modified by updating from Sierra to High Sierra when the installation completion is successfully achieved?

I ask these question because I may be able to get my hands in an empty MacBook if I pay someone, therefore I would like to know beforehand if such action would indeed be optimal.

Thanks in advance.

There's a fair bit to your question, but...

On one hand you tell us that you don't have an external hard drive or another Mac, but then you say you may be able to get your hands on an empty MacBook if you pay someone.

So, if you were going to be spending money, it'd be best spent on an external hard drive. Not only could you use it to get yourself out of this jam, but then you'd be able to use it as a Time Machine backup drive or even a temporary boot volume for your Mac.

Now to address your four questions:

  1) Suppose that I can have access to another MacBook. By using First
  Aid through another MacBook in my Hard Drive in the Target Disk Mode,
  would I obtain a better result?

No. You should have an external hard drive anyway, so while this is certainly one way to go to transfer your data, it still leaves you with no backup regime once you're back up and running. And, if you're thinking of doing this as a way to try and fix your existing drive, you may in fact hasten its untimely end. Basically, your priority should be to backup your data to another drive. Proceed on the assumption that your current drive will die very soon.

  2) Suppose that I transfer my files to an external HD through any of
  the methods in the above cited question and, when trying to access the
  transferred files, discover that they are actually corrupted. Would
  they also be corrupted if I have instead performed the transference by
  using another MacBook and the Target Disk Mode?

The method you use to transfer your data will not change the data itself. In other words, if your data is corrupted, then it's corrupted.

  3) More generally, what would be the better method of recovering my
  files that would optimize the amount of fully functioning files
  recovered?

Based on the info in your question, we can only assume your hard drive has started to fail. The first thing to do is not to overuse it at this point - as we have no idea how much life is left in it. In other words, you may only get one shot at this, if you're lucky. If you're really lucky, you will be able to recover all your data. Your hard drive may last one more minute, or it may last another week. We just don't know.

So, to maximise the amount of data you save, the absolute best option would be to buy an external hard drive and then to selectively backup your data in order of importance. The reason this maximises things is that you're selectively recovering what you want, whereas making a full backup will also backup an awful lot of stuff that isn't important. This is okay (in fact preferred) if you know the drive will last long enough to do this, but if you don't know how long the drive will last, then selectively backing up your data is a much better approach.

If you're not familiar with or comfortable using Terminal to selectively transfer your data, then getting access to another Mac is the best way to achieve this. Ideally you would have the other Mac and an external hard drive. That is, put your old Mac in Target Disk Mode and then connect it to another Mac to browse your data and copy it across to the external hard drive. But if you can't get both, then temporarily transferring your data to the other Mac is your best bet until you can also get an external hard drive to put your data on.

However, keep in mind that assuming your internal hard drive is dying, you will need to replace that as well, although with an external hard drive you could first install macOS on that and then transfer your data to it as well. This way you could use your old Mac for a while by booting up from the external drive.

  4) In general, when such failures in installation occurs, what folders
  and files are likely to have been overwritten or erased?

This is impossible to answer as there is no way to know at what point of the installation process it failed. However, it's unlikely your user data would have been overwritten. Basically, unless you had formatted the hard drive, a macOS upgrade is only going to change system files, default apps, etc. It is not going to change your documents, media, downloads, etc.

A final word / recommendation

Having gone over both of your related questions I get the sense you need to perhaps make a choice between spending some money on getting access to another Mac or on buying an external drive.

If I was in your situation I would do as follows:

Purchase an external hard drive of higher capacity than your internal drive
Connect the external drive to your Mac
Boot up your Mac in macOS Recovery mode
Access Disk Utility and then format/erase your external hard drive
Proceed to install macOS onto your external drive
Once completed, your Mac should be booted into the new installation from your external drive. If not, restart your Mac and press the option key until you see your drives on the screen Then select the external drive and boot from that.
Once you're logged into your Mac, go to Apple > System Preferences > Startup Disk and make sure that the external drive is selected as the default Startup Disk
Exit System Preferences
You'll also notice in Finder that you can see the internal drive as if it's an external drive
Now you can do one of the following:

use Migration Assistant to migrate your data from the old drive
manually copy your data

NOTE: Once your data is copied across, you can use your Mac by continuing to boot from the external drive. However, this is not really a long-term solution as you'd be better to replace the internal drive on your Mac at some point or, when finances allow, upgrade to another Mac.


Mac OS and distributed compile Is there an alternative to distcc on Mac OS X Lion?

Apple recently removed distcc from Xcode. It's a feature I use a lot. If I want to update to the latest version of Xcode I will have to give it up.

Do you know of any alternative software that would allow me to distribute compilation over LAN (preferably directly from Xcode)?

This question has been asked on Stack Overflow also - it seem that it has simply been removed with no word from Apple, no response in the developer forums (surprise!) and no word about what might replace it.

I can't find any discussion in the LLVM project about a future distributed approach either.

Can you share any information about what you are compiling? I'm curious because I generally only do small apps.


Link Contacts between Facebook and iCloud I have iOS6 and OSX 10.8. Both bring Facebook integration. It was smart enough for some of my contacts to merge (or "link") them. However for some on my iPhone I manually edited the contact card and linked to the facebook account. Not so bad.

However, it seems that those manual changes were NOT replicated to my Macbook. For example, I have a "Nathaniel B****" in my iCloud but on Facebook he calls himself "Nat B****". On iOS I linked the 2 profiles, however on OSX they still appear as separate.

Am I supposed to do something? Or is this a flaw?

My suggestion would be to do ONE sync via iTunes and make sure your contacts are synced.

Once you do that, your icloud sync will be the same from one to the other.

OR

Backup your current Address book on your Mac.  Then, export from iCloud.com and import into address book.

OR you can use a third party app.  http://danauclair.com/addressbooksync/


The machine is laggy and the SMC reset is not working Recently my 2015 MacBook Pro started to lag a lot, especially the graphics. The animations are really slow and breaking up sometimes. Someone suggested an NVRAM reset followed by an SMC reset will fix it.

The NVRAM is working. But the SMC reset is not. I tried to hold  Ctrl ⌃    Opt ⌥   Shift ⇧   + the power button up to 30 seconds. Still, it's not resetting (The color of the mag safe connector is not changing.). Any idea what's happening?

A screenshot of the activity monitor:

Have you tried to boot into single-user mode ( boot while holding down the command and the S buttons untill you see a black screen ) and then run " fsck -fy " command?

This will run some diagnostics and make any changes needed. When it is finished it will say  drive appears to be ok OR changes were made.

You then type " reboot " ( without quotation marks ) and it will reboot.

Troubleshoot Your Mac With These Hidden Startup Options

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac


Use the HomePod to turn on TV and Receiver is there any way to have the Apple HomePod control my receiver? Here is what I am thinking:

I would ask the Siri HomePod to play a playlist and Siri would automatically turn on my receiver (Sony STR-DN 1080) and my TV (a Sony Bravia from 2009 that has CEC).

The HomePod Apple TV HDMI is hooked up to my receiver Video 2 port and the TV is hooked up to my receiver’s ARC HDMI port. I do have my Apple TV set to play through my receiver.

I’m hoping I can avoid using remotes altogether to listen to music playlists. Is this possible? If so, what do I need to do to ge it to work?

No.  This cannot be done.

The HomePod does not have an HDMI interface (HomePod Technical Specifications), so consequently, this would be physically impossible to do.

In fact, even Mac's with an HDMI interface don't support the CEC protocol.

Incidentally, if you want to connect your HomePod to your Apple TV, this is possible as a (limited) control and as an external audio device.  The latter is self explanatory, so let's look at the former use case as detailed in this article.

  When you connect your HomePod to an Apple TV, you can control it only
  minimally, such as to pause, resume, and adjust the volume. (You can’t
  even turn off your Apple TV.) For more complex voice commands, you
  must use the Siri Remote.

Emphasis Mine

If you want to send complex commands to your Apple TV, you'll need the remote (at least at this time).


iPad navigation for South Africa Is there an iPad app that will give me turn-by-turn instructions for south africa, or do I need to use an iPhone app and the 2X button?

I'm not aware of any iPad specific apps for South African turn-by-turn navigation.

But, ALK Technologies, Ltd has iPad software for North America and Europe, and iPhone apps for South Africa - so I think your best bet would be to write to them or facebook them and ask when the South African version is coming out. If you're on safari and fleeing from lions and elephants I don't know if the iPhone version will be big enough to see clearly!

NB: Apple.StackExchange.Com takes no responsibility for Lion or Elephant related accidents.


Being asked for credit card information for updates on apps already purchased I have purchsed the apps & most I have are free but I'm being asked for credit card information for apps that are being updated.  I'm not being charged for the updates, am I?

Whenever you use your Apple account they will try to validate the information in your account. If there is missing address information you will be prompted for it. If you haven't agreed to the latest Terms and Conditions you will be prompted to agree. If you have credit card information on your account Apple will try to validate it. If the information is out of date, you will be prompted to update it even when installing a new free application or upgrading old applications.

You aren't being charged for updates.


How can I diagnose save file issues in Xcode and on my desktop? There is something wrong about my mac (macOS sierra) , and it's happening for about 2 weeks , for example:

I'm working with Xcode and suddenly i can't save any file, and I go to desktop , can't copy paste any item .
I don't remember any error but I could not modify or create new file on my macbook.

I would first boot to recovery mode - run Disk Utility until you have a clean filesystem.

At that point, I would try again using three apps - if all three apps can't write a simple text file to your desktop - it's going to be an account permissions issue.

The problem with user permissions is you'll need a new and functional admin account to fix things.

If you have a good backup - you could wipe the system, make a new admin account and then migrate things back. That would typically fix any permissions issues when you re-create the new user in the new home folder.

Alternatively, you could boot to single user mode and remove the /var/db/.AppleSetupDone file and then boot your "broken" system and run through the setup assistant. Make a new admin with a new name like "new admin" and then use that admin account to delete and re-create your old admin user.

Sorry for the vague steps - you will need to have a troubleshooting / triage effort to nail down what specifically is failing and then ask a follow on question if you don't already find an answer here how to recreate a user, how to make a new admin account, etc...


Mail crashes on attempts to display message contents in Mavericks When I click or double click on any message in the messages list on any account in Mail in Mavericks (10.9), Mail crashes immediately with the error

Application Specific Information:
   *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException',
reason:
   '*** -redComponent not valid for the NSColor NSCalibratedWhiteColorSpace 0 1; need to first convert colorspace.'
abort() called
terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

What can I do to prevent this crash? I can't read any of my mail!

Open Terminal.app (under /Applications/Utilities) and run

defaults delete com.apple.mail ColorQuoterColorList


Can Windows Vista be installed on Mac OS X 10.6.6? I heard that as of Mac OS X 10.6.6, Apple removed wording about installing Vista via Boot Camp, suggesting that they are no longer supporting it.

If I have Mac OS X 10.6.6 installed, can I still install a full version of Vista on it?

Yes, according to Apple's Snow Leopard Specs.

  Boot Camp:
  requires Windows XP with
  Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista (sold
  separately).

Also, you can install Windows 7 if you update Boot Camp. Info here.


How can I attempt to boot an older version of macOS than my hardware supports? I have a 2015 Macbook Air. The earliest version of macOS this model ever shipped with was OS X 10.10 Yosemite. However, I want to try installing OS X 10.9 Mavericks, because Yosemite makes my eyes bleed I like Mavericks.
This is probably not going to work. Mavericks was not designed to run on my computer and likely lacks the necessary hardware support. But, I'm stubborn and I want to try anyway. If it's going to kernel panic, I want to see the damn kernel panic with my own eyes!
So I created a bootable Mavericks USB installer and plugged it into my Macbook Air. I then booted my Mac while holding down the option key to reach the disk selection menu, and selected the installer USB drive.
As soon as I select the drive, my Mac immediately flashes a prohibited ("") sign. This is not what a kernel panic usually looks like, and it happens too quickly after selecting the drive. Clearly, Apple has implemented some sort of arbitrary check to prevent me from even trying to boot this old OS on my machine.
Furthermore, there does not appear to be any way to boot the USB drive in verbose mode. Holding down cmdV has no effect.
How can I bypass this check and force my Mac to attempt to boot the installer?

First things first—we need to get verbose boot working, so we can see what the computer is doing. I don't know why cmdV doesn't work, but there's another way.
Open the bootable USB installer in Finder and navigate to Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/, then open com.apple.Boot.plist in a text editor. The important section will look something like this:
<dict>
    <key>Kernel Flags</key>
    <string></string>
</dict>

So, currently there are no flags set up. Let's add in the verbose flag by changing it too:
<dict>
    <key>Kernel Flags</key>
    <string>-v</string>
</dict>

If I boot the USB installer with this change, instead of a prohibited sign I'll get a message that reads: "Mac OS X is not supported on this platform!". This is progress—we now know for sure that we're up against a hardware check—but we still need to bypass the check.
Open the USB installer in Finder again, but this time, navigate to System/Library/CoreServices and open PlatformSupport.plist in a text editor. Inside, you will see a list of "SupportedBoardIds" and "SupportedModelProperties".
<dict>
    <key>SupportedBoardIds</key>
    <array>
        <string>Mac-031B6874CF7F642A</string>
        <string>Mac-F2268DC8</string>
        [...]
        <string>Mac-F2218EC8</string>
    </array>
    <key>SupportedModelProperties</key>
    <array>
        <string>MacBookPro4,1</string>
        <string>Macmini5,3</string>
        [...]
        <string>MacBookAir5,1</string>
    </array>
</dict>

All we need to do is add our Mac's Board ID and model to their respective lists.  You can find your model in System Profiler under Hardware Overview, where it's listed as "Model Identifier". In my case, I have a "MacBookAir7,1".
To find the Board ID, open Terminal and enter: ioreg -l | grep -i board-id. My board ID turned out to be "Mac-9F18E312C5C2BF0B".
I added this information to PlatformSupport.plist like so:
<dict>
    <key>SupportedBoardIds</key>
    <array>
        <string>Mac-031B6874CF7F642A</string>
        <string>Mac-F2268DC8</string>
        [...]
        <string>Mac-F2218EC8</string>
        <string>Mac-9F18E312C5C2BF0B</string>
    </array>
    <key>SupportedModelProperties</key>
    <array>
        <string>MacBookPro4,1</string>
        <string>Macmini5,3</string>
        [...]
        <string>MacBookAir5,1</string>
        <string>MacBookAir7,1</string>
    </array>
</dict>

And now when I boot the installer, I get... a kernel panic! Ta-da!

In some cases, this might be the end of the road, but I happen to have one more trick up my sleeve. The XNU kernel used by macOS is open source, so it's possible to compile a custom kernel with support for additional hardware. It's not possible for me to do this, but there exist other people who are smarter than me.
My 2015 Macbook Air uses a Broadwell processor, and I found this kernel for 10.9.5 which purports to add Broadwell support. I might as well give it a try!
I downloaded the attachment and copied mach_kernel to the root of my USB installer drive. Note that if I was trying to install OS X 10.10 or newer, I would have copied it to System/Library/Kernels instead.
In order for the installer to use my custom kernel, I need to tell it to ignore the kernel cache. To do so, I once again opened Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist in a text editor, and added the -f flag:
<dict>
    <key>Kernel Flags</key>
    <string>-v</string>
    <string>-f</string>
</dict>

Then I tried booting the installer again, and...

Wait a minute. That wasn't supposed to actually work!
For whatever reason, my internal keyboard and trackpad were nonfunctional, so I had to plug in an external keyboard and mouse via USB. But other than that, I was able to open Disk Utility, format the internal drive, and install the OS normally.
It is critical that you do not allow your Mac to automatically reboot at the end of the installation, or you'll just end up with another prohibited sign. Remember how we added our Mac's model and board id to PlatformSupport.plist? We need to also make this change to the copy that's been installed on your hard drive.
When your Mac tells you the installation is complete, immediately open the Terminal app and cp PlatformSupport.plist from System/Library/CoreServices on your USB installer to the equivalent location on your hard drive. If you're using a custom kernel, as I was, make sure to copy that as well. With those changes in place, you can safely allow the installer to reboot!
That's it, you're done—my 2015 Macbook Air successfully booted into a fully-installed copy of Mavericks. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that there wasn't any graphics acceleration, and I still couldn't use the internal keyboard or trackpad, but I was able to browse the web, play some music, and hop on a Zoom call. And who knows, maybe you'll be luckier than me with your hardware!
Also, there's a global pandemic outside and I had nothing better to do with my Sunday afternoon.

P.S. Final note about custom kernels, they tend to get replaced with every OS update, including minor security updates. Before you install an update, back up your custom mach_kernel, and then copy it back after the installation is complete but before you reboot your machine!
P.P.S. Thank you to AnonMac50 over on the MacRumors forums for giving me the hints about PlatformSupport.plist and com.apple.Boot.plist. The last time I tried this, many years ago, I got totally stuck because I didn't know about those.
Epilogue: A Mac repair shop (DoubleDex) swapped the Logic Board in my 2015 Macbook Air with one from a 2014 Macbook Air. Now Mavericks runs perfectly.